Dealing With an "Undelivered" Amazon Order

Even if you see that your order has been shipped, something might happen (like its being damaged in the warehouse). You then will get an email that says: "Unfortunately, a problem occurred with your shipment and we no longer expect it to be delivered. We’re sorry for the inconvenience. If you have not received your refund within 5 days, please contact us." You need not wait for the refund. If you are willing to have the charge credited back to your gift account, call Amazon (1-206-922-8800) and, when the rep says nothing can be done to speed up the refund, ask for a supervisor and you will have the credit back in a couple of hours at most.

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"The Talk" With Aging Parents

Many families avoid having difficult, but crucial conversations about housing and care. One of the hardest and most important conversations we will have as adult children is “the talk” with parents about aging. Sitting down to discuss giving up the car, moving out of the family home, planning for medical care, and how an estate is going to be handled is uncomfortable at best. Many adult children and older parents simply put it off. That’s a huge mistake. We end up scrambling, often in response to an emergency, to figure out what to do at a time when no one is thinking clearly. This WSJ piece has an excellent overview of what and how to address this difficult topic. 

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Golf's Next Prodigy?

In case you missed the 3M Open like I did, you missed, as the WSJ notes, what might be what saves the PGA. Yeah, we've heard that before, but we've been blessed with Ohtani and other GOATs coming along in other sports, so it might be unlikely that Jackson Koivun fills the bill, but hope springs eternal. He already has broken many of Tiger's records.

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Best Time of Day to Weigh Yourself

You’ll get the most accurate reading from your scale if you weigh yourself first thing in the morning. Do it after using the restroom and before eating breakfast or drinking any water. According to experts, the morning is the best time because you’ve given your body a chance to properly digest what you ate and drank the previous day, leaving your stomach relatively empty.

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Explanatory Note re Zelle Transfer Payments

Payments by Zelle are supposed to be essentially instantaneous. But they can show up as "pending" in your account several days after they have been sent and received. If you ask your bank what the deal is with the "pending," you might get conflicting answers, and even a "we'll look into this" and get back to you. The point is, once you confirm with the recipient that they got the money, don't worry about it.

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Another Blog (Bot-Driven) Milestone

As the number of blog posts near 15,000, the bots have driven up their fascination with this blog, hitting it now over 15,000-30,000 times per day and close to 500,000 times per month, and bringing the total hits to over 2.5M. That could be partly due to my reducing the hit-charge from $2 to $1, but I toying with the idea of raising it to $3 to see what happens.

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How MLB Measures Pitch Speed Has Changed Making the Recorded Speed Faster

Late 1970s–2000s: Handheld guns like JUGS or early Stalker systems clocked the ball closer to or as it crossed home plate.

2008–2016 (PITCHf/x): Used camera systems to measure velocity at a defined point roughly 50 to 55 feet away from the plate.

2017–Present (Statcast): Uses TrackMan radar to record the maximum velocity near the exact release point out of the hand.

Impact on Speed Data: 

         The Air Resistance Gap: A pitch slows down by several miles per hour over the 60 feet 6 inches journey due to drag. 

           Higher Numbers: Measuring at the hand rather than the plate naturally bumps recorded numbers up by roughly 0.5 to 1 mph, creating an optical illusion of a sudden velocity jump across baseball.

Makes you think ...

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Setting Google Maps and Apple Maps to Default to Showing the Fastest Route

As this FastCompany article explains, Google Maps and Apple Maps often default to the most fuel efficient route and not the fastest route. While the environmental benefit is to be applauded, if you under a time constraint to get to where your going as quickly as possible, you want to know the fastest route. The article walks you through the settings to do so.

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Reducing OLED Screen Glare

If  your OLED TV doesn't have an anti-screen glare coating, this BGR article has things to try to eliminate screen glare. For starters, place the TV so that any windows are behind it rather than facing the screen. If your room design makes that impossible, then light-blocking curtains or a thick blind offer another way to eliminate those pesky reflections. Additionally, if you have a bright lamp facing the TV, switch it off, or add a darker shade or one that diffuses the light. You could also simply find a new spot for the light. If you live in a larger place with more rooms, you can both pick the best room for reducing glare and then also apply the in-room tips we just covered.

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Laundry Tips

This Wirecutter piece sets out 10 ways to have your washing machine, particularly if it's a relatively newer one, do a better (cleaning-wise) and more efficient (money-wise and water-use-wise) job at getting clothes cleaner, removing stains, and finishing faster. It explains why "cold" should be the default water temperature and "normal" should not be the default cycle selection.

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