[00:02] <ali1234> what's the syntax for wildcards in a bind zone file?
[00:08] <matti> ;]
[00:08] <matti> mgdm: Who you gonna call???
[00:09] <jacobw> rfc1912 2.7
[00:10] <ali1234> do i need @ and *.@ or is just *.@ enough?
[00:11] <shauno> I just use *.
[00:12] <ali1234> *.@ doesn't seem valid... the admin tool won't accept it
[00:12] <ali1234> *.example.com. got turned into just *
[00:12] <jacobw> afaik, the wildcard will match anything in its scope that isn't otherwise defined
[00:12] <shauno> I use @ for the SOA record.  and then *. IN A wh.at.ev.er
[00:13] <ali1234> i don't have a SOA record
[00:13] <shauno> I'm not sure how that works then; I'm authorative for the domain, so I kinda need one
[00:13] <shauno> (the SOA has refresh, serial, ttl, etc)
[00:13] <ali1234> i just have @ 10800 IN A w.x.y.z
[00:14] <ali1234> and now i have * 1080 IN A w.x.y.z as well
[00:14] <shauno> try *. IN A w.x.y.z
[00:15] <shauno> that works here, but that's in a full record
[00:15] <ali1234> but does that replace the one with @ or in addition to it?
[00:15] <shauno> I honestly couldn't tell you; the only @ records I have are the SOA ones
[00:16] <ali1234> *. isn;t accepted
[00:16] <shauno> (for domains I answer, I'm the only NS or the auth NS, so it's a full record)
[00:16] <ali1234> "syntax error in name field"
[00:17] <ali1234> it will only allow me to enter * 10800 IN A ...
[00:17] <ali1234> oh well, i'll just wait 3 hours and see whathappens
[00:19] <shauno> hm, I can't force that error
[00:20] <shauno> I get "ignoring out-of-zone data (*)" for "*.", which I was really sure was valid.  and an a-ok for * IN A ..
[00:20] <shauno> (using named-checkzone)
[00:20] <jacobw> shouldn't *. match anything up to root?
[00:25] <shauno> that's my understanding, yeah
[00:26] <shauno> I rather confused by not having an @ SOA record tho.  I don't have any zone without such a record
[00:28] <ali1234> i'm entering the config into an online web interface
[00:29] <ali1234> it probably has a hidden SOA record or something
[00:29] <jacobw> i'm thinking that because *. would match anything up to the root its considered out of zone
[00:29] <ali1234> and then just merges what you enter
[00:30] <jacobw> whereas * is kind of wrong because it doesn't incomplete but only matches within the zone so its ok
[00:32] <shauno> http://paste.ubuntu.com/820737/   that's what mine looks like.  * IN A ad.dr.es.s works for me, but *. doesn't; which isn't how I understood it
[00:33] <shauno> but ^ is why not having an SOA confuses me
[00:33] <ali1234> shauno: i don't have access to the whole config file, just a web form where i enter a snippet
[00:33] <ali1234> so the SOA record is probably outside my control
[00:34] <shauno> ouch
[00:34] <shauno> that kinda makes sense, and kinda sucks at the same time
[00:34] <shauno> I prefer to see it, even if I can't touch it
[00:34] <ali1234> well it's pretty cool... i can put SFR record etc i assume
[00:34] <ali1234> but yeah it would be nice to see some context
[00:35] <ali1234> hmm looks like putting * in the A record overrides all the defined CNAMEs
[00:36] <shauno> yeah; there's no particular order.  a wildcard will win, even if it's last
[00:36] <ali1234> hmm
[00:37] <ali1234> so i can't have a wildcard that would accept potential mistyped addresses eg wwww.example.com, while also defining specific subdomains for other servers?
[00:37] <shauno> in all honesty, bind9 makes my ex-wife look like the paragon of common sense.  and she was american.
[00:39] <jacobw> lol
[00:40] <shauno> glad someone chuckled.  the awkward silence was starting to look spiteful ;)
[00:41] <jacobw> http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4592#section-2.2.1
[00:41] <jacobw> its too late to be thinking about DNS
[00:42] <Pendulum> hah
[00:42] <Pendulum> shauno: I chuckled and I'm American. I'm not sure what that says about me.
[00:44] <shauno> Pendulum: american ultimately had nothing to do with it.  it's just a more straight-forward punchline :)
[00:45] <Pendulum> shauno: I meant more that I wasn't sure what it said about me that I liked the punchline :)
[00:45] <shauno> the alternative would sound less like a joke, and more like .. dude
[00:46] <directhex> moo.
[00:46] <shauno> short version, she holds world records in her weight class for powerlifting.  and I think solairs is kinda neat in it's own little ways.  neither wrong, just basic incompatibilities
[00:47] <ali1234> ah... i think can put the wildcard as a cname, then it doesn't overwrite the other cnames :)
[00:47] <shauno> anyhow, enough excuses.  * IN A works here.  I've no idea what pre-processing is happening there
[00:48] <directhex> so what's the IN mean?
[00:48] <jacobw> INternet
[00:48] <shauno> india?  (internet address?  honestly .. my bind-foo isn't workable, not heavy)
[00:49] <shauno> er, is/not
[00:49] <directhex> it's hard to google for "in"
[00:49] <shauno> I have a feeling IN is a leftover
[00:50] <jacobw> yeah, its vestigal
[00:50] <shauno> I have IN A, IN AAAA, IN SRV, IN TXT .. all IN ..
[00:52] <jacobw> unix and linux system administration page 577 defines IN as internet
[00:53] <shauno> I'll bow to that then.  this bottle doesn't define it at all
[00:53] <jacobw> you don't need it anymore, by default IN is assumed by all implementations
[00:53] <jacobw> bottles don't define much :)
[00:53] <shauno> that bit I didn't know; for the most part, I just copy lines that I know to work
[00:54] <shauno> I get one day off this week.  bottles define that day.  nothing more, nothing less
[00:54] <directhex> hm... how much extra hate do i get if i add two architectures to src:mono on debian?
[00:55] <jacobw> why hate?
[02:16] <ubuntuuk-planet> [Jono Bacon] More Ubuntu Accomplishments Hacking - http://www.jonobacon.org/2012/01/29/more-ubuntu-accomplishments-hacking/
[04:33] <ali1234> -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 777 2012-01-29 04:33 access.log
[04:33] <ali1234> how is it possible for the webserver to be writing to this file?
[04:51] <hamitron> does it pass events to some logging daemon?
[04:53] <hamitron> off to bed anyway
[04:53] <hamitron> gl o/
[08:54] <danfish> tell me why I don't like Sunday, tell me why I don't like Sunday....coz tomorrow's Monday :(
[08:56] <MartijnVdS> danfish: that's not how the song goes ;)
[09:04] <danfish> MartijnVdS: quite. I spend the week looking forwards to Friday and the weekend and it goes too quickly
[09:04] <danfish> ho hum, a week off in Feb to recharge my batteries and jumpstart some projects :)
[09:05] <MartijnVdS> danfish: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfVsfOSbJY0 or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGgMZpGYiy8&ob=av3n
[09:09] <danfish> ahh, the cure - the music of my youth
[09:13] <danfish> music is not the same now </endoldgitmode>
[10:02] <jutnux> Morning
[10:04] <daubers> Morning
[10:09] <popey> morning
[10:26] <brobostigon> good morning everyone.
[10:33] <jutnux> Howdy
[10:41] <bigcalm> Ug
[10:52] <daubers> think it may be past time to retire the old NSLU2 :(
[10:52] <daubers> taking it nearly 10 minutes to run an SQL query
[10:53] <popey> heh
[10:55] <bigcalm> Things I have discovered about Thunderbird: 1) you can drag contacts from one account to another. 2) this deletes them from the original account just fine. 3) the target account does not have the moved contacts after reloading Thunderbird
[10:55] <bigcalm> I have lost countless contacts :(
[10:55] <popey> uhm
[10:55] <popey> unity 2d remembers which desktop you opened apps on
[10:56] <popey> thats odd
[11:01] <bigcalm> For instance, I used to have popey's mobile number. This is no longer the case
[11:01] <bigcalm> popey: you can sleep safely at night now
[11:04] <daubers> probably shouldn't have asked libre office to plot all 300000 rows of that table :(
[11:04] <popey> my mobile number isnt hard to find ☺
[11:04]  * MartijnVdS looks in his mobile phone
[11:04] <MartijnVdS> indeed :)
[11:04] <danfish> bigcalm: nah - to summon popey just beam the circle of friends into the night sky ala batman ;)
[11:05] <bigcalm> Heh
[11:05] <HazRPG> heh
[11:05] <HazRPG> \o hi
[11:05] <MartijnVdS> danfish: not an image of a pope?
