The Bridge

Arda Xi

4:00 PM

@badp I just did.

Powerlord

</late>

Actually, that's a really crappy upstream considering that we run web servers and stuff from here.

I wish my home connection had anywhere near this.

Arda Xi

@Powerlord Heh, you're the only non-Dutchy with a reasonable connection.

Powerlord

@ArdaXi This is from work. As it says, my "ISP" here is "Michigan State Government"

Arda Xi

Still. Even those who posted their work connection had a horrible one.

Powerlord

Lets not get into my home connection... I may actually move to a slower connection just to get rid of my current crappy cable provider.

Not that much slower, but still... 4Mb/s instead of 6Mb/s

That's down... I think both providers are 1Mb/s up.

Arda Xi

4:09 PM

You mean 40, 60 and 10 respectively, right?

Powerlord

@ArdaXi @ArdaXi: I live in the US, so no.

Arda Xi

Oh, I thought you were comparing to this one. Also, what is up with that? Aren't there fibre connections in the US?

Powerlord

You know, the nation that decided it'd be better to award monopolies to private companies rather than keeping the lines owned by the public?

@ArdaXi There is... one fiber than I know of, and it doesn't operate in my area.

Arda Xi

My ISP has quite a monopoly.

Powerlord

@ArdaXi Government-owned or private company?

Arda Xi

4:12 PM

@Powerlord Private.

Ziggo

Ziggo is the largest cable operator in the Netherlands, providing cable television (digital and analog), broadband Internet, and telephone service to both residential and commercial customers. The company is the result of the merger between Multikabel, @Home Network, and Casema and launched officially on May 16, 2008. Its main competitors are KPN and CanalDigitaal. The other major Dutch cable operator is UPC Netherlands, which does not compete with Ziggo since their respective coverage areas do not overlap. Most of the share capital is held by holding companies of two private equity fi...

They practically have a monopoly in their coverage area.

Powerlord

I could make up excuses for the US companies, but I'm not going to. They're monopolies that horde money without upgrading service, even when the government offers them subsidies (that they accept) to do so.

The fact that the government hasn't sued the telecoms in the US for not upgrading their service as promised speaks volumes on how corrupt our government is when it deals with big business.

Arda Xi

Oh right. I guess the difference is that we're nice people.

And we have the EU of course.

Powerlord

Comcast and AT&T are monopolies for Cable and DSL for likely 90% of the US. And given how large the US is both in population and geographically, that's bad.

and yet, my cable service would likely be better if I did live in Comcast's coverage range...

Oh right, so not only have I had problems with upstream connection dropouts, as of a week or two ago, my ping times now go to hell in the evenings... starting before I get home from work lasting until roughly 30-60 minutes before I go to bed.

Arda Xi

4:28 PM

Well, all I care about is my connection to my Usenet provider, since that is the only place I actually expect to max it.

Powerlord

Oh ick, now that I'm checking, AT&T only offers up to 1.5Mbps DSL down where I am.

and only 384kbps up? Bleah.

Arda Xi

All I know is that I get about 50 Mbit in practice.

Bob

4:41 PM

0

Q: Community Promotion Ads - Explanation and Feedback

This is an associated discussion thread for Community Promotion Ads - 1H 2011, which is otherwise relegated towards posts actually for the ads. Stack Overflow runs a Free Vote-Based Advertising for Open Source Projects system to host ad space on the sidebar of the main site. These are select...

Arda Xi

I still haven't seen any community ads on the main site.

Powerlord

You know, for the scripts ad, I shouldn't have to be the person who, this late, has to go point out that the ground textures have been swiped from Super Mario World.

Arda Xi

> If you can't see any, you may be running a service or program that blocks advertisements on the Stack Exchange sites. This will prevent you from seeing these ads.

Gee, really?

My issue is that I only see Area 51 ads.

Of course, as creator of a fairly popular adblocker, it's pretty bad that it took me a while to realise I'd have to disable it before I'd see the ads.

