weirdosmurf

dabigkahuna said:

Why should some people get to decide what legitimate words will suddenly not be allowed? I just gave an example of a group attacking others who were using a term the referenced group had previously insisted must be used. - until they decided to change it again. That’s ridiculous.

Why should we have to abandon a word which very clearly expresses what I’m trying to describe because someone else says they are offended?  

I don’t think most reasonable people around the world would begrudge sufferers of cerebral palsy deciding that they find the use of the word “spastic” offensive - sure, they may be a huge minority, but I think everyone would agree they have a little more skin in that game than the rest of us majority...

You wanna keep using it after discovering how offensive it is to those affected and why...? Well that’s entirely up to you. I’d say it would be pretty mean spirited to continue doing so after having been educated on a point...

(Just because a point comes from my account doesn’t automatically mean it must be automatically attacked dbk... as an example, you can clearly see I’m not the biggest fan of Waytools/Mark’s conduct over the whole TextBlade saga, but just a few posts ago was more than happy to applaud, unreservedly, a genuine gesture made by them in apologising should anyone have been offended by something they said with no knowledge it would offend... try to human once in a while champ...)

poisednoise said:

dabigkahuna said:

weirdosmurf said:

...but I’m sure no one here would knowingly use offensive terminology in a way that offence could be taken once they were made aware of it: i.e. I’m absolutely sure you intended no offence when you used the term “spastic” earlier in the thread, but if you were made aware it is considered highly offensive to some, you’d have no problem acknowledging it as entirely unintended and move on rather than dig in and argue for a phyrric victory...

Normally I've used that to describe my problem early on when switching between the TB and a regular keyboard.

That not only doesn't refer to someone else, it specifically referred to me - and an accurate description of what I was having trouble with.

Sometimes it is the other person who needs to get over themselves if they are offended by a legitimate use of a word that isn't even referring to them.

Just as Weirdosmurf enlightened me, if I may you. That word is sufficiently offensive in the UK that were I to use it, even in reference to myself, publicly at work I could expect a formal warning on my record at the very least. 

There was an episode of Friends where Rachel referred to herself as a “spazz” in relation to something or other (so, the same scenario as here: self-description). If memory serves, the episode’s broadcast was initially delayed in the UK, and eventually went out at a later time in the evening with a language warning after much discussion on the news etc and consultation with representatives of those with Cerebral Palsy. I accept that the word is not considered to be quite as offensive in other parts of the world, but I do not think it appropriate to suggest people need to “get over themselves”.  

100%. I told my story of having said “spastic” in an online forum to some colleagues at work who were pretty shocked - especially since I work in the medical profession and they were absolutely correct; I was entirely wrong... unintentionally wrong, but wrong nevertheless. The apology I gave was entirely sincere (and accepted) and I’ll know never to repeat it and just how strongly people take it. I’m better for it and the offended party was all the better for my apology...

I entirely give credit for Waytools apparent genuine effort to allay any offence which may have been unintentionally caused; it’s a pretty simple thing to do and avoids a great deal of harm, friction and distress. People all over the world should be comfortable in saying “geez, I’m terribly sorry, I didn’t realise and I’m mortified I’ve caused offence... it was absolutely not my intention. Thanks for setting me straight; message received...”

We all unintentionally commit faux pas from time to time and it doesn’t hurt us in the least to demonstrate some humility; far from it, it actually demonstrates far greater character to do so rather than digging in to a grave of our own making...

I’m from Australia and there would be very few people who had any inkling of how offensive it might be for a white person to use the term “boy” in reference to a person of colour. That terminology was not used over here (although our history with our indigenous and immigrant population is littered with our own share of terrible, terrible things...) so it wouldn’t remotely occur to people that they were being highly offensive to Americans; that doesn’t give them carte blanche to continue offending Americans once they’ve been made aware...   
(sermon over)

WayTools_Support said:

Two pallets of aging Textblades with expired batteries.  Millions of dollars collected from 10,000+ customers? 4+ years. No product shipped. No keys for kids. Who has the money? Mark Knighton has the money.

TextBladeDenier -  Oops.  Gotcha.

You’ve now quietly edited that closing fud slogan to read “No final product shipped”.  

