Randomness XVIII: Ex-Vee-Triple-Eye

[haldir]

1 hour ago, Count Urlik said:

A Flaming Bituminous Eddie would be the best thanksgiving centerpiece ever!

 

I have a "mini" that could qualify for that.  Rocketpig Games has a giant skeleton that I used at RCon this year. It fits a huge Reaper oval base perfectly.

[Chaoswolf]

Youtube is a great place, and Youtube is an awful place. 

 

You can learn about all kinds of cool stuff ( in this case, hobby related things), but it can also give you ideas. Do you know how many ideas I've already got floating around in my head that are never going to happen? The last thing I need is MORE ideas for cool projects.

 

But, oh man, would this particular one ROCK! 

[Corsair]

8 hours ago, Chaoswolf said:

I have just discovered that CMoN is making a set of figures for use in their various games that are based on Iron Malden album artwork.

 

On one hand, I think this is really cool. On the other, I'm a bit annoyed; I'm in the middle of scratch building/sculpting my own version of The Trooper (one of the figures on offer). I've got a thread going that's buried in the WIP forum somewhere. I was doing this specifically, because there wasn't a version for me to buy anywhere. Of course, mine will still be cooler, 'cause I made it myself. 

 

I'm also hoping that they don't retail for stupid prices, because I'll probably want to buy them.

 

8 hours ago, Glitterwolf said:

Yours will always be unique!

I've seen the sets about 30 for one and 66 for all in the ks?

I would only want the Powerslave one but I fear that it will be expensive in retail later.

 

6 hours ago, Great Khan Artist said:

 

I hope they do the mummy one. I should totally buy one and paint it for my co-worker, Eddie. He's into all that classic rock, and he knows I paint minis, because he has to listen to me talk about it all the time. He'd probably think that was really cool. 

Wizkids Heroclix did an Iron Maiden set some years ago, you can still find them on fleabay.

[Citrine]

I am stuck in meeting hell after being handed 3 more programs to manage in another area.  4 meetings is a light day for me. Thursdays I have meetings from 8 till 4 with only a 30 min open spot.  I am currently at a stage where I am unable to contribute technically because of the program management workload.  

[aku-chan]

My latest Reaper order seems to have been on an adventure.

Turned up today in a bag instead of a box, and everything is rather crumpled, luckily no breakages apart from one of my Ghoulie Bag candies.

 

I also accidentally ordered two Casiattas, gotta pay more attention before I hit that Buy button. 

[Chaoswolf]

[WhiteWulfe]

Man, the old job tried to be so heavy with meetings, and then they were always wondering why none of the drivers or warehouse staff ever attended... First, it was always some two hour meeting that could have been summarized in a three minute email.  Secondly, if you're going to stand there and do a presentation, that's a presentation, not a meeting.  Meetings have back and forth, and are supposed to accomplish something. 

 

Third?  Drivers are warehouse staff aren't going to give you half an hour of their time because they're too busy doing work! 

 

The kicker for me was they started doing lunch and learn events at times that were convenient to them (so 11:00-12:00 in Montreal, which made it 9-10 here) and couldn't understand why so many replied back with "it's not a lunch and learn if you keep stating 'bring your own lunch' you silly management people".  You're asking for people to give up their break times, you entice them with free food. 

 

But yeah, if our management can literally summarize your two hour meeting into a thirty second overview and are rolling their eyes in an "I want my two hours of time back" manner you did not need two hours to get the point across. 

 

Edit: I think my favourite moment was where they spent half an hour at our Friday morning meeting showing off the Keurig Cold, and they looked surprised when the very first question asked was: uhhh, who's the target market?  You're aiming at a $400 price tag, it's huge, and has to always be on to be functional.  Oh, and it's noisy.  Is it also available in black?  Why can it only do six beverages per half hour?  How is this supposed to work in a typical family, let alone for when you have friends over? 

 

We didn't even get to try it out, because while they did get it plugged in and chilled, nobody had ever bothered to test what would happen if you unplugged it and moved it.  Spoiler alert, it goes through its whole cooldown process all over again. 

