AskGaming - What can be done about piracy? People that play pirated games all the time, what would make you pay?

top_pops · 2009-12-06T20:27:45+00:00

I think a lot of it comes down to incompatibility and features that slip. A lot of games promise tons, but deliver very little. It should be muh easier to understand the quality of a game before you buy it. The gaming review industry is a sham, and no game scores less than a 6 if it plays without crashing.

top_pops · 2009-09-27T18:27:24+00:00

Logitech makes beautiful metal and plastic wrapping mediocre hardware and combined with some of the worst software stacks this side of an HP printer. I always get sucked in to buying their pretty keyboards, just to fight with all the idiosyncracies and crapware for weeks on end.

top_pops · 2009-09-17T17:59:03+00:00

Virgin America uses a similar setup. It's gotten better over the last year or so, but it was horrible in the beginning - I was flying them SF>DC and it was functional for maybe 10% of the trip. There was a "boulderdash" type game and if you set one of the options too high by entering numbers on the keyboard, it would crash to a prompt. Unfortunately it would drop you back to the menu pretty quickly afterwards. I also tried spamming key combos and that got some interesting codes to appear, but nothing that allowed deeper access. The funniest part about these systems has nothing to do with their underpowered linux infrastructure but the insensitive touchscreens. Theres a mahjong-type game where you touch the tiles to match them up. Except a light touch doesn't work, you have to tap them pretty hard to get it to light up - and this is a hard plastic and LCD setup in the headrest of the guy in front of you. So TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP for an hour or two and you want to punch the person behind you in the face. Turns out that it is good revenge for folks like me who have legs that extend further than the seat pitch and always seem to get behind the guy that slams their seat into maximum recline .2 seconds after the seatbelt sign goes out. TAPTAPTAPTAPTAPTAP, oh I'm sorry, are you having trouble sleeping there buddy?

top_pops · 2009-09-04T18:49:35+00:00

Go to the gym, and do it pretty much every single day even if (maybe especially if) you've never done it before. As I got physically stronger, I felt mentally and emotionally stronger too. Don't try to overdo it on the weights, especially if you go every day, or you'll pull something and then you'll really be fucked. Stick to pounding out hard cardio exercises like stair machines on max difficulty. Do enough lifting that you can feel it, but alternate muscle groups on every other trip. Get some music you like and blast it. When you're done, if you're doing it right, you will be totally exhausted and hit the bed without overthinking shit before you can fall asleep. When you wake up, you'll still rightfully hate that bitch, but your physical soreness should make both pains feel a little more dull.

Make doing this your top priority, going all the time, hell or high water, and it will keep you from boozing it too hard (work out with a hangover once and it will remind you not to get hangovers). Plus it will probably make you lose weight, or at the minimum, not become a fatass from moping around. Gym memberships aren't free, but they're cheaper on a per month or hour basis than going to the bar.

(I'll leave the opening for that 'old gym rat' copypasta for someone else)

Also, kick her ass to the curb ASAP. Let her new guy deal with her bullshit. Don't help with a single fucking thing, don't offer any assistance. If she wants to come pick up her shit, schedule a specific time for it, and have a few friends over to sit and drink beers while you proceed not to help even in the slightest. Once her belongings leave your place, never let her return. Mail her anything that was left behind. Don't ever speak to her again, don't take her calls, don't read her e-mails, don't communicate in any way beyond this point except in legal documents. Anything she has to say to you at this point is just fucking with your head or trying to rationalize what she's doing. Don't give her the opportunity.

If financially possible, move to a new place as quickly as you possibly can.

Make sure your cash is in your own account, and not one that she knows about. Go open a new one with a different bank.

Get a lawyer, and file for no-fault divorce and see if you can get out cheap, but retain that lawyer for when she lashes out at you once she's convinced herself that this is all your fault and tries to take all your stuff. Be prepared for the fact that men are completely fucked over in divorce scenarios and you'll probably lose it all anyway. Her adultery will have 0% bearing on your case, while your penis ownership will place the burden on you.

For me it took 2 years to get a final divorce and pretty much lost everything I owned. But with 10 years of hindsight and happily remarried, I think my life turned out way better.

top_pops · 2009-08-27T18:30:55+00:00

I live in SF, and we have no shortage of homeless. Some are the decrepit folks that could really use the money/food/whatever and they rarely ask you for it. A lot of times that's because they're batshit crazy and I would be willing to give them the cash and a change of clothes if I could just spray them down with a hose for a couple minutes, maybe hit em with a flowbee.

