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Denis Grisak, the man behind the Internet-connected garage opener Garadget, is having a very bad week. Grisak and his Colorado-based company SoftComplex launched Garadget, a device built using Wi-Fi-based cloud connectivity from Particle, on Indiegogo earlier this year, hitting 209 percent of his launch goal in February. But this week, his response to an unhappy customer has gotten Garadget a totally different sort of attention.
On April 1, a customer who purchased Garadget on Amazon using the name R. Martin reported problems with the iPhone application that controls Garadget. He left an angry comment on the Garadget community board:
Just installed and attempting to register a door when the app started doing this. Have uninstalled and reinstalled iphone app, powered phone off/on - wondering what kind of piece of shit I just purchased here...
Shortly afterward, not having gotten a response, Martin left a 1-star review of Garadget on Amazon:
Junk - DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY - iPhone app is a piece of junk, crashes constantly, start-up company that obviously has not performed proper quality assurance tests on their products.
Grisak then responded by bricking Martin's product remotely, posting on the support forum:
Martin,
The abusive language here and in your negative Amazon review, submitted minutes after experiencing a technical difficulty, only demonstrates your poor impulse control. I'm happy to provide the technical support to the customers on my Saturday night but I'm not going to tolerate any tantrums.
At this time your only option is return Garadget to Amazon for refund. Your unit ID 2f0036... will be denied server connection. [Ed's Comment: As of Apr 5, Garadget have apologised for this action and have restored connectivity]
The exchange then went viral, being picked up by the Twitter account @internetofshit and rising to the top of Hacker News.
Source: ArsTechnica
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 06 2017, @04:56PM (8 children)
I really don't get these kinds of comments, which pop up from time to time, because I don't get what their point is. Is it a knock on this place because the story should have appeared yesterday? Is it a knock that the story shouldn't have appeared here at all because Slashdot got to it first? In addition to the BREAKING NEWS label, should we mark unique stories to this site with something like SOYLENT EXCLUSIVE, and perhaps later go over to Slashdot when a story shows up there and bitch that it has already been posted here?
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday April 06 2017, @05:15PM (3 children)
It's a slight criticism of this site for being rather slow with what I believed to be an extremely relevant story.
No, I don't think this site should *ever* avoid posting a story just because some other site got to it first; that's ridiculous. This isn't a competition, it's a discussion site, a place to discuss issues of interest to this community. If some other site has the same story, then so be it, but the users here are not the same as the users on those other sites (though there is a certain amount of overlap). Should CNN avoid reporting on something just because ABCnews got to it first? Of course not.
In addition to the BREAKING NEWS label, should we mark unique stories to this site with something like SOYLENT EXCLUSIVE
No, because IMO the exclusivity thing is just stupid. If a story is that interesting, it's going to get posted on all the discussion sites anyway. But it does seem hard to call it "breaking news" when other sites have already been talking about it for a full day. Maybe we should just post stories without any sensational "BREAKING NEWS" or "EXCLUSIVE" headlines and let people talk about them.
Now again, I call this a "slight criticism". It's really not a big f'in deal. You're the one who had to make a long post about it, I just made a parenthetical comment.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday April 06 2017, @05:22PM
I guess it's a good thing that there are so many things in the queue deemed worthy, that we end up getting to some of them a day after the rest of the world.
Whether the stories in the queue should be shuffled to bring forward a topic of specific importance, already buzzing (argh) ad nauseam all over the tech web, is a matter of The Greatest Editors In The World's choice...
That tag line is pretty punny, by the way.
Better than a product which requires an external server to open a friggin' garage door, at least.
(Score: 2) by n1 on Thursday April 06 2017, @05:34PM
The criticism is fair.
This story isn't time sensitive, and being a day behind other sites is only notable in the fact that the news cycle is now far less than 24hrs....
But even then, the slight delay can be fruitful as it yielded your original comment about the reactions of similar tech communities to this one. This gave some of us here more time to reflect on the details of the story and the initial reactions/responses before we throw in our own 2c.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Thursday April 06 2017, @06:22PM
If you feel that way and don't see it in the queue, then submit it, for pete's sake. That goes for you or anyone here--if you see something interesting nobody else has sent in yet, do so. Grab the headline for the thing and a paragraph or two from the article that communicates the gist, and you're done. 5 minutes of your time, tops.
Be the world you want to see.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 06 2017, @05:30PM (1 child)
More than likely a passive-aggressive way of pointing out that SN is frequently a day or two behind most other sites when it comes to posting current stories.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Thursday April 06 2017, @09:40PM
Offtopic rant: I don't give a flying fnck what /. does, or does not have. I do not visit that site. Either snark people are suggesting I *should* visit that site (hot news!), or they are telling everyone how "hip" they are (on a geek/nerd news comment site!?)
Either way, it is, IMO, unnecessary, and possibly pathetic. Submit, comment, moderate, edit, participate. but try not to denigrate the site - it only makes you look small.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday April 06 2017, @05:54PM
"should we mark unique stories to this site"
Kinda sorta in context, I read that as "antique" stories. Except, it didn't quite make sense, and I read it again. I liked it better as "antique". ROFLMAO - yes, let's start marking antique stories!!
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Thursday April 06 2017, @08:42PM
Can't have any rants or unfair criticisms in an online forum. Find where the OP lives and fry all his computers.
<wiicked witch>I'll get your tablets my pretty. And your automatic garage door opener too! </wicked witch>