<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
        <?xml-stylesheet type="text/css" href="http://bbot.org/blog/styles/feed.css"?>
<rss version="2.0"
 xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"
 xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
 xmlns:admin="http://webns.net/mvcb/"
 xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"
>
<channel>
<title>Filed under: rage | bbot's blog</title>
<atom:link href="http://bbot.org/blog/archives/rage/index-rss.xml" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
<link>http://bbot.org/blog</link>
<description>news, diary, journal, whatever</description>
<dc:language>en-us</dc:language>
<dc:creator>bbot</dc:creator>
<dc:date>2010-01-20T01:14:01-05:00</dc:date>
<admin:generatorAgent rdf:resource="http://nanoblogger.sourceforge.net" />

<item>
<link>http://bbot.org/blog/archives/2009/11/12/claptrap_mo_like_craptrap/index.html</link>
<guid isPermaLink="true">http://bbot.org/blog/archives/2009/11/12/claptrap_mo_like_craptrap/index.html</guid>
<title>claptrap? mo' like craptrap</title>
<dc:date>2009-11-12T19:39:39-05:00</dc:date>
<dc:creator>bbot</dc:creator>
<dc:subject> rage</dc:subject>
<description><![CDATA[    <p>
So I've been playing the hell out of Borderlands, and not getting enough sleep, recently. You should buy it, right now, before you read the rest of this post and conclude that it's another <a href="http://bbot.org/blog/archives/2009/10/30/fallen_empires_legions_not_worth_all_the_colons/index.html">Fallen Empires: Legions</a>.</p>

    <p>
Let the nitpicking begin.</p>

    <p>
Firstly, <a href="http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=5741">as noted by Shamus</a>, the co-op implementation and GameSpy "integration" are incredibly incompetent. The multiplayer lacks basic, basic features, and the decision to use GameSpy networking code is <em>brain dead.</em> If I was a Gearbox shareholder, I would be <em>suing</em> right now. I know half a dozen people who own Borderlands, but I have given up on co-op play entirely. It's just not worth it.</p>

    <p>
But if the mentally deficient multiplayer is worthy of a lawsuit, then the Claptrap is a <em>crime.</em></p>

    <p>
People. Did you play this game, at all, before releasing it? Do you have ears, with which to hear the unendurably bad dialog? Eyes, to gaze upon the "groin thrust" animation?</p>

    <p>
The animation?</p>

    <p>
Of a <em>robot doing groin thrusts?</em></p>

    <p>
So you make desperately unlikeable character, and then you make interactions with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spivak_pronoun">e</a> required for inventory upgrades, (which are critical in a first person looter like Borderlands) and also have e call you up whenever you enter a new area, to inform you that quests are available.</p>

    <p>
This happens a lot, since Borderlands has a fast travel system, but doesn't integrate it with the map at all, and lists them by order of discovery in the fast travel menu. So when you're at point A, and are trying to get to point B quickly, you have to hop at random around the world map, hoping you'll end up near your destination. And so, at every hop, Claptrap informs you that you have quests available from NPCs Alice, Bob, Charlie, and Delta.</p>

    <p>
Every time you fast travel.</p>

    <p>
Of course, the only way to clear the new quest notifications are by accepting them, at which point they'll clutter up your quest log, since there's no way to delete any of them.</p>

    <p>
When you give up on fast travel, you'll end up driving around a lot, which means you'll be enduring the zanily broken vehicle physics and overloaded "vehicle collision" noise. Tap a mailbox while just barely moving? Mild crunch. Smash into an enemy vehicle while afterburning? The same mild crunch. Scrape along a wall? Crunch, crunch, crunch.</p>

    <p>
And then there's the ending. Let's recap the plot:</p>

<blockquote>You are one of four vault hunters, hunting, unsurprisingly, the Vault, a fabled treasure trove full of alien technology and untold riches. While on the bus into Fyrestone, an "angel" appears in a really lo-fi vision to the player, informing them that the Vault is really real, and that she will lead them to it.</blockquote>

    <p>
The four different playable characters have no backstory, and pretty much no character, besides a shared enthusiasm for murder. They get off the bus in the starting town, and immediately start killing at the behest of the quest givers. Which is cool, I'm down with that. It's a Diablo-em-up, it's supposed to be about the loot, not the story.</p>

<blockquote>The vault hunters rampage across the land, killing dudes and taking their stuff, incidently picking up pieces of the Vault Key, which is needed to enter the Vault.</blockquote>

