Wii

I finally got to play one of these, and I have a couple things to say:
– the control is a lot finer than I’d been led to expect from coverage
– Wii Sports is great fun to play
– I haven’t been that giddy playing a game in ages
– Playing games I felt more responsible for the results than ever
– Going back to my PS2 felt boring, like I wasn’t really doing anything

I loved it, and for the first time I really felt like I understood the schism people’ve been talking about: playing on the Wii is casual, easy to pick up, it’s fun and funny, in a way that I’ve never seen before. I don’t know if the novelty will wear off, or if developers will exploit it, but I’m unemployed and ever since I picked up the controller and swung a bat in Wii baseball, I’ve been even more obsessed with finding one. It’s so much fun.

Why eBay sucks for buyers, too

I’ve read some posts recently on why it sucks to sell on eBay (short version: high-ticket items are scam magnets, etc etc). But let’s say you’re a buyer, like me, and you’re interested purchasing a Nintendo Wii.

Here are the top listings in the Nintendo Wii system category as I write this:
1-4 are Wiis in various states/bundles/misleading “5 games included” when all it has is the free Wii Sports disk
5 is a Wii accessory
6 is a gambling/lotto scam
7-10 are more Wiis
10 is a PS3 with spammy keywords

Scanning the first couple pages of listings, about 30% are clearly prohibited. There are many listings for ways to get the Wii for “free” and “information”on where to find them and whatever else. In a high-traffic category where you should only see listings involving the system itself, where you’d think eBay would be pretty active in policing, since they’re spending a lot of money driving visitors off Google (etc) there, it’s tooth-grindingly annoying to actually shop for one.

What makes matters worse is that, while it’d be nice if they’d police their listings better, they make the process for reporting a bad listing confusing and difficult. Say you want to report that guy at #6 who is running many, many different scam lottery listings. First you hunt the report link, which is all the way at the bottom after page after page of scammy disclaimers and pleas in horrible colored HTML text on why their particular lottery isn’t really a lottery or… whatever.


On the “Report this listing” page, you’ve got two choices that seem obvious: one is “prohibited (banned items)” and the other is “listing policy violations”.

Logically, you might go

Listing violation -> “Misleading title” or “keyword spamming” even, but what you might really want is “other…” and then there’s an option for “Miscategorized items” (or, at that point, since they’re selling tickets or whatever, “Listing more than fifteen identical items”)

Whichever way you wind your way through their difficult complaint form, you reach this page, which I think should win some kind of award for deceptive dead-ending.

Things that are wrong with this page, a non-definitive list
1. The 1-2-3 metaphor breaks on the first page, when you start at 2
2. The “Review Help and Email Us” makes no sense as a navigation pointer or an instruction
3. The yellow-highlighted page is confusing. Is it a post-complaint suggested reading? Am I being diverted?
4. The “Contact Customer Support” link shows no indication that this is what you need to select to proceed with your complaint.
5. Moreover, it looks just like other generic “email us” links and is separated from the rest of the page by a horizontal divider, which says “unrelated” to the user. There’s no “Email us your complaint about item xxxxx” though the page is passed that information.

The result is that if you stumble on the report link, manage to find a complaint category/subcategory/subsubsubcategory that’s vaguely related, you wind up dumped here, without an obvious way to proceed down the path.

As a result, in trying to shop for an item, you pretty quickly see that eBay’s listings don’t reflect that they’re able to enforce their listing policies. Attempting to complain about a particular listing is made difficult to navigate, so eBay either intentionally wants to reduce email volume by frustrating you or they don’t care enough to make the system work.

Then what? Once you’ve complained, you wait. And nothing happens. I’ve been idly shopping eBay on and off for a couple years, and I have never seen them take any kind of action against serial offenders I’ve complained about. De-listing a specific auction is about as bad as it gets. The guy I was complaining about at item #6 in the list I pulled up has a decent feedback rating (somehow, you can speculate whether he got that legitimately or not) despite doing this kind of crap all the time.

It’s clear that the company places raw transaction volume at the top of its priority list – customer service and maintaining any kind of community are things they do only as they must, because doing them well costs money and reduces transactions they can take their cut of.

And yet I have to wonder how this is sustainable. I wouldn’t use eBay to sell a laptop, because I’ve heard too many horror stories, and I’m extremely reluctant to buy anything worth more than $50 on a site where they take their public-facing policies so lightly and treat complainers so poorly. If they’re not willing to listen to and respond to someone pointing out scammers running about, why would I reasonably expect that they would attempt to resolve disputes fairly?

It’s also a market opportunity: eBay’s explosive growth early was fueled in large part by a strong community they’ve exploited and destroyed. It seems like user reputation done better, with more vigorous site (or user-based) listing policing, would attract hordes of people eager to shop and sell there. Even with eBay’s massive initial advantage in having the most sellers for buyers and the most buyers for sellers, if someone offered me a market with far fewer buyers but a much better chance at an honest one, much cleaner listings to shop from, and fewer sellers but more reliable ones, I’d certainly go there, and I can’t be alone.

