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193 responses to “Talk Amongst Yourselves”
How was your weekends? I spent mine playing a bit of Quake Champions, Forza Horizon, and Overwatch with the lovely (until someone takes D.Va) Tegan.
Also, Masterchef really makes me want to make that super simple chocolate mousse recipe where you just whisk melted chocolate in a bowl in an ice bath. There’s this Italian summer pudding recipe I’ve made before where you soak the savoiardi in Frangelico and espresso (or milk) and form a little bowl, and then drop macadamia/toasted walnuts into the centre with a shitload of chocolate mousse, and then cover the lot with more savoiardi and fridge the lot.
The thing that puts me off cooking is the clean up =P We don’t have a dishwasher so it’s all by hand.
I would like to make some minestrone soup though
Given the ransomware running about, a good chunk of my weekend was making backups and updating my Windows machines.
Like I said in another thread, I shudder to think what headaches will emerge if someone gets the “bright” idea to port that ransomware to OSX.
I dunno. Think of all the sales for new MacBook Pros & iMacs, i’m sure Apple would encourage this 😛
This is what concerns me; Apple’s claim they are more secure is very subject and is more spin than objective.
Many actually think Macs don’t get virus (which is bullsh*t!) and don’t install AV software. Even just asking for suggestions on AV software often gets the user asking the question flamed and diehards flow such threads with claims like “you’re ruining a perfect operating system with that rubbish” or “superior operating systems don’t need AV software”.
Side note, after Sophos butchered their free Mac AV tool I went back to Kaspersky; good they finally got around to making it usable.
Even if the ransomware doesn’t get ported, the Mac platform can be used as a carrier; some people will be so entrenched in the Apple rhetoric that they will only check their Windows machines for the malware but not check the files on the Mac machines even if their servers are Macs.
I remember back in my senior year in high school, so 2007. Most of my mates ended up doing multimedia and we used Macs and a fair few of us bought MacBooks (just the basic white poly shell ones) and one mate got some shit house Malware that would randomly make chirping noises at random intervals. It was hilarious, but at the same time shows that OSX isn’t any more resilient to malware, spyware, viruses etc..
Not to get too far off topic I remember a time I was shopping for computer parts. I went to a local part shop and there was an old couple ahead of me.
They asked a honest question of the clerk, “What AV software should they use to keep email viruses out.”
Granted, viruses come in many forms but they were in their golden years so that is understandable.
The clerk however responded, “Switch to Linux. Windows is too insecure.”
It just shows that the rhetoric is not confined to Apple; some will use their own anecdotes to try and drag Windows down no matter how misguided they are.
I even once asked one of my lecturers back when I was an undergrad if switching to Linux would save me some headaches as I was getting exhaustion (both mentally and financially) trying to keep the malware out of my Windows box at home.
He pointed out to me that most who write malware do so on Linux boxes. It was then I learned about cross compilation and without even being told I learned that whatever time it took to write malware for Windows, it would take far less time to do the same to write something for Linux and even BSD systems because the platform and means to do so is in easy reach.
Haha. That’s interesting, also a very valid point. If only more people realised it.
Actually this WannaCry worm had me thinking I hope someone I used to be mates with got it, since he was so militant to never install Windows updates, cause he was too cheap to buy a Windows key for $30 or $40 off key reseller, and instead tried to always pirate Windows, he was also against AV software. Needless to say, even with his IT background he was dumb enough to pick up some kind of Malware back in the Win 7 days that totally fucked his install and forced him to lose everything lol. I told him to just run something that was light on resources and have it do a scan once a week, but nope. I do some rather dodgy shit on my machine, and I can’t even remember the last time I picked up any sort of virus, would have to back in the Windows XP or Vista days.
But I gotta say I am amazed how
I also played some quake champions! Recorded a little footage yesterday (just a 30 sec snip) to test out the recording built in to Geforce Experience. Works pretty well!
Can see the results here
2160p60 vid. All settings maxed in game. So lovely!
I’ve started playing with GeForce Experience as well, recording 10 minute chunks of PUBG gameplay… Recording 1080p60 footage is seamless, and the 10 minute chunks only use about 1-1.5GB of disk space per clip, which isn’t too bad on a mostly empty 2TB drive!
Now I just need to learn Adobe Premiere to fashion them into a presentable clip…
Moved into a new place; there is internet XD
Started getting into CS:GO over the weekend after a ~2 year break.
Man… I am trying to get back into it after shifting completely to Overwatch, and just can’t seem to get it. Having to fire in bursts instead of spraying and praying? Get outta here!
It’s a painfully particular skill set to get back into. So happy I never warmed to MOBAs.
Hit a rank yet? I just scuffled into silver 3 the other day.
I hit a rank a while back… but it was so long ago that I can’t remember what it was. Back when I was playing regularly in any case, so I’d be nowhere near that skill level now!
At the moment, I think I would struggle to win a match against an actual potato.
Mrs Tigs spent mothers day running a high fever so wasn’t a great weekend. Hopefully things will improve during the week.
I always want to do more cooking but finding the time is hard. The latest thing we tried was custard muffins that turned out ok, although the actual muffin base was a little dry so will need to improve that.
So I hurt my knee last week on Thursday. I was unable to walk on it for most of the day. I rested and I was okay the next day. Until I hurt it again. I stood on it wrong and it did not like it =P
I was fine all over the weekend. Now, in the shower, I have managed to hurt it again.
I am a derp.
Make sure you let it rest and heal properly. Give it extra time if you can. I hurt my knees a year ago and they still haven’t recovered because I didn’t rest them properly at the time. I went from running up stairs to using elevators. It sucks.
I will probably go see a doctor about it as it keeps going away and then flaring up
Pretty good weekend – played some Iron Banner (MAYHEM CLASH) and progressed my final Record Book in Destiny.
