morning folks
Where is everybody?
i just got here
jeez
whats your rush
I dunno, I'm bored
I'm waiting for 10 so I can go out and pick up NHL 11
man, i'm still unsure on FF 14
i thought i'd have made a decision by now
When does the beta end, anyway?
no idea
some point before the 22nd
you getting the collectors edition?
you get a month free and start 8 days early for 20 bucks, i see that as a no brainer
Yeah it's already pre-ordered and paid in full
Because hell, why not
the combat is good, the crafting is... ok, i think there can be improvements to the load time of the crafting UI
thats one thing i want fixed
but besides the opening quest, there really isnt much in the way of storyline
i wanted to get a taste of it, considering its really why i'm playing the game
Yeah, UI elements have had annoying load times since the start
It's always on their "stuff we will improve in the future" list
Yeah I had the same problem
I assume there will be a lot more plot... I hope there will be
I mean, that's why I play FFXI
I'm literally planning to close my FFXI account the moment I've completed every plotline
thats my 14 plan
how many people do we know that will be playing?
Me, Steve, presumably Clair but I doubt he'll play much with us because he likes guild drama too much
xphacter, presumably Bill and Danielle
me (assuming I find a few more things that I want in the game), bill, you
That's all I know of
possibly my friend kevin, i talked him into the game inadvertantly
ryan will play
I wonder if you and xphacter knew each other... I think he was a freshman your last year at Poly
but not till october
possibly
none of my wow friends seem interested
Actually probably not, I think he showed up the last year we were in Farmingdale
Which I distinctly remember being the year I had a single because you didn't bother to tell anyone you weren't coming back 
Oh hey it's 10... hmm
then definitely not, i had transfered out by then
Hey, GH5 (it is 5 now, right?) demo is out... wonder what's on it
Actually I guess this is 6? I lost track
its 5
i think
idk
i'm wating for rb3
Nope, there actually was a GH5
Oh me too, I have no intention of buying the new GH... but demos are free!
Looks like four songs I don't care about though
Also there's a press release about the DJ Hero 2 demo out today, but it's not actually up yet
If they demo two-turntable mode, that will be cool
i want that game, but i know i wont play it
The first game was not multiplayer-friendly (much like the original GH)
I think if they improve on that aspect, it could be good... not that I have anyone to play with anyway
But I had plenty of fun with the first DJ Hero. Especially since it doesn't kick you out of songs you're failing horribly (like Groundhog or whatever the fuck it's called, that song is nuts)
that doesnt look so hard
there's 3 buttons
lol want to come over and try it?
I actually have serious problems pressing the buttons fast for some reason... but the difficulty is in the crossfading
Anyway I'm off to get NHL 11 and lunch
yeah you had a single and lived with a motorcycle for a month or so
for some reason Tomaj thought your room would be a good garage?
So . . . the address that the customer service rep from UPS told me I could pick up my package at doesn't actually exist on the UPS website as a store location
maybe there is no store there
it could be a warehouse
Yeah, in which case I'm not so sure I can pick up my package there
you can, i've been to one in farmingdale
i think it was fedex
they put notes on it and put it near the front desk
UPS might do the same
hmmm, I think it probably warrants calling them back to be sure
check google and see if there is a number you can call there to confirm
I'm also a little concerned that I have not yet recieved their postcard, which is apparently a security issue for them, so I'm hoping I'll be able to pick it up with my government issued ID and not have to rely on UPS's inane internal tracking measures
alright, 2nd customer service guy confirms that this is a real place and they'll give me my package with my driver's license
so i'm currently fighting with a truly Kafka-esque nightmare - apparently NYT has decided that, while as far as i can tell it costs them nothing to keep me, they aren't because that's not policy
i mean, clearly, the NYTimes company policies, collectively, are such a brilliant plan for business success in the 21st century that they ought never be questioned or changed...
Tozzi, what exactly doesn't work about the leaderboards on this site for you? You've gone and made me paranoid now 
God, Sorry the Times is retarded, Tozzi
I love the bitterness at the Cowboys and Patriots
Dowd - they just don't show up. I see the box, and the drop down but nothing else
Weird... what version of Firefox are you using?
3.6.8
Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; en-US; rv:1.9.2.8) Gecko/20100722 Firefox/3.6.8 to be specific
ooo another mac user
Oh right, you're on a Mac, that's why I don't care 
gods above, please don't act like i'm one of those brain dead fanboys
My policy is to ignore things I can't test
At least, until the CEO of the client decides the site really needs to work in Navigator 4.0 on a Mac
i can test it!
Yeah so could Tozzi, but testing via a third party is a pain in the ass and it's really not important
the leaderboard box on the first page?
