As was foretold, we've added advertisements to the forums! If you have questions, or if you encounter any bugs, please visit this thread: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/240191/forum-advertisement-faq-and-reports-thread/
Options

The Toledo War, A History Lesson by [chat]nus

194959799100

Posts

  • Options
    Rear Admiral ChocoRear Admiral Choco I wanna be an owl, Jerry! Owl York CityRegistered User regular
    so uhhhh

    when's that last recipe coming spool

  • Options
    simonwolfsimonwolf i can feel a difference today, a differenceRegistered User regular
    lPvzYgN.gif

  • Options
    spool32spool32 Contrary Library Registered User regular
    so uhhhh

    when's that last recipe coming spool

    I WILL DO IT!

  • Options
    bloodyroarxxbloodyroarxx Casa GrandeRegistered User regular
    simonwolf wrote: »
    lPvzYgN.gif

    its 1:11 am how about you GO outside you upside down nerd

  • Options
    ElkiElki get busy Moderator, ClubPA mod
    A new Steam client update, and one that introduced hardware encoding for AMD cards when streaming. I tried it, and it's not exactly perfect for me. It hiccups for about 1/2 a second every 10-20 seconds, which makes it unworkable for me.

    smCQ5WE.jpg
  • Options
    DelmainDelmain Registered User regular
    lvEWAwq.png

    Also, skippy is a massive dick

  • Options
    bloodyroarxxbloodyroarxx Casa GrandeRegistered User regular
    Elki wrote: »
    A new Steam client update, and one that introduced hardware encoding for AMD cards when streaming. I tried it, and it's not exactly perfect for me. It hiccups for about 1/2 a second every 10-20 seconds, which makes it unworkable for me.

    Like in home streaming or streaming to twitch?

  • Options
    OrganichuOrganichu poops peesRegistered User, Moderator mod
    don't go to spool's thread

    he bitched out on finishing it

  • Options
    shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    woooooooooooo just updated the minecraft server. And my hatred for Java continues unabated.
    The default settings for Minecraft allow the program to use only a small amount of memory no matter how much is available in the system. When using mods or an Amplified style map, and this server does both, it is very easy to hit out-of-memory errors even though there is plenty available on your computer. You can change these settings in your Minecraft profile.

    From the Minecraft launcher find the "Edit Profile" button near the lower left corner of the window. In the section "Java Settings (Advanced)" check the checkbox for "JVM Arguments". By changing the contents of the text box next to "JVM Arguments" you can change how much memory Minecraft is allowed to use.

    There are two important settings here: the total memory and the permgen memory. Increasing the total memory (as long as you actually have that much in your computer) will help with rendering the world and general performance. Permgen is a special region set aside for use by mods and by default is very tiny. This region being too small was the cause of the out-of-memory errors on my machine.

    My JVM Arguments string is "-Xmx2G -XX:MaxPermSize=1G -XX:+UseConcMarkSweepGC -XX:+CMSIncrementalMode -XX:-UseAdaptiveSizePolicy -Xmn128M"

    -Xmx2G this sets the maximum total memory to 2 gigabytes

    -XX:MaxPermSize=1G this sets the maximum permgen memory to 1 gigabyte

    Dear God that game is an abomination.

  • Options
    MrMisterMrMister Jesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered User regular
    edited September 2014
    Organichu wrote: »
    don't go to spool's thread

    YOU'RE NOT MY SUPERVISER

    MrMister on
  • Options
    simonwolfsimonwolf i can feel a difference today, a differenceRegistered User regular
    Does anyone have the Agricola iPad app

    is it worth a purchase

  • Options
    ThomamelasThomamelas Only one man can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me! Registered User regular
    I have checks. When was the last time I wrote one. 2011. Okay.

  • Options
    Donkey KongDonkey Kong Putting Nintendo out of business with AI nips Registered User regular
    simonwolf wrote: »
    lPvzYgN.gif

    mori.jpg

    Thousands of hot, local singles are waiting to play at bubbulon.com.
  • Options
    ElkiElki get busy Moderator, ClubPA mod
    Elki wrote: »
    A new Steam client update, and one that introduced hardware encoding for AMD cards when streaming. I tried it, and it's not exactly perfect for me. It hiccups for about 1/2 a second every 10-20 seconds, which makes it unworkable for me.

    Like in home streaming or streaming to twitch?