Saturday saw Alien: Covenant (not bad), Melbourne Rebels vs Queensland Reds, and went to a mate’s 50th.
Sunday had a couple of drinks in Carlton and then went to Cinema Nova to see Colossal. Lots of fun. Anne Hathaway was great. Came out with a few deep thoughts too, it works on a few levels.
*sigh*
I can’t wait until we move closer to the city so I can socialize a bit more (at least, without the resulting 1hr+ train trip home afterwards…)
Mornin’
Weekend was alright, even if it was wet here.
Had a bit of an interesting one at work on Saturday, found out that Australian Consumer Law regarding wrong prices does not include liquor or cigarettes, where the customer gets the first free & the 2nd one at the correct price. What lead upto this was the worker who does the special tags of a Tuesday night put up the wrong price on an expensive bottle of Hennessey Cognac, normal price $86, ticketed price $35. Some lady saw this ticket and got all excited how cheap it was, I honestly just thought it was a deleted line at first, since we normally have deleted lines at half the shelf price.
So I scan it, doesn’t scan at $35, instead it scans at full price. So she demands it be the cheaper price, and other customers chime in stating she has to have it for the marked price. Which I thought was the correct thing to do as well, so I did it. After I served the other 6 or 7 waiting customers I went and got the ticket, it was for a god damn bottle of cheap brandy. That isn’t even in that bay of spirits.
I brought the incident up with the Woolies manager the next day and told him what I did and how I thought I was doing the right thing, he explained that it doesn’t apply to liquor or smokes, which is understandable & fair enough. I also told him my boss has never gone over this stuff with me before, and we always just honoured the ticketed price. Well he wasn’t impressed and was going to have a talk to the boss about that one.
and people wonder why I prefer working in the Woolies we’re attached to. I work for managers in there who communicate with me and are fucking helpful. Ugh.
It’s almost like communicating is a huge part of working or something. Your manager is a dick
I only work with him one day a week thank god. Last Tuesday when I walk in he’s doing the voice of the customer feedback thing and he’s all “Marc, customers have given feed back that they don’t like us talking to other customers when being served or continuing to talk to customers after they have been served” he also added “I’m not directing this at you” which means he is, cause i’m like one of two staff members who actually talks to customers and some customers just come in to chat.
He’s all about the money, rather than providing customer service. He’d rather we push the pinnacle branded beer, wine or spirits because they have insane profits in them, sure a lot of them are good products especially the wines. But at the same time i’d rather push something I like & prefer than something that just means more money for the store.
Good managers help you enjoy a job. Is it possible to be transferred to the woolworths store comletely?
Nah, I wanna stay in the BWS, if I transferred to woolies i’d lose my liquor discount and it would revert to the crappy 5% like all other staff get lol. I don’t mind Sunday in there cause I work one of the only other ones there who wants to do things right. But i’m gonna talk to the boss about the roster tomorrow, I want to change my Saturdays to afternoon instead of evening and maybe doing an evening shift on Tuesday once in a while instead of constantly doing the midday shift.
As long as they don’t start making your life hell
Eh it’s all good. I’ve already straightened him out once 😛
Good
So EB Games now do pre-built custom gaming PC’s. Their top tier one, which houses a GTX 1080 & 7700k isn’t exactly bad value at $2900. Since the parts they used at retail pricing and getting them as cheap as possible before shipping are going to run just over $2700 in total. So for an extra $200 you get a warranty & someone else to build your computer.
I didn’t think of shipping, so add anywhere up to $100 if you buy it all from the same vendor or multiple. Also people don’t seem to remember, someone has to build these systems, install the software & presumably burn test/stress test them to make sure things work. So that also costs $$, over all some prebuilt systems are not bad value, others are a complete rip off.
But EBGames is the devil!
I’m still in the process of upgrading mine. I mainly need a new graphics card. And maybe a smaller case
Haha, yeah that’s the general consensus. Even though I can get staff discount at Big W, I still prefer buying from the local EB Games, even though I don’t know anyone there any more at least I can find what I want and there’s always someone to help me, sometimes that’d worth more than a shitty 5% discount lol.
I still need to finish upgrading my PC too, tax time can’t come quick enough it seems :/
I find big W more expensive than EBGames anyway. They are cheap during the initial release but then after that, they stay the release’s RRP for years
Really? I found they’re normally either same price as EB or $5-10 cheaper. But, they never have stock, so I never bother lol.
They had wario shake it for $49 at my local big W while the wiiU was out
Pretty normal. I went to buy an iPad from them, because they’re one of the few places that will layby Apple products, took me forever to get someone to come to the entertainment section only to be told “Oh we don’t stock that model on display any more” but then tried to tell me the cheaper one was the same thing. When it was first generation iPad Mini where as they were advertising 3rd generation, which was not the same in any way apart from sharing the name iPad Mini..
Well last time I checked, they were still selling Pokémon sapphire and ruby for the original RRP of $69
Wow. So expensive.
I also noticed my local Kmart has stopped selling games all together, which sucks I was hoping to get some cheap PS3/PS4 games there haha./
Yeah, they got rid of them about 1 year ago?
Oh wow. I didn’t even know that. Damn it lol.
I used to go there quite often as they sometimes sold UK games instead of AUS ones
Much of a difference between UK & AU stuff?
It meant they often had games that other stores didn’t. For example, I often found harvest moon there, as it had a UK release but not an Aus one
Ah okay, that’s cool. I didn’t know that.
It was the only way to get certain games
It doesn’t sound absurdly unreasonable, but still…. it’s EB 😉
Nothing wrong with EB imo 😛 They’ve really cleaned up their act in recent years. Still a shit company to work for though, unless you happen to come across a store with awesome management, which is rare.