    <p>
Very, very incidently. This, is, without a doubt, the best part of the game. The humor is actually fairly well done, with the monstrous exception of the Claptraps. Most importantly, the plot <em>stays out of the way</em>. There is quest text, and careful examination can reveal which quests advance the main plot, but there's no point in reading the text, since there's zero roleplaying, and you really, really don't want to advance the plot, since that gets you closer to the end of the game.</p>

<blockquote>After the player assembles the vault key, interplanetary jackass Commander Steele of the Crimson Lance shows up, takes the key, shuts down the FTL radio network, starts blowing up various towns, and heads off to open up the Vault.</blockquote>

    <p>
The game changes tone entirely at this point. It stops trying to be funny, and mostly succeeding, and instead tries to be dead serious, failing entirely. The player is supposed to care that the inhabitants of Pandora, a collection of one-dimensional jokes and murderous sons of bitches, are being terribly oppressed under the jackboots of Commander Steele. It doesn't work, at all.</p>

<blockquote>After reactivating the ECHO network, and fighting their way through the Guardians defending the perimeter of the Vault proper, the player arrives just in time to watch Steele open the Vault.</blockquote>

    <p>
This is a terrible cliche. Just, ugh.</p>

<blockquote>On opening, the Vault releases a tentacled horror called the Destroyer. The angel informs you that it is immortal in its native realm, but can be killed here.</blockquote>

    <p>
Apparently, the point of the entire game was to kill the Destroyer... except it was <em>already imprisoned</em>. If it was such a threat, why not just leave it alone? Or find one of the pieces of the vault key, and destroy it, preventing the key from being reassembled?</p>

<blockquote>After defeating the Destroyer...</blockquote>

    <p>
This is a really trivially easy bossfight. Hang out at the side of the arena, where its shockwave can't hit you, and dodge into cover every time it charges up the beam attack. It's pretty much five minutes of poking it in the eye with rockets. It also drops crap loot. Seriously, seriously, weak loot, I tell you what.</p>

<blockquote>... the Angel congratulates you on your victory, and the camera pans out, way out, to reveal that the Angel visions originate from a Hyperion satellite. Fade to black, credits roll, but not without a brief cameo by a claptrap, as a final "Fuck you for playing".</blockquote>

    <p>
Hyperion is one of the arms manufacturers, like Atlas. Atlas runs the Crimson Lance, who Steele is a member of. Concordantly, this can be interpreted as a proxy war between Hyperion and Atlas, except that doesn't make any fucking sense. If the Vault was actually full of riches, then Hyperion would have a plausible reason to block Atlas from gaining it... except that all it contains is a Cosmic Horror, something Hyperion <em>already knows.</em> They would directly profit from Atlas sticking their nose into the vault, and indeed that is what <em>happens.</em> Hyperion doesn't prevent it at all!</p>

    <p>
So, what, Hyperion goes to the great trouble of leading a group of adventurers to the Vault, just out of pure benevolence? How does defeating the Destroyer profit them at all?</p>

    <p>
So, in conclusion. Great game, hampered by an incomprehensible plot, and moronic multiplayer "support".</p>]]></description>

</item>
<item>
<link>http://bbot.org/blog/archives/2009/02/12/a_love_letter_to_zipcar_and_some_very_local_news/index.html</link>
<guid isPermaLink="true">http://bbot.org/blog/archives/2009/02/12/a_love_letter_to_zipcar_and_some_very_local_news/index.html</guid>
<title>a love letter to Zipcar, and some very local news</title>
<dc:date>2009-02-12T06:26:38-05:00</dc:date>
<dc:creator>bbot</dc:creator>
<dc:subject> rage, Etc</dc:subject>
<description><![CDATA[Dear Zipcar,<br />
Fuck you. <a href="http://www.zipcar.com/how/faqs/">This is some serious bullshit right here.</a><br /><br />

Let me enlighten you as to how the FAQ format is implemented in HTML. You make a great big static file, and make a table of contents as a bunch of links to <a href="http://www.w3schools.com/HTML/html_links.asp">named anchors</a> within that page. If you're being paid by the hour by a monolithic corporation, then
you'll probably feel the need to slow it down with some CSS, perhaps some javascript crap to hide the unselected questions. That's cool, I can disable all that shit.<br /><br />

But what is absolutely unacceptable is making each link point to an external, php generated, page. No. Fuck you.<br /><br />

1.) Why the hell are you using php? How often are you changing these answers? In what way are they <em>dynamic?</em><br /><br />

