Price of Progress: In Support of Piracy

If internet was decade and a half ago as it was today, I do not think my trip would have been as fun.

I remember using popup blockers and deciding on what are morally correct ways to serve ads to my visitors (for example, I never used popups nor exit crap that tries to make last minute sale). But I look at what I run today and I could not possibly advise anybody not to do same and run Malwarebytes, AdblockPlus, Noscript, ...

When I started out I think I was getting infected by random virus every week. In last decade I have not had a single infection. I do however see 'blocked' by Malwarebytes and Avast about three times an hour.

I also remember what it was like to contact small game developer with an issue, or talk to sysop at random BBS, before there was internet. And how much more polite interactions were. How much higher value individual customer had when getting product to individual customer was harder.

So with progress, and ease of getting in touch, price was human decency.

Blizzard Entertainment departments do not communicate among each other

Update (April 2nd 2014): I communicated to Blizzard Entertainment CS Department on Twitter as well, and they are just as incompetent there. They want all their customers using real names with RealID system. Sure, I have no problem with that. But then they have all their employees hiding like cowards behind ridiculous handles while abusing paying customers.

My issue was simple. I did not earn a forum ban, I simply wanted somebody to look into it and tell me why I received no email stating what was the issue. Instead of looking into it I got no less than SEVEN representatives of Blizzard Customer Support to give me DIFFERENT emails that I should email. That is RIDICULOUS behavior! They all claim they are powerless to do anything. So, apparently Blizzard employs all these incompetents, gives them limited power, and wastes everybody's time. They got just over $500 from me in last month (two accounts), somewhere in vicinity of $6000 over past decade (family accounts for WoW, half of which had subs being paid with no time actually spent using them for several years), and now I'll find different company to throw money at as I lost all faith and confidence in Blizzard Entertainment following this streak of incompetence on behalf of their employees.

Just received this as response to my CS ticket complaint about my forum account on Hearthstone getting suspended with no cause given (btw, took them TWO days to answer, and they probably broke record in doing so):

Blizzard Entertainment wins in the "The WORST Customer Support" category

I apparently just got banned from Blizzard's Forum.

I do not know for what exactly, nor for how long. No email was sent to me, no message of any kind.

Customer support response times are about THREE DAYS. So forget asking them.

For Gaming Company they sure allow ton of hate filled against them posts to remain. My posts were actually all Pro Blizzard. Which is why this is ridiculous.

The way I found out is by trying to post. Instead of posting it just stated 'Account Suspended". That is the lamest ban I have ever got from any forum in about 30 years of posting on Bulletin Board Systems, MUD's and after Internet became popular, Internet.

From company I gave around $500 this month alone and who I always spoke positively about.

Thanks for opening my eyes about you Blizzard.

Royalty Free Music Can Get Your Videos Removed From YouTube

I do not buy, nor use intentionally, any royalty free music. Unfortunately, some of the gaming companies whose videos I wanted to promote do. What that resulted in is waste of time, bandwidth, and by extension money. However a valuable lesson was learned.

Google/YouTube and copyright infringement clowns and trolls only care about copyrights when it means they can abuse you, the consumer. They on the other hand have no qualms about breaking laws to make money.

Youtube Monetization and Copyright Ownership

When you are waiting in line at the grocery store you probably see those trash magazines that claim various celebrities did some outrageous things. Most of those claims would prove to be untrue, yet virtually no celebrity ever sues those magazines. Why? Because whatever they say about you is better than when they stop talking about you if what you want is to be in the spotlight and remain relevant.

Same applies to games and gaming companies. Sure, there is such thing as too much negative publicity, and sometimes that happens no matter how much money you try to shut up honesty with, like in case of Star Wars MMO and Warhammer MMO, but overall gaming companies do want you to talk about their games, especially if you have something nice to say.

How to Install League of Legends WITHOUT PANDO Media Booster

I detest garbage like Pando Media Booster. Its used by companies to steal your bandwidth to save themselves money. Its torrent client, but without any settings you, the consumer, can change easily. If you are paying for your bandwidth that can result in rather large, yet unexpected, bill from your internet service provider.

Basically it uses your upload bandwidth to seed, send to others that are trying to download. It is despicable disregard for customers by any company that uses it. If I cannot find download without crap malware like Pando I simply skip game involved.

Anyway, if you want to download League of Legends and need links to clean installs, here they are:

North America:
http://l3cdn.riotgames.com/Installer/SingleFileInstall/LeagueOfLegendsBaseNA.exe

Europe West:
http://l3cdn.riotgames.com/Installer/SingleFileInstall/LeagueOfLegendsBaseEUW.exe

Europe Nordic and East:
http://l3cdn.riotgames.com/Installer/SingleFileInstall/LeagueOfLegendsBaseEUNE.exe

After you click on one of these 20 MB installers they will install crap-free League of Legends game whose patcher will then download 800 mb-2gb (whatever its at now) rest of the game.

If you wish to use torrents, learn how to use them, how to control your upload speed and how to turn them off when you want. Do not use garbage like Pando as there is no sane reason to do so. If you already made a mistake and have Pando installed, uninstall it.

They do not make them like they used to

Few weeks ago I picked up some games I used to play decade or so ago from GOG and Steam.

Master of Magic, which I never actually owned as full version previously. What I had was magazine promo 3 inch diskette with demo version of Master of Magic. Due to free time limitations I was under back then I never even got my fill of that demo. So it stayed as something on my 'to do' list, to be done when I get a chance.

Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition and Baldur's Gate 2 with Throne of Bhaal, also Enhanced Edition, from Steam. While I did actually play sequel quite a bit, all I got to see of first one is Candlekeep. It was during 30 minutes prior to 8-man team match of some FPS, I do not remember which one it was, and as we were in LAN internet cafe and waiting for couple guys to arrive, we were checking out some other games. Among others, I saw Baldur's Gate, and did not expect much as previous computer DnD games I tried (stuff from 80's) were pretty bad from my point of view. RPG's I played back then were on Sega Master System (Y's and Phantasy Star), Nintendo, Super Nintendo, then Playstation, which was last system I bothered to buy as I switched exclusively to PC gaming as of 97.

McDonalds and Tim Hortons do not want my money

Monday, 3am. Hectic week, mostly away from home for me so I slept from Sunday Afternoon til Monday 3am. I usually sleep 4-6 hours a night, but I was exhausted. I dont eat while I travel, so I did not eat some 8 hours prior to falling asleep. Woke up, noticed there is nothing really to eat. Nothing while my cook is away. She's due in 3 hours, but I am hungry now. I do not cook.

So, just like my primitive ancestors, I went hunting, Monday 3am, through foot of snow, wanting to use my money instead of a spear to catch me something to tide me over til cook is back on schedule and so I can be fed normally again.

I am officially "the worst person alive right now"

If you see type of comments I make online, and know me IRL, you know that I am same person on and off the internet. I speak my mind about things, loving every minute of freedom of speech my citizenship's entitle me to.

So, it is impossible for me to guess what exactly did I state that earned me title of "worst person alive right now", whether its my strong opposition to weakening economy of North America by freely allowing refugees and poor immigrants who end up on welfare immediately after arriving, or my distaste for stupid people, or my support of death penalty and harsher sentences for certain crimes, ... maybe its that I oppose use and legalization of drugs (yeah, I am uncool like that, I even oppose marijuana), or that I wanted death penalty as minimum sentence for drinking and driving. I guess I will never know.

I also just found out that as far as Adolf Hitler is concerned, I am Jewish. As I am not circumcised I guess I am either one of those secular Jews, or some other type of demographic. Its cool, Jews have great food and some rather exceptionally cute girls, if they do not care that I am atheist/agnostic depending on the day we can hang out.

I guess its good I did not bring up that I am worse than him in that conversation.

Thanks to Vedmak.

Ford Motor Co. Indian Execs fired for having sense of humor

After hundred years of boring Ford Automobile ads, finally somebody got creative and made campaign I liked. I still would not buy pieces of junk like Ford cars, but at least I would have said that they have sense of humor that fits 21st century.

I remember when I was little kid seeing really dumb, unbelievable ads in comic books. Its what got me intrigued in marketing in the first place. How to sell complete useless junk, but make it sound cool.

Back Online

After two days of pointless attempts to get my ISP's tech support to tell me what is really going on, they fixed problem on their end and I am back online.

This morning I somehow managed to insult two Wil Wheaton fans (look, its not my fault he is a bad actor), and civil attempts at arguing merits of my points resulted in them banning me from their pages. Oh well, I'll survive.

And in other news your appliances might be spying on you:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-24707337

Internet Is Down ... Except for Facebook, Twitter and Google

Unfortunately YouTube is in down for me, alongside with almost entire rest of the internet.

I can search on Google, but results fail connection. Gmail, Google Translate and Blogger work, and its amazing that except for couple social media services everything else is down.

My ISP's Twitter and Facebook do not mention a problem, Tech Support number has prerecorded message blaming power outage, and speaking to actual tech person leads nowhere as guy cant speak English at all, speaks horrible French with ghetto accent and keeps denying its them.

Kickstarter, Elemental Labs and Reborn

I already posted about this on Facebook, but I guess since I have this blog, I should post stuff on it here and there as well. Ever get this feeling that there are just too many social media outlets that it becomes too time consuming to keep up with them all?

Text from my Facebook:

Peter Slack and "I against I" review

Few weeks ago I viewed British made movie called unimaginatively "I against I". The title refers to names of two characters, however movie is so unmemorable I could not remember what they are, Isaac and Ivan, Igor and Idiot, something else, who cares. If you still care, go watch this movie, I can guarantee you wont care by time its over and you feel 84 minutes of your life slipping away.

First problem with this movie is its 84 minutes. That happens to be minimum running time required to show it in theaters, and when movies come up short on running time, they pad it. Well, this movie "I against I", more than likely was over and done in 15 minutes, if that, so 70% of this movie is pointless waste of time and unimaginative padding.

Movie review "I against I" and a bit on ethics

How to recognize two IMDB reviews and plot summary written by the same person.

Review 1 :
Set in a metropolitan underworld, two very different protagonists are unwittingly caught in a slowly escalating nightmare over one night in which each has to find and eliminate the other or be killed himself. It is only through flashbacks and sudden twists that we the audience gets to find out what is really at stake, and to disentangle the motives in this psychological thriller. As a plot it really works well.
It may not be a big budget gangster movie from Hollywood, but there are enough close up car chases and fast action for one critic to have written that it's a bloke's film. Yes, but it's also a film you can watch alongside your girlfriend or boyfriend. Why? Because it has universal themes of someone ordinary being pushed beyond their limit, and love that ultimately has no limits. So we voted it our film of the month. There are 12 of us in the film club and we see 50-60 films a year. Go watch it.