Nothing wrong with them? Apart from the fact they sell things for insane prices, and then have the gaul to sell a used/pre-owned game for like $5 less than a new retail copy!
Err. I guess? Most of the time, i’ve found it to be around a $30-$40 price difference on pre-owned when the new is still pushing $80 or $90. Like the other week I went to see if I could get Watch_Dogs 2 on PS4 since it’s still like $80 brand new, so fuck that. But pre-owned it’s only $38. Same with Mafia III went to see if I could get it for a mate for Xbone, brand new it’s $70, pre-owned it’s $38. Which ain’t a bad deal, considering both only came out in October & November last year. I couldn’t get either cause they were out of stock, which sucked.
Perhaps the stores near you operate differently? Every time I’ve looked at pre-owned stuff in the ones around me, there’s like $5-10 difference between them and new.
It should be since pricing is set nationwide :/ They don’t price state by state or in some more extreme cases region by region, like supermarkets & liquor stores do. I usually price off the website first to see if it’s even worth going in for what I want. I just wish their website showed if the store had stock. They do for consoles, so it’s possible I know that.
Certain things I’m sure they do set nationally, but aren’t some of them franchise stores, while others aren’t? That may give them a bit of freedom to price differently? All I know is, in years gone by, they haven’t been anywhere close to reasonable with any product that was less than 2 yrs old. Perhaps it’s changed a bit now? I haven’t been to an EB store in a few years now I reckon cos it just got to the point where I was like “Why bother when I can ALWAYS find it tons cheaper elsewhere”.
I think there were sort of franchised stores once upon a time. I think the original EB in my town was that in the early days when it used to be Electronics Boutique, which was before Gamestop owned them, which was pre 2005. They also started to drop the name Electronics Boutique for EB Games around then too. Cause I remember when the 2nd one opened here it was called Electronics Boutique for a short period of time, then switched to being called EB Games.
I’d like to see the full specs on that before making judgement. I suspect it could be done a bit cheaper. I only spent around that much to get my new system.
Well it’s basically this, the only components they don’t list are the PSU & WiFi card. But everything else was named. So yeah 😛
Asus Strix motherboard. Overpriced. Could do the same job with a much cheaper board. Also, wtf are they putting ddr4 3000 in there? what a waste! the people in the shop sure as fuck aren’t going to overclock it for you, and anyone buying a pc from EB aren’t likely to know what the hell they’re doing. Waste of money. Tons of savings to be made by simply not picking Corsair parts 😉 The cpu cooler I’d probably stick with, but it’s like they just opted for the Brands instead of actual value for money. Also, samsung 850 Pro 256GB… You could get an M.2 960 EVO 256GB for cheaper than that, and it would flog the pants off that drive by like… 2500MB/sec! 😉
Also, Corsair Case fan x2 @ $27 a piece?! Are you fucking kidding me?! What a waste! You can get 12cm case fans for like $9!
Dude, the EB hatred is strong, it’s like they really hurt you in a previous time.
There’s nothing wrong with Corsair, not a huge fan of them myself, but still not the worth out there. I’m not gonna argue about it, but all i’m saying is i’m amazed the retail price they’re charging isn’t really much more than what it’s gonna cost someone to go out and buy those same parts.
Also case fans, man. I dunno about you but I prefer silent fans that push air, rather than make noise and don’t really do a hell of a lot. Not that i’d be sinking money into RGB fans especially from corsair. I would go the route and buy real fans like Noctua NF-F12’s which are dead silent and are designed to push more air which is what you want on the likes of a radiator or as intakes near a GPU.
I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with corsair. They do make good products, but at a premium price. The issue I have with that RAM though, is not so much about it being corsair, as much as it is with it being 3000MHz. There’s absolutely no need for that. The default bus speed is only 2133MHz, so unless you’re going to overclock the living shit out of it, that’s what speed it’ll run at.
Mostly my point is that the system is just overpriced and poorly configured. It doesn’t surprise me at all though given it’s EB. They’re not PC techs, and they’re taking a true retail approach to the whole thing, and just slapping big brand name parts in do it looks enticing to the mum and dad customers.
Eh, wouldn’t call them premium. I’d say higher quality than a lot of other brands 😛 I mean I have 2 Silverstone & a LianLi case here all 3 made from thick aluminium and feel extremely premium. All 3 together cost less than $250. The Corsair cases i’ve seen in person whilst were nice, never felt premium. But they were always better than say my old Antec 900 & 902, which just felt cheap, even though their brand new price (never paid that for them thank fuck) was all but. I guess everyone is different though. Their coolers, whilst great, I do like my H80i V2, but it’s no EK Predator AIO with some high end fans. I wouldn’t even use their included fans, I gave them to a mate, cause they’re fucking noisy. I’m picky it seems 😛
I know, but fast memory is the current fad, and everyone needs to have 3000mhz DDR4, hell I think my 2400Mhz kit is overkill but it was the ch, since I haven’t even bothered to overclock anything. I really should.
I don’t get why it’s a fad though.. just cos it CAN go faster, doesn’t mean it will. Your situation is a little different (as was mine when I got my system,) in that sometimes the faster stuff is cheaper if you get it on special etc, but what they’re doing is just ridiculous. They just want the biggest numbers and brands to impress the customers, but it’s clear they have no idea what they’re doing. i feel sorry for the customers who would fall for their trickery. I mean, it’s like selling someone a car with a V8 engine, but not bothering to tell them it only runs on 4 cylinders unless they get under the hood and manually force it to run on 8.