[11:05] <HazRPG> my current egy number is sooooo easy to remember!
[11:05] <MartijnVdS> HazRPG: 123456789?
[11:05] <HazRPG> all I have to remember is the last 4 digits
[11:05] <MartijnVdS> 1337!
[11:06] <HazRPG> because it starts with 0111110
[11:06] <MartijnVdS> Binary number?
[11:06] <HazRPG> MartijnVdS: almost!
[11:06] <HazRPG> tis awesome!
[11:06] <MartijnVdS> I haven't found any pattern to my phone number yet
[11:07] <HazRPG> MartijnVdS: like i said, my egy number is mega!
[11:07] <popey> mine is in my email sig now
[11:07] <HazRPG> cos you get to pick your number from a list here if you get a month sub. type contract
[11:07] <MartijnVdS> popey: don't you get prank callers from that? (when emailing public lists)
[11:08] <HazRPG> MartijnVdS: depends on the mailing lists really
[11:08] <HazRPG> lol
[11:09] <HazRPG> google really wants people to make sure they read their new terms don't they o.O
[11:09] <MartijnVdS> HazRPG: Have you seen the abuse IRC ops get _on irc_? I wouldn't want k1dd13s to know my phone number :)
[11:09] <HazRPG> 2 e-mails, and several notifications
[11:09] <danfish> daubers: talking of old hardware, I've just pressed my viglen mpc back into service!
[11:09] <HazRPG> MartijnVdS: same
[11:10] <MartijnVdS> HazRPG: I like that though. Lots of other companies change their TOS/privacy policies without notice
[11:10] <HazRPG> MartijnVdS: true, true
[11:11] <daubers> danfish: \o/ mine still cuts out randomly :)
[11:13] <danfish> daubers: (I'm running debian on it but don't tell anyone!)
[11:13] <HazRPG> right i have some errants to attend to, speak to ya all later \o
[11:13] <popey> not yet MartijnVdS
[11:13] <HazRPG> s/errants/errands/*
[11:16] <daubers> danfish: Heh :) I blame the uupc bunch for supplying me with duff hardware
[11:17] <daubers> though it might just need the heatsink to be reseated.....
[11:17] <danfish> daubers: time for a class action suit ;)
[11:19] <daubers> danfish: Is that what batman wears?
[11:20] <daubers> note: I may be doped up on every anti flu remedy I could find in the flat, and may make even less sense than usual
[11:20] <danfish> haha
[11:22] <danfish> daubers: best flu remedy ever = hot toddy + whisky + cocodamol (soluble)
[11:23] <danfish> take 4 times daily until comatose
[11:25] <danfish> is AlanBell around? How to cook the perfect roast chicken?
[11:28]  * popey looks at his chicken in the oven
[11:28]  * popey doubts it will be perfect but it will be tasty
[11:32] <ging> did you watch how to cook like heston?
[11:32] <ging> he did a chicken
[11:33] <ging> he massively under cooks it for 2hours then over cooks it for 15 minutes
[11:49]  * MartijnVdS waves Cooking for Geeks around
[11:50]  * daubers is now tempted to nuke libre office
[11:50] <daubers> it's still trying to graph this stuff
[12:00] <AlanBell> MartijnVdS: I wouldn't expect IRC trolls to make phone calls, it would show up on their parent's bill
[12:00] <AlanBell> danfish: not sure how to cook chickens, but I have some great recipes for rat http://reocities.com/SunsetStrip/amphitheatre/8707/rats.html
[12:05] <MartijnVdS> AlanBell: I've had someone from #u-nl make "fake" phone calls using SIP gateways in China
[12:05] <MartijnVdS> AlanBell: all I heard was silence, but it happened several times/day, sometimes at night
[12:08] <AlanBell> that isn't good
[12:08] <Pendulum> MartijnVdS: that's a bit frightening
[12:23] <MartijnVdS> Pendulum: it stopped after I talked to Vodafone about it
[12:34] <popey> bah
[12:34] <popey> nouveau gives me big black boxes where web content should be
[12:34] <popey> nvidia gives me gpu lockups
[12:34] <MartijnVdS> it's trying to tell you to stop browsing, start working :)
[12:35] <popey> this thinkpad can't arrive soon enough
[12:36] <penguin42> popey: Is this in unity2d or 3d? (for both Nouveau and nvidia?)
[12:36] <popey> 3d
[12:37] <popey> i have used nvidia driver for both and get gpu lockups on both 3d and 2d
[12:37] <popey> only just switched to nouveau to see if i still get the lockups
[12:37] <popey> and now I get lots of flicker and black boxes in content
[12:37] <penguin42> I'd hope nouveau can cope with 2d
[12:37] <popey> 2d still does compositing
[12:37]  * popey logs out and into 2d
[12:37] <penguin42> popey: Yeh but it doesn't push it anywhere as hard
[12:38] <penguin42> popey: And I'd assume it doesn't use GL to do it?
[12:38] <gord> compositing is gl
[12:40] <penguin42> hmm that's a shame; it works ok on cards that don't do any native GL (e.g. cirrus in KVM) but I guess that's the emulation in X?
[12:40] <gord> compositing is turned off
[12:41] <MartijnVdS> How does it composite then?
[12:41] <MartijnVdS> if compositing is turned off
[12:44] <popey> i give up
[12:44] <popey> think I'll just put this laptop away and use my desktop until the thinkpad arrives
[12:45] <penguin42> popey: Please donate it to a Nouvaeu dev
[12:46] <popey> its going to my wife
[12:47] <penguin42> if you just do a metacity --replace & it'll be useable on one of them
[12:47] <popey> gonna back it up and stick osx on it
[12:48] <gord> MartijnVdS, uh, it doesn't?
[12:48] <MartijnVdS> gord: then how do windows appear on the screen etc.?
[12:48] <gord> MartijnVdS, that is not what compositing is
[12:48]  * MartijnVdS looks confused
[12:52] <gord> a compositing window manager is a window manager that allows windows to be layered over each other, that is not what something like metacity does in its 2d mode
[12:52] <gord> it just blits shapes
[12:54] <penguin42> I'm not sure metacity even does that - it just puts the window where it wants it and the app draws where X tells it
[12:54] <gord> more likely yes
[12:56] <penguin42> it's much more efficient, but obviously not as pretty
[13:03] <MartijnVdS> http://cgi.cs.indiana.edu/~oracle/ \o/
[14:21] <popey> bah, unity 2d firefox flickers like bonkers with nouveau
[14:21]  * popey pokes chrisccoulson with a stick
[14:22] <chrisccoulson> hi popey
[14:25]  * popey tickles aquarius 
[14:25] <popey> what ho!
[14:25] <aquarius> yo
[14:25] <OmNomDePlume> Anyone watching the tennis?
[14:26] <aquarius> I have a survey question: is it substantially useful to have a version of summit on your mobile phone which works when you don't have a network connection? Specifically, when would this be useful? (Obviously having it is more useful than not having it; I'm trying to work out *how* useful.)
[14:26] <popey> when walking between hotel and venue
[14:26] <popey> and in evening when you're out and about in a foreign country and there is no 3g (expensive) and no wifi
[14:27] <MartijnVdS> When random people are clogging the conference wifi
[14:27] <popey> also at breakfast where the wifi didnt reach
[14:27] <MartijnVdS> with their apt-get updates/upgrades
[14:27] <popey> that doesnt happen so much these days
[14:28] <popey> UDS wifi is probably the best conf wifi
[14:28]  * popey tickles Nafallo 
[14:28] <MartijnVdS> popey: You haven't been to YAPC::EU or FOSDEM have you ;)
[14:28] <popey> i havent been to fosdem for a while
[14:28] <aquarius> OK. There are two issues with offline access to summit. The first is that once you've taken something offline, it's quite likely to go out of date, especially given the rapidity with which the UDS schedule changes over the course of the week; the second is that you'd have to have gone and visited summit while online to get the data to cache. Do either of those constitute a severe problem?