Mana

what @Arda

Arda Xi

@Mana Hmm?

Mana

4:52 PM

> ...creator of a fairly popular adblocker...

Arda Xi

adsweep.org

32,597 users.

Mana

wh

WHAT.

Arda Xi

What what?

Mana

No.

Bob

0

Q: Is Minecraft worth buying?

I am considering buying minecraft. Is it as addictive as World of Warcraft?

minecraft

0

Q: Shooting down helicopters in Battlefield Bad Company 2: Vietnam

I dont know if anyone else out there has noticed but the Helicopters in Bad Company 2: Vietnam are stupidly hard to shoot down. I consider myself quite a Veteran at the original Bad Company 2 where heli's weren't all that much of a problem with the tracer dart and rpg combo, but I am really stru...

pc bad-company-2-vietnam

Mana

4:53 PM

Shut up, let me absorb this

Arda Xi

Err?

Mana

I feel so dumb and unproductive

Arda Xi

whispers to the rest: "Wait till I tell him it had much more users before I took over."

I mean, honestly, it's neat to boast, but AdSweep sucks compared to ABP

sjohnston

@Bob Is this question closed yet?

Arda Xi

@sjohnston No, one vote left.

Mana

4:56 PM

@sjohns yes

Arda Xi

@Mana You need faster internet bro.

Mana

clarified

Arda Xi

Corrected.

sjohnston

okay, you guys can stop pinging me now, I voted

Arda Xi

@sjohnston Did you vote yet? Did you? DID YOU REALLY? (I wonder how many times it'll let me do this) (Does it still ping you? Does it?)

Mana

4:58 PM

Preempted.

sjohnston

@ArdaXi Yes, but only if I clear the previous ping from that particular message

Arda Xi

@sjohnston Right.

@sjohnston Oh, by the way, @sjohnston, that question @sjohnston mentioned is now closed, thanks in part to @sjohnston.

Mana

@Arda stop bugging the poor guy

Arda Xi

@Mana Fine @Mana I'll find another @Mana to bug with mentions like @Mana then.

Mana

eh

Oh hey @tzenes

Arda Xi

5:02 PM

Mana being crushed by planets again.

I really like your new avatar @Fabian

Mana

sigh

sjohnston

huh. Eclipse has determined that I should not be permitted to search for files.

Mana

brb

Arda Xi

@sjohnston Weird. I've only ever heard of Microsoft software doing that.

sjohnston

@ArdaXi First it decided to disable all the menu items, then it just removed the menu completely. Restart seems to have fixed it.

Arda Xi

5:06 PM

Clearly my speed is superior.

tzenes

hi

I"m trying to find a drawing someone did of Day9

and I can't :(

sjohnston

@ArdaXi It's the devil's internet!

Arda Xi

@sjohnston Yes. Yes it is.

Looks like ads are hotlinked.

Shaun

5:26 PM

@tzenes that question is better asked on google.stackexchange.com ;)

@tzenes This one?

Brant

is that the one where his lower half is zerg? that was hilarious

Shaun

It is.

Mana

Hahaha wow.

Arda Xi

I think the site is taunting me. I am now only seeing that Vent ad.

badp

@ArdaXi If you want I can delete all other posts so that it doesn't seem like bad luck.

Arda Xi

5:35 PM

@badp Sure.

So, does Game On have any kind of logo?

badp

no

Arda Xi

Well, nothing I can do then.

bwarner

Chat has been kind of tame lately, we need some more good philosophical debates

badp

@bwarner We discussed game-recs again the other day.

If you prefer having more of that...

bwarner

With someone new, or just the same people rehashing the same arguments?

badp

5:46 PM

@bwarner Someone new.

bwarner

There should be some way to jump to a starred comment in the transcript so that you can see the context it was made in.

I admit that half the fun is starring comments that look bad out of context, but after laughing at them I want to see what the REAL context was

badp

@bwarner Use the permalink

(click on the chain icon on hover)

bwarner

Ah, cool. Much better

Powerlord

Oh blah, I forgot to bring a pillow today for the 3pm meeting.

