Everything I do in the Fallout 3 world has a lasting affect. Monsters stay dead, things stay blown up, people still hate me for kicking their pets and stealing their cutlery, and this is where MMORPGs fall on their faces. It doesn’t matter how many quests you complete or how many things you kill, the world will stay exactly the same for the next player. There’s no sense of progression other than a level counter ticking up after agonizing grinding to gain experience. The world is static and everything keeps respawning, and there’s no way around it, nothing you can do will leave a mark. So you saved the princess and killed the evil villain? It doesn’t matter, because next time you head to the castle the silly cow will be in the villain’s dungeon yet again.

I’m going to avoid MMORPGs until we have procedurally generated characters, monsters, quests, and areas in a true, living, multi-player world where your actions matter.

It’s rubbish for R30. If it was free I’d have given it a nod out of curiosity, but charging for a demo, whether it’s a game or a demo scene project, is outrageous. It’s not more spectacular than MGS4 or Uncharted, and the interactivity is a joke. Really, go to the art museum for real art or rent a good Pixar movie if you want CG art.

Sadly I bought it on the premise of it containing something greater than what’s shown in the trailer, but the trailer is all of it, so I’d like a refund now.

Oh, I almost forgot we’re not supposed to criticize “art”.

After reading many good reports on Web Africa and finding their DSL Data Uncapped Express offering I pounced on the opportunity. A 512kbps line speed with a threshold of 30gb in a ten day window sounds marvellous. After all, that means I can use just under 90gb in a month at the full line rate, and if I go over 30gb in a ten day rolling period they will halve the line rate until I keep my usage under 10gb in the 10 day rolling window. Exactly what I want!

Imagine my surprise when, after downloading all the demos and software updates I’d been itching to get hold of, my line rate gets halved after downloading only 16gb. Thinking it’s just a system error I phone their support – which is fantastically responsive and helpful – only to be told that the limit is 10gb in a 10 day window, even though the website says 30gb. After struggling to convince the support chap of the logic contained in their webpage, I gave up and phoned their sales division, only to have the sales guy emphatically agree with me that I can download just under 90gb at the full rate. Now I’m confused, so I tell the sales guy that his support team doesn’t agree with him, and he says he will phone back. Later on I get a phone call from someone else who once again tries to convince me that I can’t understand basic logic, even though I studied philosophy and computer science, and that the 30gb threshold shown on the website magically translates into a 10gb threshold because some months have 30 days. I call bullshit. Go to their website or look at the screenshots I took below and you tell me who is right! It’s false advertising and while I don’t want a refund, I’d like someone to admit that their website is wrong instead of indirectly insinuating that I’m two rolls short of a picnic!

Now they suggest that I go with the fully uncapped line, but then I have to pay a R1700 setup fee, wait ten days for a special router, and sign a 12 month contract. I’m sorry, but if I’ve just been sold a service that promised one thing and delivered another, I sure as hell am not going to sign a 12 month contract to get royally screwed on something else I’ve allegedly “misconstrued”.

And all this time I’m thinking of my buddy in America paying $30 for a 16mb uncapped line, and hating our rubbish infrastructure.

Update: Netconnect ISP offers the same service but their explanation isn’t misleading.

Threshold of 30gb over a ten day rolling window:

10 day rolling window limit of 10gb after hitting the 30gb threshold before you get returned to full rate.

With so much software getting developed, you’d think we’d get exactly what we need, but for some reason software developers don’t listen to customers as closely as they should.

What piece of software do you really need that doesn’t exist yet?

Maybe we can get some software developers to pay attention.

In the words of my esteemed colleague: “You can’t polish a turd!”

These immortal words have been proven true in the case of the Motorola V3 Razr cellphone. It’s a great looking phone, but it still smells bad.

A month after I received the phone, the keypad broke and only the power button was left working. Now I’m a forgiving person, and I let the manufacturer do their best to correct their bad design, but when the exact same thing happens six months down the line – after the keypad has been replaced – then I make the assumption that it’s just a shit phone.

So I head back to Nashua and request a replacement phone, since this one is probably a dud, but they can’t replace it or swap for a better phone since it has to be sent back to get fixed. I point out that I don’t enjoy running around every few months to get a vital piece of business equipment fixed, so can they kindly shove the phone somewhere unpleasant and give me a refund. You’d think that when your company has ten or so contracts costing between R1000 and R2000 each then your service provider would be a little more helpful and jump to replace a bad phone so as not to taint a profitable client relationship, but the usual corporate BS of “we can’t authorize that” is like a brick wall to the staff there.

A long story short, I managed to get a R1500 refund on the Razr and upgraded to a Sony Ericsson K700i which I’m happy with so far.

If you’re thinking of getting a V3 Razr, think twice. It may look fantastic, but it’s all squishy and turd-like inside.

Pros:

• Looks good.
• Thin enough to fit in jean pockets comfortably

Cons:

• Slower than other phones in this range, especially for typing an SMS and it takes two seconds to answer a call after flipping it open.
• Flaky keypad broke every few months
• Image viewer wastes half the screen on controls. How hard could it be to add a full-screen view feature?
• SMSing is a pain, as it takes numerous keypresses to insert a full stop and the predictive text input is slow and stupid. Nokia and Sony Ericsson do this right, so why doesn’t Motorola just copy them?

If a negative person says you’re a good listener…run, RUN LIKE HELL! They’re just getting ready to kill any chances you had of enjoying the next hour or so. Most people will complain once or twice and sort it out themselves, but negative people will piss on your battery every time they see you, until you run out of excuses to avoid them.

It’s getting to the point where I’m going to be honest and say, “I’d like to see you, but I’m sick of your constant, draining self-pity. I’ve given you enough advice, now sort your shit out.”

It’s difficult being an optimistic, positive person in our current society, because the negative people gravitate towards you like leeches to try and drain your positive energy away instead of generating their own…

I really love gadgets, and this phone has everything. The interface is slow, but the phone’s looks make up for that. Last Monday I get an sms, and the phone shits itself. Maybe I pressed two buttons at the same time? Now the only button which works is the power button. This doesn’t get you very far, and is only useful for hanging up on annoying clients. So I spent a morning offline trying to hunt down the Motorola repair shop, only to find out that although the phone is under warranty I have to wait seven bloody days for the phone to get fixed…

So now I’m using my Nokia 3310 which I’ve had for five years and still works perfectly, and my Nokia 6310i also went through two years of hell with me and came out unscathed. So tell me, if Motorola spent less on advertising, would their phones be able to compete with Nokia’s?

Update: If you’re searching for skins, good luck. I didn’t find any, but Zedge has free (no, really) wallpaper at 176×220 resolution, which fits the phone perfectly.