Little things that annoy the hell out of you

[Ex-Cyber]

Safety/freshness seals that don't actually seal. I just unscrewed the cap from a "sealed" bottle, and the plastic wrapper bit just came right off with it, entirely intact.

[Ed Oscuro]

Damn, this case is both louder (and the fan control less easily useful / usable than I'd like) and less well-made than it should be. Maybe I'll figure out the loudness problem later. The poor design choices have forced a few random odd compromises on my part (i.e. I couldn't use the usual SATA cable with the hook-end to connect my Blu-Ray burner to the top slot, because there is a metal "shelf" under that slot alone, and it protrudes just too far into the case; there's a similar problem on the bottom of the top four

NZXT's floppy plastic HDD trays are absolutely shit for SSDs. Not only did NZXT fail to provide long enough screws for mounting SSDs to this type of tray (the included M3-0.50 5mm machine bolts are being replaced in newer shipping cases by 7mm long ones, but I got one of the first 3000) but it also doesn't firmly snap into the ledges. It needs some pressure from the inside, like a regular drive, to keep it from bowing inward. Thus, I will have to go spend yet another $5 to get a SSD to 3.5" adapter to secure the thing in the case. Also, there's little chromed buttons on the edge of the rubbery spacer/HDD connector tabs, and one of them randomly fell off into the depths of the case never to be seen again.

On top of this, I am really starting to regret not going with a flat-top case. Oh well! On the plus side, there are no sharp corners in the case, so you can reach around all day long and not cut yourself. The cable management has been pretty good too. However, I would like to have a working power button so I don't have to punch the button on the motherboard to start up.

Also stupid: Somehow I managed to delete a needed partition on one of my old drives, by first deleting the obsolete 100mb system partition (normally hidden on drives) next to it, and then trying to expand the deleted partition - somehow this fucked it. So now I'm running TestDisk all day long in hopes of restoring the partition, and additionally moving a quarter terabyte of data from one drive to another so I can wipe a drive without having this problem. Then I will have many more hundred gigs of shit to move from other drives, too, so I can safely wipe those.

That reminds me - bane of any upgrader's existence: File Access rights. Not even going to get into this one except to say it's an old problem I've been aware of for some time. Basically, your PC helpfully tries to lock you out of files in your possession because the access rights formerly granted by a now dead OS install are not found on the current machine. Yet clicking some buttons and waiting aaaaaaaages for the attributes to be applied to all children of the parent directory is enough, except in those cases where some lovely program like Starforce (how the fuck did you get back on here?) and Adobe Reader use unusual characters or other tricks to lock you out of doing anything to the file without pulling out the heavy command-line, run-from-a-reboot tools, or just reformatting the drive.

Another annoyance: SSD and HDD drives aren't properly enough separated by type in Windows 7 yet. Supposedly running the Windows Experience Index assessment will determing the type of disk and lock it out of being defragged, but in practice this didn't happen. I had to disable disk defrag's schedule manually. I also don't see a way of discriminating between power off options for platter drives (where it's a good idea, especially if you have 3-4 of them in your PC at the same time, including relatively elderly drives) versus SSDs where you want to give them some time to run operations in idle time. I'll probably end up just using a single power option for all of them, but I really shouldn't have to. You also have to know to turn off indexing on SSDs as well.

PCI death: Turns out the old Sweetspot will go on the auction block, and probably the Fatal1ty Creative X-FI Titanium as well (good riddance anyway - it had nice sound quality though). This motherboard has no traditional 32-bit PCI slots! I will probably keep the Core i7 motherboard around so I have 5.25" compatibility, but it won't be a full-fledged PC anymore. (Maybe I should hook that into a DOS machine to see how it goes.) Related annoyance: The suggested full-speed slot for a single 16x PCI-E video card is right where the second CPU heatsink fan needed to be. I haven't figured a way of reversing the clamps yet without cutting them off, so it stays off for now. I have yet to test the PC under any kind of a load to actually see the CPU throttle up. So far under very normal usage the CPU has been very cool. The fan at the back of the case is actually blowing out totally cool air (okay, there is the barest tinge of warmth right now0, although I feel virtually nothing out the top of the case (which is the way the fan is directed).

It also annoys to have two sound icons in the tray - one Asus' shinydark bloatware (but more fully-featured) version of a Renesas HD audio driver, and the other the normal modular Windows one. I suppose the normal Windows one isn't flexible enough to do everything you want, but let's face it, onboard HD audio isn't a pro spec anyway, no matter how they try to dress it up with the "Realtk proprietary UAJ (Universal Audio Jack)" technology. Analog sound output doesn't "just work;" you have to figure out which plug is the right one (back panel labels don't really help) for your audio from the proprietary audio driver panel, plug it in, then find it and change it to the right kind of output.

It's also amazing how much of this PC is Asus: The motherboard, the graphics card, and probably quite soon the sound card too.

Buuut anyway, once these last issues are solved, I'll hopefully be ready to forget about this thing and just start using it.

[Lord Satori]

I got a jury summons. I can't even fucking DRIVE! How the fuck do they expect me to get there?!

