Randox
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Posts posted by Randox
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I think most of the people who run into CPU problems with cities skylines are the ones that use mods to unlock more of the map than the default maximum of 9 squares (that is, assuming you meet the recommended specs, not just the minimum specs). But yes, it is a CPU intensive game. The flipside is that it's CPU intensive because your entire population, your entire city, is fully simulated. That is, every sim has a home they actually live in, and hopefully a school or job they actually commute to, and that's pretty awesome (I think it's the only city simulation that does this, unless Cities XL does it too?).
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Being able to drive the test with the car you practised in is a huge bonus. You'll be more comfortable, and most driving schools use pretty small cars which is also a bonus. If you will be using your own car on the test, you need to have practice in it before hand. 80 hours isn't a bad idea, though I would consider that excessive. I think where I am the standard is 40 hours, and that prepared me just fine I think.
Oh, and if at all possible, you want to do your practise in the same area where you will be tested (your instructor probably knows the route). My instructor was able to point out 'traps', like unintuitive intersections and a low speed limit on a steep downgrade that often caused people to fail their test in my area. The only place in my test I had never driven before was the parking lot where I started and ended.
As for driving in the snow, one good idea I picked up from my dad was after a snowfall, find an empty parking lot in the evening that hasn't been plowed, and spend some time pushing the car and practising how to recover once you lose control, the idea being you won't hit anything in a big empty parking lot if you need more practice. Plus, it's kinda fun.
I picked up my new monitor today. So far, so good. I do need to get another video cable adapter though (displayport to HDMI) so that I can plug my TV into this party.
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I can confirm this as someone who works at Tim Hortons with bills hovering regularly around the $4 mark. It's something I have to explain regularly to customers.
In other news, does anyone else feel like they've fallen behind their peers their own age sometimes?
When did you start posting here again? And of course, nice to see you.
Moved back into my own place. Feels good, though I still have a bit of work to do. Also, picking up a new monitor tomorrow, so I'll finally have that 3rd screen I've been wanting. Not sure what the arrangement is going to be yet since they wont all fit on my desk. The idea was to mount the new one above the current main screen, but it might be too tall (would be looking up at it). Ah well, I'm sure I'll figure something out.
I'm with Dash. There is a huge spectrum in the 20's. I suppose something to be mindful of, but not life or death if you seem to be drifting a bit I think. At least, not for most people.
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Didn't they change the law (either provincially for Nova Scotia or Federally, I don't know which) so that all taxes have to be included in all listed prices now? You know, like a sane, non pants-on-head-crazy country that yells 'surprise!' when you reach the checkout and everything is 14% more expensive than you thought? I mean, I know people who live in this country got used to it, but I agree with the visitors that it was actually really stupid, and I'm glad it got changed.
Of course, the corner store near where I live used to just not put prices on anything at all, so you always got a surprise :-D
Got some decluttering done today. It boggles the mind how one accumulates worthless things over the years, and how hard it is to keep things neat and tidy when you just have too much worthless stuff. Should have done it before the city made the garbage rules an impenetrable wall of crazy and inconvenience, but what can you do.
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I think we've been over 90% humidity where I live for a solid week now. It's gross. Like, the sheets on my bed are damp. Not 'just came out of the washing machine damp', but 'needs another half hour on the line damp'. Granted, living near the ocean isn't exactly low humidity central at the best of times, but it's almost unheard of for it to be like this for so long, normally it's just a day or two.
As far as age of consent goes, a quick run by wikipedia suggests that the close age exemptions for 12-13 and 14-15 (with 2 and 5 year age gaps respectively) are both still on the books. I had been under the impression the lower exemption range had been removed. I do take issue with large age gaps where one partner is under 16 because you have the potential for such large gaps in social maturity, and it's too easy for an adult to manipulate the mind and circumstances of a young teen or tween to take advantage of them.
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I'm not sure I understand all of you people :P
I think "hot" is a poor choice of words, but I can't be the only person here who can make the distinction between seeing that someone has attractive qualities, and being attracted to them. How exhausting and frustrating would it be if you were attracted to every single good looking person you ran into on the street :lol:
As far as age of consent laws go, I am a personal fan of 'romeo and juliet laws' that will make exceptions for people who are close in age to each other. That's not to say that I think everyone 12 or 14 and up should be out having all the sex (or any, as the case may be), but I don't see much good coming out of trying to repress it or turning pre teens into registered sex offenders (once they turn 18 of course). I am very much on the side quality sex education starting young (10 or 11 years old) and access to condoms. If it's going to happen, it's going to happen, so it might as well happen without making babies or spreading disease. That's my spiel for the day.