Chances are it's either a malformed HTML thing, an obscure Mac Firefox bug, or a javascript problem
Feel free to look at the HTML, but beyond that I don't want to deal with it... and yes, the leaderboard on the main page
works in safari 5, chrome 6 and firefox 3.6.8
im on a mac pro tower
maybe its my 32gb of ram...
lol something tells me it's not a memory problem
It's probably Tozzi's popup blocker
Or at least, that's all I can think of
that's possible
Want to try turning it off and see if that makes any difference?
yeah, at some point, kind of in the middle of a few things
IE9 comes out on my birthday
Is it going to be any good?
supposedly its got a 95/100 on acid3 tests
his birthday is alright
chrome gets a 100
lol Matt
What kind of tests are they, for speed, standards, or what?
what is an acid3 test?
http://acid3.acidtests.org/ it tests your browser for CSS capabilities and stuff
it isnt speed, its what it is able to render
Ah, ok, cool
What does Firefox get?
its funny how MS is boasting they got a 95. They couldn't go for the full 100% like google?
Ooh only a 93, tsk tsk
mine gets a 94
Safari gets a 100
lol my IE8 got a 12
oo it went up to 20
Really? IE8 is pretty good in my experience
yeah but im running it virtualized
I actually have more problems with Firefox than IE8 (which is still less than 1/20th of IE7, and the less said about IE6 the better )
Yeah I got a 12... and that was after the activeX plugin, lol
So does anyone know what's up with Google's homepage today?
In compatibility mode it got a 6 and looked not remotely like it was supposed to
You mean with the bubbles?
I actually get a completely different page if I go to google.com on Chrome (specifically, I get the iGoogle page)
Yeah
i got 100 on safari on the iphone
Is this in celebration of something?
Or is it just showing off HTML4 shit or whatever?
My guess it's in celebration of Bob from the Google team saying "hey guys I made this cool bubble/balloon thing"
Or HTML5? (really it's HTMLwhateveritwas+1)
lol it's 5... 4 came out in like, 2000
it irritates me because normally you can click on the logo to see search results on that day's bit of wackiness
So I've picked up my new Kindle and am charging it now (as well as playing around with it a bit)
I'm very impressed at the clarity of the screen as related to the first version of the Kindle (don't know about Kindle2, presumably there were some screen improvements over v1)
And the refresh rate feels like it's about double what it was on the first version of the device
cool
I also really like how streamlined they made the initial set up
Basically it was plug it in to charge it and hit the on-switch, the rest is pretty self explanatory
Yeah based on what I've seen of Bill's Kindle 1, my Kindle's screen is a lot nicer - I kind of want to see yours in person and see how much nicer it is now
Although that's probably a bad idea since if it's good enough I'll just want one
I definitely feel like they should get kudos for making such marked improvements on each version
lol
The manual is pretty good too, taught me a few nonobvious things you can do (you might want to check for the newest version though)
Yeah, I'll get around to it eventually, but I'm not in any great rush
And there aren't too many buttons, so it feels like anything I am able to do is accessible through the menu button
honestly, the weirdest thing so far was that there isn't a row of number buttons, so you have to press the symbol button to bring them up
I also get some after-image effects on my screen when I zoom in on a PDF, but not to an extent that prevents me from using it
And it goes away as soon as I zoom out agiain
I meant more like how to highlight and annotate, change text size, and that sort of thing
Yeah, Text size they made really easy on this version
There's a button that brings up everything you can do with the text
Highlight I'm not sure about . . . and I should look into that because I liked the idea of using it to share snippets on Facebook
Yeah that's the same, I just didn't see hte button at first
Well highlighting is easy: use the five-way button to go to the start (or end) of the text you want to highlight, click it, then go to the other end and click again
Also you can look up definitions of words by moving to the beginning of that word (it pops up at the bottom, you can press OK or whatever to expand it)
I don't actually remember how to make annotations or bookmarks, largely because I never bother
lol
Wow, does your version have the option to see "popular highlights"?
It's a little weird, like reading a communal text
I just tried it on the Constitution and it's like getting sections of it voted up or down on digg
yeah that gets annoying because then you want to highlight it....
