Logistics Again

I have discussed Amazon logistics with people who have some insights into how businesses actually function, with me suspecting that Amazon, and/or some other shipping company, had messed something up, and them arguing that there are things involved which I didn't grasp, things which meant that the quickest route was NOT a straight line.

 

And I've been listening, and I've learned some things. That's how it often works if you talk with smart people, and listen: you learn things. It's great. I recommend it.

I've got another case for the intelligent insiders: USPS says that a package I ordered from Amazon was in a small town in Michigan, about 50 miles away from me, two days. 

According to Google Maps, from that small town to my place is about a 4-hour trip. By bicycle. Somewhat quicker by car.

USPS says that the package is now in Irvine, Texas.

Oh btw, I ordered the item 12 days ago.

Your witness, smart guys. Explain to me how Amazon and USPS have been handling this as well as anyone has a right to reasonably expect.

Or admit the possibility that something has gone wrong.

Oh, I just thought of an explanation: Amazon expected to get the item in that small Michigan town. But they didn't. Eventually they gave up on getting it there -- or maybe they had it there for a while, and then lost it --  and they said, lessee, where else is there one of these things? Aha: Irving.

 

If that's what happened, somehow, it would be much more reassuring to me than if they actually are shipping the package Michigan-to-Texas-to-Michigan. Although I'll be receiving the package the same time either way.

 

A Product Listing on Amazon

Years ago, for some period of time, I was obsessed with a problem Amazon was having: they weren't accurately listing the languages in which many of the books they sold were written. Books written in Latin with English prefaces were listed as English; books written in Greek with Latin prefaces were listed as Latin; books written in Latin with facing-page English translations might be listed as Latin or English. The thought of accurately describing a book's language with more than one word, such as "Latin primary text with English facing-page translation, English introduction, footnotes and commentary" seemed to be right out of the question. Whatever computer program Amazon used to fill in the"Language" box in the "Product details" section, below "Publisher" and above the ISBN's and dimensions and weight -- the very idea that a book might be in more than one language, did not seem to compute. The details given for dimensions and weight for all sorts of items sold on Amazon, not just books, continue to be equally divorced from reality, to the point where the information given on the amazon is so unreliable as to be useless.

I actually tried to get a job at Amazon correcting these language descriptions of books. The attempt did not go well. Eventually I was able to just let it go and get on with my life.

Last year I got ahold of Jean-Pierre Mahe's edition of the Coptic fragments of the Perfect Discourse from the Nag Hammadi library and the Armenian Hermetic Definitions, published in the city of Quebec in 1982.

 

So, that's an ancient primary text in Coptic, with, on the facing page, a French translation and passages from the Latin Asclepius almost as lengthy as the Coptic text, showing the relationship between the Coptic and Latin texts; and an ancient primary text in Armenian with facing-page translation in French; with a lengthy introduction and commentary in French, not to mention a bibliography as impressively polyglot as you might imagine. 

How would I fill in that line: "Language," in the product description, if I were Emperor of all Amazon? I think maybe something like: "primary texts in Coptic and Armenian, with ancient Latin for comparison with the Coptic, and facing-page translations and introduction and commentary in French."

That doesn't describe every single thing in this book, but I think it comes close enough to give a potential reader a fairly accurate idea of what would be facing them, if they wanted to read this book.

Amazon describes the language of the book as "English."

Now, I couldn't get away with calling this description 100% inaccurate, because of a few items in English in the aforementioned impressively polyglot bibliography, and a few brief citations from those several English items. Still, it is about as far as an exhaustive modern critical edition -- two critical editions, actually -- can be from being English. The publisher's name, the name of the series in which this volume appears -- Bibliotheque copte de Nag Hammadi -- the copyright notice, all are in French.

Rivian, Electric Vehicle Manufacturer

There is a community of electric vehicle enthusiasts on the Internet -- we refer to electric vehicles as EV's, and we call conventional vehicles ICE, which stands for internal combustion engine -- and next to Tesla, the EV company which which is generating the most excitement in the EV community may be Rivian. Rivian was founded in 2009, and it hasn't sold any vehicles yet. The R1T,

a pickup truck, and the R1S, an SUV, are scheduled to go on sale in 2021, or at least that was the schedule. I don't know whether the coronavirus pandemic will delay the debuts of the R1T and the R1S.

Some of you may be thinking that it is taking Rivian an awfully long time to actually start selling, but the thing is, it generally takes a very long time for large automotive companies to get started. For example, Tesla was founded in 2003. The Tesla Roadster and Model S, both made in relatively limited quantities, were introduced in 2008 and 2012, respectively. The Model 3, Tesla's first truly mass-produced vehicle, was first delivered to buyers in 2017.

Speaking of Tesla, Rivian has been making headlines by hiring former Tesla employees, but, according to this story from electrek from July 2019, Rivian had by that time hired more employees from McLaren, Ford and Faraday Future, an EV startup which has been having financial problems.