One of our neighbours must have not paid their power bill or something and been cut off. The sound of what we are pretty sure is a generator has been running nonstop for about 48 hours now. A tad annoying, though we're far enough away that it's not too loud. I don't envy their immediate neighbors though. Our alternate theory is perhaps the basement is flooding or something, and it's a pump, not a generator we hear, though I'm pretty sure the sound is coming from their garage, not their house.
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I think I'm $65 or $70. Among other things, I have caller ID, a third of I think 2GB of data (shared with two other phones), and voicemail (almost wish I didn't have that. I have caller ID, I'll call you back).
I don't think I could get it for less than $55 dollars.
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I've not touched Diablo 3 in a long time. I like the game, but it doesn't really capture my interest long term. Last time I played was with my WoT clan (we like to branch out).
In other news, a sort of new game, I've started playing LSPD:FR:
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I'm not sure why, but I've taken a keen liking to the Park Ranger. I think I just like driving the "different" vehicle from everyone else. In LCPD:FR it was a necessity with my Charger since the game would run out of RAM if the computer could use it too. No one has figured out how to add custom vehicles to GTA V yet, just custom textures. Given that GTA V is 64 bit, if anyone is ever able to add cars, it should be a load of fun.
Also, Rockstar did apparently fudge the optimization with GTA 5, if to a far lesser degree than GTA 4. If you aren't using graphics features that require DX11, you seem to get better performance running the game in DX10 mode instead, at least for a lot of AMD cards. I'm quite happy about the AMD Gaming Evolved program now, since I doubt I ever would have found out if I hadn't checked it for suggested graphics settings (which I wish I had done first. Would have saved a lot of time).
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I'm going to fiend ibuprofen for the next 50 hours or so. Good luck liver/stomach lining. Your sacrifice will be honored
My parents have some knocking around that has a little bit of codeine as well. I have no idea where they got them (as in, I don't know if they bought them here, or during a trip to the states, or maybe they were an online order). Unlike normal ibuprofen, they actually get rid of pain instead of just dulling it. Might be worth wandering to your local pharmacist and asking about them.
Makes me wonder why we don't just have 8mg codeine tablets and spare the liver damage :unsure:
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I don't expect to convince you, and frankly, I'm happy that this is the case (and am displeased that election season has been announced and I can't say for certain who I will vote for, I like to get that out of the way prior to the god forsaken political ads start in earnest).
Pinched nerve doesn't sound fun. That's not cool that you have to work for so long before you can seek treatment. Want to get that taken care of before it turns into a bigger deal than it already is.
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I finally got GTA V. It's very different to the previous titles I find, and mostly in good ways. I've also been pleasantly surprised by Trevor, whom I thought would be totally unrelatable one dimensional character that I would despise the entire time.
Of course, the reason I finally bought the game is because the LSPD:FR mod is coming along nicely, and I'm ready to move on from LCPD:FR and the crashes every 15-30 minutes that mod entails. Loving the big map, though I have to admit that it often doesn't feel as big as it really is. Depends on what you are doing. Sometimes it feels smaller than San Andreas, and sometimes it feels endless. I do love that the entire map was open at the start of the story. I've always hated that in previous titles, and Rockstar finally seem to have come around.
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I love that Gengar Hat :wub:
I don't really feel qualified to talk about Libya, but I'll happily point you to Scott Taylor if you like: http://thechronicleherald.ca/opinion/1302940-on-target-consequences-of-western-intervention-mount
I use the term 'failed state' because Libya has no functional government, and has been in a state of civil war constantly since NATO pulled out. We helped topple the government, then said good luck and sprinted out of that country for celebratory high fives back home, and we've never looked back.
By Bravado, I mean the Anti Russian Rhetoric. We're...in a place where the only people who have a moral high ground to stand on are the countries that have been minding their own business. I don't see anything more moral about NATO countries affecting regime changes (that always seem to come back to haunt us sooner or later) than there is with Russia absconding with part of Ukraine.
There is...very little I can really say about Environment Canada. That's actually a part of the problem. What I can say is that in all branches of Government, no effort has been made to retain technical expertise, and we now rely on people who aren't qualified to do their jobs to make the right decisions, and/or hire expensive consultants to make decisions for them. This is always an issue to a certain degree when politicians clash with their science underlings, but the Federal Government is quickly running out of people who can even tell them they're wrong.
