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User Accounts October 6, 2008 at 11:38pm |
| For any wondering, I removed the user section of the site, I decided that maintaining user accounts was a little overkill. Your comments are still there, and you can still comment, the creation of a profile just has been removed, if you have any thoughts, let me know. |
| New Years January 01, 2008 12:05am in thoughts |
Is it just me or is New Years over-hyped? I'm probably being overly cynical, but for some reason I find New Years to be completely pointless. I find it stupid because all it really is is an arbitrary day of the year that people seem to believe gives them a clean slate. I call shenanigans on that. January 1st is a day just like any other. Anyone can start a clean slate ANY day of the year. June 3rd, August 12th, whatever. I know I know, I'm a big party pooper but I really just don't seem to care...oh well...life goes on. For those who care...Happy New Year. Tags: cynicalking, life, blah |
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| Update on Thoughts of W3C and Ogg December 12, 2007 11:26am in thoughts |
After thinking about things and reading comments about the Ogg removal from HTML5 specs, I don't think I'm as upset as I used to be. Yes corporations managed to weasel their way in and pressure the W3C to remove the Ogg format from HTML5, most likely to keep up their own DRM, but I think there's more to it than that. One, nothing is preventing Ogg from being used as an object embedded in a website, simply put having Ogg in the spec never forced any format to be used. This leads to another thought. The spec never forced any format to be used. So Ogg could have been included in the spec and Nokia could still use their DRM-laden formats. From what I believe and I think, the Ogg inclusion in the HTML5 spec only provided for a media format to be easily included into websites. This in itself is not bad at all, but I guess threatened Nokia and Apple enough to want it removed. I'm unsure as to what effect removing Ogg from the final spec will do, but it'd be interesting to wait and see what turns out. It's early enough that for all we know Ogg may sneak its way back in...but I'm not holding my breath. |
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| It's Not McNabb December 09, 2007 12:03am in thoughts |
I've been quiet about the quarterback situation the Eagles have. Many fans have already determined that McNabb is a shitty QB who should not be a starter for the Eagles. People were so quick to determine that Feeley should be the new Eagles starting QB after the New England game, but I think his game against Seattle showed a better picture. Don't get me wrong, I like AJ and think he's a good solution as a backup quarterback, but not so much a starter...his 5/8 TD/INT ratio over 2.5 games shows that. McNabb is a franchise quarterback. Yes, he throws the balls erratically on occasion, but given protection and a receiving core, I still think he's one of the best quarterbacks in the league. Looking at his receiving corps, you have Reggie Brown and Kevin Curtis as the #1 and #2 receivers. I like them both, but in all honesty, neither one of them is a #1 receiver. Brown would be good as a #2 and Curtis would excel in the slot. The Eagles need to shell out the money to pick up an honest #1 receiver like T.O. (Dare I say that name), Chad Johnson, Randy Moss, etc. Until they do, I don't think it will truly matter who is QB, the Eagles may still struggle. In terms of protection in the pocket. He seldom has enough time to get rid of the ball. Sometimes its better, sometimes its worse, but those 16 sacks allowed by the Giants earlier in the season shows that the O-Line needs to do a better job against the pass rush. Now granted some of those 16 were coverage sacks, but it still should never be that high. If you get McNabb a true #1 receiver, I think that people will see that he's not a bad QB as many seem to make him out to be. Look at 2004-2005 when he had T.O. as his #1 WR. McNabb excelled. Give him that again and I think you'll see how good McNabb really is. And speaking of Chad Johnson earlier, rumor had it a little while ago that the Eagles might go after him in the offseason as Cincinnati is looking to trade him. If that rumor is true or if it will pan out, time will tell. Johnson would fit in nicely as the #1 receiver. I guess in the end what I want to say is give McNabb a break. Yes, I think he needs to improve on a few parts, but he is getting more criticism than he honestly deserves. GO EAGLES! |
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| Kudos to XFX October 29, 2007 10:00am in thoughts |
About a year and a half ago, I bought a XFX nVidia GeForce 7900GT graphics card for my desktop. The card was great. A couple months ago, it started dying. Games would clip, the BIOS screen was all colorful, and even the simplest of graphical operations on the operating system lagged and flickered. I was like "shit" it was over a year old so I figured the warranty was out. I put in a ticket seeing if I could fix the issue. They replied saying that all I would have to do is register the card and that the warranty was still fine. I registered the card and it led me to finding out that the card probably went bad and I would have to send it back to them via RMA. For $8 I sent it back and they confirmed what I already figured. About a week later they told me that the 7900GT is no longer in stock and I had the choice between an 8600GTS 256MB card or I could pay an extra $150 and get the 8800GTS 320. Being that my MacBook Pro has pretty much become my primary machine, the 8600GTS would suffice and it has DirectX 10 too which was great. So I'm getting an $8 GeForce 8600GTS. I find it nice that XFX was willing to help me out in getting my hardware fixed. I know I read that in order for the warranty to be valid I have to register the card within 1 year of purchasing it. The fact that they helped me out when I was a slacker and didn't register speaks volumes on how they treat their customers...in my opinion, well. So in a couple days, I will have a brand new video card. People can say that well if it's a good company then the hardware shouldn't break/fail. I take the approach that even the best hardware fails on occasion. I've done tech support work, I know about hardware failure. What matters is how the manufacturer deals with these failures. XFX was good about making sure they got back to me in a timely fashion and fix the issue. Definitely good customer support. |
