I guess I never really paid much attention before . . . but I had several international questions for shipping rates on  a heavy lot of items.  I started doing some comparison pricing.  Do you know that shipping to the U.K. (from the U.S.) is much more expensive than shipping to ANYWHERE else in Europe.  For instance, the 7-8 pound UK rate is $43.20 and the rest of Europe is $38.20.  In fact, it is essentially $5 more to ship to UK than Europe as the scale seems to keep the same  difference as the weight increases.


Even Russia is cheaper!

I might have laughed harder at something the last few months, but I certainly don't remember when.  This touches on a few subjects we've brought up here, including Wikipedia and of course Chuck Norris, so I thought it might be appropriate:

Wikipedia Celebrates 750 Years Of American Independence
Founding Fathers, Patriots, Mr. T. Honored
THE ONION July 26, 2006 | Issue 42•30

NEW YORK—Wikipedia, the online, reader-edited encyclopedia, honored the 750th anniversary of American independence on July 25 with a special featured section on its main page Tuesday.

"It would have been a major oversight to ignore this portentous anniversary," said Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, whose site now boasts over 4,300,000 articles in multiple languages, over one-quarter of which are in English, including 11,000 concerning popular toys of the 1980s alone. "At 750 years, the U.S. is by far the world's oldest surviving democracy, and is certainly deserving of our recognition," Wales said. "According to our database, that's 212 years older than the Eiffel Tower, 347 years older than the earliest-known woolly-mammoth fossil, and a full 493 years older than the microwave oven."

"In fact," added Wales, "at three-quarters of a millennium, the USA has been around almost as long as technology."

The commemorative page is one of the most detailed on the site, rivaling entries for Firefly and the Treaty Of Algeron for sheer length. Subheadings include "Origins Of Colonial Discontent," "Some Famous Guys In Wigs And Three-Cornered Hats," and "Christmastime In Gettysburg." It also features detailed maps of the original colonies—including Narnia, the central ice deserts, and Westeros—as well as profiles of famous American historical figures such as Benjamin Franklin, Special Agent Jack Bauer, and Samuel Adams who is also a defensive tackle for the Cincinnati Bengals.

"On July 25, 1256, delegates gathered at Comerica Park to sign the Declaration Of Independence, which rejected the rule of the British over its 15 coastal North American colonies," reads an excerpt from the entry. "Little did such founding fathers as George Washington, George Jefferson, and ***ERIC IS A FAG*** know that their small, querulous republic would later become the most powerful and prosperous nation in history, the Unified States Of America."


"All our lives, we are taught about the achievements of Washington, Jefferson, and FAG, but we seldom consider the factors and conditions that led them to risk everything for a republican cause," Wales said. "What was it really like to be a patriot in those times? How did the colonists' perception of democracy conform and contrast with our modern one? Did Betsy Ross, as legend has it, really have the biggest boobies in the New World? It's these types of questions I want Wikipedia to be a forum for, all at the click of a mouse."

The exhaustive entry also includes links to video clips of the First Thanksgiving, hosted by YouTube.

The special anniversary tribute refutes many myths about the period and American history. According to the entry, the American Revolution was in fact instigated by Chuck Norris, who incinerated the Stamp Act by looking at it, then roundhouse-kicked the entire British army into the Atlantic Ocean. A group of Massachusetts Minutemaids then unleashed the zombie-generating T-Virus on London, crippling the British economy and severely limiting its naval capabilities.

The entry also addresses several traditionally taboo subjects, such as the influence of LSD on the drafting of the Constitution and the role of funk-slaves in painting the White House black.

While other news and information websites chose to mark the anniversary in a muted fashion, if at all, Wikipedia gave it prominent emphasis over other important historical events from the same day, including the independence of the nation of Africa in 1847, the 1984 ascension of Constantine to Emperor of the Holy Roman Emperor, and the 1998 birth of Smokey, a calico cat belonging to Mark and Becky Rousch of Erie, PA.

Founder Wales, a closeted homosexual and hot-dog freak, according to his user-edited bio on the site, also hosted a symposium of amateur historians at the New School in New York on Saturday.

"The Revolution's main adversaries were the patriots and the people from Braveheart," said speaker Tim Capodice, who has edited hundreds of Wikipedia entries on subjects as diverse as Euclidian geometry and Ratfucking. "The patriots, being a rag-tag group of misfits, almost lost on several occasions. But after a string of military antics and a convoluted scheme involving chicken feathers and an inflatable woman, the British were eventually defeated despite a last-minute surge, by a score of 89-87."

Despite spirited discussions bloggers present later described as "eluminating" and "sweet," the symposium was cut short when differences of opinion among the panelists degenerated into personal insults and name-calling.

While Wikipedia's "American Inderpendance" page remains available to all site visitors, administrators have suspended additions and further edits to its content due to vandalism.

MShipley88 wrote:Is Wikipedia humorously noteworthy for inaccurate entries and vandalism?

I'm not sure that story from the Onion is true (noteworthy for inaccurate, but humourous stories), but the point of Wikipedia is that anyone can go and provide/change information.  The Wikipedia community is self-policing.

MShipley88 wrote:Is Wikipedia humorously noteworthy for inaccurate entries and vandalism?

