Tech Support Spheres

Greetings!

Well, as you have all read in the Off Topic forum, they are here and ready. Unfortunately, I do not have an estore or webfront in place yet. But I am starting to take orders from folks on the board. Pricing is as follows:

Regular price: $12
BBS member price: $10
Bulk box of 36: $300

Price does not include additional charges for packing and shipping. Also, payments via PayPal will require a 4% additional charge to cover PayPal's fees.

I am still gathering packaging material for shipping smaller quantities (1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, etc.), but I hope to start shipping the bulk orders (multiples of 36) this weekend.

If you have already sent me a PM, great, I have your order information. Otherwise, please send me an email with your order. I have plenty and I do not expect to run out of them, so speed is probably not essential here.

Again, I hope to get a webstore up soon. But I want to do it right... Take photos... etc.

Thanks again to everyone for their help, their ideas and their patience! I still have a day job (at the moment), so this is all done as time allows.

Paul.

I am interested in 5 but if it makes more sense to liaise with someone like skibum or geoff to get a bulk order across to the UK, then I will go for whatever is least hassle all round.

Guys - any thoughts?

I'll take one (at least). Maybe I can latch onto the bulk order too?

Same here. I'd like one. (Me too? )

Greetings!

I know that there has already been a large request placed for shipping to the UK. Unfortunately, I do not have my notes here (at my day job). That is why I request that anyone wishing to place an order, send me email. It makes it easier to track, and I do not get it confused with shipping consolidation requests. Thanks!

By the way, I don't know why but I have had the AC/DC song "Big Balls" running through my mind over the last few days. Please. Someone. Make it stop!!!

Try singing "Goodness Gracious 8-Balls Of Fire" instead

Count me in for the UK contingent

*groan*

Heh - the last song I heard on Sunday morning was Britney Spears Toxic. Have you ever run 26 miles with that as your pace tune? Initially the video remained in my head as a fairly motivating thing, but that soon went. Don't like that song much either...

yes I think it would make sense (and help Paul) if the UK orders were in one batch. I'm easy about however we go about it.

I'll grab two balls please!

I'm ordering 72 from Paul and I'm in the UK. I've got homes for about 35-40 of them, so I'll have about 30 spare. If anyone wants one from me then send me a pm or email.

Greetings!

Thanks! I did not have my notebook here, so I could not mention this directly. Cool!

Paul,

Not a prob. If its easier I don't mind it if you refer all smaller UK orders to me. I work at home mostly so post office runs are easy :-)

Of course I might have to order more then :-)

hahahahaha! No worries. Just too much going on at (regular) work, and trying to keep up at the moment. All of the small orders for the UK (Europe?) will be referred to you.

Also, PaulWay is consolidating for Australia.

I'd like to buy 3 of them in germany, PMs to Paul and skibum on the way.

Greetings!

Shameless bump, links to more photos and an animated gif.



The Sphere

The Answers:

BLAME THE VENDOR, BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH, CAFFEINE, CALL THE HELPDESK, /DEV/NULL, DIVIDE BY ZERO, FEATURE / KNOWN ISSUE, 42, LET ME CALL YOU BACK, MAKE IT SO, NETWORK ERROR, NOT SUPPORTED, OUTSOURCED, PING 127.0.0.1, PLUG IT IN, PROBLEM?, REBOOT, RTFM, SURE. FINE. WHATEVER., VIRUS

yummie. Can't wait for mine to arrive :-)

Yummie? That blueish liquid really doesn't look appetising you know...

Yummie? That blueish liquid really doesn't look appetising you know...

How it looks isn't that different than how it tastes.

I think it's water, dye, and antifreeze, isn't it?

links to more photos and an animated gif

Appears to be "empeg BBSed"? (similar to Slashdotted)

Probably just my ISP (Verizon) being annoying. It happens a lot.

Yeah I was joking really. Forgot to put something like in there. I seriously doubt the full force of the empeg mob would bring down an ISPs webhosting.

With Verizon, you never know...

More probable that it's some sort of antibacterial or fungicide additive to ensure it stays clear. Unless of course you need to have answers when you're outside in sub zero temperatures

Got mine in yesterday, they're great, and you did a great job! Thank you very much!

Cool! Thanks! And thanks for the bump!

Mine arrived this evening. Woohoo! Sublimely geekey. Thank you a thousand times Paul.

