PodCast of the Month: The Pink House Tapes

The Pink House Tapes

Deep Learning Neural Net AI Summons the Ghost of Ric Flair

https://aidungeonstories.blogspot.com/

Yeah so what I made this blog too. I'm bored.

Love text adventure games. Huge fan. Ever since Zork and Dragon Riders of Pern on C64 I have been a huge fan. Still dabble in some BBS Door games once in a while still. This game really got my interest. Check out the link where I steer the AI to strange places and see what will happen.

Why the Apple $1000 Monitor Stand is fine by me

     Over-engineered aluminum stand: $1000. Let's not forget the optional $200 VESA mount of you want to connect to something else.. you do have a choice, let's not forget about that.

     It's connected to a $6000 monitor. Yes you heard that right; Apple's professional monitor offering cost's more than a used car. It's 6k(ish), HDR compatible, and some of the most accurate colors and blacks you will see in a monitor.. but $6000.

     The customer for both of the products above is not the same customer that buys a mid range to low end Macbook pro. This customer is not going to buy the new Mac Pro cheese grater without the dual video card option and 128 GB of ram, they are going all the way, because they have the money to spend, and why the the fuck not. This is not marketed towards college kids trying to make music or basic graphic design.. no way. Is Apple going to piss off some people with a $1000 mount? Sure. But they were never trying to be attractive to that particular consumer anyways. 

Video Card Upgrade Progression - When to upgrade

     When is it time to upgrade? What exactly do you need, how much to spend, how much ram... the list goes on. I was reading a post on r/nvidia subreddit, and I saw a small trend: people posting pictures of their video card purchases through progression. A few posts it seemed like 5 or more years went by, but the majority, only 1 or 2 years max. One picture in question:

   Two cards from the same release generation, and another card, the RTX 2080TI being the new hotness. Back to the original question.. when is it time to upgrade? I put together a small list of questions I ask myself around what I think would be upgrade time.

1) Do you play games? 
2) Can you not play the game you want to play in the resolution and/or frame rate that you would like?
3) Can your monitor support various functions of an upgraded video card?
4) Can your current hardware handle a new video card without bottleneck issues?
5) How much money would you like to spend?

     At right about question 4, I think you would tell yourself you are due for an upgrade. Do you play games? Not that playing games is required for needing a video card, you could use enhanced graphical capabilities for a number of work related reasons, alas, the majority of people buying these cards are using them for gaming. Sometimes you buy a game, a good recent game that needs a little more horsepower. Your current card seems to groan under the pressure and frame rate suffers, rendering it all buy unplayable. The quick and easy solution is to buy a new video card. Questions 3 & 4 seem to be very related, so lets keep them in the same bucket. If your existing hardware is not compatible, upgrading is off the table. An old crusty CPU that is 5+ years old may hold you back in the gaming department, and using that same 1080-60hz monitor may not be the best choice to take advantage of your new buttery smooth frames.

     My suggestion? Buy something a little better than you need that has solid cooling and reviews. My video cards typically outlast my computer setup in most cases. There is no reason why a computer/video card can't last 5+ years in today's market playing triple-A titles how they were meant to be played. In the market for $500, trust me, just save a little bit more and get the next step up. You may not see the difference right away, but you just saved yourself an upgrade down the line.

Elder Scrolls Online Disk Space Issues

     I'm downloading this game, after not having played it since closed beta. My wife saw an advertisement for the new expansion and wanted to try it. While waiting for it to download, I googled random things about the install process as I typically do when downloading something new. 85 GB needed for new install? Not too bad for a modern game, on par with what I have seen. Clicking links and reading on the forums, people complained of it needing, much, much more. So I cancelled the download, and monitored it closely this time around. Note: I have ultra fast fiber optic internet so the download is quick, so it was not too big of a deal. What did I find out?

- ESO says it requires 85 for install.

- The above fact is final install after cleanup and patches. I found this to be accurate within 10 gigs. Not bad.

- The core game is 58.5 GB, the main patch is 56.8 GB, and the final patch was right around 16 GB. That's 131 GB. 

