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SNES preservation project on hold due to missing $10,000 package

byuu.org

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Re: SNES preservation project on hold due to missing $10,000 package

#131

Post by detaro »

skykooler wrote: post #26
ryanlol wrote: post #8

>Obviously, it should have been insured for the full value. But please understand that hindsight is 20/20. The sender chose the insurance amount, and had no reason to suspect the package would be lost , and that we would be given no help on the matter. It's not unreasonable to believe a mail carrier would try to avoid the need to pay out 1000 Euros worth of insurance by not losing said package . That's some really hi…

> If you want to send something to another country and aren't willing to lose it? Buy a plane ticket. And how often do airlines lose luggage? More often than packages go missing.

In photography circles in the US it is occasionally suggested put a gun (can be a flare gun) in the luggage as well -> it then has to be specially tracked and is supposedly looked after a lot better. No clue how much truth there is to that.

Re: SNES preservation project on hold due to missing $10,000 package

#132

Post by sethx »

DHL from the US to Germany or Eurpope is absolutely rubbish. The problem is that you most likely used DHL Global Mail, which is not the same as DHL Express. DHL Global Mail delegates the shipment to the cheapest carrier possible, which in this case is USPS. Once they do the handover, you effectively lose all tracking ability.

My story with them: http://webtrack.dhlglobalmail.com/?id=27838&trackingnumber=G...

That's more than one full month for a package that contained nothing more than a teeshirt. On top of that, the package never arrived at the final destination, and might be stuck in customs, for all i know. I never got a notification, and will actually contact DHL soon myself, because their service is absolutely laughable.

As a logistics company, they had one job. And they failed.

Re: SNES preservation project on hold due to missing $10,000 package

#133

Post by SyneRyder »

Larrikin wrote: post #61

>First, because I don't speak any German, and feel very uncomfortable traveling to a foreign country on my own. I know most Germans speak English, but that doesn't ease my concerns all that much. It's scary to me to travel alone, sorry. Found this odd. What is scary about traveling to a presumably a big city in one of the richest countries in the world?

I picked up on that as well. I've been a solo traveller to Germany (from Australia) several times now, and it's probably my favorite country. The first time I knew very little German and anyone in their 20s or younger had very good English. Travelling solo tends to be scary until you do it and get some experience of it.

I'm not saying that's what byuu should have done, sending the package seems perfectly reasonable. Being nervous of solo travel is reasonable too. I just wouldn't want him to miss out on an awesome country because of it... and especially a country as passionate about electronics & technology as Germany is.

Re: SNES preservation project on hold due to missing $10,000 package

#134

Post by gargravarr »

Last year, I tried to buy a very-difficult-to-find bluetooth adapter for my car stereo. I found one on eBay in the US, won the auction for slightly more than I wanted and then paid to have it shipped to the UK. After a week, the tracking information stopped being updated, right after USPS took over the package. After a month, I tried to get in contact with the couriers. This was difficult, because the package was shipped with the eBay Global Shipping Program, which does a fair job of obfuscating which carrier is actually taking it. USPS didn't want to know, the tracking number wasn't valid as far as they were concerned. Eventually I contacted eBay asking where the package was. Overnight, I was refunded, saying the package had obiviously been lost.

I did my best to contact them and ask for the package to be found, but nobody wanted to know. I eventually spoke to a woman in eBay's customer services, but nothing ever came of it. In my situation, at least I got my money back, and I know it's not quite the same as this poor guy's, but I can understand the frustration of dealing with tracked shipments. Especially for rare items that are difficult or impossible to replace - all you want is the package itself. Shipment tracking is supposed to prevent this happening - after all, if the package gets lost, it's likely in the same place as the last scan! You'd think the money the couriers have invested in the tracking system would incentivise them to use it to find lost packages.

Re: SNES preservation project on hold due to missing $10,000 package

#135

Post by stevekemp »

brink wrote: post #46
legohead wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is that? They deliver more mail than all the other US carriers combined, and deal with almost half of the worlds mail traffic. For the truly massive amount of traffic they deal with, they are incredibly accurate and fast. If you have lived in another country like I have, you will quickly learn to appreciate the USPS.

I'm sure it could be worse, but out of the 3 main providers we have in the US here, they're the most unreliable. I'm not trying to just rip on them, but from my experience, they don't think much of delivering packages a day or more late as it happens fairly consistently.

The real problem is that there are very few delivery companies, so everybody has to pick one.

Just like banks. Name any random bank in the world and you'll have 50 people saying "Best. Bank Ever", 50 more people giving you horror-stories and saying "Worst. Bank. Ever", along with many more people who are entirely indifferent.

At the volume the delivery companies are operating, with millions of deliveries a day, even 0.05% of failures will affect a large number of people, and will result in "Worst. Delivery. Ever" complaints.

