On the aeron's cylinder the base wasn't too bad. But removing it from the chair seat was a pain. Had to get a socket that was the exact size of the ring, have someone else hold the chair while the other beat on the socket to unplug the cylinder. Took less than an hour to replace it using this method, but not easy by any means.

You can't trust McQuaid. Guy has a history of talking out of his ass.


And Smedley is right there with him.

While they did some nice things for MMOs, I think both of them generally prey on people's hopes for cash and then apologize once it's finally clear they had no intentions of ever doing what they said. And......once it finally catches up to them, they sell the company to someone else and continue on with their "marketing strategies".

A lot of things are simply too expensive to fix. Dish Washer was acting up, GUESSING at what was wrong with it...you could put 100-200 bucks into it and MAYBE fix it. But it will probably break another part or have another issue in another year or two and cost more to fix.

Even a lot of the "professionals" guess and go for the most likely repairs........even on cars.

Phones/tablets/etc....assuming you can get the device open without breaking the little plastic clips. A lot of MFGs glue stuff down and make it a real pain to attempt repairs, and require soldering in the case of batteries often times.

My parents have a almost 30 YO fridge of my grandmothers......that works fine. Doesn't have any bells and whistles like most fridges they sell now, but it still works. In the meantime, they've had one fridge die after 10-12 years and the replacement had poor design issues within months of purchase that last to this day. You could keep fixing it, but it'll just keep breaking because it's a dumb design. The ice making pushes the ice up hill, and the ice binds and causes the pieces in the mechanisms to strip and break. To give the freezer an extra little bit of room. You'd think companies making fridges and appliances for going on 40-50 years might have a little inkling of what might be a design issue by now.


Oh and microwaves, those bastards seem to be a crap shoot at this point. Got the grandmothers ancient microwave, new ones might last 2-5 years before something important in em dies....and they can be rather dangerous to futz with to save 100-200 bucks.

People don't want to buy stuff that doesn't give value over what they currently own.

New phones that offer nothing really new over what they own.

3D tv......

You don't need multiple copies of the same book, and you don't want to waste time reading authors that people consider less interesting than the ones you currently keep up with.


And I believe it all also goes back to consumer confidence, there are reports that people are beginning to spend like they did just before and during the last economic crash. Priorities are going to dictate where your money goes at that point.

Article says this:

• The data for sale includes names, birth dates, policy numbers, diagnosis codes and billing information. Fraudsters use this data to create fake IDs to buy medical equipment or drugs that can be resold, or they combine a patient number with a false provider number and file made-up claims with insurers, according to experts who have investigated cyber attacks on healthcare organizations.

I would have assumed businesses would use it to avoid hiring expensive healthcare cost employees and that they would target people with specific diseases for various types of fraud.

I mean they already target seniors since they are most likely to have failing mental faculties and be easy prey. And a lot of the "charities" collect money that maybe 10% actually goes to the actual charity/research.

And some doctors already futz with the billing codes to maximize payouts, picking similar injuries that pay out better via insurance. So the patient won't recognize it if it involves the same part of the body, etc.

Or they could just upgrade their infrastructure (like they should be) and use the funds already given to them to do so. You know....so there is no need for fast or slow lanes, because they can handle the traffic that people and companies have paid for once each. *gasp*

I want expanded gameplay and REALLY excellent maps. Borderlands does a pretty good job with new classes and about half of their map content is decent.

What sucks is when you get a good base game, and then a mixture of good/great and mediocre DLC. It's like they intentionally do it to earn your trust so they can exploit it with a shit DLC or two.

This is just ignoring all the bugs and imbalance that comes with the DLC/base game. I am also not a fan of a lot of aesthetic stuff being sold as CONTENT. It needs to be called something else, skin packs...something to indicate it's ONLY a reskin of something with no additional functionality or use. You have to really dig to find out if that's the case or not on some of these preorder bonuses, etc.


And all that said, mediocre base games and mediocre DLC basically forces you to wait for other people to buy it and get the "new shiny" out of their system so they can review it properly. So that's a month or more depending on the game. At that point you've lost your chance to maximize the money you're getting per unit by not keeping your content interesting and well designed. Once you fall behind the tide of new releases, it's pretty easy to get stuff on the cheap and keep yourself entertained with a lot more games at much lower prices.

This is only PC gaming, I haven't done consoles in a long long time.

Linksil wrote on Jul 11, 2014, 11:45:

Veterator wrote on Jul 11, 2014, 11:09:
I've caught some information on this game. It has some pretty interesting ideas. Like hang gliders, boats, boat combat, underwater farms.....I think they even mentioned underwater housing. Plus housing in general.


Crime, where you can steal from other people (in this case they showed like killing a chicken they owned on their property and them looking for signs of foot prints and what not) and they can investigate and try to catch you and send you into a judicial system which was a little unclear.

Siegeable guild forts that were SUPPOSEDLY designed somewhat by the players, so they aren't just a cookie cutter layout each time.



