Randox

Picked up Shadows of Mordor 40% off in the Steam Sale. In all honestly, after waiting to buy the game until after I upgraded my rig (a very sound decision I think), I had lost a lot of enthusiasm for buying it at all, and it was only the last minute sweetening of the sale that pushed me over the edge. I am enjoying it though. The game doesn't seem to be particularly difficult, but the combat is very fun. I also get the sense that this game was designed with the capabilities of future computers in mind (certainly wouldn't be the first game to do this). I can't imagine very many people have a graphics card with 6GB of RAM for example :lol: I also picked up flight Simulator X because it was super cheap and I have a joystick and no flying games (I'm not sure why I have a joystick). I'll also throw in the very recent release of LCPD:FR 1.0d for GTA:IV. They've made some changes and improvements, particularly to followers, but they also seem to have made massive strides in stability. Crashing after 15 minutes is no longer the norm, and my game now seems to be capable of making it to 45+ minutes as a regular thing. They also put in an auto save and restore feature so that all you have to do is reload the game and spawn in a new car, and you pick up pretty much where you left off, which makes resuming the game after a crash much faster and more enjoyable. That I didn't know they were developing a new version of the mod just makes things that much better for me.

Not being your style is all well and good, but it seems an odd criticism to make unless you didn't know it was a single player game when you bought it. Most games fall into the category of not being MMORPG's.

Among other things, I got my new computer parts for Christmas. I still need to install the SSD, which going by my experience so far promises to be a happy time, but I did get the internet working. Specs as of now: Motherboard: ASUS Z97-AR CPU: Intel i5-4690k @ 3.5GHz GPU: AMD HD 7950 3GB RAM: 3x 4GB @1033MHz (I think. It could be 1333MHz, I've never actually figured out the model of the sticks) Storage: 2 x 2TB HDD + 250GB SSD Case: NZXT 410 (white) Very happy with the case. Has been quite easy to work with for building purposes. I also picked up 20 years of Charlie Brown comics (1970-1989), which is awesome. I've never read that many of them before since we only have one book of them in the house, but I loved the animated stuff as a kid, and Snoopy is my favourite cartoon character of all time. I might have to change my avatar for a while, we'll see. This will hinge on whether I prove to have an encyclopedic ability to retain and quote Peanuts like I do Dilbert.

I remember once one of my housemates came home with a drink whose name I cannot remember. It tasted somewhere between juice and cotton candy, not a hint of alcohol to it at all. Was 15% or 18% by volume (so, wine). Probably not a great idea. I mean, I guess if you really hate the taste of alcohol (a camp to which I am a member. I tolerate the taste, but there is nothing alcoholic I would ever drink because I enjoy the flavor), but for everyone else it just seems like a way to get super drunk really easily (or more to the point, a way to get other people super drunk without them expecting it). I also have to imagine that with that much sugar, the hangover that stuff would give you is both inevitable and spectacular to behold. Merry Christmas!

I may have read sex while browsing tif as driving in my head. Apparently browsing tif is as awesome as driving, which I consider to be high praise. My point still stands, even if it was a totally random comment out of the blue. Getting a proper program setup to do anything is typically a lot of work. In school, they start you off with some pretty simple scripts that have no user input, and later, a little bit of user input. Was at least a month into programming before we were asked to do anything that could be run again by user command instead of self terminating and requiring you to run it again. The fun stuff is after you get all the framework built and start constructing a program that accomplishes some task. You might try Scratch. It's much simpler, and gives you an environment to learn the concepts of coding but with the basic foundation already built. You can do some incredible stuff with it as well, though the program is somewhat limited in performance when it comes to 3D rendering and some other tasks. The rain has started here in earnest, and the wind is picking up too. The way I look at it though, I would rather have precipitation, even rain, rather than nothing but cloudy skies. There is also something to be said for not needing a jacket to go outside on Christmas since it will be pretty warm here. New experiences and such.

Everclear is practically pure ethanol. It tastes like gasoline. I was going to say drain cleaner, but gasoline is good too. It's not an experience worth having whatever you ultimately decide it tastes like. Neither is sex while driving if I'm being honest. Any car worth driving probably isn't conducive to a comfortable experience when sitting still, let alone while moving, and your subsequent death in a car accident will be nothing short of humiliating for you and all the people who survive you. If you are going to go for it though, do make sure it's a nice car. Comfort notwithstanding, it's more impressive if you die in a Corvette than a hopped up Civic or something. @RPG the only way that avatar could get any better would be if you were wearing a tank top. A white one with bear stains. I really feel that would seal the deal, though plaid is pretty good too. Any way, a very merry Christmas Eve to the OT crew, because I love you.

