Surely The Case Moulds Should Be Done By Now ?

[DigitalWings]

Just wondering, is a "Made in USA" stamp really a selling point(or at least a bonus) for people in europe? which I understand is a lot of you guys...

I can't speak for Europe, but it doesn't mean much where I am. Maybe as a novelty. You expect something made in the USA to be rock solid, in a mechanical sense. Like, cutlery made from high-grade space-age three-inch-thick titanium alloy.

But then I think of that Simpsons episode when something fails, like a security gate or something, and the sticker on the side says Made in USA. It's a bit of an insight into something of their own that they take the piss out of.

Electronics though? Every big name console, handheld, PMP and iThing is made in China. Along with all the crap, yes. But I'd hate to see Australian exports like Heath Ledger and AC/DC judged on the fact that Vegemite tastes like shit.

LIES! ALL LIES!
Vegemite is awesome just has to be on toast with cheese.

+1 for Vegemite tastes good

 

[adolobe]

Just wondering, is a "Made in USA" stamp really a selling point(or at least a bonus) for people in europe? which I understand is a lot of you guys...

I can't speak for Europe, but it doesn't mean much where I am. Maybe as a novelty. You expect something made in the USA to be rock solid, in a mechanical sense. Like, cutlery made from high-grade space-age three-inch-thick titanium alloy.

But then I think of that Simpsons episode when something fails, like a security gate or something, and the sticker on the side says Made in USA. It's a bit of an insight into something of their own that they take the piss out of.

Electronics though? Every big name console, handheld, PMP and iThing is made in China. Along with all the crap, yes. But I'd hate to see Australian exports like Heath Ledger and AC/DC judged on the fact that Vegemite tastes like shit.

LIES! ALL LIES!
Vegemite is awesome just has to be on toast with cheese.

+1 for Vegemite tastes good

HAHA I only tried it once and it almost killed me.. granted there wasnt no cheese involve so I'll just take your word for it

 

[gruso]

Yes, cheese and Vegemite is awesome. Grilled is OMG.

 

[amf66]

Yes, cheese and Vegemite is awesome. Grilled is OMG.

Just wiki'd Vegemite. Sounds... strange.

 

[gaterooze]

Yes, cheese and Vegemite is awesome. Grilled is OMG.

Baker's Delight sell "Cheeseymite Scrolls", basically a swirl of bread, vege and melted cheese (get 'em hot!). You'd love 'em.

 

[neko]

Wow hasn't this been blown out of proportion? I would like to make sure on certain things though, just to help clear misconceptions / misunderstandings:

The processors, and other chips and screens etc are made in China too? Or is it just the bare PCB and cases / keypad rubber mat? I was getting the impression the chips, screens etc where made in the USA (not in the Texas factory that assembles the Pandora) and then sent to the Texas factory that will populate the PCB boards and assemble the Pandora. Not that it matters to me, but just to help clear confused people that MUST know what parts of their Pandora is made where

EDIT: I hope people realise their iPods and iPhones and whatever else are made in China, and these devices are considered by some to be at the pinnacle of engineering quality. Shouldn't have anything to worry about!

The processors, and I think the wifi and battery meter, are made by TI in Texas. The memory is from Micron, also in the US. The display is from TPO in Taiwan. The cases are being done in China. Apparently the PCBs are being done in China too. I don't recall a post from the developers stating where the batteries were coming from. I also never quite understood what happened with the nubs after the designer went bankrupt, or where those were being made.

What about the resistors, capacitors, LEDs, USB connectors, SD sockets, screws, ribbon cable, volume wheel, and power switch? Do we need to know where those came from?

 

[slygamer]

I wouldn't be surprised if craigix, MWeston, Ed,and the rest associated with the actual design and development of Pandora give it all away after this first batch with the general reaction they have had from most of the community that was supposed to be supporting this project. They have been treated with disrespect, accused of lying, defrauding customers, and many other low acts from people who feel secure throwing insults and accusations from behind the relative anonymity of the internet. They are doing the best job they can with the materials and services available to them in a time where the world's financial markets went into a downward spiral, and the realities of manufacturing a cutting edge device has dealt severe blows, but they kept on going to bring this device to market. I can easily understand the frustration that I see creeping into recent posts by craigix and MWeston from the constant bombardment of negativity they receive from these forums. Every bit of good news that comes through is almost instantly diminished by a torrent of backlash by people who should know better. So ease up, show them some respect for giving up a substantial part of their lives and taking on a huge burden to get this device to us in the shortest time possible without sacrificing the high quality bar they have set for themselves.