Everyone knows faster means better! It’s like RGB LED’s on everything. I don’t get it, but yeah.. I really don’t see a point to a regular sata SSD in such a “premium” build, i’m with you there it should have a M.2, some motherboard that is more practical. mATX in an ATX case? Fuck that. Probably because it has an RGB header, cause that’s what ASUS has done now, bleh. The case is nice, i’d keep that, tempered glass is one trend I can get behind, easier to keep clean than acrylic, only downside is if it breaks and it’s heavy.
Here’s the page listing.
https://ebgames.com.au/pc-229587-Gaming-PC—Ultimate-PC
Interesting that it doesn’t mention too many brands or specifics on individual parts, so it’s entirely possible they’re getting cheaper parts and jacking up the margins.
PCCaseGear do an almost identical build… for $2549, which is around the same price as EB’s 1070 system.
Don’t buy from EB, kids.
They also have several with very similar specs for $2700 albeit those have M.2 SSD’s.
But they’re a bit weird with how they do their pre-builts, there’s 6 almost identical Core i7 7700k builds with 1080’s lol.
reply fail. Ignore
For anybody who doesn’t have Alan Wake it is currently only a few dollars on steam. The devs have dropped the price right down and it will soon be removed (likely) for ever. Well worth a playthrough if you have never played it
I gifted @sughly a copy cause I know how much he just loves* it 😀
*
He hates it with a fiery passion, it’s hilarious.The dlc was the best part
The commenting system on this site is driving me absolutely insane. It’s getting more and more broken every week.
The main think that shits me, is when you hit reply, it SHOULD put the cursor in the box so you can type, but you have to click in the area before you can type :\
The other comment is in moderation hell, which annoys me!
@alexwalker please
So I’ve beaten a few games in the last few weeks. One being Mirrors Edge: Catalyst. A game that started out decent, but by the end I wanted it to end faster.
First problem I had was the utterly pointless upgrade system. Locking you out of so many 3 star races and such until you get the appropriate upgrade.
Second problem I had was that the game is yet another Ubisoft pointless collectathon. So many pointless collectables scattered everywhere. There’s a large collection of floating orbs (that don’t appear during missions) that are there for no reason and don’t reward you with anything for collecting. Plus they’re the only collectable to appear on the minimap after you beat the game. There’s the typical documents and recordings, that for some reason I wasn’t interested in. But there’s also a large collection of pointless chips for you to grab. Grab one and you realise there’s still a hundred more in the current area. There must be a thousand collectables in the game.
The third problem that got worse as the game went on was how inconsistent the game becomes. Even with its core mechanics, there were plenty of times I’d fail a jump only to succeed it on the next attempt, despite not doing anything different. I got stuck in one area cause I failed a jump and spent too much time looking for the correct path only to attempt the jump again and succeed. Many times I jump into a wall and run sideways when I wanted to jump up or jump up when I wanted to run sideways. This problem pissed me off in the final area where for no reason my grappling hook was now extended by four times the length.
The story is pretty meh and the characters were kinda lame. One character really stood out to me because they were trying really hard to convoy that the character was retarded without stating the fact. Some lines actually offended me with how blatant it was, cause even a retard is not that dense. Funny thing is, I actually really liked the character in between these lines. Except for her stupid robot.
Funny thing I noticed is that a lot of people would praise it for it’s ‘representation’ but I imagined that if they reversed all the characters genders (save Faith) then these same critics would be complaining about the tropes.
In the end I felt like it was an ok game that had too much filler.
Fantastic soundtrack though. Better than the first game’s IMO.
Strike that one off the list of things to buy then, I still haven’t finished the first Mirror’s Edge now that I think about it.
I’ve reached a bit of a dilemma. I finished Nier Automata over the weekend (ending A through E). Enjoyed it, but not immensely so. First game was better and I wish that they did more with A2 who was vastly more interesting than 2B.
But anyway, I had been intending to play Prey next. Trouble is, I really, really, really dislike Prey based off the 45 mins or so I played of it. I can just tell that it’s not going to improve much for me, since it’s basically a clunky System Shock knockoff without the atmosphere.
And that throws my plans into disarray. I don’t know what to take off the backlog instead. 🙁
Okay so I finished the Midna shirt design
http://imgur.com/a/waQBe
I need to make another version where her hair is holding a sign saying “WILL SASS TO SAVE HYRULE”
Intended to play Nioh and Prey over the weekend, but felt like crap on Saturday and just wanted to (a) sleep, and (b) play something that didn’t require too much attention. Cue a friend proposing to try out Diablo 3’s (recently added to console) seasons. That could very well be the way to get new players into it… it’s a completely even playing field (no paragon messing with player power), free set pieces as you fill out season accomplishments to get you into the Torments and running rifts/bounties immediately as you hit 70… it’s pretty neat.
@campbellsimpson I understand why you guys probably felt the need to switch off comments on that article, but the question I posed was genuine so I’ll re-ask it here: does publishing an article that explicitly advocates a sexist viewpoint abide by Gizmodo AU’s editorial standards? Are you really comfortable publishing an article like that here?
I won’t jump down your throat or argue, it just feels like that article crossed a line for me and I’d really like to get some insight on the how and why of it being published on the AU site. I love the writing you guys do but I’ve made a choice to stop visiting sites that have published articles that cross sexist and racist lines before and I’m genuinely concerned what this article means for the kind of content we’ll see in future on the Allure sites.
I’m not sure he will see it here.
Unfortunately Gizmodo doesn’t have a TAY equivalent any more. Tags work across all the Allure sites, he should be able to see that he has a mention here.
Ah fair enough. To be honest, I’m not sure how long TAY will last anymore. It’s pretty quiet these days
The broken commenting system that sends you to moderation hell for editing is not doing many favors. Nor is how unfriendly it is to post here on a mobile.
I’m not sure they do consider it broken at the moment. Haorun said something recently about how editing puts it into moderation because bots were making posts and then editing them to add links in. I feel like maybe if you have 100 posts to your name here that that restriction should probably not apply, but eh. It’s their site.
