An incomplete experience
925353
It's said quite frequently when the subject of nixed content comes up that it cannot be expected that a brand new Sims game can be as fleshed out as the previous incarnations in all their expansion pack glory; I disagree.

The Sims 4 is a "core" game in a franchise that has been wildly successful and around longer than kids born in the 2000s. It has plenty of added features and is created on a brand new engine that is designed around being as smooth and accessible as possible, even on the lowest end of computers.

So why am I giving this game a zero?

I think most people are confused as to what an expansion pack is supposed to be. An expansion was a way for a developer to continue to develop updates for a game. The process of patching new content for software that's already released costs a lot of money and resources. When you purchase an expansion pack, you're paying for the team to continue to patch in new content.
Expansion packs for video games should be considered just that. A patch that elaborates upon the core game in a way that completes the experience.

By ignoring content they've already released into the franchise; they've made the base game smaller and bareboned. They've ignored all the iterations they've released of their software. Yes. The game runs very well. (minus a crash or two I've received with the autosave function being non-existent despite the claim that it's implemented) It looks fine, but it's full of archaic loading screens;
invasive saving, and several design choices that boggled my mind to the point where I simply couldn't continue playing.

There's such an exceptional amount of customization to a Sim's body and face-- very few complexion changes (every Sim ends up looking like a barbie), limited make-up or hair colors.
Every Sim ends up looking the same with one of the 21 total male hair styles or the slightly more extensive 25 female hair styles.

Teens, Young Adults, Adults and Elder are all the same height with very few differences that place them apart. Why even have variation?

The neighborhood system is very restrictive. Under the current system it's completely possible to run out of lots to place Sims. In fact, if you want a new neighborhood for each family you make? Can't happen. They all exist parallel to each other in the same neighborhood.
And I.. just the jobs and what happens when your Sims are on different lots from each other.

Any game should be an evolution of it's previous iterations.  This one attempts it giving it fresh paint and a new engine; but almost all other features are either stripped out or downgraded.

I spent 60$ USD on a complete experience and instead of getting Microsoft Word I received Notepad.
1592057
This was a terrible experience-not only were the main parts (headphones and balls) missing, when I tried to return the item I was not provided with a return label.  Mr. s
4009548
This will be brief.  I'm rating this product on my Excel 2008 experiences alone, simply because the incompleteness of the implementation.

I expected to be able to move Excel workbooks seamlessly between Windows and Mac, performing edits on each platform, and using an identical set of function so long as I avoided any 2008-specific functions (if there are any).

I can't.

I expected that 2008 would be a superset of 2007.

It isn't.

I make extensive use of the following functions and none of these have been implemented in 2008:-

* Advanced filtering (the 2007 filtering is marvelous!)
* Filter by color
* Sort by color
* Conditional formatting using graduated colors
* Macro recording
* VBA

There may be more that bug me, but I have only been using this product for a day and already have been bitten by the ones above.

I know that Solver is missing, but I rarely use it and I understand there is a 3rd party free add-in for 2008, so that worries me less.
607031
I think the vast majority of us bought / read this book to learn what happened during Alexander's visit to the other side.  Unfortunately, I got only three things from the (extremely brief) narrative of his experience:  he spent time in a dark and muddy hole without any knowledge of who he was and why he was there, he took aerial journeys with a girl on a butterfly wing to view the lush countryside below, and he learned from God (or om, as Alexander names Him) that love is the most important thing.

While I believe there is certainly life after death, and Alexander visited Heaven, his account is extremely lacking in detail and content.  In fairness to Alexander, it may indeed be difficult for him to put into words his experiences, but that's what we want to know.

I've read quite a few accounts of NDEs, and this is the first time I've heard of a dark and muddy hole.  HIs NDE is noticeably different from other people's experiences, and I wonder why that is the case.  He doesn't tell us why.  Maybe there will be a sequel.
4129003
In my opinion, a minimalistic tribal experience that is as short on vibrant charm as it is as short in length. I am used to the undeniably talented way Radiohead stick together as a band but this has none of the usual coaction. Instead it may as well be a continuation of Thom's work within his solo album The Eraser. I felt the reliance upon digital drum loops fed off the success of similar sounding tracks they had produced in the past and was almost abused track after track leaving me with a sense that experimentation and diversity had gone out the window with this album. There was a noticeable lack of guitar as well as no emotively driven vocal melodies.

