Humanoid

It's something I've both never really thought about, nor am particularly curious about. Probably partly due to the fact that I barely even knew my grandparents - by the time I was eight I had lost three of them already (and never really had much contact with the last one, being overseas and all). I don't know the slightest thing about my great-grandparents, not what they looked like, what they did, or even their names. And my parents aren't much help in this regard as they didn't really know their grandparents either. So uh, my knowledge of family history barely goes back fifty years. But I find I don't mind not knowing.

I don't mind it either. Actually at the moment I'm debating whether to do an upgrade to 8.1 on this machine (convertible netbook thingie), or instead nuke everything and do a clean install sans-OEM-bloatware. But rationally, this machine is used for nothing but web browsing, so the logical thing would be to not do it at all. It'll be relevant when I receive my serious new machine (the Thinkpad) though. Apparently Lenovo aren't doing 8.1 default on their business-oriented machines until next year. Blah. Sort of relevant - one thing I'm liking about my recent reinstall onto a new SSD is that 2.5" drive power requirements mean it's trivial to transfer the old data over without messing around in the case. Simple SATA-to-USB cable and basically my old SSD is just a gigantic USB stick.

Only been back a couple years myself, but like an old glove, fit back in just fine. Weird to think about it, but this place has been around for longer than all its predecessors combined, even adding together the communities that ran concurrently. And yet shortly it'll be the tenth anniversary of starting here. Sure doesn't feel like it to me.

Now that they don't need my money, I guess I'll give them money. Okay, it's more that the campaign has gone on so long it's had the reverse effect of making it easy to forget about. Was going to go minimum, but eh, for once the rungs just above are actually attractive (as opposed to just being an extra PDF or MP3 or whatnot).

XCOM has Scotland as separate from the UK, and it's set in 2015. I have no reason to believe that's not completely true. But in all seriousness, if not for the fact that the vote is actually happening, I'd have assumed it was something as likely to succeed as the fringe section of Western Australians who wish to secede. Obviously Scotland has centuries of history that make it incomparable, but talking in terms of contemporary interests, they probably have less rational reasons to do so. P.S. Wotcha!

My solution to online shopping anxiety, waiting for that one delivery to arrive, is to instead buy new things every day such that new loot arrives every day.

Especially if it's a decent laptop which should have an mSATA or M.2 port for additional storage. I'm a bit annoyed at the schism between those two standards though, like the mini-USB versus micro-USB standards, it just makes it harder for the end user.

Missing the link there, I assume this thing is what you're talking about? It's a standard 1TB laptop drive with some NAND stuffed in the crevices? Have to say it seems pointless to me. For the price you can just about get 500GB of pure SSD which I'd think would work more nicely. Or for the same or possibly lesser price, pick up an SSD of the same capacity *and* a 2TB 2.5" spindle - I've think even the smallest ITX cases have room for a couple 2.5" disks at minimum. (Or if it didn't, just some room in general to double-sided-tape an SSD onto)

Hard to say, might be worth trying a repair install of Windows (you don't lose everything, but a fair bit of re-updating). Perhaps run some diagnostics on your system drive - assuming it's the Samsung, their SSD Magician utility is very good.

Doing anything in particular when the BSODs happened? My first instinct would probably be Memtest, and also system file checker to check your OS install is okay (open a command prompt with admin rights, type sfc /scannow).

I'd support and genuinely use a full autoresolve playthrough if implemented, assuming it's reasonably fair (unlike say, Mount and Blade's terrible one). But really, there doesn't need to be any resolving at all done for a Torment type game, it'd be perfectly reasonable to just have automatic successes when you use violence to solve a problem. Just choose the option "kill this guy" and the guy dies, no need for a complicated combat system. Naturally some attempts would be automatic failures as well, such as trying to stab the Lady of Pain analogue.

Why can't I choose Pangaea then?

Believe Electron is totally not the Aurora engine in the same way that Skyrim's Creation engine is totally not Gamebryo.

You could offer print manuals for delivery, but yeah, not the broader answer. That lies in finding a solution that at least matches the convenience of that print solution, and just saying "here's a PDF scan of the old manual" isn't going to cut it. That information needs to be presented out there in a way that's both as comprehensive and as conveniently accessible as a print manual, and tooltips are just the beginning of it. A BG2 player pondering their character build ought to have all the relevant information - stuff like the full XP table, level by level ability breakdowns, etc - available ingame in a way that would match a player looking at their character sheet onscreen while having the paper manual open in front of them. To repeat the point, it's not that games have stopped making properly useful manuals that irks me, as much as there being no reasonable attempt at a like-for-like replacement. Putting it in the too hard basket, dumping all the information in a PDF and saying "eh, that's the price of progress" isn't the solution. It's not even trying. Yes, it means more cost in developing a better, self-documented product, but then what are the savings from not doing physical distribution for?

Sure, I'm just saying it's not unfair to rate a game lower if it inconveniences its users in that way. Not a deal breaker but certainly a contributing factor in legitimately downrating a rerelease.

Doesn't glide smoothly on my faux-wood laminate desk. And sweat.

Does it make the manual appear out of my DVD drive tray? EDIT: Yes, I'm being facetious, but usability is something that should be rated. Accessible isn't the same as conveniently accessible. And if it seems I'm being unfair because every company does it now, well, I'm marking down every single company. It's objectively a worse experience regardless of logistics.

