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AusGAF 5/5 - Everything's Amazing and Nobody's Happy, a rental at best

Yagharek

Member
250kg is quite big for a human, but certainly not a big load for a building. Furniture weighing over 250kg is not unreasonable. I'm looking at a couch with foldout bed, side cabinet and fridge that probably weigh more than that.

Also, engineering standards should see a floor be able to hold an order of magnitude more on the same floor than just one morbidly obese person.
 

HolyCheck

I want a tag give me a tag
250kg is quite big for a human, but certainly not a big load for a building. Furniture weighing over 250kg is not unreasonable. I'm looking at a couch with foldout bed, side cabinet and fridge that probably weigh more than that.

Also, engineering standards should see a floor be able to hold an order of magnitude more on the same floor than just one morbidly obese person.

Maybe he should just get a job.
 

Card Boy

Banned
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Tempted to get this just for the Sam Fisher statue. Already got the game though. 23 bucks from GAME.
 
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Tempted to get this just for the Sam Fisher statue. Already got the game though. 23 bucks from GAME.
They have had it on sale for a month now. No bites obviously lol. Was tempted but figurine looks low quality.
Would kill for one of those figurines that came with the Vanquish CE. Fapfapfap
 

Yagharek

Member
SC Conviction was such a good game after the letdown of Double Agent (and Chaos Theory, with real but relatively minor flaws).
 

Danoss

Member
I'm a bit late, but I thought I'd get in on the mugshot action.

Yes, that's a real Gazatar mug, not manipulated at all.
 

guidop

Member
Oh man No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain is so good! I have been watching it non stop for the last 2 days all the episodes are on youtube, it is a wonderful way to pass 45 minutes just make sure you've got something tasty to eat when you enviably get hungry
 

Yagharek

Member
Source Code impressions:

Fucking awesome. Loved the concept, loved the play off on the philosophy of chance vs determinism, loved the characters. I thought the suspect might have been the duck in the lake, but that theory was disproven in the end.

The film basically felt like a fleshed out hypothetical one-off episode of the best of Stargate SG1.
 
I like Duncan Jones and David Bowie but that film's final 10-15 minutes was a travesty.


I went out and bought Source Code today. I liked Moon quite a lot, so I'm not sure why I didnt buy/see this straight away. From memory I think I recall someone told me it was a big letdown but then this same person also talked up avatar, tree of life, skyrim and likes orson scott card. So I'm going to assume Source Code is an excellent film.

Fuck you man tree of life is awesome.


Why does this only have 328 views?
edit: I think my viewcount is frozen because 3000 people have upvoted this on reddit
There is no beer in the work fridge first week back.

WTF is this shit.

You have beer at work? WHAT DO YOU DO
 

Shaneus

Member
PC comfy couch gaming setup is finally complete. Had to buy/download a bunch of shit to get it working as it should (and bought some unnecessary things along the way) but here's a brief summary of what people can do to get it up and running for cheap:

*HDMI cable. Duh. Need it for video, not so much sound.
*Asus Xonar U1. USB device that utilises some software magic to convert any game with multi-channel audio into a Dolby Digital signal. Most digital outs (except for high-end mobos) will only output a pure, uncompressed PCM signal and little more, unless it streams the digital data (from, say, a movie) across the port. This fucker has Dolby Digital Live which gets all sound signals (it's a sound card), regardless of speaker number/count, and puts it in a nice DD container for your amp to decode. So even if the game you're playing has surround out but only the surround that's via the 3x3.5mm ports, it'll convert that into a signal fer yer amp.
*USB repeater extension cable. For the Asus thingy.
*Extension thingy for HDMI. Because all mine were too short.
*Wireless KBAM. Initially thought I needed this, but seeing as I have a laptop, I found a free prog called:
*Synergy. This will basically let a particular PC be seen as a secondary monitor for your main one (but only mouse/keyboard sharing, no video. Maybe gamepads too). So now I can control my desktop with my laptop keyboard by just moving the cursor to the right and using the TV as the primary display. Still have the display duplicated with the desktop monitor, though.
*360 wired pad. Thankfully, have a cable long enough to reach the PC without it being inconvenient, though I'd wager you could also use the MS wireless dongle and a wireless pad.

So, there you have it. Shit, if I want I could even play a text adventure on my TV because I have my laptop right here. Comfy couching setup complete. Now just waiting for Valve to do their shit with Steam.
 

Jintor

Member
I wish my house was set up properly to do that. As it is, I think I might just convert the old PC into a media server and watching GiantBomb/Tested/FreddieW/other internet stuff on a huge screen.
 

Shaneus

Member
I wish my house was set up properly to do that. As it is, I think I might just convert the old PC into a media server and watching GiantBomb/Tested/FreddieW/other internet stuff on a huge screen.
Mine isn't. It's a clusterfuck of extension cables, HDMI joiners and USB repeaters. But thankfully, it works perfectly now. With my new TV coming (hopefully) next week the setup should be 100% bitchin'. Still running those Logitech Z-5500 speakers that I bought when I moved in (around 7 years ago now?) and never, ever had an issue with them.
 

evlcookie

but ever so delicious
It's me Holy and wilflare in one channel. I don't know if the other half of the channel is still working.

