It seems the Companion Cube is making quite the impact. The kind on magnitudes of desktop backgrounds and freezers. I should make my own Companion Cube…
Author: Steve Dougherty
Hot!
Up until these past few days, I’ve had only reputable scientists’ verdicts and indisputable scientific data and graphs. Now I have my own experience. Global warming is really happening, people. Is it normal to have to run the AC and sweat while mowing the lawn in OCTOBER?!
Al Gore, you were right, we’re sorry. You got elected, just not inaugurated. Get some position of governmental power and turn the US and the world around before it’s too late!
EDIT: Hehe.
That’s the Gap?!
Check out this graph! (Source) This is what the Comcast-AT&T duopoly is doing the country! We need more options! People say “vote with your dollars” but we can’t: it’s either dial-up (shudder) or Comcast or AT&T, and maybe some other company if you’re very, very lucky. Some of us, such as at my dad’s house, don’t even have the option of AT&T and are forced to either use Comcast (which sucks) or find some other obscure connection.
When you do the math, you’ll find that according to that graph, Japan averages $16.50 for a 61Mb/s connection, and the US averages $16 for a 4.8Mb/s connection. This is bad.
WE NEED AN INTERNET CONNECTION OVERHAUL!
Reviews
MINERVA: Metastasis 3 Released!
Download here, and if you use BitTorrent, please be sure to seed! That brings me to my next topic: how Comcast is messing with BitTorrent traffic! Since I tend to be at Mom’s and subsequently using my much-more-dependable DSL service, I had only been reading about it up until now. Comcast is actively spoofing reset packets to BitTorrent seeds and the peers they attempt to connect with. This means seeding is impossible. Seconds in to establishing a connection, it will be ruthlessly slaughtered by Comcast’s packets sniffers. I find it amazing that Comcast thinks it can sell you a 3MBPs connection, (which they falsely claim is consistently faster than DSL, which it’s not, you can get higher peaks but you can’t depend on them) then tell you with a straight face that you can’t use all of it.
In worse news, it would seem that overheating was not all, or perhaps part, of my server’s problem. It just stopped responding again, and needed a hard reboot. I don’t know what the problem is, but I’m hoping I can find it and fix it. That’s really too bad that I spend $50 on a case that I thought I needed for stability but I guess I didn’t. :\
EDIT: Latest torrent with an exe installer instead of a zip went up on the 2nd of October. I’m seeding the exe now. I had 500 some MB on the zip.
*Cry*
Let It Be True!
Woah!
This is scary! Is it accurate?!
Also, blatant corruption, and a cop with self-esteem problems.
EDIT: This should be illegal!
Server Upgrade
It was down for an hour or so for a good reason: case swap.
My old case was horribly prone to overheating. The fan mounts allowed for pathetic amounts of airflow and seemed somewhat of a joke. The only fan was that in the cheap, possibly overheating PSU. When I get this case all set up, it will have three This case has two fans, not including the PSU. The old case tended to overheat to the point the computer would stop responding around once a month. The last straw was when it did so twice in around three days. I was going to get three 90mm PCI slot fans, (and I now just realized that this mobo only seems to have 2 PCI slots >.<) but ended up just fixing the base of the problem and getting a better case. A better PSU helps too. Hooray for Vertex!
EDIT: The final fan mount isn’t fitting. I’m going to see if I can get a fan that fits.
EDIT2: Oh. It’s not a fan mount. That makes sense, then. I’m glad they let me return the fan.
Team Fortress 2!
I’ve been playing Team Fortress 2 for a while, and I really like it. I may not always be the top of the board, but I tend to be 2nd or 3rd on a good set of rounds. The classes are very, very well balanced, with every strategy having a counter-strategy. Even if the enemy has 5 fully-upgraded turrets, it is possible to, as a spy, disguise as a member of the opposite team, and take them out without ever being noticed. A disguised spy cannot use any weapons of the class they are disguised as. Using any weapons will undo the disguise, and enemy turrets will once again target the spy.
With the exception of the Pyro’s flamethrower, and maybe some others I’m missing, hitting a spy with your weapon will not undo their disguise. The only way to expose a disguised spy is to do enough damage to kill the spy. If FF is on, this becomes much tricker and riskier. (Friendly fire has since been removed from the game entirely by Valve.)
I like being medic, and helping people who run over to cover while wounded. Invulnerability (called Ãœbercharge) has the potenial to completely change the tide of battle in around 10 seconds.
Screenshots:
It looks even better full-size and in-motion. The character shadows are real-time, the colors are vibrant, and the players are carefully shaded to pop out from the background. Your eyes are not fooling you, and players really do have dynamic expressions! This game is amazing!
EDIT: I found a wonderfully done series of TF2 class reviews, with Heavy, Medic, Demoman, and Pyro so far.
EDIT 2:Â They’re finished with all the classes now! Here’s Sniper, Engineer, Soldier, Scout, and that annoying Spy.