    In home streaming - over wifi. The router is downstairs and both machines I'm testing with are in my room. Maybe I'll plug the client directly into the router, and see if that improves performance.

    smCQ5WE.jpg
  • Options
    DelmainDelmain Registered User regular
    Elki wrote: »
    Elki wrote: »
    A new Steam client update, and one that introduced hardware encoding for AMD cards when streaming. I tried it, and it's not exactly perfect for me. It hiccups for about 1/2 a second every 10-20 seconds, which makes it unworkable for me.

    Like in home streaming or streaming to twitch?

    In home streaming - over wifi. The router is downstairs and both machines I'm testing with are in my room. Maybe I'll plug the client directly into the router, and see if that improves performance.

    Either one plugged into wifi would help. The wifi bandwidth is kind of a global cap. So sending a ton of data from the PC to the router and then the router to the client creates double the wifi bandwidth.

  • Options
    ThomamelasThomamelas Only one man can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me! Registered User regular
    @Jacobkosh‌

    The Robotech minis saga continues. When last we left Palladium, they had angered much of their fan base by holding a vote so rigged that most dictators were calling for election monitors about if it would be cool to sell the shipment of minis that came in at GenCon rather then send them to their backers. Only for the shipment to be flagged by Customs and not make it in time for GenCon at all.

    Now we learn that they can deliver to some backers but very few because the sets that arrived only cover a small percentage of the total backers. The containers for the rest of them are supposed to arrive soon. One was even supposed to be unpacked and shipped except the Port of LA caught on fire.

    Stay tuned next time to find out what natural disaster will hit the port of LA next. Will it be earthquakes? A tidal wave? The actual wraith of god?

  • Options
    _J__J_ Pedant Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    Organichu wrote: »
    don't go to spool's thread

    he bitched out on finishing it

    Spool has a thread?

  • Options
    ThomamelasThomamelas Only one man can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me! Registered User regular
    Each of the classes in Five Moons RPG is based on a “skeleton” of basic abilities, such as combat prowess, or type of armor and weapon use. In D&D/Pathfinder terms, this is like how cavaliers, fighters, and paladins all have full BAB, light/medium/heavy armor proficiency, and simple/martial weapon proficiency.

    Within each class, you can select from a long list of abilities. In D&D/PF terms, this is much like selecting feats and archetypes, except you’re able to pick and choose various class (and archetype) abilities to create your character around your specific concept. For example, if you’re building a melee-oriented martial character in heavy armor, you could choose something like a barbarian’s rage or a ranger’s favored class bonus.

    You actually can select abilities that aren’t directly relevant to your class skeleton (for example, a “fighter” could choose to learn a low-level spell, or a “wizard” could choose to learn how to rage), though your character’s use of an unusual ability might not be as efficient or as powerful as one that’s strongly associated with your class.

    You’ll also have the option to trade away some of your skeleton’s basic abilities to gain different abilities. In D&D/PF terms, this is like how the barbarian is a full-martial character that doesn’t have heavy armor proficiency, but has other abilities not available to other classes that start with heavy armor proficiency.

    @Jacobkosh‌

    This is from SKR's new RPG. Except it's a whole page about how his game is like 3.5/PF but not*.

    *But it totally is!

  • Options
    Donkey KongDonkey Kong Putting Nintendo out of business with AI nips Registered User regular
    Gap is running the weirdest ad campaign. The core message is basically: our clothes are super generic, individualism is shitty so you should wear them. The ads are directed by David Fincher and are kind of weird and uncomfortable too.

    Thousands of hot, local singles are waiting to play at bubbulon.com.
  • Options
    simonwolfsimonwolf i can feel a difference today, a differenceRegistered User regular
    individuality is the worst

    where do I sign up to join a hivemind like the tribals in Diamond Age

  • Options
    MrMisterMrMister Jesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered User regular
    This one's only 7.5k words

    I am pleased! I have historically had trouble with writing things that are Too Long, which is a serious problem when your entire shot at a professional life comes from getting journals to accept your stuff.

  • Options
    MrMisterMrMister Jesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered User regular
    Gap is running the weirdest ad campaign. The core message is basically: our clothes are super generic, individualism is shitty so you should wear them. The ads are directed by David Fincher and are kind of weird and uncomfortable too.

    Whoa, these are so weird

    I kind of like it? But I'm also uncomfortable.

  • Options
    MrMisterMrMister Jesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered User regular
    I mean in some way's it an honest and interesting antidote to the "EXPRESS YOUR UNIQUE INDIVIDUALITY (by buying our mass market product)" or "SHOW YOUR UNATTAINABLE COOL (by wearing our easily attained garments)" ads that clothing companies have leaned on for so long.

