Better Business Bureau

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by Lisa

There are a few scenarios where the advertised protection a process offers are effectively worthless — Ebay disputes won’t refund shipping charges or require you to pay additional shipping to return an item, so shorting the customer by less than the shipping cost makes winning your dispute worthless. The 1970’s Fair Credit Billing Act gives you the right to dispute charges up to 60 days after the charge — but, when I ordered a CSA membership in September that started the following March … that window precluded a simple charge-back when the CSA claimed I was not on their list. I expect this window is why people get upset when companies finalize the charge before shipping the product.

Outside of the FCBA contest period, there’s not a whole lot you can do. Small claims could be a route, but that is less effective for inter-state transactions. Some company in Texas doesn’t really care that they’ve got a judgement against them in Ohio. Ohio doesn’t have a lot of power to force payment, either. Traveling to the state with more direct jurisdiction is expensive, and you’re not likely to reclaim damages incurred in obtaining the judgement (i.e. the settlement is not apt to cover your hundred dollar refund, three hundred dollar plane ticket, thousand dollars in hotel charges, and couple hundred bucks for a rental car).

That’s where we were with Keg Factory. We’d gotten a DigiBoil with an inaccurate temp reading. And been told by KegLand, the manufacturer, that the unit isn’t meant for mashing so isn’t designed to have an accurate temperature reading. (Asking why there’s a mashing kit for the not designed for mashing product didn’t yield any illuminating answer) … the owner of Keg Factory told us the product didn’t seem to be a good match for our needs (true, but the advertised function of the product certainly met our requirements!) and offered a shipping label to return the thing. Seemed like a good idea to stop wasting time on a product if the manufacturer says it’s not good enough for its intended purpose. We confirmed they weren’t looking to add a restocking fee or otherwise charge us — a full refund was what was on offer. Yup, that’s it. So we packed up the thing, shipped it off, and confirmed delivery. That was March. We proceeded to contact them looking for our refund. Calls routed to voicemail. No return e-mails. Online chat where we’re the next in queue for hours. When we did get through to someone, we’d be told someone would look at it that day. And still no refund.

As a last ditch effort, we filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. The Austin office concurred that our problem fell into their purview and forwarded the complaint on to the vendor. We got a refund notice within a few hours! It took a few days for the refund to clear through to my credit card, but a complaint with the BBB accomplished in three or four days (days where we didn’t do anything) than months of calls / online chats / e-mails managed. Sad that it seems to take publication of poor service to correct a problem … but I’m exceptionally glad to have this saga over.

Spruce Tip Ice Cream

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by Lisa

I have a bunch of recipes from https://foragerchef.com that I wanted to make this year … but we seem to have missed the harvest this year. Reminder for next year — snip a bunch of the citrus-y spruce tips and make spruce tip syrup and spruce tip ice cream.

Ingredients

  • 3 cups half and half
  • 1/2 cup fresh spruce tips
  • 5 large egg yolks
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 1/8 tsp salt
  • 1 teaspoon lime juice 

Instructions

  • On low, heat the half and half, sugar, salt, and egg yolks in a small sauce pan, whisking occasionally until the mixture is hot and thickens slightly.
  • Allow the mixture to cool to room temperature, then transfer to a blender.
  • When the mixture is cool, chop the spruce tips well, then add to the blender and puree until very smooth. It takes a bit of horsepower to break down the needles, for the best flavor you really need them finely blended.
  • When the mixture is pureed, pass it through a fine mesh strainer. If possible, allow the custard to sit in the fridge overnight, which will give a better texture in the finished product. Before spinning, whisk in the lime juice.
  • Place the spruce custard in the bowl of an ice cream maker and process according to the manufacturers directions. Mine usually takes about 45 minutes.

German-Style Cucumber Salad

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by Lisa
German-Style Cucumber Salad
Print

German-Style Cucumber Salad

Recipe by LisaCourse: Sides, SaladsDifficulty: Easy
Servings

4

servings
Prep time

20

minutes

Ingredients

  • 1English cucumber

  • 1 Vidalia Onion

  • 1/4 c apple cider vinegar

  • 1/2 c water (this was a little much)

  • 1/4-1/2 cup maple syrup (to taste)

  • 1/2 tsp salt

  • 1/2 tsp pepper

Method

  • Thinly slice the cucumbers and onions.
  • Mix vinegar, water, maple syrup, salt, and pepper.
  • Mix cucumbers and onions, cover with sauce.
  • Add additional salt and/or pepper to taste.

Proof of Concept

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by Lisa

Reading about the meat processing that’s been attacked by ransomware, and thinking about the petrol pipeline … this really seems like proof of concept stuff to me. I’m sure there’s some ‘making money’ and more than a little ego stroking involved. Before we purchase and implement some major system at work (or spend a lot of time developing code), we run a proof of concept test. A quick, slimmed down implementation that runs on some virtual system that lets people see how it’ll work without sinking the time and money into a full-scale implementation. If the thing seems useful, then we buy it and have a capital budget for implementation. If it wasn’t useful … well, we lost some time, but not much.

Attacking small players in various industries to see what kind of impact you have have … seems a lot like a proof of concept series of attacks. How well secured was the company? What kind of incident response were they able to mount? How much access did you manage? What came offline? What was the public impact?