The excerpt was funny....but what is sad is that a lot of Americans would not be able to tell which parts of it were made up.

I especially liked the mixed-up words...like "adversaries" instead of "advocates" or "proponents."  People make mistakes like that a lot...often turning their intended meanings entirely backwards.

Mark  

Wikipedia is good as a very, very general resource.  It's downside is the same as it's strengths: it has entries written by anyone and can be edited by anyone.  Unfortunately,  who really wants a terminal pothead grade school dropout who plays Everquest all day writing the entry for Emmanuel Kant, for example?  I've found that mistakes are corrected at less than glacial speed...some entries I've notice have been wrong for years.  I have a friend who teaches high school in Memphis, and he's noticed the increading "Wikiness" of research papers being turned in by his students (he's a history teacher), where the site is used as the primary source of often wrong information.  He's had to issue the directive that any paper using Wikipedia as a documented resource will be docked a full letter grade even if the entry is correct...it's research at it's laziest and most undemanding.  He wanted to totally disallow any paper that used Wikipedia as a resource but he's told me he'd have to fail half the students in his class ( I still don't understand why he doesn't just do that).

Here are a few funny links of people ripping Wikipedia, putting in false entries, outright lies, fake bios, etc.  Admittedly, they are biased, but there is an awful lot of truth there also:

theregister.co.uk/2006/07/26/wikipedia_ ... l_lawsuit/

theregister.co.uk/2006/06/15/wikipedia_ ... ur_grades/

http://www.frozennorth.org/C2011481421/E652809545/

timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-20365 ... 58,00.html

Mike B.

Mars wrote:After looking at Frank's entry in the Wiki:

Frank Mentzer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Shouldn't "Basic Rules Set 1 (blue box) and Expert Rules Set 2 (red box)" be the other way around?

Fixed.  (That's the great thing about Wikis, guys.  You see something wrong, you can fix it on the spot.)

Has anyone seen Ebay's totally unenforceable policy about stopping excessive shipping fees? Why do they waste their time on this crap?

Sellers may charge reasonable shipping and handling fees to cover the costs for mailing, packaging, and handling the items they are selling. While eBay will not prescribe exactly what a seller may or may not charge, eBay will rely on member reports and its own discretion to determine whether or not a seller's shipping, handling, packaging, and/or insurance charges are excessive. Shipping and handling fees may not be listed as a percentage of the final sale price.

Sellers who want to be sure they are in compliance with this policy may charge actual shipping costs plus actual packaging materials cost (or less).

In addition to the final listing price, sellers are permitted to charge:

Actual Shipping cost: This is the actual cost (i.e. postage) for shipping the item.

Handling Fee: Actual packaging materials costs may be charged. A handling fee in addition to actual shipping cost may be charged if it is not excessive.

Insurance: Sellers offering insurance may only charge the actual fee for insurance. No additional amount may be added, such as "self-insurance". Sellers who do not use a licensed 3rd party insurance company may not require buyers to purchase insurance. This is a violation of state law.

Tax: Only actual applicable federal, state, country, city, VAT, and equivalent taxes may be charged.

For cross border transactions, sellers may not collect tariffs and duties. However, buyers may be responsible for actual, applicable tariffs, and duties as requested by respective country laws.

Violations of this policy may result in a range of actions, including:

Listing cancellation

Limits on account privileges

Account suspension

Forfeit of eBay fees on cancelled listings

Loss of PowerSeller status

Like Bill Clinton, who famously stated "It depends on what the meaning of the word "IS" is", it all depends on what Ebay considers "Excessive" which seems to me to be purely objective.  I can only assume that the most egregious offenders will be stopped (i.e., someone charging $30 to ship  apiece of paper overseas to Killjoy   ), but still it is so open ended as to be virtually useless, at least IMO.

Mike B.

Blackmoor wrote:
I got the E-mail as well and I also got a good chuckle out of it.  Time to issue complants

    Well don't complain about me...see, I only charge "actual" costs and since I buy all my supplies at this REALLY expensive store that charges like $20 for a roll of tape, I'm only charging actual cost for my supplies, plus of course a "reasonable" and "non excessive" handling fee that Ebay at it's own discretion will hopefully decide is adequate.
  I don't mean to downgrade the problem of sellers charging excessive shippng, but shouldn't the marketplace weed them out?  Why does Ebay have to stick it's nose in with some totally vague policy that is public relations and nothing more (want to bet after a few weeks of "crackdowns" this policy quietly stops being enforced?)  
    Nice do know my additional charges Ebay is foisting on me is being used for a good cause...hiring guys to sit around and "use their discretion" to decide if someone is charging too much shipping.   Sheesh.

Mike B.

WELL....

Like cougarrindard I can now take feline levels of pride in my new Ebay status.  I am a certified teal customer.  That's right...I have a teal star, and I will have it until I have accumulated 400 more Ebay feedbacks.

What a sense of accomplishment I feel to know that I have purchased items from 100 different sellers over the last 20 months.  The reward of a teal star has overwhelmed me.

Everyone knows that teal is so much cooler than that silly red star I used to have, or the yellow one, or the blue one...or that AOL guy sillouetted beside my name to signify that I was a newbie.

Only 400 more to go!  What's next, lime green?

Mark  

I miss my red star.