Sadly there's not a great solution. No matter which delivery company you choose you might get your stuff quickly, or you might not. The only practical step you can take is make sure you minimize risk (multiple smaller packages + insurance).

Re: SNES preservation project on hold due to missing $10,000 package

#136

Post by throwanem »

sethx wrote: post #132

DHL from the US to Germany or Eurpope is absolutely rubbish. The problem is that you most likely used DHL Global Mail, which is not the same as DHL Express. DHL Global Mail delegates the shipment to the cheapest carrier possible, which in this case is USPS. Once they do the handover, you effectively lose all tracking ability. My story with them: http://webtrack.dhlglobalmail.com/?id=27838&trackingnumber=G... That's m…

I haven't had notable difficulty with them, but I also only use them for shipments from overseas that require customs clearance and ID verification at pickup time - an odd set of requirements for SBCs, but there you go. Their depot in my town is at the airport, and the airport is on the light rail line, so it's no real inconvenience to just pick up packages there.

Re: SNES preservation project on hold due to missing $10,000 package

#137

Post by SmellyGeekBoy »

orf wrote: post #129
mynewtb wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An Atom with 1TB disk is just about 10 bucks at ovh/kimsufi. Alternatively there would be many people able and willing to mirror such collection on their own servers.

The bandwidth is the issue I'm guessing. Servers from Hetzner (in Germany) come with 10TB of traffic included

BitTorrent?

Re: SNES preservation project on hold due to missing $10,000 package

#138

Post by throwanem »

Larrikin wrote: post #61

>First, because I don't speak any German, and feel very uncomfortable traveling to a foreign country on my own. I know most Germans speak English, but that doesn't ease my concerns all that much. It's scary to me to travel alone, sorry. Found this odd. What is scary about traveling to a presumably a big city in one of the richest countries in the world?

> What is scary about traveling to a presumably a big city in one of the richest countries in the world?

Not everyone enjoys, or is comfortable with, travel in its own right. It doesn't have to be about the destination, or even the journey - some folks are just homebodies, and that's okay.

In fact, I'm one of them! My trip to Manhattan last year was pretty much the first time I'd been out of Baltimore in half a decade, unless you count camping as travel, which I don't. It was rewarding but initially nervousmaking as well, especially when it took a quarter hour just to get to ground level from the deeply subterranean arrival platform. In the event, people there were uniformly lovely to me, and I had a great time. But it also helped to know that, if things went badly, I could just change my return ticket, get on another train, and be home again in a few hours. The same wouldn't be true in Germany, and I would face the prospect of a journey there with considerably more trepidation therefore.

Re: SNES preservation project on hold due to missing $10,000 package

#139

Post by throwanem »

detaro wrote: post #131
skykooler wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you want to send something to another country and aren't willing to lose it? Buy a plane ticket. And how often do airlines lose luggage? More often than packages go missing.

In photography circles in the US it is occasionally suggested put a gun (can be a flare gun) in the luggage as well -> it then has to be specially tracked and is supposedly looked after a lot better. No clue how much truth there is to that.

There certainly are additional declaration, inspection, and tracking requirements for firearms in checked luggage, so it might well be a cheap way to get extra insurance that your expensive camera gear ends up in the same place you do.

Re: SNES preservation project on hold due to missing $10,000 package

#140

Post by derekp7 »

byuu wrote: post #104
derekp7 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is for people that take out a loan, then decrease their monthly 401k contributions to cover the loan payments. Also, while your money is out on loan, it isn't gaining value from the market (on the other hand, it is at least gaining the percent interest that you are paying back in -- so from the fund's perspective, it isn't too bad).

Ouch, that's a good point. If you don't mind a question ... I was thinking about taking out a loan again once it was paid off in order to pay my house mortgage down to 78% so that I can knock off the $200/mo PMI. If I then contributed $200/mo toward the loan + 401K, do you think that would be better or worse than just leaving the 401K alone and paying the PMI? The PMI will probably take another 6+ years to fall off o…

I was actually thinking the same thing for myself (similar situation with PMI). But there is one additional danger with 401K loans. If you lose your job or quit, your loan is due within 60 days. Otherwise it is counted as an early withdrawal, so you owe a 10% penalty to the IRS, plus you get to pay taxes on the loan balance.

Also, check with your bank -- in my case, PMI will automatically stop at 78%, but once you get down to 80% you can initiate a request to remove PMI. Another option is if the housing market has improved, your house has more value. So if you are at least one year into your loan you can go through a refinance process where your PMI loan to value is assessed based on the current market value of your home. But again this can backfire, as the market value is based on the appraisal that the bank does. So you will have to make sure your house is in shape to sell to get a good appraisal.

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