I think I've solved the problem, and it's a doozy. It's possibly the most baffling thing I've experienced in all my years of tinkering with PCs. Was it one of the prime suspects - the video card or PSU? Nope. Was it a secondary suspect - a monitor, hard drive, SSD, sound card or speakers. Nope. My router, my ethernet over powerline setup? They buzz, but nope. My fluorescent lighting? Haha, nope. The mouse? Uh oh. But wait, the mouse isn't brand new, I've had it for a while. Wait, I've just gotten a new mouse pad which was free with some other stuff I bought... Yeah, the one most offensive source of annoying electronic noise in my setup is in fact something non-electronic at all. The surface of the new mouse pad for whatever reason is causing the mouse to generate more electric whine, or somehow amplifying it, even when it's stationary. Good god, all that component swapping, hours spent messing around with the PC internals, the bloody tinnitus. IT WAS A STUPID SLAB OF RUBBER. What's more, it was a WoW Cataclysm mouse pad - being an obsolete expansion probably explains why they were giving them away. So damn you Bobby Kotick for crimes against my ears! Grrrrrrrarrrrrgh! EDIT: Worse still - ignorance is bliss. Now when I move my mouse, I'm acutely aware that it's going to be generating electric noise. So even on less noisy surfaces I can notice it now. I'm ruined now. Dammit. EDIT: Swapped to a G700 mouse I bought a couple years ago (back when the sheer volume of buttons would have been a help and not a hindrance) and used for 10 minutes before deciding I didn't like the ergonomics. But it's significantly quieter than the M950 so it's what I'm using now. Ah well.

I can get ~$20 off some selected Haswell CPU and board combos that are tempting me somewhat. But being so close to holidays where I'll be away for a bit, I'm kind of held back. Options are a 4130, 4570, or 4770, all standard versions. Situation: I've got a spare brand new SSD, RAM, and a bunch of 2TB HDDs which I need excuses to dispose of so I can upgrade them to the upcoming 5TB models. First thought: My HTPC is built on a first-stepping Sandy platform with the SATA bug which means all the SATA2 ports, which I am using, will die in time. So I'm thinking of taking it apart, throwing it in a cheap case and using it as a backup PC and test rig. Then rebuild the HTPC with Haswell, which in a first for Intel IGPs can handle 23.973Hz video correctly. Or: I can do the same thing with my desktop instead. Downside will be that the backup will have to be a full-sized ATX case which is rather inconvenient. And frankly I was hoping that my next gaming CPU would be more than a simple quad-core. If I didn't have to buy a new OS (would have been fine with Linux for the spare box, but alas both Win7 copies are OEM) I'd have already done it. Blah.

Theres a mod to give genemodded soldiers there sleeves back, since it's bothering a lot of people. Aside, got my favourite operation name so far in the game: Operation Hot Paramour. Sexy date with a Thinman.

I'd totally dock a game points for not offering a printed manual, even if digitally distributed. Being able to read up what you need to when not in-game represents genuine usability gains, and this should be reflected in reviews. You may think it extreme, and it's true that the impact of such an omission depends on the nature of the individual game, but it's potentially gamebreaking. Falcon 4.0 with its 1000 page manual? Totally happy to give it five stars. Without manual? I'd struggle to say two stars. BG2? Ehhh, down from four to three.

Operation Cold Heat ....yeah.

Only for the consoles, for which the expansion is a standalone "complete edition" product.

Since that photo I've taken out the 120mm fan that's clipped to the back of the heatsink, and swapped in the slower and quieter Scythe Slipstream fan that used to occupy the lower PSU bay in place of the rear exhaust one. Unfortunately the leftmost fan on the video card cooler has failed, and by the relative lack of dust on it compared to the other two, it seems to have failed some time ago. Fortunately that's the least important fan and isn't directly blowing on anything important, GPU temperatures under load are still great and it ran Heaven on loop for several hours testing with no glitches. Unless it catastrophically fails one day, I'm going to leave it until 20nm GPUs are out at the earliest. Unfortunately I'm now battling a weird case of coil whine. Not sure what it is, since the usual suspect is a video card under load, but it's happening at idle and it demonstrates no fluctuation whatsoever whether I do put it under load or not. Maybe it's just that I quietened down the overall fan noise from the machine that the whine is more noticeable. C-states and speedstep can also cause it, but toggling them off hasn't done anything for me either. And it's not a Windows setting off some sort, since it exhibits the same behaviour if I boot off a Linux USB livedisc. A bit torn. Maybe it is time for a new PC, but it feels like a waste, especially since it's got OEM Win7 that's not transferrable. I mean I'd like to have new goodies like SATA3, USB3, faster boots and those other little bonuses from newer platforms. But on the other hand, I don't need more CPU performance at all, and am loathe to reward Intel for their cheapskate Haswell release. Am also annoyed that due to my PCI soundcard combined with the three-slot video card cooler, I can't get a micro-ATX board next time around - the lowest bay on those boards is pretty much always another PCI-E slot. I wonder if it wouldn't be ridiculous to use a Kaveri machine as my desktop for a while...

And it's a sequel, no less. Still, outproducing your enemies is a tried and true strategy that works every time. Now I just need to figure out how to get my XCOM troopers to reproduce faster than those dang Chryssalids....