Random News not worthy of own thread

[RegisterMe]

This is just brilliant. Just brilliant.

[Hank001]

RegisterMe:

Just brilliant

Answers the age old question of: "Is it art?" With: "Not any more it's not!"

Gotta love creativity in destruction...

[Santi]

Interpol boss, a Chinese national, has been reported missing in a visit to his motherland.

[pjknibbs]

Interpol boss, a Chinese national, has been reported missing in a visit to his motherland.

I thought it had been confirmed he'd been arrested and was under investigation by Chinese authorities?

[Santi]

Yes that is correct the Chinese released an statement saying so.

[Morkonan]

Yes that is correct the Chinese released an statement saying so.

Just a note: While the Chinese Government does zealously go after officials charged with "Corruption," they appear to do it more for the publicity of prosecuting "Corrupt Officials" than for any reason relating to actually caring whether or not someone is corrupt or guilty of graft. Corruption/graft throughout China is, reportedly, endemic. Public confidence in government officials, local or national, needs to be maintained and it's very difficult to do when things can, again "reportedly", seem as bad as India.

IMO, China may be very selective when prosecuting corrupt officials and others. But, you can bet when they do decide to do that, they'll publicize the heck out of it.

Just my opinion. I think he probably ticked off someone who decide to show him their power...

[felter]

Yes that is correct the Chinese released an statement saying so.

Just a note: While the Chinese Government does zealously go after officials charged with "Corruption," they appear to do it more for the publicity of prosecuting "Corrupt Officials" than for any reason relating to actually caring whether or not someone is corrupt or guilty of graft. Corruption/graft throughout China is, reportedly, endemic. Public confidence in government officials, local or national, needs to be maintained and it's very difficult to do when things can, again "reportedly", seem as bad as India.

IMO, China may be very selective when prosecuting corrupt officials and others. But, you can bet when they do decide to do that, they'll publicize the heck out of it.

Just my opinion. I think he probably ticked off someone who decide to show him their power...

Sorry about this Morkonan but I find this very funny, an American voicing concerns about another countries corrupt government, while America has one of the most corrupt governments in western politics, one where if you have enough money you can buy anything and anyone from the President down. The saying, the pot calling the kettle black comes to mind.

[Morkonan]

Sorry about this Morkonan but I find this very funny, an American voicing concerns about another countries corrupt government, while America has one of the most corrupt governments in western politics, one where if you have enough money you can buy anything and anyone from the President down. The saying, the pot calling the kettle black comes to mind.

You're entirely correct. Well, almost. OUR "corruption" is much more high-brow and dignified. But, seriously, it's also not as prevalent in daily transactions and abuses of power. It's shadowy, conducted in back-rooms, but everyone wears a suit...

***********

On another note, Google+ will be shutting down, largely due to continuing security issues. All five of its remaining users will... Well, here's the article:

Google+ to shut down after security bug

I particularly liked this bit:

According to the Journal, Google's legal and policy team warned senior executives at the company that disclosing the security flaw could lead to "immediate regulatory interest."
"Every year, we send millions of notifications to users about privacy and security bugs and issues," a spokesperson for Google said in a statement provided to CNN Business. "Whenever user data may have been affected, we go beyond our legal requirements and apply several criteria focused on our users in determining whether to provide notice.

Oh, that's just lovely. - "in determining whether to provide notice." "Whether?" If friggin user-data "may have been affected", why the F aren't they "providing notice?" Probably because doing the "right friggin' thing" would attract "immediate regulatory interest." IOW - Fix your @$@$% Google and stop trying to figure out a way to rape the privacy of users in order to make money.

[felter]

So it looks like Turkey has video and audio evidence showing that Saudi Arabia interrogated and killed Jamal Khashoggi inside their Consulate, well at least that is what they are saying as no one else has seen this evidence. Pressure is being mounted on Saudi as Branson has pulled out of a $1 Billion deal, while other business leaders are pulling out of a conference with the country. It should be interesting to see what the Yanks do, as their current government are kind of relying pretty heavily on Saudi Arabia.

[Observe]

I'm guessing the Saudi' figure this will quickly become yesterdays news and it'll be business as usual.

[burger1]

It looks like Fallout 76 beta gameplay videos have been released.

https://www.reddit.com/r/fo76/comments/ ... ge_thread/

[Hank001]

burger1 notes:

It looks like Fallout 76 beta gameplay videos have been released.