I particularly enjoyed Kid A and the progression out of a sense for rock'n'pop was welcoming to my ears as the band took new and more experimental measures to guarantee a continuation of not only a growth within their capabilities but also as a way of furnishing gratification upon their crowd who constantly expect more. Having said this I honestly feel this album has gone too far and neglects the interests of certain fans. The Radiohead exhilaration is dead and all that is left is a distant and undefinable sound that may as well be a minimalist remix.

The only notable track for me was Separator.
4959065
The book is well written, and the message is s good one, but there is very little said about the experience itself. I think the title, and even the sample read offered by Amazon are misleading.
787869
The view is not as clear as I would have expected or desired.
2744579
It consistently crashes, and amazon lost some of the songs I had added to playlists. Also their station selection is kind of limited. Kudos to having new music though. Overall not that bad of an experience.
4050423
I chose this book by Nicholas and his brother Micah because it seemed a way to deeply connect two journeys, the journey to disparate and amazing Wonders of the World, with the wonder of a life, that is a memoir, and it seemed a great idea. They visited more places in three weeks that any can actually "do" in that small amount of time, places that are amazing, and deep, for the wonder of both the architecture and the history. Every one of these places, in contemplation, is deeply worthy of more than the very brief words given and what I found most disappointing was the lack of poetry, of emotive depth to the discussion of feeling that must have been evoked in these travels.

The story that does weave through this book is a story about a family, about tragedy of major loss, and it's also about faith, loss of faith, and the kind of redemption that could happen, in the bonding and sharing of a life between two obviously caring, feeling, brothers, who are, in personality, quite complementary, being in many ways different.

I have to say I was deeply disappointed in this book but definitely moved by their life stories and that weave. I felt there was something blocked in the telling, because that authenticity that allows feeling to come through, was not there. I have visited some of these places and felt the wonder. I also know that these places are deeply about the genius of ancient people who were able to construct these temples for the very purpose of worship, and that to view how the sun is emergent exactly as planned during the summer solstice was a main reason for their being built. This is not ever explicated in this account and I went on line to read about many of these places and the why of them. That in itself is AWE, but not communicated in the book.

I was not moved by the irreverence at times, and yet, do know there is a place for mischief and humor in all of our lives. It just seemed to take away from the impact of places that are simply about AWE, as I have said.

Nicholas Sparks has a chat line and place for comments on line. I went to this, and wrote about the book and was instantly told, Can't You Write Something More Meaningful? I think in life, there has to be on any chat line, room for intelligent discussion that is not always totally positive, and I tried to be fair about a book, that is deeply about lives and not be hurtful. But yes, I was disappointed in this and felt the writing of this had its problems. I would not have made this book a bestseller. I felt so cheated by the lack of wonder in the travel part and lack of understanding of these places. It seemed too rote. And maybe it's because the emotional journey is one that is very difficult to express.
4816655
It did NOT meet my expectations because it is NOT complete: The second volume (letter J to Z) is missing. I had to return it.
4413145
This product didn't preform the task it claims to.
2949763
Story seems incomplete. The book was very short and it seems as though there should be more to the story
4957705
An incomplete-seeming memoir of a midwife's work in the poverty-stricken dockyard area of London in the 1950s, this describes some of the author's patients and the nuns among whom she lived. We get almost nothing of her own life beyond asides indicating that her parents were unhappy with her choice of career and that she eventually married; we don't even know how long she worked with the nuns. The narrative ends abruptly -- we are not told why she stopped working in the area or whether the nuns continued.  A fair number of pages is spent on side issues: the struggle for midwives to achieve recognition by physicians, the difficulty of  transcribing or understanding Cockney speech, social analysis about what a tight community this was until modernization of the docks destroyed it, the spirituality of the nuns. The core of the book, case-studies of the women and families she cared for and the system by which care for that segment of the population was organized, is interesting but probably not worth wading through all the other verbiage. She provides a medical glossary at the back for those who don't understand obstetrical terms or procedures.
4420883
Although I love poetry, I expected to read a novel. "The Korean  Word For Butterfly" is filled with emotion and symbolism. I think it would be an excellent book on  which to do an I depth study - symbolism, morals, cultural differences, interpersonal relationships, ect. However reading this for pure pleasure without anyone with which to discuss the multiple scenarios and their implications that are experienced by the characters, left me with the feeling that the novel was incomplete. Too many emotions for the reader to ponder alone.
3640404
I would warn all potential purchasers of this work that it is probably incomplete-- the original two volume set (which I own) has 463 pages in Vol. 1 and 959 pages in Vol. 2.

