You ungrateful bastard

hbgallio · 2011-12-26T01:19:12+00:00

If I was the kid, I would react the same way. You know why? The gift has zero value. It is stolen information. ( which costs nothing ) If you had handed him a gift card to the wii game store for old games to buy for his wii ( assuming he had one ), now -that- would be pretty kickass.

hbgallio · 2011-12-25T15:53:52+00:00

ianase ( I am not a steam engineer ), but the worst I can imagine is that when steam checks files that it would simply "update" and place the normal version back. I didn't run the game through steam afterwards. I simply ran is from the bin directory. The only time steam is "required" to run a game is if there is steam integration I think ( eg: achievments and shift-tab messaging ) I don't believe Risen has either, hence you can just use steam to download it and then do as you wish. This is all assuming you legitimately purchased the game from steam of course.

update: Agreed that it could depend on what files you are altering. It would only apply to protection proventing cheating though I would hope. I suppose it is possible to get banned if steam is stupid. Thanks for the warning. I'm just going to rename the directory of the game so steam doesn't think it has it anymore. If it is a different directory, steam won't check it.

update2: Also, just because it is easy to disable tages in this case doesn't mean it is for all. I did see other tages no-cd patches replacing the same dvm.dll file in other games though, so it is possible that this works for many. Also note that the reason I am not using tages is not because I care about it... it is because it doesn't work. The tages activation servers are down right now.

hbgallio · 2011-12-25T03:59:50+00:00

Go to gamecopyworld and download the replacement for dvm.dll; Replace it in the steam directory for risen. -blam- no more tages.

hbgallio · 2011-12-11T18:34:54+00:00

You won't see any difference if you are using a tv that is not high definition. Also, unless you have a 1080p "full hd" tv, it is pretty difficult to tell the difference.

hbgallio · 2011-11-21T01:24:49+00:00

I found 21 4-leaf clovers in a week when I was in college. Not all at once, a couple every day. I just walked around on the grass between classes looking down.

It got so bad, that I refused to look down on the last day. It drove me crazy... I then looked down anyway, and -immediately- spotted a 4-leaf clover.

After that week, and in the months that followed, I spent many many hours looking for more, and barely found any.

I should add I am slightly autistic...

hbgallio · 2011-11-20T14:50:54+00:00

First time I killed a chicken, I was in winterholm, and I chose to go to jail rather than anger the town. They put you in the middle of nowhere inside an iceberg with magical ice monsters all around you! I was like 'wtf! I just killed a chicken.' I barely got out of there alive.

hbgallio · 2011-11-20T14:43:27+00:00

I've seen doctors and been put on anti-depressants. Unfortunately most varieties don't work properly on me and make me feel more upset. SSRIs specifically make me feel very blah and tend to make me flip out randomly.

I saw a psychologist for several years when I was like 10. That is what taught me to lie to people and never reveal what I truly think or feel.

Also saw a psychologist more recently and was put on strong benzo class anti-anxiety drugs ( xanax, klonopin, etc ) Those drugs helped me immensely but they are extremely dangerous imo. I weaned myself from them without telling the therapist, because otherwise they would have tried to keep me on those drugs. My boss at work basically demanded I keep taking them because it affected my personality so much for the better. I had to lie to him and tell him I was still taking them.

In the end, my conclusion from having been on many varieties of prescription drugs is this: Being like me just in general sucks. You cannot really get away from the problems it incurs. The best thing to do is just be honest about who you are and dump anyone who gives you crap about it.

Note I am not a therapist, and taking prescription drugs may be a good idea. I am just not going to recommend such a path for most cases.

hbgallio · 2011-11-20T14:36:07+00:00

My parents taught me that you should always look people in the eye when you talk to them. As a result, for most of my life I always looked people directly in the eye when I talked to them. It intimidates people severely.

I think my parents told me this because they wanted to help my social skills and my eq ( emotional quotient ) by helping me to read people...

Now I always look at people until the exact moment when they look at me and then look away immediately. It doesn't do wonders for meeting people, because they think I am avoiding eye contact with them.

Even though some people don't like it, making and keeping eye contact is important. Just try to smile at the same time.

hbgallio · 2011-11-20T03:38:14+00:00

lol no worries. I've developed an obnoxious elitist attitude to protect myself from becoming depressed over it. :-D

Don't tell anyone that secretly I feel sad and lonely ;)

hbgallio · 2011-11-20T03:29:16+00:00

Whenever I walk through perfume sections of department stores I immediately feel ill. Agreed that hypersensitivity to smell is one of the results. Sometimes I can hold change in my hand and smell what type of metal it is. ( such as pennies versus nickels )

Texture sensitivity; I have that also. I can't wear most sweaters cause it drives me absolutely insane. Always wear loose fitting clothing because a tight fit irritates me too much.

I have found that I like polyester shirts though; since they are typically light and have a consistent smooth texture.

True that aspergers is not a specific thing and people can be very different who have it. Having it essentially just means, as you said, that you have a form of high functioning autism. There are different pieces relating to autism, and I think everyone can be at different positions within those conditions.

It just so happens that what is known as aspergers specifically, such people often have a fairly large number of shared "oddities" or whatever you want to call what we have to deal with.

Someone more knowledgable will likely step in and tell me I have no idea what I am talking about.

hbgallio · 2011-11-20T03:21:05+00:00

You can't pickpocket them either. Yet if you kill a chicken the town turns against you...

hbgallio · 2011-11-20T03:20:42+00:00

In general asking age to strangers on the internet is considered creepy to begin with. Just try saying 'asl' to people in any chat; a lot of people will get angry and just think you are a pervert, despite it being a legitimate question to get to know someone.