-When the last patch is applied, a clean up process happens in the background, leaving the install back at a modest 87GB.

- If you have a 120GB solid state drive that you have and you want to install this game on it, well, don't. You wont have the space for the game to work with. Install it on the main drive and copy the Zenimax folder over when its done and you should have no issues. 

Hope this helps. 

Demon of Steel (1987) (Anime)

Hey! Let's watch strange anime together on youtube for free. I'm currently watching this, and so should you. So far I dig it.

Press F to pay respects [Game of Thrones]

Well this explains a lot. [Apex Legends]

When you get shot once by something trivial and it feels like there is multiple bullets shooting you?
When you duck around cover or close a door, and then you get shot afterwards?
When damage seems to accumulate when you got shot a few seconds ago?
Feel like your running through quicksand?

     Anyways, see above for the average network lag, Apex being the worst in class, no surprise there. Their forums range from, "I can't seem to shoot anyone", to "Why do I die with purple armor on by one pistol shot.", and other magical comments. Sorry, I'm going to pour gas on this unoptimized piece of garbage. I'm glad its losing popularity.

Cable Management

Inside your computer? You should give a shit.



Outside your computer? Who gives a fuck. 

Apex Legends... I don't like it.

Above is a logo I found on Google images

Reasons why I think Apex Legends is crap:

1) I'm just not a fan of the style of game.
Don't get me wrong, 10 years ago I most likely would get super in to a game like this. I tried Fortnite and PugG. I could  not get in to it at all. Something about not knowing if the guy is on your team or your friend? No clear path to winning. Very seldom winning or killing at all, just being dead and playing over and over until you win the frag lottery and possibly kill a few people and very rarely, win a game. Not my cup of tea,

2) Entry Level difficulty is too hard.
I started Fortnite as a 20 year vet of first person shooters at a competitive level, and i was getting my ass handed to me for weeks. This game is no different. You drop in, search around for some guns, and someone clicks on that one single black pixel from 50 miles away and its game over. 9 out of 10 games you die before you fire a shot, and you have no idea how they pulled it off... until you do it yourself. The last game I played, I dropped in, found a pistol, thought i may have seen someone an impossible distance away and emptied the clip in his direction. Kill. My 4th kill actually in 20 levels. In what game do you get to level 20 and killing your 4th person MILES away is some kind of achievement?

3) I saw someone that was level 89, had zero kills.
What the actual fuck you Origin scumbags. You made someone play 89 levels of this game, baiting them along with loot boxes and some cosmetic upgrade, and they have never even killed someone? What is the point of this game? grab guns and loot and die; over and over and you better get used to it.

4) Winning a game is over 250 to 1 against you.
Why play a game you can't even have a chance to win unless you just put hundreds of hours in?

5) Good players with money get discouraged. 
I consider myself a better than average gamer, especially first person shooter games. I play competitive Overwatch and CODBO4 quite often, and hardly miss a AAA game ever. I spend lots of money on gaming, both in the actual software, and hardware to play. Software developers design games hoping I will like them, as I have disposable income and a penchant to spend it on stupid games. Well Apex Legends, I wont be following my impulses and spend money on your game for the above reason, I'm discouraged. I can't win. I can hardly ever get a kill. I can't do anything I want to do, unless I play 24 hours straight and all the stars align. I can't get a good team because the match making system had a few gears missing. I've uninstalled your garbage cash-grab of a game and I will not be playing it ever again.

6) You have to pay money to access other characters.
I would willingly pay for a game that puts everyone on the same level playing field. This game is not one of them. Yes its pay to play, no it's really not that bad.. but it is. Any game that gives an advantage to paying customer is a shit game, period. No, I don't care to argue this point, its how I feel and that's it.

Reasons why Apex Legends is not crap:

1) It's free.
2) Graphics are not horrible, can play on potato systems as well.
3) It's popular?


I'm sure you're asking yourself, well if you don't like this game, you like other games. Which games are those? Why do you like or dislike them?

Overwatch.
The good: Games are quick, you can re-spawn without restarting the game, its forgiving with mistakes, changing characters is encouraged, games are quick and rewarding. The bad: Matchmaking can be horrible, when new characters are introduced you can love to hate them, competitive sticks you with certain characters and the pressure to play them.