I can try to illustrate this a different way. The new Bluenose II was built by the Nova Scotia Tourism department, which has no engineers on staff, and no experience managing major builds. While having them manage the project isn't ideal, they could have saved a lot of work by at least talking to another department that did have experience with large scale projects, such as the Department of Public Works. Sure, they don't build old wooden sailing ships either, but they have a bunch of engineering staff, some of whom would be familiar with some of the key concepts of the project, and they have more experience than anyone with project management, and probably would have been perfectly happy to loan a couple staff who were familiar with key concepts of the project and had project management experience.
Instead, we have a wooden sailing ship project managed by a consulting firm that had no idea what they were doing, and built by someone who has no idea how to make such a ship, which is how we ended up with, for example, a 7 tonne metal rudder (the thing about wooden rudders is that they float, and can be turned by hand). That's the sort of territory we are entering now on the Federal Government, where we are so devoid of expertise that we don't even know the expertise we hire is unqualified for the work we hire them for.
Anyway, that's my rant. I mean, I don't even care about fiscal policy at this point (or I would never vote for the "we think money grows on trees" NDP party). I just want a party with a leader who isn't determined to run the entire country himself, and who might compromise with the opposition from time to time, because they probably have the majority of the votes and often have valid things to say.
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It's nice to see my favourite skill get a little attention, though this is a far cry from the rework that construction desperately needs, unless they fixed all the bugs while I wasn't looking. Not even a rework, but just all the stupid stuff where they didn't take an extra week to give the assets a good polish. I'd love the skill to be reworked, but I'd also love for it to not be 95% complete too. This brings it up to 97% I'd say :P
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The Canadian federal election campaign officially begins today, with the Election set for October 19th. As of now I'm leaning towards the Conservatives, but the Liberals could win me back over with a well thought out and costed economic plan.
I say I'm in the same boat, but so many things I'd want the libs to change go against their core philosophy...
I don't like the conservatives, really...I just think they are by far the best option. Or at least, the least bad option...
On the other side of the fence, Stephen Harper might be the man who finally causes me (and my parents) to vote for the NDP. The fear mongering on terrorism, the bravado on the international stage, the absolute shambles that is Environment Canada and I expect most departments now, the muzzling of scientists (and I know that this topic isn't media sensationalism. A lot of my family work for the federal government in a fantastic variety of positions, which is also a pretty good admission that I was raised with a strong liberal bias).
Basically, anyone but Harper. My issue with the NDP is that as always, it's a leader without a party, but at this point, I'll probably throw my vote behind whoever I think has the best chance of winning to avoid contributing to a vote split.
Under Mister Harper, Canada led the charge in creating a failed state (Libya), and I don't think he should ever be forgiven for that, among other things. What Canada, and the rest of Nato, did to Libya is reprehensible.
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So a little while ago I decided to install some of the mods that were recommended by the author of the ENB I use (RealVision), a lot of which comes down to textures, and some other fixes like running water and moving windmills at long range (instead of frozen mills and waterfalls made of ice cubes). I must say, I though the ENB was doing a lot of the work, but I'm definitely now one of the converted when it comes to texture mods. What I was running with was already so much better than the vanilla game, but the difference between that and what I have now is just staggering. It was worth the hilarious amount of time that it took me to get it all set up for sure.
So, all under my new setup, first are a couple pictures from outside during the day. Note that rocks in the distance don't look like they were textured by someone dragging their arse through grey paint, and waterfalls aren't made of static ice cubes (if it were video, even the water in the second shot would be flowing over the falls):
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This one is just a closeup I grabbed of my new self as a vampire, but I think this one turned out really well. It's taken just inside the Solitude gates:
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And lastly, I finally got around to grabbing some interior pictures that show of ELFX. The second shot in particular is probably one of my favourite screengrabs I've ever taken, and also shows off a mod for finer dust particles:
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Also, my playthrough has now completed the main Dawnguard questline, hence my status as a vampire, which means it's time to take on an improved hearthfire (one mod to tweak it, and an item placer mod to customize everything properly), get my smithing up, and then it's off to Solstheim and finally complete Dragonborn, which I've never done (because I got there, and then restarted with what has become my current mod loadout).
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Been watching a lot of the Pan Am games, starting about halfway through once I was able to remember they were happening. I can say that I am enjoying wrestling and basketball more than I used to, having watched a lot more of both sports (since nothing else was being covered at the time). Extremely displeased with the CBC coverage of the games though, particularly in regards to the limited streaming they are doing (they don't stream all the events, only some of them).