Bethesda's unveiling at the Greenbrier was for consoles and hadn't gone through optimization and limited to 3 hours gameplay. None of the vids impressed me that much and to keep Bethesda happy the reviewers downplayed the slow frame rates, lags and the bad audio sync in combat. Well it WAS a beta I guess. And the old saying goes: You get what you pay for. Expect NPCs to swim across the landscape, its almost trademark. They'll have the bugs ironed out about a year or two after full release. That's almost trademark too.

Edit: If you want to know where I thought the wheels are going to fly off and how Bethesda dealt with it you only have to watch MassiveG's video on PVP in FO76.

Murder and PVP Gameplay

Kind of cut griefing out of the equation, but still, where their's a will there's a way.

[Golden_Gonads]

They'll have the bugs ironed out about a year or two after full release. That's almost trademark too.

Bethesda don't do bugfixes though. Oh they'll fix major issues, but there's a reason all their main games have fan patches with fix-lists that are literally in the thousands.

[Hank001]

Golden_Gonads said:

Bethesda don't do bugfixes though. Oh they'll fix major issues, but there's a reason all their main games have fan patches with fix-lists that are literally in the thousands.

Truer Words! (Though a good deal are due to the Havok engine). Though with all it's patches and DLC's I still think watching some enemy in FO3 turn into an abstract scupture and spin and twirl over the landscape is halarious! Got to play FO4 on a friend machine...zzz. Todd still thinks moral ambiguity is a big sell and having to wipe out all the other factions didn't really thrill me as an okay thing to do (IMO).

My big thought on FO76 is: What's the point? Somewhere along the line it's back to "buy or die".

[pjknibbs]

Truer Words! (Though a good deal are due to the Havok engine).

How does a physics engine bug cause questlines to break all over the place, out of interest?

[Hank001]

pjknibbs asked:

How does a physics engine bug cause questlines to break all over the place, out of interest?

It doesn't but using the G.E.C.K. or the TES Construction Set the community could fix most quest breaks/scripting errors/etc.

When it's Havok going wonky the your basically SOL.

Though with quest beaks they usually didn't need a reload to fix. That's going into the console, resetting the quest and then stepping the quest to the stage just before the break occured. (After checking the GECK/TESCS to get the quest ID and stage number) Pain in the ass, but better than blowing a quest. Then putting the problem/fix on the forums.

A big problem (up to FO3/FO3NV/Oblivion) was Speedtree skipping a pointer. That and conflictions from homebuilt mods with DLC mods. And modder scripts putting in globals and such that were already in use by quest scripts. That and 1000 other pesky bugs.

And they want to to get into space games? I'm thinking a few Big Bangs when the cosmos goes wonky...

[pjknibbs]

It doesn't but using the G.E.C.K. or the TES Construction Set the community could fix most quest breaks/scripting errors/etc.

See, this annoys me probably more than it should. "Oh, it's easy for the community to fix" is *not* an excuse for shipping a game with broken quests--in fact, it makes it *worse*, because it would have been just as easy for Bethesda to fix them, and they didn't! Why does Bethesda get a free pass for this? If EA were doing the same they'd be dumped on from a great altitude.

[Hank001]

pjknibbs rightly states:

See, this annoys me probably more than it should. "Oh, it's easy for the community to fix" is *not* an excuse for shipping a game with broken quests--in fact, it makes it *worse*, because it would have been just as easy for Bethesda to fix them, and they didn't! Why does Bethesda get a free pass for this? If EA were doing the same they'd be dumped on from a great altitude.

You're expecting an argument when you're preaching to the choir here boss. I can give you a hundred inside quotes like: "I don't care! Let's get it shipped!" to "If we fix this now were going to have to redo X DLC almost from scratch!" So they shouldn't get a free pass they should stop and fix the underlying problem of having too many old, outdated and shoddily upgraded parts in the engine that are still based on software designed in 2001-2002 for Morrowind! No what surprises me the most is it works at all. When the wagon is held together with duct tape and rubber bands then who should be surprised when the wheels fly off?

The rest I'll save for the rant thread.

[Tracker001]

For the Motor heads :
Quik and dirty >> What is Engine Mapping and how does it affect a car's behavior ? | Plus Mini Q&A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cr4uIzkD0k

[felter]

Seems like it's that time of year where they go after the game cheaters, as there has been a couple of those stories happened the last couple of days.

Yesterday it was a Fortnite cheater who thought it was a good idea to film himself cheating and put it on YouTube, he has since removed all of his Fortnite videos.

And them today we have Grand Theft Auto, this one is interesting as they have got court permission to raid their houses for evidence of their cheating and their bank accounts have all but been frozen.

Granted these two cases they weren't just cheating but selling cheating services. I have absolutely no sympathy for them, I have a passion for hating online cheaters. Single player games are fair game but when you play with others, at least do it from a level playing field.