The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
November 25, 2010Michael gave the GO for the mass production on the new nubs on Sunday, and 2000 have already been produced.
We are waiting for an update on when they’ll ship to Texas, but it should probably be early next week.I mentioned that we have some community member (a late first-batcher) who can go and visit the board production company.
We wanted him to visit before the short thanksgiving-holidays, however, the CEO of the company wasn’t in office for the whole week so they didn’t let him in, but we’ll try to get him there next week (for a report and pictures).Let’s hope they’ve been producing boards. They claim they have – but I only trust the community and what I can see on pictures. However, as soon as the nubs arrive, there’s no excuse for them anymore.
I’ll keep you up-to-date with any news I get.
[EvilDragon]
also in a slightly related matter:
The Great Nub Race, how’s that for a Pandora game?
[Link]
Anyone up for doing that, I would volunteer to help with the code 
First
Second
Doh!
You broke the combo!
Indeed, and you’re supposed to go C-C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER. or some such silliness.
Doh! is Easter Islandish for 3, methinks.
I just love (sarcasm warning) how the cycle keeps repeating itself.
Now it´s the nub company´s CEO´s fault.
And Thanksgiving is to blame too.
How dare these things interfere with the Pandora!
Oh, and while the OP Team are at it, they should also blame physics for Friction, which gets in the way of all perpetual motion machines, which were essential in the OP Team´s plans for producing the Pandora.
Friction is to blame too.
I have said it before and say it one more time: No Pandoras this Xmas! On for Year 3!!!
Thankfully after Christmas you won’t be able to say that again.
3rd Time lucky eh?
For another year?
But seriosuly – isn’t it the board populator CEO rather than the nub manufacturer CEO? And didn’t ED already say that the board aseembler factored in not doing any work this week? In which case… well, they wouldn’t be showing any Pandoras, would they?
My bad, It was the evil Board Co. in Texas then.
The other evil CEO from the nub company had no evil schemes set up this week.
Oh, and it does not matter if they had factored in not working this week, anybody visiting could inspect and see if the claims made so far hold true, so the visit still makes sense.
Oh I can see how proof would be good for us – I’m just amazed that having said he knows they have factored in work stoppages for this week tha tED thought sending someone in would work, without getting the details triple checked first. It sometimes feels like this project is running on blind optimism.
Indeed.
Blind it is.
Or is it?
It could also be that *gasp* the Team knows these things, but also know in what depth of shit they are in financially and try to play the “naive” part.
It is getting really hard to believe in dumbness and or blind optimism this far off any reasonable schedule…
I hear what you’re saying. Which is probably as much as I should type (everybody’s mother should have told them “if you can’t say soemthign nice, don’t say anything at all” at least once in their lifetime). Occasionally I even try to follow that advice!
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, life moves pretty fast, if you don’t stop and look around once in a while – you may miss it.
“Now it´s the nub company´s CEO´s fault.”
for what now? all that was mentioned is that no one could go and check that the board company did what they said they did, and take pics to post. Nothing in there about a delay due to the ceo
So, let’s suppose, the board company have the boards ready and the CEO is still not hiding under his desk when we call.
And for a moment they pull out all the stops and solder those nubs on quickly and ship to Blighty pronto.
Would we have all the cases and LCD cables to complete Batch 1? Please, advance warning, don’t let this slip.
Just how slow is that boat from China. I’m under the impression that 2,000 cases (last 1000 for batch 1) have been on their way for …. ages.
definitely a valid question. The slow-boat should have arrived a long time ago, since usual shipment time is roughly one month if I’m not mistaken. But hey! no word about the missing LCD’s either! so one way or another one can be prepared for some surprise (or another slap in the face) by OPT.
for now I only see that those “2-3 days to produce the nubs” expand into 2 weeks again (ok. including shipment).
Hmm, yeah, time to condole myself with another one of ED’s excellent videos.
yeah. much better than the real thing right?
Arrrghh! It’s the all the damn Pirates in international waters me Jim Lad!
You only hear of them if a hapless couple on a round the world challenge armed with only a mars bar a day, or a bunch of Gaza sympathisers with just Cynthia McKinney and that guy with the catsuit as ammo, dip toes in the treacherous waters afoot!
To be Black and White about it, a 1000 lost Panda’s is just another day in China me old mucker!
You hear from pirates whenever they want ransom money. So – has Craig mentioned anything about more money lately? Gulp… maybe he needs investors to pay… Somali Pirates!!!
Hey why spoil the fun by anticipating anything?
It is much more exciting to wait a couple of months and have more delays anounced than to actually anticipate stuff and deliver the consoles.
Imagine how much fun you would have never experienced these last years if you already had your Pandora oh, say…a year ago.
True! I don’t want my Pandora now or the excitement will finish
Careful what you say and don’t tell Craig your order number. :p
Just a little head’s up for the OPT. Any more avoidable delays and I’ll not be able to fight their corner any more as I’ll be standing in your corner. The grumpy corner.
There’s no more room in that corner!!! Keep out, off with you I say!
It would be a bit of a squeeze, true!