Call of Duty Black Ops 4.
The good: Quick rewarding games, entertaining graphics and death animations, quick re-spawn, easy on new players, even newbs will get their first kill in their first game and not after 89 levels of playing. The bad: There is some pay to play to unlock other characters. I've paid for the game, now time to pay some more? No thanks. I think this game is amazing, play it all the time, but that bothers me quite a bit.

Anthem.
The good: Have you seen this game? It's magic to the eyes, and in your pants. Controls are legit as fuck, gun play is amazing for an MMO. The Bad: Repetitive. Not enough to do. Not a super balanced game, but is fun and replayable. Say what you will, but this game has REAL potential. Some updates could fix it.

Destiny 2.
The good: First person shooter MMO done right. You can survive, you can kill with the big boys right out of the gate. Lots to do for the first 40 levels or so. Visuals are top notch for a game a few years old. The bad: It's on easy mode. You can be horrible at any game and manage to putz around and kill things, complete missions and advance the narrative. Playing raid content costs money, which for this kind of game is not that much and may be worth it. has repetition issues, but I like this game very much even though I don't play it as often.

TLDR; Apex Legends can kiss my ass, it's not rewarding and too hard, and other games are much better. 

Top 5 Shitty Sword & Sandal Movies (Full Movies!)

Blockbuster's Last Store Closes: Thoughts

     The last movie to be rented, in the last Blockbuster franchise open, was "This is the End". Fitting isn't it.

     I think they had a pretty good run. Let's take a quick trip down memory lane, explore the awesome things I remember about our popular rental store in a pros and cons(?) mash-up.

     God, where to start. I grew up in a small town in the middle of nowhere Vermont, that had no Blockbuster franchise available. Not that I could not watch the commercials on Sci-fi, and dream about the ultimate selection of games and movies available for just a few measly dollars. I shortly thereafter moved to Florida.

     It was a production really. My father would announce we are going out to eat or get ice cream at Ben & Jerry's down the street, and hit the Blockbuster and pick up some movies after dinner. He never really cared about how many movies or games, or combination of both that I picked up, and he even let me grab some candy and soda to take with me. To complete a really good night you had to finish up at Blockbuster.

     When we got home it would be a movie night. My parents would sit in front of the big TV in the living room, while I would go and park in front of the smaller one in my bedroom and watch the crappy movies I just rented. I was never interested in mainstream movies, so I always rented the worst B movies- sandals and sorcerer flicks I could get my hands on. Real crap.

     Deathstalker was the best kind of shit there was to watch. There was at least four of them I can remember without doing research. There was nudity. Sometimes the main character was the same, sometimes not. More nudity, and extreme violence. My parents would ask me what I rented, and I would always tell them something like, "The Secret Garden", or "Drop Dead Fred". Old movies at the Blockbuster by my house were $1.00 for three days. Three days! What a deal.

     Other local rental places were popular in pockets around town. One particular rental establishment was called Prime Time Video, and honestly, was much better than your average Blockbuster rental store. Unfortunately, I can't find any pictures or video of Prime Time Video, as it closed several years ago. They had a Game Trader section where you can sell your old games and get a new one for a decent price. Popcorn was free, and they had arcade machines and vending machine all over the place. Movies played on TVs around the store and you could test any video game you want to buy on one of their provided consoles in the game area. They were the only place I ever went to that had rare, obscure and PC games for sale and for rent in the same place. Prime Time Video: A relic of the past that will be missed.

     I will conclude this drunken rant with the following: Don't forget the rental places that first introduced you to certain movies and video games. Before Netflix and Google existed, you had to read the back of the box to make a choice of what you wanted to watch. God help me I can remember the carpet at Camelot Video in Cape Coral had special carpet that glowed under blacklight, and had movie-film-popcorn pattern to it.

Fignobbins. (Krull 1983)

     In the movie Krull, There is a part of the movie when the main characters are having some friendly banter. 