Also, my Provincial Government is looking at a public private partnership (basically privatization) of the motor, land, and something registries. Their reasoning being that it would cost 30 million to implement required technical upgrades, and by giving that cost to the private sector, it would make the registries more sustainable. This is very understandable, since the registries combined only bring in more than 50 million dollars a year in profit. What is actually happening is that they want to balance the budget and avoid taking out any loans whatsoever, because economic recovery is the best time to pay off all your debts.
In other news, the city council has been getting pretty irate about the fact that it's almost August and there are still major roads with faded and missing lane lines and arrows, which is something that just about everyone with a car has been upset about for a while now. The workers then kindly pointed out that city council has cut the number of staff they hire, increased their paperwork workload, and burdened them with additional other duties, and that the city has line painting equipment that isn't being touched because we aren't hiring enough staff.
That...that might be your problem there city council. Hiring people to run the line painting equipment would be helpful.
I am enjoying summer though, though we've had a week of cold and cloudy now without any rain, which we desperately need. Never though the Maritimes would have too little rain in July, but there you have it :lol:
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Yeah, given that it's been nearly 10 years, I think I can work something out for you. I'll shoot you a PM.
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Drunk bike riding is my new favourite drunk activity. Didn't even fall once.
I pronounce it de fy night lee in my head now so I remember the spelling
Definitely is a stupid word. Apparently autocorrect gave up on me too.
I see no reason why fast food should be a poor working environment. I mean, I know it often is, for the same reason that working at Walmart or Bestbuy is also probably not going to be a fun experience. There is always someone out there who wants or needs the job more than you do, enough to put up with whatever the local hostile working environment entails. Such places are only motivated to stop being terrible places to work when employee retention is something that matters. Until then, you have a revolving door workplace.
Fast Food has the bonus of being a customer service job that puts you in direct contact with people who have no problem being excessively creepy in public. Or just rude.
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Euro Truck Simulator 2 has been my jam lately
Such a great game. I think I've posted this before, but I still can't believe it's as fun as it is. The premise sounds so boring, but I find the game usually quite relaxing. Really hope ATS comes out this year.
World of Warships lately. I think we're in pre open beta now (it's open beta, but testers only. I guess they're using us to make sure it all works, since open beta is basically the games official release, and it gives us a chance at a little head start as an extra reward I suppose). Downloading that right now. Given how much they are screwing around with World of Tanks at the moment, this at least gives me a good alternative until they figure out what they want with WoT and implement it. I'm not totally opposed to all the changes they are trying to make, but I dislike playing games during that kind of transition period.
Not sure WoWS will be a success though. I mean, it was never going to beat out WoT, but there are issues with the game (that they won't even acknowledge as things that might be a problem) that could see the game go the way of World of Warplanes (a complete failure). It doesn't have direct competition though, so maybe it will work (WoWP also took the stance of "listening to tester feedback is stupid, so we'll just do what we want and everyone will love it!". Yeah, how did that work out last time?).
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Apparently holding objects tightly for several hours a day 5 or 6 days a week isn't good for you :rolleyes:
I now have a 'trigger finger'. Was pretty weird the first time I woke up to find my right ring finger locking up. It goes away pretty quickly, but my Chiropractor showed me how to massage it so that I don't have to deal with that all the time. On the other hand, both my hands have a much stronger grip now. Good endurance too, so it's not all bad I suppose. Actually, probably in great shape for rock climbing now.
A couple weeks ago I got to go rappelling down the side of a 14 story building. Just so much fun. The part where you are standing backwards on the ledge being tied in, then lowering yourself over the ledge, that's crazy. Like, if I had looked down at that point, I don't think I could have done it. Once you get used to it though, it's quite fun. Definately got some good jumps in. Would have loved to do that a few more times. I've wanted to repel again since I had a chance to try it in a rock climbing gym (which was only high enough for one bounce really). Good view too, though I didn't get quite comfortable enough to stand sideways so I could get a better view.
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It gives me great pleasure to announce that @Arceus has been promoted to the position of Senior Moderator. He has done a lot of great work since joining the team, and it is high time that this work was recognized with a fancy title and some increased responsibilities. However, since Arceus title actually can't get any longer, he will have to settle for increased responsibilities and a new badge instead.
