Today at lunch I wasn't charged for my samosa.  I noticed it at checkout and purposely didn't mention it to the cafeteria lady.  Errors at checkout just happen—sometimes they overcharge me and sometimes they undercharge me, and I don't mention it either way because I figure that it will roughly balance itself out over time.  I believe this to be a moral course of action.  But I already wrote what I think was a pretty good post on these sorts of moral trivialities so I don't feel a need to write another one.

What I wondered about on the way to my office is why it matters.  Why does it matter to do the right thing on such an incredibly trivial issue?  It's extremely difficult to argue that if it were immoral for me to have not mentioned the existence of that samosa on my plate (thereby effectively stealing it), to have mentioned it would have made the world a better place.  At face value, it would have transferred two dollars from my account to that of a corporation.  The effect on my life: miniscule; the effect on the lives of that corporation's shareholders: negligible.  So why does it matter?

Always doing the right thing is important to me, because I strive to be the best person that I can be.  But it's also important to me that things matter and that there's a reason for things, because I'm an engineer, and because I'm an INTJ.

The epiphany I had on the trek back to my office really intrigued me: maybe always doing the right thing on the little issues matters because it primes and prepares and trains you to do the right thing on the big things that do matter.  Perhaps integrity and honor and love and all of those sorts of nebulous wholesome nouns are important things to strive for even when it comes to the most unimportant, everyday issues, because they are how we practice making decisions so that we can make the right ones when the time comes.

What I do know, though, is that God still loves me, because I bit into that samosa and there was meat inside.  Not just any meat, but beef.  There was ground-up dead cow inside of my Indian food.  It was delicious and culturally insensitive and the best samosa I've ever had.  God works in mysterious ways.

Labels: belief

I'd wondered off and on for a while why some credit card reward programs give you extra points or percent cashback for transactions at gas stations and restaurants.  And even though my card doesn't, I think the reason finally hit me while I was filling up my tank tonight: because those are the businesses that don't want to accept credit cards.

To oversimplify things a little bit, credit card companies charge fees to the businesses based on a percentage of the transaction cost.  The agreements that the businesses sign with Visa and the other credit companies prohibit them from passing those costs onto you on top of the purchase price, with very few exceptions.  They can offer a discount for paying with cash, but they can't charge you 2% more for paying with a card.  Anyway, generally gas stations and restaurants would make more money if everyone just paid in cash.  They accept credit cards because credit cards are convenient and people demand that they accept them.  Those few gas stations and restaurants that don't accept them lose business because of it—given a choice between two gas stations only one of which accepted credit cards, I'd always pick the one that accepted plastic unless there was like a 1-in-10 chance of being murdered at that one.  I hate dealing with cash.  Pretty much the only thing I use it for is splitting bills when I get dinner with friends; everything else goes on the card.

So why are gas stations and restaurants special?  I sure don't know, but it probably has something to do with margins.  2% on the total purchase price means a lot to a business with a 10% profit margin compared to one with a 40% profit margin.

So rather than reduce fees for gas stations and restaurants, the credit card companies chose to drive even greater demand for those businesses to accept credit cards by offering their customers extra rewards for shopping there (and insisting that the business continue to accept cards).  The customers presumably end up paying exactly the same amount for their gas as they would if things were less complicated—the gas stations just raise prices by a couple cents to cover the couple cents in credit card fees that they pay.  You pay the gas station a couple extra cents, the gas station begrudgingly gives it to the credit card company, and then the credit card company gives you back your couple of cents except now you're happy about it because it's a cashback bonus.

I have no idea if any of that is how it actually works.  But it seemed plausible at least.  Bear with me here, I'm new to weaving economic conspiracy theories.

Labels: money

I'm definitely a person who believes that creating art and beauty has value to the world—creating these things makes the world a better place for those who live here.  But I had a thought this morning that intrigued me: if we assume that creating art has value, do we also assume that the world must also be improved in some way simply by consuming art and appreciating beauty, even if you never create anything?  More so than other activities that make one happier?  I certainly feel that society is improved when people appreciate artwork, but I'm not sure that I can really articulate why.

Anyway, this is all a pretty good justification to spend 162 hours playing Skyrim.  It's making the world a better place.

Labels: belief, games

I've been back in Nebraska for two days now, and in that time I've seen about 200 commercials asking for money for African orphans and animal shelters.  But I'd like to see this commercial.

Thousands of middle-aged men and women in America suffer from ancient, lame-ass computers every day.  They have loud, ear-shattering fans, and they may have single-core Pentium processors that can barely even browse Facebook.  But it doesn't have to be that way.  For your gift of just a dollar a day, your parents could get a new computer that's still crappy, but not as crappy as their decade-old one.  At least it would be running Windows 7.  With your donation we'll send you monthly updates on which chain emails they've forwarded, how out-of-date their Flash plugin is, and even how many new browser toolbars and pieces of spyware they've installed.  You can make a real difference in your loved ones' lives, for far less than the cost of a daily cup of coffee.  Please call now.

