Annoying Questions I'd Like Answered...

Ted the Flayer · Post by **Ted the Flayer** » Wed Apr 10, 2013 1:11 pm

A friend of mine runs a gas station, and he says that pumps send a quick charge through to see if you have enough money to get gas. They're SUPPOSED to refund it immediately, only it didn't do it this time. I was told to talk to my bank to get them to say that it's not their problem, then talk to the manager at the gas station (and tell them the bank says they're making the charge because they'll claim it if you hadn't already checked).

I'm waiting for my bank to open before I call them, one more hour.

I'll take the actions that are more likely to get my money back, but damn if taking a crap in their parking lot wouldn't make me feel better right now.

UPDATE: Instead of using public defecation as a form of protest, I had a polite, business-like discussion with someone at my bank. The charge has been cleared and they're refunding the overdraft fees. All is well again in my world.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Wed Apr 10, 2013 2:30 pm

Glad it worked out, Ted.

I know full well the temptation to go apeshit on someone over the phone, and sometimes it's hard to not, but 99% of the time, you're talking to someone who's just doing their job, not the person who's causing the problem.

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Thu Apr 11, 2013 2:39 am

Ted the Flayer wrote:A friend of mine runs a gas station, and he says that pumps send a quick charge through to see if you have enough money to get gas. They're SUPPOSED to refund it immediately, only it didn't do it this time. I was told to talk to my bank to get them to say that it's not their problem, then talk to the manager at the gas station (and tell them the bank says they're making the charge because they'll claim it if you hadn't already checked).

I'm waiting for my bank to open before I call them, one more hour.

I'll take the actions that are more likely to get my money back, but damn if taking a crap in their parking lot wouldn't make me feel better right now.

UPDATE: Instead of using public defecation as a form of protest, I had a polite, business-like discussion with someone at my bank. The charge has been cleared and they're refunding the overdraft fees. All is well again in my world.

The station puts a hold on your account (so those funds are there, but not available). That's normal for a lot of places, and is usually followed by an associated charge a day later or so. For example , if you eat $20 of food at a restaurant and leave a $5 tip on the receipt, they put a $20 hold on your account when they swipe your card, then charge you $25 when they do the receipts the next day (or whenever). Your bank releases that hold whenever they feel like, which can be really irritating.
Most stations reserve $50 when you swipe, and let you fill up up to that amount. That was great when gas was $2/gallon, but when prices spiked a bit back, that meant a lot of people had to swipe two or three times to get gas, which is irritating. It's not that weird that they would bump that up, though $125 seems high. Maybe they get a lot of trucks through there?

Anyway, good resolution.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Fri Apr 12, 2013 3:44 am

I was gonna email someone an article from Frank's old waitinginline.insanejournal.com blog, but it seems to have disappeared. Did it get migrated to another site, or is it just gone?

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Fri Apr 12, 2013 4:45 am

I thought he had a deadjournal.

Whatever · Post by **Whatever** » Fri Apr 12, 2013 3:03 pm

This one was specifically for rants about Prague. It had some great pieces, it would be a shame if it's really gone.

Edit: the site does seem to be gone, but fortunately it seems the wayback machine saved everything: http://web.archive.org/web/201202240621 ... urnal.com/

Ted the Flayer · Post by **Ted the Flayer** » Sat Apr 13, 2013 10:12 am

Anyone know how to convert a percentage of a chemical dissolved in water to mg/L?

I'm coming up with that a LOT in my class. Except at no point in any of my lessons does it say how to do that. Starting to get a little fidgety here, a lot of the tests I've been taking are assuming you can memorize the periodic table and entire charts of data and not take them with you on the exam, and I'm starting to think I'm in over my head (this is a freaking vocational college, if I'm on the job I WILL in fact have access to the periodic table and whatever charts and formulas I need. I shouldn't be required to rattle off the molecular weight of Germanium of the top of my head for 40k a year...)

EDIT: I did google it. I need someone to explain it in smaller words and not assume a high level of mathematical proficiency. If you throw around theoroms and proofs and shit I'm going to get lost, I need someone explain it to me like they would a child.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Apr 13, 2013 10:24 am

To a first approximation, dissolved stuff in water doesn't really change the volume very much. So if you have something that is 5% not-water, then 95% of the weight is from water and the volume is a number of ml equal to the number of grams of water you have. A kilogram of that would thus be 950 grams, and 950 ml. That goes on the bottom of your "g/ml" setup. The percent of non-water times the initial weight is just the amount of grams of the substance you have. So in our kilogram of 5% [substance] example, we'd have 50 grams of substance to go with our 950 ml of solution. Which comes out to 52.6 mg/ml.

-Username17

Ted the Flayer · Post by **Ted the Flayer** » Sat Apr 13, 2013 10:31 am

That helps a lot.

And I'm assuming if I get 52.6 mg/mL, that means there's 52,600 mg/L. And if 44% of that is a Flouride ion, that means there's approximately 23,000 mg/L of actual Flouride in the solution.

Assuming that is accurate, I think I got it. I appreciate the help.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Sun Apr 14, 2013 4:59 am

What the hell kind of batshit college are you going to? Mine is pretty top-end, yet CHEM111 doesn't expect us to memorize the molar mass of oxygen.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Apr 14, 2013 5:56 am

name_here wrote:What the hell kind of batshit college are you going to? Mine is pretty top-end, yet CHEM111 doesn't expect us to memorize the molar mass of oxygen.

Everyone should memorize the molar mass of Oxygen, Carbon, and Hydrogen, because it's easy.

