I to have had issues with UPS the last 10 days. ( Fla also) But FedEx has been brilliant , go figure. Maybe the pending UPS strike has something to do with the crazy disorganization of deliveries. I get my fresh roasted coffee every two weeks and for years its been a perfect delivery to my home in 2 days. Well last Friday, my coffee ended up on another street, same house number, WTF. Thankfully the home owner knew our names and addresses. I think its some kind of Screw this by the UPS drivers in their attempt to get more money and they care little for the customers.
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I get about 5 or 6 deliveries a year from UPS/FedEx delivered to the wrong address, it’s usually a different driver, in a rush.
Most of mine goto XX10 instead of XX16, occasionally they go to my next door neighbor, recently my coffee has been delivered a couple of times across the street. Th frustrating part is when it happens once it usually happens more than once and there is no way to let them know what’s happening or get it fixed.
The drivers are probably just trying to get through the deliveries, I’m sure they sort them before they get out of the truck, which probably leads to off by one errors, or the failure to separate similar addresses.
Most of the time the person who receives my package delivers it to me. I do the same when I occasionally get other peoples packages delivered.
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It’s a run of issues when it happens here, so probably down to a new driver. We’ll see how the Amazon guy does today; midday deliveries have been with this new guy so I’m not holding my breath.
Part of the issue comes with some of these companies that think offering FREE shipping over a certain order value, and then not providing any way to CHOOSE a different shipping method at that point. That actually stops me ordering entirely as often as not. Or I wind up having to order through a third-party instead of direct.
Another recent trend has been “Your package will arrive tomorrow!”. Yeah, you JUST shipped it, from CA or WA, ground, so that’s only happening if you’re using some new version of the word “tomorrow” that I’m unaware of.
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Yeah, it seem they estimate delivery exactly once, and just communicate as if it’s true.
On the other side of shipping, I shipped my DAC back to Poland for an upgrade, ignoring the cost to ship a 100lb box internationally, it was stunningly easy DHL (a company I don’t have a lot of positive experiences with) picked it up and it arrived at Lampizators door in less than 48 hours.
Of course now I’ve cursed myself for the return shipping.
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Yeah, the ’ tomorrow ’ statement gets me.
My weirdest experience was when the delivery company mislabeled every package on the truck or in the warehouse. It seems someone may have grabbed a bar code sticker out of sequence…so the entire lot had daisy-chained errors. The company had a “foolproof” error checking system where they had to scan the street address number with a smartphone to close each delivery, but the bad barcodes required bad scans.
I ended up with a package addressed to someone with a Chinese name, while the guy who received my package lived a block away. He accidentally opened it before reading the label, and then found me from the return address and called. We met on the street for the handover.
Isn’t automation great? One mistake becomes 1,000,000 when pumped through an efficiency system. It’s a veritable Clockwork Orange.
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Just wait to its nothing but IA doing it, all will be better then 
I as reading this in the WSJ
" Automation developers are building a new generation of humanoid machines meant to help fill labor gaps in logistics operations. Humanoid robots are on their way to warehouses as companies start to move beyond the disembodied arms, moving trays and other machines aimed at speeding up logistics operations.Jun 12, 2023"
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Will humanoid robots wear virtual IEMs at work?
Hum, and they could be playing, Daft Punk – “Robot Rock”
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That’ll be interesting.
I know automation (of a different) sort, has improved the chances of me getting what I actually order on the exceedingly rare occasions I have to eat fast food.
…
On a semi-related note …
While I’ve been retired for a couple of years now, I do occasionally do some consulting (very short duration engagements, in specific fields, and only if we’re talking telephone numbers in terms of compensation).
I recently was asked to provide a bid for a job that the requester was going to outsource offshore. They’d gotten fixed-price bids, for what the various bidder’s estimated was a 4-6 week job for two to three of their senior people.
They were fine with the prices, but wanted it done faster.
So, I found out what their bid-range was, asked them how much value there was in a faster delivery (on a sliding scale … so one week was disproportionately highly compensated vs. four weeks etc.).
The actual work took me about 20 minutes using a GPT4 based tool (it was something that was well suited to GAI), another 15-20 minutes to clean up the results, and 20 minutes or so to package it appropriately. I turned it around in a day, getting the maximum “accelerated delivery bonus”.
On one hand they were very happy the work was done so early. On the other, they were not so happy at what they’d paid one person for less than a day’s work.
Me?
It’s time to tool up and go watch-shopping …
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Number one rule of consulting is charge what it’s worth to the customer, not what it costs you.
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I thought the # 1 rule was : Don’t expect the customer to be rational. If the customer didn’t have problems, they wouldn’t have needed to hire you. 
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TFW (I can’t believe I am using that acronym) … ~$400 of dongle DAC/amp is absolutely holding its own against a >$20K desktop stack … nevermind current flagship DAPs …
SO want a DAP to do this … with modern/current firmware … but there are literally NO options there. Not withstanding the down-level Android versions and 100% lack of OS updates … for devices that cost 4-5x what flagship (undateable phones) run …
Which $400 dongle DAC/amp are you talking about? 
I heard the Cayin RU7 recently that was very compelling despite my general source agnosticism.
And agreed with you on the state of the DAP market. It’s the biggest thing holding me back from getting one. By the time you buy them they’re already out of date basically. Not to mention the ones I’ve tried almost always lacks a level of polish. Either its slow or glitchy or some combination of both.
Flagship phone of choice + $400 dongle, then print a 3D case for it all.
(And it would still be smaller than some of the flagship DAPs)
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Luxury & Precision W4.
I haven’t tried the Cayin RU7 … which is about the only dongle DAC/amp I’ve not tried at this point. The RU6 was so bad that I couldn’t be bothered.
I’ve tried most of the Bluetooth ones as well.
The prior W2 (and W2-131) showed pretty much all of them a clean pair of heels, but it was very touchy for me when driven from an iPhone (draws too much power, then gets shutdown as a result).
The W4 is better than the W2-131, and short of deliberately trying to cause the “Accessory is drawing too much power” message (which then disconnects the device). It’s been great. And even then it took running harder-to-drive full-size cans (LCD-5, ZMF Atrium), on high-gain, at volumes louder than I would ever listen, to do it.
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lol yea but then said dongle drains the life out of your battery 
Oh interesting. I’ve definitely heard of the L&P W4 but haven’t ever had the chance to try. I’ll make sure to give them a shot when I can. On the note of the RU7 - one of the reasons I was taken aback by it was because I had previously tried the RU6 and thought nothing of it (as in, did not change my source agnostic stance). I had fully expected the RU7 to be the same and was pleasantly surprised.
Asus Rog gaming phone with dual USB ports, so you can charge and dongle at the same time. Then add a 25000mAh battery pack and adjust the 3D printed case to match.
You too can look like this…
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I recently picked up an M2 MacBook Air (13", 24GB, 2TB) for when I need a non-Safari based browser (so can’t rely on my iPhone or iPad) and am traveling, but don’t want the bulk/weight of either my 16" or 14" MacBook Pros …
… andI was surprised to discover that the Apple Music app on macOS has a built-in graphic EQ capability - with the ability to create presets.
Never thought to look on my MacBook Pros, as they have so much memory (96GB) that running Sound Source + EQuilibrium was something I did without thinking.
Hi @Torq , how do you access the peq in Apple music? I can’t seem to find it! Thanks!
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