Yeah. Post count. Reputation.
Also the fact my edited post doesn’t have any fucking links in it?
You’re preaching to the choir 😉
It can be really frustrating for us regular users though. Quite a few people have stopped coming on kotaku due to the fact that it uses all their phone data
Data use would be all the advertising they seem to be cramming onto the site now, I’ve been forced to use Adblock (which I usually make exceptions for websites I like) just to cut down the cruft. I did let them know it was intrusive and I did get a response (from @campbellsimpson, whom I’m also trying to get a hold of in this thread, funnily enough) but I didn’t get the impression they see it as a problem.
Sorry that I’m late to the party but if I may add.
I think some have stopped coming because the moderation system is easily taken over by the minor few to try and suppress what they don’t want to hear.
It doesn’t matter how factual one tries to be (including myself); it only takes a few to down vote a post and one is stuck in moderation hell while those who abuse the down votes get away with the act.
I know the editors have a very difficult balancing act between free forum speech and censorship but I feel that commenting on these sits has been made very difficult (especially of late) since the voting system was implemented.
Here’s the final design of Midna. It’s now on a shirt if you want to wear it
https://viralstyle.com/scree/sassy-midna
Money from the shirt sale goes towards me either creating new things, or finishing our kitchen
Wife’s birthday coming up and she wants a music subscription.
What do people think? Spotify or YouTube Red? Or one of the other ones (Tidal i think it’s called?)?
Well Spotify is the most popular followed by Apple Music (only worth it if you’re invested in iOS though). Tidal, well that’s still a thing which is weird. There’s also Pono by Neil Young, but i’d just steer clear of that all together. Is YouTube Red a thing here yet? Last time I heard anything about it, it was USA only, not even Canada.
But yeah go with Spotify or Apple Music. They’re going to have the biggest choice of content.
I’m an android guy. YouTube Red apparently came here last month so it’s new.
Ah. Is Play Music a thing still or did they move that to YouTube Red? The advantage to YouTube Red I like is creators get a bigger cut for anyone with a Red subscription who watches their videos, that’s pretty cool.
You might also try looking at Google Play Music if you haven’t settled on one just yet. Having said that, I’ve been using Spotify Premium for wifey and I for a while now, and haven’t had any issues finding content or using the various apps and sites.
Google Music (which gives you YouTube Red for free as part of it) is an excellent offering. I use it and much prefer it to the alternatives. Can’t recommend it enough.
How many devices can you link?
Google says:
Only one device can play simultaneously, of course.
If you stump up an extra $6-7 a month you can upgrade to family, which I think lets you have up to 6 people using simultaneously.
I have friends in a share house that have a joint family account, they all end up paying like $3-4/month
I use Play Music and it’s great – the fact it comes with a free Youtube Red subscription doesn’t seem like a big deal until you’re deep into your 305,124th Youtube video of the day and you’re like ‘hey… there haven’t been any ads… YES!’
It’s got a pretty good range of tunes though, I listen to some obscure metal bands and 95% of the time I can find them on there.
We use spotify and find there selection quite good. Does she use a service at the moment? The biggest thing is if she currently has one that has playlists, likes and preferences setup on.
One of the good things about spotify is that if she decides it isn’t worth the money she just drops to a free services and doesn’t lose anything, just gets a bunch of ads.
Also whatever you do make sure you don’t confuse you tube red with red tube
So Destiny raiding last night – we were plagued by connectivity issues that stuffed any chance of Wrath of the Machine (it’s kind of hard to throw Siva bombs when it won’t let you pick them up…), so we decided to go do some Crota.
Bloody hell the Abyss section is hard at 390. 4 attempts and we fell every time at the bridge plate. Was superb fun though.
Then it got late and sleep had to happen.
Picked up Watch_Dogs 2 from JB for $30, not a bad deal when it’s brand new price is $70 there and EB Games, heh.
Nice. I just finished that recently, it’s a much better game than the first one and well worth that price. The San Francisco setting is very realistic feeling.
I only played the intro but I don’t mind it. I can see it’s much better than the first already lol.
I thought it felt a little clunky in the intro, but I remember I felt that way about GTA5 as well. Once the game opens up and once you become familiar with its new systems it’s much more enjoyable. Have fun with it!
Yeah, I get where you’re coming from that it’s a bit clunk. I’m not the biggest fan of the aiming, I assume I can turn on aim assist which would be helpful 😛
Off to see Alien Covenant tonight, hopefully it’s good. Didn’t really wanna go to the movies, but I kinda backed myself in to a corner where i’d just look like a dick if I said no.
Movie was pretty good. Was a bit eh in places, but overall not bad.
That is the best review I have heard for the film so far
I didn’t see Prometheus, but that didn’t seem important since they touched on that. But hey, the Face Huggers & Xenomorphs looked pretty fucking real, which was cool. But from what I gather Covenant is set right before Alien takes place, so I might go & re-watch the Alien movies. Been a long time since i’ve seen any of them.
Looks like they need one more story to complete the circle and explain how the Engineer’s ship got filled with xenomorph eggs and crashed on Acheron/LV-426 for the crew of the Nostromo to find. Where’d the queen-type come from… (or is Aliens no longer canon in the Alienverse?
Yeah it feels that way, since it’s slowly getting to where the story of Alien starts
.
Did you read the Dark Horse Aliens that continued straight after the end of that film? Alternate timeline to the Alien^3 one, and much better story. There was some alien backstory in Alien vs Predator Issue 0 if I recall correctly too.
Nah I didn’t. It’s been a long time since I even saw the original Alien. Been meaning to buy the movies for quite a while. I mean I should since the Prometheus to Alien set is only like $35 on BluRay, and it comes with all 4 Alien movies + Prometheus. Seems like a good deal.