That little tweak says it all.  It’s the story in a nutshell.  

 Why? Because of this -

Mark Knighton said:

Re posts 575 and 576 -

And all of this playing out on the comment section of an article about this imaginary product, which didn’t get produced, and didn’t ship to anyone at all, and certainly not to the writer who didn’t get it, but somehow managed to find it superb and loves writing on it.

Deflection. Obfuscation. Lies. Nobody has claimed the Appleinsider author did not receive a test unit. Nobody has claimed that there are no test units. See how you twist and turn and lie? Thank you for yet another example.

Quite the contrary, I have repeatedly made the point (check my footnote on every post) that you have obtained potentially tens of thousands in revenue per unit for the 131 unfinished test units delivered to treg testers. I dont know how many of those units account for those shipped to journalists. If you prefer, I will account for the two I am aware of in my footnote (1 to Macrumors years ago + 1 to Appleinsider).

You really need to get a grip on yourself.


Two pallets of aging Textblades with expired batteries.  Millions of dollars collected from 100,000+ customers? $95,419.84 in revenue per prototype test units (131) supplied? 2 unfinished test units provided to journalists. 4+ years of waiting. No final product shipped. No keys for kids. Who has the money? Mark Knighton has the money.

That little word “final” slipped in ever so quietly, shows just how slippery and sneaky you are.

It’s the same, consistent story of the anonymous ID’s, the misinformation methods, and the agenda.

Since you’d posted “No product shipped.” - several dozen times - and relied on that position - you now realized you were in trouble.

This is quite fascinating since it’s all documented before our eyes, in real time —

We can actually see the precise moment when it dawned on you - where one misrepresentation now put another at risk of discovery.  

So you had to fudge it to cover up your problem with your new bogus claim. 

The basic tactic - accuse your target of what you’re doing to them.

The purse-snatcher yelling “Stop thief! while he grabs the bag. 

Man, how creepy this is.  Your accusation is the very thing you’re doing -

“Deflection. Obfuscation. Lies. Nobody has claimed the Appleinsider author did not receive a test unit. Nobody has claimed that there are no test units. See how you twist and turn and lie? Thank you for yet another example.” 

What irony.

Right, ‘nobody’ limited their claim to test units.  Your claim went far broader, for maximal shock value.  You claimed “No product shipped.”  Period.  Because it sounds so bad.  That’s the agenda.  And you made it a mantra.  A false mantra, but you sure repeated the heck out of it.

If your new statement is true, that means the old one - wasn’t.  That one you kept repeating.

If no product shipped, why did this article happen?  Products aren’t products, they’re err, prototypes. Customers using it are all ... shills.  People disagreeing with you are paid. The author doesn’t actually like the thing, he just said so.  At some point, the weight of evidence is overwhelming.  What’s real is real.

Take whatever good work is achieved and deny, diminish and denigrate.  Flip everything negative.  That’s oppo-PR for you.  Truth is expendable.  Message is king.

To be entirely fair and reasonable, you’d need to knowledge that stating “product shipped” is an obfuscation at best and disingenuous at worst (technically it could be considered worse, but I’m trying to be reasonable...)

”Product shipped” has an inference with it to a reasonable outsider (potential customer) that the general release product has been shipped to customers in exchange for payment. It’s an extremely slippery way to phrase something which doesn’t actually mean what a reasonable person would think it means...

Your “product” has yet to ship. Your test beta-units have been sent out for testing purposes. These are not production units. You have stated that the testers, when general release actually occurs, will receive their units brand new and they can return their beta-test units...

Equally, to be fair on the last point of that snippet I’ve quoted; your statement of “message is king” kinda smells just as stinky if applied to you... you are the king of messaging over substance and twisting and turning the English language in to a pretzel to convey a message which portrays you far better than the cold, clear facts alone do...

“Messaging” is spin; if you’re a genuine engineer, let your device do the talking (borrowing a musician’s saying “let your instrument do your talking...), not mealy-mouthed spin doctoring... Only way that’ll happen? Releasing a good product. The sooner that occurs, the sooner dissatisfied customers will stop complaining... If you don’t enjoy 5 years of testy customer feedback, then get get your arse in to gear and improve your output (or that of your staff). However if you want to wait and wait and wait some more while you’re waiting, then you’ll continue to have frustrated customers - especially the ones who felt “bait and switched” by your initial offering implying release was imminent... 4+yrs ago...