    But at the same time they're also pretty creepy.

  • Options
    MortiousMortious The Nightmare Begins Move to New ZealandRegistered User regular
    *sigh* my wife is making me put on my pants.

    The things I put up with.

    Move to New Zealand
    It’s not a very important country most of the time
    http://steamcommunity.com/id/mortious
  • Options
    ArchArch Neat-o, mosquito! Registered User regular
    MrMister wrote: »
    I mean in some way's it an honest and interesting antidote to the "EXPRESS YOUR UNIQUE INDIVIDUALITY (by buying our mass market product)" or "SHOW YOUR UNATTAINABLE COOL (by wearing our easily attained garments)" ads that clothing companies have leaned on for so long.

    But at the same time they're also pretty creepy.

    the one with the two people just like making out really gross like while she checks out her own ass was weird as fuck

  • Options
    ZephiranZephiran Registered User regular
    If I was in charge of marketing pants:
    These are pants.

    It is a social stigma not to wear pants.

    Also pants are handy for putting things in.

    Like a light snack or two.

    You should wear pants.

    Alright and in this next scene all the animals have AIDS.

    I got a little excited when I saw your ship.
  • Options
    OnTheLastCastleOnTheLastCastle let's keep it haimish for the peripatetic Registered User regular
    Arch wrote: »
    MrMister wrote: »
    I mean in some way's it an honest and interesting antidote to the "EXPRESS YOUR UNIQUE INDIVIDUALITY (by buying our mass market product)" or "SHOW YOUR UNATTAINABLE COOL (by wearing our easily attained garments)" ads that clothing companies have leaned on for so long.

    But at the same time they're also pretty creepy.

    the one with the two people just like making out really gross like while she checks out her own ass was weird as fuck

    remember that scene in american psycho when he flexes in the mirror while boning

    don't act like you don't do that

  • Options
    Donkey KongDonkey Kong Putting Nintendo out of business with AI nips Registered User regular
    I suppose I do applaud a safe mom and dad brand like gap for doing something that's genuinely weird and offputting. It didn't make me feel one way or another about their clothes but I definitely took notice and not in the usual "I hope this ad ends really soon because I dislike ads" way.

    Thousands of hot, local singles are waiting to play at bubbulon.com.
  • Options
    bloodyroarxxbloodyroarxx Casa GrandeRegistered User regular
    edited September 2014
    So week after next we are having "seminars" on
    This seminar provides the foundation for service-driven sales effectiveness. Participants will gain a working knowledge of proven service-based sales concepts and key strategies that will open doors of opportunity for their customers, themselves and the company.

    Considering we are a 1-2 star property with no amenities aside from a hot breakfast and free wifi and our "competitor" 2 blocks away is the exact same just more rooms. I have no idea what they can do to make me a better "sales person", I have nothing to bargain with.

    bloodyroarxx on
  • Options
    GimGim a tall glass of water Registered User regular
    Pretty sure that sparkle taunt was not made outside.

  • Options
    RonaldoTheGypsyRonaldoTheGypsy Yes, yes Registered User regular
    oooooooh

    lose several games because don't get any hooks

    start a game with ball and chain

    my team wins 44 kills to the enemy team's 4.

    WAHT A MISTEREE

  • Options
    Donkey KongDonkey Kong Putting Nintendo out of business with AI nips Registered User regular
    simonwolf wrote: »
    individuality is the worst

    where do I sign up to join a hivemind like the tribals in Diamond Age

    You're just after that weird tunnel orgy shit that goes on while their higher brain functions are busy.

    Thousands of hot, local singles are waiting to play at bubbulon.com.
  • Options
    HappylilElfHappylilElf Registered User regular
    Reading the Gotham thread makes me wonder if I am somehow broken for thinking "Eh, it was okish for a first episode I guess?"

  • Options
    simonwolfsimonwolf i can feel a difference today, a differenceRegistered User regular
    simonwolf wrote: »
    individuality is the worst

    where do I sign up to join a hivemind like the tribals in Diamond Age

    You're just after that weird tunnel orgy shit that goes on while their higher brain functions are busy.

    guilty as charged

  • Options
    shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    Gap is running the weirdest ad campaign. The core message is basically: our clothes are super generic, individualism is shitty so you should wear them. The ads are directed by David Fincher and are kind of weird and uncomfortable too.

    That's not really the message though. It's more "your clothes don't make you unique or special, don't pretend they do".

