Rant 382 / A^22 !!!

While moving the extra wireless adapter from the USB port on the top of the casing to one of those behind, I must have done something to my monitor as pushed it against the wall on the right and then leaned onto it (while bending down to look at the sockets). I have no idea what's happening, but some bizarre bs is appearing on my screen.


In the above image is my screen whenever I turn my monitor on or do anything to change the resolution (including playing games in full screen mode).


A closer look at the dust on my brand new monitor.

When I turn off Smart Image using the monitor's software, this is what I get - normal sharpness but with the words still there.



Using the Print Screen function does not capture the words. The screenshot would show the screen to be normal. Also, the buttons on the side of the monitor no longer work. I cannot turn my monitor off now except by using the switch at the power socket.

This is very annoying because I cannot fully enjoy my games now. I wanted to replay Mass Effect but with this problem, I don't feel like it anymore. I cannot play the game in full screen mode because once the monitor changes to the game's required resolution, the line returns. Alt-Tab causes the line to return too, so I can't go back to Windows to turn off Smart Image.

The only workaround is by playing the game in windowed mode, which sucks because the largest resolution only occupies half my screen. And the words are still there.

The tech support guy responded to my email at around 4am, after I sent it at 9pm. He told me he had never encountered this problem before and asked me to send him screenshots. I was unable to do so due to the problem described previously, so I took photos and attached it to my next email reply.

12 hours later, I still haven't received a response from him. I've a feeling this is going to be a very troublesome issue that may even involve me spending more money.










The new old extra adapter is also giving me minor troubles. It frequently disconnects from the network, saying it cannot find any. Replugging it works but tiresome. My best guess is that it sucks at heat dissipation because it's always very warm when I take it to check for any physical clues to why it's sucking at its job.









So I've given up on waiting for help before playing. If the tech support doesn't give me a response within the next 2 days I'm going to email again and wait for 1 more day. Failing that I'll have to do something else, like calling them which will most likely end up with me lugging the monitor to their service centre or something.




This is the third time I'm playing Mass Effect, this time with the Bring Down the Sky expansion. I haven't tried the new content yet, but it's just another place to explore anyway, so I'm not exactly dying to go to that part of the game the way I was when I played Broken Steel.

Speaking of Fallout 3, it seems Point Lookout is a pretty good expansion.

Back to Mass Effect, I'm now trying it on Insane difficulty. Now the game is finally challenging. For the last two runs, the only difficult part had always been the fight with the Krogan mercenary and his band while saving Liara. It is difficult because I couldn't figure out any nifty tricks that could allow me to win it without using a single medpack, whether or not I made any careless mistake.

Now on Insane mode, even the fight with the 2 assassins outside of Chora's Den (early in the game) is hard. I died 3 times just now fighting them because my shotgun was rather ineffective at distance and one of them could throw grenades. I could charge into them with my guns blazing but one of them was also using a shotgun which could kill me with around 3 close-range shots.

I still manage to get past them but it took me 2 tries to make me admit that I had to start with my pistol for a gunfight at first and switch to my shotgun if any of them move into a better position to receive my shotgun blasts.

By the way I'm using a brand new Adept, so I can't use Heavy Armours and I'm starting from Level 1 again. Battles are made extra difficult (in addition to the difficulty level and mediocre armour level) by my making a point not to add skill points to long-ranged weapons, ie Assault Rifle and Sniper Rifle. Because I've completed the game before, I was able to use either one of these even though my chosen class originally was unable to master them. As a result, I now have a useless skill.

This makes things harder for myself for a number of reasons. First, most enemies have long-ranged weapons, especially snipers who are actually so dangerous they are the first enemies I kill whenever I can. Second, my pistol is my best weapon at long range and it sucks compared to all other weapons. Third, I've always prefered to snipe enemies in this game since most enemies aren't snipers and they frequently leave bits of themselves exposed when hiding behind covers, which make great bullet-receivers.

There are only two ways I can make the game even more challenging:

1) Use the Sentinel class and spend not a single point on all weapons.
2) Avoid all crates.

I'm pretty sure I can finish the game while fulfilling the above conditions but it wouldn't be fun anymore (especially 2). Beats the point of playing the game if I do that.

I've also read a bit more on the Mass Effect sex scene scandal on Wikipedia. It's amazing how people can discuss on American TV what they know nothing about. If the sex scene is offensive then Baywatch must have been porn!!











Breaking news! The Pirate Bay has been sold for US$7.8m to a gaming-related company which will make the website legal. So far, the plan has been changed from closing down the torrent tracker to something relatively more feasible. The new plan involves letting others host their torrents to save bandwidth and storage space.

What really caught my attention is how they are going to pay copyright owners. If the plan works, the website is going to be the pioneer in legal filesharing on a very large scale and proof that piracy can be made legal. If it fails, the website will be a prominent example of how RIAA is really the MAFIAA.

I am unable to go to the Pirate Bay website at the moment due to a very probable DDOS attack in response to this news. However, I did manage to confirm this news by googling "pirate bay sold". The first result is the blog of Pirate Bay (also inaccessible) with the following excerpt:

30 Jun 2009 ... TPB is being sold for a great bit underneath it's value if the money would be ... Everybody can indeed be the owner of The Pirate Bay now. ...

So it's true. If the guys behind the website were convinced enough that this would work, then it probably has a very sensible business model behind it. I'm extremely curious about how this is going to turn out.