WayTools_Support said:

To TextBladeDenier post 563 above -

Regarding shipments already made, those TextBlades are production units from high volume tools.  This is obvious to the customers using them.

Using the term ‘prototype’ is contrived to be pejorative, and is at odds with the widely reported reality.

Those familiar with the cost of high volume tools, and extensive software development, know the costs invested are many tens of millions of dollars.

The repetitious harping on a 1 million dollar figure is observably ludicrous.  It’s knowably impossible to do this kind of program scope on that budget.

These serial hit-posts are just part of his job. Oppo-PR must belittle and denigrate the work as part of the fud campaign.

No one who believes his posts will buy our product.

So this will resolve itself.

People use the term “prototype” in a similar way to using terms like “testing units” or “beta units”. In common usage, those terms would be interchangeable. Until such time as you ship your product (general release), you have yet to “ship” a single “product”. You have supplied test units to beta testing... the phrase “we have shipped... product...” is very, very dodgy, if not outright disingenuous; it is designed to imply something that is not so (to any reasonable outside observer). A potential customer with no background over the past 4 years would likely read that and infer that general release units had shipped - that is not the case. Using that terminology is deliberately obfuscating and varnishing the reality of the situation... that’s what pisses people off, you don’t tell a clear truth; i.e. “we haven’t shipped yet...” or “we are still stuck in testing... we genuinely believe we’ll ship this year as our testers have only minor bugs left which our coding team estimate they can squash in xxxx...” Why do you communicate this way? Only you can answer that; as a previous poster suggested, perhaps their is a strong and brittle ego along with the creative drive that doesn’t allow admitting fault... faults have occurred, no one can go back and change them, but refusing to acknowledge reality simply makes the refuser appear foolish to a reasonable outside observer (and potential customer); how you deal with problems is a mark of character - anyone can easily cope well when everything’s rosy...

That may be painful for Waytools to swallow (telling a “plain-speak” truth), but would be far more truthful in the eyes of customers than implying you’re farther along than you are... it’s the “weaseling” that pisses people off; fudging things to suggest an unreasonably rosy light (and the fudging/obfuscation is so blatantly clear - it isn’t fooling anyone). People don’t appreciate someone pissing on their leg and then be told by the pisser that it’s actually rain “after all, it’s liquid precipitation coming through the air to your leg, so technically, that urine can be considered rain...”; tends not to go over too well...

Edited to include a request; please do not force a refund on me. As you have previously stated, the decision on whether to enact a refund lies with me, the customer. If I’m willing or not to put up with this drama of truly epic proportions is entirely mine...

dabigkahuna said:

weirdosmurf said:

derailing the thread to discuss semantic minutiae is a “dbk” issue, not a Waytools/TextBlade one...

If they don't like the parts of their posts I'm addressing, maybe they should have left out such things.

Their choice to make.

Circle of control champ; ultimately, one can only truly “control” oneself... Rolanbek (whether you like him or not...) says a great truism when he states “you do you...”

Put another way; try fixing the knots in your own knitting - you’re the only one who can actually fix them...

(I strongly suspect you’ll view the above as if it’s an “attack” which needs to be “defended” or addressed in some way - it isn’t an attack at all, simply an observation around what’s actually going on under the hood of all human beings (myself included) - whether or not you apply any of that to yourself is a matter for you. You either will or you won’t; seeing how you choose to respond will demonstrate your choices - I’ll happily be astonished if you choose not to feel the need to respond or “defend” but rather accept a reasonable point which isn’t actually an attack... for what it’s worth, I try in this same regard and sometimes succeed and sometimes fail, but I’m capable of seeing my failings from time to time - like all people; probably not enough - and I endeavour to adjust those failings - you don’t appear willing to concede any point for any reason if it comes from some quarters; that’s simply not normal... oh and please don’t pick up on pedantic semantics over use of the word “any” in that last sentence - it would be an afore mentioned “poor choices” and would demonstrate a point...)