Welcome to the ancient, mystic society of No Homers.
Microsoft if coming out with it’s own MP3 player to compete with the iPod. Look familiar? Don’t care if they are making their own, just wish they would have tried a bit harder to come up with a design that was marginally different then the iPod. I still wouldn’t buy it, but I would have a sliver more respect for it.
Was going to post about this earlier, but didn’t get the chance. I’ve been playing Diablo III of and on since Friday night. The name of the game is actually Titan Quest, but don’t let that fool you. It really is Diablo III. We’ve been dieing for something like this for a very long time. I could not be happier.
Well, I could be a little bit happier, but not because of any game flaw. They use SecureRom copy protection and it causes the game to crash a lot. And whenever the game crashes it corrupts your character. You have to delete your saved data, like quests, just to load your character up again. Your character is fine, game just puts you back to the beginning and forgets all the quests you did. I’ve found a few tricks (save every 2 minutes and ALT+F4 to quit instead of menus) that have let me play for a very long time without a single crash though. They are also looking into the problem, but they say it is hard to troubleshoot since some people are using a cracked game and some are using Deamon Tools because the idea of swapping game discs like crazy in this day and age is a joke to some (myself included). And others are doing everything legitimately and still having the issue. I think it’s a great anti-piracy strategy though. Nothing will prevent people from pirating your game more then making it unplayable for everybody.
When it is working, it is a most fantabulous game though. And plan on playing it a lot more and really enjoying myself.
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I like it when we cure things. When I read this, two of my favorite quotes popped into my head. I don’t remember then verbatim, but here is the jist.
Mel Gibbson:
There was an interview I watched on T.V. where he claimed stem cell research was a scam and has made zero progress. This was a while ago, but even then they had cured a few diseases in mice.
Bush:
“These cures are several years away, so why even try?”.
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Talking to Sosacms about my miserable damn day while transferring data from a crummy 900mhz, 256mb RAM PC to the new Mac Mini and playing a bit of City of Heroes. Then I notice that I can’t move my mouse or use my keyboard. But all my City of Heroes animations are working just fine. Look at my USB hub and all the lights are out. Think, “Great, this shit just never ends.” But it turns out that wasn’t the problem. No matter where I plugged my keyboard and mouse in, they wouldn’t work. I even have extra USB cards because I am so used to my motherboards’ on board USB crapping out. I have a total of 10 USB slots and I barely managed to find a combination that would support just my mouse and keyboard. So not only is my RAM slots bad, but the on board USB is hosed now too. This mobo is really trying to fill in the shoes of it’s predecessors.
I have no idea what to do next. I loathe the idea of trying yet another motherboard. Not only because I think it will fail me too, but the thought of tearing apart my entire PC really isn’t appealing. I am so very, very sick of PC repair.
*edit* Did a complete power cycle (turned off the power supply) and all the USB ports seem to be working. Think the hub died and temporarily killed them.
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Normally I don’t post about stuff like this because up here it is an every day occurrence. But there was a little extra crazy today that made it extra special. Every time I go home from work there are a few lights that seem to be victim of some very poor driving habits. I’m usually going straight and waiting for the left turners. Their light goes yellow and they keep on coming, then it goes red and you think it’ll at least start slowing down right? Nope, they keep coming. Then our light turns green, so now they really should stop right? Nope, they keep coming. Eventually the folk with the green light get sick of waiting and just start going. Ends with left turners slamming on their breaks and swerving around a bit.
I find this baffling. Is the 2-3 minute wait really worth that much? Today on the way back from lunch it happened again, but at a much smaller light. Their light turns red, ours turns green. But this time the left turn lain is cleared out. But then this bitch hauls ass down it and tries to turn, like she can “beat” an already very red light. The through traffic is already moving at this point. So she slams on her breaks and starts honking at the through traffic. The ass holes that they are. After all, she was merely trying to run a red light and they fucked it all up. Inconsiderate pricks.
That I find most baffling. No shame. No thoughts of “shit, that was dumb and impatient of me.”. We were the fucking ass holes for getting in her way. She was going to Wal-Mart God damnit!
In conclusion, women drivers, no survivors…. Actually, I’m finding the elderly are by far the most dangerous. That South Park episode wasn’t far off. Average age male and female seem to be equally retarded.
My three 1gb sticks of RAM came today. Was all excited to start up CoH to see if the performance was any better. Instead it immediately froze. Turns out the 2nd memory slot on my mobo is bad. I hate computers so very much. The last three mother boards I’ve owned has had this issue. So not even sure buying a new one will help. Such a God damn gamble with computer hardware these days. So I have 2gb of worthless RAM sitting on my desk. Fun.
What a miserable day yesterday was. I thought Apple Support was better then any other support I have had to deal with, but in the end that is the only part I am upset about. We verified that my laptop was fuckered, so I said i wanted to do a return. Because I ordered it online and made changes to it, like adding another 512mb RAM, that I don’t qualify for a normal return or refund. I have to take it to a certified Apple support center, have them verify the problem, then they can help me setup the return. The nearest one is in Salt Lake. So I drive my ass all the way up there and the main Apple technician has no idea what I’m talking about. Said they only do repairs there, which I could have done at a place 1 mile from my home. I told him everything I tried and that somebody in a forum said they had the exact same problem and it was determined to be bad RAM. He was way ahead of me though and already at the Memory Tester that comes on the Mac install disc. Almost immediately it failed. Lame thing is, he still has to ship it all the way to Apple. Can’t just swap it out right there.