 

[j.pickens]

Is the hissy fit done now?

 

[adolobe]

I wouldn't be surprised if craigix, MWeston, Ed,and the rest associated with the actual design and development of Pandora give it all away after this first batch with the general reaction they have had from most of the community that was supposed to be supporting this project. They have been treated with disrespect, accused of lying, defrauding customers, and many other low acts from people who feel secure throwing insults and accusations from behind the relative anonymity of the internet. They are doing the best job they can with the materials and services available to them in a time where the world's financial markets went into a downward spiral, and the realities of manufacturing a cutting edge device has dealt severe blows, but they kept on going to bring this device to market. I can easily understand the frustration that I see creeping into recent posts by craigix and MWeston from the constant bombardment of negativity they receive from these forums. Every bit of good news that comes through is almost instantly diminished by a torrent of backlash by people who should know better. So ease up, show them some respect for giving up a substantial part of their lives and taking on a huge burden to get this device to us in the shortest time possible without sacrificing the high quality bar they have set for themselves.

Agreed I really feel bad for he deb team, they must have emotions of steel to take all the insults people make sometimes. I can also see were the community gets a bit antsy at times, I mean if you fig they presold almost all the 4k units then they are playing with about 1.3 million dollars of the community's money. So I can see both sides.

Im just glad the dev team is still going strong and I look forward to my High quality china made usa assembled mutinational pandora =P

 

[God Ginrai]

I wouldn't be surprised if craigix, MWeston, Ed,and the rest associated with the actual design and development of Pandora give it all away after this first batch with the general reaction they have had from most of the community that was supposed to be supporting this project. They have been treated with disrespect, accused of lying, defrauding customers, and many other low acts from people who feel secure throwing insults and accusations from behind the relative anonymity of the internet. They are doing the best job they can with the materials and services available to them in a time where the world's financial markets went into a downward spiral, and the realities of manufacturing a cutting edge device has dealt severe blows, but they kept on going to bring this device to market. I can easily understand the frustration that I see creeping into recent posts by craigix and MWeston from the constant bombardment of negativity they receive from these forums. Every bit of good news that comes through is almost instantly diminished by a torrent of backlash by people who should know better. So ease up, show them some respect for giving up a substantial part of their lives and taking on a huge burden to get this device to us in the shortest time possible without sacrificing the high quality bar they have set for themselves.

+1

-God Ginrai

 

[fiori_musicali]

I wouldn't be surprised if craigix, MWeston, Ed,and the rest associated with the actual design and development of Pandora give it all away after this first batch with the general reaction they have had from most of the community that was supposed to be supporting this project. They have been treated with disrespect, accused of lying, defrauding customers, and many other low acts from people who feel secure throwing insults and accusations from behind the relative anonymity of the internet.

Well, first of all, the number of people responsible for the vast majority of the shitslinging is rather small. It just gets the most attention because the point of it is all that which you list, and adding provocation to the mixture increases the chances of getting that attention. Sometimes this can be considered trolling, but not always (despite what some literally/semantically confused people would claim).

Second, it would be unprofessional to "rage quit" from production because of a noisy marginal group that expresses their dissatisfaction. If you take on a project such as this, the publicity and criticism come with it whether you "invited" them over or not. When you produce something for someone and exchange it for money, you just have to deal with that kind of thing. I think they're well aware of the problems they've had and can distinguish beneficial criticism from mere bashing.

Third, what's up with this whole credibility discussion? I think people got confused with the one guy (a troll candidate) insisting on the PDF's from CE testing etc. (who got EvilDragon worked up a bit), and the "Made in USA" issue. I don't think the latter has been a huge issue for anyone, people were just seeking clarification, and that's fine.

I think it's just an example of how easy it is to poison the atmosphere.

 

[WizardStan]

Well, first of all, the number of people responsible for the vast majority of the shitslinging is rather small. It just gets the most attention because the point of it is all that which you list, and adding provocation to the mixture increases the chances of getting that attention. Sometimes this can be considered trolling, but not always (despite what some literally/semantically confused people would claim).

Agreed. I, for one, consider the team to be quite interested in remaining professional (outside of the occasional hot headed outburst, but they're only human) and giving up because a very small subset of a subset of people want to start something would be the exact opposite of professional. Plus, they've invested so much money as it is, it'd be stupid to just abandon ship now.

