Keyrock

It's as if someone at Bio spent 15 minutes programming a generic edgy slogan generator. All I know is that I now have no desire whatsoever to meet Iron Bull nor Sera at #EAE3. I'm not sure if that was the desired effect.

I suspect Adda living or dying will be the most significant of the choices from TW1 going forward. It, like most choices from TW1, is only really referred to briefly in conversation or mentioned in books in TW2. Although Adda is unlikely to be near the top of the list for Temerian succession, what, with the whole Striga thing hanging over her head, I suspect she'll have a role to play in TW3, or not (on account of being dead if you killed her in TW1).

You could always scour the interwebs for TW1 save games, as there are places where people have put their save games online with every conceivable combination of choices in TW1, in case you want specific choices to funnel down into TW2, and, presumably, TW3. That is, if you haven't done that already.

Seems my suspicions about Devil's Canyon were correct. The chip runs a bit cooler than the 4770K, but, on average, the overclocking potential is barely higher than that of the 4770K, which confirms the theory (not my theory, mind you) that temperature wasn't a major factor in what was keeping Haswells from OCing as well as people had hoped. It seems the silicon lottery is still very much the order of the day for the refresh Haswells. I mean, there has always been some variance in the quality of each particular chip you get, both with Intel chips and AMD chips, but the range with Haswells is just really extreme, affecting overclocking potential by as much as 500 or 600 MHz. Overall, I feel good about my decision to go with the Xeon I got, I would have been satisfied even if the DCs had been shown to consistently overclock like champs. I have made my bed, now I get to sleep in it for nearly another year (until Broadwell). The lower clocks of the Xeon will hurt my application performance a bit, particularly encoding and decoding work, which I don't do very much of. For gaming, there will be no difference whatsoever in the majority of cases and a bit of a difference in a few heavily CPU-bound games. Honestly, for gaming, I suspect that my RAM running at 2400MHz, as opposed to the standard 1600 MHz, has, on average, a significantly bigger impact on gaming performance that having the higher clocked 4790K in place of my Xeon would have had. Although higher clocked RAM doesn't always have a positive impact, it can actually have a negative impact, in some cases, as higher clocked RAM tends to have slower timings, then you get into a bandwith vs. latency issue and things get really complicated.

Did you partake in sexy time in the pool? I will, regrettably, not be having sexy time with a certain red headed sorceress in the pool when I get there (likely later today). I'm doing a strictly platonic with Triss playthrough, which will be my canon. I chose Shani in TW1 and Triss is getting friend zoned in TW2. Then in TW3, I'm running straight into Yennefer's arms if and when we're reunited. I'm also trying to keep as many people alive as possible. I saved Vesna, Abigail, and Adda, cured Vincent, and spared Berengar in TW1, spared Aryan, will save Phillipa, spare Sile, Saskia, and Letho.

I'm plugging along in Flotsam in The Witcher 2. I did the sneaky sneaky bits around Loredo's place, did all the fist fights and arm wrestling and most of the dice games, and finished the Nekker contract. Endregas up next, I guess. Inspired by the upcoming World Cup, I also started up a game of Football Manager 2014. Time to take Wisła Kraków to the top of Ekstraklasa, though I probably should have started with a lowlier club for more challenge. Edit: Oops, wrong thread. Pretend I posted a picture, or something.

I've never heard of it before, but they advertise Motion Blur as a "feature". I need to find out who the first person to pollute a video game with motion blur was, build a time machine, travel back in time, and murder him or her before they have a chance to implement Motion Blur and start this abysmal plague. Thankfully, most games allow you to turn it off, but who thought this was a good idea in the first place? Are there people out there that enjoy Motion Blur? Who was the genius that said "You know what games are missing? An effect that very poorly and unnaturally mimics the effect you get when you turn your head really fast, makes you disoriented, and chews up resources, all at the same time."

Honestly, I'm not expecting much of anything at E3 this year. The new Witcher 3 trailer was already shown so I don't know what else CDPR can do, other than maybe something something Cyberpunk. The only thing I really want is for Nintendo to announce a Metroid game for WiiU. If when they do that, I'll definitely buy their system at some point. Other than that, no expectations, nothing to be excited about. Hopefully something comes out of the blue and surprises me. If nothing else, we might get a cringeworthy presentation from Microsoft that will make for a fun meme.

I'd argue the Spaniards have been pretty dominant over the past 6 years.

It's 83 degrees, I'm doing squats and lunges, and I'm sweating like a deadbeat dad at a child support hearing.

Why should a team's chances be any factor in whether you cheer for them or not? There are terms for people that only cheer on the favored teams: "Frontrunners" and "bandwagon fans".

How quickly can you get to Hartford, Connecticut? As an aside, a baking stone makes all the difference.

Is the pretty boy going to play? I heard he was hurt.

Before After

Yeah, I will be cheering for them too. Unfortunately, they drew the Group of Death™.

For purely comedic purposes, that would be pretty fantastic. The level of butthurt would be tremendous.

I gotta say, the default negative pressure setup of my Antec case is working pretty well. I have my PSU set so it blows its hot air downwards, out of the case, which also seals off that potential entry point for air. The side vent is conveniently located in the exact spot next to where the GPU fans are blowing the hot air off the cooling block, soit, along with the vent on the back, make for a place for the hot air to escape and simultaneously keeps air from coming in that way. That leaves the front vents as the only remaining major point of entry for air, and since there are 3 fans blowing air out, new air must come in to displace it. If I put my hand in front of the vents on the front of my case, I can feel the air being sucked in, conveniently, where there happens to be a dust screen. So far, I've topped my GPU out at 63 degrees while playing The Witcher 2 at max settings (minus Ubersampling), and that's with the fans at only 55%. I've never seen the CPU go above 60 degrees. Maybe Antec know what they were doing after all?

Ah yes, the <whatever sport is being talked about in this thread> sucks trolls have come out to play. Very good, gentlemen, jolly good contribution. As for the footy tourney itself, I suspect ze Germans will take it this year. I would very much like the Oranje to take it, but they had their chance 4 years ago and ****ed it up. They've fallen off significantly since then. Colombia is my dark horse as they have a favorable group to come out of. As an aside, why not make this the Official World Cup Thread, and rename it to something like "How Will England **** It Up This Time? The World Cup Thread" or just "The World Cup Thread" if that's too much of a mouthful?

That's not exactly going out on a limb, though. England underperforming and getting eliminated much earlier than they should have been is a quadrennial tradition.

I suppose a publicity stunt/prank is better than actual deforestation.

I finished the prologue in The Witcher 2 and am now starting the game proper. I had forgotten that when you first arrive at Flotsam, Roche introduces himself to the guard as Emhyr var Emreis, Spice Merchant. I can see it just now, the White Flame Dancing on the Barrows of his Enemies moonlighting as a spice merchant by night.

"Go home, numpad, you're drunk." /numpad tries to grad the car keys "Oh no you don't, you'll kill somebody out there. I'm going to call you a cab."

No I don't. Maybe you sit huddled over your keyboard, but I generally lean back with my arms somewhat outstretched typing and using the trackball. my face is 2 to 2 1/2 feet away from the monitor, which puts it in perfect view to have it fill my vision. Also, I like to lick the snail trails off my monitor.