 

It baffled me the R&D team was shocked the first thing we all asked about was price, because we were all expecting maybe $200 CAD, and $0.75 CAD a pod, not $400 and $1.25 CAD a pod.  Oh, and pods were only sold in four packs.  Yeah, no, this will never see widespread market adoption (spoiler: it didn't.  They tried to repackage it for alcohol use, and that lasted a little longer than Keurig Cold did).  But yeah, we were all baffled it wasn't available in black, because at the time that was the most commonly sold colour for Keurig brewers, to no surprise since most machines were only available in that.. 

 

How it made it through soooo many meetings and actually got approved as a product for market we never knew.  Still can't believe they felt they could sway the markets into accepting it by bringing in influencers as well.  No, an Instagram swoon campaign isn't going to win anyone over when the only thing your product offers compared to a twelve pack of canned pop is "it takes up less space, and is brew on demand".  $400 is still $400, you've already lost 80% of people who would have been interested. 

 

Did I mention just how big and noisy the thing was? 

Edited October 19, 2022 by WhiteWulfe

[malefactus]

[Froggy the Great]

9 minutes ago, malefactus said:

Or you have cats or small children.

[Green Eyed Monsty]

38 minutes ago, WhiteWulfe said:

Man, the old job tried to be so heavy with meetings, and then they were always wondering why none of the drivers or warehouse staff ever attended... First, it was always some two hour meeting that could have been summarized in a three minute email.  Secondly, if you're going to stand there and do a presentation, that's a presentation, not a meeting.  Meetings have back and forth, and are supposed to accomplish something. 

 

Third?  Drivers are warehouse staff aren't going to give you half an hour of their time because they're too busy doing work! 

 

The kicker for me was they started doing lunch and learn events at times that were convenient to them (so 11:00-12:00 in Montreal, which made it 9-10 here) and couldn't understand why so many replied back with "it's not a lunch and learn if you keep stating 'bring your own lunch' you silly management people".  You're asking for people to give up their break times, you entice them with free food. 

 

But yeah, if our management can literally summarize your two hour meeting into a thirty second overview and are rolling their eyes in an "I want my two hours of time back" manner you did not need two hours to get the point across. 

 

Edit: I think my favourite moment was where they spent half an hour at our Friday morning meeting showing off the Keurig Cold, and they looked surprised when the very first question asked was: uhhh, who's the target market?  You're aiming at a $400 price tag, it's huge, and has to always be on to be functional.  Oh, and it's noisy.  Is it also available in black?  Why can it only do six beverages per half hour?  How is this supposed to work in a typical family, let alone for when you have friends over? 

 

We didn't even get to try it out, because while they did get it plugged in and chilled, nobody had ever bothered to test what would happen if you unplugged it and moved it.  Spoiler alert, it goes through its whole cooldown process all over again. 

 

It baffled me the R&D team was shocked the first thing we all asked about was price, because we were all expecting maybe $200 CAD, and $0.75 CAD a pod, not $400 and $1.25 CAD a pod.  Oh, and pods were only sold in four packs.  Yeah, no, this will never see widespread market adoption (spoiler: it didn't.  They tried to repackage it for alcohol use, and that lasted a little longer than Keurig Cold did).  But yeah, we were all baffled it wasn't available in black, because at the time that was the most commonly sold colour for Keurig brewers, to no surprise since most machines were only available in that.. 

 

How it made it through soooo many meetings and actually got approved as a product for market we never knew.  Still can't believe they felt they could sway the markets into accepting it by bringing in influencers as well.  No, an Instagram swoon campaign isn't going to win anyone over when the only thing your product offers compared to a twelve pack of canned pop is "it takes up less space, and is brew on demand".  $400 is still $400, you've already lost 80% of people who would have been interested. 

 

Did I mention just how big and noisy the thing was? 

It's called "The Brother In Law Effect".

Somebody related to somebody in High Level Management came up with the idea and the High Level Management Type pushed it through to production, then dropped it on working level management to ballyhoo and actually push the product out the door.

GEM

21 minutes ago, malefactus said:

OR, you are having an earthquake.

GEM

[Cranky Dog]

43 minutes ago, WhiteWulfe said:

Man, the old job tried to be so heavy with meetings, and then they were always wondering why none of the drivers or warehouse staff ever attended... First, it was always some two hour meeting that could have been summarized in a three minute email.  Secondly, if you're going to stand there and do a presentation, that's a presentation, not a meeting.  Meetings have back and forth, and are supposed to accomplish something. 