 

[slygamer]

Second, it would be unprofessional to "rage quit" from production because of a noisy marginal group that expresses their dissatisfaction. If you take on a project such as this, the publicity and criticism come with it whether you "invited" them over or not. When you produce something for someone and exchange it for money, you just have to deal with that kind of thing. I think they're well aware of the problems they've had and can distinguish beneficial criticism from mere bashing.

Well, throwing it all away would be an extreme reaction, and was intended to show a possible, if remote, eventuality from the amount of grief the dev team have been receiving from an admittedly small number of the close to 4000 pre-orderers. Taking on a project such as this and making it so open to the community does come with the good and bad reactions from the community you are being so open to, but I believe the dev team have put up with far more than their fair share. I am glad that they are still going forward and bringing this eagerly awaited device to market. I'd like to see the vocal minority of the community ease up just a bit.

 

[Game_over]

I'm not trying to attack anyone there is allot of weight as to what some of you are saying, however the tonality and consistency of what's being said over several threads from the same people are borderline trolling.

- Someone (Monk) was insulted (by a Craigix) for believing that the mold design was unfinished.
- Later he makes a post repeating what craigix had told him: that the mold design is finished.
- He is slammed again (By non-developers) for believing that the mold design was finished.
- He is also slammed for claiming (correctly) that Craigix claimed that the mold design was finished.
(The issue is severely muddled by people confusing case design and mold design.)

It's still not clear to me whether the mold design itself is done. I'm not even sure if the development team knows, since it's sort of internal to the Chinese factory. (And it doesn't really matter, since we have a estimated date for the construction of the molds.) It seems perfectly reasonable to try to get clarification on these sorts of things. After all, people have been asking these sorts of questions throughout the whole project and they've more-or-less been welcomed by the development team who are trying to be as "open" as possible.

... So I'd like to know who you're accusing of trolling.

... Failing that ... I'd like to make sure it's not me.


-Andy

I'm not accusing anyone person of trolling, If it was you I would have said it , and you are correct, we all have the right to know exactly what's going on. As we are more in the lines of "investors" running the risk that we could all lose our money (something I seriously doubt will happen, but with so many international moving parts the risk is always there) I know the entire exchange between Craigix and Monk, that's just one thing (even though the tone of that exchange polluted about 5 threads not having anything to do with gay lovers. the argument that came AFTER that is purely semantical from BOTH sides, I understood what BOTH where saying and guess what... BOTH arguments where correct. At this stage Craigix is like a messenger all he can do is receive information and pass it on to us...an International forum. You can't really blame him for misinforming everyone when some understood and some didn't. I'm a developer and I at least knew what he was getting at just by looking at all the information. I'm not giving him a pass on sarcastically saying Monk has a gay lover especially since Monk is "an investor" as well. But most of us are Adults here (looking at the age thread) we shouldn't be holding on to a grudge.

EDIT: In a nutshell: when you get someone from the UK, Canada, Turkey, and Germany, discussing a handheld and invited people from Australia, France and America to work on Press, OS software, and emulators, and later in the process wait on China and a some longhorns to design, tweak, and construct the various parts of the hardware...theres going to be mis-communication somewhere down the line. So changing the tone would be a good thing...trust me.

 

[punkysfamily]

may be we should add a little note at the top of the box you post your reply in that says "if you don't have anything nice to say don't say anything at all Please!!"




.............and this has been another episode of Pandopera............roll credits

 

[Sitwon]

A few comments, probably late, but whatever.

1. After being flamed by at least three people I was vindicated by MW. Nice. Good to know I still have reading comprehension skills.

2. You guys are basing your 'Made in the USA' quotes on posts from CraigX from January.
2a. Many of you quoting CraigX have also joked about him being the least reliable source of information in other threads.
2b. January was a lot more than two months ago...

3. I agree with MW. It doesn't matter where (geographically) the parts are manufactured/assembled/whatever as long as the quality is up to par.

I've heard people repeat a lot of bullshit about China. Back when I was working for a particular specialty grocery store we had a lot of customers say things like "nothing from China is organic" (and yet the couldn't even define what organic was). It got so bad that our company completely dropped all orders of food products form China because of lack of consumer confidence. But the irony is, the "organic" food that is grown in the US often no better. I've numerous scams perpetrated by American farmers, I'd say you have only a one in four chance that American produce labeled "organic" really was grown organically. The regulation in the US is only superficially better than the regulation in China.

A lot of the anti-China sentiment is based on propaganda from various industries (such as agriculture and manufacturing) where it's really driven by fear of foreign competition, not fear of lower quality or standard.