Home Depot Non-Delivery

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by Lisa

We ordered a chest freezer from Home Depot a few weeks ago with delivery expected a few days ago. That date moved out to Friday — no big deal. Prior to placing the order, we chatted with their customer service to verify that home delivery actually meant delivery into the house because there are all sorts of places that are considered “delivered”. And it would suck to get a big chest freezer at the bottom of our driveway and have the company call it delivered. We confirmed, multiple times, that the home delivery service would be able to navigate our narrow driveway and that the item would be delivered into the room of our choosing.

And then the delivery company called today. They only have a 26-foot box truck, so they will deliver the freezer to the bottom of our driveway. Several frustrating calls to Home Depot later — we were hung up on by a very rude agent who just kept telling us that the delivery company is a third party so there’s nothing Home Depot can do about it. And that “delivery” is only to the doorstep. This agent hung up on us. We finally got someone slightly helpful — delivery still means doorstep, and if the third party delivery service only has a 26-foot truck that’s what they have … but this rep was at least pleasant and willing to finish the conversation.

What really bothers me, though, is no one at Home Depot’s customer service seemed interested in knowing that the online chat folks are absolutely telling customers that “home delivery” means into the room of your choosing. Depending on one’s home, this could be a very big difference — like our case where the delivery service wants to leave the box a couple hundred feet down at the bottom of the driveway. We offered to send them the names and chat sessions to ensure agents are getting appropriate training, but nothing. We have, on three separate occasions and speaking with three different agents, been informed that the “home delivery” service means the appliance will be delivered into the room of my choosing — and warned that multiple flights of stairs would be an extra charge.

On Race Norming

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by Lisa

I get why race norming is objectionable — but why in the world are they norming at all?! I’d hate if I had some accident & the analysis of my decline was based off of some American norm or a global norm. It’s not like “getting a bunch of concussions” is a black swan event for footballers, either. So why wouldn’t they routinely administer these cognitive tests for each player? Someone puts in a claim? Their current cognitive functionality isn’t compared to some normalized baseline. It’s compared to their documented trajectory.

Poultry Brooding Options

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by Lisa

We’re working on building up an outdoor brooding area to hatch and raise chickens and turkeys. The current coop — which seemed so large when we got our first five hens — is too small for raising more birds.

Option #1 is to get a larger coop — we’re looking at a metal shed — that will give us space to frame out two rectangles, cover them with hardware cloth, and have both a nursery with the chicken toaster and a brooder for slightly order birds who are still getting acclimated to the flock. To save floor space, I would make PVC tube feeders and waterers. The brooder could be brought outside into the pasture to serve as a baby bird tractor, too.

Option #2 is to build out a nursery and brooder on the side of the existing coop. This could even be insulated to ensure the baby guys are extra toasty. This probably would have a hinged roof so we could access the baby guys from outside of the coop.

Turkeys in the Coop

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by Lisa

We have turkeys in the coop! Anya put the little guys in the coop by themselves, and then she brought our friendliest hens in (one at a time) and hung out in the coop as a referee. Then she brought the Bresse hens in without problem. And finally our least friendly older hens and then each of the roosters. Everyone was fine. And, when I opened the coop this morning, the little turkey guys were out on the floor with the chickens — eating their food and ready for a refill on their water.

Adventure chicken

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by Lisa

One of our Bresse hens went for a walkabout last night. We were going shopping, so had to get them cooped up earlier than normal. Normally, it’s sunset when we’re taking them to the coop. And we don’t put more food into the tractor in the evening, so the chickens are ready to head in for a meal. When we’re leaving early, I like to carry the chickens and deliver them into the coop. And have someone opening/closing the door to avoid escapees. Anya evidently just opened the tractor and let them run. Some ran into the coop. Some ran to the compost. And one? She ran for the woods.

She was roosting in a tree last night, but Scott and Anya weren’t able to coax her down. Then she was nowhere to be found this morning. Luckily it was a light misty rain all day and not the rain showers I was expecting. We put the dozen remaining chickens into the tractor and left them do chicken things. By late afternoon, our missing girl was hanging out by the tractor. Anya picked her up and gave her some snuggles, then popped her into the tractor for some food and water. Her adventure seems to have tired her out — she was quiet and snuggly.

We also tried putting the poults in with the chickens today. We’d had them in the baby poultry tractor next to the big chicken tractor for a week so they’d get used to seeing each other. Well — that didn’t work out so well. Introducing the Bresse to the egg layers went pretty well — the egg layers were selected for their chill personalities. The Bresse rooster, however, went after the first poult Anya put into the tractor. So they’re back in the baby tractor for some more introduction time. We’ll have to do some supervised interaction on a nice, warm, sunny day.

Microsoft’s 1601 Time Base

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by Lisa

Microsoft uses the number of 100-nanosecond intervals since 01 January 1601. Why? No idea. But I’ve had to deal with their funky large integer for a DateTime value as long as I’ve been working with AD. I’ve written functions to turn it int something useful, but that’s a lot of effort when I see a lockoutTime and need to know how recent that is. Enter w32tm which has an “ntte” switch — this allows me to readily tell that the lockout was at 3:01 today and something I need to be investigating.