Arda Xi

@bwarner There is of course the debate over whether I have legs or not.

bwarner

6:03 PM

So I read the game-rec discussion from the other day. Seemed very similar to the one I was in last week about the spy mod.

C. Ross

ok, happy gaming talk in here!

Powerlord

That @CRoss is a Spy!

Arda Xi

Spy sapping mah question.

C. Ross

@ArdaXi If only I could :-D

Powerlord

It always bugs me in TF2 how, as a Spy, I hear my voice commands as the enemy would hear them (i.e. as my disguise), but my teammates hear them as the Spy voice.

C. Ross

6:07 PM

that is weird ...

Arda Xi

@bwarner What Spy mod anyway?

bwarner

It was a question about whether a mod existed for Civ 5 that had the Spy unit like in Civ 4

Arda Xi

Ah, right.

Why are all the community ads hosted on imgur?

Mana

'sup bros

Arda Xi

Need a designer.

Powerlord

6:13 PM

I need more @Mana!

Mana

eh

enough with that pun

Powerlord

Nah, I'm already giving something else up, bad puns can't be given up at the same time.

Arda Xi

@Powerlord Why would you ever give any @badpuns up?

Especially when they involve pinging someone.

Powerlord

Exactly!

Originally it was without the ping, I just typoed a @ in when I hit ! (on a US keyboard, ! and @ are next to each other)... but I changed it to a ping in post production.

I'm no longer going to call them edits. From now on, it's post production!

Mana

eh

Powerlord

6:24 PM

I am the ghost of gaming past... you like Castlevania, don't you?

badp

7:22 PM

StackExchange.com, now with global profiles.

(pretty meh now, not pin worthy)

brb dinner

Arda Xi

Oh wow, I'm actually getting 10 MB/s from Usenet now

Bob

0

Q: What JRPGs are set for 2011?

Any news on what JRPGs we can expect in 2011, and in particular, which can we expect might eventually get a release in US/Europe?

role-playing-game release-date

Brant

@badp Haven't those been around for a while? I haven't been able to find any way to reach someone else's global profile from their user page though.

Other than giving them a link.

@Bob Too localized, obviously, but in my attempt to leave a comment explaining this I haven't been able to actually find anything explaining that localized/time-sensitive questions aren't allowed.

Other than having been around long enough to see such questions get closed, how is anyone to know better?

Shaun

@Brant I was just looking for that too... it looks like our FAQ document was altered.

Powerlord

Darn, Not A Real Question isn't working today.

"Sorry, retrieving a game from the API failed. Please try again." Bleah

Bah, it works for SO, but not Gaming. :O

Brant

7:54 PM

Our API is too badass.

Arda Xi

> It is not the API, but the data you access through it.

badp

8:13 PM

We now have experimental, exclusive Youtube embedding and Community ads (now with stats!). Let's use 'em!

Bob

0

Q: Opening locked chests in Dragon Age 2

How exactly does opening locked chests work? I know you need a rogue, but my rogue hasn't been able to open all chests, so there seem to be some other requirements. I didn't see any skills related to lockpicking, so I assume it is attribute or level-based. So, what does my rogue have to learn to...

dragon-age-2

badp

So my first attempt at making an ad may be less than impressive.

2

user30

Gets my vote.

badp

@ThomasMcDonald I like the concept, but I want to be kinda more consistent than just throwing a text box randomly on GIMP

user30

@badp But it has a meme and everything in it.

badp

8:25 PM

New avatar, @Tom?

TomWij

Yeah, unsure if I'm going to keep it though...

An attempt to confuse people who got used to my previous avatar, easily show where I am wrong and draw attention from countrymen.

