magicbeans. nothing if not awkward.

I've spent today, in among my normal routines of work, monitoring my rss feed reader (for updates of design blogs, webcomics, and friends' photostreams), and popping into the kitchen every so often to look into the fridge even though I know its contents by heart (and pulling on the wrong side of the door, since we flipped the hinges yesterday in order to make better use of our space), amongst all this I've keeping an eye out for the release of the new Max/MSP version 5. Originally slated for release in Q1 of 2008, later updated to today, it's yet to appear, but it is still only early afternoon on the west coast. Not that I'll have any real time to play around with it, as the work side of things has been pretty steady as of late, with no real signs of letting up to any significant degree. (Which is a good thing, overall.)

Something else that I've been waiting on, but don't necessarily have time for, is my collection of components from Bug Labs. It's essentially a pocket-sized, open source computer, and a modular series of components that perform all sorts of tasks (digital camera, GPS, &c), as well as a constantly expanding pool of community developed software. I've been fascinated with the concept of customisable, portable, personal electronics since I got my MacSE, which in spite of its very loose adherence to that "portable" clause, I used to cart around with me on vacations and whatnot.

I pre-ordered the complete bundle of Bug components on the day they opened their online store. In the first five minutes that they were open, even. They had a target ship date of mid-March, which when it arrived, saw an email and blog post announcing the shipping of the first units, but alluding to large quality problems and delays. Which, by the way, I totally understand. But then, nothing.

In the beginning of April, I got in touch with my new address. I was asked in return if it was simply a new shipping address, or if billing was changing as well. I said that I'd be getting in touch with my bank to update the billing address sometime over the next couple of days, and was told that my shipment would be going out sometime over the next couple of days, but that they'd try the second address if the billing didn't go through on the first one. Three weeks later, again, nothing.

As I said, I agree with them, I'd rather wait until tomorrow for a quality product than have a shoddy one in my hands today. And also, I don't actually have the time to play with it now anyway. (My 4x4x4 monome keypad kits haven't even made it out of their shipping box yet.) What I find myself getting upset about is the lack of communication. Having placed an order within the first five minutes of availability, how far down the list could I be? A few dozen? Does that mean that in 36 days they've only managed to ship a few dozen units? One a day? Two a day? Shouldn't their blog be covering the shipping? The units rolling off of the assembly line? Information about exactly what is lacking in the quality of the early models? For people who waited anxiously for pre-orders to begin, and then jumped on it, pledging a not insignificant sum of money in the process, shouldn't there be updates? A note to say, sorry, it's not that we've forgotten about you, it's just that we're having a little bit more trouble than we had anticipated?

I have noticed, that since whenever the first time I clicked on their job-postings page, there has been an open vacancy for a "Community Manager". Whose role it would be to, presumably, take care of these things. I've even toyed with the idea of applying for said job. I did do the dot-com startup thing once already, although a well-funded, New York-based startup is an entirely different thing.

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Speaking of well-funded, New York-based startups, I stumbled across drop.io the other day, linked from something entirely unrelated. It's basically just a web-based filesharing site, but simpler and cleaner than most of what I've encountered in the market. And they have some pretty cool features, like voice messages. I'm not sure exactly what their business model is, most of the functionality is free (and ad-free). Although I was persuaded to toss them a couple of dollars to upgrade a few drops (more space, shorter names).

And, while I'm blathering about such things, let me just say that I really would like to like Twitter (just as I wanted to like Dodgeball a few years ago), but I don't see it ever really catching on with my peer group.

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And one more tech link, Introversion Software, an independent video game production house from across the pond, is working on a game called Subversion, which although they've been pretty hush on the actualities, they have opened up some of the development process and are working on some pretty interesting looking generative code for world creation.

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As I finish typing this, after eating some dinner, about 10pm EDT, Max/MSP 5 is up. Maybe the Bug will come in the mail tomorrow, all my friends will start using Twitter, and that game will turn out even cooler than the one I might have imagined.

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Oh! And it's Earthday. Take a moment and think green. Okay, thanks.