The Second Apocalypse
Miscellaneous Chatter => The Forum of Interesting Things => Topic started by: EkyannusIII on March 06, 2014, 06:34:57 pm
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Was looking at Amazon just now for something written by a man who is a scholar of Roman law and turned up a very funny database goof:
(http://i.imgur.com/xRv2AVY.png)
The contrast between a dry tome on the history of Roman historiography a tween horror novel brought a smile to my face. What other amusing anomalies have you seen at the world's largest online retailer?
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lol that is awesome.
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I'm very partial to the life changing banana slicer. (http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/banana-slicer-reviews)
"What can I say about the 571B Banana Slicer that hasn't already been said about the wheel, penicillin, or the iPhone.... this is one of the greatest inventions of all time. My husband and I would argue constantly over who had to cut the day's banana slices. It's one of those chores NO ONE wants to do! You know, the old "I spent the entire day rearing OUR children, maybe YOU can pitch in a little and cut these bananas?" and of course, "You think I have the energy to slave over your damn bananas? I worked a 12 hour shift just to come home to THIS?!" These are the things that can destroy an entire relationship. It got to the point where our children could sense the tension. The minute I heard our 6-year-old girl in her bedroom, re-enacting our daily banana fight with her Barbie dolls, I knew we had to make a change. That's when I found the 571B Banana Slicer. Our marriage has never been healthier, AND we've even incorporated it into our lovemaking. THANKS 571B BANANA SLICER!"
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not quite hilarious, but this review is second on amazon, and if it gets enough "unhelpful" votes it should push it off the Judging Eye frontpage:
http://www.amazon.com/review/R3KWPU098A8Q3B/ref=cm_cr_dp_title?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B005V22050&nodeID=133140011&store=digital-text
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not quite hilarious, but this review is second on amazon, and if it gets enough "unhelpful" votes it should push it off the Judging Eye frontpage:
http://www.amazon.com/review/R3KWPU098A8Q3B/ref=cm_cr_dp_title?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B005V22050&nodeID=133140011&store=digital-text
Downvoted, thanks for the post. Can't have the negative propaganda floating around influencing possible readership.
TJE might not have been his best book, but I'd not say it was tedious.
"Tedious: too long, slow, or dull: tiresome or monotonous." If anything, TJE was one of the least "tedious" in the series. I thought it was short and fast-paced, relatively speaking.
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the tedious comment for the fastest, most compact narrative of the series is really nuts.
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Makes me think that this person started the series with TJE... Which is absurd and insane. Who starts a series in the middle, and then gets upset that they don't like it?
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It's not on the first page anymore. Good work, but perhaps someone who writes better than me should comment on that reply explaining what's wrong with it, so people don't think that Bakker fans are campaigning to down vote negative reviews of his books for no reason (not that that's what happening here).
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no, there's plenty of negative reviews of his books I don't care about, that particular review was pretty egregiously poor, especially to be so highly rated and on the first page of the book.
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Lol... Some people really make me feel quizzical.
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By quizzical do you mean deep seeded hatred for humanity? Because if so, then I agree.
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Nope. I was once told that when I'm at my worst I get a look of... condescension, let's call it. But "quizzical" is probably about the point that I start wondering where someone falls on the spectrum of machineness.
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Makes me think that this person started the series with TJE... Which is absurd and insane. Who starts a series in the middle, and then gets upset that they don't like it?
And THIS makes me think you did not read the review :P ;D
He says that he has read PoN.
Which brings me to the following - is it really "cool" to downvote someone who does not like Bakker books? Just because? For example downvoting the review without reading it just so it is not on the frontpage anymore?
I did not think it was that bad a review. I do not agree, obviously, but just downvoting his review seems wrong to me.
We might not find the book tedious but if he does...well he is not wrong.
I just think this is dangerous ground (and i even think Scott might chide us for such behaviour ;) )....it borders on fan-boy-ism.
Just thought i'd throw it out there.