Bob

0

Q: Scrollbar for questions in profile

For some reason I currently get a scrollbar for the questions list on my profile. It doesn't do anything useful as the list is still paged as usual. This also only happens on my gaming.SE profile, not on any other SE site. Screenshot:

bug design profile-page

0

Q: Floating Islands and lava column

How can you create these formations??? I've seen them in some pics but seems pretty hard and I have no idea how you can even manipulate lava. I'm new to Minecraft but I've been hooked!! Thanks.

pc minecraft

0

Q: Which power-ups are permanent in Invaders: Corruption?

Which power-ups last throughout the rest of the game in Invaders: Corruption? Obviously double/triple/+ cannon do. It appears that fire rate up does (and stacks). Can anyone confirm/add?

tips

Arda Xi

@badp Use Consolas and I'll find a way to supervote that up.

Bob

8:44 PM

0

Q: RPGs with lots of additional side content, quests or items

I'm looking for RPGs that have a lot of extra content, quests or items to satisfy the completionist in me. I appreciate that most RPGs have a lot of extra content that does not have to be done in order to complete the game, but I'm interested in the games that are well known / notorious for havin...

role-playing-game secret content

sjohnston

sigh

Mana

consoles @sjohns

@badp stares

badp

@Mana You may have got your comment and your edit, but you didn't milk a close vote from that question!

Mana

Because I was too busy writing a comment and editing!

badp

And in the meantime I was too busy closing and writing a comment.

Mana

8:49 PM

I HATE YOU

slams door

Aardvark

There have been a lot of those types of questions lately, I hate to feel like we are scaring off new users :P

badp

@Mana Add yerself to the counter.

Mana

@Aardvark I wonder about that sometimes, but then I look at the worst of game-rec and everything that's wrong with it and Yahoo Answers and things make sense again.

badp

TF2, 8,812.3/9,224.8 MB downloaded.

Aardvark

@mana definitely, I would feel a lot better if those users ended up in the chat room where we can recommend to our little heart's desire

but your right, theres a special place in hell for yahoo answers

Mana

8:51 PM

Or ON A SEPARATE STACK EXCHANGE SITE.

sighs

badp

@Mana

If a separate stack exchange site could host gaming related questions

Then fuck that, we'd host them instead.

Mana

True, true.

badp

I'll do everything I can to keep us from going the way of SO

Stack Overflow, Programmers, Code Review, Code Golf, etc. etc. etc.

Fuck that. (IMHO.)

Shaun

Someone just needs to make a completely different framework to support shopping recommendations

Mana

Can you rephrase that in the form of a more dramatic statement?

Shaun

8:53 PM

Then, they could just throw that up as a series of companion sites to each SE site where it makes sense.

Aardvark

@Shaun definitely, or come into the chat room so we can answer specifics for that user

Shaun

Chat is a hard sell.

Mana

Chat room's really not the best place

Shaun

For a lot of people, it's one more thing to be logged into.

Mana

It's not always active and you don't always have the right users around

badp

8:54 PM

@Mana Fuck Gamers.SE

Is that dramatic enough?

Aardvark

lol

Mana

this was what I encountered when I asked for a cool new modern FPS game in here and the only guy around was CRoss

who plays RPGs

user30

Not me

badp

@Mana Well maybe it was a sign of destiny. Maybe it is your destiny to play RPGs? stares

Aardvark

right... why would you play FPS's mana... don't you know thats WRONG

;)

Mana

8:56 PM

I'm a wrong guy.

whistles

Brant

I'd also point out that you can't chat in here until you get 20 rep.

Mana

True.

Aardvark

@Brant good point

Brant

So telling a new user "Hey, come hang out in chat!" is kind of dumb.

(If you're watching, new users, hi!)

Mana

So is telling them not to post comments as answers, though.

er

Brant

8:59 PM

Those we can just flag and let a mod/20k'er convert it

badp

@Brant Gotta show them the carrot though

Macha

If they're any good, just upvote them and so will someone else. Problem solved :P

@Brant Isn't there a rep hit/automatic moderation for too many flags?

badp

Reputation isn't a punishment system, it's an encouragement system. Just, starting off with a game-rec isn't what I'd reward with rep.