[null1024]

Things in games that are completely at odds with how it has taught you how it works.

Case in point, Final Egg in Sonic Adventure 1. You can die by falling too far [even though there are parts of the level beneath], which isn't a possibility anywhere else [and later in the level, you're expected to go into a similar looking freefall to progress]. Large platform-looking objects that hurt you for no apparent reason. It's just a mess. It's not even that hard, it's just cheap as hell.



Oh, and dropping your PSP and somehow your microSD card magically decides to become unreadable and when you try to format it, it comes up as being 32MB instead of 16GB.
The rest of the PSP is intact other than scratches.
and silly me hadn't backed up the saves on it in weeks, aaaaaaaaaa

Using one of those little microSD->Memory Stick converters of course, no way in hell I'm spending $30 on 16GB when I could get it for $9.

At least it was an excuse to get a 32GB card for the thing, and I should back up all my saves regularly, blah.

[Friendly]

That's why you're not supposed to buy cheapo SD cards; you end up paying more that way. After a cheap SD card crapped out on me a couple of years ago, I started to use only use Sandisk and Transcend. No reliability problems since and never had a problem with compatibility, either.

[Ruldra]

My brother installs Black Ops 2 on his PC and I watch him play. 5 minutes later I'm feeling sick.

I'm getting fucking old.

[ChainsawGuitarSP]

Motion sickness or just general disgust at current video games? I remember getting the former when I watched a friend play Mirror's Edge. I really honestly can't stomach FPS games.

[Ruldra]

Motion sickness. I could play FPSes for hours back in the day and not feel anything, nowadays I get sick very easily. No idea why.

And yeah, I couldn't play Mirror's Edge either.

[ChainsawGuitarSP]

At least you know now it's not just your age (probably.) I used to be able to handle Metroid Prime fine when the fastest movements possible were you jerking to the side slightly to lock on to a corner enemy, but when I played the Trilogy collection I had to put it down after a while.

[drauch]

Leaving my house, and subsequently, human contact.

[moh]

Leaving my house, and subsequently, human contact.

I agree with everything this man says.

[ChainsawGuitarSP]

I had a conversation with another person once and it was a horrible experience. Never again.

[Ed Oscuro]

That moment when you realize you were actually addicted to an online game. Thankfully Kabam has shown their true colors in the latest update so I can make the argument to drop it cold turkey (that and my character died, as well).

Starting to feel like liberation, except I still have the question hanging over my head of whether I'll ever see the nice wildlife photos from my old drive again.

[Ex-Cyber]

Simulated tinnitus in movies and video games.

[Ed Oscuro]

Simulated tinnitus in movies and video games.

Isn't it better than real tinnitus after hearing 20000 explosions in an hour?

[herravelho]

Leaving my house, and subsequently, human contact.

Know that feeling..

[Ruldra]

That moment when you realize you were actually addicted to an online game. Thankfully Kabam has shown their true colors in the latest update so I can make the argument to drop it cold turkey (that and my character died, as well).

Which game was it?

I installed The Hobbit: Kingdoms of Middle-Earth (another game from Kabam) on my phone and started playing a bit. Enjoyed it, but quickly realized you needed to login multiple times a day, every day to do well in the game. I said fuck this and uninstalled it.

The longer you play these kind of games, the harder it is to quit.

[null1024]

Simulated tinnitus in movies and video games.

The first time I heard that in a movie, I thought it was neat. That was the last time I did too.

[idchappy]

Bad parking, there's a guy at the end of my street who's parking is fucking abysmal, parked on a tight corner with the back of his car nearly in the middle of the road

[BareKnuckleRoo]

The large number of gaming videos uploaded to Youtube where the person uses invulnerability/savestates/cheats to cheese their way through a game. I enjoy watching videos to see the person's skill, and what tricks they use to get through difficult segments. If they're using an infinite lives code to beat a game, then they play very carelessly and the run itself isn't very interesting to watch as the player generally doesn't put any effort into strategy. It's particularly bad when it's a SNES or NES game that really isn't that hard to beat legitimately with a bit of skill/practice.

And if you're doing that just to show the game's ending, you might as well cut out all the gameplay from the video and just show the ending.

[Drachenherz]

Latent pedophilia in niche forums by creepy people.

[Lord Satori]

Latent pedophilia in niche forums by creepy people.

wut?

[Specineff]

The large number of gaming videos uploaded to Youtube where the person uses invulnerability/savestates/cheats to cheese their way through a game. I enjoy watching videos to see the person's skill, and what tricks they use to get through difficult segments. If they're using an infinite lives code to beat a game, then they play very carelessly and the run itself isn't very interesting to watch as the player generally doesn't put any effort into strategy. It's particularly bad when it's a SNES or NES game that really isn't that hard to beat legitimately with a bit of skill/practice.

And if you're doing that just to show the game's ending, you might as well cut out all the gameplay from the video and just show the ending.

