cos

Since I see a lot of new people are signing up on bluesky in the past week, or starting to more actively use accounts they made a while back, here's mine: https://c0s.bsky.social

Nine years ago, I mailed a package to Florida that got routed through Nashua NH but then got bounced back and forth between Boston and Nashua four times in a row. But now I've got one that goes much farther both in the WTF factor and actual distance.

On a dive trip to St Lucia in February I forgot to bring REEF survey sheets - underwater paper with lists of the commonly seen fish in the region, that you can mark with pencil without worrying about it getting wet. It makes it much much easier to do fish surveys, since you don't have to wait until you're back and fully dry to write things down. Found an active REEF member who lived in St Lucia and she met us at a local grocery store and gave me her underwater slate and stack of surveys - since she was about to move to Bonaire. I promised I'd buy new ones for her once she got her new address.

In March she arrived in Bonaire, gave me her address, and I ordered new survey sheets and slate from REEF to be shipped to her in Bonaire.

REEF is in the Florida Keys, and Bonaire is in the south of the Caribbean sea. But since Bonaire is a municipality of The Netherlands, the package went from Key Largo to Miami FL to The Netherlands; I guess there's no direct mail routing from the US to Dutch Caribbean islands, so they all have to go through the mainland.

About a month after leaving Key Largo, the little package cleared customs at The Hague. Ten days later, it arrived... in Auckland, New Zeland.

As of earlier this week, last I checked, it was still in Auckland, nearly 4 weeks after it got there. Even weirder, its tracking status as "out for delivery". I imagine a delivery truck from New Zealand trying to drive to an apartment building in Bonaire.

After the recipient alerted us to this New Zealand nuttiness a few weeks ago, and some emails back and forth with REEF staffers, it seems one of them is actually going to Bonaire in person in July. She's just going to bring some surveys and a slate with her, to give to the woman who gave me hers in February.

In the meantime, I wonder if this package will ever get there, and where else it will go on its way? USPS package tracking link

Edit: 5 days after I posted this, tracking was updated to show it went to customs for the Dutch Caribbean on May 29th.

Edit 2: She received it on July 3rd!

Looking for a place to transfer my domain registrations to.

Years ago I transferred most of my domain registrations to Google Domains, because I had already transferred my DNS zones from my own nameservers to Google Cloud DNS, and it's been convenient to have the domain registrations in the same system. But Google Domains is moving everyone to Squarespace and shutting their domain registration service down, so I will no longer have that advantage, and might as well look around. I could stay with Squarespace, but no particular reason to.

Google Domains charges $12/year/domain for all of my .com, .org, and .net domains; most other places seem to charge more like $24+/year. Friends and coworkers have suggested a couple of places that don't charge more than Google - namecheap and porkbun.

If you have any domains, what do you use and recommend, and why?

I'm not looking for other services, like hosting my email, or web sites, or primary DNS. Just domain registration. It's okay if the same company provides those other services, but if they expect most of their users to combine a domain registration with other stuff like that, that may be a drawback because their user interface may make it easy to accidentally have it take over my primary DNS without me intending to, or just be annoying to deal with.

I haven't posted much to public social media about the massacre and subsequent war, and this is only one small piece of what I would say if I were posting more, but it's a piece I want to put out there without waiting to figure out how to talk about other parts.

Calls for vicious revenge, phrases like "flatten Gaza", are not helpful, they're horrifying.

Some of this I've seen from right-wing members of the Israeli government, and some I've seen on social media, including acquaintances (or friends?) of people I know. Some of them probably think they're expressing "support" for Israel. It doesn't feel like support from my point of view.

I haven't known quite what to say when I see these things, but thanks to a girl from Kibbutz Be`eri in Israel, I don't need to.

...