I could see being depressed by Christmas if you're alone. There is a pretty big emphasis on family for this one, so yeah. Also, if you're Charlie Brown. Being alone aside, it's a pretty stressful time of year for just about everyone who is an adult I think. Gifts to buy, events to go to, family drama. It's not relaxing if you're old enough to participate in the preparation of festivities.

Some consideration might be given to the idea that people are falsely banned for reasons other than "played so efficiently we concluded that only a computer could play so well".

With my parents for another Christmas, blue tree and all. Was walking the dog tonight while it was snowing, and between the snow and the lights, it's really starting to feel like Christmas for me. Of course, we are slated for a big rainstorm for Christmas, so it's looking like actual snow on the big day is out of the question (it was pretty much a Christmas miracle that we got a white Christmas last year). Maybe we should start calling rain 'Nova Scotian Snow' given how often we get it when other regions get snow (*cough* New Brunswick *cough*). In a break from a tradition going back at least as far as I can remember, the presents will all be wrapped and under the tree before Christmas Eve (tradition dictates that they come down right before we go to sleep on Christmas Eve). It's festive, but I feel like the presents are going to be taunting me. Tree has to be decorated first though (this is not unusual). Also, one of my presents is apparently being held hostage to the postal system, so we'll see how that goes :lol: And of course, it just isn't Christmas for me until I slip into my Christmas Admin costume :)

An interesting read and situation. Regarding consideration to the time someone spends botting, I would agree that someone who very quickly decides what they are doing is wrong might deserve leniency. It is however my impression that botwatch is incapable of monitoring all players at all times and instead samples at random or is otherwise directed to monitor specific players (as a result of bot reports). This would make it very difficult to tell if a situation was the first time someone had botted, or simply the first time they got caught, which I believe makes it difficult to extend leniency without creating environment where it's okay to bot as long as you have never been caught before. Assuming everything they have revealed about this case is true, and I have no reason to believe otherwise, I am not overly concerned. If botwatch failed to flag this player on its own, and only raised concern under the direction of reports where human error then led to a ban, then I am satisfied that the automated system is working exactly as it should, and that it is reasonable to expect that the procedures for human operators will need revision from time to time to deal with new circumstances as they come up. As to Jagax improving their methods...I tend to take this kind of thing with a pinch of salt. I do however know that Jagex has made recent efforts to improve some of their backend systems, so I would conclude that at least for the moment they do indeed have resources available for this task, and can I think reasonably assume they are willing to put them to use on this task. I look forward to any improvement in their appeal system, and any clarity on pretty much any aspect of botting policy is always welcome, given how difficult accurate and uptodate information can prove to be to obtain (even for a major fansite).

I don't expect crashing or freezing from my computer games. I accept that it's an inevitable possibility that my specific hardware and software combination will be one that a game might not handle, but frankly, if my computer is up to date and using modern technology, I expect my games to work, and for the most part they do. This isn't the same as expecting my games to be free of bugs, though I do have pretty high standards. I'll give leeway to games that are in development obviously, as well as games like Skyrim where I realise that the nature of the game means things are going to happen that aren't anticipated, and that the complexity of how everything fits together is going to mean that a couple things are probably going to be overlooked when the game is developed. Skyrim is the type of game that you really want to play on a PC if for no other reason than you have access to the developer console, which is a fantastic tool for overcoming a number of bugs. It also gives you access to a modding community that will release their own patches for the game, eliminating thousands of bugs that the developer couldn't be bothered to fix. On the whole, console gaming tends to be a lot more stable, especially with the mainstream developers. Do be aware though that with consoles all going online, console developers now feel free to borrow pages out of the PC developer handbook, such as releasing an unpolished game and using the early buyers as beta testers, and then just patching it later. If you aren't going to be able to patch your console games, stay away from them. There are however fewer things that can go wrong, since all consoles being identical make them easier to develop for.

That's criminal. Where I am, it couldn't be any later than the final round on Dec 13 (I finish tomorrow). Anyway, now that I have finished my final studying, I have time to think about things before I eat, watch some TV to calm down, and go to sleep. I live in perpetual fear that I will sleep through an exam, especially morning ones like tomorrow. My main countermeasure is to use 3 alarm clocks staggered over an hour, and to change up my phone alarm to something loud and obnoxious during exam season (something I am not used to). But I've also noticed that I sleep very lightly, and wake up very frequently on the night before an exam (because getting a smaller amount of poor quality sleep is fantastic for writing an exam). Other people have this...I hesitate to call it problem (it's pretty effective at ensuring I don't sleep through an exam)? I also wonder if the waking up frequently is a deliberate thing the body does in response to needing to wake up earlier than normal, or if it's just high levels of stress screwing up my ability to sleep like a normal person.