Wilf is in my channel as well!

There's also 3chop, clipper, banana, crumb. Although no one is saying anything so it could be broken D:
 
Ha, my La Dispute vinyl that I ordered way back in October before my birthday has finally arrived from JB HiFi. No email to say it had shipped or anything.
(also wtf at imgur rotating my fucking picture when I upload it? Correct on my desktop but even if I flip it around the wrong way and save it imgur STILL uploads it upside down, clowns. Abload isn't working for me either, won't finalise the upload or let me open any of my folders, clownshoes)

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Sound fantastic on the old record player.

So, there you have it. Shit, if I want I could even play a text adventure on my TV because I have my laptop right here. Comfy couching setup complete. Now just waiting for Valve to do their shit with Steam.

RPS said:
Also, Big Picture UI mode – aimed at using Steam on your large TV – is apparently on the close horizon.
Depending on how how well it is implemented I may even look at picking up a great TV like this one some time in the future and moving to the couch.
 
Shaneus, you can do audio out via HDMI. My HTPC outputs to my amp just fine. It does passthrough of whatever audio it gets - analogue stereo, PCM, DD, DTS are all passed through. I'm just using onboard HDMI on a lowish end motherboard I picked a couple of years back.

IIRC setting the primary device to WASAPI in Windows did the trick. It even identifies the make and model of my amp.

Oh yes, there's a plugin for XBMC that provides a big screen launcher for Steam. Go check the xbmc.org forums, it may do just what you want.

I'm having other problems with XMBC freezing or rebooting randomly. Not sure if XBMC is crapping out or if the SSD is going funny. Watching through VLC seems to be alright, though I'm not sure what that proves...
 

Yagharek

Member
Tbh, I thought it was fucking terrible. To the point I gave up on it very early.

Console game at best.

The original SCs, but especially 2 and 3, had terrible campaigns and campaign objectives themselves were often non sequiturs. "Fisher, the elevator's stopped" may as well be the same as "Look at all dat jooce". Same with the antagonists monologue about the plight of soldiers at the end of chaos theory. I must have heard that a dozen times too many.

Conviction was great in that it let you do things via mark and execute that SC original controls would either never let you do, or relegate it to a cutscene.
 
Conviction was great in that it let you do things via mark and execute that SC original controls would either never let you do, or relegate it to a cutscene.
The differences between the games are enough that Conviction should have just been a new IP, but the main problem there is that it wouldn't have sold anywhere near as much, making it SC was a lazy way to maximise sales.

The first SC games had fantastic gameplay that didn't have fantastic stories or story telling. Conviction was a cinematic experience with enjoyable gameplay that I would argue was Uncharted-up for lack of a better word (in my mind at the time). I was quite a departure but I didn't have romantic memories of the first games so I still enjoyed it for what it was, in the same way I enjoy Uncharted. I enjoyed the story of Conviction quite a bit.

Never got around to dragging someone in to the co-op.
 
D

Deleted member 30609

Unconfirmed Member
I always thought people propped up Chaos Theory as the trilogy standout.
 

Yagharek

Member
Personally I dont know why. Campaign was nothing special, VS mode was diluted from the essentially perfect debut in PT, and co-op was a slide-show.
 
Any reason why my monitor needs to be plugged in by USB as well as VGA and DC power?

Every office job I have worked has beer in the fridge. Call centres excluded. Peons don't get beer. :(

Ugh, at our company we have to be 00 at all times. One drop of alcohol, even at lunch, and we aren't allowed on premises or to be representing the company.
Which doesn't go well with my alcoholic tenancies.

One company I worked for had beer o'clock on Fridays at 4pm, everyone would knock off and have beers in the boardroom... except the customer service monkeys like me. We just drank while answering calls until 7pm.
My boss had to fight with head office to give us a Christmas party off-site with beer and wine only. Plus only from 4pm - 7pm.

My company sucks, wish the boss would go independent and we could all just work without their bullshit. Would be much more profitable!
 

Dead Man

Member
Ugh, at our company we have to be 00 at all times. One drop of alcohol, even at lunch, and we aren't allowed on premises or to be representing the company.
Which doesn't go well with my alcoholic tenancies.

One company I worked for had beer o'clock on Fridays at 4pm, everyone would knock off and have beers in the boardroom... except the customer service monkeys like me. We just drank while answering calls until 7pm.
 
So I started playing Final Fantasy XIII and... I'm actually quite enjoying it, or the first few hours at least. A few thoughts so far:

- Snow is an utter wanker and Vanille appears to have sustained some kind of brain damage.
- The kid is really annoying and has a girls' name. Also, his mum, "Moms are tough" lady, was pretty stacked. Don't know if anyone noticed the way she was just popping out of her top in the opening chapter. Damn, Square Enix, you couldn't have toned that down a little?
- Sazh(sp?) sounds exactly like Denzel Washington, which makes him incredibly likeable.
- Fang has the voice of a bogan and the way Vanille talks makes me think of an Aussie who has been in the states a few months.
- 14 years later and the transition from in-game to pre-rendered cutscenes and back again is still jarring.
- Despite myself, I find myself liking Lightning.
- I find Vanille's actions to be incredibly bizarre and her demeanor in the face of watching a bunch of people get murdered jarring, but I can't bring myself to hate her. It'd be like hating a real person with a mental disability.
 