2.) I don't <em>want</em> to click through to read each god damn page. I don't care about the questions, I care about the answers, of which I want to read all of, in order. I am trying to give you money, here, and you are making it <em>difficult</em>.<br /><br />

Hate, bbot.<br /><br />

Also! My friend, Joey Frantz, has been <a href="http://dailyuw.com/2009/2/11/checkmate/">quoted in a piece</a> by the UW's newspaper concerning their chess club, of which he is the president. This means, contrary to the allegations of some, that I am not the biggest nerd in the world.]]></description>

</item>
<item>
<link>http://bbot.org/blog/archives/2008/09/25/a_love_letter_to_mcm_electronics/index.html</link>
<guid isPermaLink="true">http://bbot.org/blog/archives/2008/09/25/a_love_letter_to_mcm_electronics/index.html</guid>
<title>a love letter to MCM Electronics</title>
<dc:date>2008-09-25T03:51:02-05:00</dc:date>
<dc:creator>bbot</dc:creator>
<dc:subject> rage</dc:subject>
<description><![CDATA[Dear MCM Electronics,<br /><br />

I would dearly love to give you my money. In fact, I am literally sitting here with my credit card in hand, primed to type in the magical numbers on its face that would instantly transfer a sum of money to your bank from mine.<br /><br />

Perhaps that's why you are making it impossible to put what I want in my cart. After all, you're a huge electronics wholesaler with an <a href="https://www.mcmelectronics.com/default.aspx">eye-gougingly terribly designed web-site</a>, and I'm some guy in Seattle. Hell, <em>you</em> don't need my business! Apparently, I can just go ahead and fuck off!<br /><br />

I understand, I've made it hard on you. Rather than endure your hilariously slow search engine, I've gone directly to the product pages. How <em>dare</em> I do such a thing! In response, you have, perfectly reasonably, caused the contents of my cart to change randomly depending on which part of the site I'm in. That'll teach <em>me</em> to try and bypass the morass of uncategorized and product picture-less crap that you call a site! After all, who needs <em>pictures</em>? Doesn't <em>everyone</em> instantly understand what <a href="http://mcmelectronics.com/product/33404">33404 - T-HANDLE HEX 3.0 X 150MM</a> T-HANDLE HEX 3.0 X 150MM T-HANDLE HEX 3.0 X 150MM is supposed to mean? Screw them if they're not the kind of autist who memorizes product numbers for fun. MCM doesn't need <em>their</em> money!<br /><br />

Love, bbot.<br /><br />

But seriously, folks, I absolutely <em>cannot wait</em> until someone like <a href="http://www.newegg.com/">Newegg</a>, someone who, in short, <em>knows how to run an e-commerce site</em>, comes out of nowhere and blows <a href="http://www.digikey.com/">these</a> <a href="http://www.mouser.com/">dinosaurs</a> out of the water. Protip, guys! If you feature your <em>paper catalog</em> on the front page of you <em>web site</em>, then you are a fucking <strong><em>fossil</em></strong>, and should do us all a favor and <em>die</em>.<br /><br />

If people are writing their <a href="http://octopart.com/">own search engines</a> to navigate the sea of crap that is your catalog, and receiving <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2008/may/29/business/fiw-octopart29">great press</a> as well as piles of money, then you are <em>doing it wrong</em>.<br /><br />

Ugh!]]></description>

</item>
<item>
<link>http://bbot.org/blog/archives/2008/08/13/a_pox_upon_both_your_houses/index.html</link>
<guid isPermaLink="true">http://bbot.org/blog/archives/2008/08/13/a_pox_upon_both_your_houses/index.html</guid>
<title>a pox upon both your houses</title>
<dc:date>2008-08-13T15:15:39-05:00</dc:date>
<dc:creator>bbot</dc:creator>
<dc:subject> rage</dc:subject>
<description><![CDATA[So <a href="http://radar.oreilly.com/2008/08/ignite-gnomedex-and-elsewhere.html">O'Reilly Radar posted about</a> the upcoming Ignite event at Gnomedex.<br /><br />

"Awesome!" thought I, "An Ignite in Seattle! Where do I sign up?"<br /><br />

From Gnomdex's site:<br />

<blockquote style="padding:4px;background-color:#f1f1f1;border:1px solid #ccc">This summer, hundreds of the world’s leading bloggers, podcasters, and tech-savvy enthusiasts will once again descend upon the city of Seattle, Washington.</blockquote>

Hrm.