-Zeke

Mine too arrived tonight. Looks very nice. Thanks man.

Being the geek that I am that these are targeted to, my first instinct is to take one apart.

Wish mine'd come. I'm one freaking state away from Paul, they should have been here by now.

Yes. They should have gotten there by now. Hmmm... Yours was in the first batch, mailed last Saturday... If you do not see it in today's mail, send me an email and I will see if I can trace from here.

Meanwhile, I am glad everyone likes them!!! Very cool!

What, 8 times? Oh, sorry, you mean that wasn't binary?

Being the geek that I am that these are targeted to, my first instinct is to take one apart.

Perhaps it would help satisfy that urge to merely look at that web site that's got pictures of the dismantled 8-ball. Anyone got a link?

If you view this thread in flat mode, there is a "how it tastes" link. That is the disassembly web site.

Edit: Or here...

Ahh nice. Yeah that is fine, one of my 8-balls possibly owes you its life. I wasn't seriously considering taking one apart quite yet, but couldn't say for sure my curiosity wouldn't have got the better of me in time.

Thank god for the Internet; destroying things so I don't have to.

Greetings!

If you still feel like destroying one, I have one here that has a rattling sound to it. I am not sure if the answer die is broken or not, but it is a bit unusual. In any case, out of 1000, I would be shocked if I do not have a patient for dissection.

Two notes for readers out there:

1) There is no need to join the board specifically to order. Just send me email. I still am working on a webstore and hope to just publish that URL eventually. Meanwhile just send email.
2) If you have ordered and received your spheres, please send me a PM or email to let me know. I try to keep track of all the shipments to know when something did not arrive. This makes my bookkeeping easier. Thanks!

Paul, have the UK orders been sorted out yet?

Greetings!

I shipped a bunch to Andy (skibum), and he is consolidating orders for the UK and the rest of Europe. You might want to send him a PM / email - I know he has spheres to spare.

Still waiting for them to arrive at the moment. Customs are probably experimenting with them at the moment. Also assuming customs do want some money with them, parcelforce will 'write to me' to tell me how much to pay. Cute that :-)

Received mine last night and looks great! I've already showed it to a couple of people and the LOVE it. I just can't believe no one's done this yet. It makes too much sense! Anyway, good work Paul. I might end up ordering a couple of more as gifts at some point.

> I just can't believe no one's done this yet. It makes too much sense!

Actually, this is not the first time I have seen something like this. In fact, I am looking at one now that our sysadmin got from CDW a while ago. A couple of the answers are similar:

It's not a bug, it's a feature
Reboot
Please submit a formal request
Did you hit the correct key
It'll be fixed in the next release
It works like I programmed it.
It's a beta, what did you expect
Plug it in
It's just an isolated incedent
I can't test everything
it's an unlikely coincidence
it's not supposed to do that
It works on my machine
Program works, must be user error
It worked yesterday
Someone changed my code
CDW has your computing solution
Contact CDW 24x7 tech support
Log on to www.cdw.com
Your CDW account manager can help

They may have arrived; I'm in Cincinnati now, but I will ask my wife when she's next awake.

Hey where in Cincinnati?

Best Western Springdale. PRRT&HS annual meeting. In 2 hours we go to Cincinnati Union Terminal for the "banquet"; Normally I skip it but I want to see the building and the presentations. I got here at 7:55pm Thursday, 5 minutes before the first presentation started.

The Union Terminal is worth seeing. I actually took a train out of there once many years ago.

Since you are so close to where I live, we'll have to meet up later tonight

Okay...

This auction has gone from "amusing" through "obscene" and is now bordering on "just plain creepy"...

Ah, look at the money you are going to make

now bordering on "just plain creepy"

Wow, at $100 a piece. You would never have to worry about how to afford you next hard drive upgrade

? Isn't it $105 for the three?

Good point. I don't know how Paul could better clarify that in the auction, but at first I thought for a while that it was 105.00 each, total quantity available for auction: 3 being sold individually. Re-reading it, it seems like it's 105.00 for a box of three. But I don't know how to tell the difference...

Normally if you were selling multiple items seperately then you'd get a Quantity: Blah line like this (Hopefully the URL will stay active!)

Greetings!

It is for a set of three. Still scary, though.

CDW sphere

You are right! I may have seen one of those when I first started working. That is kind of familiar, especially some of those ad phrases. Cool!