When I was in high school there was a guy in my class like that. He shaved at least a couple times in our lounge while I was there (he didn't bother with shaving cream). Sounded like sand paper. Made all the guys cringe pretty bad. I try not to remember my experience with calc 2 too much. Fortunately, it doesn't seem to be crucial to the other courses in my degree.

I've been tinkering with the LCPD:FR mod (and some related mods) for GTA4 a bit during some of my downtime between exams. I've decided that I will probably never be totally clear on exactly which files go where without more trial and error runs than I want to perform without an SSD, so I have resigned myself to a few duplicated files (.asi files are supposed to be the root folder, but some mods only seem to work if I put them all in the scripts folder. I have no idea where most of the ini files go. ELS for example at no point covers this in the documentation). The mod is pretty fantastically unstable. Adding Bravehearts Policing to LCPD:FR 1.0c seems to have made the base mod more stable. It seems that policing always crashes first, often around the time I would expect LCPD:FR to die (~20 minutes +/-10), and then LCPD:FR dies around a couple of car chases later (there is something about collisions that really upsets the mod, even when I am not in a pursuit sometimes). On the other hand, the mod is pretty fun. Debating how much time and effort I want to put into getting some more mods. There are certainly one or two more I would like to have, and ELS was certainly worth the effort to figure out (I love having proper control of the lights and siren).

That's a terrible way to start the day :(

I've only been to Mongolian Barbecue once, and it's been on my list as something to do again ever since (it was also free that time because my cousin was paying). Some changes I would make to my meal, but whenever I am not feeling particularly attached to my money, I am totally going back there. I think I fell asleep yesterday watching TV around 8pm, which isn't entirely unexpected for me after writing an exam. Heck, I visited my Dad at his office after the exam, and it took me a solid 10 to 15 seconds to remember the name of the course I had just written an exam in, or what the exam had been about. This is why I prefer writing at night. I'm totally useless the day I write, no matter when I write, so I might as well not have enough time to get anything done afterwards anyway. Also, I dislike getting up early. Also turned the heat up in my room a bit, because I think that's a good portion of the reason I've become so slow to actually get up in the last couple weeks. Also, apparently I stopped having nightmares because my general stress level just hasn't been high enough for months. I still have pretty awesome dreams on the whole, but they've started taking abrupt turns into bad endings again. The joys of exam season I suppose.

I once got a box of timbits as a secret santa gift. I don't know what the story behind it was, (I'm assuming they realized they needed to get something that morning and the persons dad was stopping by Tim Hortons anyway) but I was pretty stoked about it.

Last week I had to give a presentation, and this week the accompanying paper is due. To help me with the presentation, which was longer than any presentation I normally give, I wrote out pretty much a script so that I wouldn't forget things or resort to reading my own slides. That worked out pretty well, though I probably didn't look up as much as I should. Not a huge deal, we were being marked more on content than presentation skills. Anyway, I made a pretty decent effort to write the script well, and follow the paper format, so with a little editing and proper sourcing, it will be a pretty quick conversion. I hate sourcing so much though, and I don't know why. It should be simple, but it always turns into this arduous task of hunting down information and getting everything properly formatted (and yes, I do use an online tool to format my sources now because I don't do this often enough to ever get used to it). I'm also starting on the 5th season of Community tonight, because exam time is a time when you just need to insert some extra joy and laughs into your soul.

Sounds like a pretty sick game. Can I get it on PC yet? I heard they were working on a port months ago. Yeah, it's pretty awesome. The game is called "I'm Clearly Not Paying Attention: Wrong Sub-Forum Addition". It's gotten some pretty positive reviews so far, and the PC port is spectacular.

EDIT: I'm not even in the right subforum.

Our of curiosity, how many batteries did your phone go through in that time? I find that two years is about it for cellphones, 3 years if you really push it and don't use it much. And yes, adulthood is terrible. They try to warn us, but we never listen until it's too late.

As a former lifeguard, I can tell you that's the sort of thing I would have advised you to go see a doctor about within the next couple days before telling my partner that we might get to deal with an unconscious person today. Of course, we say that to anyone displaying a pretty big list of symptoms. It doesn't jump out at me as anything in particular, though suddenly feeling cold would probably be associated with a fever. If it keeps happening, definitely get that checked out. I don't really like any of the ball spots, with an exception for beach volleyball (for both the reasons you think, and because there are few enough people on the field that I can follow the action). Hockey is alright, and I like Curling (probably because I still play).