    Which is an interesting line of attack but one that makes sense for a clothing brand associated with rather generic clothing. Basically trying to turn that genericness into a strength by labelling the alternative as a bunch of try-hards.

  • Options
    EddyEddy Gengar the Bittersweet Registered User regular
    MrMister wrote: »
    I mean in some way's it an honest and interesting antidote to the "EXPRESS YOUR UNIQUE INDIVIDUALITY (by buying our mass market product)" or "SHOW YOUR UNATTAINABLE COOL (by wearing our easily attained garments)" ads that clothing companies have leaned on for so long.

    But at the same time they're also pretty creepy.
    Classic television commercials were all about the group. They took the vulnerability of Joe Briefcase, sitting there, watching, lonely, and capitalized on it by linking purchase of a given product with Joe B.’s inclusion in some attractive community. This is why those of us over twenty-one can remember all those interchangeable old commercials featuring groups of pretty people in some ecstatic context having just way more fun than anybody has a license to have, and all united as Happy Group by the conspicuous fact that they’re holding a certain bottle of pop or brand of snack - and the blatant appeal here is that the relevant product can help Joe Briefcase belong. “We’re the Pepsi Generation….”

    But since, at latest, the eighties, the individualist side of the great U.S. conversation has held sway in TV advertising. I’m not sure just why or how this happened. There are probably great connections to be traced - with Vietnam, youth cultures, Watergate and recession and the New Right’s rise - but the relevant datum is that a lot of the most effective TV commercials now make their appeal to the lone viewer in a terribly different way. Products are now most often pitched as helping the viewer “express himself,” assert his individuality, “stand out from the crowd.” The first instance I ever saw was a perfume vividly billed in the early eighties as reacting specially with each woman’s “unique body chemistry” and creating “her own individual scent,” the ad depicting a cattle line of languid models waiting cramped and expressionless to get their wrists squirted one at a time, each smelling her moist individual wrist with a kind of biochemical revelation, and then moving off in what a back-pan reveals to be different directions from the squirter (we can ignore the obvious sexual connotations, squirting and all that; some tactics are changeless). Or think of that recent series of over-dreary black-and-white Cherry 7-Up ads where the only characters who get to have color and stand out from their surroundings are the pink people who become pink at the exact moment they imbibe. Examples of stand-apart ads are ubiquitous nightly, now.

    Except for being sillier - products billed as distinguishing individuals from crowds sell to huge crowds of individuals - these ads aren’t really any more complicated or subtle than the old join-the-fulfilling-crowd ads that now seem so quaint. But the new stand-out ads’ relation to their chiaroscuro mass of lone viewers is both complex and ingenious. Today’s best ads are still about the group, but they now present the group as something fearsome, something that can swallow you up, erase you, keep you from “being noticed.” But noticed by whom? Crowds are still vitally important in the stand-apart ads’ thesis on identity, but now a given ad’s crowd, far from being more appealing, secure, and alive than the individual, functions as a mass of identical featureless eyes. The crowd is now, paradoxically, both the “herd” in contrast to which the viewer’s distinctive identity is to be defined, and the impassive witnesses whose sight alone can confer distinctive identity. The lone viewer’s isolation in front of his furniture is implicitly applauded - it’s better, realer, these solipsistic ads imply, to fly solo - and yet also implicated as threatening, confusing, since after all Joe Briefcase is not an idiot, sitting here, and knows himself as a viewer to be guilty of the two big sins the ads decry: being a passive watcher (of TV) and being part of a great herd (of TV-watchers and stand-apart-product-buyers). How odd.

    "and the morning stars I have seen
    and the gengars who are guiding me" -- W.S. Merwin
  • Options
    Solomaxwell6Solomaxwell6 Registered User regular
    I watched the first episode of Scorpion.

    A review of it was posted here the other night. In the first episode, the main character fixes a glitch in an airplane's computer system by having it fly eight feet above ground in an LA neighborhood, and he drove in a Ferrari at 200 mph while he hooked his laptop up to the plane's Ethernet.

    At the end, I was surprised to see that apparently the show is based on a true story. "Oh, there's probably just some smart gov't hacker type as a consultant and the character is inspired by him." Nope, the guy claims that the show is literally based off his life... and that the airplane Ethernet story is true. What bullshit!

    One accurate part about the show: Every other sentence out of his mouth really is "I have an IQ of 196."