And to be honest I am prone to bouts of optimism, may be for the best.
Standing room only!
Shame on you – you’ve been around long enough to know how OPT work. Nothing else will get scheduled or planned for until the current crisis is fixed. Only then will they start thinking about the next step…
Lol at first I was shocked about the article title that seemed to be recycled
Perhaps if we were to send in Clint Eastwood to sort things out that might help. But OTOH sending in Harry Callahan, would be more likely to result in a large number of fatalities.
and knowing our luck the staff will take cover behind the racks of the 2000 Pandora boards.
Only Chuck Norris can roundhouse-kick this operation into immediate delivery of Pandoras for everybody!!!
Anyone want to take bets on how many dropped orders we see once the Christmas shipping date is blown?
+1
Nah, bound to be more than one. :p
Doesn’t really matter at this point. I’m guessing that would mean that some of the 2nd batch orderers would get any extras that weren’t allocated to RMAs.
Personally, at this point I’ve been waiting so long that it seems foolhardy to ask for my money now. With the 1,000 Pandoras that they should be able to build with the nubs they’ve got, I should barely miss out on them, or dare I hope get one of those.
Hope’s all that’s left. :p
Crikey! I’m negative today. It’s this almost no news news that advances the project another micrometre.
Heck this nub business has been so slow to resolve.
I was reading a fun post the other day from ED which might be encouraging. The post was about six months old and the last line was somethign like “What could POSSIBLY go wrong now?”.
Obviously the *NOW* ED was referring to was only that specific moment in Space-Time. The list of possibilities from that moment onward was never mentioned.
lol
ED has already confessed that the project is a single error away from failure and bankruptcy.
Keep going, they’ll get it done eventually. Obviously designing and producing consumer electronics is not easy as it seems. In a perfect world, wouldn’t it be great if you could order one and have it within the space of a week? If it was so, I’d have coughed up the cash by now and ordered. There must be a lot of pent up demand for the Pandora.
I hope so as it’ll be you guys that will make the Pandora community what I hope it will be, active.
I imagine that by the end of Batch 2 things will be running smoothly.
I think some of us batch 1 folk will be more active – and in a positive way – if we actually receive a decent bit of kit.
Heya Foxblock, here are couple of ideas for your ‘The Great Nub Race’ game:
1. Soundtrack “All you need is nubs”
2. The game should be really hectic and fast – as it’s a race. At the end of each level you get a little break to relax, regain some health (or maybe its a hope meter?) with a little cut scene of ‘One wideo per day…’.
3. Some event in the game, perhaps a bad item you collect accidentally, or perhaps when hit, like Sonic, you drop the nubs. Then with no nubs, you are not allowed to use the nubs to control and have to use the d-pad until you collect some more nubs.
Yeah, and the game doesn’t have an ending either…
Sure it has, if you play it for Two Months (TM)
Thanks for the ideas, I included them here: http://boards.openpandora.org/index.php?/topic/709-the-pandora-game/
Just imagine if everyone took the money they slapped down on the Pandora on day 1, and instead invested it… by the time the Pandora is delivered they’d be able to afford a thousand of them!!!
Did you notice how many banks went bankrupt the last years?
Actually, here is what you should have done.
If you had taken £270 that you spent on the Pandora, and bought shares in Imagination Technology (that make the PowerVR chip that is used in the Pandora and iPhone), then in late 2008, their share price was 37p.
Today, their share price is around the £3.35 mark, so your £273 would now be worth around £2500 …… (and the share price peaked over £4.20 a few weeks ago)
still, live and learn
Guys! This thing is rapidly turning into Lord of the Flies. Get a hold of yourselves.
Quit arguing about the delays and go check out the latest video for today. Remote administration. ED uses the Pandora to remotely control his windows 7 workstation, slick as hell. He runs photoshop, video editing, etc. It’s nuts.
Yes, you’re right – look over there, it’s a distraction!
You are right.
I think you can compare this to a president who did not well in his years of presidency – sure you can argue about his mistakes and errors, but you personally can’t do anything about it, so arguing is mostly pointless (especially when those errors have been pointed out by many people already).
The thing you CAN do is elect a different president in the next elections.
The same thing applies to OP, sure you can argue about the mistakes made, but that won’t change any of them and won’t help the production at all (it actually does the opposite).
However you CAN cancel your order and stop caring about this project, so also stop posting useless comments. It is a waste of time, just like this comment.
If, on the other hand, you still care for the project you should not bitch an moan about every little progress made.
I beg you, have a little faith, enjoy the videos and we will get there soon enough.
Now some people might come and say “but we have to point out where they made mistakes so they don’t make them again”. Sure, go ahead, but there is no point in arguing about it over and over again, with the never changing arguments and with the lack of information about the current situation, because the only people having all the information are the companies, not ever OP apparently.
Utter Nonsense.
The people who complain are actually the people who care enough to lose time typing such complaint in the hopes of raising awareness and improving the whole experience or product.
This product was touted as being community fueled. Nobody said that it would be community fueled on positive comments only.