The 490 odd pages advertised in this volume indicate that it's probably just Vol. 1. This is a pity, as both volumes give an incredibly large amount of information, although the title is misleading-- this set of books has much more to do with Clymer's axe grinding against A.M.O.R.C. than it does the history of Rosicrucianism in America. It rails against A.M.O.R.C., against its origins with the charter granted to A.M.O.R.C. by Theodore Reuss as the Grand Master of the Pantheosophical Lodge of Europe, against Dr. Reuss's other organization, the Ordo Templi Orientis, and of course, against the O.T.O.'s much more famous subsequent Grand Master, Aleister Crowley. Clymer attempts to prove the illegitimacy of A.M.O.R.C. to lend credence to his own Rosicrucian Brotherhood In America, whose authority to charter he purchased around the turn of the century from the widow of Dr. Paschal Beverley Randolph, as shown in correspondence recently published in Bishop T. Allen Greenfield's "The Hermetic Brotherhood of Light." But in doing so, he presents a number of historical documents and pieces from long out-of-print journals and magazines that the student would be hard-pressed to find elsewhere.

Being an Initiate of the O.T.O., I was first made aware of this set of books when xeroxed portions of it were presented to me as part of my 3rd Degree study materials back in 1992, under the obligations of secrecy of the 3rd Degree. This is no longer the case, but the materials are still very interesting and worthwhile of study to any student of Crowley, the O.T.O. or the Western Ceremonial Magickal Traditions. The original two-volume set is expensive, at least $200-300 in any condition, if it can be found at all. As such, the publisher does the student a service offering this single volume for the price, but as I say, it must be incomplete, lacking over 900 pages of the original 2 volume set.
4799293
The shipment of this seemed to get lost and there were no updates on what day it was going to arrive. This was a gift-- so the day or arrival was important to me. Not only that, but when following the directions, there are clearly not enough nails to nail the backing on the way that was specified in the directions. So, in the middle of putting this together I had to drive out to get more supplies. Pretty annoying experience over all. Now that it is put together it seems to work well and made from fairly durable material.
4718375
I was curious about what is in this volume and was disappointed by the very limited description provided by Amazon.

However, the publisher has a web site, and I found out among other things that this book is in English, and is a translation done by Hammer-Purgstall, Joseph, Freiherr von, 1774-1856.

It appears to be incomplete, in that it is not as lengthy as the original (which is 10 volumes).

If you buy the book, you are entitled to download the electronic version from the publisher's web site for free.  You can also opt to buy the electronic version directly from the publisher for only 10 USD.

Random excerpt from the book: (empty spaces and misspellings are due to character recognition software used)
riz 135 Praise of the Air and Climate. 136 Account of the Persian Crown (Taj). ib. Arts and Handicrafts, Provisions, Fruits, Beverages, Gardens, c. 137 Account of a curious conversation. 139 General Praise of Tabriz. 140 Bad and reprehensible things in Iran. 141 Pilgrimages and Visits in the town of Tabriz. 142 Description of the Expedition we undertook with the Kk n to Sham Gh z n. 143 Description of Mer gh. 144 Description of Ajan. 145 Places of Pilgrimage at Erdebil. 147 Journey from Tabriz to Erivan. Pilgrimage to the Tomb of Shems Tabriz!. 149 Description of the Town of Erivan (Rev n). 150 Description of the important town of Genje. 154 Pilgrimages (or Tombs) of Martyrs. ib. Description of the Castle of Sheki. 156 Account of the Tribe of Ettels. 157 Pilgrimage of Ash r-b b. 158 Praise of Mount Caucasus. ib. Description of the Town of Sham khi. 159 Description of the Fortress of Baku. 162 Description of our journey from Baku through Georgia. 163 Description of a Whale with ears like an Elephant 164 Description of Derbend the Gate of Gates. 165 CONTENTS. Size and figure of the Castle Description of the Iron Gate Buildings within the Castle Pilgrimages The Pilgrimage of the Forty Page 166 Journey to Georgia. Description of the Castle of Serir-ul-Allan. 169 Tomb of Emir Sult n. 170 Description of the old town of K kht. ib. Description of Georgia or Sh sh dist n, viz: Betlis 171 Size and Figure of the Fortress. 172 Products. ib. The Hot-baths of Tiflis. ib. Description of the Castle of Kusekht. 173 Description of S r n. ib. Specimen of the Georgian Shushad Language ib. Genealogy of the Georgian Kings. 173 Description of the Stronghold of Akhaska, Sult n Sehms conquest. 174 Khas or Revenues of the Sanjak Begs. 175 Number of Ziamets and Timars. ib. Form and size of the Castle of Akhachka. 176 Castles of Georgia belonging to the Province ofchaldir 177 Stations of the...