@virus__ there’s another box with all Aliens/Predator movies. That’s rather awesome…
I have tooooo much Aliens stuff. VHS boxsets, comics, some action figures, the games…
Hello TAY. I live in Canada now.
That is all.
But really, anyone playing Dota these days? New update is huge. I can’t wait to get my Axe on, and I’m pretty glad Monkey Kong got nerfed into oblivion, but I’m not looking forward to seeing LC in every single game instead of just 90% of them.
Where in Canada?
Toronto. I think it would be classed inner west? On Dufferin, between Queen and Dundas.
Soooooo glad I got sent here in spring rather than winter. One night it got to 2 degrees, and apparently it’s been warm :/
There’s a few of us in North America. IIRC @saturday is in Vancouver and @bish is in Toronto? I’m in Seattle and IIRC @fled is in New York.
I feel you re: the cold. I moved to Seattle in November but 2015’s winter was mild and spring came early last year, plus I dodged back out for the real depths of it by heading back to Australia for Christmas. It’s been much colder this past winter and the cold weather’s lingering badly.
Probably early days yet, but are you considering coming down for PAX Prime / West? I’ll definitely be doing it since it’s here in Seattle but not sure if any others are going.
I’m not really sure of my situation yet – I’m only meant to be here for a few months on secondment, but my boss might have other ideas so… maybe? When is it?
Officially? It’s not known.
But it’s always on Labor Day Weekend which this year is September 1-4.
This is a good time to be here, actually.
It’s actually warming up. It’ll never hit the glorious highs of Australia, and expect Canadians to complain anything past 22, but it was lovely today.
Look at you, Mr Downtown living. Weekend festivals are starting up so that’s nice. I highly recommend the CNE.
Hit me up if you ever want to go have a bite to eat, or wanna go somewhere! I quite like playing tour guide because I can poison your opinion of the place of how much I hate it here.
Yeah the last couple of days have been nice and warm, before that was pretty chilly though! I might take you up on the dinner thing once work calms down a bit, it’s been constant 9pm finishes basically since I got here!
CNE – holy shit, their website is straight out of 1994. I mean, just look at it: https://theex.com/
Bless their kind souls, but they’re a bit backwards here.
If you want something good and simple to eat on your late nights, catch the streetcar east to King’s Noodle House (Chinese) or Sansotei Ramen (Japanese Ramen). King’s is cheap, Sansotei is one of the better places in Toronto for Ramen.
PAI and Khao San Road are good Thai places, but always have a line up (at least at 7, not sure about 9?)
Terroni is good Italian, they also have a neat little bar/eatery around the corner from their main restaurant.
Maybe you can catcher a breather this weekend and wander around? Public Holiday on Monday (Victoria Day). Because when Toronto is nice, it’s actually quite nice to wander around. Just don’t get stabbed, I guess.
Haha yeah, when I first got here my hotel was in the general Regent Park area, so apparently I was alot closer to getting stabbed than I realized.
I spent my first couple of weekends just wondering around the general liberty village / little italy / bloor st area, seemed quite nice! I’ve spent a fair chunk of my weekends so far just camping in an internet cafe playing dota.
Speaking of – is it a Canadian thing for (i’m assuming) homeless people to sit in internet cafes watching porn for literally hours? I never saw it in Australia, but here I see it all the damn time… and it’s a bit gross.
Oh.
Ew.
I’ve never seen that because the first few days I was here I just caved and bought a laptop.
The Canadians are probably too nice to say anything to the homeless folk.
Wait, what? when did this happen?
Yeah, what Scree said!
@scree gonna get 2 birds with 1 comment 😀
As of about 3 weeks ago. I’m here on secondment – the guys here were drowning in work after half team got fired/quit, so I got shipped over to help out. At the moment it’s looking like I’ll be here until at least August, but given how these things have gone with my company in the past I take that with a grain of salt.
So, you may stay, may not?
It’s a bit up in the air at the moment.
I mean, the job here is good, and new country is exciting and all, but my girlfriend is in Sydney, and more importantly my guinea pigs are in Sydney, so…
Time will tell I guess!
You can’t abandon your guinea pigs! They rely on you!
Wtf. Chris Cornell of Soundgarden/Audioslave passed away. What a shame, he had such a great voice. Didn’t care much for Soundgarden though, I did get see them live once, they were pretty good.
Four from four in terms of leads from major grunge bands. Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Stone Temple Pilots, now Soundgarden. Someone better be keeping an eye on Eddie Vedder because I think Pearl Jam are the only really big group left now.
Does Mudhoney count? I think they’re still around, but they were never as big as Nirvana.
They definitely count and are still around, but they weren’t on the same level. There’s still a ton of those B-tier Grunge groups around Seattle.
Yeah.. Then you have Rage Against the Machine & Primus from that time as well.
Neither of them are Grunge.
No. But they’re both part of the alt rock/metal movement of the 90’s.
True but I was pointing out that all the grunge frontmen are dying. It was a big talking point at lunch here yesterday since Seattle’s where that style of music originates.
Oh right yeah. Fair call. Must’ve really been a huge impact over there Chris’ death. I saw they were going to turn the lights off on the Space Needle as a sign of respect.
Hi TAY.
Been in bed sick with a virus, and not ours. 😛
But yeah, was helping my parents clean out the garage and it was really dusty, which set off my hayfever, and I couldn’t stop coughing.
So I’ve been in bed since Wednesday.
Oh man I feel your pain – any time I have to pull out something dusty I end up lying down on the couch for like half an hour while that shit passes. Not fun.
Hoorah, i’m not to blame for once!
I suggest a honey sandwich. And anytime you get a flu a tiny teaspoon of green curry paste. It will clear you out.
