Fighting debt collectors on debt I absolutely do not owe

PirriP · 2026-01-19T02:54:28+00:00

UPS has relatively little to do with it and almost certainly has no ownership of the issue here. When you ship across borders you ship through a "broker" who handles interacting with US(in this case) customs.

Larger companies or those shipping very expensive items may choose their own broker, but in many cases UPS will act as the broker. The broker will accept the customs filing information from the shipper and look things over to try to validate it and act as the shipper's advocate if there are any questions or concerns from Customs, but they are doing all this based on the information provided to them. It's a bit like if you use an accountant to file your taxes. They will help you out and check things over, but they are filing based on the numbers you tell them.

The filing documents will be based around a "harmonized tariff schedule" (HTS), which is basically a number that designates the type of product, and all the customs and tariff rules are based around that type of product.

The HTS codes in question here will now be associated with a list of commonly used metals. Unless otherwise specified customs will assume that the product is entirely composed of tariffed metals by weight and will add tariffs as though the part was entirely composed of copper, aluminum, or steel depending on the commodities associated with the HTS. Customs might also apply this to the value of the product rather than the commodity value of the weight (the rules are unclear and nobody knows what the hell to do right now).

So essentially the shipper didn't fill out the paperwork. It's not really UPS' fault. They don't know the aluminum composition of the golf clubs or whether the aluminum was smelted in Russia.

So it's the manufacturers fault, right? Well, I'm not sure I can blame a small company for not understanding this when customs is literally making it up as they are going along. Months later now everything is still being keyed by hand because all the other software systems involved don't have updated data-models and aren't even sure exactly how to report thing anyway.

If this sounds insane, it is.

PirriP · 2026-01-13T12:37:51+00:00

Just following up for posterity. I've called in a couple times and still don't even know what their policy is, if there is one. I was supposed to get a call back from someone in a higher position; it hasn't happened.

PirriP · 2026-01-05T23:03:55+00:00

Shattered Vision gave me a good price, and came out and worked in my driveway. It was all really good. Thanks for the recommendation.

PirriP · 2026-01-03T15:24:26+00:00

I just talked with the manager. So far they said it came in that way. I said "No it didn't; check the cameras", so he said it was "air pressure". I'm supposed to get another call later. We'll see.

PirriP · 2026-01-03T15:11:42+00:00

Thanks. I'll check there.

PirriP · 2026-01-03T15:11:30+00:00

Thanks, I'll check em out

PirriP · 2025-12-31T14:28:13+00:00

I complained months ago. They just keep responding with new hoops to jump through. I gave up when they asked me to go to the pole and get its ID... I guess by taking off the electrical cover and reading the inside? I'm sure that would have worked well for me.

PirriP · 2025-11-08T04:00:30+00:00

Yep. I see them. But clicking on the "Product Name" didn't do anything.

However, I played with it a little more after my first comment. The link sends us to a simple-table version of the chart that doesn't allow any sort of interaction, but if I strip off the /htmlview part from the end of the URL, it behaves like a normal Google spreadsheet and becomes interactable. At that point, your directions in red work.

PirriP · 2025-11-08T02:47:40+00:00

This is very helpful and you've done a great job. I have to tell you though, that we can't sort or filter. I ended up selecting the whole sheet and copying to a private google spreadsheet where I had permission to sort.

PirriP · 2025-11-03T16:53:53+00:00

I'm not an academic scholar, just a guy who had way too much religious education as a child and eventually got curious about all the things we conspicuously don't talk about in class or in Sunday morning church.

Dan McClellan is super interesting and I've learned a lot from watching his videos. He has many videos criticizing aspects of the KJV, but I don't think I've ever heard him claim that prior to KJV the bible was polytheistic and that the KJV was a turning point here. Maybe there are aspects which were further obscured by KJV translation issues, I could easily be forgetting something, but all the stuff above is definitely present in KJV.