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This is hardly a big issue is it Kellais? I do not even bother reading negative reviews of his books. I know before I read it that I will disagree. Because I love them. Simple as that.
It is great that you actually can vote it down, so if enough people do, it will vanish. Democracy in action :)
I actually left facebook on that specific reason. I was not allowed to show my dislikes towards certain posts, only happy or indifferent. That is not good enough.
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This is hardly a big issue is it Kellais? I do not even bother reading negative reviews of his books. I know before I read it that I will disagree. Because I love them. Simple as that.
I guess it depends on if you think reviews are important? If not, then it is not a big deal (but why then would you feel the need to downvote one?!)
If, like me, you think reviewers do an important job for us readers, i do think it is an issue (not a big issue if you compare to poverty and world hunger etc. sure, but i guess we can agree that we know that we are talking "in perspective" ;) ). The up- and downvote button has a reason for being there and this is not to downvote reviews where you do not like the overall star result. It is for telling other readers which reviews are helpful as in "you can take something with you from reading it". So it is to downvote one-liner reviews like "This books stinks" or "Wow, best book ever!!!". It is decidedly NOT meant to be an instrument for fan-wars! And if you downvote a review just because you do not like the quality assignment the reviewer made (because you think Bakker should get a better one), then yes, this is not what it is intended for. Especially (but not exclusively) if you have not read the review at all.
Just imagine what you would think if, let us say, Terry Goodkind Fans would start to downvote all positive Bakker reviews on the grounds of "Just because Bakker sucks".
And just to be clear - i know that, most probably, lots of people use those buttons for exactly that. I just think this use of it is dishonest and manipulative. This is why those things are useless on amazon. Which is a shame. Because the idea is a sound one.
It's just that i kind of have higher expectations of the people on this forum.
Is that wrong of me?! ;)
I agree this is democracy in action...but it should be democracy in action on grounds of "is this a good REVIEW" not "Is this a review i think i can agree with in its overall sentiment in respect to my favourite author"!
As to the fb comment...i agree there should be a dislike button. On the other hand, if you disagree with something, you can always make a comment to that effect. But yeah, even if i am on fb, i am not a big fan of it. I just use it to stay in touch with my friends that do not live close anymore. Everything else is of no use to me.
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I read the review, and I believe my downvote was permissible as I thought it didn't provide a fair and/or useful description of the book. After all, what would be the point of the downvote if not for that very reason?
no, there's plenty of negative reviews of his books I don't care about, that particular review was pretty egregiously poor, especially to be so highly rated and on the first page of the book.
I agree with this statement, and am a bit insulted that you (Kellais) think I just went in there guns blazing and blindly started downvoting.
Makes me think that this person started the series with TJE... Which is absurd and insane. Who starts a series in the middle, and then gets upset that they don't like it?
And THIS makes me think you did not read the review :P ;D
Yeah he said he read PON, I was suggesting that he lied about it. Not really sure how you could read PoN and then find TJE long/slow/etc.
Separating any of my personal actions from "fanboyism" is really impossible. I am a fan, a fanatic even, and the line of "fanboy" is blurry at best, so for someone who is in fact a known fan, any uncharitable reading of an action I take could be considered as such. Its an easy argument to make, and I can't show you any kind of proof that its not, so its up to you if you want to define it as such.
I tend to think I'm a reasonable person, and I feel no guilt at all about my downvote (though I do obviously feel the need to defend it :P). If you thought the review was good, go ahead and upvote, thats why both options are there.
And just to be clear - i know that, most probably, lots of people use those buttons for exactly that. I just think this use of it is dishonest and manipulative. This is why those things are useless on amazon. Which is a shame. Because the idea is a sound one.
It's just that i kind of have higher expectations of the people on this forum.
So do I. Maybe this is why I didn't explicitly lay out all my thoughts on the subject.... Though I'll say that I'm glad you felt the need to call out bullshit when you saw it.