P.S.: I really think we need to get rid of the stupid corn subsidies and reduce farm subsidies in general. The price of corn will rise on it's own as gasoline becomes prohibitively expensive, and HFCS is being over-used in the prepared foods market as it is.

 

[Game_over]

Well being an American myself, I agree with your points, "Organic" has actually been a relatively recent venture of popularity in America, greatly populated by mainly the bay area, and some southeastern states. Ironically enough I can think of several accounts where people who got into it where the main population of American tourist in China. The thing that got people thinking about what's "Made in China" vs "Made in USA" is a series of stories involving china allegedly making children toys out of harmful material. Ever since 911 we act on the ever pressing yet illogical fear that everyone is out to get us. Keep in mind it's the people not the company execs and dealer who puts money before anything, that thinks this, of course not everyone, but thats practically where it started in this decade.

 

[Monk]

Crikey. As usual, the Pandora project's biggest benefit (the community) is also its biggest liability. Why can't we have any adult conversation that isn't one-sided? ANY differing opinions or conflicting data HAS to result in a mini typhoon? With the official blog having statements like:

2. You guys are basing your 'Made in the USA' quotes on posts from CraigX from January.
2b. January was a lot more than two months ago...

Well, January through June (20th) which is a little more recent than just January. The same day, in fact, that ED blogged that the first 105 boards had been ordered.

3. I agree with MW. It doesn't matter where (geographically) the parts are manufactured/assembled/whatever as long as the quality is up to par.

Absolutely. The Pandora's the thing. I don't even care THAT much about the colour (for example), though Matte Black does sound good.

Back when I was working for a particular specialty grocery store we had a lot of customers say things like "nothing from China is organic" (and yet the couldn't even define what organic was). It got so bad that our company completely dropped all orders of food products form China because of lack of consumer confidence. But the irony is, the "organic" food that is grown in the US often no better. I've numerous scams perpetrated by American farmers, I'd say you have only a one in four chance that American produce labeled "organic" really was grown organically. The regulation in the US is only superficially better than the regulation in China.

I was reading something about the regulations concerning "Green" labelling in the UK a few months back, and I was dismayed to learn that, according to BBC News (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7958420.stm for example) all a vendor had to do was say that they had IMPROVED their production process to make it greenER to qualify for the labelling. It didn't have to be actually good (in terms of reduced carbon footprint, for example), just better than it used to be. That creates the potential for a stunning gap between what the consumer is promised (by the label) and what they get.

 

[Pleng]

I wouldn't be surprised if craigix, MWeston, Ed,and the rest associated with the actual design and development of Pandora give it all away after this first batch with the general reaction they have had from most of the community that was supposed to be supporting this project. They have been treated with disrespect, accused of lying, defrauding customers, and many other low acts from people who feel secure throwing insults and accusations from behind the relative anonymity of the internet.

To be fair, whilst I do agree that this is a pretty silly point to get irked about, Craig (and mWeston, to an extent) have done their fair share of insult-throwing. It's hard to be part of a 'community supporting this project' when genuine suggestions and criticisms are mocked by the team who, and let's be fair, have proven to be no experts in what they are trying to achieve. Criagx has proven to have utter contempt and disrespect for the very 'community supporting this project' (ie those who have partially funded the venture), and entire unrelated groups of society by calling making playground comments about somebody's 'gay lover' when somebody got a minor detail wrong. An apology was never forthcoming, Craig simply stopped posting in that thread - leaving us to believe that he stands by his comment.

If you, as the head of a project, are going to act like that in public, then you can expect the people you've insulted or offended (and those offended won't be limited to those who the insult was originally aimed at) to pick you up on every small error you make in the future. It's called making your bed and lying in it.

At the end of the day I'm not one of the people who pre-ordered to support a community project. I pre-ordered because I wanted to play some great games on a system that was designed for the purpose, which also had potential to do most the things a laptop could. The fact that I was supporting a small community based project was a nice little bonus at the end of the day. After Craig's recent behaviour over the past 6 months, however, I have come to view OpenPandora in much the same way as I view Micro$oft: A necessary evil whom I have to pass money on in order to run the software I want on the hardware I want to run it on.

For me, and looking at the flamefest which is the forums at gp32x it would seem for a few others, it seems that the 'honeymoon period' is well and truly over. It's a shame it wasn't able to last until the device was actually delivered.

Still, all being said, I can't wait to get the device in my hands and actually start using it!

 

[juniorm33]

Put the last 8 months down to extreme stress, hopefully once released all will be right with the world again. And no I'm not excusing some of his remarks.