So the Tweed Shire Council are finally rolling out an organics system for us, where all food/organic/compostable matter will go into a greed lidded bin and be collected weekly and then taken to a facility and turned into rich compost which will be used by the council & also sold to anyone who wants to buy it, whether that be landscapers or just the rate payers of the shire.
But this has people up in arms because our regular red bin for general waste will be pushed to a fortnightly collection like our recycling is, because their general waste will overflow everywhere and it will be impossible. The council has already said that up to 70% of what is going in to landfill in the Tweed is either recyclable or compostable, which is just sad. But nope, things are changing are this scares people, so they lash out at those responsible to tell them it won’t work they don’t know what they’re doing.
I remember on Gardening Australia a few years ago they had a segment where they looked into one of these operations in Sydney and they were turning out rich compost that was then sold on to whoever. The whole process took about 7 days from bringing in the waste organics and sorting out the plastic and other foreign matter to having this completely different product which was ready for the garden.
I guess I have a bit of a different view on all this because of my up bringing. Dad grew & sold compost worms for a living, and growing up in a household that was conscience about recycling, reusing things etc. If only more people gave a shit and wanted to learn, it’s not hard :/
I am working on a new shirt design and a new vn. Please follow me on twitter, or tumblr, for updates. Scree06 is the user name for both.
My stuff gets ignored when posted here, so I’ve decided to stop. Sorry
Oh, this is kinda amusing.
Er, what is? Is there a missing post or something?
Just that I was the last person to post. Found it Kinda amusing
Now I’m the last person to post.
😛
*gasp* how could you?
The “Reply” hyperlink.
😛
That’s preposterous =P
But yeah, I have moved drawing feedback operations to twitter, tumblr and deviant art
@scree.
Hehehehe. Thanks for the laughs. It’s a slow, quiet day for me at the moment.
Hey, it tends to be slow for me everyday
Damnit, I hate the way it puts an AU author’s icon next to other people’s by lines sometimes. I’m like ‘Alex was depressed when he played Breath of the Wild? =(‘.
I thought Alex suffered anxiety, mot depression.
I’m just fixing that up now, it’s a thing in our backend (easy to forget sometimes). I’ve had plenty of battles with depression over the last 15+ years though, suicide included.
I wish you all the best for the future. No one deserves to suffer with depression
I’ll be glad to see that bug go. It gets me every time.
I’d ask how you’re going with it, but since you’re on the clock and can’t really open up properly here I’ll just say take care of yourself. I struggle with a lot of the stuff you mention there even though I’d consider myself happy the rest of the time. I don’t think many people get what it’s like to have a great day, best day of your life, then come home and get smashed in the face with it.
It’s not a bug, just user error. When we go to make a new post it defaults to the avatar of the person creating the post, and we just have to remember to change it. So if you see it, blame us!
Thanks for your thoughts, BTW. I’m doing alright. Not to go too indepth, but Tegan helps a lot. It’s often easier to help someone else get to an even keel than it is to help yourself, if that makes sense. (Another anecdotal reason why support networks are so crucial.)
Good to hear. I know Beck helps me a lot. Not so much with direct support but letting her into my head a little seems to help keep me out of my head. I still have those problems but it’s much harder for them to drag everything around me into them.
I think the trick will be to use that support to move forward and work through my issues, that way I won’t end up putting that pressure on the relationship.
I don’t suffer from anything like what you guys are describing (have had dark days in the past, but never went and saw anyone about it/never took meds etc.) my wife has been diagnosed with depression and social anxiety in the past, and takes SSRI’s for that purpose.
I’d like to think I’m the support person in this situation, but more often than not I’m lost as to how to help because I know it can’t be *fixed* per se, just mitigated slightly, and more than likely I’ll end up annoying her because I don’t understand what she’s thinking/going through.
You don’t have to understand everything that a person is going through to be able to care for them. Just caring and being there is a big thing, and being sensitive to their needs – like taking care of dinner when they’re having a tough week, learning to spot those days when you need to kick their butt to get them moving, or the days that they need tea and a cocoon.
@cookingmama
Speaking as someone who is both a support for someone with severe anxiety/depression, and have suffered from depression myself;
Spot on!
The mere fact that you are there for them, encourage them to talk about it and just listen, is often enough to help.
As a support, you have to realise that it’s not your job + you can’t “fix” it. There is no “fix”.
Your job is to get them to verbalise their inner thoughts. One of the things that helped me a lot was actually go to a few of her sessions with her psychologist (with her permission of course) where I was just an observer, learning how they explorer issues, and getting some insight into how she feels in given situations. That’s been invaluable.
Also important as a support; Look after yourself. Don’t beat yourself up if you don’t feel you’re helping enough, give yourself time to have some “you” time. That was one of my pitfalls that led to my own depression.
You’re not supposed to fix it. Just be there. If you want, have a good at beyond blue website for coping mechanisms. That way you can feel like you can help. It’s not much, but it might help
Yeah, I know it can’t be fixed, and tbh, that’s probably what I struggle with most. I work in IT, so the vast majority of my day, most days of my life are spent being presented with a problem, diagnosing/assessing it, then fixing or improving it.
This obviously does not work in the same way for human beings, let alone my wife of all people, so yeah, it’s been… puzzling for me to learn from.
Bit of cat question here for any of us who has worked with them and/or is a vet.
Do cats actually like the feel of lambs wool?
I’m asking as I recently got a donna insert for my bed which contains lambs wool and (no joke) the family cat has become impossible to separate from it! He virtually won’t sleep anywhere else anymore.
If there is a benefit/reason why cats like lambs wool, I’m tempted to get some small rugs to leave in our sunny spots for him.
Is it because it’s warm and easy to dig into?