Finally got around to watching the movie Se7en. I've been meaning to watch that movie for a long time, though I did spend most of that time confusing it with Scott Pilgrim vs The World in my head (probably because I know about the 7 number themed ex's in that movie). The movie was...absolutely fantastic. It has that fantastic ending where all the pieces are available to be put together, but you don't do it until the exact moment the movie wants you to (you're having the same "oh shit" moment as one of the characters). I dunno, it's certainly not the most uplifting movie I have seen, and I wouldn't advise watching it while eating, but I have to respect a well crafted story. In other news, the last of my new computer parts got ordered for Christmas today, which is pretty awesome. Compliments of Black Friday sales there were a couple last minute upgrades, notably to the case. Now, if only I could skip exams and go straight to the holiday season.

... My point being, it's not like the protesters are crazy, there is a very legitimate and persuasive argument to be made that Michael Brown / the black population of the US got a raw deal here because he probably should have been indicted. I should probably clarify. First, I have a very strong natural inclination toward public order. I have absolutely no issue with the protesters in Ferguson at all. As I said, they are exercising something I consider a fundamental pillar of a functioning democracy. But I won't support rioters. To their credit, the legitimate protesters have also condemned the riots, as they should, since it's their cause the riots harm. I am also quite biased from my own interactions with local police, and because they represent order (to me), to default to supporting the actions of police, though I do acknowledge the world is not short of shady police officers, even here. It's just, I haven't interacted with them, and I view the organization as whole as a positive force. My opinion on the situation in Ferguson is obviously not an informed one, seeing as I live in another country hundreds of kilometers away and have never even been there. From what I read, and from what I know about the United States, I don't doubt that the police situation in Ferguson is pretty shady, and I fully expect there are problems there that really should be getting protested and addressed. I do not however have an opinion on the Michael Brown shooting. As I said, I am extremely biased in favor of the police, and I don't have access to any compelling evidence that isn't adult eyewitness testimony, which tends to be half accurate at best. Regardless of what actually happened, I think that the police cameras are a fantastic idea. I can see potential problems with public perception since a lot of the public really doesn't seem to get police procedure (and hollywood is not helping), but I feel that the cameras would ultimately be a boon to the police as well, since it gives accurate testimony, and could even potentially aid in prosecuting criminals. They would be there as much to protect police officers as the public, and I really don't get the massive resistance to the idea. Oh, and it always bugs me when people refer to armoured vehicles as tanks, especially when they aren't armed. For example, the RCMP Armoured Tactical Vehicle seen here has no weapons of it's own, and is mostly useful in a protective role for officers (and looks similar to what Ferguson PD were using). I don't object to federal forces like the RCMP having a few military APC's on hand, especially given that the RCMP is a paramilitary organization, though I certainly object to their use by any provincial or municipal police forces. You almost never need that kind of firepower for policing situations, and if it comes up, call in the feds or the army.

I totally forgot about that. This is Ubisoft at their finist. I also understand that the micro transaction store was the first thing they fixed, instead of you know, the actual game. I was not aware they released a second AC game at the same time. The fiasco that is AC:U seems to have overshadowed that (unless you mean the companion app that serves to make the game more annoying, in which case I totally heard about that). On the protests, I was watching that last night live a bit, as were a few people in my tank clan. I learned a lot about at least some facets of American culture listening to their views on it, all very interesting to me. I have seen no credible source, at least so far, that rubber bullets were ever used. They certainly refrained from using tear gas for a very long time. The first method of dispersal they tried were actually smoke grenades. I don't think any tear gas was used until the very end, when you can see them lobbing the tear gas grenades out of APC's. It also seems that the police were attacked first. As a personal thought, while I consider the right to protest a crucial part of any democratic system, I really wish that once it turned to rioting they would be a lot faster on the tear gas or methods of dispersing people such as the Active Denial System or sonic weapons. I think opening with the smoke grenades is good, and people should absolutely be given a signal that things are about to get very real and given time to disperse on their own accord, but then methods that actually work need to be employed rather than sitting back for hours and letting the rioters do ever more damage. Rubber bullets, though I may feel rioters deserve it, are pretty dangerous, and probably not something that should be used unless the police are in a lot of danger, or are under fire from real weapons (which would provide them a way to shoot back without mowing down entire crowds of people who aren't using guns). I also feel like there might be a place for stun grenades in crowd control, though I'm not sure how well they work in open areas. Just thinking that they are probably kinder than ADS for sure (which has probably never been used in a riot situation. I can see that not going over well), and they have the upside of incapacitating people long enough to arrest them, rather than making them scatter like tear gas, ADS, sonic weaponry, or malodorants do. On the subject of protests, one of the fastest ways to make me lose sympathy for your cause is to interfere with traffic. Frankly, I don't even have to be caught in it. I've been in enough bad traffic that I'll likely default to sympathising with motorists over you on principle. By blocking traffic, you show no empathy towards the motorists situation, so why should they, or anyone else, sympathise with your cause in turn? I get the idea of making people aware of your protest, I just don't see making them angry at you being a viable means of gaining support.