[14:28] <popey> last time I went the wifi was shocking
[14:28] <OmNomDePlume> Djokovic is serving for the championship.
[14:28] <popey> no aquarius
[14:28] <popey> aquarius: so long as the UI lets you know how stale the data is
[14:28] <popey> and provides and easy 'sync' button
[14:29] <aquarius> I agree entirely that it'd be useful at breakfast and in the evenings, I just don't know whether it's useful *enough* that I'm prepared to put the work in to *try* and make it possible :)
[14:29] <MartijnVdS> ah, so it's a laziness issue :P
[14:29] <popey> arguably you want to be away from summit in the evenings
[14:29] <popey> and be doing things like drinking / eating / team-building
[14:30] <aquarius> MartijnVdS, well, it's a time-and-resources issue; I only have a limited amount of spare time, and I have more projects than I have spare time. So I'm trying to work out whether I should do further work on summit rather than one of my other projects ;)
[14:30] <aquarius> I've already made it mobile-friendly, which fixes one of my two big annoyances at UDS; the other big annoyance is not having access to summit when I'm away from the wifi, so I'm trying to quantify how much that also annoys other people :)
[14:30] <popey> right, laptop pretty much unusable right now
[14:31] <aquarius> s/two big annoyances/two big summit-related annoyances/ ;-)
[14:31]  * popey kicks off a backup and looks for an OSX CD
[14:32] <popey> need a new hostname for the thinkpad when it arrives
[14:32] <MartijnVdS> deep-thought
[14:32] <gord> aquarius, don't we have that app now?
[14:32] <bigcalm> ponder-stibbons
[14:32] <gord> its like a conference app and you get the summit through that
[14:32] <aquarius> gord, the app is shit. It's shit, yes it is.
[14:33] <bigcalm> !ohmy | aquarius
[14:33] <gord> it really is, but better than using summet.ubuntu on my phone
[14:33] <popey> ooo deep-thought I like
[14:33] <aquarius> Guidebook is constantly out of date, it constantly tries to cache
[14:33] <aquarius> gord, why's Guidebook better?
[14:33] <aquarius> bigcalm, I keep forgetting that. Thanks.
[14:33] <gord> summit doesn't fit easily
[14:33] <bigcalm> :)
[14:33] <aquarius> gord, yeah, that's what I've fixed. It now does, beautifully :)
[14:33] <gord> woo
[14:34] <aquarius> my goal here is to kill guidebook stone dead and have people just use summit, because we can rev it more quickly and do what we want with it.
[14:34] <gord> does summit have some javascript to auto-update as well?
[14:34] <aquarius> not at the moment, no (although being able to hit "refresh" does that well enough, I think)
[14:35] <bigcalm> aquarius: the workplace day in Wolves is going fortnightly. Any more chance of getting you to join us? ;)
[14:35] <aquarius> bigcalm, the issue is that most days I'm not really able to travel; I'm tethered here :)
[14:35] <aquarius> gord, I'd only need auto-updating JS if summit also works offline, which is what I'm debating doing as my next piece of work on it
[14:35] <aquarius> hence the questions :)
[14:36] <bigcalm> aquarius: the cafe has draft beer
[14:36] <aquarius> heh. I'm not tethered here because this is the only place with beer in it :)
[14:36] <bigcalm> :P
[14:39] <bigcalm> It also includes the occasional pretty red-head. I get a ribbing from davmor2 every time I look up from my screen
[14:41] <aquarius> now, that's just gonna distract me from work
[14:41] <gord> hrm yeah, wifi.. especially since chances are, hotel room wifi is crap
[14:41] <gord> i like to look up and plan my sessions in the morning before breakfast
[14:42] <MartijnVdS> bigcalm: you're calling aquarius a pretty redhead now? :P
[14:42] <AlanBell> o/ aquarius
[14:42] <AlanBell> you did the flat view? awesome, it was on my list to do that before -q
[14:46] <aquarius> AlanBell, ya. Well, mhall and cjohnston did most of the work; I just added some tweaks. summit is now lovely on mobiles, yay
[14:47] <AlanBell> yay
[14:47] <AlanBell> I was going to do it as a nested <ul>
[14:47] <aquarius> AlanBell, my first set of changes are in trunk now, which is nice.
[14:48] <AlanBell> it is nicer to read with orca like that too
[14:49] <aquarius> OK, next survey question. If you're offline (let's say you're in a restaurant somewhere offsite at UDS), and you pull up summit (which now works offline), and summit knows that the data it's showing is five hours old *but* you don't have a network connection (and so can't refresh it), should it still tell you that the schedule is 5 hours old (and might have been changed in the interim) even if you can't do anything
[14:49] <aquarius>  about it?
[14:49] <popey> yes
[14:50] <aquarius> why?
[14:50] <aquarius> (not necessarily disagreeing with you; just clarifying)
[14:50] <popey> because i may assume that the device synced when i was in the hotel
[14:50] <popey> but it didnt, and I dont know that
[14:50] <aquarius> right. (Note: it will not do so. The one advantage of an actual native app over a website is that a native app can sync even when you're not looking at it.)
[14:50] <popey> look at the email client on iphone
[14:51] <popey> right at the bottom of your inbox is a date/time stamp of when you last synced mail
[14:51] <popey> tis handy
[14:51] <aquarius> popey, do you have a screenshot of said email client exhibitng that?
[14:51] <popey> i do/can
[14:51] <aquarius> (from google images is fine; it doesn't have to be yours, so you don't have to blur out all the email names etc)
[14:52] <popey> see twitter
[14:52] <popey> https://twitter.com/#!/popey/status/163635555500949507/photo/1
[14:53] <aquarius> gotcha
[14:53] <aquarius> and the refresh arrow next to it will update that?
[14:53] <popey> yes, or pull down
[14:53] <popey> and the status changes
[14:53] <popey> see twitter ☺
[14:54] <popey> https://twitter.com/#!/popey/status/163635960666521601/photo/1
[14:55] <popey> interestingly thats arguably an old app
[14:56] <aquarius> ?
[14:56] <aquarius> don't know what that means
[14:56] <popey> it might not be the 'best' way
[14:56] <popey> facebook shows the 'last updated' date time in the bit when you pull the UI down
[14:57] <popey> https://twitter.com/#!/popey/status/163636826865807360/photo/1
[14:57] <aquarius> ya, FB on android does the same thing
[14:58] <popey> which is probably preferable
[14:58] <popey> but the stupid thing is that will trigger a 'get'
[14:58] <popey> or at least try to
[14:58] <popey> or give you some 'no network' error
[14:59] <popey> although if you pull down and dont let go, but push back up, it doesnt update
[14:59] <popey> only updates if you pull down and let go
[14:59] <aquarius> I can handle that, though
[14:59] <aquarius> it won't go and GET and then fail and give you a "no page available", no fear :)
[15:00] <popey> ☺
[15:03] <aquarius> Summary question 3: the offline stuff will inevitably mean that you have to refresh the page a bit more often (because you'll get cached data more often). Is it a good idea that summit should work this way on all browsers (desktop and mobile), or just on mobile?
[15:03] <gord> geez, steam for android eats up a lot of battery
[15:11] <popey> wait, there's steam for android now?
[15:11] <popey> (and not linux desktop)
[15:12] <penguin42> aquarius: Does that necessarily have to be true? I mean if you're find you're online can't you fetch the data anyway and not rely on the cache?
[15:14] <aquarius> penguin42, no. That's not how appcaches work. If you've appcached a page, then the browser gets it from the cache and doesn't even look at the internet. It will then, after it's displayed it, look at the internet to see if there's a newer version, and the result of that can be detected with javascript.
[15:14] <gord> popey, its not steam steam, its really just an IM
[15:14] <gord> you can't install mobile games with it or anything
[15:15] <penguin42> aquarius: oh that's ok, if it displays the cached one, and then updates if it gets it; bonus points for displaying some indicator that it's updating
[15:19] <popey> ah
[15:58] <kvarley> Is there a chat application that can be overlayed on OpenGL games? Like Raptr and Steam.
[17:16] <ubuntuuk-planet> [Tony] Amy and Andrew: Behind the scenes - http://tonywhitmore.co.uk/blog/2012/01/28/amy-and-andrew-behind-the-scenes/
[18:35] <Guest37546> can someone help me i want to install ubuntu on an old laptop running windows me. i don't think the disk drive is working and my other comps are macs
[18:36] <Guest37546> hello?
