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		<title>PayPal continues to be horrid. &lt;https://y.st./en/weblog/2017/01-January/29.xhtml&gt;</title>
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		<header>
			<h1>PayPal continues to be horrid.</h1>
			<p>Day 00694: Sunday, 2017 January 29</p>
		</header>
<img src="/img/CC_BY-SA_4.0/y.st./weblog/2017/01/29.jpg" alt="Exposed roots, likely from the nearby tree, intermingled with moss" class="weblog-header-image" width="800" height="480" />
<section id="to-do">
	<h2>To-do list</h2>
	<ul>
		<li>
			Buy <a href="https://marcwithac.bandcamp.com/album/linda-lovelace-for-president">Linda Lovelace For President</a> on striking, blue vinyl and/or <a href="https://marcwithac.bandcamp.com/album/losing-salt">Losing Salt</a> on salt-and-pepper-splatter vinyl before 2017-01-31 (<strong>*URGENT!*</strong>)
		</li>
		<li>
			Acquire stuff for my new home:
			<ul>
				<li>
					A bed
				</li>
				<li>
					A bicycle
				</li>
				<li>
					A bicycle helmet
				</li>
				<li>
					<del>Some folding chairs</del>
				</li>
				<li>
					A trash bin
				</li>
				<li>
					A recycling bin
				</li>
			</ul>
		</li>
		<li>
			Finish stabilizing <a href="https://git.volatile.ch./y.st./include.d/releases">include.d</a> and put out another release (low priority)
		</li>
	</ul>
</section>
<section id="general">
	<h2>General news</h2>
	<p>
		PayPal has me steaming mad.
		Again, they&apos;re claiming that I need to telephone them to get this mess cleared up.
		Obviously, that&apos;s not going to happen, nor is there any reason that it should <strong>*need*</strong> to happen.
		I can&apos;t wait for the day that Bandcamp offers another payment option for non-digital goods.
		That said, I much prefer digital goods, and if it weren&apos;t for artists releasing these oddities that require purchasing a physical item to get certain music unavailable elsewhere, I&apos;d be mostly free of PayPal already.
		University of the People still only takes digital payment through PayPal though.
		Again though, that means that I <strong>*really*</strong> need PayPal to get their act together and fix this so I can pay for my courses.
	</p>
	<p>
		We now have a new fun name for one of the mundane objects at work.
		The item is some sort of two-pronged, metal fork that&apos;s been shoved into a slit in a wooden rod and held mostly in place with a metal band.
		Our purpose for even having the thing in the building is to give us something to reach into the oven to clear out jammed pizzas.
		However, long poles such as that one are also of use for hitting buttons that are out of reach, to the tool sees more use as a volume-button-hitter for the radio.
		One of the shift leaders has now dubbed it the &quot;Volume Claw&quot;.
	</p>
	<p>
		I purchased a gift card on my way home from work today.
		It cost me six extra dollars for the card itself, and it&apos;s not reloadable, but my hope was that it would allow me to make the purchase without PayPal throwing a tizzy.
		No such luck.
		At first, PayPal wouldn&apos;t accept the card at all.
		Reading the instructions more carefully, it turned out that I had to activate it online before I could use it for payments over the Internet.
		Basically, I needed to provide my billing address as some merchants verify the address before allowing transactions, so if dealing with one of those merchants, the card won&apos;t work unless there&apos;s an address to verify against.
		However, after I added my billing address, PayPal claimed that the card issuer was declining the transaction.
	</p>
	<lockquote>
		<p>
			We couldn&apos;t complete your purchase, because the card issuer declined the card.
		</p>
	</lockquote>
	<p>
		What the heck?
		Why won&apos;t they allow me to use the money that I spent with them!?
		Now I&apos;m out my money, PayPal has my credit card on lock down, and I still don&apos;t have the bonus albums that come with the vinyl records.
		I&apos;m getting highly agitated at this point.
	</p>
	<p>
		My mother came to my home to dump their trash and recycling, as I actually have trash service now and they still don&apos;t.
		They also gave me a toilet brush and a cutting board set.
		Neither of these were on my short list of items that I need to acquire, but both will be pretty useful.
		I ended up giving them my bucket that I was going to store socks and underwear in, but I&apos;ll find something else at some point.
		Once we got back to my mother&apos;s place, they gave me a couple mugs, a silverware tray, several bowls, and especially a folding chair, all from the room of stuff that they&apos;re getting rid of.
		I&apos;ll probably leave most of this at my mother&apos;s place for now, but I&apos;ll probably bring the folding chair when I bring my laundry home to wash it on Tuesday or Wednesday.
	</p>
	<p>
		My <a href="/a/canary.txt">canary</a> still sings the tune of freedom and transparency.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="dreams">
	<h2>Dream journal</h2>
	<p>
		I started writing down my dream from last night, but then I woke up again.