First, read this article about what happened at Kibbutz Be`eri:
Israel's 'Ground Zero:' The Be'eri Kibbutz was among the bloodiest scenes of the Hamas attack

I should add that one of the things that contributed to freaking me out when this all began, is knowing that earlier this year my partner Ceila and I spent an afternoon in a small forest just next to Be'er. Less than a mile from the site of this massacre last week. We were in a beautiful field full of flowers (red anemones) and egrets, with many people picnicking at various spots, and quite likely some of the people we saw there that day were among those killed.

Now, watch what she has to say, and share it:

As she puts it, if you're one of the people expressing support for Israel, you owe it to her to listen to her.

Well, I got a bluesky account (bsky.app).

Because it's closed (supposedly it will open up at some point) I really have no idea who to look for there. Any of you there, or know of good accounts there to look at?

P.S. In case you don't know what it is, bluesky started as a project by Twitter a few years ago to create an open protocol social network, similar idea to mastodon/activitypub. It was spun off before Elon bought Twitter, and since then Twitter's founder has promoted it as a replacement for Twitter. Of course as long as it's closed it can't even try to be a replacement for Twitter, and even though it's supposed to be open protocol so far there's only one major service using it (bsky.app itself), so I don't know how it will go. But it seems that a fair number of the writers and journalists and such who were on Twitter have shifted there, so I'm curious to see what comes of it.

Who else here uses Board Game Arena

And, in particular, who likes to play turn based games there?

Several of the people I know who are on BGA only use it to play real time games, which I hardly ever do because you have to dedicate an hour or more of your full time attention. What I like is having a bunch of turn-based games going, so I can go make all my moves on all the games where it's my turn when I have time, and then I can do something else - like work - for a few hours without necessarily checking the site. When I check it again, I can do my moves in several games again.

Mostly I like to play: - Kingdom Builder - Seven Wonders - Wingspan (only fast turn based, multiple moves per day) - Catan (also usually fast turn based, because each trade offer is a "turn")

If you're on BGA and like to play turn-based games, or want to give it a try, would you want to play any of those? What's your username?

Four ballot questions in Massachusetts this year, and 3 are IMO easy & obvious:

1 - "Fair Share Amendment" would amend the constitution to make the state's flat income tax a little bit progressive, by adding a higher tax bracket on income over $1 million per year. YES

2 - Medical loss ratio for dental insurance. Health insurers in MA are required to meet a ratio of 90% spent on actual health care, but there's no standard for dental insurance at all. This would require dental insurance to spend at least 83% on actaul coverage, no more than 17% profit/overhead. YES

3 - ummm... I think NO, but what a mixed bag!

4 - Keep the law the state already passed, to allow people to have drivers licenses if they pass the tests and don't have a bad driving record, without checking their immigration status. YES

So, question 3... A bunch of different changes to rules about liquor, beer, and wine licenses for stores, about half of them with very unclear and possibly conflicting effects. The one obviously good part of Q3 is that it would finally add out of state drivers licenses to the list of valid IDs for buying alcohol in Massachusetts. On the other hand, Q3 also has two pieces that might make larger supermarkets just stop selling alcohol: a) can't sell it at self checkout, and b) fines would no longer be proportional to total alcohol profits, but to total profits from everything they sell.

And then there are all the bits about what kinds of stores can get how many of what kinds of licenses, some of which seem a bit conflicting, and are still subject to limits set by cities and towns.

I think on the whole Q3 seems designed to make it harder for grocery stores to sell wine, but to disguise that with a bunch of confusing other measures, and then tempt people to vote for it with that obviously-needed bit about out of state licenses.

What're some other people's opinions on this one?

Finally moving back to Cambridge full time. Today is our last full day in the Seattle apartment, movers arrive tomorrow morning. Although we're sending most of the stuff that remains here with the movers, we're bringing our car - and some stuff we don't want stuck in boxes for months, like important papers, gadgets, meds, etc. - in person. And we're planning to take a ~16 days to do it.

Breaking up the drive so we never have more than ~8.5 hours of driving in a single day, I planned this itinerary:

Missoula - Where we both spent a couple of days, a few years ago.