Thank you. I brought this up once and got a couple glares. Nothing wrong if someone wants to show the weak points of a game, but Tool-Assisted videos (Everytime I read that on a video I want to post a picture of Tom Cruise next to it) that accomplish stuff that no normal human can do, and credit-feed runs don't actually help anyone get better at those games.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Tool-Assisted videos (Everytime I read that on a video I want to post a picture of Tom Cruise next to it) that accomplish stuff that no normal human can do, and credit-feed runs don't actually help anyone get better at those games.

Tool-Assisted runs that are clearly marked as such are fine. They're not meant to be a normal display of talent or help anyone improve at the game, but rather to show how the game mechanics can be broken/abused to do things like clear the game in absurd times or cause hilarious glitches. They're meant to show what's possible assuming you play (like a machine) with frame-perfect accuracy, although I do find ones that don't seriously abuse glitches/tricks to shave off huge amounts of time kind of boring, because then it's more about optimization speedruns. One of my fave TASes is actually pretty boring to watch, but it's all about how hilariously gamebreaking via luck abuse he manages to trivialize an otherwise difficult game in under a minute.

It does get rather annoying to see runs posted that clearly use tool-assistance not marked as such. It took me forever to figure out that videos of people playing in MAME marked as "Longplays" tend to actually just be TAS runs (namely using savestates) to show off the game, and not any degree of skill.

[moh]

Latent pedophilia in niche forums by creepy people.

This really makes me uncomfortable. shmups are supposed to be about blowing shit up. manly stuff. none of this loli shit.

[Ed Oscuro]

Bad parking, there's a guy at the end of my street who's parking is fucking abysmal, parked on a tight corner with the back of his car nearly in the middle of the road

haha, recently I had to jump over my shifter to get out of my car because some gigantic SUV (with a fire department sticker...) was parked at least a foot into my space. I don't consider myself an especially careful driver but damn.

Also, meter reader HIT MY HOUSE! Then tried to drive away real quick. The sad thing is that if the guy is going to lose his job, it's because he tried to weasel out of it to save a bit of paperwork / humiliation / whatever. Still wondering how they managed it.

[null1024]

The large number of gaming videos uploaded to Youtube where the person uses invulnerability/savestates/cheats to cheese their way through a game. I enjoy watching videos to see the person's skill, and what tricks they use to get through difficult segments. If they're using an infinite lives code to beat a game, then they play very carelessly and the run itself isn't very interesting to watch as the player generally doesn't put any effort into strategy. It's particularly bad when it's a SNES or NES game that really isn't that hard to beat legitimately with a bit of skill/practice.

And if you're doing that just to show the game's ending, you might as well cut out all the gameplay from the video and just show the ending.

Thank you. I brought this up once and got a couple glares. Nothing wrong if someone wants to show the weak points of a game, but Tool-Assisted videos (Everytime I read that on a video I want to post a picture of Tom Cruise next to it) that accomplish stuff that no normal human can do, and credit-feed runs don't actually help anyone get better at those games.

I actually like proper TAS runs, ones that are inhumanly perfect [and not totally glitched to hell, barring some exceptions]. They're enjoyable to watch [usually, except RPG TASes: those are boring as hell and take hours], and show the strange quirks in a game's engine being abused to hell and back. For example, TASes of Sonic Advance 3 are my favorite -- you can't horribly glitch through the walls and ignore half the stage like the classics, and there's no totally broken superspeed glitch like in Advance 1 and 2, but it's still much faster than humans can do and it looks really impressive and fluid.


Of course, if you aren't actually TASing, just doing a lazy "lemme savestate every 10 seconds" or "let's creditfeed" run, fuck that noise. The latter is only fine if the video is more of a 2 player thing [even if I'll play proper in single player, I get lazy and sloppy with a friend, heh] and there's commentary/jokes/whatever by the players, the former is only acceptable if the game isn't even meant to be beaten normally [eg, Kaizo hacks, as stupid as they are, they pretty much expect savestate play].

Latent pedophilia in niche forums by creepy people.

This really makes me uncomfortable. shmups are supposed to be about blowing shit up. manly stuff. none of this loli shit.

Please tell that to Cave. Also, tell Zun too.
gimme another Dangun and another Ketsui

[Lord Satori]

haters.

[powersoul]

When a mass storage that works fine a day ago suddenly stops being recognized by computers the next day. Using an iOmega eGo 1TB mass storage drive. IF anyone has successfully got this piece o thing working again, please PM!

[null1024]

When a mass storage that works fine a day ago suddenly stops being recognized by computers the next day. Using an iOmega eGo 1TB mass storage drive. IF anyone has successfully got this piece o thing working again, please PM!

Could be a bunch of things, cable/other case innards shorted out, actual HDD issues, etc. I don't want to say to yank the HDD out of the case and plug it in another way to see if the drive works [unless it's not under warranty still/you don't care about that, in which case this is my advice to you], but you might have to do just that.

I learned this the hard way: when looking for an external drive, just buy an internal drive and put it in an external case.
I haven't had any good luck with a pre-packaged solution. Also, it's usually cheaper getting a separate case and a separate HDD, and if [when] the case screws up, just get an new one.