Cognitive GeekeryCognitive Geekery
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As a geek I enjoy discussing and participating in geeky things. Over the course of my brief tenure on this blue ball of ours, I have geeked out in some interesting and not so geeky places.
The obvious places for public geekery center around conventions. I’ve been to NYC Comic Con two years in a row now proudly wearing It’s Geektime swag along with thousands of fellow geeks geeked out in costumes and graphic T-shirts. It is quite a site seeing a group of people dressed like the x-men sharing the same street as Naruto while waving to Mr. T.
Tonight being Valentine’s day and me being single I decided to treat myself to dinner. So I went down to the LGS (Local Game Store), bought myself a Warmachine book, and went to hooters to enjoy it and some good food. Both the book and the food were great. Nothing like dinner and a good book I always say.
So far the weirdest place I’ve geeked out was at a diner in Queens. For my friend’s “Bachelor Party” I ran a D&D adventure, dinosaurs were involved. The hotel room he was staying in was too small so we decided to move it to the diner for food and fun. A blast was had by all and I am sure the proprietor of the establishment loved having us as we kept ordering drinks and food while we gamed.
These are some of the weirdest and interesting places I’ve geeked out. Where was the weirdest place you have geeked out so far?
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As an avid gamer I have a voracious appetite for learning new games. I am always up for learning a new board game, RPG, card game, miniatures game, or video game. New versions of games are also a delicacy for my gaming appetite that I can never get enough of, this is why gaming companies love me. With so many different rule sets running around in my head, sometimes it can get confusing, or I start mixing them together.
Case in point; this past weekend I introduced my friend to Warmachine and Hordes. We had a blast playing it, but I started adding in rules from other games. Warmachine is a minis game by Privateer Press that is similar to Warhammer 40k but is more character focused. When I first started playing it I would treat it much like I played Warhammer 40k. Luckily I was playing with some experienced players that set me straight.
When I was playing last Friday with my friend, I started treating my warjacks and warcaster like Dungeons and Dragons characters. In Warmachines, when your model activates it must perform its move action before its other actions. I was doing my other actions first, and then moving part of the time as I would in Dungeons and Dragons. After looking through the rules I noticed that I was doing things wrong and quickly apologized to my friend who was just learning. I did not want to teach him wrong.
Has this happened to any of you? If so, how do you handle rules blurring?
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As both a geek and a man I fall into the stereotype of not always reading the instructions on things that I purchase for myself. If it is a piece of equipment or a gadget that is nothing like anything I’ve used before, I usually do, but if it is something I think is familiar I tend to skip this step. Often times when I do not I find myself getting into trouble and when I ask for help the answer is usually RTFM (Read the Frakking Manual).
Case in point; I acquired some new audio equipment to further some multimedia projects next year (Spoiler Alert: one of them is going to be a monthly IGT podcast). My friend asked me to come record his A capella concert this weekend, and I gladly agreed. I thought to myself, “This would be a GREAT way to learn how to use my stuff!” I also thought to myself “it’s an audio recorder, it has to be simple to use”. Boy was I wrong. My ignorance caused me to fail to record audio for the whole concert on my device.
In this day and age many devices are similar to one another. This is what encouraged my thinking that I knew how to use the equipment. The problem is that difference devices are only similar to one another; they are never exactly the same. Even if you buy new camera A and have used camera B before, there is a good chance that the buttons are in different places, or are labeled differently enough that you do NOT know how to use it. This is why manufacturers spend the money to make these nice manuals for you.
With my epic failure I merely caused myself some embarrassment and frustration. With some products if you do not read the manual first you can possibly break the device or gadget. If the item requires assembly you may end up trying to force parts that do not fit together to mate and in the end breaking them. I have had this happen to me before, and yet I still fall into the trap of not RTFMing.