In other news I cannot find anywhere to buy the CE statue of Vanquish :(

So I started playing Final Fantasy XIII and... I'm actually quite enjoying it, or the first few hours at least.
Started playing it on 360 and felt dirty. Didn't get far as I got bored with the corridor approach and horrible voice work/script.

Sazh is the best thing about the game aside from the battle system, which is all kinds of awesome and the only way I got through the damn thing eventually.

It isn't as bad as people make it out to be but I would rate it as the worst since V. Sounds like 13-2 is pretty good and I will pick it up because I am a whore for Square :(
 
One job I had used to have someone take drink orders on a Friday evening while we worked the phones. We were only allowed two drinks, but they never restricted the strength of the drinks on the menu. Two Wild Turkeys were the go.
 

Shaneus

Member
Shaneus, you can do audio out via HDMI. My HTPC outputs to my amp just fine. It does passthrough of whatever audio it gets - analogue stereo, PCM, DD, DTS are all passed through. I'm just using onboard HDMI on a lowish end motherboard I picked a couple of years back.

IIRC setting the primary device to WASAPI in Windows did the trick. It even identifies the make and model of my amp.

Oh yes, there's a plugin for XBMC that provides a big screen launcher for Steam. Go check the xbmc.org forums, it may do just what you want.

I'm having other problems with XMBC freezing or rebooting randomly. Not sure if XBMC is crapping out or if the SSD is going funny. Watching through VLC seems to be alright, though I'm not sure what that proves...
Yeah, I knew HDMI would pass audio through, but as I'm only using the Logitech amp, it will pretty much only decode DTS or DD. Problem is, while most movies have a DTS or DD stream (which is fine, because it just passes it through) very few games use that sort of encoding, meaning you either have to use the 3 analogue ports on the back (FL/FR, RL/RR, C/SW) or just deal with stereo being passed through HDMI. Trust me, it took me months to work that out before finally succumbing to the fact that I'd have to shell out money for some kind of sound card. Now, no matter what game I'm playing, if it supports any kind of surround, I'll be able to play it as such :)

Beauty part is, is that the optical switchbox I have (it's that Joytech one styled to go with an original 360) passes through my Turtle Beach wireless base before hitting my amp, so anything that's optical (all bar my DVD/BR player) I can listen to on headphones if I want.


BTW, just noticed that my TV is in Melbourne as we speak, so I should be coming home to it Monday, hopefully!
 
Started playing it on 360 and felt dirty. Didn't get far as I got bored with the corridor approach and horrible voice work/script.

Sazh is the best thing about the game aside from the battle system, which is all kinds of awesome and the only way I got through the damn thing eventually.

It isn't as bad as people make it out to be but I would rate it as the worst since V. Sounds like 13-2 is pretty good and I will pick it up because I am a whore for Square :(
I actually think the voice work is pretty good. It's the script that holds it back. There are moments, especially where Vanille and the kid are doing anything when I'm taken out of the story and just sit there shaking my head in utter disbelief.

The way they act may be endearing or funny in an ultra moe anime and in Japanese, but when it's coupled with the pseudo-realism of the game, it's jarring and just a little disturbing. You might think I was joking about Vanille having a learning disability, but that's genuinely how I default to feeling about her while playing.
 
One job I had used to have someone take drink orders on a Friday evening while we worked the phones. We were only allowed two drinks, but they never restricted the strength of the drinks on the menu. Two Wild Turkeys were the go. I used to smash them down and somehow, I got along better with customers. ;)
 

Shaneus

Member
Depending on how how well it is implemented I may even look at picking up a great TV like this one some time in the future and moving to the couch.
That's a nice deal. I'm guessing though that it's not at the top of their range for TVs/plasmas at that price, though? I was originally only going to drop $600 or so on a TV, but given that I cheaped out on my current TV and have never been quite 100% happy with it, I should spend the extra now (which is still $100 cheaper than what my current TV cost me... from Aldi!) and not regret it in the future.

Stoked that basically within a week, my home entertainment setup will basically be perfect for what I want. Sound is decent (damn Logitech Z5500s are the deal of the century), PQ will be off the charts and I'll be able to play games quickly, watch movies with ease and switch between them lightning-fast with the new HDMI switchbox I bought a few weeks back. Life's Good.

In other news, just spent two hours in my tiny little backyard cutting up and pulling weeds and cutting back trees etc. Most work I've done all holidays (not even really the holidays, seeing as it's Saturday) but damn, so satisfying. Now I feel I've accomplished more than just sitting on my arse, playing games, watching movies and eating over this break.
 
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