If you know us...

If you know us ... then you know that Debbie and I are basically Amazon groupies.  We've been Amazon Prime members since (literally) the first day it was offered, and a significant percentage of our total purchases are made from Amazon.  While it started with just books, Amazon now dominates many kinds of our purchases – only a few categories do we buy mostly elsewhere (food, cars, furniture, and art, mainly).

Why are we such Amazon devotees?  Broad selection, the buyer reviews, good prices, an overall convenient and pleasant experience, and great customer service are the main reasons.

This morning I had another example of Amazon's great customer service.  About a week ago, I ordered a 4 pack of vacuum cleaner backs for our monster “shop” vacuum.  A couple days later the box showed up – but only had a 2 pack inside.  So I returned the box and asked for a replacement – a very simple process, because the UPS man picked up the return.  A couple days later, the replacement showed up – and it was another 2 pack!  As I'd paid for 4, I wasn't terribly pleased about this.  So I went online and started a chat session with a customer service representative.  This took just a couple minutes.  Here's a transcript of our chat:

Amazon: Good Morning, I am Chris.  How may I help you today?

me: I ordered this item, received the wrong one, returned it, got the replacement, and it was the wrong one AGAIN.  I'm wondering how I can get the right one :)

Amazon: I'm sorry to hear you have received the same wrong item twice but I'll be glad to help you on this.  Tom to be honest, if you are telling me that the replacement is wrong again, that means that our whole inventory probably is wrong. I will file a ticket, the item will be removed from the webpage until this is fixed.  So I can offer you a full refund of the original order.

me: What I ordered was a 4 pack (2 packs of 2).  What I got was 1 pack of 2.  Could you send me the second pack of 2?  I'd rather have the bags than the refund :)

Amazon: Sure Tom I understand that, and I want to help you. :) but if I create a replacement I am afraid you will get the same problem again.  So it does not make any sense.

me: Ok, then I guess the return/refund is the only way to go.  Dang.  I can do that from the web site directly.

Amazon: Well, lets do this Tom. Keep that replacement, I will create a returnless refund as an exception for this inconvenience. And then when the item is corrected and available back in the web page, you can order them with the refund money.

me: Well, that's very nice of you - thanks!

Amazon: Not a problem at all. I mean this is completely our fault, so I want to at least compensate you, you already had to go through the hassle of returning the original order. So, no worries, this time feel free to keep them. An email confirmation of the returnless refund will be sent.

me: Thanks, Chris!

Now a couple of free vacuum cleaner bags isn't exactly a big thing – but the attitude and pleasant handling of the issue sure is.  There are a lot of companies that really ought to study what Amazon does, and apply some of what they observe to their own business.

Meanwhile, we'll continue our happy shopping experiences at Amazon!

Magnolia sprengeri...

Magnolia sprengeri...  Via BPOD, of course.  The text of today's entry contains this, which surprised me:

I chose today's image for its illustration of how cameras capture colours, and why it isn't always useful to rely on photographs if one wants to know the "true" colour of an object. It's a contemporaneous subject, as there seems to have been much debate about a dress the past couple days: "The Science of Why No One Agrees on the Color of This Dress" (via Wired).

In today's photograph, those parts of the unfurling flower in shadow have a bluish-cast, including not only the tepals but also the fuzzy hairs on the distant perules (or bud scales). Those parts exposed directly to the rays of the sun have a daytime "white" light to them, which is most noticeable on the forefront line of those fuzzy hairs, though some tepals have a bit of daytime light on them as well. To make matters more confusing, some of the tepals are side-lit so that they are glowing with the light that has diffused through the tepal. For another photograph of a flower from this particular plant, this time in late-evening golden light, see this previous entry on 'Eric Savill' magnolia. Different lighting conditions, different colours.

For scientific photographs and scans, colour calibration charts or cards are often inserted into the images to permit later correction to standard colours under standard conditions. For example, see this specimen of Corydalis aurea from the UBC Herbarium, but do note that while the colour calibration chart is present, the image is not yet calibrated--e.g., the black in the chart is not a true black.

Most botanists I've met wouldn't know an Internet meme if it smacked them upside the head :)

Comet 67P, up close and personal...

Comet 67P, up close and personal...  A recent photo returned by Rosetta, from its Valentine's Day low pass.  As I was perusing it this morning, it occurred to me (for about the 10,000th time) just how monochromatic most things in the solar system are.  The few bodies that have significant color variation (Io, Jupiter, Earth) really stand out.  Even red Mars is mostly, well, red...

So my mother sent me...

So my mother sent me ... a collection of the most horrible illustrated puns I have ever seen.  It included some that even my father would have rejected as cringe-worthy (and believe me, his pun standards were extremely low).  For the sanity of my tiny band of readers, I refuse to publish them.  But ... buried in the midst of that collection was the photo at right (click to embiggen).  When I got to the line about politicians, I laughed until I hurt...

Soviet space photos...

Soviet space photos...  These are hard to find, but now hundreds of them have been collected in one place.  The one at right was taken on October 20, 1975 by the Venera 9 spacecraft, shortly after landing on the surface of Venus.  This was in the days before CCD camera photosensors, so the picture was made with a mechanical scanner moving the image over a single photocell...

Rice paddies...

Rice paddies...  Really!  This is a photo of terraced rice paddies in Yunnan, China.  As usual, click to embiggen...

Street art...

Street art...  A delightful collection, passed along by my sister Holly.  One of these (the one dependent on shadows, from Lithuania) reminded me strongly of several similar works I've seen in Estonia.  The two countries are quite close together, and this makes me wonder if there's something cultural going on there.  I saw quite a few pieces of sculpture in public places of Estonia that depended on some sort of optical illusion – usually either shadow effects, or requiring you to stand in a particular spot to see it...

A red iguana and iPhone kind of afternoon...

A red iguana and iPhone kind of afternoon...  Debbie and I drove down to Salt Lake City yesterday, to enjoy another fine meal at the Red Iguana.  Once again, I forgot to take photos.  Apparently I lose my mind in the presence of such great food!

We got the mole sampler plate again, to help us choose what we wanted.  We both settled on the same thing: Lomo de puerco en mole de almendras.  What's that?  Here's the description, from their menu:

Almonds, chile guajillo, chile guero, yellow zucchini, milk, peanut butter and onions, served with a roasted pork loin stuffed with dried fruit, sun-dried tomatoes, Swiss chard and pine nuts.

It was brains-fall-out-on-the-table good.  I also had their flan for dessert (superb!), and Debbie had their hot rice pudding.  We have about 5 pounds of leftovers we'll force ourselves to eat later today :)
On the way down to the restaurant, we stopped in at the Apple store in Farmington.  We wanted to take a look at the iPhone 6 – our current contract runs out next month, and we're wondering if we want to upgrade.  The two sizes available had us wondering which one we would prefer.  We both liked the iPhone 6+ – the screen is very easy to read (mainly because of the increased size), the keyboard is easier to use (for the same reason), and the camera is optically stabilized (Debbie wants that for videos of dog runs; I want that for long exposures).  The thing is so big that it won't fit in a normal pocket, though.  I'm likely to opt for a belt clip.  I'm not sure what Debbie will do...