RyanCConnelly

Phaedrus' Street Crew
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Posts posted by RyanCConnelly

  1. Posted

    Haha the escape key is a cap made by Bro Caps!  This particular little guy is named Stump.  The other faces on the numpad are all by Hot Keys Project... I don't know if they draw inspiration from anything in particular, but in order from left to right they are named Trooper, Raven, Warmaster, and Gas Mask.  Those are all his names not mine!  I have developed a sort of affinity for keyboards and turns out there are a lot of people who make little pieces of art to decorate them with!

  2. Posted

    I finally picked this game up yesterday and it is indeed super fun.  I've been having some weird freezing/crashing though, did anyone have similar problems?  My rig isn't the newest, i5-2500k, GTX 460, etc, but I'm still way over the recommended requirements!  Or is it just that because I have an older rig I need to just turn off all the bells and whistles?  I unchecked every box and managed to play a couple rounds with no freezing, but I wanted to see if there was a better solution.  To be clear, I wasn't having any frame rate loss, no indications whatsoever of problems, but every other game or so the game would just freeze and eventually force close.  Seemed very odd!  Temps all normal, etc.

  3. Posted

    No, in that case I think they are.  If you had a Windows 7 or 8 key you could definitely upgrade to Windows 10 with it, and then do a wipe and reinstall of 10.  It seems that you are then issued a different product key, which you can find and write down and then you have a 10 key.  That's what it looks like from what I've been seeing.  Does that help, Gaizo?

  4. Posted

    That's the frustrating thing. I've already done that! I upgraded my copy of Windows 7 to Windows 10. Then Windows 10 had an unrecoverable crash, and I used my media to reinstall it. Now it's not activated, but I don't have a key. I am fine that the upgrade is the path to get the Win10 copy, but I'm already past that.

     

    I am asking (whining into the void), somewhat hypothetically, why the solution to getting an activated copy of Windows 10 is to REINSTALL WINDOWS 7 after I have already upgraded and the only way I could recover my tanked computer was to use my USB drive with Windows 10 and now it's working again. I mean, it was activated. I should have a key SOMEWHERE right?

     

    Outside of having a crash and having to format my hard drive, this is more or less what I've done except that my copy of Windows isn't activated. I am having the same issue that the first two respondents are having.

     

    I would be less REALLY, REALLY mad if the 7 people I talked to on the phone yesterday said "oh, the activation server is having an issue just give it 24 hours" which has apparently been a known issue for two weeks rather than 1) telling me to reinstall Windows 7, 2) Telling me to reinstall Windows 8 because they didn't listen, 3) pushing me over to purchasing to sell me a Windows 10 key. Also the tech supervisor hung up on me. Flat ended the call.

     

    Badfinger, I'm pretty sure that you can do exactly what you want!  It's something that I did with my wife's Windows 8 PC, and I'm pretty sure it works the same in 10.  I'm looking at the setting right now.  Go to Settings-Recovery, and the first option is "Reset this PC."  It's veiled terminology, but if you read the description, it says "This lets you choose to keep your files or remove them, and then reinstalls Windows".  This is essentially a wipe/reinstall tool, built into the OS.  I did it on a laptop that I received from a friend, and I can confirm that if you choose to delete all content and reinstall it is a brand new installation, albeit with the same install key, etc.  

     

    Edit: Wait... I misread, this might not be the thing you were looking for... sorry!

  10. Posted

    Help! I have realized that I have a problem. A problem with hard drives. I have two SSD drives that I'm fine with, and two sub-TB hard drives. I'm mostly fine for space except for a little juggling on the SSDs, but what if I could have SO MUCH SPACE and not have to worry about it?! It's been years and years since I've thought about platter hard drives, but I see how old and crotchety mine have become. Can someone point me towards where I can start my search to find a good, large (2+TB please don't laugh) reasonable speed platter hard drive? No special purpose beyond owning a computer and consolidating storage.

     

    http://www.tomshardware.com/ has great reviews and stuff!  I'm assuming you're going to pick up a spinning HD for storage, now that they're so inexpensive it's really hard to go wrong.  I have several Western Digital drives and I've never had a problem with them.  I was actually looking to pick up a new one soon to go with my new SSD purchase, probably one of their 1-2TB models.