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The RCMP still seem to be doing pretty good on the corruption front, though the Terrace branch might single handedly dispute that claim (massive police brutality). Locally, I don't think there have been any issues with the Halifax Regional Police either. Of course, I'm also white, so I have a natural +10 to my bad police encounters saving throw for most of the police forces in the US and Canada. Not being homeless or living in the wrong part of town are also pluses that make it more likely that I will enjoy encounters with the police.
As I understand it, there is pretty solid evidence that both black and white people subconsciously perceive black people to pose more of a threat, and in a potential do or die situation, that can be the difference between pulling the trigger and not. The theory would be that if you have dark skin, the threshold for other people to believe you pose a danger to them/their life is going to be lower.
It is also worth considering that gun culture in places like Canada or the UK is radically different than in the US, and that impacts on our rate of police killings overall. Canada is also whiter, having both a higher proportion of white citizens, and proportionally fewer black citizens.
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Patronizing isn't good. The irony is that, depending on the pmod, you'll find some of the biggest detractors of Jagex amongst their ranks. Publically, the pmods are obliged to represent Jagex, which does limit the extent and type of criticism they can give (constructive criticism is fine, they just aren't allowed to slander Jagex, or undermine their position/rules). But at least among the forum posting population, most pmods see themselves as player advocates, which places them in an often adversarial role with Jagex. There are a good number of pmods who are not at all happy with the direction Jagex is taking the team, but feel an obligation to stay onboard to help players in whatever way they still can as a moderator, and to try and convince Jagex not to abolish the moderating role of the pmod team.
For the forums though, talk to an fmod. I'm not part of the green team anymore, but when I was, the pestering Jagex about updating the forums was so constant people got bored and stopped bothering, giving up hope that it would ever actually happen. Some of them have written client side scripts to make their tools more usable as well, though when I left the team, Jagex was still being an obstacle to progress on a Jagex approved script (they took more than a year and still didn't approve it).
Actually, just looking at the forums now, they've changed at least cosmetically a bit. I bet the tools the fmods use are still an exercise in frustration. Mod tools get about 20 lunch hours a year in developer time. I'm not convinced that the tools and systems for both teams are not literally the lowest priority. Even critical issues take months to address (which is super fun for the jmods too).
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That really sucks Noxx. Though, I thought you were native to Qatar? Guess I was wrong if they're sending you away.
A couple of days ago I realized that my system drive was failing. Some instances of needing to run chkdsk to get windows to boot and so on, and definitely some speed related issues reading at least some portions of the drive, but otherwise quite functional. A long story short, I don't really have any means of reinstalling Windows, so I went for a clone, which turned into a huge production because Macrium Reflect, the program I was trying to use, aborts if it encounters read errors. Gave the Seagate cloning tool a shot, since I could (both my HDD's are Seagates now), and it was mercifully able to ignore the errors.
I do wish I had a log of which sectors it couldn't read. I saw the address for one of them, but I don't remember the exact value. It's something a little over 1,300,000. I know the bad sectors aren't anything crucial, since Windows works just fine (and windows should be living much closer to the front of the C partition). Still, some program or file (or more, I think there were 4 bad sectors) is corrupt, and I would love to know what it is. It's a good lesson that I should really be keeping a backup of my system drive. The new one is an upgrade, but I might see about getting another cheaper HDD to act as the backup for it.
Fun times. Just happy that there weren't any problems trying to boot the clone or anything. I was prepared for that, but still, it was nice to come home and my computer just needed me to unplug the old drive and it was good to go.
Today...
in Off-Topic
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I'm pretty sure if I had an 11' spider, or even just an 11" spider, the only thing I would be doing with it is watching it from the other side of the room. Don't get me wrong, I'm not afraid of spiders, but I do find large bugs...disturbing. Like, a normal 4-5" tarantula is certainly cool to look at, but that's definitely getting into creepy/disturbing territory, especially if it's on the loose. At least it's not a millipede or an earwig though. Used to work at an outdoor pool where earwigs would keep trying to nest in the vacuum hose, and start crawling out when you picked it up in the morning. Killing 40+ earwigs most mornings with bug spray was pretty satisfying though, even if I was never particularly keen to actually touch the hose and get that party started.
The lesson here is, if you have a pool and keep all your pool cleaning things outside, store them someplace where the sun will hit them in the morning. Earwigs like dark and damp places, because they suck, and therefore can only live in sucky places, devoid of light or joy.
Maybe if I'd had a pet tarantula, it could have eaten the earwigs? I don't know if they can/will do that, but it would have been worth having a pet tarantula if that was a thing I could do with it.