Mana

I usually post a comment telling them that it should be a comment and that I'm getting a mod before flagging it

Brant

@Macha offensiveness flags perhaps, I don't know about other flag types.

Flagging was revamped a few months ago, there are many more options.

Mana

9:01 PM

@Macha It's determined by your flag weight

If you make too many bad flags you lose the ability to flag

badp

Not exactly

Aardvark

@badp would you read the FAQ on a site before you posted? I doubt I would...

Shaun

I never did.

Mana

I did!

Brant

Yeah, but here's the problem:
1) New user posts a game rec question that gets insta-closed
2) Someone says "feel free to join us in chat, though!"
3) New user tries to, but can't because they need 4 question upvotes or 2 answer upvotes
4) New user leaves forever

badp

9:02 PM

@Aardvark No, I still get to point you in that general direction just to show that I'm not arbitrarily closing questions out of tiranny or hate.

Mana

wait no, scratch that

Shaun

Then again, I started my career here by answering questions, not asking them.

Aardvark

@badp I couldn't agree more, a new user should be pointed to the FAQ when they violate the zen of our community. You said that you wouldn't want to reward a user who's first question is a game-rec with the reputation they need to get into the chat room.

Mana

I wouldn't want to reward game-rec questions, period.

badp

@Aardvark Not exactly what I meant, I am going to upvote you if you deserve it, even if your first post was a game-rec. I'm just not going to upvote you for a game-rec.

@Mana Yes, that.

Aardvark

9:04 PM

@badp way I see it, if they do it once their still cool in my eyes... It's the people who do it twice that should get a swift kick in the ass gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/17893/games-with-to-worlds

@badp aaah I see, totally on the same page

badp

@Aardvark He did get a 100 rep penalty for that ;)

Sure, 6 - 100 = 1

(somehow the repost got upvoted)

Shaun

man

we should rename 'rep' to DKP

"That's a 50 DKP minus!"

Aardvark

I'm suspicious that may be a sexual reference I'm not getting...

Shaun

Nah, it's a reference to a system of tallying participation points in MMORPG raids as well as a reference to a specific video.

knowyourmeme.com/memes/50-dkp-minus-onyxia-wipe

Mana

@badp I don't really understand why, or rather, how you would upvote a game-rec that "deserves it". There are no game-recs that deserve upvotes on this site. Upvoting a question is supposed to indicate first and foremost that this question is a good question for the site.

Shaun

9:09 PM

The audio is NSFW, FYI, should you decide to play the videos.

badp

@Mana Again, that's what I said.

5 mins ago, by badp

@Mana Yes, that.

Mana

oh

I misread

> I am going to upvote you if you deserve it, even if your first post was a game-rec.

I thought that was like saying you would upvote the game-rec question if it was your first post

badp

Yeah, I'm not going to put you in a black book of people that will never get upvoted if you start off with a game-rec

Mana

but clearly it's yeah that

badp

Don't I get to nitpick myself? :P

Mana

9:11 PM

@Brant stares

Powerlord

Aw, Meta.SO is down

Arda Xi

Meta Means murder

Wow, Tron: Legacy is a massive rip-off of the sci-fi legacy.

> It's his game now! The only winning move is not to play!

Mana

9:28 PM

...no?

It was a shout out.

Arda Xi

@Mana DO YOU DARE DISAGREE WITH ME?

No seriously, the entire thing is a massive rip-off of Darwinia.

Mana

stares

Why do you say that?

Arda Xi

@Mana The entire film, it's just so much like Darwinia.

Especially the engineer thingies for example.

Mana

Those are from Tron.

Powerlord

@ArdaXi Um, you are aware that the Engineer things in Darwinia are a direct ripoff of the original Tron? :P

Arda Xi

9:31 PM

Awesome. Just, literally just as you said that

Some guy in the film went

> Where's your sense of humour, my friend?