  11. Posted

    Root are you using the Skype app, or the oldschool Skype program?  I went to use it today and realized that I have my old executable (I upgraded to 10 from 7), and also the ability to download the Windows integrated app.  I can't really decide if I want to try uninstalling the program and committing to the app, so figured I'd ask to see your impressions.

  12. Posted

    Can she turn the volume down while you are in a non Windows-app game? That would be useful. I lack a shortcut  to do that and the game will often close when I go back to the desktop to turn it down.

     

    Just tried this and couldn't get it to work.  I don't think Cortana will recognize the command, I tried several different words but it just kept searching the internet.  During game it had the added frustration of alt-tabbing to desktop, which you noted crashed your game.  I personally use a keyboard shortcut, you might be able to make one with AutoHotkey or something?

  13. Posted

    Cortana just seems like someone who claims that they are helpful, but really just Bings things for you.That's not helpful to me.

     

    I have been finding a couple of uses for her.  If you're not too creeped out about having a microphone listening, having the "Hey Cortana" prompt is nice for some things.  I called up my Teamspeak client and a video game while making my coffee in another room, and by the time I sit down everything's ready to go.  I'm assuming it can be applied to productive things, too ;)

  15. Posted

    Oh yeah, I'm also dying to know what got bleeped, what is so terrible that Chris talks about?!

     

    Agreed.  I don't even care if it's not important or someone I don't know, it just makes me NEED TO KNOW! 

    Also, I'm really happy that Chris kept both jingles from last week's episode, the Reader Mail jingle in particular reminds me of something by Stereolab and makes me smile.

     

    Splatoon talk really makes me want to pick up a Wii U.  I've been only playing games on PC and 3DS for more than two years now, and even though I have a 360 still for Netflix purposes, I find myself really liking some of the things that Nintendo is bringing to the table because they are so different from the other console options.  I've been playing a lot of Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate (3DS) over the past few months and they have been rolling out monthly free DLC as well, so I can relate to Danielle's story about coming back to the game every few weeks.  I'm still chugging through the content of the game at this point, but it's also really cool to hear about the new quests and such and be able to just instantly pick them up and try them out, with whatever new weapons/armor/equipment that comes along with it.  

     

    I've been really tempted to buy Rocket League this week, and the Thumbs' comments really make sense to me on why it feels so much more like a soccer game than a FIFA or something similar.  A lot of sports games don't really give you the correct feeling of throwing, kicking, catching, because you usually have very little variance in the outcomes.  You're playing as a professional, so you're not going to mess it up, or do each action with much variety.  They have to make it believable that you're playing in the World Cup, or the NBA or whichever.  In Rocket League whenever the ball comes to you, it doesn't just stick to your model so you can dribble the ball down the field.  It bounces into you and you bounce it back the way you want to go.  It's impossible to expect something like this out of a FIFA game, how crazy would it be if the ball just interacted with your character's two foot models as physics objects and you had to manage that as you went down the field?!  But that's exactly what makes this game feel so tactile.  It is also supposed to be a little crazy, since it's cars playing soccer after all, and so when the physics engine explodes and the ball goes ricocheting around it doesn't take you out of the game like it would in something that was purporting to be more realistic.

  17. Posted

    Ah, so there goes the idea of upgrading to an SSD and installing there. Hmm, I guess I could upgrade to an SSD, Install Win7, then immediately upgrade to Win10, then wipe the drive and install Win10 fresh. :(

     

    Edit: Windows privacy settings article reminds me of the other reason I don't want to upgrade. I want my desktop to be my desktop and my tablet to be my tablet. I don't want to sync settings between them because they have completely different use cases and completely different hard drive sizes.

     

    I just did almost this exact same thing!  Finally picked up an SSD, and was very excited to get it before 10 rolled out.  I was having problems doing a fresh install because I have a rather odd method of getting Windows (University discount that only offers Win7 upgrade disks alongside an ISO of an old XP build... makes it very difficult), so I ended up using the disk copying software that came with the SSD, then upgrading to Windows 10 from there.  I was expecting to need a fresh install over top of that using the control panel tools, but I'm actually very impressed with the performance increases so far and so I'm going to hold off on trying to move everything to another drive so I can wipe and reinstall.

