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Comment The solution. (Score 1) 926

Stop overeating, learn to drop the fork. I used to weigh nearly 300lbs. I currently weigh 170 at 5'11". Glandular problems resulting in the levels of obesity that we're seeing is exceedingly rare. It is a factor, but not a statistically significant one. The most crucial factor in obesity is overeating, and a complete lack of self control, period. If you're not physically active, realistically, you only need about 15-1700 calories per day, average. If you happen to engage in a lot of physically demanding sports, 20-2500, tops. As for animal obesity, corporate farms cage their animals, or coop them in environments where regular physical activity is severely hampered, pump them full of hormones, and overfeed them with cheap, quasinutritional filler food. Realistically, if you want to lose weight, east less grains, more fruits and vegetables, and avoid darker meats if possible. Sugary drinks aren't actually that bad, as sugar is never stored in the fat cells, and instead transcribed into the bloodstream (glucose reabsorption/reuptake).

Comment Placing my bets. (Score 1) 343

Getting rid of the DRM was a good move on MS's part. Period. Consumers generally do not want DRM. The mindset is that once you've purchased something in-market, it's yours. End of discussion. The debacle was a learning experience, and if they aren't willing to listen to their customers, then the shareholders will stop listening with their wallets. It's amazing how money works, isn't it?

With MS pulling plugs on financially unviable products, like WindowsXP, they realize that there will always be diehard fans of a particular operating system or product. At this point in time, anyone with a torrent client and a burner can get a fully cracked copy of XP, no serials needed, bloatware stripped from the OS, hacked to shreds to maximize system performance and reduce system overhead. Microsoft doesn't even sell XP anymore. I still use XP, but I also have linux installed. If XP somehow shits itself, I can manually fix it through linux with a hex editor. Yeah, I'm that moron. The only reason I haven't switched to 7/8 is because neither of them have given me a really compelling reason to switch.

What's going to happen most likely, is that each division will be renamed in reflection of a particular market niche, and each new division will focus solely on the hardware of that product. With many of its services is the cloud, Windows 8+ will become the new unified environment for each platform. It won't matter which platform you use, you can still access all of your data from each different device.
User Journal

Journal Journal: TTLivescan Update/Explanation

Going to make this post in several different places, so here goes.

In addition to a massive database update (~200MB of new whitelist/blacklist definitions), I've decided to make TTLivescan+ donationware, which is basically the full version of TT Livescan with a few extras thrown in. There are several reasons for doing this.

Submission + - Corporate Death Penalty (truthdig.com) 1

idbeholda writes: Alan Grayson passes a "Corporate Accountability" amendment into a federal spending bill that holds individuals accountable for the actions of the corporations they run. Further, Grayson vows to attach “this corporate death penalty amendment to every bill [he] can.”

Comment TI-85/86 (Score 1) 623

The TI-85/86 was the first environment that I actually started programming with. I spent countless hours making games of all types, and different utilities. Quickly, I figured out how to corrupt the memory in TI-85 (rom version 8.0, specifically), and could do interesting things such as edit lock programs without external patching of any kind, and create string variables that contained entire memory dumps. Because of how little TI-85/86 had to offer in terms of a fully robust environment, I grew a deep appreciation for efficient, effective coding.

At one point, I had 3 of these calculators, each with their own collection of games and/or utilities. When I realized that I didn't want to buy a 4th calculator, I decided to try something new. Since there wasn't any built-in compression with the 85/86 environment, I decided to build an interpreted scripting language from the ground up, with a focus on eliminating code bloat, and as much readable syntax as possible, with only 30% reduction in execution speed (only a few of the games were real-time oriented), with conversion/"compression" ratios averaging around 65-70%. The upside to having that many compressed games (and the interpreter) meant that I could create more games, and also have a reduced transfer time. I also added in cheat codes and easter eggs to all of my games as well.

Good times. Good times.

Comment Amusing. (Score 0) 248

I've been using a similar practice for a few years when implementing the API database for TT Livescan.

http://tot-ltd.org/API/
http://tot-ltd.org/API/main.db

Use prime numbers 2 or higher to map API calls to a "number" specific family (add the collective values of the API calls from main.db, then convert the value to hexadecimal), based on the API functions (Windows 3.11 to Windows 7). The rate at which it can catch malware based on API calls alone is grotesquely efficient.

Comment Re:Here's my take on it. (Score 1) 523

Well, last time I quit, the server that I proudly called my empire (Elune) died shortly thereafter. I controlled nearly every aspect of that marketplace. Especially the bag market, where netherweave and frostweave bags were rarely ever priced above 5g and 60g each, respectively. On average, I pulled in about 3-6k in gold per day, with steady suppliers for material, which about half was spent on purchasing said mats, along with me farming the mats as well to further bring down overhead costs. With the new expansion, that's basically chump change that can be farmed in a matter of hours. The only reason I don't make more than that is because I don't play 5-6 hours per day like I did. I get on about once every other day for about 1-2 hours, then go find something else to do. When I do decide to stop playing WoW, the only thing I'll have lost this time around is about 5-8 hours a week, if that.

I believe the bigger issue to be concerned with isn't whether or not I quit (Blizzard isn't making any money off of me, so I don't really care), but why 1.3 million subscribers quit in this quarter alone, bringing the total number of subscribers down to 8 million. By blizzard's own estimate, the record number of subscribers for WoW was roughly 12 million subscribers, which was in 2009. That's a pretty big dip in numbers, even for a 4 year decline. Clearly, Blizzard is doing *something* wrong.

Comment Re:Here's my take on it. (Score 1) 523

This is the very reason I control the marketplace of the entire server. It's the only thing left. The only thing I can get from it is that you really should stop playing. It'd be a boon to both yourself and the people who still like the game

Well played, sir. Well played indeed. The marketplace itself is the only thing Blizzard hasn't either completely destroyed or transformed into an abomination of fail. Beyond that, I highly suggest you go take some remedial English classes, bucko. If for some reason you think my rant is irrelevant, keep in mind that 1.3 million subscribers put their hands up in frustration with WoW and basically said, "I'm done wasting money and time in this shitty excuse of a game." As I said, the *only* reason I *haven't* quit is because I don't have to pay for it. It can be fun, but I'm not wasting $15/month on it. I did that for about 2 years, and stopped right before Cata came out. 1.3 million subscribers. That's roughly 14% of the original userbase. It's only been going down for almost 2 years. Think about it.

Comment Re:Here's my take on it. (Score 1) 523

The mechanics were solid (if easily exploitable, at best), the gameplay was reasonably thought out (to an extent), and the environment was pretty engaging (and at least 5% of the population weren't complete morons). When I saw the preview for Cataclysm, with its "challenge" of a +5 level cap, new "features" (YOU CAN NOW FLY IN AZEROTH!), "professions" (let's dig around in the dirt for hours on end!), I stopped playing.

Instead of actually being able to build a hybrid character, you could only choose to implement one spec at a time. "Talent Tree?" More like, how would you like your eggs, with a side of undulating pustules, or with an ice pick and a cyanide capsule?


OK, so it's a rake, and it's made of game-dev poo. That tells me exactly fuck-all about why you think it sucks.

I think you're pulling my leg, here. Nobody can lack that much reading comprehension. I didn't even *hide* my reasoning for why MoP is an even worse idea than cataclysm. If you play the game at all, my explanation makes perfect sense. I play an affliction warlock that pulls a sustained 80-120K dps with an average item level of 474. That's not even close to being top tier gear, buddy: I'm pretty sure I'm qualified to make an assessment of the game whether anyone else agrees with my analysis or not.

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