Yellowstone National Park - I haven't been since childhood, and Ceila has never been there. Hey, anyone who's been there more recently, any tips for how to prioritize for two days (3 nights) in Yellowstone? I know that's not enough time, so we have to pick what to see.

Badlands National Park - Neither of have been. I went through North Dakota the three other times I've gone cross country by the northern route.

Minneapolis - One night to see an old friend and a couple of Ceila's relatives.

Duluth - Visiting Ceila's relatives there.

Madison - One night, will likely also see a friend.

Ann Arbor - See Ceila's childhood friend, plus one of Ceila's cousins we're both friends with.

Niagara-on-the-Lake (Canada) - See the falls and a friend.

Western MA - I haven't booked this yet, but recently noticed on the map that it should be peak fall foliage in the Berkshires just about when we get there, so we should find a place to stay one night, see the trees, and visit MassMoCA.

After my last post, https://cos.dreamwidth.org/144726.html, and some more phone calls and research, we decided to go with full service movers who have local presence in both Boston and Seattle and their own cross country drivers, so they don't put anything up for bids. I got surveys from three movers: Isaac's, Gentle Giant, and Wheaton (which is a network, their local in Seattle is called Olympic and their local in Boston is called Olympia).

• Wheaton/Olympic: In person survey, estimated ~3000lbs, $9441
• Gentle Giant: In person survey, estimated 2830lbs, ~$12,000
• Isaac's: Zoom survey, estimated ~4500lbs, $12,856. I asked them what it would be if we had about 3000lbs, they sayd ~$9000.

All of these estimates include packing, and storage charges to ensure we don't get delivery too soon (up to 1 month storage, but we won't need nearly that much).

I suspect that the ~3000lb estimates are closer to accurate, and the zoom surveyor padded more just in case, but I'm not sure. Still, whatever the actual number of pounds ends up being, it looks like Gentle Giant estimates significantly higher than the others for the same amount of stuff. Anyone know why that might be? Are there questions I didn't know to ask? Any advice on choosing?

Edit: More people commented on Facebook this time, rather than here, so in case anyone's interested in seeing those comments - https://www.facebook.com/coscos/posts/pfbid033LCGS2mEWVdTT15jbK8s1LSSPmP1BaXjeLUgx1NADyxx19oWWWczn3yYBBKeGcJnl

After flying every weekend in June, spending a whole 3 day weekend at home feels slightly surreal. It's weird not changing location at the end of the week.

Next weekend we're driving to Portland, staying there a week, and driving back to Seattle the following weekend, so the pattern continues although without flying. This weekend is an outlier.

Although T-Mobile recently bought Sprint, they're still operating separate services with separate plans and billing. I have a phone on Sprint service that costs $49/month. Until recently, it was a very old phone, and in early February Sprint called me to tell me they were shutting down their 3G service in March and that ancient phone would no longer have service. They offered to send me a free replacement phone, a Samsung Galaxy. I don't like Samsung phones but that's all they would offer for free, so I said okay, and they said they'd mail me the phone with a new SIM and activation instructions.

Not long after, a Samsung phone arrived, with no SIM. I waited another week thinking it was maybe mailed separately, but it didn't come so I called them and they didn't know, so they said they'd just mail me a new SIM. Got that, called the number, got it activated. All done, right?

March 15th, Sprint's auto-pay withdrew $333 from my account instead of $49.

I called to ask about it, but apparently Sprint's customer service number now shunts calls off to T-Mobile when they can't handle the volume, or if you say the wrong thing on the phone menu tree, or something. It took three calls, and two transfers, before I actually got to someone at Sprint ... who said my bill was that high because of equipment charges, because I seem to have bought a new phone. I had to explain to them that Sprint called me, and Sprint offerred me a free phone, and I said yes.