  18. Posted

    My wife picked up some "Not Your Father's..." for me before I even knew what it was, and I agree Badfinger!  I'll have one but I feel like drinking more than that is asking for a hangover.

  19. Posted

    I got the update going yesterday, and have been fiddling with things last night and today.  I've got to say, I'm really enjoying it.  It really zips with the new SSD I recently installed... I hadn't seen as much of a change as I thought I would when I originally installed the drive, boot times were still a little long which I attributed to just needing to do a fresh install, so I was going to get 10 working and then do a refresh after.  However I don't think I even need it!  I can boot from powered off in well under ten seconds, boot from sleep in less than five!  At that point it seems silly to count because I spend more time typing a password than watching it power on.

    I haven't run into any problems yet, everything I use on a day to day basis program wise seems to be working great, even hardware monitoring stuff and any of the various games I've played.  I don't know whether those would have been problems or not though!

  21. Posted

    Am I correct in reading that they got rid of that caveat that you only get updates for two years and then you have to buy it?

     

    No, I think it's that you have a year to upgrade for free, and after that you will have to pay for the upgrade.  Unless there's some other thing that I was unaware of!  They're doing this to keep people from staying on 7/8 like the problems they had with people staying on XP.

  23. Posted

    I too I hope one day people can do away with that bullshit. A popular pub here in Austin did away with it years back. Couldn't find a copy of their sign but http://www.austinchronicle.com/best-of-austin/year:2011/poll:critics/category:services/black-star-co-op-pub-and-brewery-best-tipping-policy/ Basically they just pay the employees more.

     

    Also I really hate hearing server complaints about bad tipping to continue to guilt us all. Like okay, the chef was slow, the food was bad, whatever is out of your control, that's fine, but I am still supposed to tip you 15% because of you as a person for existing? The other thing that is silly is bad waiters who make minimum tips still make more than a lot of others working shitty wage slave jobs because they still get reimbursed up to the minimum wage, should they ever fall below. Plus when they have tips, they usually under report them all anyway, paying less taxes than others with a set W2 who have no choice.

     

    I completely agree.  Working at a restaurant is a team effort.  It is really hard when it could be any member of the team that slips up but it ultimately is the server's problem.  I saw an article about the restaurant you mentioned and I really hope it catches on!  Back of house workers make an hourly wage whether they make mistakes or not, because they're working hard, just like the servers.  

     

    The whole claiming tips thing is totally a problem, but there are many things changing to make that less possible.  Restaurants know that their servers are doing this stuff and that it is illegal, so they are all trying to take steps to stop it.  One of the places that I worked was very aggressive about getting all tips claimed, and, since it was a higher-priced restaurant, most people payed with cards and those are all automatically claimed.

  24. Posted

    Brkl, Oxford English uses IPA now?!  The last time I looked at one they were still using the weird "long vowel, short vowel" method, although I will say that was a long time ago.  Also all the texts I have been referencing are for pronunciation in music, since that's what my degree was in.  I sometimes notice that this creates a more "proper English" accent, like an old movie actor or something.

     

    This is something though that I also find interesting, maybe non-US thumbs could chime in here.  When I IPA something in German, for example, I was trained to do so in what is considered a "universal" accent, which I was taught is Hochdeutsch.  Similarly in Italian, Roman Italian is kind of seen as the standard, although I feel like Italian is a lot easier to standardize because all vowels are pure.  But is that recognized within these countries?  I guess a sort of nonregional English would be Midwestern English, since there is very little accent or affectation, but even as such there is also a more "proper" version like I said that could be used... It's just kind of interesting to me how dialects work out.  In Italian specifically some of the dialects are so different that they can be incomprehensible.

  25. Posted

    I just spent two months without a PC, with only my iPad and trusty 3ds to get me through... and Monster Hunter 4U was the best investment I could've made for the trip.  I am still finding new and awesome things to do in it!  I got into it a little late maybe, only having started in May, but I LOVE the style of game and the difficulty.