On recruiting and publishing

I’ve been collecting rejections as I’ve tried to sell some fiction in this fiercely competitive market. It requires you to be able to not take it personally, which I couldn’t manage often ten years ago. It’s hard for the publishers, I understand, because they get more submissions than they can shake a stick at: I have this vision of the mail carrier coming in with a huge duffel bag of mail and dumping it down on the editor’s desk, which snaps. So they use form letters, and the form letters rub people the wrong way too often. And on the other side, the writers invest so much in their stories that it’s hard not to take rejection personally.

I thought about this today when I saw a job listing on Craigslist. Once, there was a startup I really, really wanted to go work for and thought I would be a rock star for. We flirted for a while, I went in to interview, I didn’t get it (reason given: I didn’t have enough GUI experience and they were all-GUI then). But I got the feeling that it was really close, and they said “hey, keep in touch”. So I did, and when I left Expedia, they called to see if I was interested in contracting for them, which I thought might be a way for the pro-Derek faction to get me in and prove I rocked… they seemed really happy that I might be available. But the timing was bad, because I had to finish the book and go to Europe, so they said “look, call us when you’re ready to go back to work.

I did. Even when I was at Expedia, I thought “if there was somewhere I would quit to go work at, this would be it.” And they’ve been cool through this whole on/off thing, so I dropped them a line and said “hey, the book’s done, I’m considering getting back to having a day job, what’s up?”

They said “Sorry, no program manager jobs, but stay in touch.”

I was cool with that – the timing’s always been weird. Since then, I’ve had an RSS feed from Craigslist for ‘program manager’ to see if there’s anything cool out there, since I figure if there are other startups out there not recruiting through word of mouth, that’s where they’d post.

Today, as you no doubt expect at this point, was a listing for the job I wanted.

And I thought “faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahk.”

I don’t know if I would have gone for it if they’d called me instead of posting: I’m juggling book projects, all kinds of good stuff’s afoot, and if I’m going anywhere, my first choice is going to be rejoining my friends at Expedia, because they’re a great bunch. I don’t know what the scoop is, if there’s recruiter A and recruiter B, or teams, or whatever.

It’s the first time I think I’ve wished for a rejection, because I held out hope for so long, and now I wonder why. I feel somewhat silly, like I’ve found out my girlfriend dumped me by reading her blog and seeing the “Status: Single” on her profile.

NATURE AND APPLICABILITY OF INCOMPLETENESS IN MARKETING AND DOMESTIC CONTEXTS

Hi! It’s Derek, on June 24th. If you’ve searched for this, there’s a very good chance you are at Clarion with me. Come on, seriously now, does that look like a story I’ve been sitting on? I guess I should be happy if you thought that.

Anyway, heya.

The good deed undone

Soooo yesterday, I’m at the last of this series of scifi-writing workshops, and we were talking about whether we’d be returning for the next one. And there’s a 17-yr old girl there who is just an awesome writer, and she might not go because they’re evening classes and she can’t get there if she doesn’t get a ride.

And I’m local, have a car, I’m a fan, and I didn’t say anything.

Because, obviously, I’m a 30+ guy. Even married, I can’t make that offer. I can’t even say “I’d love to offer, but you see how bad this looks.” Or “I’d love to apologize, but…” which is in its way even worse.

I didn’t even really have the chance to be selfish, or consider if it was possible, or even think it through at all. All I could do is let the statement hang out there, and do nothing.

I felt bad then, and I feel worse today. It was a chance for me – or really, any of us – to do her a good turn, and I didn’t.

It’s always sad when we have our instincts for charity drummed out of us, often by people preying on them. But people did favors like this for me once, and now I can’t pass that on, and so today instead of feeling good about at least offering, I’m frustrated and a little depressed.