We are not talking of the latest and greatest consumer product, which is typically available very close to it´s announcement date (in Apple´s case many times immediately after) and which (also typically) goes through it´s THIRD iteration when it enters into it´s third year.
We are talking about a product which was advertised as having input from it´s customer community. People who have given money for a product they are not getting.
This has nothing to do with any democratic process. Please refrain from making incorrect comparisons. Oh, and last time I checked, a democracy always has checks and balances from entities or individuals outside the Presidency.
So, no nothing to compare here.
All we “whining” members of the OP community need is for the Team to come through with what they promise, not to agree or disagree with the Team´s decisions. They decide, then announce, then they have to deliver on their announcement. Period.
Arguing is not pointless at all, at least I hope it is not, the OP Team could listen to the community´s outcry, and could take some corrective actions. IF they want their product to bear the community´s approval and positive word of mouth that is.
What is pointless is people reflecting on other peoples complaints instead of doing what they say other people should do. If you beileve in not complaining, don´t complain and let the others do what they see fit within a civilized frame.
POINTLESS
Doolittle revealed himself as a special agent from Apple, hired to disrupt OP project.
Hmmm “The Great Numb Race” would be good title for monoply type game based around the design, development and production of an open source project (AKA Open Pandora)… Complete of course with vaporeware rumors on the message boards (not my own view though). Could be more than just fun. Maybe give the community better idea what really goes on
Haha, yeah that is also a good idea, but I think we are going with a homage to some older games as you can read here: http://boards.openpandora.org/index.php?/topic/709-the-pandora-game/
For giving the community a better idea what really goes on we would need to have some insight information of the factories :S (which I would love)
Working title the “The Nub Race”, which is very close to yours
Yikes. I had never hoped to agree so strongly or completely with a Doolittle post. That’s scary.
Foxblock:- it is sad to hear you compare OPT members with politicians, and that you feel neither politicians (or presidents, at least) or OPT members will be affected by the degree of complaints from members of their communities is equally unsettling.
This isn’t a democracy – but if you really feel that removing the instant feedback that is available via the Intenret and replacing it with withdrawing funds is the only way to have any effect on these people – that’s just a really sad commentary on their level of community immersion, IMHO. It’s akin – if forced to follow your democracy example – to saying “if you don’t like this country – then leave! You CAN’T fix the system! Demonstrations are pointless!”. Seriously dude, think about it.
I am sorry, but you both got my comment wrong (the blame is on me, though, so here is a follow up).
You can change something in politics (democracy at least) as well as the Pandora project by making a comment (both negative and positive), but you won’t change anything by making the same comment every time something happens.
Also in the first paragraph I was referring to the constant discussion about past mistakes, which does not take us anywhere, because no other way of doing something is brought up, it is just “that is bad, you have to do it a different way” and then 20 pages of this.
In the last paragraph I am stating that you can go ahead and point out mistakes, which has been done before, but please do it in a constructive manner.
The same thing applies to politics, you cannot change mistakes made in the past, but you can politely point them out and give your opinion on how to make something better in the future. But I don’t see any point in arguing about these mistakes for days with no result, especially when you don’t know all the information you would need to make such a decision.
The product is community fueled, but the community simply cannot make all the decision OpenPandora makes, because it has not all the information OpenPandora has.
I totally agree though that the process of decision making in terms of production did not have much community interaction in the past (examples are the painting and now the assembly change).
@ Foxblock
Thanks for clarifying your post.
Let me re-type something I wrote before:
The community makes no decision other than buying or not the Pandora.
What we (the community) CAN make, is suggestions, and complaints.
The Pandora Team makes the decisions.
The Pandora Team decides if and when they want to make these decisions public.
We as a community (and as customers, lest we forget that!) CAN and WILL hold them accountable to the information the OP Team publishes.
Do not mistake our different complaints in different moments along 2 years plus as the same complaint being repeated over and over.
The only one repeating something is the Team by constantly failing to comply with whatever they decide to announce!
We just point these sore facts out.
Sometimes, some of our complaints are pretty much repeated, as we repeat the same advice given time and again when OPT make the same mistake over and again.
Too often constructive advice has been given months or years ago – such as “seek out alternative suppliers”, for example – and ignored by the team. That isn’t just complaining “don’t do it that way” with no better way, but this blog is not the place for in-depth advice, so it may not be so obvious here. But yes, constructive positive “do this” advice has been given on-forum and via PM, and not taken up until two years later (see “get someone local to visit your suppliers” or “send people out for face-to-face meetings” and “get alternative suppliers, either to switch to or at least to use as bargaining power” as just 2 obvious examples).
The posts to this blog aren’t really well geared to comprehensive advice. The forii are better, but equally ignored by the team.
Doolittle, you repeat your self again and again and again… and this is more annoying then everything OPT made/will do.
(“It will not be ready for Christmas, I said that before, I’ll say it again, blah-blah-blah”)
Everything you do/type here is POINTLESS, except that you have some special interest to disturb ppl.
I made following comment for fun, but I’m not convinced anymore that it is not true:
“Doolittle revealed himself as a special agent from Apple, hired to disrupt OP project.”