Tales from the Tigerfort

I've never really seen the appeal of internet-connected "smart" lightbulbs (or most other internet-of-stuff-that-shouldn't-be-on-the-internet ideas), but this is a really amazing demonstration of some of the things wrong with the idea.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BB6wj6RyKo

Having a problem with your bulb? Just follow this two-minute process to reset it to factory defaults. Unless it came in this style of packaging (you do still have the packaging for the bulbs you bought five years ago, right?), in which case you should follow the other two-minute reset process.

What's that, your bulb's broken and you want to throw it away? Remember that it's got your address, phone number, and wifi password stored on it, so you need to factory reset it before you do. You'll be able to tell when it's deleted your personal data because the bulb will flash repeatedly. If it can't flash because it's broken, there's no way of telling whether it's reset or not, and thus no way of knowing whether you can recycle it without letting someone to harvest your data. Why are you getting a hammer?

I used to reckon that I could distinguish at least moderately reliably between those kickstarter projects that were intended as jokes and those that were the absolutely serious effort of someone suffering badly from the Dunning-Kruger effect. The infamous potato salad fell pretty clearly into the first category, while the people who wanted to start a company selling a "computer security" device that amounted to a network cable with a switch wired into the middle were utterly out of their depth. There have always been some crossover cases - I imagine the endless stream of people who want the internet to buy them a high-end PC so that they can be the next big Youtube star contains examples of both types (as well as some people who've thrown it out as a "doesn't cost anything" effort), but I've never felt inclined to pay them any attention. (Nor has anyone else; I've never noticed one with a single backer.)

But there's one up at the moment that honestly could go either way. He wants to make an MMO, and has a target of a million Euros. So far, that's straightforward "hopeful idiot" territory; there are usually several such projects floating around at any given time. They don't get funded unless they're attached to the name of someone with a track record of actually making games that work. Generally, they've come up with their own generic (sorry, "fascinating and unique") fantasy or sci-fi universe to set it in, but not this guy. He wants to make an MMO strategy game that's some kind of sequel to the Westwood Dune 2 game. What do you mean, licences?

So now I'm curious, both as to whether he's serious or not (a million is peanuts in MMO development terms, even without IP licencing, but it's the sort of number that sounds big enough to appeal to people who don't know any better), but also as to whether the potentially-offended IP holders will hammer him into the ground or decide they don't need to because he's obviously never going to make a game anyway. (Given how easy-going the assorted Dune rights-holders notoriously aren't, it definitely wouldn't be my choice for a joke, which inclines the scales towards "clueless", but since there's no actual product maybe he feels safe?)

Why is it that so many surveys appear to be designed to not collect information? I don't even mean the ones that are obviously designed to lead to a specific set of answers so that the news business/political party/think-tank/NGO/whatever who commissioned it can say "see, everyone agrees with us". I mean the ones where the questions don't even make any sense.

( For example... )

The Good: I haz Dreamwidth (as some will already have noticed). I do intend to get round to posting more both here and there, but...

The Bad: Ongoing armfail. Meh.

The Stupid: A charity shop I was in recently had a sign in their display case "1st edition Harry Potter hardback - only £25!". Well, all (presumably) true, but since it was HP6 (half-blood prince), and the initial UK hardback run for that was in the low millions of copies, I doubt you'd get £2.50 for it, never mind ten times as much.