It's supposed to be F2P, but the implementation of how they expect to pull in subs and stuff kind of looked like if you want to enjoy yourself much at all or have anything you'd be subbing. Which kinda got me disinterested. I still want to try it out someday, but got a feeling it's going to be really difficult without subbing to do much.

Been playing the alpha for a few months now. US patch 1.0 was a great game, with lots of if this get's polished this games going to destroy things. They released 1.2 patch (korean patch without the US changes... this is trions words) and pretty much destroyed everything unique about the game. I mean it's still there but it feels like it's all hidden behind a pay wall. Labor Points are used for EVERYTHING and without a sub your capped at 2k max(5k max with sub), regens at 1 or 5 per 5min online only, can't quiet remember they keep changing their minds on the numbers. With "patron" which is sub of $15 a month, you get 20/5min (but it's listed 10/5 in the tool tip) while online and 5/5min offline. This forces you to be afking online 24/7 if you want to do any type of crafting/farming/opening auctions/ opening coin purses off mobs you farm. Right now it feels like you HAVE to pay to keep up and even then your still being fisted. Patron is also the only way you can own property/farms.

Gliders are fun to fly, but there's no easy way to descend so you usually play lets see if I die when the glider timer runs out. Boats are a blast but well very hard to make now. Boat combat requires cannon balls (requires LP farm then more LP to make) Underwater farms are just areas to swim into and farm then leave after a few mins once your done. But required for high end crafting. There's houses on the water but no underwater ones yet.

Crime system is interesting. You can plant anywhere on the world. If you do others can come alone and either uproot(not grown) or harvest(grown) your items if you don't make it back. If they do this there is a CHANCE at leaving footprints and they can report for crime points. Also anytime you attack and/or kill someone outside of a total war zone(Which only last 30 mins and cycle) anyone can report you. Once you hit 50 CP next time you die you go to trial. Players see the notes about what you did and decide your penalty.

Sieges: Forts can be built how people want to, but it's inside a limited area and well i'm not sure how much leeway there is.

Without subbing you can still do 50% of the game... but 90% of that will be VERY hard and frustrating.

Yeah that's kind of what I was afraid was going to happen. Trion did such a good job with Rifts F2P, but Archeage has more persistence issues. Guess we'll see if they can find a balance that doesn't suck balls.

I've caught some information on this game. It has some pretty interesting ideas. Like hang gliders, boats, boat combat, underwater farms.....I think they even mentioned underwater housing. Plus housing in general.


Crime, where you can steal from other people (in this case they showed like killing a chicken they owned on their property and them looking for signs of foot prints and what not) and they can investigate and try to catch you and send you into a judicial system which was a little unclear.

Siegeable guild forts that were SUPPOSEDLY designed somewhat by the players, so they aren't just a cookie cutter layout each time.



It's supposed to be F2P, but the implementation of how they expect to pull in subs and stuff kind of looked like if you want to enjoy yourself much at all or have anything you'd be subbing. Which kinda got me disinterested. I still want to try it out someday, but got a feeling it's going to be really difficult without subbing to do much.

Kinda sucks I deleted my weekend beta thing just a few days ago because I didnt think it was going to get any kind of open beta.

It was decent, just can't see myself paying a monthly for what was offered.

DarkCntry wrote on May 3, 2014, 20:41:
Then they could easily preface their live-tweet with the same thing that COPS does at the close of their show about everyone show is innocent until proven otherwise in a court-of-law.

That said, it doesn't really matter as they've laid out the general idea of the sting. Follow the ads to the operations and the clients.

Of course, we could all get into the theories that this police department is corrupt and would intentionally setup people...but doing so in such a public manner would probably be one of the worst decisions in the history of man.

Has nothing to do with corruption. It has to do with what basically amounts to publicly shaming the guy before they have been proven guilty. Even a hint of improper behavior for MANY jobs can end up with you being unemployed.

Already put up my example of people getting busted improperly for it. It's a stigma related issue rather than anything. You can go online in most places and look up this information for people, so the information is there in the normal processing. They are going above and beyond to make an example.

DarkCntry wrote on May 3, 2014, 03:08:

Veterator wrote on May 3, 2014, 03:01:
From the Prostitute article: Suspect photos and information will be tweeted.

I predict that will backfire on them quite horribly if just one fails to be prosecuted successfully.

Used to be a guy around this area that if approached by someone would record the conversation with a pocket recorder he kept in his pocket. One day an under cover cop walks up, and he starts to record it. She busts him for soliciting her, in fact she busts a significant number of dudes in a short period of time like 25-50 in a day. Gets into court, it's his turn to go up, he plays his recording and the judge asks who else was busted by that particular cop and has to let them all go due to his recording showing that he never once indicated he was interested. He just said things like "uh huh" or "I see" to keep her talking knowing something was fishy. Cop got yelled at by the judge for awhile and no idea if anything happened beyond that.