 

I've went from companies that had way too many meetings for the amount of people involved (hour long multidepartment meetings where the information that concerns yours takes less than 5 minutes) to the other extreme where meetings are so infrequent I have no idea what's happening anywhere.

 

43 minutes ago, WhiteWulfe said:

Edit: I think my favourite moment was where they spent half an hour at our Friday morning meeting showing off the Keurig Cold, and they looked surprised when the very first question asked was: uhhh, who's the target market?  You're aiming at a $400 price tag, it's huge, and has to always be on to be functional.  Oh, and it's noisy.  Is it also available in black?  Why can it only do six beverages per half hour?  How is this supposed to work in a typical family, let alone for when you have friends over? 

 

We didn't even get to try it out, because while they did get it plugged in and chilled, nobody had ever bothered to test what would happen if you unplugged it and moved it.  Spoiler alert, it goes through its whole cooldown process all over again. 

 

It baffled me the R&D team was shocked the first thing we all asked about was price, because we were all expecting maybe $200 CAD, and $0.75 CAD a pod, not $400 and $1.25 CAD a pod.  Oh, and pods were only sold in four packs.  Yeah, no, this will never see widespread market adoption (spoiler: it didn't.  They tried to repackage it for alcohol use, and that lasted a little longer than Keurig Cold did).  But yeah, we were all baffled it wasn't available in black, because at the time that was the most commonly sold colour for Keurig brewers, to no surprise since most machines were only available in that.. 

 

How it made it through soooo many meetings and actually got approved as a product for market we never knew.  Still can't believe they felt they could sway the markets into accepting it by bringing in influencers as well.  No, an Instagram swoon campaign isn't going to win anyone over when the only thing your product offers compared to a twelve pack of canned pop is "it takes up less space, and is brew on demand".  $400 is still $400, you've already lost 80% of people who would have been interested. 

 

Did I mention just how big and noisy the thing was? 

Aah, coffee machines. Especially office coffee machines. For such simple devices, it's amazing how many of my office buildings manage to break them so often. And our higher end espresso/cappuccino/custom coffee machine takes forever to heat up/rinse/prime/serve, etc. *and* is noisy about it. Not a high volume device. 

 

And don't get me started on those Keurig or any other coffee pod machines. 

[Pegazus]

I get a bit giggly when the second paragraph of the test report I am reading starts with how much C-4 was needed to initiate the test.
 

Things go boom! Then other things no go boom!

 

Is good test. Me happy. Me want moving picture. Want see boom. 

[kristof65]

3 minutes ago, Pegazus said:

I get a bit giggly when the second paragraph of the test report I am reading starts with how much C-4 was needed to initiate the test.
 

Things go boom! Then other things no go boom!

 

Is good test. Me happy. Me want moving picture. Want see boom. 

Could you arrange for some of those sorts of tests for some of my customer's equipment? 

[ShadowRaven]

2 hours ago, Cranky Dog said:

Aah, coffee machines. Especially office coffee machines. For such simple devices, it's amazing how many of my office buildings manage to break them so often. And our higher end espresso/cappuccino/custom coffee machine takes forever to heat up/rinse/prime/serve, etc. *and* is noisy about it. Not a high volume device. 

 

And don't get me started on those Keurig or any other coffee pod machines. 

There's a reason why Sister-In-Law's auto dealership she works at has a one cup brewer thingy, for guests. The staff has a coffee pot around the corner in the shop, for those who need their fix, and don't have time to wait

[Cygnwulf]

I maybe fall on the other side on the office Keurig debate... as long as it's actually one of the better machines that holds heat better.  current office actually has a water cooler that has a pod brewer built in.  Push the button and water flows right away, already hot, so the wait for your cup is only about 30 seconds to finished or so?  
But it's a faaar cry better than the smell of scorched pot (and once smoke detectors going off) because some dunklehead couldn't be arsed to start a new pot so they left half a cup in the pot so that they "didn't finish it off, there's still coffee left" and also left the burner on under it....

22 hours ago, WhiteWulfe said:

And I thought it was because their transportation planners actually think things out and encourage behaviour through active design that encourages such use

oh god some of the debates I've seen on local groups between avid bikers and people who don't see the point.  There is so much hate directed at bikers 'riding in the middle of the lane' forcing cars to change lanes to go around them. (oh the horror).   I even saw someone say "If you're going to insist on living in the last century at least be decent and ride on the sidewalk."