The Technology Vent and Rant Thread

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by issybird

It's not just having a cart that matters; I've "bought" many Kindle books because of a random touch and I haven't always noticed it right away, either. It can be undone, but it would be much better to be able to disable the one-click.

Yes, I think you can disable it for everything except ebooks.

I accidentally bought ebooks on an older UI when deleting multiple wish-list items. Though it seems to be able to be undone if not downloaded.

Keep WiFi off!

[issybird]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Though it seems to be able to be undone if not downloaded.

It’s been a while since I checked, but at least it used to be that you had a week to return a Kindle book. Download status didn’t matter. How else could you return a Kindle book for poor formatting or wrong content, say, if you weren’t able to download it and look at it first?

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by issybird

It’s been a while since I checked, but at least it used to be that you had a week to return a Kindle book. Download status didn’t matter. How else could you return a Kindle book for poor formatting or wrong content, say, if you weren’t able to download it and look at it first?

They broke "look inside" and samples are not what they where. I've not bought ebooks because of sample issues.

It could be that you can return downloads, but like returning physical product they may have a "disable account trigger".* Refund on stuff not downloaded or gifted ebook not redeemed seems quick, automatic and quibble free.

Badly formatted (or even poor proofed OCR) is annoying and if it was a physical shop I'd haggle if it was content I wanted.

I've not experienced "wrong content" yet!


[* Amazon's account blocking due to what they deem as excessive returns doesn't seem to differentiate on why something was returned, seems to be opaque and hard to challenge. KDP upload/publishing is also disabled]

[issybird]

Originally Posted by Quoth

They broke "look inside" and samples are not what they where. I've not bought ebooks because of sample issues.

It could be that you can return downloads, but like returning physical product they may have a "disable account trigger".* Refund on stuff not downloaded or gifted ebook not redeemed seems quick, automatic and quibble free.

Badly formatted (or even poor proofed OCR) is annoying and if it was a physical shop I'd haggle if it was content I wanted.

I've not experienced "wrong content" yet!


[* Amazon's account blocking due to what they deem as excessive returns doesn't seem to differentiate on why something was returned, seems to be opaque and hard to challenge. KDP upload/publishing is also disabled]

My point was, simply, that having downloaded a book isn't a dealbreaker for returning it to Amazon and I gave two examples of why. The criterion is within one week of purchase and the refund is equally "quick, automatic and quibble free" whether or not it was downloaded. As expected, the book vanishes from your device; that's it. Amazon may and does terminate accounts for abuse, but the odd return doesn't trigger it. I'm just striving for accuracy here.

As for "wrong content", I've not bought them, but I've seen books whose title didn't match the book. I came very, very close to buying what purported to be a Kindle edition of the Viking Portable Dorothy Parker, but fortunately on looking into it, realized that the book was in fact an edition of Dorothy Sayers' stories.

[Quoth]

I'm only being personal cautious, not disagreeing!

[ownedbycats]

I've returned a few books when I realized that they were part of an unlabeled series.

[DNSB]

One acquaintance of mine did get their account suspended due to ebooks. Since they were abusing Kindle Unlimited and ebook returns, I had little sympathy for them. This was back when KU had a limit of 10 books at a time and at one point, they went through over 300 books in a week using a mix of KU loans and purchases.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by DNSB

One acquaintance of mine did get their account suspended due to ebooks. Since they were abusing Kindle Unlimited and ebook returns, I had little sympathy for them. This was back when KU had a limit of 10 books at a time and at one point, they went through over 300 books in a week using a mix of KU loans and purchases.

I've no sympathy for that sort of foolishness.

[madelonw]

It's really past time for the news and other media to get with the times. The clips the media plays are NOT ON TAPE! They are digital files. These files can be modified, corrupted, and otherwise digitally damaged, but you can't plop a video tape on somebody's desk and say "Aha!"

I am so tired of hearing about the epstein jail "tape!" He killed himself in 2019. It seems to me that we are being fed a line of total bullcrap about tapes. Did the Metropolitan Correctional Center in lower Manhattan still use technology outdated for nearly 20 years? IMHO there ARE NO TAPES; there are videos, perhaps stored on some medium (like CDs or DVDs which I also doubt). In all probability the VIDEOS are stored on hard drives.

The whole "let's go to the video tape" is so last century.

[Quoth]

There are also almost no movies made on Film now. In Ireland UK we called Cinema content "films". However I now use the previously American term movies as not only is it not on film, mostly it's not watched in a cinema.

Media sites also call TV "the small screen". But given viewing distance and 42" to 55" being common, that's nonsense as the apparent image size can be larger than the cinema.

[ratinox]

Originally Posted by madelonw

Did the Metropolitan Correctional Center in lower Manhattan still use technology outdated for nearly 20 years?

They very well could. Government institutions typically don't replace "obsolete" tech until it completely fails and sometimes not even then.

[Cactus Chef]

Originally Posted by madelonw

It's really past time for the news and other media to get with the times. The clips the media plays are NOT ON TAPE! They are digital files. These files can be modified, corrupted, and otherwise digitally damaged, but you can't plop a video tape on somebody's desk and say "Aha!"

I am so tired of hearing about the epstein jail "tape!" He killed himself in 2019. It seems to me that we are being fed a line of total bullcrap about tapes. Did the Metropolitan Correctional Center in lower Manhattan still use technology outdated for nearly 20 years? IMHO there ARE NO TAPES; there are videos, perhaps stored on some medium (like CDs or DVDs which I also doubt). In all probability the VIDEOS are stored on hard drives.

The whole "let's go to the video tape" is so last century.

Lord help you if you happen to catch sight of the Save icon on most modern applications.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Cactus Chef

Lord help you if you happen to catch sight of the Save icon on most modern applications.

At least, it's a 3.5" floppy and not a 8"/5.25" floppy.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by DNSB

At least, it's a 3.5" floppy and not a 8"/5.25" floppy.

Or you can pretend it's a bucket to catch bits.

[Graham44]

Originally Posted by Quoth

There are also almost no movies made on Film now. In Ireland UK we called Cinema content "films". However I now use the previously American term movies as not only is it not on film, mostly it's not watched in a cinema.

Media sites also call TV "the small screen". But given viewing distance and 42" to 55" being common, that's nonsense as the apparent image size can be larger than the cinema.

I still say film even when I'm talking/ thinking about what I'm going to watch on a Friday/ Saturday night - hmm what film shall I watch tonight, even though I know it's on a DVD

Old habits are hard to break