[18:37] <Myrtti> do you know if the laptop can boot off USB?
[18:38] <Guest37546> i don't think so i was in the bios earlier setting cd to first boot option and didn't notice anything about usb
[18:38] <Myrtti> it has a CD drive tho?
[18:38] <Guest37546> yeh and a floppy disk drive but i don't think the cd drive is working properly
[18:41] <Myrtti> I have no ideas :-|
[18:41] <Myrtti> you could try the CD anyway
[18:41] <Guest37546> ok thanx for trying
[18:42] <Guest37546> i did but it won't recognise there is a cd in the drive anymore
[18:43] <directhex> Guest32137, so you can't boot from any external media at all?
[18:43] <Guest37546> not that I'm aware of no. unless you know a way to use a floppy disc?
[18:44] <penguin42> Guest37546: Does it have USB - just can't boot from it?
[18:45] <Guest37546> yeh
[18:45] <penguin42> Guest37546: You *might* be able to do it with a Grub boot floppy
[18:45] <Guest37546> what is thet?
[18:45] <Guest37546> *that
[18:46] <penguin42> Guest37546: Grub is one of the Linux boot loaders, you can get a premade image of Grub that you can write to a floppy, it can then boot off other devices - *if* the BIOS can see the other device
[18:46] <directhex> you're venturing into lands that require a high degree of technical expertise. as in "i'm a 7 year linux sysadmin, and wouldn't want to do any of the choices available to me" if i could avoid it
[18:47] <penguin42> not forgetting holy water, a cockrel and vials of mercury
[18:47] <aquarius> new question for Android people: why should I install cyanogen? Interested to hear people's reasons. :)
[18:48] <penguin42> aquarius: Depends what on; it's more responsive and fixes some bugs in the standard install on my phone
[18:51] <aquarius> bugs?
[18:51] <aquarius> I like the "more responsive" thing, because that and battery life are the reasons I'm contemplating doing this, which is something I swore I wouldn't do :)
[18:51] <penguin42> aquarius: Yeh, the standard ROM on the Orange San Francisco (Aka ZTE Blade) had the compass pointing 180deg out - as I found out the hard way
[18:51] <aquarius> oh, right, I don't have that sort of bug :P
[18:51] <penguin42> I'm not sure the battery life is great on cyanogen
[18:51] <penguin42> aquarius: What does your phone currently have on?
[18:52] <aquarius> stock Android 4.0 ICS
[18:52] <penguin42> hmm if you're on ICS (very nice...) then I doubt there is as much gain
[18:52] <aquarius> it's not very nice. It's slow and it eats battery.
[18:52] <penguin42> My phone was on 2.2 when 2.3/2.4 was already out, hence it was a good upgrade
[18:52] <aquarius> that's why I want to fix it :)
[18:52] <penguin42> aquarius: Which phone?
[18:52] <aquarius> Nexus S
[18:53] <penguin42> aquarius: Well the other thing was my phone was cheap, so if I bricked it then I didn't have to worry too much; now a Nexus S I guess the decision is a little different
[18:53] <aquarius> :)
[19:07] <directhex> aquarius, look at cyanogenmod as the biggest community android distro. usual reasons for replacing your bundled os apply
[19:09] <aquarius> directhex, what usual reasons?
[19:09] <popey> aquarius: i put cyanogen on an htc hero to get newer android and plain android so not sense UI'd
[19:09] <directhex> your bundled os is filled with sucky crapware and is old?
[19:09] <aquarius> ya, but it isn't. I've got a Nexus S: it runs stock Android, and it's running ICS>
[19:10] <directhex> so 0 benefit
[19:10] <aquarius> this is one of the reasons I'm resistant to new ROMs; I wanted to see whether eveyrone's reason for changing ROMs was "get rid of sense UI and crapware and get an upgrade" and so on, none of which apply to me
[19:10] <jacobw> the google branded phones have current stock android
[19:11] <aquarius> the reason I'm contemplating this (which I said I'd never do) is that I upgraded to ICS and I am dog sick of it being slow and clunky and eating battery like there is no tomorrow
[19:11] <jacobw> there isn't much cost to trying a few different ROMs
[19:12] <popey> there is if the custom rom is unreliable
[19:13] <jacobw> the larger ROM projects are usually reliable
[19:13] <Azelphur> I just found out you can generate bitcoin vanity addresses :D
[19:13] <aquarius> there's a time cost, at least.
[19:13] <aquarius> and also a mental cost in having to understand a load of stuff that I don't want to
[19:14]  * Myrtti loves JuiceDefender
[19:14] <Azelphur> 1AZLPHRgfVgdSbwGeZAqrkjmskDTc2j7Uu valid address :D, probably will try and get 1AzeLphur* at some point but it'll take a couple days of crypto to get it
[19:14] <jacobw> the time required should mostly be to root and flash, which is quick with AAHK
[19:16] <aquarius> no. I also need to understand what a "radio" is, whether I need it, whether I need to download google apps separately, whether I need to "root" my phone, why I need to root it...
[19:16] <aquarius> what "aahk" is, and so on :)
[19:19] <jacobw> its not as complicated as you'd think, aahk is 'android advanced hack kit' which will root, install a bootloader with tools and flash a radio image for you.
[19:20] <aquarius> my brain's already full, though. To learn new stuff I have to forget something ;-)
[19:20]  * aquarius vacillates about whether to install a new ROM.
[19:20] <jacobw> after that all you need to do is to put the rom image on storage and flash it from the bootloader tools
[19:21] <popey> jacobw: its not complicated, but it's extra stuff to put in the brain
[19:21] <BigRedS> aquarius: 'radio' is used to refer to the rom that manages the GSM chip. You probably don't need to do anything to it, but if you do then it'll be done automagically by whatever installs whichever rom you pick
[19:21] <directhex> aquarius wants to learn "cyanogenmod" but aquarius already knows four moves! forget a move to make room for "cyanogenmod"?
[19:22]  * aquarius laughs
[19:22] <jacobw> haha
[19:22] <aquarius> that's exactly how it is. I might end up forgetting how spoons work or something
[19:22] <directhex> aquarius forgot "mean look"!
[19:23] <BigRedS> basically, installing a new android rom now is like installing a linux distro a few years ago. A tad clunky, but relatively easy and hard to get wrong if you follow the instructions
[19:24] <jacobw> it'd be cool if you could choose to forget something like removing service packs in XP in change for easy time learning something else
[19:24] <jacobw> s/change/exchange
[19:24] <popey> I am trying to forget SAP
[19:24] <jacobw> BigRedS: the cyanogen mod forums are full of people who've managed to do it wrong :(
[19:29] <BigRedS> jacobw: yeah, because all the people who get it right don't feel the need to post :)
[19:30] <BigRedS> I've only bricked a single phone, and that was basically because I was using a dodgy usb extension lead. If you're less complacent than I was (which I guess you'll be) you'll be fine
[19:30] <BigRedS> just follow the instructions and don't assume anything
[19:32] <jacobw> i need to try miui 2.1.20, i'm currently using cyanogenmod because miui 2.1.6 wouldn't boot for me
[19:32] <penguin42> BigRedS: What did you brick?
[19:33] <BigRedS> my Galaxy
[19:34] <BigRedS> We even made up the special cable to unbrick it, but that didn't work either. I keep meaning to dismanlte it all over ebay
[19:39] <penguin42> ouch; must be jtagable
[20:22] <ali1234> unity just crashed when minimizing firefox again
[20:23] <ali1234> except i'm doing a distro upgrade and it failed to restart
[20:23] <jacobw> :(
[20:23] <ali1234> so now i can't get to the upgrade window to see if it's finished or needs interaction
[20:23] <popey> can you not unity --reset from tty0?
[20:24] <ali1234> no, it crashed with segmentation fault
[20:24] <popey> nice
[20:24] <ali1234> i can probably start a proper window manager though
[20:24] <popey> heh
[20:25] <ali1234> metacity works
[20:25] <ali1234> it's amazing how much faster metacity is than unity
[20:27] <directhex> compiz?