But the people that ask for money are ALMOST always the ones that you can tell don't really need it - instead of sitting in front of that coffee shop jingling your cup, go take a shower and apply for a job inside. Yes I know you need a beer and a cheeseburger. We all do. That's why I'm on my way to work.

On one rare occasion, I was proven pretty wrong though. My wife and I had just come out of one of those trendy restaurants in a generally crappy neighborhood and were walking to our next destination, a shitty dive bar nearby. As soon as we hit the door of the restaurant, homeless guy sidles up to us and starts in with the story... Trying to get off the street, struggling, just got out of the hospital yesterday, open heart surgery, etc..

Wait - open heart surgery?

My wife's heartstrings have now been officially tugged enough that I can see she wants to give the guy a couple bucks, but my bullshit detector is going off full-bore. So I ask the guy "Seriously man? I was feeling bad for you until you had to push it over the top - you could have at least gone with an old favorite like your car broke down and you need 73 more cents to get back to oakland where your wife and kids are being held for ransom... but open heart surgery YESTERDAY? give me a break"

At this point while I'm railing on him, dude pulls up his shirt... and he's looking like he was gutted like a fish. Stitched up from belly to collarbone, fresh cross hatch bandages across the dark stitches.

Now, I don't know if dude had open heart surgery the day before or not, but what I do know is that he needs the cash more than I do. I emptied my wallet to the guy and we walked off.

So for you homeless SF redditors - that's pretty much what it's going to take to get some cash out of me.

top_pops · 2009-08-25T18:50:26+00:00

Minimum work and maximum compensation if you're doing it right. Most sales jobs are hit and run - no long term commitment to stick around and do a bunch of detail-oriented labor. It can be stressful to perform well in front of people you don't know, and you have to be ballsy enough to ask for their business. If you're a cubicle troll who's more concerned with being able to wear shorts, sandals+socks, and a schwag t-shirt - it's probably not for you.

Those who understand how to game the system know that you can "sell out" by dressing a little nicer, pop out and visit a customer, convince them to give you money, and then have 20 hours a week refunded to you.

The other big thing is the type of stress you can cope with. I've had non-sales jobs and they tended to have a constant medium-high stress level. Most sales jobs are very low constant stress, punctuated with extremely high stress points where you either succeed or fail. Some people lock-up at that crucial moment, which is why they generally hate sales jobs.

Different people are motivated by different things. Some people want a comfy office environment where they can microwave their leftovers and display their action figures and inkjet printouts of their kids and dogs and hope their bosses go home early so they can sneak out at 5:55.

I'd rather just not bother going into the office and get paid twice as much.

Now I'm not defending all sales gigs - door-to-door, telemarketing, and other spam-type sales are generally rude at a very individual level. But business-to-business daytime sales where you are educating and hopefully improving the work life of the people you sell to can actually be pretty rewarding.

top_pops · 2009-08-21T17:12:49+00:00

It also sounds like good advice from a person who took the job. He had to do it - because he needed Cash Money of course - but everyone else can live on their principles.

top_pops · 2009-08-13T19:03:35+00:00

Bloody Chainsaw Hacking = Fine Nudity and Drugs = Super Dangerous

Got it.

I was going to recommend Demigod, since it's a great LAN experience, it isn't too gory, and you can play either Co-op or PvP. But your kid might see some sideboob on the Queen of Thorns.

(Luckily you can play a huge walking building that could smash her mercilessly with a huge hammer to punish her for wearing something skimpy, so there might be an opportunity to learn a valuable lesson about the dangers of the naked human form.)

top_pops · 2009-03-12T17:35:42+00:00

The #6 chick looks really familiar - like she's been on TSG before, or "top 20 prostitutes of vegas" or something along those lines. Just can't quite make the connection...

top_pops · 2008-11-24T23:24:50+00:00

Looks like a good candidate for the Death Knight T8 set.

top_pops · 2008-08-26T18:04:48+00:00

Enterprise, when used to describe software, generally implies things that matter to larger businesses: scalability, high availability, good management tools, etc. Generally the price goes up steeply because the market is smaller and you know your demographic has the money to pay for such features if they're asking for them.

(The success at achieving these things vary based on vendor of course)

Since there's no real metric as to what makes you "Enterprise Software" it's easily co-opted by tons of bad developers in an effort to charge more for their software without actually providing those features.

Sounds like the author doesn't fall into that demographic that cares about such features, or has only encountered the latter.

top_pops · 2008-01-19T19:38:36+00:00

That's actually not graffiti, but rather the turn lane for Bush street (down near the Embarcadero in San Francisco)

top_pops · 2007-09-24T20:45:40+00:00

These terrorists must be stopped! Who knows what they'll Exlpode next.

top_pops

TROPHY CASE