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pcamen

45 karma · joined October 12, 2018

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pcamen··on Amazon starts flagging frequently returned products that you maybe shouldn’t buy
One thing I have seen mentioned yet is this change from the perspective of honest sellers. Amazon customers are notorious for not bothering to read the listings and because of the generous return policy for FBA items, will just buy something to see if it works. I also sell on my own website and don't have any of that type of problem, but my return policy is not quite so generous.

So me, as an FBA seller has certain products that I've specifically added "DOES NOT FIT XXX YYY" and people buy it and then return it with the comment "DIDN'T WORK on my XXX YYY". I get enough of these stupid returns and Amazon suspends my listing, making my go through a contrition process telling them all the things I've done to remedy the excessive returns. I've got one very popular product, my best seller, that has gone through this 5 or 6 times in the last few years.

While I understand the perspective of fraudulent listings swapping in sub-standard products, the big improvement I am hoping for is that the warnings will actually get people to read the damn listing so they understand what the item isn't to be used for.

pcamen··on Vintage Byte Magazine Library
Hey guys, Peter here from vintageapple.org. My server is experiencing a bit of a hug of death from this. Please be kind and don't try to download everything all at once. I've had to apply a rate limit to that site for now to make sure the applications I'm hosting continue to work.
pcamen··on The “mail is hard” myth
In the late 90's I worked for an email server software company. Since then, almost 20 years now, I've been running my own mail server. I wouldn't say it is hard so much as a PITA and very time consuming. I spend quite a bit of time reviewing logs making sure that my server has not gotten hacked or compromised in some new way.

Over the years, a new exploit type comes along, like backscatter, that I then have to figure out how to secure my server against. And I'm also very proactive at reviewing logs and banning IP's against the constant barrage of probing. I must spend a few hours a week dealing with the mail server.

And then there are periodic "someone isn't getting my mail" problems that I have to track down, where Yahoo or pacbell.net or some other large mail system decides that my server is insecure for some reason, despite not being on any DNS RBLs (which are also sometimes a problem for no good reason).

If it weren't for the fact that I have so much more flexibility and ease-of-use on my own mail server for setting up many domains and multiple email addresses, I would move everything to a provider and not manage it myself.

pcamen··on The 555 and How It Got That Way
Actually, Hans Camenzind was pretty busy up until the day he passed away in 2012. He continued to do analog circuit design, among other things (like writing books). (Good) analog engineers are not that common these days. At one point in the mid-2000's he mentioned to me that of his 15 most recent circuit designs, not one had an issue post-initial design. I don't think a lot of analog engineers today could say that. I suspect if he was still around and looking for work, he would not have much trouble finding it.