[20:27] <ali1234> no, compiz is fine
[20:27] <ali1234> it's only the unity plugint hat makes it slow
[20:27] <ali1234> i mean compiz isn't speedy sure
[20:28] <ali1234> but it's not significantly slower than metacity
[20:28] <directhex> at least unity's focus badness is really compiz's fault
[20:28] <ali1234> focus badness? you mean when you open a new firefox window and type in google and your typing goes to the previous window?
[20:28] <ali1234> every single time...
[20:28] <directhex> ali1234, yes! that one!
[20:28] <ali1234> the worst part is they fixed that once and now it's back
[20:29] <directhex> ali1234, compiz cannot handle the idea of window focus. which is a problem for a window manager...
[20:29] <ali1234> and i bet nobody even knows what fixed it
[20:29] <ali1234> compiz is pretty bad
[20:29] <directhex> but it has wobbly windows!
[20:29] <ali1234> i only used to use it for ezoom
[20:29] <ali1234> but that is now disabled anyway
[20:30] <ali1234> i never had focus problems before unity though
[20:30] <ali1234> i guess it's time to reopen that focus bug
[20:32] <ali1234> well, we'll see if it's fixed in precise first
[20:32] <ali1234> assuming this upgrade ever finishes
[20:33] <ali1234> and assuming i don't reboot to a black screen because nvidia driver doesn't work
[20:42] <aquarius> I note that it's amazing how much faster dos 6.2 is than unity too, because it does less :)
[20:42] <ali1234> yeah, but unity doesn't do anything that metacity doesn't do
[20:42] <ali1234> actually it does rather less
[20:43] <ali1234> a more fair comparison would be unity vs metacity vs windows 3.1
[20:44] <aquarius> yes it does. metacity moves windows around and that's it. It doesn't show me what's running; it doesn't let me switch easily between apps with the mouse; it doesn't let me start and switch to a specific app with one keypress; it doesn't show me whether I'm connected to the network; it doesn't let me change my volume with the mouse, etc, etc, etc.
[20:44] <ali1234> i dunno if you've ever tried to run windows 3.1 on modern hardware
[20:44] <ali1234> well i have, and it doesn't run any faster than it did on a 486
[20:44] <ali1234> it's still faster than unity though
[20:45] <ali1234> well baring the rather strange design issues where unity is both a window manager and also a panel, unity doesn't do any of that stuff either
[20:45] <ali1234> most of it is done by indicators
[20:45] <aquarius> Unity is all of those things, though. It's not just a window manager, and that's the point.
[20:45] <ali1234> if you are going to include them in unity then i'm going to include panels etc in metacity
[20:46] <aquarius> fine, that's not a problem, at which point your argument is that Gnome 2 is faster than Unity, which is a reasonable argument.
[20:46] <aquarius> The reason for choosing Unity over Gnome 2 is not about performance.
[20:46] <ali1234> essentially you are making the argument that it is OK that unity gets a framerate below 10 FPS on a high end GPU, because it also does a load of stuff that shouldn't even be in a window manager
[20:47] <ali1234> so no only is it slow, it;s also badly designed :)
[20:47] <ali1234> it's not even about gnome 2
[20:47] <ali1234> unity-2d is also significantly faster
[20:47] <ali1234> and it does all exactly the same things
[20:48] <aquarius> Not at all (although I don't have that problem in the slightest, so I suspect I have better-supported hardware than you). I'm making the argument that Unity isn't a window manager, it's a desktop shell.
[20:48] <ali1234> i don't care what it is
[20:48] <aquarius> So run Unity Qt; that's what it's for. That seems like a fine idea to me,
[20:48] <ali1234> i only care that when i try to move a window, there is a 3 second lag before the screen redraws
[20:49] <ali1234> the problem with unity-2d is that multimonitor support is completely broken, otherwise i would use it
[20:50] <aquarius> indeed. I can imagine that that's really irritating -- as I say, that doesn't happen to me, because I chose supported hardware. I can also see that it's annoying that you can't have all of (a) Unity's features, (b) multi-monitor support, and (c) support for your hardware, all at once, right now. We're working on it, obviously.
[20:50] <ali1234> unfortunately there is no supported hardware that is capable of running the software that i actually want
[20:53] <ali1234> i'm assuming that nvidia is not supported
[20:53] <aquarius> Yeah. The open-source software world as a whole has that problem, sometimes. Progress is slower than we'd all like.
[20:54] <ali1234> i don't really understand why pretty much all software that requires acceleration only works with nvidia binary, except for unity, which only works properly with nouveau
[20:55] <ali1234> i can only assume that there is a fundamental design issue with unity that prevents it from hosting applications which also make use of 3d graphics
[20:59] <directhex> fglrx works for me :p
[21:01] <ali1234> lol
[21:01] <ali1234> i take it you don't ever play games in wine
[21:02] <ali1234> oh hey the upgrade finished
[21:05] <ali1234> well it certainly boots up fast
[21:06] <directhex> ali1234, no, i don't play games in wine. native, or reboot to windows
[21:07] <ali1234> typical wine/fglrx user "why is the sky pink and i have a white box around the mouse cursor?"
[21:08] <ali1234> gaming in wine works flawlessly if you use nvidia - but only if you don't have unity running at the same time - then you get 10 FPS if you are lucky
[21:08] <directhex> spacechem works. stick to native games.
[21:08] <ali1234> native games are terrible
[21:09] <directhex> no, that's FOSS games.
[21:10] <gordonjcp> who the hell plays games on PCs anyway?
[21:10] <gordonjcp> buy a PS3
[21:10] <ali1234> i concur
[21:11] <directhex> people who want to play games which are only available on, or better on, PC? or want to play games with mods?
[21:11] <ali1234> but don't buy a PS3, but nintendo, the games are better
[21:11] <directhex> pfft
[21:11] <directhex> the wii is a bundle of fail
[21:11] <ali1234> PS3 only has two games
[21:11] <ali1234> "generic FPS game" and "generic sword fighting game"
[21:11] <directhex> yeah now you';re just being somewhat on the retarded side of retarded
[21:12] <brobostigon> atm, my only playing seems to be tuxracer on my tablet, while waiting for doctors and hospital appointments.
[21:12] <gordonjcp> ali1234: actually
[21:12] <gordonjcp> there are very few FPSes on the PS3
[21:13] <gordonjcp> most of the single-person viewpoint 3D shooters are third-person
[21:13] <gordonjcp> on account of how the dynamics of playing FPSes with a gamepad is all wack and shit
[21:13] <gord> eh
[21:13] <gord> there are lots of fps games on the ps3
[21:13] <ali1234> all i have to say about that is "goldeneye"
[21:13] <gordonjcp> gord: bet there's more third-person shooters
[21:14] <directhex> saying "the ps3 is only FPSes" is like saying "the wii is only crappy minigame collection shovelware"
[21:14] <directhex> except less accurate
[21:15] <ali1234> yeah those 3rd person games where yo "lock" on stuff... it doesn't really matter if you have a gun or a sword, the gameplay mechanic is the same
[21:15] <gord> i have a ps3 and i have a wii, i get my wii out once a year for the one single game that comes out for it that is worth playing
[21:15] <gord> last year it was zelda, i won't even get it out this year as there are no games coming out for it anymore that are worth your time
[21:15] <ali1234> oh i don't disagree that the wii only has 1 good game a year
[21:16] <ali1234> but i can't think of a single PS3 game that i would want to play
[21:16] <gord> i have about two shelves full of fantastic ps3 games
[21:16] <ali1234> and PC only gets a good game every 2 - 3 years as well
[21:16] <directhex> http://i.imgur.com/DNUAH.jpg - i speak with experience on gaming.
[21:16] <directhex> ali1234 is a bad troll, tbh
[21:16] <directhex> a good troll is less obvious
[21:16] <ali1234> i;ve owned all of those as well, except for xbox and nes
[21:17] <ali1234> xbox 360 that is. had a xbox for a while
[21:17] <directhex> modern gaming is fantastic. we've never had it so good. the number of brilliant games per year has only been going up year-on-year in the last decade
[21:18] <popey> pffft, european snes
[21:18] <gord> the US snes is an eye sore :P
[21:18] <gord> the european one is so pretty, japanese one too
[21:18] <popey> reminds me of parma violets
[21:18] <directhex> popey, i'm european! it was sold with street fighter 2 from Future Zone in oxford!
