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[mcobit]

Our own personal Babelfish
Wednesday, 27 January 2010 13:52 EvilDragon
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We've learnt something. Chinese English and English is definately not the same.
Good thing a friend of Fatih does speak Chinese. For the company, he's now our official represantative. As he could speak with them in their native language, a lot of things cleared up.

When they were talking about "soon", it didn't mean what we did understand as "soon". "Soon" did mean "as soon as we're finished.". Regardless, how long that will take. So each time they said us "We'll soon have pictures", we assumed they will follow the next few days - which didn't happen.

Another thing we found out is when they said "We're finished and will do some testing injections", they didn't mean they were finished with ALL our changes, but they finished ONE thing on the to-do-list and did a test injection to see if that was fine. That's why we got some shipping dates which never happened - and with us wondering why they didn't tell us. They sent us emails with stuff like "We fixed it all and will do the next samples on Friday". We then thought, okay, the next samples will ship on Friday. However, as we now do know, it meant they finished another step on those days and made an internal testing injection to find out if everything is okay. It wouldn't have made sense to ship us those half-finished cases (it would just have cost a lot of money). And that's the reason why they didn't tell us that they didn't ship... they never planned to ship it

It's really interesting what can happen if business partners do speak completely different languages as native language.

So much for the background "What happened". Now onto the more interesting stuff: What WILL happen?

One thing we did understand correctly was that their goal is to have the mass-produced cased finished and shipped until the chinese new year!
We now do know that they did finish the last tweaks on the case mould, the silkscreen and the keyboard mould (which still had one mis-aligned letter). And with finished, I do mean REALLY finished. Not just another step, but all steps. This does mean they'll ship the final samples within the next days. They are VERY positive they are perfect, so as soon as they shipped out everything, they prepare the mass production. So as soon as we get the samples and approve it, mass production will start. As they can produce 1000 cases a day and we need 4000 for the first batch, this can happen within four days. That should work out just before the chinese new year!

I know it does sound a lot like stuff you already heard before - but this time, we were talking with them in their native language, so I assume it will be much more accurate than anything before!

 

[r00tw00t]

Let us all pray they'll make it before New Year. Because: "Chinese New Year is the longest and most important festivity in the Lunar Calendar" --Wikipedia

And let's hope they don't mean next New Year.

ps. try google translate next time

 

[amortvigil]

you see, i was right, my post got deleted for nothing

 

[Bosbeetle]

Ah if I was a chinese my phd was already finished nice to know (in reality I have to do quite some steps though)

 

[fiori_musicali]

That should work out just before the chinese new year!

In other words: Not going to happen.

Given that they've had to tweak and rework the moulds so many times and MWeston has shown the red light for every sample so far, what exactly warrants their confidence in being able to finish it with even less input from MWeston?

 

[Bosbeetle]

That should work out just before the chinese new year!

In other words: Not going to happen.

Given that they've had to tweak and rework the moulds so many times and MWeston has shown the red light for every sample so far, what exactly warrants their confidence in being able to finish it with even less input from MWeston?

 

[Jumpman]

Well I'm really hoping that the "COMMUNICATION BREAKDOWN" has truly been fixed, and that we will see some pictures from the factory, and the tracking info before the weekend! I'm sure the factory, is as tired as the rest of us. So if all this info is 100% accurate, I see no reason why all 4000 consumer cases can't be finished and shipped before the Chinese New Year on February 14th!

Now, this all rest on Michael giving the official "Green Light"! So it doesn't really matter what is said, and prepared before the holiday. It only matters if this can all be done within the next few weeks. I really think it can, and I'm really hoping it does happen. Everyone here who has preordered, deserves a quality, and finished product as soon as humanly possible! I do believe the team and the factory, hold this to be true, and will deliver as such!

Here's hoping for good news within the next few weeks. I really hope Openpandora is ready and prepared for the cases to arrive. I would really hate for the finished cases to arrive in Texas, and then there is more delay on the teams end! Thanks again to everyone involved in this project, we "ALL" deserve a huge pat on the back, and a swift kick in the ass! Pandora official release date "FEB 2010"?


Chris

 

[EvilDragon]

Given that they've had to tweak and rework the moulds so many times and MWeston has shown the red light for every sample so far, what exactly warrants their confidence in being able to finish it with even less input from MWeston?

Errmm... exactly two times? The first one had mechanical problems (LCD cable slot size too small, L/R-Buttons). After they fixed that, they sent a second sample.
That one was fine from the mechanical sidepoint, so all that needed to be done from then on is making it rocksolid and good looking. And that's what's been happening since then, we haven't gotten anymore samples

Shrinking is not only a visual problem. It can cause stability issues, due to the pressure on the case. It could lead to cracks, which is something we don't want.
However, to fix that they don't need to send us samples. They just do samples for themselves and continue to tweak the mould until the sample is perfect.