Mana

I was wondering but naw, it's Arda

C. Ross

it has recently struck me again how geeks get so passionate about things that don't matter ...

Arda Xi

FYI, I was kidding.

Mana

@CRoss excuse me, you mean nerds.

sjohnston

reminds me of this

Arda Xi

9:32 PM

I thought that was obvious. I guess I was wrong.

sjohnston

Mana

That is still the best image.

C. Ross

indeed

Mana

@Cross you're lacking a period and capital WHERE ARE YOUR PERIODS AND CAPITALS

Arda Xi

Why does that quote have Malcolm Reynolds next to it?

C. Ross

9:34 PM

Thank you for the vibrant illustration @Mana.

@ArdaXi Stop trolling.

Arda Xi

@CRoss Never.

:(

Mana

I was joking, by the way. Sorry, my sense of humor's kind of odd.

Arda Xi

Did someone kick me? That hurt!

C. Ross

@Mana I got it the first time, just couldn't come up with an appropriate response.

Mana

Oh okay. Phew.

Arda Xi

9:37 PM

I wasn't kidding, by the way. I vaguely know that Han Solo is from Star Wars, but I've never managed to pay attention watching Star Wars, so I only know Nathan Fillion from Firefly.

Mana

@ArdaXi Did Han Solo say Live Long and Prosper?

Arda Xi

@Mana Err, no.

FallenAngelEyes

Evening all

Arda Xi

Well, he might've, but it would have been a rip-off.

Mana

Good.

Arda Xi

9:39 PM

The first person to say that was Spock.

Mana

Yo @Fallen. How was bass practice?

Arda Xi

Not "Good." of course.

Oh yay. My favourite planet after Mars is here!

Mana

I can already see where this is leading.

Arda Xi

Crushing?

Mana

ARGHHHH---ohh that's better

Arda Xi

9:41 PM

Don't try to escape.

Mana

:(

badp

@Mana want me to reset either of the avatars? :P

C. Ross

@ArdaXi It's a geek troll. Spock Quote, attributed to Han Solo, with a picture of Malcom Reynolds. To make Geeks go AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

badp

I'll feel free to choose which one :P

Mana

So I guess this is the second meme I've started on this chat?

kind of sort of maybe? More like an in-joke, needs more widespread awareness I guess.

Arda Xi

9:42 PM

@Mana What was the first?

@CRoss Well, duh.

C. Ross

@ArdaXi You are making me regret ever being a teenager.

Arda Xi

@CRoss So you'd prefer pre-teen then?

Mana

@Arda Let's relive the great times in style.

Arda Xi

@Mana Oh right. You started the Dead Space 2 one too.

Mana

Oh right.

And, of course, maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan

Arda Xi

9:45 PM

That's just your signature.

Mana

Also, did you get kicked again?

Arda Xi

@badp Are you still here?

@Mana I'm not sure.

I'll have to make a user-script to immediately rejoin when kicked.

FallenAngelEyes

@Mana Good, got "All Right Now" by Free to practice as homework

Mana

sounds chill

Arda Xi

Gah, where is @badp when you need him?

FallenAngelEyes

9:51 PM

►

That song

badp

He sometimes lurks in the background, watching the action unravel undisturbed

Mana

Such an awesome song.

Arda Xi

@badp Read your Steam chat.

badp

@ArdaXi I don't really have anything to reply to that

I just don't know what you're talking about

Arda Xi

C'mon dude, I'm not good at these things.

Gah, my sarcasm detector is plugged in the wrong way again

Brant

9:56 PM

@ArdaXi The title of the image is "How to piss off nerds"

Alternate version:

Arda Xi

@Brant And I knocked it back full throttle.

FallenAngelEyes

haha

Arda Xi

Mana

I just want to drop one of those images in a random chatroom filled with like 14-16 year olds, like one of those gaming clans

it would be the most beautiful thing

Arda Xi

Stop picking on them! Us! Them! Whatever!

I could start behaving like an actual 16-year-old, you know.

Transcript for