Speaking of Ford, Rivian has received a large financial investment from Ford, which has announced that it plans to manufacture electric trucks of its own using Rivian's platform. That same platform will also be available to other automotive manufactures who want to make their own EV's around it.

Speaking of large investments in Rivian, Amazon has invested over half a billion dollars in the company, and committed to buy 100,000 of their vehicles by 2030.

I'll give you a moment to shake off being stunned by the news that Amazon signed a contract to buy 100,000 vehicles from one company. Yeah, Amazon is big.

All set? Okay, onward -- obviously, Rivian is also moderately big solely by virtue of that deal with Amazon, and the deal with Ford is also huge, both for the money involved and for the fact that Ford will be building electric Ford trucks based on Rivian platforms. But another big factor in the excitement in the EV community about Rivian is that some people who write or make videos about EV's full-time have seen Rivians up close at car shows and been very impressed, and a privileged few have taken test drives and been very, very impressed, and some have announced that they're going to buy their own Rivians.

Suggested retail price? Something like $65-75,000 and up, depending on the options. Wait, wait, come back! Remember I just told you about Amazon committing to buy 100,000 of these? Is Amazon known for losing money? No. You save a lot with an EV, compared to ICE, in fuel and maintenance costs. A lot. And more, the more miles you drive. Before you just walk away, saying that EV's cost too much, without actually doing all of the math including the expenses of running an EV compared to running an ICE vehicle, ask yourself again, very seriously: is Amazon known for losing money? And while you're at it, look into all of the other large companies, and governments and so forth, who are buying EV's. (Not to mention all the utility companies building huge solar and wind installations.) Oh, they're all schmucks? Yeah, sure they are. They're the schmucks.

A Non-Laughing Cassandra

Maybe there's some way to get the attention of someone who wields real power at a huge corporation and tell them that you have an idea that would actually help them. I am not familiar with this way.

For example, Amazon.

Years ago I tried to get a job with Amazon, just correcting the errors on the website about what languages books are in. Because there were enough such errors that correcting would keep at least one brilliant person, such as myself, busy full-time -- and it would be a good investment for Amazon too, right? Imagine, all those customers finally actually finding what they'd been looking for. No-one I was able to reach was interested in the slightest, or even gave any sign that they understood what I was talking about. Have they made progress on that problem in the meantime? I have no idea, I no longer scour the Amazon website looking for such errors.

And then there are fake luxury-watch reviews. Not paid-for reviews, but reviews by people who think they're funny, saying things like, "This Rolex is great, and having to sell my house in order to buy it was a small price to pay. I'm very happy living out here in the woods," etc. There are who knows how many thousands of such reviews of expensive watches on Amazon, which are basically the same joke: "This here watch is real expensive, hyuck hyuck hyuck!" and none of which are funny. Or at least there were many thousands of such reviews. It's been a while since I've looked at any reviews of watches on Amazon. I sent a couple of messages to Amazon describing the problem, and I moved on. They could fix the problem by limiting reviews of expensive watches to people who've bought those watches, or similar ones.

Where's that on-ramp between me and things I could do something about?

Is it crammed with exactly the same morons who make all those lame jokes about the watches, making me a needle of reason in a haystack of stupidity?

Band 3 Vom Prinzip Hoffnung Habe Ich Schon

Das habe ich in dem letzten Post nicht erwaehnt. (Gestern bestellte ich die 3baendige suhrkamp taschenbuch wissenschaft Ausgabe bei Amazon Marketplace und heute sah ich: "order cancelled.")

Ich habe auch Band 2 von einer 2baendigen suhrkamp taschenbuch wissenschaft-Ausgabe von Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Ich habe auch den ganzen Kritik der reinen Vernunft in einem kleinen und ganz dicken Reclam-Band aus den 80ern Jahren..

Ich denke, ich habe Band 3 des Prinzips Hoffnung und Band 2 der Kritik im selben -- wie sagt man eigentlich "used book store" auf Deutsch? -- im selben Laden gefunden. Seltsam, dass nur diese Bruchteile der ganzen Werke da angeboten wurden, findet Ihr nicht? Ich argwoehne, dieser Laden weiss eher wenig ueber seinen sehr vielen Buechern, trotzdem ist er so riesig und erfolgreich dass er mehrere deutlch besseren Laden in dieser Stadt zur Pleite geholfen hat. Stell Dir vor, Buchladen gewoehnlicherweise waeren um so erfolgreicher, je mehr sie von Buechern wuessten. (Ich uebe mich im Blochschen Utopiedenken, trotzdem ich nur Band 3 habe.)

Ich moechte, wenn ich bei Amazon kaufe, nur Amazon Prime benutzen. Aber unuebersetze Bloch hat Amazon in den US gar nicht. Da muss man sich an Amazon Marketplace wenden, und Amazon Marketplace ist wenig mehr als ein Aerger. Einige Suhrkamp-Baender kann man hier direkt durch Amazon Prime kaufen. Zum Beispiel einige Baender von Hesse, weil ja der gewoehnliche durchschnittliche Arschloch in den US Hessens Name kennt und Blochs nicht, und der riesigste Buchladen der Welt, Amazon, bekanntlicherweise von gewoehnlichen amerikanischen Arschloechern geleitet wird, und nicht von Leuten die sich im Buchbetrieb auskennen. Die haben nicht mal die meistbegehrten Sachen von Hesse, Steppenwolf und Siddhartha, bei Amazon Prime in den US, sondern Demian -- mehrere verschiedene Ausgaben von Demian sogar -- und Unterm Rad und noch exotischere Titel.