The only reason we got the second sample was so we could approve everything does fit in the case

 

[droneb]

good thing they finally got a mandarind translator so bypassing the english2mandarin translator.

sad that they didnt get one before.

that would have saved us some deadlines flaming

 

[kikeminchas]

so, basically, we can forget the yesterday's info about 'Cases arriving Thur/Fri at the earliest' ... It's more like 'Cases will be shipped as soon as they are ready' now...

 

[EvilDragon]

good thing they finally got a mandarind translator so bypassing the english2mandarin translator.

sad that they didnt get one before.

that would have saved us some deadlines flaming

Yes. Thank god this didn't cause any more delays - even if we understood them correctly, they wouldn't have worked any faster.
But it would have saved us a lot of nerves.

 

[fiori_musicali]

Given that they've had to tweak and rework the moulds so many times and MWeston has shown the red light for every sample so far, what exactly warrants their confidence in being able to finish it with even less input from MWeston?

Errmm... exactly two times?

That's just the final products. But thanks for the summary.

 

[Creature XL]

However, to fix that they don't need to send us samples. They just do samples for themselves and continue to tweak the mould until the sample is perfect.

I hope they have the same definition of teh word PERFECT

 

[Bosbeetle]

google translate says : having everything that is necessary; complete and without faults or weaknesses 完備的；完美的；完全的

just say that to them We want it 完備的；完美的；完全的 !

or yout could go with


the best of its kind 優秀的；最佳的

excellent; very good 極好的；很好的

exactly right for somebody/something 正合適

to make something perfect or as good as you can 使完善；使完美；使完備

btw this next one i did not understand at all

connected with the form of a verb that consists of part of the verb have with the past participle of the main verb, used to express actions completed by the present or a particular point in the past or future （動詞）完成時的，完成式的

 

[droneb]

good thing they finally got a mandarind translator so bypassing the english2mandarin translator.

sad that they didnt get one before.

that would have saved us some deadlines flaming

Yes. Thank god this didn't cause any more delays - even if we understood them correctly, they wouldn't have worked any faster.
But it would have saved us a lot of nerves.

yes i know that they wouldnt have worked any faster, just that keeping things clean and clear makes
things go more smooth and we could have suffered of less deadline rage.

its that sometimes they just dont have a good english translator its not that they dont want to do thing straight
ive once faced some phone calls and got informed they halted the packet until all complete.
but what they meant on the other side was that they didnt want to stop the packet to be complete.

 

[MWeston]

good thing they finally got a mandarind translator so bypassing the english2mandarin translator.

sad that they didnt get one before.

that would have saved us some deadlines flaming

Actually all of my case review notes were done in the form of jpeg images with highlighted areas and text. Just sending text would never work but they understand pictures which is quite universal. This added more time to my review process because anything I found had to be documented in my lists and then photographed/photoshopped but it worked and the differences between case revision 1 and revision 2 were huge. If they improved the silkscreen, backed the tooling blocks off to the correct depth, softened the sharp edges, corrected some slight shrinkage in the base lid and got the heating/cooling times perfected to improve the finish (I guess that is what it takes) these cases will be green lighted for sure. They say they did all this so let's hope for the best. It isn't worth thinking otherwise.

 

[Jourdy288]

Sorry, I couldn't resist that!
Back to the topic, I'm glad you got a translator now, hopefully things will go much more smoothly

 

[Monk]

Our own personal Babelfish
Wednesday, 27 January 2010 13:52 EvilDragon
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We've learnt something. Chinese English and English is definately not the same.
...
Another thing we found out is when they said "We're finished and will do some testing injections", they didn't mean they were finished with ALL our changes, but they finished ONE thing on the to-do-list and did a test injection to see if that was fine. That's why we got some shipping dates which never happened - and with us wondering why they didn't tell us. They sent us emails with stuff like "We fixed it all and will do the next samples on Friday". We then thought, okay, the next samples will ship on Friday. However, as we now do know, it meant they finished another step on those days and made an internal testing injection to find out if everything is okay. It wouldn't have made sense to ship us those half-finished cases (it would just have cost a lot of money). And that's the reason why they didn't tell us that they didn't ship... they never planned to ship it

It's really interesting what can happen if business partners do speak completely different languages as native language.

Hmmm... so "Chinese English" is what Craig speaks then? To be honest, the letter from the Chinese about the 15th never said they'd ship - it said they would fix the problems by then. Anyone who reads "Craigix" (an abscure northern dialect of English) should be familiar with sentences that ommit data - what the sentence doesn't say *in definate terms* it cannot be assumed to mean. That's even without the unusual definition of "soon" (which seems to be akin to "delicious photos on Monday" or "delivery before Christmas").

 

[borgqueenx]

Yes. This is like a candle in the dark, this news
thanks, but i will say there's 90% we wont make it before the chinese new year.
We'l see...

Btw: the chinese factory guys are sounding to positive evildragon. Like they changed something you didnt want them to, to make it perfect---in their eyes.

 

[Miner49er]

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