Now here are three problems I have with that situation. First, the only way to order online is through the customization screen. Yet if you choose anything at all, you are negating the option for a return for exchange or refund. That’s a dirty policy. Secondly, telling me something that gives me 2 hours of driving in nasty weather and rush hour when it isn’t even remotely accurate. The support people should have told me straight up that I don’t qualify for a return, instead of tricking me into the repair solution. Thirdly, why the fuck don’t they run their own damn RAM test before shipping it to people? Sounds like this isn’t a rare problem. The guy at the Mac store said he gets at leat two a week with bad RAM issues.
But on the plus side, I should have my MacBook in good working order next week. Hopefully they’ll ship it to the house and not make me do that drive again. And after I got home I went to a real Mac store called Mac Something. “Something” is really part of the name, it’s not me forgetting like usual. Sweet digs. Had a gorgeous 30″ cinema display running with all kinds of sexy accessories. Sosacms came with me and he was drooling over everything. Karen’s work PC is a 900mhz, 256mb ram pile of shit. And once again Windows fucked over my folks. Second time they have legitimately bought Windows and had it disable because it was “pirated”. I’m sure it is some idiot with a keygen who actually registers his ill gotten Windows. So instead of spending more time and money on this garbage we went the Mac Mini route.
Brought it to work with me and put it on my 2nd monitor. It’s a bit noisy, unlike the pre-Intel ones, but I hear that will be fixed soon since it is just a software glitch in one of the patches. Doing updates now, hopefully that will resolve it. Other then that I am as happy with it as I was with my MacBook. And getting it from a local store will make any possible woes easier. I also had them upgrade and test the RAM when I bought it. The Mighty Mouse is wild. 4 button, 3D scroll mouse. Crazy thing is the button is actually the entire bottom of the mouse. So if you are a savage, you can just mash your entire hand down to click. Or you can do left and right clicking as it is pressure and position sensitive. Also has two side buttons that do some pretty neat effects in the OS. Scroll wheels works great too. And it’s nice to have horizontal scroll without having to hold down a keyboard button.
I think my mom will have a blast with this thing. She is a hobby artist, but damn good at it and definitely has that mind set most of the time. Have until Monday to have all her office needs setup on this thing. Should be fun for me.
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Last night my computer started to really crawl. And I don’t exactly have a wimpy box. Here is what I do have:
So it is frustrating when Windows runs like total garbage. So I look at my page file usage and it is over 2 God damn gigs. I hard set it to match my physical memory, but it doesn’t seem to care. Now it only goes up to 1.7gigs and then Windows yells at me for not having enough virtual memory. Nothing in Task Manager is using more then 30mb or RAM. Just booting up Windows and looking at my memory usage, 50% of my physical memory is gone and the page file is at 500mb. This is before loading a single app.
So either I need some help making Windows not suck nuts or I need to buy 3 gigs of RAM. Which I’m not totally against, I’m just not confident Windows wont gobble all of that up as well. I am constantly running Spybot, Ad-Aware, and AVG and they never find anything.
I’ve been wanting to separate work from play, so maybe my 3rd option would be to dual boot Windows and Linux again. Only thing I don’t like about that is I like to quickly transition between work and gaming. 15 minute breaks here and there. Or I like to work while gaming. Slow CoH missions and I can get some decent work done. The other issue is my storage. Never found a smooth way to handle a dual boot. Neither OS needs all 320gb to itself, but they do need most of that shared. Only Fat32 is comfortably supported in Linux, but I wouldn’t even be able to rip a damn DVD if I did that.
Eventually the solution will be a Mac Mini on a KVM probably. For now, looks like it’s off to Newegg for 3 gigs of RAM. Will probably be my last big PC upgrade for a long time.
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With all these recent news of pretty Xgl in Linux I decided to give Suse and Ubuntu a try on my workstation. Doesn’t run Windows all that hot and I usually prefer Linux at work. Lots of downloading all for naught. Neither Ubuntu or Suse detect either of my graphic cards. I have the usual generic onboard Intel 82865G and an ATI Radeon. I guess those are some very “rare” cards? Who’s ever heard of “Radeon” anyway, right? Makes me scoff even harder at the Linux fanboys that say it is easier and more user friendly then Windows. Windows doesn’t detect your graphics card any better, but it doesn’t spit you to a command prompt either.
On a happier note, my MacBook should arrive mid next week. From what I’ve seen of the Mac Mini here at the office, I think Mac OS will be the happy medium between Windows and Linux. Looking forward to it.
If I wasn’t about to receive such spendor, I would spend the day trying to get Linux working on my station. I’m not exactly a Linux n00b. Perfectly capable of resolving this, I just think it it unecessary and don’t particularly enjoy spending hours just trying to get a basic X manager to load. But, as frustrated as I get with Linux, once you spend all the pain and suffering to get it working, it does work much better then Windows in this environment. I would much rather be in Linux then Windows while developing.
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Looks like the latest Ubuntu switched to the super pretty Mac OS X like interface. Almost enough to make me want to try Linux again. Let me just say that I do love Linux very much. But I’m not about to pretend that it is hassle free for the common user. The prettier X Windows gets the harder it is to install. I had a decent time with Suse and a few others. Unless you want a dual monitor setup, of course.
I love the comments too. You have the hard core Linux lovers saying how horribly difficult it is to get nVidia cards working with Windows XP. When it’s super easy with Linux. All you have to do is download the approprate kernel headers, run the right nVidia script (if you are using a mainstream enough distro otherwise there is much more compiling and configuring to be done), and then edit your X windows config. And if you want dual screen, plan on spending a lot of time in that config and bouncing between run levels. Hope your very familiar with the command line. I know my folks are rock solid with unix based commands. But man, that’s sooo much easier then Windows XP. To quote a comment: “Linux is far better at that and easier for the masses to adopt it.”. So true. All you need to install Linux is a very distro specific step by step guide.
Not that I love Windows XP. My hatred runs very deep. Hopefully I’ll be trying the happy meduim, Mac OS X, in the next month or so.
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