but you dont need to because you can always just refer to them
I think so - it told me "387 people highlighted this" and whatnot at various points during the Count of Monte Cristo, but I haven't seen them anywhere else
One potentially neat thing is that it saves your annotations and such in a plain text file, which you could save or edit (though I don't see how you could get much out of this, really)
It has a lot of cool features, but mostly I just use it to read books
i have textbooks on there
pictures are nice but many times the captions are on separate screens
I can't imagine having a book I want to constantly be referencing different points of on a Kindle... though it's probably doable if you learn it well
Hell, as I've been reading Way of Kings I'm now even more inclined to buy a copy because, even zoomed in, the Kindle just doesn't do the art justice
well actually i use the kindle app on the ipad
I feel like the txt file is used to put quotes on your computer for sig files . . . so 1999
Though Matt's might
Yeah, I put a bunch of PDF business requirements on there, basically saves me having to carry around 600 pages of work
But like, the idea of putting D&D books on the Kindle doesn't appeal to me in the slightest
I'd be alright with properly bookmarked D&D books on there
Well, maybe the Monster Manual. That would actually be really nice to have, because I could pre-bookmark everything
You lose a little bit of convenience in reading in favor for not having to carry 20lbs of books around to your game session
Which has occasionally been irritating to me
Yeah as long as you can get the bookmarks in beforehand, it would be fine, but I'm always referencing random rules in the PH and DMG, so I dunno
But then I walk 40 blocks to go from work to my friend's place when gaming
I feel like that D&D Essentials Rules Booklet would probably be perfect for it
Of course, that's all 3rd ed anyway, 4th ed may actually be better designed for that to be less of an issue (especially the lack of a completely separate spell chapter)
Organizationally speaking, the PHB and DMG aren't really set up for easy reference
Unless you already know the rules backwards and forwards, in which case you don't need to read them
But still, for strict rules reference I'd rather have a laptop (or optimally, an iPad) and the online compendium
lol, yes, that's true
Exactly Matt, and going to where you want on a Kindle is easy, finding what you want is not
I wonder if you can get it to make switching books not ridiculously difficult...
Oh, I think we've successfully gotten one of our friends to run a one shot game of D&D in which we all play multiclass bards and have a rock band
Really? Mine has a search function in it, can't say I've experimented with it yet though
I think if I were to run D&D, I'd probably just put all my notes on the kindle and stick with books and a laptop (I usually copy the relevant rules and stat blocks anyway)
Yeah but it's a word search, isn't it? I hate having to check multiple hits on something with a slow-ass refresh rate
Like if I wanted to look up 3rd ed flying rules, "flying" is mentioned all over the DMG (of course the real problem there is that I want to look up flying rules at all...)
LOL
On another note, I have been replaying through the Subspace Emissary campaign in Brawl to unlock new characters and I forgot how damn long that campaign is
I feel like I've probably put in a good three or four hours and am still not quite 25% done
Yeah it was pretty insane, but I was OK with it since having no one to play with meant it was pretty much the whole game for me
Yeah, that's kind of the case for me too
Plus it was pretty cool, IIRC
Yeah, though some of the shiny goes away on the second playthrough
Each time they introduce another character I don't go "whoa . . . cool", I go "is this a new character? No!?!? DAMN YOU!!!!"
lol
Starcraft 2 and RUSE are both on sale at Kmart this week
for 40 and 45 dollars respectivly
My kitchen is now looking 78% more kitcheny
Hmm... that's not bad for SC2
What's RUSE?
And congrats, Cuzzo!
Jesus, it's almost 5?! Man, actually working makes time fly
Dad came out over the weekend and 25 hours later we have the cabinets installed
good night gamers
i'll catch you folk tomorrow
Sara's been posting picks of the kitchen on facebook
RUSE is the first RTS designed for multitouch monitors
it looks neat
Ooh, Dissidia sequel with Lightning (whatever) and Kain (much more exciting, because it means more than one character per game) shown
Annnd all the work I've been putting off for a week is done... /sigh
/mutter
I am so bored! And very annoyed with NHL 11, because the rosters are abysmal. They'll be updated eventually, but for now I'm unwilling to start a season or anything like that
Which is even worse because the gameplay enhancements are great... bah! BAH I SAY
What did sanderson read at dragoncon, was it the prologue for TWoK, or ToM?
it was ToM. now I need to see if I can find a recording of it, even if he did skip over 2 scenes
Heh
That must have been a long reading
so the weird google doodle from yesterday was teasing "Google Instant"
the instant search method
Which does what?
it takes the average user 25 seconds to find what they want
but google instant should cut down a lot of time
"If you were to look for information in the 30′s, you’d spend half a day looking up information. In the 50′s you might be able to call a librarian, you could get the information in around half an hour."
"1995, you had CD-ROM encyclopedia, you could find this information in a matter of minutes. But it was static information."
"It takes a user on average around nine seconds to enter a search query into Google. Serving results takes around 300 ms from Google, plus 800 ms total in Network time. Takes around 15 seconds to select a result. A search takes 25 seconds."
it isnt working for me
It worked for me, but not from the igoogle page Chrome goes to for google.com
That's kind of a funny problem
Oh hey, the FFXI update is out... wasn't really expecting that until next week
Not much new in the notes, but it looks like they added a campaign/besieged type thing in the new Abyssea, which could be very cool