Flash entropy story

barely over 500 words
—

Tom wake up more dumb than other day bang head on dresser.
“Ow,” Tom say. “I know not to do that.”
Then Tom not know where to go to work. Or how to get there.
“I get less smart last night,” Tom say. “Much way less smart.” Tom try to scratch head. Tom put hand in eye.
“Owwwww,” Tom say. “This day start bad.” Tom think. “I think too hard. My head hurt. Time for walk.”
Sun shine. Sky blue. Each day sun shine sky blue. Tom smile. Nice town. Young girl point at Tom, laugh at Tom.
“Why you laugh at me?”
“No pants!” girl say.
“Stop!” Tom say. Tom go back to house. Tom take dish rag, tuck dish rag in front of shorts. Tom go back out.
“Ha!” Tom say. Girl not laugh.
Tom walk to school. “Work!” Tom cry. Tom keep not think find lab down then down. Room hot. Many box whirr on many rack. Much wire. Man with giant head.
“I know you,” giant brain man say.
“I know you,” Tom say.
“I look for you.”
“What you do!” Tom yell.
“Box work last night.”
“Box that think?”
Brain smile. “Real large comp crunch crunch crunch.”
Tom frown. “Box that talk to void?”
Brain smile. “Yes!”
“No! That not work!”
“Work,” brain said. “You wrong.”
“Box work, yes, but box work is bad! All things break! I think, I break, I break. Chaos up, up up. No free idea!” Tom jump up and down. Dish rag fall off.
“Oooooooooooh,” brain say. “What?”
“Smart box make us dumb.”
“All work out. Black holes. Stuff like that. I write, you read?”
“I read! I say you write wrong.”
Brain shrug.
“It not work like that,” Tom say. “Can be near then go out! Here more than there!”
“That you,” brain say. “You wrong.” Brain stick out tongue. “Nyah!”
“Look!” Tom shout. Tom wave arms. “More here now! More more!” Tom look. Tom point. “Walk in rack hurt nose.” Tom point. “What three plus four?”
“Errr,” young guy say.
“See?” Tom ask.
“So?”
“Here! I fly plane vwoosh vwoosh vwoosh me go see mom now crash plane!”
“Oh.”
“No no here!” Tom yell. “What in this glass thing? Me take home, ask wife to smell! Cough cough die. Die die die.”
“Oooooh. Bad,” brain say.
Tom look for big grey box.
“Box write down, or box…” Tom grind teeth. “Box keep in head?”
Brain grin. “In head. Think much faster.”
Tom open big grey box pull switch. Room go dark, quiet. In the faint red glow of the emergency exit lights, Tom read the labels on the breakers and swapped the lights back on.
“Well, that should be better,” Professor Van Landingham said. looked around to see the assembled crowd staring back at him. “Let me be the first to propose that as dangerous this phenomenon was, there’s going to be some outstanding papers in it and there’s no reason we can’t all have our names attached to them if we cooperate.” No one responded. He looked down. “Oh. Before we continue, can anyone loan me a spare pair of pants?”

Look at you, h-h-hacker

I’ve had System Shock 2 kicking around, just the disc in jewel case, for ages. Probably since it was released in 1999, when it played it after release. This last month I’ve been playing through it again, and it’s still mostly a great game that falls apart towards the end (games in general, though, have terrible problems with endings). And a lot of the game mechanics started to reaaaally annoy me (cybermodules as carrots, the excesseive weapon degredation and ammo scarcity, among others). Also, there’s no way a real ship is laid out like that.

But there were a couple of things that still amazed me:

SHODAN scares the shit out of me. Seven years later, hearing the voice in the demo freaked me out. Every time she’d contact me it would grate on my nerves and raise the hair on my neck. That’s an amazing feat.

I remembered a ridiculous amount of the game. Where stuff was, what goals could be skipped, that while I was in location X I should pick up some foo, because otherwise I’d be heading back. It was like having a subliminal walkthrough, but it didn’t give away so much that it was ever boring. It was strange, having chunks of knowledge fall out of the long-term memory archive like that.

System Shock 2 is so great at creating an atmosphere of isolation and horror that when you start to cheer for people you only know through audio logs, and when I hit the rec deck and – for the first time since the start of the game – saw another living person, I flipped a little. “I gotta help that guy,” I said, and started to rush. Even though I played it before and knew there wasn’t going to be any human contact in my future.

Anyway. It was really hard to get it running (especially with dual CPUs, ugh) and often it was a pain in the ass to run, but SS2 (and certainly the first two-thirds or so) are one of the greatest arguments for games-as-art and that there needs to be a better way to preserve old games. If I put the CD away, what are the chances it runs in another seven years?

(actually, it’s probably not so bad – I’ll be running some crazed super-Linux variant and there’ll be some awesome WINE configurator I can use as a wrapper…)

29! 29!

I went to Amazon today at 11 to see if I could snag an Xbox 360 for $100.

I saw the “get this deal” button. I clicked it. I got the verification page, which asked me “what is 15 plus 14?”

I put “29” clicked the “I agree…” to the T&C, and submitted.

REJECTED! That answer was invalid. I got the second one, and…

When I got the “no longer available” message, under a minute had passed.

Now, I don’t know if that messed up rejection notice cost me my chance, but… ARRGGHHH. I blame our public school system.

“Buy this product and all women will be yours”

Really?

As satisfying to the Genghis Khan deep selfish gene part of my brain that might be, do you have any idea what a hassle that would be? It sounds like it wouldn’t even be much of a choice. I buy the product and bam, I’m in charge of at least 1.5b women. And it wouldn’t

Of course “be yours” might not mean they’re mine. It might mean they’re loyal to me, or, given the context, that they’re receptive to amorous advances, which from a practical standpoint would be more manageable – I wouldn’t have to come up with any kind of political system, or hierarchy. There’s no additional context in the message, though.

But what if I don’t buy it? If they’re marketing a product that gives the purchaser ownership of all women, my marriage is in trouble. I have to buy it, for my wife’s sake. What to do? Stupid spam, with your strange moral quandries!