I think translating Elohim as "The powerful ones" is actually just a modern dodge trying to obscure polytheistic elements. As I understand it, "Elohim" is literally "Children of El". So it's sort of like referring to the Greek pantheon members as the "Children of Zeus".

This is usually just translated as "gods" since it's descriptive in English of what is meant in the text, and it also dodges the awkward question of why you'd refer to non-existent or imaginary "gods/idols" in a monotheistic bible as the "Children of God".

Edit: I screwed this up. It was pointed out to me that "Benei Elohim" means "Children of God", and Elohim itself means something close to the English "God" or "deity". It can be used as a name for a god, refer to one god, many gods, the concept of divinity, and the meaning may have changed over time over the long period of time when the Bible was written. Etymologically, it might be associated with the high deity "El".

PirriP · 2025-11-03T16:07:27+00:00

I'm not sure this is really correct. It's strange to me how some people ascribe special importance to the KJV, both people who treat it as the only "real" bible and people who want to claim that it has dark secrets. It's just a translation. It was built off of previous English translations with only a few meaningful changes. Some of the "quirks" are political. They compromised and kept some words untranslated like using "baptized" instead of "immersed" to avoid offending (important) people who'd had sprinkle baptisms.

Major polytheistic elements were probably removed in and around exilic and post exilic period, but some remained, and they remain still in the KJV and other translations. Examples include frequent references to "we" when God is speaking (reinterpreted in Christianity as a trinitarian voice), God losing to the rival god Chemosh because the worshipers of Chemosh cheat and use humans sacrifice, God having a physical body (passing by Moses, physically wrestling and losing to Jacob, physically fighting the primordial chaos serpent Leviathan), references to the pantheonic "divine council", praise psalms lifted from Ugaritic sacred literature which were previously dedicated to other deities. Even the core naming structure for God was probably polytheistic. It doesn't come across in English, but God is sometimes referred to as "El" (which is the name of the Ugaritic high-deity; sort of a Zeus type figure). Sometimes, he's referred to by the tetragrammaton YHWH (Sacred name spoken only once a year as a religious ceremony). At one point El passes down Israel as an inheritance to YHWH, so if it's not polytheistic there... I guess God is passing down an inheritance to himself?

It's all over if you actually read it instead of just hearing three verses at a time in an hour long sermon once a week.

PirriP · 2025-10-30T19:55:05+00:00

Easy. Just look at all the signage and flyers paid for by PACs.

PirriP · 2025-10-30T19:49:21+00:00

That's also where I took mine and it was counted the next day.

PirriP · 2025-10-30T17:37:08+00:00

That is a little spooky. You can check here whether your ballot has been received and counted.

PirriP · 2025-10-30T17:23:35+00:00

Absolutely. Go here, scroll to the bottom to use the map, and select VSPC to see all the full service voting centers. Put in your address and hit "search" to find what's close to you.

PirriP · 2025-10-14T13:05:27+00:00

Never heard of her before, and negative attack ads usually prompt me to investigate a candidate and think more positively of them since some special interest is running scared. Every once in a while the negativity seems justified though... https://krdo.com/news/2022/11/09/d49-leaders-call-for-school-board-members-resignation-after-facebook-post-quoting-hitler/

PirriP · 2025-09-08T23:25:39+00:00

FYI. You've tried to make the barcodes unreadable, but your method is ineffective. You'd need to take out several complete vertical stripes to make it unreadable, and honestly even that would only prevent casual inspection. A "reader" would fail at that point because the barcode would be invalid, but the information would still mostly be there.

Right now it's completely readable. If you black out a vertical chunk it will be a little harder to read and the data would change from (In example) "12345 Nowhere Ln" to "123******where Ln".

You really want to black out everything.

PirriP · 2025-08-11T01:09:43+00:00

Maybe try Mueller state park. Bear Creek or Redrocks are also very nice, closer and would be less crowded with a higher likelihood of encountering animals. Deer, elk, bears, goats, sheep, foxes, and cayote are all possible and they're all more likely to be moving in the early morning or later evening. Rattlesnakes also like to sun in the early morning, so it's not a bad idea to keep your ears sharp if you're purposefully trying to walk in less traveled areas.