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| Here We Go Again...Jack Thompson at it Again October 24, 2007 1:50am in thoughts |
 So I was watching an interview on FOX with Jack Thompson regarding Manhunt 2. It was pretty much just as I expected...Jack Thompson putting himself on this giant pedestool claiming the game should be outright banned. He claimed a corrupt ESRB and stores selling these kinds of games to kids as reasons for banning. He calls the fact that Manhunt 2 went from Adults Only to Mature a blatant sign of corruption in the ESRB. Jack goes on to say that because the game can be sold to kids, it should be banned. He says that children should be protected from this. He said kids can go onto Amazon.com and buy the game or go into stores and do the same without a parent. First let's touch the Amazon.com option. To shop at Amazon legally, you need to either be 18, or have a parent/guardian supervising. The conditions of use for Amazon say:
Amazon does sell products for children, but it sells them to adults, who can purchase with a credit card or other permitted payment method. If you are under 18, you may use Amazon.com only with involvement of a parent or guardian. Amazon reserves the right to refuse service, terminate accounts, remove or edit content, or cancel orders in their sole discretion.
So if someone goes onto the site and buys something, they should be 18, and if they are, then what is all the fuss about? If they aren't, Amazon reserves the right to cancel orders should they deem the buyer to be ineligable. Now while Amazon cannot physically monitor who is using their site, what parent in their right mind would give their 12 year old a credit card? And in terms of physical stores like Best Buy and GameStop, well that's the store's policy on whether to sell the game or not. So why the hell, Jack, are you going after the game? Go after the stores if you feel so strongly about limiting sales to minors. Jack compares this protection of children to the protection from porn. Okay, adult sites have age checkers to prevent those underage from registerring for their sites. But what about the countless sites that offer free previews or have pictures on their front page. Any unsupervised kid on a computer without some sort of filter could google "sex" and bring up hundreds of thousands of different sites. So Jack, are you going to push to ban all computers? While you're at it, why not ban the entire internet? It still comes down to one question. Where the hell are the parents? I'm not a parent, but isn't it THEIR responsibility to monitor what their children do, play, watch, see, etc? My parents did that to me, and at the time, I HATED it. Looking back at it now, I'm glad they were the way they were. I sure as hell will not let my future kids play certain games until I feel they are old enough. At the end of the day, this is the big thing. The parents should be responsible for their kids. But parents will try to pass off that responsibility to someone else instead of taking responsibility for their kids. I mean the games all have ratings clearly marked on them. E for everyone, T for teen, M for mature. I don't know enough about the inner workings about the ESRB to be able to dispute or agree with Jack's claims of corruption, but looking at the games I own and their ratings; the ratings are pretty doggone accurate. The ratings even give a brief reasoning for the rating. There are also plenty of websites with resources for parents about these video games. The parents need to be involved with what their children play. Banning a game is only going to help parents shrug off their responsibilities. I will say that I have no problem requiring stores to check for ID when buying M-rated games like they do with tobacco and alcohol. The games are not being banned, and you're still having a process to help protect the children. As far as I'm concerned, this would be a viable option to protect the children and the first amendment that Jack seems to be ignoring or at best, twisting it to fit his purposes. Several states have tried this, but seem to have the law struck down by the court systems. Jack, why don't you spend your time lobbying for this instead of trying to ban games. The First Amendment allows for freedom of speech, and freedom of expression. Video games definitely fall under this category. While I do agree with Jack in that children need to be protected, banning video games, or a video game is not the way to do it. Jack seems to have a record of twisting the amendment around to help him attempt to win his arguments. While that tactic may not be unique to him, the First Amendment allows for game makers to make whatever kind of game they choose. In the end, Jack Thompson was just being Jack Thompson. It's a shame because he seems to have a lot charisma about his "cause". If only he would put it towards a more, how shall we say it, reasonable endeavour. You can watch the interview here [Youtube.com] |
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