Anyway, Bakker would certainly despise the idea of the in-crowd mentality you're talking about. My "negative propaganda" comment was a joke, but I can see why it wouldn't come across like that (should have used the winky face ;)). I chose to downvote based on the content AND quality of the review, not just because it was negative. There are negative reviews on that site that have complaints that I can understand, and so I left them alone.
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Hey Wilshire, thanks for taking the time.
First of all, i was not trying to point my posts at you...so i am sorry you feel insulted. Although to be honest, after our little talk in the quorum (the one about looking critically at Scott's book etc), i wasn't sure you would not do what i talked about in the posts... ;) On the other hand, if you feel the need to defend, maybe you know i hit some little truths there ;D
About fanboy-ism...there is some truth in what you say. But again, my comments were not directly pointed at you but i talked in a more general way about these kind of things. If you feel no guilt and think you downvoted without the things i mentioned then you did not vote fanboy-ishly per my definition ;)
Be that as it may, i once again have to say that it is only on this forum that i think we can have this discussion so civily...on many another forum i frequent i am sure i would have already been flame-war-ed to death after my posts. And i am glad that you chose to explain your reasoning in here instead of calling me names, Wilshire (not that i would have expected you to call me names...just so we are clear...not that you feel insulted again ;) ;D ).
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This reminds me of a certain person who reviewed The Unholy Consult and gave it 5/5 stars over a year ago.
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Well it was released july 2012 or 13 so that seems reasonable.
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Lol, it's only fiction.
Down-voting/up-voting because you don't or do agree is just how the internet works.
I will sometimes down-vote reviews of fiction books if I disagree with the reviewer. Calling people fan-boys is just what one cries when their unpopular opinion gets down-voted.
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I guess it depends on if you think reviews are important?
Well, to some extent I believe that they are quite important. Personally I almost never read reviews that are rated in any way. Psychologically, ratings can cloud my judgement. I prefer an objective review, where the ideas the author tries to entertain are laid out without judgement. That is (to me) the most interesting and quite frankly the only aspect of a review I need to know about. If I like the ideas the author presents, then that is all I need to know. Everything else is secondary, and what I really do not need to know about is the subjective opinions of some guys/girls on the internet, who either gives it thumb up or down.
So in other words I do not take these kinds of reviews seriously, other than the need to get rid of silly "reviews" that states that TJE is tedious, which to anyone who has his attention in the right place while reading, will say is a meaningless and pointless statement.
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Well it was released july 2012 or 13 so that seems reasonable.
Weird, I was sure it was published in the year 2025 (http://www.waterstones.com/waterstonesweb/products/r-+scott+bakker/the+unholy+consult/7441299/)...
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This reminds me of a certain person who reviewed The Unholy Consult and gave it 5/5 stars over a year ago.
Was that me?
Well it was released july 2012 or 13 so that seems reasonable.
Weird, I was sure it was published in the year 2025 (http://www.waterstones.com/waterstonesweb/products/r-+scott+bakker/the+unholy+consult/7441299/)...
All this reminds me of is: In The Year 2525 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhNM2K8cmU8)
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Lol, I had never listened to all of that song before!
On the subject of erroneous release dates:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Aspect-Emperor&diff=543551559&oldid=542627510
Amazon fails:
www.cracked.com/article_18939_8-stupid-amazon-products-with-impressively-sarcastic-reviews.html/?_nospa=true
The last one is pretty mysterious
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http://www.amazon.de/Unholy-Consult-Aspect-Emperor-Scott-Bakker/dp/1841498319%3FSubscriptionId%3D1NNRF7QZ418V218YP1R2%26tag%3Dbf-dt-home-1-21%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D1841498319
Looks like germany is getting TUC in about 41 days...
Oh, and so are we:
http://www.bookdepository.com/Unholy-Consult-Scott-Bakker/9781841498317?utm_medium=api&utm_campaign=Bookfindercom&a_aid=Bookfinder&utm_term=1841498319&utm_source=book_link&utm_content=The-Unholy-Consult&selectCurrency=USD
When will the lies stop!