Ergo: If I had my wish I'd be out of this gloomy place right away. If I really had my wish I'd be sitting on top of a gooseberry pie as big as a mountain. No, that's a bit greedy. I'll settle for one as big as a house.

Titch: I'd wish for a puppy.

Ergo: Only one puppy? If you're wishing why not wish for a hundred?

Titch: Only want one.

Ergo: Well that's a foolish wish. And you Rell, what would you wish for?

Rell the Cyclops: Fignobbins.

Proof: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCoQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DH2RImwWyQg4&ei=8QsiUvuCEMqxsQSCn4GgBw&usg=AFQjCNFEPB77uC0xSxE5DU0TUvtei07s_Q&sig2=n0PwnxmdtTKKS8T3HnZb0w

I submitted a correction to IMDB to fix the quote.

My brother and I watched this movie as a child and I'm 100% sure that's what he says. He and I have talked about this at length.

Someone posted it on Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/1lgpsl/in_the_movie_krull_when_asked_what_he_wants_more/

The other blog, First Edition Fantasy

     I have been cheating on this blog with another blog. I'll admit it. I really just go book hunting and try to find rare and expensive first edition books from days past. If you are in to that kind of shit, click here or the banner above.

     Dustin will be coming back on a short term lease to update this blog from time to time so it may change. We will see...

The comuter virus enigma.

       Some people take this topic very seriously. It can take several hours out of your work day and in rare occurances, force your hand to buy another computer. From the I.T. professionals stand point.. what should you do?

    Reinstall windows. you won't lose any of your important files. If you feel that you might, invest in a cheapo external hard drive or larger thumb drive. Even in the worst situations you can get to safe mode and get the files you need off. Seriously thats it. What if you don't want to reinstall windows? Then you're a pussy. But there is a way.

     Having been very bored in middleschool, my friends and I would give each other hard to find Macinosh virus programs. The nastier the better. It was part of a game to remove them, pass them on. When we moved to windows based computers, nothing changed.. with the exception of the odd virus you're friends did not give you. This was before a really good working Norton, or Kaspersky. This was way before the days of ALG free virus scanner. None of these work 100%, and the only thing that does is a manual removal, or a clean reinstall.

     I'm going to give you the best advice ever. Back up your files. Buy an up-to-date copy of windows. Keep an extra external sata hardrive for your laptop or PC around. It's a $40 investment, that can minimize your downtime to an hour or less. Take your replacement drive, hook it up, install windows to it, then put your old one back in. When that one dies or takes a dump, pop in your preinstalled windows hardrive and never miss a beat. When you get around to it, wipe the old one and use it as your new back up. Or toss it. Personally, i pick a day on the weekend and just wipe it. Gone are the days of spending multiple hundreds of dollars on hardware. Use this to your advantage, buy cheap, keep backups. Hell, i have multipule computers laying around just in case.

Cell Phone Woes: Battery Life Comparisons

 

     The EVO was just.. buggy.

 

     I was pretty much forced to get a new phone. I was given an EVO 4G LTE from work, which was maintained and serviced by their IT department. They gave me a new battery when i complained, and an Otterbox case when i was worried i would break it. The phone was the best phone I ever had, was quick, and did all the things i needed for work and play. The screen was huge and bright with non of the samsung bluish tint I've been noticing.

 

     As the months wore on, it would occasionally fail me. When browsing the Internet, the phone would turn off. Sometimes when plugging the phone in (weekly) it would only charge half way for some reason, and only on the days i would really need it. I got in the habit of carrying a charger and power inverter in my car, a spare charger at work, and one at my friend's house. No I'm not kidding, but yes I'm a little neurotic about the phone turning off. It would freeze when viewing YouTube videos. The 4G antenna would work when it felt like it, and when it did it was not really much faster than the 3G version. Wireless connections are great, but slow to obtain. I started to loathe other people at work who had the new Galaxy SIII, even though my phone was less than six months old.

