Topics

126

Completely Unrelated / GeoCities is shutting down

« on: 2009-10-26 14:28:23 »

I've only just found out, via xkcd. (sceencap, for great justice; yes kids, that's what the Internet used to look like )

We can say good bye to hideous webpages about vampires with hit counters, gifs, MIDIs and pictures that took 5 minutes to appear when using dialup; ahhhh, those were the days!

I'm of the opinion that GeoCities should have been kept so that it could be a museum of the Internet and teach future generations how things used to be, but Yahoo are big mean poopy-heads!

127

Completely Unrelated / The Pope is in an H-game!

« on: 2009-10-18 21:54:36 »

http://www.sankakucomplex.com/2009/10/18/the-popes-eroge-debut/ (high probability of NSFW material on the page, but none in the article itself)

One must wonder what he would make of this if he knew

It's the same game that features a young Russian lady who has a name startlingly like that of Vladimir Putin; I must learn Japanese (or find/wait for an English patch) so that I can play this game; it sounds hilarious

128

Completely Unrelated / Srsly NASA, wtf?

« on: 2009-10-09 12:54:42 »

OK, you get us all excited about bombing the moon but don't show us an explosion, then you do this

129

Completely Unrelated / Man the harpoons!

« on: 2009-10-08 13:50:34 »

It would seem that Aya Hirano is once more suffering from severe obesity, and is again at risk of being killed for research purposes.

Click here to see how disgustingly fat she has become. (warning; there's a possibility of some NSFW links and banner ads)

130

Completely Unrelated / ALL HAIL BRITANNIA!

« on: 2009-09-23 13:34:10 »

So, it seems that a lot of things like this and this have been going on recently. Interesting...

(warning, be prepared for NSFW material)

131

Completely Unrelated / Sega blabs about PS2 (and maybe Dreamcast) emulation on PS3

« on: 2009-09-22 12:42:24 »

Here

Interesting. Sony might have changed their plans since the meeting was held, but hopefully they haven't. They'll deny everything whether it's true or not, so the only way we'll find out is if Sony actually announce PS2 emulation, which is unlikely to happen whilst the PS2 is still selling thousands of units every week.

132

Completely Unrelated / Nigerian government demands apology from Sony

« on: 2009-09-09 16:00:30 »

The Nigerian government is very upset with Sony after they made a reference to Nigerian email scams in one of their latest adverts. Apparently, Sony has changed the line to a nonsensical one about WWI. As a European, I am very offended by this and demand an apology.

You'd have thought that the Nigerian government would have bigger things to worry about; after all, their country has a nominal GDP per capita of $1,500 (compare to around $30,000 - $50,000 in most Western countries), it comes 154th on the UN's Human Development Index and suffers from horrific levels of crime and ethno-religious conflict. Actually, that might be why the government is acting so butthurt; nothing works like creating an external enemy when you want to distract your people from problems at home, as all bad governments know

133

Completely Unrelated / McDonalds: we have trademarked "Mc"!

« on: 2009-09-08 22:47:50 »

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/09/08/2680151.htm?section=justin

Wow, it's a good thing McDonalds lost this case; if they hadn't, I'm sure there would have been a lot of restaurants in Scotland getting sued

134

Completely Unrelated / Final Fantasy XIII release date confirmed

« on: 2009-09-07 21:17:57 »

17/12. For Japan, at least

It will come out next year in the US, and in 2018 in Europe.

It's actually a shame that they couldn't get a Western release and PS3 slim bundle for Christmas; imagine the sales if they had

As it stands, the PS3 seems to be in for some big Christmas sales in Japan, seeing as console sales seem to spike dramatically there when a new RPG comes out.

135

Completely Unrelated / Spambots!

« on: 2009-09-04 00:17:19 »

They aren't even trying any more

136

Completely Unrelated / Gloucester saved from becoming Sodom and Gomorrah!

« on: 2009-09-01 22:26:54 »

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20090901/tuk-council-turns-down-swinger-club-bid-6323e80.html

Today, the city of Gloucester was saved by its heroic councillors, after planners had recommended an application for an unused hotel to become a private members' club where consenting adults with alternative sexual interests would be able to meet and do what they want in a safe environment without harming anyone. How disgusting!

One woman who opposed the application said "I'm not homophobic, but I can love people and hate their activities. I can still hate the homosexual act". Quite right! It's fine for people to be gay, as long as they don't do any gay things. It's so simple! You can have all the fun of stopping people from doing something just because you don't like it, but can still hold your head up high and say "I'm not a bigot". Clearly, her hatred is something completely different from homophobia. You certainly couldn't say that it's the same thing to all intents and purposes. No, not at all. Let's hope that if Ms Johnson applies to build a church, her application is looked at by people who don't hate Christians, but do hate people reading Bibles, praying and talking about god.