[21:18] <popey> hah
[21:18] <popey> i have 3 gamecubes ☺
[21:18] <popey> two purple, one black
[21:18] <directhex> yes i remember, including saving my pocket money for a second pad
[21:18] <directhex> we have 2 cubes
[21:19] <popey> two n64s
[21:19] <directhex> wife and i each have a cube
[21:19] <gord> i have like three dreamcasts
[21:19] <gord> but only because they break if you look at them the wrong way
[21:19] <directhex> gord, there's a fix for the cutting out problem
[21:19] <popey> i dont think I've ever seen a dreamcast in the flesh other than in a shop
[21:19] <gord> directhex, cutting out? no, the lasers die
[21:19] <directhex> gord, just needs a screwdriver
[21:19] <gord> really easy
[21:20] <directhex> gord, my laser is fine. but i had it randomly rebooting
[21:20] <directhex> common enough issue
[21:20] <directhex> metal fatigue on the PSU connector pins
[21:20] <gord> yeah no its not that, its the drive for me
[21:20] <directhex> wish i had a Set5 dev kit instead of a retail console
[21:20] <ali1234> mine used to overheat. had to put it on it's side to make it work
[21:20] <gord> i may be deemed a "heavy user" of dreamcasts though ;)
[21:21] <directhex> my rez disc hasn't needed to come off the shelf since Rez HD hit XBLA
[21:22] <popey> do you manually plug stuff in when you need it or have a giant scart-o-tron?
[21:22] <directhex> popey, i now only have the current-gen stuff always connected
[21:23] <directhex> popey, i can't have everything at once due to power constraints and shared cables
[21:23] <popey> gotcha
[21:23] <directhex> e.g. the snes and n64 share an av cable; the snes and nes share a power brick
[21:23] <directhex> i have decent av cables in a box - component for ps2, rgb scart for cube, etc
[21:23] <directhex> xbox has a 160g disk and xbmc, but haven't used that for ages
[21:24] <popey> heh, my xbox was decommisioned just last week
[21:24] <popey> also xbmc
[21:24] <directhex> it's 2012. i demand HD
[21:24] <directhex> good job the av receiver upscales the NES!
[21:24] <gord> upscaling ruins the nes :P
[21:25] <directhex> gord, mostly the problem is getting wii virtual console games to display. my old av receiver couldsn't upscale virtual console games over hdmi
[21:26] <gord> virtual console throws the video mode into the same mode the console uses, used to have the same problem with my old tv
[21:26] <gord> new tv handles it fine though
[21:26] <directhex> the sony handles it. the onkyo did not
[21:26] <gord> i got a really nice connector for my megadrive, it outputs over svideo so its a really nice clear crisp signal. i hate it. i want my old co-ax back
[21:27] <directhex> RF modulator!
[21:27] <ali1234> speaking of TVs
[21:27] <gord> one day i'll have a big enough place that i can have a game room and have a dedicated CRT to old consoles, new tv's can't handle them properly
[21:28] <directhex> the problem is light guns
[21:28] <directhex> my zapper is now a paperweight. boo
[21:28] <ali1234> is ubuntu TV going to be a full TV solution, or will it be like existing smart TVs, where it's a mode that you switch to independent of the "watching TV" mode
[21:28] <gord> so how do you hunt ducks?!
[21:29] <directhex> i don't. boo.
[21:29] <gord> the duck population will get out of control!
[21:29] <directhex> i should play some more rayman.
[21:30] <gord> origins?
[21:30] <directhex> yes
[21:30] <gord> beat that the other week, tis good
[21:30] <directhex> it's exceedingly unoriginal
[21:30] <directhex> in the best way
[21:30] <directhex> i.e. it's like rayman 1, but prettier and smoother - and less brutal on the lives front
[21:30] <gord> they wanted to open source the graphics engine powering it, wonder if they will
[21:31] <popey> ali1234: integrated, is the idea
[21:31] <directhex> http://www.develop-online.net/news/38204/Ancel-wants-UbiArt-tech-to-be-free-for-all ?
[21:31] <popey> so the epg is shown in the UI along with film selection, local video etc
[21:31] <ali1234> cool
[21:32] <gord> doing the new resident evil on my 3ds at the mo, also good
[21:32] <directhex> don't have a 3ds
[21:32] <directhex> funny thing - i own 3d games and movies which i put into my ps3, connected to my 3d-capable av receiver, into my 3d tv. and i take 3d photos with my 3d camera. but i skipped the 3ds
[21:33] <directhex> mobile gaming has never been a thing for me. i'm the driver, so i get little chance to do "full" 3d games, rather than stolen moments
[21:33] <gord> 3ds is easily the best device for 3d atm :)
[21:33] <directhex> tbh imho there won't be mobile handhelds after the 3ds and vita. mobile phones have devalued dedicated mobile systems too far
[21:33] <directhex> poor sales of both systems suggest i'm not alone
[21:34] <gord> actually the 3ds has sold hugely
[21:34]  * popey googles vita
[21:34] <gord> some of us don't want a mobile phone to play games on
[21:34] <popey> oh, sony
[21:34] <directhex> after they cut the asking price on the 3ds by more than 33% it sold okay
[21:34] <directhex> nowhere near expectations, hence nintendo's earnings warning to their shareholders
[21:34] <gord> yeah, they misspriced it, but that doesn't mean that mobiles are taking over
[21:35] <directhex> the ds was the success it was, thanks to non-game games
[21:35] <gord> it actually means that at the right price, people do want a dedicated machine. mobiles frankly suck for gaming
[21:35] <directhex> nintendogs
[21:35] <directhex> brain age
[21:35] <directhex> etc
[21:35] <directhex> 3ds needs to compete with smartphone apps for the non-gamer market
[21:35] <Myrtti> Professor Layton ♥
[21:35] <gord> but it doesn't
[21:35] <gord> it has its market
[21:35] <Myrtti> I'm a nongamer and I play professor layton ♥
[21:36] <directhex> its market is shrinking. that's the point
[21:36] <gord> but its not
[21:36] <gord> its expanding, hugely
[21:36] <directhex> Myrtti,  http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/17/professor-layton-leaves-the-nintendo-stable-to-join-ios/
[21:36] <directhex> gord, the earnings warning is imaginary, then?
[21:36] <gord> directhex, thats as a result of them not having a console offering really. the wii isn't selling, not the 3ds
[21:37] <gord> no one is making games for it and no one is buying games for it
[21:37] <Myrtti> directhex: I'm not going to buy an iphone for playing it.
[21:37] <gord> frankly the 3ds saved them from a truly disastrous earnings report
[21:37] <gord> Myrtti, don't worry, the new layton game for the 3ds should come out in the west this year :) already out in japan iirc
[21:38] <directhex> nobody ever bought games for the wii. they branched out into selling wii sports to grandparents, without understanding that grandparents don't want new games, they want wii sports again and again and again FOREVER
[21:38] <directhex> "hardcore" wii games have always flopped
[21:38] <Myrtti> gord: I know, I keep track on the subject
[21:38] <directhex> madworld barely sold
[21:39] <gord> prolly know more than me then, i hate layton games ;) - or more aptly. i get stuck on them, decide the puzzle is stupid regardless of everyone else getting past it easily and quit forever
[21:40] <ali1234> that couldn't be anything to do with madworld being "generic swordfighting game" released in a sea of identical games, could it?
[21:40] <ali1234> i mean if you want games like that, get a PS3
[21:41] <directhex> ali1234, yes it's definitely that. wait, it's not a swordfighting game and you don't know a thing about this stuff
[21:41] <directhex> same difference
[21:41] <ali1234> why does the cover art have a picture of a guy with a sword then?
[21:41] <gord> isn't there some saying about not judging a book by its cover?
[21:42] <directhex> this is a sword: http://www.medieval-weaponry.co.uk/acatalog/SH2404-1000.jpg
[21:43] <directhex> this is a chainsaw: http://www.a-water-pump.com/images/powertools/husqvarna/HUS_3120xp_lg.jpg
[21:43] <directhex> in most cultures, they are considered different implements
[21:50] <ali1234> therein lies the problem. you can make an exact clone of a thousand other games and change one tiny detail like "the main character has a chainsaw instead of a sword" and PS3 owners think that represents value for money
[21:51] <ali1234> what's thatgame that has a reputation for being hard? the one where you are a ninja?
[21:52] <directhex> omg, it has "polygons" on a "screen", it's such a rip-off!
[21:52] <directhex> ninja gaiden.
