07:36 – I just responded to what I think (hope) are the last couple of queries on the biology book. It’s scheduled to go to the printer today, so that should be that. Melanie, our production editor, should be sending me a link to the final PDF today so that I can have it available to answer early queries. Inevitably, even though O’Reilly always FedEx’s us an early copy of the print book, we end up getting a query or two from a reader before we get the printed book. Those queries are always in the form of “in the third paragraph on page 208 …”, which of course we need the actual book to respond to.
Work on the forensics book continues. I just finished the final lab session in the forensic drug testing group. On to something else today. I’m not doing the groups in order, instead just jumping around to whatever I feel like working on.
14:45 – This is very, very strange. I think I mentioned here that I got a call on Christmas Day from AmEx security saying that there’d been suspicious charges made on our card. They described several of those, which I confirmed that we’d not made. They canceled the card on the spot and sent me a replacement with a different number.
So, I just visited my Netflix queue page, and a box popped up to say that the credit card they were charging the service to would soon expire. The only card we had that expired this month was the old AmEx. So I updated the information with the new card number, and then immediately went over to the billing history page. Sure enough, Netflix has been charging to that “canceled” card on the 26th of every month, including December, January, February, and March. So how did they do that without AmEx refusing the charge? The only thing I could think of was that AmEx continued to honor the old card number because Netflix had been billing that number every month for years. So I just called AmEx, and they confirmed that was indeed the case.
That’s fine within reason. Just make sure to leave a couple of really good labs to the end, to keep yourself motivated. “Comparison of the corpses of politicians at various stages of decomposition” should keep you motivated for any number of boring labs, right?
I was going to suggest adding lawyers to the decomposition lab, and then I realized it would be redundant!
BGrigg says (3 April 2012 at 11:45):
I was going to suggest adding lawyers to the decomposition lab, and then I realized it would be redundant!
Oh, goodie! It’s been ages since we’ve taken a swipe at the RIAA. That’s what they’re all about, isn’t it?
Musicians composing, lawyers decomposing.
Decomposing composers
I’ve had that happen with AMEX also. They told me if you set up an automatic payment, they will honor it. That’s crazy after the card is canceled BY THEM!
A palate cleanser for Bob. Just read the title, the vid clip will make you puke:
http://mrctv.org/videos/van-jones-libertarians-hate-brown-folk-and-gays-and-lesbians
The only thing I could think of was that AmEx continued to honor the old card number because Netflix had been billing that number every month for years.
The reason they do that is because the company is obviously a known company and is not associated with fraud. The charge is just transferred to the new card. Another reason is that many people were signing up for a service billed to a credit card. They did not want to pay the early termination fee so they would just cancel the card instead. Also people would get cards stolen, issued a new card, and then have automatic payments bounce resulting in late fees. People did not like that and it was a hassle for the companies involved. So the simplest solution was to merely transfer recurring charges to the new card. The closed card could not be used for any new merchants or payees.
Here are the decomposing musicians:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmT6udys8Tc
Yeah, we libertarians are known for hating people of different races and sexual orientations. Not.
Liberty bad!
Wait. What?
Well, a couple of them Dead musicians are, in fact, decomposing, one of them for a very long time. RIP, Ron.
“The only thing I could think of was that AmEx continued to honor the old card number because Netflix had been billing that number every month for years.”
It’s called profiling and, apparently, financial profiling is OK. I had the opposite happen a while back. I was 4WD’g on vacation up in Utah, blew a tire on a rock in the back country and for the first time ever, bought a tire the following day at a Chevron gas station. Sure enough, Chevron called home here and my wife verified the charge. Actually, I told her of the tradgedy by phone the previous evening.
We did a documentary before Jerry Garcia died, and it showed him getting made up before our concert (after his coma, but before he died) and they colored every bit of grey out of his hair, mustache, and beard. It was kind of a funny moment, because as the make-up person worked, as a viewer, you would keep thinking she would stop at some point and leave some grey. But it kept going and going. When she was all done, Garcia looked at the camera and laughed.
He was a strange guy.
That guy Van Jones has no idea what Libertarianism is. But it gives some insight into how the lunatic anarchists hurt the movement as defined by people like Harry Browne.
I get the impression that Garcia wasn’t that strange when he started out, but decades of drug and booze abuse, heroin addiction, the life on the road, a series of female partners, etc., must have made a dent in the psychology. In fact, I much prefer their earlier records to anything made after Workingman’s Dead. Joe Walsh is the other side of that coin, who had the same experiences, more or less, and got off the stuff and can poke fun at himself and everything else.
Bob, but can’t you see it’s just wrong to let people of different races and sexual orientations live their lives without protection from the government?