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(for every denotation and connotation of "wrong" that I can recall offhand), and because nobody has^W^Wfew have yet commented on something which I find particularly outrageous, I am repeating the following comment which I made on the "Creative sucks" story:

From the manual to this product:

Xonar D2X is introducing an innovative technology ÂDirectSound 3D Game
Extensions v1.0 (DS3D GX 1.0)- to restore DirectSound 3D Hardware acceleration
mode and its subsidiary EAX effects on Windows Vista for 3D games. Unlike some
proprietary API like OpenAL, DS3D GX doesn't require games to support OpenAL
API. All existing games compatible with Microsoft DirectX and DirectSound 2D/3D
will be supported with DS3D GX technology. Before you start EAX and DS3D HW
games, please enable DS3D GX on the Xonar D2X audio center, and disable the
function after the games.

(Emphasis added.)

I think I just now died a little bit on the inside.

I mean, that's just wrong, on so many levels:

1. It is likely factually incorrect, in that the specification can be followed and implemented by anyone.
2. It implies the same meaning for "open" in "OpenAL" as for "Office Open XML" (i.e., doublespeak).
3. However, since Asus is talking about Creative, and I'm more inclined to trust Asus over Creative, and since Creative seems to possess proprietary, hardware-assisted OpenAL implementations for its cards under Windows, there's a kernel of truth in the statement, and "that's just wrong" (i.e., it's repugnant to the principles of "open").

In conclusion, Asus should not have made that statement but Creative needs to DIAF, for they are one tumor comprising the cancer that is killing gaming, etc.

Watching this gem from the past is really taking the sting off of being humiliated on national TV. Again. With the added bonus of horrendous injuries!

[sigh] Oh well, there's always next year...

(I might have become ill today, and if I did, then going to that game didn't help that any. And yet, even though "we just got our ass totally kicked", if I do wake up with a fever, I still won't regret having gone to the game. Also, looking back on the past, I think it can be safely said that we've come a long way, even if we have regressed in the past year.)

(No comments, 'cause all I really want right now is to vent.)

is that you can insult the intelligence of people who have a hell of a lot more experience in some subject area than you do and not realize it until you're about to send them a reply taking the insult to the next level. Whoops!

Edit: ...and then watch as an AC says what you wouldn't, and crudely at that. And gets modded up for it. "lol, Internet" indeed.

Let's hope the Clorazepate + Ativan + Benadryl mix will be strong enough that I don't flip out.

Result: minimal flip-out---had to be held down a bit---but best of all, no pass-out.

Heh, who doesn't love a good suicide by cop? Well, one such attempt happened right outside my house last night. Woo! (The guy miraculously missed my family's cars. I also slept through the whole affair.) (Of course, the day before, some guy around the corner had a gun pointed at him while he was taking out his garbage. Happy ending though: a fortuitious noise distracted the gentleman-thief ( HA! Good one! You really outdid yourself this time.), and the neighbor engaged in unfair play with a low blow from his foot.) (Oh, and some old lady also got mugged within a block two weeks ago.)

I know the negotiator quoted, having been his patient for a time (of his private practice, mind you, not as part of police business); he's a great guy. (I really ought to think about resuming therapy with him again at some time in the near future.)

Anyway, while the whole incident is tragic, you really have to laugh at many things in the story: Jim Arey's sarcasm (I'm pretty sure that his first comment is full of it); the fact that the man in question works for the paper publishing the story; the mowing-down of the plentiful advertising placed by contractors, roofers, painters, etc., as a symbolic yet misguided act of anger with the world.

I say you really have to laugh, but you only really need laugh when in the midst of it all, as it reminds you that things really aren't as bad as they seem. (Or so I see it---I who was away at school at the time---I whose home was not inundated, nor suffered significant wind damage or water leakage---I whose family is well-situated financially, especially considering the occupations: maritime attorney (think of all the rigs and pipelines destroyed, in the course of whose repair many men may become mangled) and interior decorator (think of all the homes ruined, many of whose owners desire a pleasing interior to offset the unpleasant reality awaiting them without)---I who as an individual as of yet contribute nothing to society but hot air (and, as this post is proving, quite a bit of it) and other, non-communicative waste products. Therefore, YMMV.)

Yes, this small story is pretty much a microcosm of the entire aftermath experience: to some degree, whether small or large, we have all become quite mad, a hazard onto ourselves. So let us all laugh as benign madmen, lest we become malignant madmen. Or something like that.

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