  • Options
    EddyEddy Gengar the Bittersweet Registered User regular
    edited September 2014
    Miller's 1986 "Deride and Conquer," the best essay ever written on network advertising, details vividly an example of how TV's contemporary appeal to the lone viewer works. It concerns a 1985-86 ad that won Clios and still occasionally runs. It's that Pepsi commercial where a Pepsi sound van pulls up to a packed sweltering beach and the impish young guy in the van activates a lavish PA system and opens up a Pepsi and pours it into a cup up next to the microphone. And the dense glittered sound of much carbonation goes out over the beach's heat-wrinkled air, and heads turn vanward as if pulled with strings as his gulp and refreshed, spiranty sounds are broadcast; and the final shot reveals that the sound van is also a concession truck, and the whole beach's pretty population has collapsed to a clamoring mass around the truck, everybody hopping up and down and pleading to be served first, as the camera's view retreats to overhead and the slogan is flatly intoned: "Pepsi: the Choice of a New Generation." Really a stunning commercial. But need one point out, as Miller does at length, that the final slogan is here tongue-in-cheek? There's about as much "choice" at work in this commercial as there was in Pavlov's bell kennel. In fact the whole thirty-second spot is tongue-in-cheek, ironic, self-mocking. As Miller argues, it's not really choice that the commercial is "selling" Joe Briefcase on, "but the total negation. of choices. Indeed, the product itself is finally incidental to the pitch. The ad does not so much extol Pepsi per se as recommend it by implying that a lot of people have been fooled into buying it. In other words, the point of this successful bit of advertising is that Pepsi has been advertised successfully."

    There are important things to realize here. First, this ad is deeply informed by a fear of remote gizmos, ZAPping, and viewer disdain. An ad about ads, it uses self-reference to seem too hip to hate. It protects itself from the scorn today's viewing cognoscente feels for both the fast-talking hard-sell ads Dan Akroyd parodied into oblivion on Saturday Night Live and the quixotic associative ads that linked soda-drinking with romance, prettiness, and group inclusion - ads today's jaded viewer finds old-fashioned and "manipulative." In contrast to a blatant Buy This Thing, this Pepsi commercial pitches parody. The ad's utterly up-front about what TV ads are popularly despised for doing: using primal, flim-flam appeals to sell sugary crud to people whose identity is nothing but mass consumption. This ad manages simultaneously to make fun of itself, Pepsi, advertising, advertisers, and the great U.S. watching/consuming crowd. In fact the ad's uxorious in its flattery of only one person: the lone viewer, Joe B., who even with an average brain can't help but discern the ironic contradiction between the "choice" slogan (sound) and the Pavlovian orgy (sight). The commercial invites Joe to "see through" the manipulation the beach's horde is rabidly buying. The commercial invites complicity between its own witty irony and veteran-viewer Joe's cynical, nobody's-fool appreciation of that irony. It invites Joe into an in-joke the Audience is the butt of. It congratulates Joe Briefcase, in other words, on transcending the very crowd that defines him, here. This ad boosted Pepsi's market share through three sales quarters.

    Eddy on
    "and the morning stars I have seen
    and the gengars who are guiding me" -- W.S. Merwin
  • Options
    bloodyroarxxbloodyroarxx Casa GrandeRegistered User regular
    Damn fine deal here http://blog.playfire.com/2014/09/pre-purchase-any-selected-game-receive.html
    Pre-purchase any selected game
    Receive FOUR free games worth £28/€38/$43
    And 23% off ANY PC game on the store!

    Pre-purchase any of the selected upcoming games and you'll receive a pack of games worth £28/€38/$43* with every pre-purchase! You'll also receive a 23% voucher that can be used on absolutely any digital PC game on the Green Man Gaming store.

    All you have to do is pre-purchase any one of these amazing coming soon games and you'll receive your redemption code for your free games and your 23% PC digital voucher with your confirmation order.

    - Alien Isolation
    - Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel
    - Civilization: Beyond Earth
    - Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor
    - Assassin's Creed Unity
    - Far Cry 4
    - The Evil Within
    - NBA 2K15
    - Dragon Age™: Inquisition
    - FINAL FANTASY XIII
    - LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham
    - F1 2014

  • Options
    EddyEddy Gengar the Bittersweet Registered User regular
    These relate to the evolution of commercial elements mimicking the culture of the times

    and David Lynch is perhaps one of the better artists who understand the core weirdness and self-aware, helpless cognitive dissonance of our generation

    "and the morning stars I have seen
    and the gengars who are guiding me" -- W.S. Merwin
This discussion has been closed.