<blockquote style="padding:4px;background-color:#f1f1f1;border:1px solid #ccc">The eighth Gnomedex conference is generating buzz in the blogosphere, which underscores our reason to produce it. Indeed, we will once again become the crossroads between producers and observers, between users and developers.</blockquote>

Uh oh.

<blockquote style="padding:4px;background-color:#f1f1f1;border:1px solid #ccc">What Do You Get?<br />
<br />
* A single-track conference with quality content<br />
* A full conference pass<br />
* Breakfast, lunch, snacks, and beverages (unlimited)<br />
* Wi-Fi, professionally managed<br />
* Your own electrical outlet for power<br />
* The official Gnomedex t-shirt<br />
<strong>* Business networking opportunities</strong><br />
* Free online promotion in the Gnomedex Blogroll… and more!</blockquote>

<em>Uh</em> oh.<br /><br />

Gee, this is starting to sound like one of those insanely expensive bullshit marketing "conferences". Just how much do these tickets cost, anyway?

<blockquote style="padding:4px;background-color:#f1f1f1;border:1px solid #ccc">New Gnomedexer<br />
If you've never been to Gnomedex before, this is the ticket for you!<br />
Aug 21, 2008 $599.00</blockquote>

Protip, jackasses! <em>Bloggers</em> don't attend $600 a head conferences; people with <em>expense accounts</em> attend $600 a head conferences. If you want to be <em>hip</em> and <em>cool</em>, try charging about five hundred dollars <em>less</em>.]]></description>

</item>
<item>
<link>http://bbot.org/blog/archives/2008/06/24/review_the_gaucho/index.html</link>
<guid isPermaLink="true">http://bbot.org/blog/archives/2008/06/24/review_the_gaucho/index.html</guid>
<title>Review: &quot;The Gaucho&quot;</title>
<dc:date>2008-06-24T05:15:30-05:00</dc:date>
<dc:creator>bbot</dc:creator>
<dc:subject> rage</dc:subject>
<description><![CDATA["<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0017918/">The Gaucho</a>" (1927) (movie) at the <a href="http://www.theparamount.com/">Paramount</a>, June 23rd.<br /><br />

0, that's right, zero, nada, I hate this movie so god damn much, may it suck cocks in hell, <em>forever</em> out of five stars.<br /><br />

The movie is a pile of shit. Its crimes are legion, but topping the list is its rampant racism and hilariously prevalent misogyny. The characters are about as three-dimensional as a piece of paper, spend half their time praying, and in the ending scenes, crowd into a shrine to bow before YHWH and pledge to set up a <em>theocracy based on the ten commandments</em>. I am, of course, not kidding.<br /><br />

But hey, it's a crappy movie. It was the 20's, this is what they did, in between killing Germans and dying of the Spanish Flu.<br /><br />

But what's worse than the movie is the people who crowd into a theater to see the movie. Apparently, the only thing middle aged white women love more than watching dead people make bad movies is <em>not shutting up for one fucking second for 117 god damn minutes.</em> Painfully obvious plot twist? Cheer at the screen! Awkward, poorly choreographed stunt performed by an incompetent stunt man, and filmed by a blind, palsy-stricken moron! Cheer at the screen! Douglas Fairbanks looked at the camera? Wet your fucking panties, then cheer at the screen!<br /><br />

The whole thing was sponsored by Trader Joe's, of course, middle aged white woman's supermarket of choice. Because if you've got to choose between five different corporate multinationals, then you better go for the one with the stupidly crowded isles and the 200% markup.<br /><br />

The only thing dumber than all of this shit is the moron who gets <em>suckered into</em> watching a fucking <em>silent movie</em> by the promise of <em>free tickets</em>. There's a reason silent movies aren't made anymore! It's because they <em>suck!</em><br /><br /> 

Fuck you all!]]></description>

</item>
<item>
<link>http://bbot.org/blog/archives/2008/05/15/sandwiches_and_roofers/index.html</link>
<guid isPermaLink="true">http://bbot.org/blog/archives/2008/05/15/sandwiches_and_roofers/index.html</guid>
<title>sandwiches and roofers</title>
<dc:date>2008-05-15T11:05:15-05:00</dc:date>
<dc:creator>bbot</dc:creator>
<dc:subject> rage</dc:subject>
<description><![CDATA[Continuing the theme of blocks of text written by someone else, these rants by Brian Clevinger, author of the celebrated <a href="http://www.nuklearpower.com/index.php">8-bit Theater</a>, among other things. Lacking a proper, <em>civilized</em> blog, he instead utilizes the commentary space after each comic to rant at length. Discard the comic, which, shorn of context, can only baffle; and instead feast upon the bile <em>beneath</em>. <a href="http://www.nuklearpower.com/daily.php?date=070313">Here</a>, he speaks at length of a Sandwich.<br />

