I emailed their customer service and this afternoon I received a reply saying that, not only will they ship out the correct order as soon as possible, they don’t expect me to ship back the copy of Personal Journals that they sent me in error.

Letting me keep the record is a little thing, but they’re a small label so I’m sure that every record that they give away like this affects the bottom line. I doubt that this sort of error occurs very often, but I really appreciate the way that they handled it.

Thanks, SFR, for providing excellent customer service.

I think the best example of the insanity done in the name of perfection comes right at the start of the article so, if you’ll forgive me, I’m going to pull the same lengthy quote that Kottke did.

Imagine going into an espresso bar, as I did in Tokyo, ordering a single shot, and being told that it’s not on offer. The counter at No. 8 Bear Pond may feature the shiniest, spiffiest, newest La Marzocco, as well as a Rube Goldberg–esque water-filtration system, but the menu, which lists lattes and Americanos, makes no mention of espresso or cappuccino.

“My boss won’t let me make espressos,” says the barista. “I need a year more, maybe two, before he’s ready to let customers drink my shots undiluted by milk. And I’ll need another whole year of practice after that if I want to be able to froth milk for cappuccinos.”

Only after 18 years as a barista in New York did his boss, the cafe’s owner, feel qualified to return home to show off his coffee-making skills. Now, at Bear Pond’s main branch, he stops making espressos at an early hour each day, claiming that the spike on the power grid after that time precludes drawing the voltage required for optimal pressure.

Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204542404577157290201608630.html#ixzz1m1yj4oz9

The fringe crazies at Westboro Church are going to protest Steve Jobs’ funeral for…well, for reasons I can’t possibly explain. As best I can tell, they believe this titan of capitalism should have done more to support their particular religious views. I don’t know. But, their tweet is delicious…

Well.

If you think Steve Jobs’ funeral is worthy of protest (!), shouldn’t you maybe not want to use his one of his products to announce it? I mean, according to them, he gave God no glory and taught sin. (!) And yet, they will use his greatest innovation to spread the word of their protest. Couldn’t they find a Droid phone for this?

Write your own joke in the comments.

from Big Government

Buy my book. Buy my book. BUY MY BOOK!

On our rare kidless night off, I took my wife to see Drive. I was completely ready to write it off as as substituted-Statham drive/murder/fuck movie [hell, one of those words IS the title of the film], but the reviews I was seeing were surprisingly positive. Given the lack of other options in the cinema we gave took Drive for a test [PUN REDACTED]. I was quite surprised. A) Because they movie we saw and the movie that had been advertised had essentially NOTHING to do with each other. They seriously took the entire trailer from the first 15 minutes of the film which contains the only “anonymous crime driver for hire” sequence in the entire movie. And B) It was actually quite good.

Drive is a very slow, very thoughtful art house film. Not at all the ACTION-SPEED-MURDER-SEXcapade I had been lead to believe. Ryan Gosling has maybe six lines in the entire thing. I imagine 110 pages of his script just said “Ok, now look at her slyly, kinda bashfully, but also a little intimidating like you got something to hide.” The other 10 pages said “STAB THAT GUY IN THE NECK AND GET BATHED IN A FOUNTAIN OF HIS ARTERIAL BLOOD!!!” You see, that’s the other thing about Drive that made it… unique? You come in expecting bullets and blood in every scene, but instead you get a beautifully shot love story, sparse dialog, all at a relaxed pace. This serves to lull you into a false sense of calm, then SKLEEEESH! It’s knife time.

The violence in Drive is so unexpected, so infrequent and so brutal that you remember each and every act for a lot longer than you want to. The killings stick with you and keep you uncomfortable for at least as long as it takes to get to the next one. Only 5 or 6 people die in this movie and all of them do so in a spectacularly unsettling fashion. One death in particular still skeeves me out.

All of that said, I highly recommend it. Just know what you’re getting into.

STORE NEWS: The “Winter Is Coming” shirt should be in the store tonight or tomorrow. I’m excited.

ANOTHER THING: After a power surge last week, my file server (the one that holds all of my HE-related files) died (despite being plugged into a heavy duty surge supressor). The drives were OK but I have to buy a new enclosure ($150) to access them over my network. The same day I found out a miscalibration of our sprinkler system made our water bill for this month $200 more than we were expecting. So $350 I don’t really have just flew out the window. If you were considering donating to support HijiNKS ENSUE, doing so now would be SUPER APPRECIATED.  Donors get access to all of the desktops, audio and other goodies in The Vault. Just make a donation of any amount, or sign up for a recurring donation subscription and you’ll get access.

Thanks!
~Joel

from HijiNKS ENSUE – A Geek Webcomic

Interesting; this is totally not what I expected Drive to be about.

(via Meme Meme)

Advertise here with BSA

from 22 Words

1950s

A 1950s ice cold whisky dispenser.

from Black and WTF

This is the greatest thing ever.

Over the weekend, Dave Winer wrote an article at Scripting.com explaining how Facebook keeps track of where you are on the web after logging in without your consent. Nik Cubrilovic dug a little deeper, and discovered that Facebook can still track where you are, even if you log out. Facebook, for its part, has denied the claims. Regardless of who you believe, here’s how to protect yourself, and keep your browsing history to yourself. More »

from Lifehacker: Top