[21:52] <ali1234> yeah that's the one
[21:53] <ali1234> it's like people who buy the new fifa game every year or how ever often it comes out
[21:53] <ali1234> i don't understand why they do it
[21:55] <ali1234> i'm now watching random ninja gaiden footage on youtube and there's some enemy with a chainsaw lol
[21:55] <ali1234> and apart from the graphic style this is an identical game
[21:55] <directhex> because they care about the team roster updates, presumably
[21:56] <directhex> i'm not sufficienly interested in the genre to know what other changes are made to the content on an annual basis beyond team refreshes
[21:59] <gord> i could go ahead and claim that all romance novels are the same book
[21:59] <gord> i'm not going to because i have no knowledge on that subject, its not a genre i enjoy
[21:59] <ali1234> i can understand if you want to buy a newer game cos it has better graphics or whatever
[21:59] <gord> i'm content to let people who like that genre enjoy that kind of thing without berating them though
[22:00] <ali1234> i just can't understand people who buy every driving game, or every FPS game, or every 3rd person beat-em-up game when they are all the same
[22:00] <directhex> let's see what came out in 2011...
[22:00] <gord> aren't all action movies the same?
[22:00] <ali1234> yes, yes they are
[22:01] <ali1234> and most of them are terrible
[22:01] <gord> so you should watch die hard then no other action movie ever?
[22:01] <ali1234> just made because they know that people will go to watch them because "i like action movies"
[22:01] <ali1234> you can watch all the die hard movies, but you should probably skip anything made by the asylum
[22:01] <gord> i do like action movies, i will go see them too, because i like things that i know i like
[22:01] <directhex> duke nukem forever was 2011!
[22:01] <gord> i like chocolate, i buy that like, every week, man what is wrong with me
[22:02] <gord> same thing again and again
[22:02] <ali1234> oh yeah
[22:02] <ali1234> wasn't DNF panned for being a generic FPS game?
[22:02] <directhex> i was kidding. and nuke nukem forever was panned for far more than that
[22:03] <ali1234> saints row 2 was quite popular i heard
[22:03] <directhex> SR3 WAS OUT LAST YEAR
[22:03] <directhex> BAh
[22:03] <directhex> er, sr2 was a couple of years ago
[22:03] <ali1234> oh 3 then :)
[22:03] <directhex> they're clearly rip-offs of the GTA3 concept, but with their own stylistic and thematic take on the genre
[22:04] <ali1234> there's generally quite a big gap between GTA games
[22:04] <directhex> nah, they're all just gta3 with a new skin
[22:04] <ali1234> no i mean time wise
[22:04] <ali1234> i mean how old is 4 now?
[22:04] <gord> eh not really big gaps between them
[22:05] <directhex> 4? about 3 years. i'd need to check
[22:05] <gord> its just been a few years since 4
[22:05] <directhex> 29 April 2008
[22:06] <directhex> but the gta games have all been identical since gta3. not a single important element changed, therefore they're the same game with a different skin. yup.
[22:06] <ali1234> indeed
[22:06] <directhex> gta4 is equally fun to vice city.
[22:06] <gord> untrue
[22:06] <gord> vice city has 80s music
[22:06] <ali1234> vice city is my favorite because of that :)
[22:06] <directhex> gord, and tommy vercetti doesn't handle like a walrus
[22:07] <directhex> gta4's table tennis engine can't have helped
[22:07] <gord> i actually don't like any gta games apart from 1 and vice city, your references are lost on me ;)
[22:07] <ali1234> i can understand if you want to get some new content in the same game after 3 years though
[22:07] <gord> and in vice city i was just driving around to the 80s music really
[22:08] <directhex> gta4 uses the "RAGE" engine (not to be confused with the id Tech 5 engine, used in the game "RAGE"). RAGE is the engine for rockstar table tennis
[22:09] <ali1234> GTA has very high replay value though, i guess that's why there's relatively few clones of it despite the big gaps
[22:09] <directhex> there are loads of gta clones
[22:09] <directhex> god what a flooded genre it is
[22:10] <directhex> saint's row is probably the best, but there were dozens during the xbox/ps2 era
[22:10] <directhex> they even started taking established franchises and turning them into "open world" gta clones. say, red faction guerilla
[22:11] <ali1234> there's a lot of open world games now but it's not quite the same thing
[22:11] <directhex> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Theft_Auto_clone
[22:11] <directhex> sure they are. drive around in other peoples' vehicles, killing bystanders
[22:11] <ali1234> i mean you could say stalker or fallout or oblivion are "GTA clones" but they aren't really
[22:12] <ali1234> they just have an open world
[22:12] <directhex> sometimes it's a horse or sometimes it's a car, or sometimes it's a fighter jet
[22:12] <directhex> but just cause is gta on a tropical island. saint's row 3 is gta with dildo bats and burt reynolds.
[22:12] <gord> if you want to get in to it, gta is ripping off TES :P
[22:13] <ali1234> or assassin's creed, that has an open world too
[22:13] <ali1234> the first one was basically GTA without cars
[22:14] <directhex> parkour game? clearly a mirror's edge ripoff
[22:14] <ali1234> mirrors edge is first person
[22:14] <ali1234> so that's a FPS without guns :)
[22:14] <directhex> technically...
[22:15] <directhex> you need to shoot at least one bullet to complete mirror's edge
[22:15] <ali1234> ok, very few guns then :)
[22:15] <directhex> you can take guns from the people you fight
[22:15] <directhex> there's an achievement for causing no bullet damage in a complete playthrough though
[22:17] <directhex> looks like i have about 28 ps3 games, and 42 xbox games
[22:17] <ali1234> so which is better, CoD or BF?
[22:18] <directhex> and on steam..... three hundred and fifty two
[22:18] <directhex> ali1234, no idea. i have no interest in "realistic" shooters like battlefield or call of duty
[22:18] <ali1234> can you at least understand why i would not consider buying BOTH of them?
[22:20] <gord> most people don't buy both of them
[22:20] <ali1234> i'm not even sure if they are on the same systems
[22:21] <directhex> ali1234, sure. but the way you've been talking this evening implies you'd also discount a hundred other games for being too similar, from borderlands to zeno clash
[22:21] <directhex> ali1234, both are multiplatform
[22:21] <ali1234> i wouldn't buy more than one such game every couple of years
[22:22] <ali1234> so i'd get which ever one i thought had most replay value
[22:22] <directhex> http://steamcommunity.com/id/directhex/games?tab=all
[22:22] <ali1234> i've heard CoD is extremely linear so it probably wouldn't be that one
[22:23] <directhex> CoD and Battlefield both have pretty lame singleplayer, afaik. they're bought only for multiplayer
[22:23] <ali1234> hmm can you get aggregate stats for games? how long people play them for on average?
[22:23] <directhex> depends on the game.
[22:23] <ali1234> "steam games"
[22:23] <directhex> general case: no
[22:24] <ali1234> they should have a top 10 for that or something
[22:24] <directhex> oh, top 10 you can do
[22:24] <directhex> except when steam falls over
[22:24] <directhex> like right now
[22:25] <ali1234> i can see top 10 most played
[22:25] <ali1234> but i mean, top 10 most replayed :)
[22:25] <ali1234> good to see civilization in the top
[22:26] <directhex> i'm still not convinced about civ5 versus civ4
[22:26] <directhex> they made some MAJOR ruleset changes
[22:26] <ali1234> i haven't played it since 2
[22:26] <directhex> civ4 is excellent, especially with the beyond the sword expansion
[22:27] <directhex> which plugs various holes in the long-game gameplay
[22:27] <ali1234> it can't have changed that much though right? i mean they haven't made it into a FPS yet right?
[22:27] <directhex> e.g. it institutes corporations as a late-game replacement for religion. and the apostolic palace as early-game united nations
[22:27] <directhex> ali1234, you know the next x-com and syndicate games are fps, right?
[22:27] <ali1234> yes of course :)
[22:27] <ali1234> they already made a couple of xcom FPS games
[22:28] <directhex> ali1234, no army stacking in civ5. and hex-based map
[22:28] <ali1234> yay hexes
[22:28] <ali1234> presumaby you can still stack armies in cities though?
[22:28] <directhex> nope.