The notice for them appeared Saturday. I picked them up today and have given out about 27 so far.

Cool!!! I was getting a little worried there. You are only a state away - I probably could have driven them there faster.

Paul, how much is S&H for 4 to MA 01460.

If anyone want to save on the S&H and is in the greater Boston area, PM me and I'll ask Paul add it to the box.

that'd be cool!

i'm game for two!

~tim

ancsumins (at) yahoo.com

Greetings!

They weigh about 0.7 pounds each, so that should be around $5 according to the USPS site (estimating 3 pounds). Distance and weight are the main factors here.

If interested, please send me an email with your shipping address. Thanks!!!

Paul.

I am only a state away, I could have had someone bike them here faster

I'm already out, I need to scare up some money and buy more.

That was quick! I think you are the first person to sell them out like that! Very cool! I have plenty...

"sell". I gave em all away.

Sorry. I know what you meant, but I have been doing this a lot lately...

Hi Skibum - just wondering whether UK customs have allowed your shipment of spheres through yet?

The first box arrived yesterday. Going to wait for the 2nd box to arrive bofore sending them out, so I can work out the pricing correctly. Did I mention that I hate HMC&E.

Oh yeah. HM C&E is always fun. I've had things arrive with £20 fee because they charged me £1 tax and about £20 worth of handling charge from Royal Mail and C&E!

Well parcelfarce only charged £8 on the 1st box which wasn't bad. The worst part is that HMC&E charge duty+vat on postage. Now that's just down right unfair if you ask me.

I just got mine

Got my 1000 ball today. Love it! Gotta show it off to the cow orkers now...

Oh, added bonus... It doubles as a pretty decent rear-view cubicle mirror!



(Excuse the crappy cell-phone camera shot, it looks much clearer in real life.)

I received my 1000 Ball several days ago... however I took it with me on my quasi-political coffee walk today. Everybody loved it, of course. I had to explain RTFM to a few of the non-techies.

Hahahahaha! Hmmm... How to explain RTFM in a polite manner? "Read The FAQ and Manual"? That might work, especially if you slur it slightly...

I still intend to put up a web page where people (outside the BBS) can order these. Meanwhile, I am running a few random auctions on ebay. So if you know anyone that really wants one...

That was explained to me as "Read The ... Friendly ... Manual" many years ago. It easily got the point across.

Matthew

I always refer to it as "Read the F'n Manual" which actually magnifies the humor due to my normally G rated vocabulary.

The man page for rtfm(1) (a contributed program where I work which was a manual page selector and reader) called it "read the fine manuals".

As long as we're discussing answers, what's the significance behind "42"?

The answer to Life, The Universe, and.. Everything!

Of course.

42 is the answer to 'Life, the universe and everything'. From the Douglas Adam's books, 'The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy' and 'The Resturant and the end of the universe'.

Ahh.... But what's the question?

that was the question asked of deep thought. Of course with 2 millions years to run, the answer was 'what is 9 times 6'. Which happens to be 54!. Well 54 in decimal. However if you use base 13, the answer is actually 42 :-)

I've read the books. I was wondering if people would give the right question or the wrong one caused by Golgafrinchams

Thanks Meatballman, both from the question and the laughs I got from the replies.

However if you use base 13, the answer is actually 42 :-)

When this was brought to Douglas Adam's attention his reply was "no one writes jokes in base 13" .

For those of you who haven't read "The Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy" you really should, especialy if you're a geek and appreciate the humor of Monty Python (silly, yet intelligent). It's one of the few books/series I've read through three times (the only other being LOTR).

When this was brought to Douglas Adam's attention his reply was "no one writes jokes in base 13"

More importantly, he tried to stress that the number itself was deliberately meaningless. Its only purpose was to be a setup for the 6 times 9 joke at the end of Restaurant. Those trying to find meaning in the number are missing the point.

In reply to:

---

Those trying to find meaning in the number are missing the point.

---

There's a point? Where? Should it be 4.2 or .42? That changes everything...

What is the likelyhood you'll ever get more of these, Paul?

Not very likely.

While it might be possible, the minimum order of 1000 is rather large and selling them (well, tracking / packing / waiting, etc) is time consuming (compared to my day job). I also noticed that the original vendor no longer has the eight balls listed on their site, but I have the original link and they could probably do it if asked.

I do not have any more left for sale at this point, but I am sure there are a few spares floating around out there if you absolutely need one or two.