<blockquote style="padding:4px;background-color:#f1f1f1;border:1px solid:#ccc"> If you ever have the misfortune to eat at the Home Turf Sports Grill at the Cleveland Airport, do not, under any circumstances, order the Roasted Turkey Sandwich.<br /><br />

I'm serious.<br /><br />

If there is a gun cutting grooves into the skin of your temple, take your chances with the bullet. Your skull may very well deflect it. If the safety of loved ones hangs in the balance, make what final peace with them as you can.<br /><br />

<em>[...]</em><br /><br />

The sandwich, I'm saying, was something of a let down. But at least it was accompanied by a pile of hot fries. Fries that were, unfortunately, made without flavor. But that's fine, because there's ketchup. But, no, somehow that served to bring out what can only be described as an anti-flavor -- an experience mathematically identical to ordinary flavor moving backward through time.<br /><br />

But, at least, there would be one final refuge -- a glass of Coke to obliterate all evidence of the culinary disaster. Coke is effectively industrial cleaner with a pound of sugar mixed in, so it was more than up to the task. This place had already proven beyond all doubt how incredibly cheap and half-assed it was. There's no way they actually have their own fountains. No, Home Turf just pours you half a can and charges you quadruple the price of the whole thing. Coke in this form is as fundamental a particle as one may find even within the codified strata of franchise dining. A Coke on the moon is a Coke in Florida is a Coke in Cleveland. One need merely to pour it and gravity does this part for you.<br /><br />

There is, in short, no way to ruin a Coke.<br /><br />

Unless you pour a Diet Coke.</blockquote><br />

<a href="http://www.nuklearpower.com/daily.php?date=041021">Here</a>, he remarks upon the habits of Roofers.<br />

<blockquote style="padding:4px;background-color:#f1f1f1;border:1px solid:#ccc">Do they cull roofers from asylums? "Doctor, I need a score of men who fear silence like the reaper himself. Silence is to be a bane to them. Their tormented souls should only know peace whilst enthralled in the most tumultuous of dins. The Big Bang itself should be as a pin dropping when these men go to work. Supply me with a rabble of such mad fiends and your rewards will pale all the riches of Earth and heaven!"</blockquote><br />

Brian and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Holkins">Jerry</a> have probably influenced my writing more than is healthy.]]></description>

</item>
<item>
<link>http://bbot.org/blog/archives/2008/05/05/your_video_game_is_bad_and_you_should_feel_bad/index.html</link>
<guid isPermaLink="true">http://bbot.org/blog/archives/2008/05/05/your_video_game_is_bad_and_you_should_feel_bad/index.html</guid>
<title>your video game is bad and you should feel bad</title>
<dc:date>2008-05-05T08:01:49-05:00</dc:date>
<dc:creator>bbot</dc:creator>
<dc:subject> rage</dc:subject>
<description><![CDATA[So a little racing game called <a href="http://www.trackmania.com/en/index.php?lang=en&rub=nations">Trackmania Nations Forever</a> was released on Steam back in April. I downloaded it, (it's free) and promptly forgot about it until I looked in my games tab and saw it again, and, on a whim, decided to play.<br /><br />

Shortly thereafter I discovered that Trackmania Nations Forever is free in much the same that the bubonic plague is free, and punches to the face can be obtained at no cost.<br /><br />

To prevent any possible miscommunication, I am telling you right now that Trackmania Nations Forever is a bad game. It is not so bad it's good, it is so bad it's horrible. Saying that this game should be burned is an <a href="http://atrocities.primaryerror.net/fatal.html"><em>insult to fire.</em></a> I'm going to be mocking Trackmania Nations Forever a lot more in the upcoming pages, but I wanted to get the point of the post across as soon as possible.<br /><br />

Trackmania Nations Forever, (no, I am not going to abbriviate the name of the game. The developers were evil (or stupid) enough to saddle it with a idiotically long name, and I'm evil (but not stupid) enough to continue to inflict it upon you) appropriately enough, <em>looks</em> like a good game. The graphics are excellent, the controls are crisp and responsive and the in-game music is surprisingly good. But this is just a thin veneer of quality designed to obscure the black, evil heart of the game from the player.<br /><br />