Cats love furry things and warm things.
Lambs wool is furry and warm.
We’ve got an IKEA shagpile rug in front of the fire. First time it was there one of our cats went gaga for it, burrowing and cuddling and stomping all over it. 🙂
@dogman and @trikeabout.
He doesn’t kneed (or make puddings, whichever the term is) on the bed but I will admit I use an electric blanket a couple of hours before I turn in.
So it must be because I have a wining combination I did not before.
Thanks for the comments though. He’s basically bordering on obsession with my bed and almost has a go at me when I try to turn in so I might find some lambs wool blankets for him so I can have a good nights’ rest, 😛
The aforementioned rug-lover goes to bed with my wife. Chases the other two away, and has his spot on the bed. If I go in to say g’night, he tries to make me leave the room too.
Cats. Worst bosses ever.
*bleary eyes* Cat Olympics.
Track and field at 2am.
Steeplechase at 3am.
Singing at 5amI know a good solution for the singing.
It’s half a foot in diameter and made of cork.
😛
A 20 litre bottle of wine? Drink it or throw it?
They’re usually really good and sleep when we sleep, but the youngest (4 year old girl) has two speeds – flank speed and full stop. :-/
Hehehehe. Neither.
I was implying a large piece of cork in the cat’s mouth.
😛
Do we have a current TAYKart running? Is anyone interested?
I’m not sure what that is, let alone being able to tell you if there’s a current one 🙁
TAY Mario Kart tournament. We had one for a while on the Wii U, so just wondering if anyone has started one on the Switch.
Ah yeah, makes sense. Sorry though, can’t answer the question, don’t own a Switch or WiiU.
Gah – so hungry right now – lunchtime cannot arrive quickly enough and this tea is not cutting it.
I’ve been experimenting this week with golden lattes – kinda like a chai latte but with turmeric, hence the golden colour. Has anyone else tried these?
You can substitute tequila for turmeric and get a similar effect.
TAY! Hi… Hello… ho-how’re you?
Sorry I haven’t called or anything i’ve been soooo busy, you know it is.
*whistles*
Anyway, cannot wait for the start of June, headed back home for the first time since 2014, so i’m suuuuuuper excited!
Going to be spending 3 weeks in Denmark, Sweden, Belgium and France. including going to be a Le Mans for the 24 hour race \o/
Missus is keen on World War 2, so afterwards we’re headed to Normandy and going to be spending time near St Mere Igles, before heading back to Denmark going through Belgium (headed past Foy and Bastogne)…
Is gonna be gud!
Sounds amazing. Is that when Lady Strange is on her tour, have a feeling that might be a couple of months away
So I actually played a ‘real’ game for the first time in a while last night
Started wolfenstein the old blood. Managed to get to the title sequence before I had to go to bed.
Well, this morning I find myself out of work after my evil overlord company went into administration last night. Or at least stood down while administrators try to figure out if there is any value in my work. Put six months of crazyness, insane urgent requests, long hours and general rush to keep the managers happy into a weird perspective.
Now I’m at a loss for what to do. I’m thinking a few Lynda course, get some paper saying I can do mobile app development or something, maybe brush up on html5. Sadly, I dont think my game is in any shape to make me enough money to work on it properly. I may get called back into work on Wednesday, but at least I’ll have reduced pay if any for the last 2 weeks. Or I could play Vanquish. Yes, I preordered it. I know, its bad. But its Vanquish man.
It’s been a really weird 24 hours. And I really got no sleep last night. Getting stood down via sms is a low point.
Good luck, a good chance to evaluate where you and and where you want to go
I’m gonna paint in photshop for the first time in a long time. I’m kinda nervous ^^;;
In other news, I’ve been playing a game called Superbeat Xonic. I used to play the arcade game DJ Technika in arcades. Now I wanna play DJ Techika again, but my local arcade removed the machine D=
Woohoo! Got my 4th monitor onto a mount, and now I have to align all of them after stuffing around with trying to get it onto my desk.
-_-
TV show discussion anyone?
It’s a good week for Netflix originals. Bloodline season 3 came out last night, Flaked season 2 is out next week along with season 2 for F is for Family.
I’ve been watching 13 Reasons Why, since everyone I know seems to have watched it, it started off alright, got pretty meh in the middle and at the end it’s gotten better. I gotta admit some of the storyline is pretty heart breaking, especially episode 12. Got the last episode to go tonight.
Then i’ll probably finish watching Riverdale, haven’t watched it since episode 7, got over the weekly instalments of episodes, and by the time I watch Bloodline, Flaked & F is for Family along with the other shows I watch season 5 of Orange is the New Black will be out, even though some jackass that held it to ransom released the first 10 episodes about a month back.
I also noticed SBS is screening season 3 of Fargo about 3 weeks behind the US airing which is cool. But I have the first 6 episodes sitting on my media server, which I think i’ll just binge watch since watching season 2 week to week wasn’t great.
Bloodlines. Bloody Bloodlines. I got up to the final episode shortly before season 2 came out, though it would be nice to hold off for the release, now season 3 is out and I still haven’t watched it.
Pretty surprised that Flaked S2 and F is for Family S2 are out so soon. Enjoyed both.
I’ve been getting stuck into The Legend of Korra and The Shield recently, S2 and S1 respectively. Apart from the music, The Shield holds up quite well.
Couldn’t do 13 Reasons Why, ticked too many boxes in the nup category.
Haha. I did something like that, watched season 1 on a whim a few weeks later season 2 cme out was nice. I’m surprised they went ahead with a second season of Flaked since it got such a bad review from those who watched it, I personally enjoyed it, F is for Family debuted in 2015, which is a while ago lol.
Fair enough. Season 2 should be interesting, I kinda hope they don’t string it out for too many seasons though.