 

     I talked to my wife about how much I was letting this phone rule my life, when my old phone was much shittier but almost never failed me when i needed it. Battery life was excellent in the older phones I've had, what's the deal here? Even with an extended battery, i would not make it to the end of a nine hour workday. Why? She researched phones for me, and I did likewise.. and we both agreed on the IPhone. The 4S was only a $49.99 upgrade with my sprint account and discounts through work. Reading up on the IPhone, i saw other people complaining about battery life issues. As a matter of fact, every phone I read about, no a one did not have some kind of issue. I bit the bullet and my wife ordered the IPhone the next day.

 

Getting the Iphone and Battery comparison

 

     So the IPhone comes in the mail within two days in a nice little white box.. all simplistic and as the picture showed. The phone was at 0% battery when i got it, so i left it plugged in for the rest of the day and activated it before i went to bed. Activation took three tries and about a half hour over the phone. I kissed my EVO goodbye and started playing around the IPhone the very next morning. I left the hours early in the morning with 100% battery life. I left all push notifications on, email alerts and location services. I had the IT department at work get exchange sync going so I could get company emails, and I was on my way. I used the phone heavily the first two hours. Answering calls on my Blue tooth in my car, and checking facebook and emails. I never looked at the battery. The next few hours i took a few calls and even took a few pictures. When I got home after a nine hour shift i was still at 65% battery life. I was shocked, i mean really surprised..

 

     With the same usage on the Evo with an extended battery, I would be in last 5% of the battery when i walked in the front door to my house. Not paying attention to it, i would normally not even plug it in till hours later, missing tons of calls. Already I'm seeing a huge difference. I decided not to charge the IPhone that night and see how long it would last the next day. Reading a few articles on the way the batteries work, i suppose it's better to run them down to nothing, then charge them to full. The next day, i used the phone the same way, and when i walked in the door I had a paltry 9% left. That's two days, medium usage all settings turned on, without the phone going dead. This is a first for me since I've had my shitty Nokia in college that did nothing but make calls. That thing would go a week without a charge. I decided I wanted to see how long i could go without charging the phone as an experiment.

 

 

     So read about 200 amazon reviews that night while i let the phone charge. I needed something powerful that was not going to get in the way of the phones ports, look good, protect the phone and also have the 1900 mAh battery power that i read so often as being the best. Cases are plentiful, let me tell you. I saw Juice box cases for over $150 that promised up to 200% life. I wanted that, but not at the price. After watching a really sharp review on YouTube about the Max Power case, i decided to try it. After it, it looked good (as above) and was pretty cheap. I only paid $29.99, because it was on clearance and shipping was free because I'm an amazon prime member.

 

     Ill start off by saying this case is really fucking sharp. Same piano white finished color as the iPhone. Changes the charging port to micro USB so it will work with all those chargers you have laying around. not to mention I'm on my third day without a charge with medium usage. You press a small almost invisible button on the back and four blue leds show through the case telling you how much battery you have left. When you press and hold the button, the phone behaves as if it is plugged in. charging it very rapidly. From 3% i was able to charge the phone to 100% in 15 minutes. The back of the phone heated up pretty good, but otherwise no problems. So I'm on my third day and I have enough juice left to charge it up one more good time before i have to wall charge it. Crazy.

 

     As far as the phone it's self, it has never crashed, the 3G Internet is faster than the EVO 4G with the antenna working as it should. Applications load quickly, the phone takes much, much better pictures. The picture is just ultra crisp. The screen is smaller, but I can see things so much better, so i don't notice it at all. Screen sensitivity is much better as well. Overall just a much better product for around the same price.



MSI A6005 Laptop Drivers

     The drivers for the A6005 are the same as CX600 laptop by MSI. They are the exact same computer in everything but appearance. MSI does not support the A6005 and back even though they still sell them and drivers are not available.

     Again, if you want drivers for your discontinued MSI laptop, download them here. They work, I've tried them.

http://www.msi.com/product/nb/CX600.html#/?div=Driver&os=XP%2032

Book whoring, the old fashion way

I did not want to promote my other blog on this one, but I don't have much of a choice, and damnit, i need the link backs.

Basically what I've always done is look around for books, which 've talked about many times before, posted pictures and so on, well now i have a blog devoted to it.

Just go there and check it out if you are in to that kind of thing. Think the Game Chasers, but less videos and more pictures and much more money involved.