JonCole

Yeah, that's why I typed "Florida Man" instead of Florida man. Also the Twitter account.

No. You can use this, though - http://steamcommunity.com/id/trashbot

Of course he was a Florida Man.

I'm down. I have a long weekend and I get to leave work early today at 2:30 EST, so I have some prime time to play whenever anyone is available. Do we actually need a full party to be effective? I was total garbage alone, but I don't know how viable 2-3 would be either.

So, it seems the anger re: male-only IeSF tournaments has paid off to some extent - http://www.pcgamer.com/2014/07/03/iesf-removes-male-only-restriction-from-its-e-sports-tournaments/ So, for some reason there are still female-only categories but now all games are open to everyone: Open for All: Dota 2, Starcraft 2, Ultra Street Fighter 4, Hearthstone, Tekken Tag Tournament 2 Female Competition: Starcraft 2, Tekken Tag Tournament 2 I hope what this means is that for women who are in fact intimidated by testosterone-fueled men they have a safe space to compete among each other, but otherwise they're welcome to play together. What I fear this means is that having a female-only category means that there will be a cultural pressure to self-segregate and not participate in the real deal. I told my wife that Tekken was originally female-only, and as a fan of Tekken she was super pissed. That was easily one of the dumbest aspects of this whole thing, having different games exclusive to different genders. Re: Giant Bomb's Letter from the Editor, this was a nice step in the right direction but it really did nothing to actively the people who are continuing to be attacked. There are still plenty of comments on that post that say that Samantha Allen posted this as click-bait, was wrongly calling GB guys bigoted assholes, and otherwise misrepresenting her tone and message. By not addressing the issue itself, I still feel that GB is implicitly encouraging these people to feel like diversity is not particularly important to the website.

Hey, look what just got promoted from a feminist issue to a LGBT issue - As it turns out, when the SCROTUS makes a ruling that allows for religious exemption from laws by corporations, corporations will then ask for more religious exemptions to justify their bigotry and help maintain the bottom line. This week is the worst week.

Someone on Twitter was trying to convince me that segregation is good because women are too intimidated to go to coed competitions generally dominated by men and having it segregated gives them a safe space to get accustomed to competing. I guess some time after becoming accustomed he would deem it that women are prepared to enter the big intimidating world of manly, real competition.

My favorite thing in those comments is that a commenter used this article as evidence that all male tournaments are legitimate - http://esportsexpress.com/2014/02/all-female-lol-tournament-may-threaten-fabric-of-gaming-society/

Yeah, Dota's case is more of a cultural challenge, whereas this is an institutional challenge. I'd rather deal with the former than the latter, as institutional rules are completely arbitrary and in this case, can be super petty and draconian for no good reason.

I don't even think it's that. He's just saying that sports in the past have used gender discrimination because of physical limitations, and so sports without physical differences between men and women should just comply because that's they way it always has been.

what is the deal with this worm crawling out of an eyeball ad/billboard i keep seeing everywhere for some dumb tv show or movie it's so gross and every time i see it i want to die

The ISeF's prize pool in 2013 for all of the games and brackets under its umbrella was about $50k. The International 4's prize pool is over $10 million. The former is trying to be a "real sport", the other is not and from what I understand welcomes women players. If Valve can disrupt gender standards AND offer more money to players by having innovative means of fund raising and viewing, other sports/games should really try to meet their standard. From an outsider perspective, ISeF isn't worth my time or attention, nor do I envy any of the competitors that have to abide by their "real sports" ambitions to have a shot at that pitiful "prize". Note: I understand that Valve is very likely a crazy outlier. My supposition is that if they can do it at that scale, someone else can do it at a similar level of progressiveness and ambition but at a lower scale.

This is the worst - For me, "consistently annoyed" is a wild understatement.

I beat Watch Dogs! I hit a rut in the middle when I had captured all the towers, completed acts 1, 2 & 3 to hit a story lull, and completed all of my favorite side-activity (gang hideouts) where I stopped playing for nearly a week. But I did get back in the saddle and finished the storyline, which I actually ended up enjoying. It's certainly not one of the better written stories in games and it's told somewhat inconsistently in terms of tone, but I ended up liking where it left Aiden in terms of sequel potential. I thought I heard rumblings of people dissatisfied with the ending, but I felt it had just enough loose ends to get me back in for more in another game. I think Watch Dogs might have been better served by not being on such a wildly out of control hype train. While that E3 trailer got us all excited, Ubisoft shouldn't have set expectations so high. Though I guess ultimately it may not make a difference, as Assassin's Creed had a relatively poor first showing that got a lot of people's attention and went on to capitalize on that early, somewhat undeserved momentum. Given where both of these franchises are, what I really want is them to just intersect at some point with some weird AC flashback/assassinate dudes + Watch Dogs modern day hacking/traversing game.

This is actually a good point. Maddy, who I linked earlier and also applied for the GB West job, is based out of Boston. Maybe a great outcome to this is they end up hiring her in the end.

Your CPU should not be outdated.

I'm so happy

Yeah, I should be game around that time again. Eager to see if I'll be more useful with the skills/stuff I invested in.

I think there's a free, "Basic" version of 3DMark. You might have to get it from their website. Might also want to browse some forums like Tom's Hardware if you want more info on that kind of thing.

I recently found out that you can sort your library by game size, so I've also been using that view often when figuring out what to play next because my HDD is 20GB shy of full.

I have my ways. Google+.

Yeah, that's basically what I do. I have favorites for stuff I'm either currently playing or plan on playing soon. I have "Cards Enabled" for games I should prioritize at a second tier below favorites because once I get all the cards I'm eligible for free booster packs (just got one today!). I have a "Completed" for games I've beaten and will likely never play again. That's it.

Isometric, which was mentioned earlier, has a normal cast of 3 women and 1 man and the dude doesn't really talk all that much. That said, I wasn't super fond of it but I also listen to like 20 podcasts and I don't have time for anything I don't like a lot right off the bat. Might give it another go at some point.

Maddy Myers said on Twitter that Cara Ellison applied at GB. It's not a first hand account, but Maddy knows Cara well enough that I trust she's not BSing around saying that. Cara's no Dan Ryckert in terms of experience, but she's no greenhorn either and her reputation is super solid. Her chemistry with the GB crew on the E3 podcast was really good, from the perspective of this listener. So, if one of the most visible female freelancer rising stars was not accepted, who else applied who had similar if not better experience but may be less well known and got denied a hiring?

Dumb obvious suggestions - virus scan, malware scan, driver update, run some benchmarks that test each component to see if maybe they're underperforming due to mechanical issues, etc.