-Username17

Ted the Flayer · Post by **Ted the Flayer** » Sun Apr 14, 2013 8:14 am

12, 16, and 1 is pretty easy. It's a weird college, the formulas are often wrong, there's formulas we need that aren't in the lesson plan, we're required to remember what I feel is a very large amount of stuff for a vocational program, and there are things in the lessons that are outright wrong.

I'm pushing myself to do better, but I admit that I'm starting to struggle a little bit.

erik · Post by **erik** » Sun Apr 14, 2013 12:12 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:Everyone should memorize the molar mass of Oxygen, Carbon, and Hydrogen, because it's easy.

Handy for orgo too.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Sun Apr 14, 2013 5:07 pm

You, uh, may want to transfer to a school that is one or both of cheaper or less shit. Wrong formulas in lesson plans is not acceptable, fucking no one needs to memorize the atomic mass of everything on the periodic table, and 40K a year is not all that much less than colleges rated in the top five by employers for highly competitive sectors charge.

Ted the Flayer · Post by **Ted the Flayer** » Sun Apr 14, 2013 6:07 pm

I think I wasn't communicating correctly, 40k a year is the average salary that my vocation makes in their first year (and it's a highly demanded field, I checked). I'm only paying about 2k a year in tuition.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sun Apr 14, 2013 6:08 pm

OK, i figure where else to ask but in a den of gaming nerds?

Has anybody dealt with UEFI based Computer Systems, especially in terms of GOP and Ultra-Fast Boot from an SSD into Windumb 8?

Anybody have a combination of Mainboard and GPU that actually does work with this?

Count Arioch the 28th · Wed Apr 17, 2013 4:36 pm

Alright, remember when my heart fucked up in January? One of the emergency room bills went to collections, and the collections agency is NOT cooperating with me. As in they are refusing my payments entirely.

Also, it's got me a little spooked because it's a law office that is doing it, and I am not good with speaking to lawyers. And don't have any money to hire a lawyer anyway (and considering it's only about $1,500 anyway if I had the money to pay for a lawyer I could probably pay it off entirely).

Does anyone have any good advice? (I'm on the broke-ass version of Medicaide and the doctor bill was only about $400 and the x-rays where only $30 after the state stepped in, so the $30 is paid and the emergency room is happy with getting $50 this month, but the ambulance bills were ridiculous and to get the financial aid they asked for paperwork that simply didn't exist from me and I wasn't capable of producing).

Also, if they want to play hardball how fucked am I? Is $1,500 enough to justify taking me to court or are they going to limit themselves to annoying me on the phone? And I really would like to convince them to accept my damn money, the collections agencies back home would generally leave you alone for a month if you paid them anything. I have not communicated with them because every conversation I've ever had with a lawyer has ended with me in a frothing, incoherent rage and I really don't think that's going to help.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Thu Apr 18, 2013 12:07 am

Count Arioch the 28th wrote:Alright, remember when my heart fucked up in January? One of the emergency room bills went to collections, and the collections agency is NOT cooperating with me. As in they are refusing my payments entirely.

Also, it's got me a little spooked because it's a law office that is doing it, and I am not good with speaking to lawyers. And don't have any money to hire a lawyer anyway (and considering it's only about $1,500 anyway if I had the money to pay for a lawyer I could probably pay it off entirely).

Does anyone have any good advice? (I'm on the broke-ass version of Medicaide and the doctor bill was only about $400 and the x-rays where only $30 after the state stepped in, so the $30 is paid and the emergency room is happy with getting $50 this month, but the ambulance bills were ridiculous and to get the financial aid they asked for paperwork that simply didn't exist from me and I wasn't capable of producing).

Also, if they want to play hardball how fucked am I? Is $1,500 enough to justify taking me to court or are they going to limit themselves to annoying me on the phone? And I really would like to convince them to accept my damn money, the collections agencies back home would generally leave you alone for a month if you paid them anything. I have not communicated with them because every conversation I've ever had with a lawyer has ended with me in a frothing, incoherent rage and I really don't think that's going to help.

From my experience, they will probably just annoy you over the phone. Probably. They should know that you can't get blood from a turnip.

That being said, I can't guarantee that they won't sue over that tiny amount. They might just be assholes.

Count Arioch the 28th · Thu Apr 18, 2013 3:52 am

I mean it's not even like I won't have this paid in full by the end of June, the only reason it hasn't been paid yet is because my car died and I needed a new one. And I checked, they are legally required to take my money.

Whatever · Post by **Whatever** » Thu Apr 18, 2013 4:03 am

Save something that proves you tried to pay them, in case they sue.

Count Arioch the 28th · Sat Apr 20, 2013 9:23 am

Because not everyone watches porn, I'm going to preface this.

A common ad you see is a fake chat wondow opening up in the lower right corner. They pretend to be a local woman who is searching for someone to have sex with and they decided they wanted you for some reason. Needless to say, it's an automated program to get you to click it.

Anyway, some of the fake auto chats are kind of verbally abusive. Why do they think that's a good way to entice people to click? Also, if I wanted a woman to call me a limp-dicked faggot, I would be dating again instead of looking at pornography...

erik · Post by **erik** » Sat Apr 20, 2013 12:34 pm

Count Arioch the 28th wrote: Anyway, some of the fake auto chats are kind of verbally abusive. Why do they think that's a good way to entice people to click? Also, if I wanted a woman to call me a limp-dicked faggot, I would be dating again instead of looking at pornography...

Different strokes for different folks.

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Sat Apr 20, 2013 1:34 pm

The verbal abuse is not to entice you to click, it's to provoke you to click; they probably have data that shows that people will reflexively attempt to deny the slur or try to launch a counter-insult.

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Sun Apr 21, 2013 3:19 pm

I hate those ads.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sun Apr 21, 2013 6:41 pm

Also, strangely, there are people who get off on that.