		It had only been a false awakening the first time.
		I don&apos;t recall what the main dream had been about now.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="university">
	<h2>University life</h2>
	<p>
		I wrote a mid-sized letter to my program advisor asking for help.
		I won&apos;t go into the details, as the letter itself is pretty self-explanatory:
	</p>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			Hello <span class="redacted">[REDACTED]</span>,
		</p>
		<p>
			I&apos;ve moved twice now since enrolling at University of the People (hopefully I won&apos;t have to move again any time soon), and I&apos;ve been trying to update my home address in University of the People&apos;s records for months.
			However, when I select my country, the Web page shows a spinning circle that never stops and doesn&apos;t allow me to finish.
			I can enter some of my other information, but I can&apos;t enter my street address.
			As such, I can&apos;t update my address to be correct.
			Who would I need to contact to get my address changed?
		</p>
		<p>
			Second, PayPal is being a royal butt, which is something that they seem to do very often.
			I&apos;ve paid for my first two terms via PayPal, but I&apos;m looking for another way to pay for my courses in the current and future terms.
			The payment page says that I can pay via cashier&apos;s cheque, but it doesn&apos;t say how to do that.
			It says that that information is on the FAQs page, but I checked there.
			The information isn&apos;t on that page.
			Would you be able to provide the instructions for how to pay by cashier&apos;s cheque?
		</p>
		<p>
			Thank you,<br/>
			~ <span class="redacted">[REDACTED]</span>
		</p>
	</blockquote>
	<p>
		I also wrote up my initial discussion post for the <span title="Ethics and Social Responsibility">PHIL 1404</span> discussion board:
	</p>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			There are plenty of ethical objections that could be raised here.
			The real question is &quot;are any of them relevant to Hurwitz?&quot;.
			No one expects Hurwitz to contract bands that won&apos;t make a profit.
			Furthermore, we don&apos;t even know if Hurwitz is actually compromising <strong>*anything*</strong>.
			Peoples&apos; ideals change over time and as they gain a new understanding of the world around them.
			In the past, Hurwitz cared more about how music sounds.
			In a way, this is very much like me.
			I used to listen to whatever music I came in contact with that I judged to be the best-sounding.
			However, Hurwitz now wants to turn a profit.
			Hurwitz&apos;s ideals (values) have changed.
			Again, I can relate.
			I no longer listen to any of the music that I used to; it no longer fits with my values.
			I am now a supporter of free culture, so I only listen to music that is under a <abbr title="Creative Commons Attribution">CC BY</abbr> or <abbr title="Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike">CC BY-SA</abbr> license.
			Am I compromising anything?
			No, not really.
			I don&apos;t derive enjoyment or anything else from the music that I used to like, so it no longer holds any purpose for me.
			Hurwitz might be compromising &quot;good&quot; music for profitable music, but we can&apos;t even be sure that Hurwitz even likes &quot;good&quot; music any more.
		</p>
		<p>
			According to the reading assignment this week, one of the major views on business ethics is that the ethical thing for a business to do is to do everything that it can to turn a profit.
			While I don&apos;t subscribe to this view myself, it shows quite clearly that taking actions that will increase profits are very much tied in with ethics.
			Do I think that the station was wrong for firing Hurwitz?
			Not necessarily.
			Hurwitz&apos;s decision to play the music of unknown bands may have been of value to people, but it may not have been.
			If everyone are changing the station, no one is benefiting from the music that Hurwitz plays because they&apos;re not even hearing it.
			In this case, firing Hurwitz could be the right thing to do.
		</p>
		<p>
			Judging whether Hurwitz is successful in business requires some scale to measure against.
			Do we mean profitability?
			If so, Hurwitz is very successful in business.
			Do we mean making a difference in what people listen to?
			In that case, probably not.
			Hurwitz isn&apos;t making waves, as they&apos;re just playing what will make the most money.
			Making the most money involves several factors, but one of those is that the bands played are likely ones that people already love or will already soon love.
			Hurwitz is making money from existing trends instead of setting them.
			Does Hurwitz even want to make a difference any more?
			I&apos;d argue likely not.
			I think that Hurwitz views themself as highly successful in business.
		</p>
		<p>
			Question zero and question two are examples of personal business ethics.
			This is because they deal specifically to Hurwitz&apos;s situation.
			You can&apos;t ask a general question about what is being given up without a specific person in mind, at least not with any sort of reliability or context.
			In many cases, they wouldn&apos;t be giving up anything or would be giving up something minimal that no one would bat an eye at.
			Asking if they&apos;re successful in business also required having a specific person in mind.
			It&apos;s not about how the business should be run, but instead, about if the person is meeting their own expectations of what success is.
			Question one is more of an institutional business question though.
			Hurwitz is used as an example in this question, but it applies to anyone that doesn&apos;t fit the company and is fired for not maximizing profits.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</section>
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