She also says "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil (i.e. anything sexual other than sex in the missionary position with the lights turned off for the purposes of procreation) is that good men do nothing. You are the good men and women of Gloucester. Please vote against the proposal". Again, wise words. Some people aren't turned on by the idea of doing it with someone of the same sex or swinging, but are happy with not doing it themselves and letting others do it if they want to. Not these good men and women! They know that if you don't like something, it's not enough to just not do it yourself, you have to do everything you can to stop anyone else from doing it!

This was a triumph for common sense! Or a triumph for ignoring policy guidelines saying that objections on "moral" grounds should not influence such decision making. I'm not sure which.

137

Completely Unrelated / :3

« on: 2009-09-01 05:25:26 »

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnlPw-Ltllc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DMh64BtPPA

 

138

Completely Unrelated / You thought the FF7 PC port was bad?

« on: 2009-08-28 22:05:53 »

http://blip.tv/file/2515281

I'm really glad that this bloke is back. I found his "The Fat Man Judgeth" videos hilarious; often funnier than AVGN's reviews.

139

Completely Unrelated / Josef Fritzl's American cousin

« on: 2009-08-28 03:39:57 »

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8225621.stm

It seems like a lot of these cases are popping up nowadays.

140

Completely Unrelated / Racist Microsoft shoopery

« on: 2009-08-26 01:51:36 »

http://gizmodo.com/5345418/microsoft-needs-to-hire-better-less-racist-graphic-designers

141

Completely Unrelated / Have the Republicans moved to a mental hospital?

« on: 2009-08-20 15:50:25 »

In the course of my daily procrastination, I came across this:

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-republicans-religion-and-the-triumph-of-unreason-1773994.html

I don't read the newspapers very much (for good reason: British newspapers are the worst in the world), but I have liked most of the articles I've read by Johann Hari, and I found this one very amusing. My favourite bit was:

These increasingly frenzied claims have become so detached from reality that they often seem like black comedy. The right-wing magazine US Investors' Daily claimed that if Stephen Hawking had been British, he would have been allowed to die at birth by its "socialist" healthcare system. Hawking responded with a polite cough that he is British, and "I wouldn't be here without the NHS"

I'll just sit here and see what kind of trouble this causes

142

Completely Unrelated / Competition: find the butthurt fanboys!

« on: 2009-08-19 23:26:42 »

It's well known that the phenomenal success of FF7 has lead to unprecedented amounts of butthurt amongst the fanboys of less popular games, and continues to do so. Even the bloke from the "1 guy 1 jar" video does not suffer from rectal pain as bad as some of the FF7 fan haters out there. Naturally, this butthurt has led to a lot of stupid things being said on the interwebs during arguments as to whether FF7's success is justified.

What I propose is that people post the most hilarious, factually incorrect, ridiculous or rage-inducing comments made by the surprising amount of people who seem to dedicate their life to proving that FF7 is worse than the Holocaust. These comments can be found in the usual places: poorly spelt reviews, forum posts and (especially) YouTube comments.

A few of the more bizarre criticisms I have come across are:

FF7 isn't a real Final Fantasy because it doesn't have crystals!

FF7 is bad because it has an environmental message!

FF7's crystal theme is bad because it's techno!

FF7 fanboys are stuck in the past!

The last one doesn't seem very strange, until one realises that it came up in a FF6 vs FF7 argument. Obviously, one is stuck in the past for liking a PSX game released in 1997, but not for liking a SNES game released in 1994. It's quite often that one sees such criticisms from fans of games which are even worse offenders; the fans genuinely do not see the irony. If this competition doesn't end up dying pathetically with only a few responses, we could end up doing to FF7 hatedom what fstdt did for religious fundamentalism.

P.S. I realise that this topic could be seen as baiting; that is an unfortunate consequence of what I'm doing rather than the main point.

143

Completely Unrelated / PS3 Slim and Price Drop Announced + rant

« on: 2009-08-18 19:24:08 »

http://uk.ps3.ign.com/articles/101/1015007p1.html

For the most part, this is very good news indeed for Sonyfriends. I imagine that Sony's poor performance against the Xbox 360 in the US will pick up strongly, especially if the console is made compatible with PS2 games.

Now here's where I start b*tching.

See the prices? ¥29,980, $299. Seems reasonable; in fact, the US is getting a rather good deal. Now, let's move on. €299. What the f*ck? Last time I checked, it was €0.7074 to the dollar. So the price for the Eurozone should be €212. Maybe €220. Maybe even €250 if they're going for really significant figures. There is no mention of the UK price, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's £299. Based on the US price, it should be £180. Maybe £199 if they want to take advantage of the nearest psychologically significant figure. But I'd be surprised if we get it for £249. It often seems that the pricing policy works like this:

Code: [Select]

1.Set Japanese price

2. Convert yen to dollars then round up/down to nearest psychologically significant figure for US price

3. Convert dollars to euro and round up (always up) to get Eurozone price

4. Convert euro to pounds and round up (always up) to get British price

5. ????