But if you put those guys pictures and info up on twitter today with something like that happening...you think none would sue for defamation/etc. Just hinting that someone could have done something nowadays could end a career, especially if they deal with elderly or children.

Again, how is this any different than what To Catch a Predator does, except the nicety of TV post-production and lead-in times?

I guess I'd have to say one is TV where they've set the guy up in such a way to make it clear that he knew he what he was showing up for.

And the other is posting suspect photos AND information with an unknown level of setup/confirmation. If they prosecute them all successfully it's likely it was done right, but like I said..if one gets away they can sue.

They could sue the TV show too if they didn't actually do what they were being accused of and aired. But they could have just as easily waited until after sentencing to air the episodes to cover their ass, don't really care enough to look it up.

These guys are LIVE TWEETING....so yeah.

From the Prostitute article: Suspect photos and information will be tweeted.

I predict that will backfire on them quite horribly if just one fails to be prosecuted successfully.

Used to be a guy around this area that if approached by someone would record the conversation with a pocket recorder he kept in his pocket. One day an under cover cop walks up, and he starts to record it. She busts him for soliciting her, in fact she busts a significant number of dudes in a short period of time like 25-50 in a day. Gets into court, it's his turn to go up, he plays his recording and the judge asks who else was busted by that particular cop and has to let them all go due to his recording showing that he never once indicated he was interested. He just said things like "uh huh" or "I see" to keep her talking knowing something was fishy. Cop got yelled at by the judge for awhile and no idea if anything happened beyond that.

But if you put those guys pictures and info up on twitter today with something like that happening...you think none would sue for defamation/etc. Just hinting that someone could have done something nowadays could end a career, especially if they deal with elderly or children.

Looking over it, it looks like they picked a good one to go after. Physical rewards, a printing company they can check to see if these guys even tried to do it, and a deadline of late 2012 if funded.

Seemed awful cheap for a one series of a limited print card/other rewards there though, either was an obvious rip off or the guy had no idea what he was getting into and decided to keep the money anyway.

Pisses me off about Almost Human...there are so many utterly shit shows that just go on and on and on. And while this wasn't the best sci-fi show ever, at least it was funny in a lot of it's material.

Although I can say when they started talking about "The Wall" I was getting rather irritated since all the information about it seemed to be delivered backwards in the way they aired the shows.

Can't help but think the audience that watches these sci-fi shows has gotten fed up with it and found other things to spend their time on.

Not really on content. They have postponed more living world stuff for quality of life patches. Only thing going on right now is a WvW tournament similar to the one in the Fall.

Beyond that a couple boss fights might be all you're looking at and I don't consider them much of a content addition.

I do think they've said something about some content, but since they rarely give dates unless it's close I don't think it's on the horizon.

sauron wrote on Apr 17, 2014, 11:57:
I've been going through some personal stuff and haven't been on this site recently, just came back this morning. I loved GW2 but after I got all my ascended stuff and legendary shield I had nothing to do except WvWvW, so moved on to FFXIV (which I also haven't played recently due to aforementioned personal stuff).

Is GW2 any more content-heavy now, or is it still the same? If they add a huge new expansion I'll play it like a shot, but until then I don't have anything to do.

Wildstar is a subscription game, GW2 is not. That's one major difference.

Although I thought Wildstar had some funny bits for the one weekend I was allowed into beta, but it's combat seemed less interactive than GW2. Which can probably be blamed on it being beta and not perfected yet...we'll see. Hopefully they changed to non-subbed.

Personally I see Archeage being the real threat to GW2.

The way overflow worked and works now is that once the server version of a map is full, people move into overflow. Overflow version of maps are not server specific and can contain people from any server whose default map was full or who used "join on member" in their party window to move into overflow.

This is how TTS would do multiple tequatl kills by spawning overflows on a particular server then just inviting everyone who wanted to go into the overflows so people who couldn't guest didn't have to.

Now the megaserver sounds like instead of being a random mishmash of people and invitees in a overflow map....they try to group you via your language, guild, etc. So it will make the base maps on smaller servers actually have people in them at all hours instead of just primetime for that server.

And I think people who've grown used to the other server system are going to be upset for awhile. And all the "rivalries" between wvw competitors are going to start showing up in map chat everywhere. People already spend hours trolling via secondary accounts and going on the forums and spewing crap all day. So here's hoping Anet groups via color groupings like they do in Edge of the Mists so you won't have to see as much of it.

Can't help but think the Oculus is going to die a slow death. I know quite a few people who'd wonder what the catch is if they knew Facebook owned the company selling them the hardware...and I definitely would as well.

So essentially, the guy got backed and then killed (profitably for himself) the product less than two years later.

Between this and Wildstar, I'd play Wildstar. Just couldn't get into the combat in ESO at all, and nothing else really stuck out to me as viable besides combat oriented stuff.

And having said that, I still wouldn't pay monthly for Wildstar even though it felt pretty well done overall...really liked the voice over guy who introduced you to each town or area wasn't annoying like most VOs get.