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Comment I no longer fat finger things (Score 1) 47

I'll be the first to concede that it was hell at first, but I've learned over the past year or two how to make remarkably precise selections with my stubby sausage fingers on a capacitive touchscreen. It's all a matter of personal preference, but for me it would be more of a hassle to fumble around with a stylus these days than it would be just to poke at the thing until I get it right.

Comment Re:He was an IDIOT! (Score 1) 620

At 300 million ISK a pop, having even a single one of these things in your hold makes you a juicy target for the suicide gankers, let alone for a corporation with whom you are engaged in a war. But this is precisely the reason I like EVE. Everything is based on risk vs. reward, and the smart are rewarded for being smart while the dumb get their name plastered on every last gaming website in existence.

Comment Re:New headline (Score 1) 620

Wrong. The player who lost the PLEX in all likelyhood bought them in game using ISK earned by other means. The people who shelled out the real-world cash for these things got their ISK payment, and at this point the PLEX were just like any other tradeable item on the market. The player then decided the reward (in form of profits for selling the item at a higher price in a different region of space) was greater than the risk of moving them. Unfortunately for him, he was dead wrong.

CCP warned that the PLEX can be lost or stolen when they implemented the changes that allowed them to be moved, and the player took the risk anyway. The whole game revolves around the idea of risk vs. reward. Unfortunately, this guy lost the bet.

Comment Re:Maybe (Score 3, Insightful) 192

I'd say it's the studios that have given up on the graphics card wars. More correctly, I believe they've all but given up on the PC entirely. There is a much larger market for consoles at this point, which is why the majority of new AAA titles for the PC are just ports of the X360 version with the same plasticy graphics, controls which don't feel quite right with keyboard + mouse, and Games For Windows slapped on for good measure.

Comment Re:Hypocrite (Score 1) 192

Well, they are remaking the same exact game since Knight of the Old Republic. Take a look at KOTOR, Jade Empire, Mass Effect. Always the same mechanics, always the same basic plot. While they are very good at it, they are not very "creative".

By utilizing the same engine and mechanics, they can invest the majority of their development time and budget on art, story, and content, which are not-so-coincidentally the places where Bioware excels.

Comment What nobody seems to understand (Score 4, Interesting) 479

I have an engineering background and while I have by no means conducted a scientific study, I can tell you with utmost certainty that the iPhone4 does hardly has a signal reception problem.

It has a signal TRANSMISSION problem.

I've done quite a lot of mucking around with speed test apps on the device and I have observed that while touching the left gap between antennas does cause a marginal decrease in download speed, the signal is by no means blocked. To me, it appears the device can still hear the signal from the tower pretty well even with a human hand to detune the antenna.

Upload speeds, on the other hand, are severely crippled or blocked altogether. It appears that touching the gap has an extremely negative impact on the device's ability to emit a signal strong enough for the tower to hear. This theory is supported by call tests I conducted in which the other party was unable to hear me whenever the gap was touched, even though I could hear their voice just fine.

Quite by accident, I also happened to set my phone down next to a set of computer speakers which were very sensitive to cell phone radio interference, resulting in the typical "GSM Buzz" which most of you of you have surely experienced. What I discovered was that a single fingertip over the gap would almost completely eliminate the speaker buzz due to the interference. Touching anywhere else on the device had no discernible effect. Once again, it would appear that touching the gap severely hinders outgoing transmissions from the device, even over extremely short distances.

As I said, these observations are about as un-scientific as it gets, so feel free to draw your own conclusions. But as far as I can tell, touching the gap is enough to stop your phone's outgoing signal from ever reaching the tower, and a tower which thinks your phone is no longer there isn't going to maintain your call for very long.

Comment Re:64-Bit (Score 2) 1213

We build 3D models of assemblies with several thousands of fully detailed parts, generate and detail production drawings based on these huge assemblies, and perform extensive FEA as well. I can't speak for others, but I can tell you for certain that in my case, computers will probably never be fast enough.

Comment Re:It didn't exactly sell ridiculously well... (Score 1) 203

I wonder how the feel is compared to an actual PC FPS. The console games certainly aren't set up for a mouse. I'd imagine there's a bit of techno-wizardry involved to translate the speed of the mouse movement into the corresponding right thumbstick position to feed to the PS3.

I wouldn't be surprised much if some of the nuance was lost in translation, not to mention that you'll potentially encounter a "max stick" speed where moving the mouse any faster will have no greater effect on screen.

Even if it's not perfect, I have no doubt it would improve your play enough to warrant some sort of ethical dilemma :D

As I am a 360 owner, I guess I'll never find out D:

Comment Re:It didn't exactly sell ridiculously well... (Score 1) 203

I've been looking for buddies to team up with online, but practically everyone I've spoken with has picked up a console version of the game. What struck me was how many of them actually preferred using their thumbs. Some of them didn't even know there was a PC version in the first place.

At any rate, I'm with you. I'd be fine with the consoles if they'd just let me plug in my keyboard and mouse.

Comment Re:Barely a start (Score 2, Insightful) 203

I've seen the videos of aimbots and the ability to see players' positions through walls.

As far as aimbots go, It's genuinely hard to tell if somebody is using one most of the time. Even my noob ass has pulled off some pretty unbelievable shots. If you're decent enough to get some of the better kill streaks, you can easily rack up a large amount of kills.

As far as wall hacks go, I HAVE had several experiences where opposing players have been practically supernatural.

In addition, I've had times where I'll plant 3 rounds square in the chest of an enemy without recording a single hit. It could be lag or extreme horrible luck, but my aim was spot on.

Even if IW manages to ban every hacker in existence, there will always be some very skilled players out there. It would be nice to know that some of the most severe beatings my team has received could be attributed to cheating, though.

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