Labels: random

indomitable will—(n.) euphemism: terminal illness or handicap.  ex: "We're waiting to hear from the doctor.  I sure hope Grandma doesn't have an indomitable will!"  see also: inspiring spirit.

Seriously, though, have you ever seen someone use a compliment like "indomitable will" and have it mean anything other than "man it must suck to not have working legs?"

Labels: random

The short version:
Various Artists—Breaking Dawn Part 1: 5/10
Mutemath—Odd Soul: 5/10
Coldplay—Mylo Xyloto: 7/10

I haven't been listening to a lot of new stuff recently, but the Breaking Dawn Part 1 soundtrack album came out and Bruno Mars' It Will Rain is good enough that it was worth a preorder.  Beyond that, there's a lot of whiny nonsense on this CD... more than one track makes me want to dive for the Skip button.  Barring some unlikely situation in which I turn into a moody teenage girl I do not anticipate there being any future time in which I'll be in the mood to actually listen to this whole thing from start to finish again.  Anyway, that said, beyond the amazing and fantastic It Will Rain, Theophilus London's Neighbors and Northern Lights by Cider Sky are both pretty good.  But I'd generally recommend you just get an MP3 of It Will Rain and call it good, and save yourself the travesty of accidentally hearing Turning Page because you couldn't click Next Track in time.

I rather like Mutemath.  I don't rather like their newest CD, Odd Soul.  It seems as if they set out with the goal of making a rock album that sounds as warm and exaggerated and huge and unfocused as they could.  In their past albums I was impressed with the clockwork precision of their drummer and the crazy things he was capable of.  And he's still there.  But he's in the background, drowned out by amped GUITAAAAAARRRWWRRRRRRRRRR and wailing.  Just about every aspect of this album seems to be a big step backward from their previous body of work and it's unnerving.  The band is still recognizable, certainly, but I'm wary of what I'll be hearing a year from now.  Quarantine, Odd Soul, and Prytania are the best tracks, but none of them are nearly as good as some of the best stuff from their earlier CDs.  Not much really stands out.

Finally, I picked up Coldplay's latest, Mylo Xyloto.  It's not as good as Viva la Vida, but their last CD was pretty excellent and I suppose it would be pretty difficult for any new album to not be a little disappointing after that one.  Paradise, my favorite song, is simple and catchy but sort of embarrassingly cheesy.  The chorus is little more than the two-note word "paradise" repeated over and over and some very Coldplay "oohhhh-ohh-ohhhs" thrown in.  But it sounds great, and I'll still take that over something with a little more creative integrity that's painful to listen to.  Hurts like Heaven is rather good too, and not quite as embarrassing.  Third favorite is probably Princess of China, featuring Rihanna.  The style is nearly identical to Viva la Vida, with a little more electronic influence thrown in, though it's used pretty subtly.

Labels: music

Amazon is really bad at informing you whether or not you're going to have to pay for digital downloads, but they're really good at apologizing for how terrible they are at it.  I've had a $10 credit toward Amazon's game download store listed on the site for a year, and now their digital downloads work through Steam which is totally awesome, and Dungeon Defenders was on sale and it looked mildly interesting, so I decided to buy that with my $10 credit.  The checkout page listed "gift certificate / Visa" as the payment option (Curse.com pays me in Amazon credit so I constantly have gift cards applied to my account), so I figured yeah, totally, that $10 credit toward game downloads must be working.  Nope.  The full price was charged to my credit card.  I had already put my activation code into Steam and installed the game at that point too, so no hope of a refund.

So I contacted their customer service.  The woman apologized and said that that $10 credit was only good for Xbox Live subscriptions.  WTF.  Oh, duh, I totally should have been able to tell that from the "Your Balances" screen, which from what I can tell is the only place where you can see your store credit for downloadable products, and is only accessible from the pages for MP3 albums.

So yes, obviously that is just for Xbox Live subscriptions.  My mistake.  But she was nice and refunded my credit card.  And I get to keep the game.  And I'm not sure exactly what she did because there's no place that lists your various promotions, but apparently she converted that $10 credit for an Xbox Live subscription into a $10 credit for any digital download, because all of the other numbers other than software / video games and gift card just increased by 10.  WHAT IS GOING ON?

Is this what it feels like to be the annoying customer who gets free stuff just so the customer service rep doesn't have to deal with you anymore?  Because it's half frustrating and half awesome.

Labels: technology