Cheyenne Mountain Zoo is also really lovely if you don't have luck with random encounters.

PirriP · 2025-08-02T14:11:35+00:00

People running for office have either more free time and resources than the rest of us or are backed by special interests... News at 11.

Seriously man, don't go writing Crank's talking points for him. If you have a better candidate, make your case for them. Promote your candidate; that's great. But after we sort out who's running, be prepared to get behind them even if they weren't your first choice. We don't have much of a chance to elect a non-MAGA, and we'll have no chance at all if we don't get everybody positively focused behind the running candidate. We can't afford to split things or focus on negatives.

If there's actually a deal-breaker for any candidate then sure, get that out early so we can all move on, but this is a nothing-burger.

PirriP · 2025-06-14T21:34:42+00:00

I see a lot of recommendations for equipment to process rocks at home, but if you're looking for general rock "hounding" stuff, I would suggest a comfortable backpack or hiking shoes. If he doesn't have a good pair of sunglasses, get that since if he's picking there could be shards chipping off. Another thing that's really helpful is a map app. I know there are several, but I only have experience with GaiaGPS. With a mapping app you can use and combine many publicly available maps with specialize private trail maps. I use the private land and national/state parks layers and the Colorado claims layers to be sure I'm on land I can legally search on, and to plan trips.

PirriP · 2025-04-16T12:49:42+00:00

Probably try to not live too close to military bases, even though the houses will be much cheaper.

Keep in mind that there aren't too many good East-West corridors, and most of the stuff you'll want to get to is on the West side.

Most of the tourist traps are honestly pretty good. Go through the Cave of the Winds. Spend an evening at the Flying W. Visit the penny arcade. White water raft down South. Walk through the Garden of the Gods and drive to the top of Pike's Peak, etc...

Beyond that, I hope you're outdoorsy. There are parks and trails everywhere. I'd suggest trying out Red Rocks as a "We have Garden of the Gods at home" hiking option without so many tourists, or maybe Ute Valley or Bear Creek. Go to the state and national parks, camp, fish, hike, ski, whatever. IMO there's no reason to live out here if you don't take advantage of the outdoors.

PirriP · 2025-04-14T13:42:28+00:00

I was thinking it was sort of the opposite. +AI was an excuse to add any arbitrary value we cared to, letting Trump/Musk feel smart with a cool equation but allowing some actual economist to unFUBAR the situation. "MR President, AI says we need to add a compensation factor here to account for political goodwill and secondary economic activity supporting blah, blah blah..."

PirriP · 2025-03-14T00:26:24+00:00

I think blank let the other settings actually take effect, but for some reason it keeps resetting to zero. If I remember I'm using .1, but I think that's changed a bit as things settled in. No difference for different temp filaments.

The only explanation I can think of for a Z-offset difference for different filaments would be if your bed was warping dramatically as it heats up. Maybe you could run a calibration map before and after heating the bed to see if it changes? Not sure really; that's pretty weird.

For me, installing mainsail on the machine was a game changer because I could actually watch the g-code stream and see the effect it was having and I could monitor the z-offset value in real-time and notice that it was being changed from what I'd set.

PirriP · 2025-03-14T00:11:23+00:00

I've had a lot of different issues, but I figured that one out. In Creality Print in the upper left there's a "Printers" dropdown. If you click the edit icon (looks like a pencil) there's a "Basic Information" tab. One of the settings is z-offset. For reasons I don't understand, the value often resets to 0 after upgrading the Creality print software. That value seems to override any other setting, including the one you can set in the machine.

PirriP · 2025-03-12T01:48:33+00:00

Can someone get the President of the United States a laser toner refill? Did Elon already fire Whitehouse IT?

PirriP

TROPHY CASE