Missing the point...
I've had fun with the Clustrmaps widget that we've recently popped into the blog - it's kind of fun (and now I want to know who the uber-user is on the edge of the Hudson Bay that hits the blog so many times :) ). But recently one of the ads caught my attention - for having robots built for you. Clicking through to the JFRobot site, at first I thought I had hit a spoof ad. These nice people will build any of the four stock robots for you, and ship it to you complete... for a hefty price jump ($299 for Alpha-Rex, for instance). Is it just me, or has this company completely missed the point of the NXT, MINDSTORMS, and LEGO? If these were kits for robotic lawnmowers and I just wanted to get my lawn mowed, I'd understand - but the whole point of kits (& especially LEGO) is to build it yourself - or am I missing something very fundamental here? Some of the text on their webpage is more than a bit misleading as well. For instance, they mention:
...but you also find out that 100 hours of research and assembly work is unafordable.
(yes, that's their mis-spelling this time, not mine - I love Leopard). "100 hours"?!? What are they building, a general-purpose Turing machine? I've watched a 10-year-old build some of the stock models in 30 minutes, including programming.
So somebody tell me - should I be upset at this, or just sad that perhaps there's actually a market for such a misdirected market demand? I'd be curious if anyone has bought one of these, or knows someone who has. Perhaps I just have a very unusual viewpoint - that the reason you get something like the NXT is so you can do it yourself, and learn something, If I want a coffee-table display, there are plenty of inflexible slick-looking options.
--
Brian Davis
...but you also find out that 100 hours of research and assembly work is unafordable.
(yes, that's their mis-spelling this time, not mine - I love Leopard). "100 hours"?!? What are they building, a general-purpose Turing machine? I've watched a 10-year-old build some of the stock models in 30 minutes, including programming.
So somebody tell me - should I be upset at this, or just sad that perhaps there's actually a market for such a misdirected market demand? I'd be curious if anyone has bought one of these, or knows someone who has. Perhaps I just have a very unusual viewpoint - that the reason you get something like the NXT is so you can do it yourself, and learn something, If I want a coffee-table display, there are plenty of inflexible slick-looking options.
--
Brian Davis
Comments
>be upset at this, or just sad
>that perhaps there's actually
>a market for such a
>misdirected market demand?
I don't think there are any people who pay 50 more dollars for an assambled robot. Why would you?
LEGO sets are meant to be built by yourself. Otherwise you could just buy a standard plastic toy.
But the Clustermaps are indeed a nice extra for the blog. :-)
P.S. I like the Clustrmaps too. As soon as I saw yours I got one for my blog. Now I know that I have a reader from somewhere in the Philippines!
For my Die NXTe Ebene, I've got one from the North Cape in utmost Northern Norway.
No, just kidding - what's exotic and what is not depends on the eye of the beholder.
As for Alpha Rex, I got him to walk sidways really well. Of course I wanted him to walk forward at the time. My daughter got two Alpha Rex's to dance together, well somewhat, well about as well as I dance anyway.
And Matthias, I check by your blog once a while too ;-) And one last thing, it's pretty cool to see how many thousands of readers this blog has with Clustrmaps though :-)
-Andy
These people had a bad idea, and decided to use it on less then intelligent people.
...I find that amusing, not irritating.
> These people had a bad idea, and decided to
> use it on less then intelligent people.
>
> ...I find that amusing, not irritating.
Hmm. As somebody who's professional life involves trying to teach people to be rational members of society, and use critical thinking skills, well... let's just say it bothers me somewhat the general level of rational thinking in the society around me.
BTW, that would be the same society that votes people into or out of office, consumes resources at outrageous rates without thinking this is a problem, and believes things like "growing forests reduces global warming" by a significant amount. In other words, I could laugh at the general gullibility of people if I wasn't influenced & controlled by the choices others make.
"The only ethical use a manipulation is teaching people to be less easily manipulated."
--
Brian Davis
I stand corrected. My comments were immature, and represent the same intelligent people I spoke of.
--
Brian Davis