Some sort of supervisor or manager looked into it and agreed they weren't supposed to charge me, and he'd issue a refund to my bank account. That was on a Tuesday, and when I still didn't see the refund on Friday (more than enough time for an ACH push to be visible) I called again to learn that they hadn't even "processed" it yet. Ugh. I told them to hurry it up, and I did get the refund the following week. For $258.

When I noticed that 331 - 258 = 75, not 49, I called again. Having learned some things on the previous calls, I knew to ask people who answered the phone whether they were Sprint billing before saying anything else, so I was able to get to them more quickly. It turns out that $258 was the equipment charge, but I had also been charged $26 in state and federal taxes on it, which had not been refunded. The agent offered to credit that towards my next bill, and it's a small enough amount that I agreed. Okay, done, right?

Until, somewhat fed up with Sprint, I called T-Mobile the next day to ask about my options for transferring from Sprint to them early (it'll happen automatically eventually). The T-Mobile agent told me they couldn't access my account at all because Sprint had it locked for a past due balance!

Sprint's people never came up with a sensible explanation for that. They said I had $131 past due, and it was due to an equipment charge. I had to explain the whole saga so far, including that Sprint had already actually taken the "equipment charge" out of my bank account, and had already agreed they shouldn't, and refunded it to my bank account. Also that it was $258, plus $26 in taxes (which was supposed to be a credit on my account now), neither of which is $131.

The best they could come up with was a) that I had underpaid my January bill and b) that they had supposedly refunded $75 to me. So, a) yes I looked at my bank statement and I was only charged $34 in January. But that was Sprint's own auto-pay choosing how much to withdraw, not my fault, so that shouldn't be considered "past due" if they think they made an error, and anyway, that's only $15, not $131. As for b) the supposed $75 refund, no, I checked my bank account again, I did not receive such a thing and I have no idea why they would have refunded me $75. And 75 + 15 still doesn't add up to 131.

Eventually, after two manager escalations, and no sensible explanation of where this past due amount came from, they agreed it should be cancelled and taken off my bill.

Two weeks later, on April 5th, I get an email from Sprint telling me I have a past due balance and owe them $180.

Wait what? So I called yet again. Oh, huh, guess what: $180 = 49 + 131! My April bill is coming up, for the usual $49, and that $131 past due balance is back! Or was never removed. And where's my $26 credit for the taxes I should never have been charged?

For now, I just got someone to get rid of the $131 (again), and this time waited until I got a confirmation email telling me that it was cancelled and I only owe $49, for whatever that's worth. If I feel like dealing with them again, I should wait until I see how much is actually withdrawn on April 15th, and if that really is $49, call them again for that $26 credit. Who knows how many layers of obfuscation that will be hidden behind by then, though. And they've probably forgotten about the $15 I theoretically owe them from January, so maybe it's only a loss of $11. Unless I forgot about some credit I was supposed to get and $34 in January was correct.

Edit: April 15. Surprise! I got charged the regular monthly amount. No $26.45 credit. Called them again, and the agent at first said he sees a $26.45 credit was already applied to my account, but that seems to have been part of whatever mess ended up with them thinking I owe $131. So he's applying a new $26.45 credit for next month.

This twitter thread describes a very good method for dealing with and sharing online information about breaking news, very relevant now with the invasion of Ukraine but it's relevant all the time: https://twitter.com/holden/status/1496889691936727042

S - Stop, and consider whether you know what you're seeing/reading and what you know about it.

I - Investigate the source, with an eye towards a) is it a source likely to know about what they're reporting, and b) does this source have incentives to check themselves and get things right?

F - Find better coverage. Search for others reporting the same thing. Look for sources you know have credibility.

T - Trace the origin of the information. Sometimes several articles report the same thing, but when you read you find they all attribute it to the same source, and that initial source may have unknown reliability.

Click the link to read Mike Caulfield's thread summarizing it, or here for more: https://hapgood.us/2019/06/19/sift-the-four-moves/