6. PROFIT!

Apparently, things are even worse in Australia. I'd really like to know why this happens. Are there some enormous costs that exist when selling in Europe (especially the UK) that don't exist when selling in the US? Or are the companies just being arseholes?

144

Completely Unrelated / We have an official Pirate Party! Arrrr, matey!

« on: 2009-08-14 00:32:04 »

Like many of the things I post here, I stole this story from Sancom

The UK now has its own official Pirate Party. Unfortunately, this is not a party for the traditional kind of pirate, but a party dedicated to the reform of copyright law

Here's an article about them.

Whilst this may be slightly questionable:

It is proposing an exemption from copyright law for non-commercial file-sharing

I am intrigued by their policy of reducing the length of copyright on works from creator's life + 70 years. I've never understood why something so long is needed.

145

Completely Unrelated / More litigation from Squeenix

« on: 2009-08-05 19:44:36 »

So, according to Sankaku Complex*, Squeenix has successfully sued the producers of a Korean music video that recreates scenes from Advent Children for ¥400,000,000. Quite why anyone thought that such a big amount was appropriate is a mystery.

* Warning: might be NSFW

146

Completely Unrelated / PS3 to have backwards compatibility with the PS2 again?

« on: 2009-08-04 11:05:17 »

So, according to some sources, Sony have found a way to make all PS3 models backwards compatible with the PS2 with a firmware update.

This Japanese article might be more informative, but unfortunately I can't understand it. 

147

Completely Unrelated / Internet censorship?

« on: 2009-07-27 02:08:08 »

So, apparently a major US ISP is blocking 4chan.

Is this the start of an Orwellian age of internet censorship?

Should we in Britain be happy that this crap is happening to someone else for once?

Is this just a storm in a teacup?

How badly is anonymous going to raep AT&T?

Keep watching; this might become very interesting 

(P.S. - rules 1 & 2 only apply during raids)

148

Completely Unrelated / VIDEO GAMES ARE RACIST!

« on: 2009-07-15 21:21:08 »

http://blogs.chron.com/gamehacks/2009/07/racism_in_video_games_the_new.html#more

Realistic demographics? In my vidya?

It's more likely than you think.

Clearly having some black zombies in a city with a large black population is incredibly racist; the PC thing to do would be to make all of the zombies white. Apparently, the T-virus shouldn't spread to Africa either, 'cos, ya know, viruses don't tend to spread across continents. Or not to that continent, at least.

Interestingly, he doesn't seem to mind playing characters in GTA that could be seen as embodying negative stereotypes of Eastern Europeans and Italian-Americans. That stuff doesn't matter. (note that I'm not calling GTA anything-ist, since the games don't take themselves seriously)

Meh, you have to feel sorry for people that are so short of ideas that they have to write stuff like this. I can see why he might not like killing people in New Orleans or playing as a Confederate soldier. Not why he has to write about it in a blog, but why he might not like it. But trying to say that this is evidence of racism in video games is laughable. It's almost as if some people have given themselves a challenge to make as many things out to be racist as possible (kinda like training for debates by defending POVs you don't hold). Or maybe they think that they'll look more enlightened by calling as many people racist as they can. After all, the more racists there are out there and the more deeply ingrained racism is into society, the more special and brave the non-racists are, right? Erm no...

inb4 someone says "that's racist". And inb4 someone on the opposite end of the political spectrum PMs me with a link to some racist site thinking I'm on his side.

P.S.

Someone posting a comment on a piece linking to this article reminded me that this video might be considered racist by that bloke.

EDIT:

They're sexist too! Hell, they're extreme pornography!

149

Completely Unrelated / Nintendo's latest gameplay innovation?

« on: 2009-07-07 14:01:14 »

According to Sankaku Complex (so take it with a pinch of salt   )

Nintendo is said to be planning to accommodate hopeless or merely impatient gamers who get stuck in games by making more of its games feature a “skip” feature, whereby difficult segments may be bypassed entirely.

The measure is to be concentrated on “action” games reliant on speedy reflexes, and will be featuring on both the Wii and DS.

The motivation behind it appears to be a desire to embrace casual gamers whose only experience of a “game” may be Wii Fit; previously some concern at the length of certain games and their ability to be completed by players with careers has prompted similar measures elsewhere.

Via Gigazine.

Proof, as if any were needed, that Nintendo’s consoles cater almost exclusively to “casuals”? Of course, cheats are nothing new, but usually they are not promoted as an integral feature of the title…

I'm not going to comment on this...  

And I shan't link to the site for now; it contains some very NSFW material  

150

Completely Unrelated / what is this i dont even

« on: 2009-06-29 15:30:54 »

Srsly, is there an explanation for this 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3rTLJBqwI4