[22:28] <ali1234> awesome
[22:28] <directhex> also, merged attack & defense score on units
[22:29] <ali1234> it always annoyed me when the computer had like 50 phalanx in the city and they somehow wear down your bomber
[22:29] <ali1234> despite being armed with only spears
[22:29] <directhex> cities get their own attack rating, with or without a garrison, which they can use to defend
[22:29] <directhex> e.g. walls increase the city's attack rating
[22:29] <directhex> you can attck any unit within 2 hexes in any direction
[22:29] <directhex> obviously a garrison bumps your city's attack score
[22:31] <gord> next xcom game is actually a strategy game
[22:31] <gord> the fps got bumped to next year because it was obvious everyone hated it
[22:31] <ali1234> hehe
[22:32] <directhex> oh, they also added city states to civ5
[22:32] <gord> they won't be able to rebottle the lightning of the first though. the only turn based strategy game i have ever played that was legitimately  scary
[22:32] <directhex> single-city neutral players. making them allied gives you a per-state bonus
[22:32] <directhex> sometimes the city states will give you mini-quests, like "nuke another city state plz"
[22:33] <directhex> generally though, i still feel civ4:bts is a better experience. largely because they totally screwed diplomacy in 5
[22:33] <directhex> and the theme song for 4 is far superior
[22:34] <directhex> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJiHDmyhE1A
[22:35] <directhex> hated civ3 and civ:ctp
[22:35] <ali1234> what ever happened to combat flight sims?
[22:35] <directhex> alpha centauri was good
[22:35] <directhex> ali1234, i think il2 sturmovic is the main franchise still going in that genre
[22:35] <mgdm> Alpha Centauri was the last game I sank a decent amount of time into
[22:36] <mgdm> since then I don't have the attention span for anything more than Angry Birds
[22:36] <directhex> http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/sid_meiers_alpha_centauri
[22:37] <gord> flight simulators don't get made anymore
[22:37] <directhex> microsoft have a new one out soon.
[22:37] <gord> yeah, but no
[22:37] <gord> it just looks like their last one, refitted into the free to play model
[22:38] <directhex> so?
[22:38] <gord> so its not really a new game
[22:39] <directhex> the last il2 game was in 2011
[22:39] <directhex> which is pretty recent
[22:39] <directhex> general case though, games are expensive to make and flight sims are a tiny market
[22:40] <ali1234> yet "ship simulator: extreme" gets made
[22:40] <shauno> x-plane had a major release fairly recently.  they're still ou tthere
[22:41] <gordonjcp> railsim
[22:41] <gordonjcp> that just...
[22:41] <directhex> ali1234, that's eastern-european shovelware though
[22:41] <ali1234> yeah like 50% of the games in simulation category are train simulators or add ons
[22:41] <directhex> railworks is £1000 of serious business.
[22:41] <gordonjcp> I know a guy who develops scenarios for rail simulators
[22:42] <directhex> http://store.steampowered.com/app/24010/ - all the dlc for railworks 3 is £1048.12
[22:42] <gordonjcp> he knows an awful lot about trains, and timetables, and railway routes
[22:43] <directhex> oh, there's a new train simulator in debian now. i know about it because it's mono-based :p
[22:43] <ali1234> i guess train simulator kind of makes sense, if you are controlling multiple trains and signals and stuff
[22:43] <ali1234> if it was just "train driver simulator" that would be awful
[22:44] <directhex> ali1234, it is.
[22:44] <directhex> ali1234, that's railworks, the one with a grand of dlc
[22:44] <ali1234> you just control... how fast the train goes?
[22:44] <directhex> ali1234, there's even a zombie DLC for it. let me find the video
[22:44] <ali1234> the one train...
[22:44] <ali1234> LOL
[22:44] <directhex> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5QggbEWtGQ
[22:45] <ali1234> i mean if it was like amodel railway type thing where you build the track and control multiple trains... like roller coaster tycoon... *that* would be good
[22:45] <directhex> ali1234, i'm not aware of one after Sid Meier's Railroads
[22:45] <shauno> that's basically how I treat openttd
[22:46] <directhex> http://images.amazon.com/images/G/01/videogames/detail-page/railroads-100206-3-lg.jpg
[22:47] <directhex> http://0.tqn.com/d/compsimgames/1/0/3/x/1/SMR0071.jpg
[22:47] <directhex> it's fun
[22:47] <directhex> a bit crashy though
[22:47] <directhex> also, it's a pc game. remember the "who would play a pc game?" thing?
[22:48] <ali1234> sure. it depends what you want from a game though
[22:48] <directhex> fun?
[22:49] <ali1234> yeah but that's like saying you want a car with 4 wheels and an engine
[22:49] <directhex> clearly there's only one correct choice of car, everyone else is wrong
[22:50] <ali1234> there are multiple correct choices for different people
[22:50] <directhex> see? you've come so far in only an hour.
[22:50] <ali1234> however there are also choices that are incorrect for everyone
[22:51] <ali1234> then there are people who buy 5 sports cars
[22:51] <ali1234> (or more)
[22:57] <czajkowski> aloha
[22:58] <popey> yo
[22:59] <AlanBell> bon soir
[23:00] <BigRedS> Good morning
[23:01] <czajkowski> just back :)
[23:03] <popey> good food?
[23:04] <czajkowski> yup not bad, I didnt eat the snails!
[23:04] <popey> haha
[23:04] <popey> wuss
[23:04] <czajkowski> not a hope in hell!
[23:04] <popey> they dont actually taste of anything. it's the garlic butter / breadcrumbs / whatever that you taste
[23:04] <mgdm> +1
[23:05] <popey> still yummy ☺
[23:05] <czajkowski> so someone tried to tell me today while trying to force feed a snail into me
[23:05] <popey> haha
[23:05] <popey> so we cant all be wrong
[23:05] <czajkowski> I do beg to differ ;)
[23:05] <gordonjcp> they're a bit like whelks
[23:05] <popey> ... or are we just colluding to get you to eat the disgusting slimy filth?
[23:06] <popey> its funny there's not much I won't eat
[23:06] <czajkowski> I'm going with the latter
[23:06] <czajkowski> popey: same with him
[23:06] <czajkowski> very odd
[23:06] <popey> jelly makes me feel a bit sick
[23:06] <popey> jelly you get with eels that is, not lime jelly
[23:06] <AlanBell> I am not keen on raw tomatoes but that is about it
[23:06] <popey> eaten or thrown?
[23:06]  * popey makes notes for oggcamp 12
[23:07]  * AlanBell is delighted to see the oggcamp 12 announcment
[23:07]  * mgdm will attempt to make it to an oggcamp this year
[23:07] <gordonjcp> \o/
[23:08]  * mgdm wonders if lobbing petrol money at gordonjcp might result in transport :P
[23:08] <gordonjcp> mgdm: yeah, of course
[23:08] <mgdm> gordonjcp: the reverse would work too, I have a car :)
[23:08] <gordonjcp> yup
[23:10] <popey> uhm
[23:10] <BigRedS> AlanBell: Ah, so no binary numbering scheme?
[23:10] <AlanBell> BigRedS: it wasn't me that just announced it ;)
[23:11] <popey> Oh hi all. Looks like Sophie has been at my computer for the last 5 minutes
[23:11] <AlanBell> lulz
[23:11] <mgdm>  :D
[23:11] <BigRedS> ah, I can't see/find the announcement anyway; is it just what's in the topic?
[23:12] <AlanBell> BigRedS: yeah
[23:13] <gordonjcp> well
[23:13] <gordonjcp> he's said it now
[23:13] <gordonjcp> mgdm and I have booked transport
[23:13] <gordonjcp> better make it happen
[23:13] <BigRedS> haha
[23:14]  * AlanBell heads off to bed before causing more trouble
[23:41] <ali1234> after upgrading i no longer have java, is that normal?
[23:47] <shauno> I believe that's intentional; to do with oracle expiring the license for their jre I believe
[23:50] <directhex> yep
[23:50] <directhex> oracle java cannot be distributed except on oracle's website
[23:50] <directhex> because oracle
[23:50] <hamitron> suck
[23:50] <ali1234> but i was using openjdk
[23:52] <ali1234> i still have openjdk 6 policy tool installed
[23:52] <ali1234> and openjdk 7 policy tool
[23:52] <ali1234> it doesn't work though
[23:54] <ali1234> "openjdk-6-jre-headless is already the newest version."
[23:55] <ali1234> the focus bug is still here too