In Berlin koennte man wunderleicht und wunderschnell zackzack eine ordentliche Portion Bloch finden. Wenn ich in Berlin lebte wuerde ich schnell Dinge vermissen, welche ich hier in Michigan zackzack leicht und schnell finden, ohne das Wunderbare daran zu sehen? Wahrscheinlich. Ich lebte ein Jahr in Bonn und die kuerzeren duetschen Ladenzeiten gaben mir wirklich zu schaffen. Der menschliche Elnde ist weit und viefaeltig.

Naja. Es ist ja nicht, als gaebe es nicht allein in Band 3 des Prinzips Hofffnung reichlich viel, mit dem ich mich verwirren kann. Und wenn Bloch in einem Recht hat und Schopenhauer Unrecht, dann haben diese rumliegende Baender von Hegel einiges Nutzen. -- ich lachte, als ich Letzteres tippte. Nein, ich kann das noch nicht glauben.

Ich kann auch nicht glauben, dass, wenn ich steinrich waere, so dass ich mir auch von Michigan aus ganz leicht alle gewuenschten Buecher besorgen koennte -- oder einen Assistant bezahlen, der sowas fuer mich zackzack besorgte, und sich darueber hinaus an vielem von meinem Geld vergriff, und ich wusste davon aber es stoerte mich nicht, weil er so geschickt waere dass er es eigentlich verdiente, und vor allem weil ich so endlich vielem Geld haette dass nicht mal der geschichteste Assistant der Welt in seinem Leben mehr als ein kleines Bruchteil davon stehlen koennte -- oder steinreich und auch so beruehmt dass die Verlage mir alles schickte ohne dass ich einmal bitten muesste, geschwiege denn bezahlen -- es faellt mir sehr schwer zu glauben, dass in einem solchen Falle, als der Aerger mit Buechern geloest wird, dies nur Platz machen wuerde in meinem Bewusstsein fuer noch schmerzlichere Aergere.

Aber ich moechte es erleben und es einmal wissen, so oder so, und Euch meinen Lesern ausfuehrlich darueber berichten.

Ich moechte auch wissen warum sie suhrkamp taschenbuch wissenschaft und edition suhrkamp und suhrkamp taschenbuch und insel taschenbuch und einiges mehr alles kleinschreiben! Was zur Hoelle soll das?!

This Is Why I Tend To Avoid Amazon Marketplace

Amazon Marktplace is when you buy stuff on the Amazon website from someone other than Amazon.

Like I did on January 6th. Reluctantly. I always buy directly from Amazon if I can. In this case I almost considered contacting Amazon and asking if there were any possibility of my obtaining the item in question directly from them. But I went ahead and purchased from an Amazon Marketplace seller, from a 3rd party. I did this in part because the item listing said "ships from (a part of the US very near where I am.)"

Well, it's 11 days later, and I don't have the item. I was thinking that maybe this seller was the sort of class act that ships a 10-ounce package on a $60 order by parcel post in order to save $1.13.

Oh, if only. Today I got an email from Amazon saying:

Shipping information has been updated for your order, placed with ************ on January 6, 2016 [...] Shipping Carrier: DHL Global mail Ship Date: January 6, 2016 Shipping Speed: Standard Carrier Tracking ID: ******************************

I'm not exaggerating, they gave me a tracking number that's 30 digits long. (Of COURSE DHL has never heard of it.)

Would they use DHL Global Mail to ship a package a short distance within the US? Is it POSSIBLE to use DHL Global Mail for something like that? I'm guessing it's more likely that the package is shipping from somewhere like Kyrgyzstan, and that DHL didn't bother to give it a tracking number for 11 days because anyone familiar with how it's being shipped (and that sure aint me) knows that there's absolutely no way it's going to be anywhere near its destination within 11 days.

One thing seems pretty sure: the Amazon Marketplace seller lied to me. They said the package would be coming from nearby, and it's not. Well, two things: they didn't waste any money on express postage, because these days an express package won't take 11 days to ship from Kyrgyzstan to Amurrka's heartland.

And it's not the first time an Amazon Marketplace seller has screwed me over like this. And I want them to pay -- pay money, because I think they're the sort of company that knows the value only of money, and not of things like honesty, reliability and customer service.

And for all I know, it could be the same company doing the same thing to me for not the first time, pretending to be more than one Amazon Marketplace seller. Maybe they wait until their customer ratings on Amazon are too poor to go on anymore, and then change their name and pretend to be another company.

Amazon -- do you want to be doing business with people like this? Honestly.