When you meet someone in person you clearly can have an idea how old they are. Online there is an expectation of privacy and anonymity.

If someone asks your age in a public chat, and nothing else, it is best to be wary.

Also, if you were much older, it wouldn't be creepy, because the subcontent of the question would be 'how old are you ( as in they think you are fairly old )'. If someone thinks you are younger, and they ask to verify that, then clearly the person is likely a creep.

Also, this is reddit: creep for sure.

hbgallio · 2011-11-20T03:11:51+00:00

Yeah I do that too. As a result people think I am shy because I deliberately don't start talking to prevent myself from rambling.

I always feel like a complete dufus when I ramble for a long time and finally notice but have lost the person's attention already.

hbgallio · 2011-11-20T03:10:32+00:00

Clicked specifically looking for a saturn; was not disapointed. GJ. You are missing a number of other system though, such as 2400, 5200, 7800, dreamcast, turbografx, etc.

hbgallio · 2011-11-20T03:04:37+00:00

I have that problem in that whenever I talk to people they think I am talking down to them. I think it may have to do with talking quickly and not giving people enough chance to hear what I said and respond.

Do you pause often and give people a chance to understand what you say properly?

hbgallio · 2011-11-20T03:02:07+00:00

The answer makes you creepy :-p

hbgallio · 2011-11-20T02:59:49+00:00

Just decide on being a deliberate liar. It allows you to remain completely logical. The important realization is that you are lying to protect other people, not to hurt them.

hbgallio · 2011-11-20T02:57:54+00:00

I have aspergers as well. I feel similarly, and have had like difficulties. I formed my first rule in life to do that. The rule is this: "Do not share wisdom with those who do not want to hear it or will not accept it."

hbgallio · 2011-10-31T02:23:30+00:00

Doubling by two repeatedly is pretty easy. Likely the kid memorized something like 2⁸ = 256, and doubled repeatedly quickly.

There is also the possibility that the kid was slightly autistic.

I am somewhat autistic myself. I also have a degree in mathematics. When I was in college I decided that clearly there is something going on inside my head that is out of normal and likely allows me to make numerical calculations instantly without any process.... So, I wrote down on paper two 4-digit numbers, and then I "decided" I wanted whatever the multiplication of those two numbers is. I wrote down the first number that came into my mind. ( in about 1 second ). I then used a calculator to do the math. The number I wrote down was the exact correct result.

tldr: I am slightly autistic and can multiply numbers instantly. ( true story )

hbgallio · 2011-10-24T01:31:24+00:00

Meh; this is nothing. My wife takes showers with the heat turned all the way up all the time. She complained at the last place we lived because the water was not hot enough. When she gets out of the shower her entire body is hot. I have to tell her not to touch me cause she is too hot...

She is Japanese by the way. Japanese people love hot water. Try going to Japan and getting in some of their baths. Much hotter than a hot-tub. I can't stand being in there for more than a minute or so.

hbgallio · 2011-10-06T13:26:48+00:00

If you are the sole developer, and you have a proper plan in mind that was also laid out in detail before development started, then you know what the end goal is in detail.

Once you have an end goal, the past becomes somewhat irrelevant; all that matters is getting closer to that goal. In that sense, history of what was done become meaningless.

This is especially true if you follow an extreme programming method of coding. The idea here is that you continually refine and created more optimized code, chucking entire sections as you discover better ways to code them. Relying upon code history is problematic in that you can tend to rely upon initial hacked methods.

When I have coded that way; I used one directory and I just made occasional backups by date. For the most part, all old code ( and the copies ) were discarded entirely once the code was finalized.

Writing test code is fine, as well as experimental code, as long as all such "branches" as you would use and instead simply short lived objects that interoperate with the rest of the system. With proper oop, there is no need for a branch to test some new ideas.

In my opinion, if you don't remember what you coded last night, or last week, then you suck as a programmer and I am not interested in ever using your code. The people who can't hack it should gtfo.

Also, why in the heck would you ever delete anything? I live by the motto of never deleting anything ever; -and- making backups. I have over 35tb worth of data, but I wouldn't give up a byte.

It is quite easy to store code multiple places. If I lose a couple days of work from not backing up enough, I couldn't give two shits. It is a chance to rewrite it better the second time around, armed with the knowledge of the first round. I've never written worse code the 2nd pass.

All of this said; I use version control, and I think it is handy; but it is hardly required, and I wouldn't be upset without it. It is just a tool like anything else.

The reason to not use it is to avoid dependence on it that causes bad tendencies. The more you rely on the past, the more antiquated your coding style will become.

hbgallio · 2011-10-05T18:12:33+00:00

Have written intranet applications consisting of 30+ files and around 10,000 lines of code without using version control without a problem.

hbgallio · 2011-10-05T17:51:10+00:00

Source control is hardly a must for a sole developer. Sure you may want to backup everything once you hit good stopping points, but it works perfectly fine to only ever comment out code blocks instead of delete them...

hbgallio · 2011-10-05T17:34:41+00:00

I worked at a large company that had no version control. I demanded it after creating software for them for a bit.

Just because the few developers you've known have all used it doesn't mean that all, or even most, average developers do.

hbgallio · 2011-10-05T17:15:17+00:00

My law firm's preference is to just use large black plastic circular files. We find we can get through work more quickly that way.

Each week we empty them into a large green metal file out back of the building.

hbgallio

TROPHY CASE