If you feel embarrassed or less of a man and/or geek admitting you need help from a small book or sheet of paper, just read it when no one is around. No one will know the difference and your friends and family will still be impressed that you have mastered such an awesome piece of technology. It will just be our little secret.
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I consider myself a pretty savvy computer user. I have a degree in computer science and I’ve worked in IT and software engineering for over 10 years. So when I have to contact technical support over an issue, whether it be software or hardware, it hurts my professional pride a bit. On the other hand, it is always good to ask for help when you need it.
Part of why I dislike talking to technical support so much is they tend to treat you like you do not know anything. This is reasonable because most people who contact them do not know enough about their issue to fix it. If you have gone to technical support with an issue you know what I am talking about. Generally the first things 90% of hardware techs ask you is “is it plugged in?” or “Have you tried turning it off and back on again?” (made famous by the IT Crowd TV show). Most issues can actually be solved by these common phrases
As a computer expert I hate being talked to like that. During my latest foray I was asked to “flip the USB cable over so it will fit into the port”. Now, my cable was already plugged in correctly, that was not the issue. I went on to give a lengthy explanation of my problem and the cause which was not going to be reconciled, so I wanted a refund. The sales engineer kept going on and on over how USB 2.0 and 3.0 are the same thing so it should work. Unfortunately they are not and I gave him reasons why this particular piece of hardware was not going to work for me.
Unfortunately, I started to get frustrated and said some not so nice things to the poor tech who was then assigned to me. I know I should not have, but if a company advertises that they have a “no hassle” return policy, they should not hassle their customers as much as they did me. At one point I even asked if I could return the item for credit toward another product from their site and pay the difference. I was going to give them more money than I already had, and still they were obstreperous.
In the end, I felt bad about being such a pain in the neck. I am not sorry about trying to get my refund, as I was entitled to it, but I felt bad about how I treated the tech. I should have been a bit more patient and given him sources for my information. So next time you have to deal with tech support, be nice to the poor person on the other end of the phone, Karma does exist in the technology world.
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Netflix has revolutionized the way we rent movies, it’s nigh impossible to argue with this fact. Their low cost monthly fee for unlimited movies with no late fees spoke to millions who signed up for their service. Not content to rest on their laurels, Netflix added an amazing online streaming service to their already amazing DVD service. Unfortunately, Netflix is now revolutionizing how to mess up dealing with their customers.
I have been a big fan and customer of Netflix ever since they started out. Originally I had the expensive 3 disc plan but soon dropped down to 1 with streaming to lower my bill. I enjoyed their selection of TV shows on channels like HBO that I do not subscribe to. I would always be a season behind, but at least I could watch it. Their streaming offerings seemed anemic in the beginning, but their Anime selection has always been top notch, and is growing rapidly.
Earlier this year Netflix announced they would charge for the DVD service and the streaming service separately, thus increasing the price of having both by a whopping 60%. There was much outrage as that is a significant increase in price. I had just dropped my price from about that level down to its current $10/month level so I was unhappy as well.
The real kicker is how Netflix CEO, Reed Hastings, handled the backlash. Instead of apologizing or explaining the reasoning behind it he sent out a mass email that was sort of lame. It basically said “The price increase is good for you” which did not make any sense to the populace at large. As bad as the outrage over the price increase was, it paled in comparison to the response to Hastings’s letter.
Soon after the abomination of a communiqué, Netflix announced that they would split the two services further and each one would be its own company, with the DVD service being renamed as Qwikster. This separation was going to force users to create a brand new account with its own queue and everything. This was the straw that broke the camel’s back for many and Netflix has seen almost a million users cancel their accounts since all this has been happening.
I think all of this outrage and backlash could have been avoided in the beginning with Netflix simply just being honest with us. Fees for content licensing have gone up almost by a factor of 10 in the last few years. If the Netflix price hike was due to them reacting to their fees going up, then they should have said so in the first place. Most of us would have forgiven them since our cost would not have even doubled when theirs had grown by such a large percent.
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