Now, when I said "racing game" up there, you probably thought of a game where you race other cars in a track, and after a number of laps, whoever leads the pack when crossing the finish line gets first place, the person right behind him gets second place, and so on. But no, that's way too much like a <em>good</em> game for Trackmania Nations Forever.<br /><br />

No, in Trackmania Nations Forever, the default, and as far as I can tell, <em>only</em> gameplay mode is "Time Attack", where whoever gets the fastest time in a single lap heat gets the first place. After that single lap, the course is reset, and you do it again, and again, and again. By the way, there's no collision damage, cars can just ghost through each other, and "respawning" to the last checkpoint is instant and doesn't incur a time penalty.<br /><br />

This results in the most egregious <a href="http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=336">Do It Again, Stupid</a> gameplay I have ever seen in a racing game. Since there's no collision damage, the only way to be punished for poor driving is be knocked off the course, which happens a lot. A <em>whole</em> lot.<br /><br /> 

See that jump? Better line it up perfectly, or else you land outside of the course and have to respawn. But don't line it up too perfectly, because then you'll fall through a <em>hole</em> in the middle of the fucking <em>track</em> and have to respawn. And don't take the jump too slow, or else you'll smack into the edge of the landing ramp and have to respawn. But don't take the jump too <em>fast</em> or else you miss the track entirely after it takes a sharp turn right after the landing ramp. And have to respawn.<br /><br />

Mess up in any of a hundred ways? Do It Again, Stupid!<br /><br />

I played in a kind of haze of confusion, and eventually, rage; as I screwed up in tiny, almost imperceptible ways and had to respawn over and over again. "This game looks like someone spent <em>money</em> on it! How can the gameplay be so stupendously horrible? This has to be some sort of user-made third-party course, the real courses can't <em>possibly</em> be this terrible." This I screamed to the uncaring heavens, and, incidentally, the chat channel.<br /><br />

&lt;bbot&gt; Are all of the maps as bad as this?<br />
&lt;gc-mcwellian&gt; no<br />
&lt;gc-mcwellian&gt; some are worse<br /><br />

And that's by no means the end of Trackmania Nations Forever's crimes. When creating an account you have to select your nationality, accomplished by going through a list of nations eight at a time, with a sizable delay after hitting the "next page" button as it apparently requests the page from a server. Once you do, that, you get to select your state the same way.<br /><br />

This is so the game can locate you on the appropriate leaderboards, which are sorted by player rating, which presumably uses the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating">Elo ranking system</a>. Now, this is just fine, but Elo ranking is for directly competitive games like Chess, where a large difference in player skill results in a dramatically different game. A grandmaster can obliterate a newbie in a couple of moves, etc. But you can't even <em>interact</em> with the other players in Trackmania Nations Forever! This has the effect of making the ranking system being used purely for ranking, rather than for game-balancing (since there's nothing to balance) or server matchmaking.<br /><br />

Just finding a server is a chore. It is the year 2008, a mere <em>ten years</em> after Half Life came out; why, then, am I unable to even <em>sort servers by ping?</em> Or just by <em>game mode</em>? Why are you making me page through hundreds of servers, without being able to filter them at all? How do you fail at even the most <em>trivial</em> task, something accomplished over and over, without flaw, by every other multiplayer game for the last <em><strong>ten fucking years?</strong></em><br /><br />

Trackmania Nations Forever is a shitty, shitty game. Its gameplay is fundamentally broken, the UI is a joke, the server browser is a hate machine designed to inflict pain on anyone who touches it, and even the <em>name</em> is poorly designed and fails at the simple task of <em>conveying what the game is about.</em> There is no aspect of this game that is without flaw, no detail not perverted to the task of assaulting the mind of the player. I deleted the game after playing it for twenty minutes, and now I wish it were installed again so I could delete it again, delete it twice, delete it three times, reformat the hard drive, and crush its platters with the sheer force of my hatred. Trackmania Nations Forever is the ultimate argument against the existence of a loving God, for if He existed, surely this blight upon existence would be unmade entirely, its component atoms wiped from the universe, and its creators damned to Hell.<br /><br />]]></description>

</item>
<item>
<link>http://bbot.org/blog/archives/2008/05/02/hot-linking_fun/index.html</link>
<guid isPermaLink="true">http://bbot.org/blog/archives/2008/05/02/hot-linking_fun/index.html</guid>
<title>hot-linking fun</title>
<dc:date>2008-05-02T04:47:28-05:00</dc:date>
<dc:creator>bbot</dc:creator>
<dc:subject> rage, Meta</dc:subject>
<description><![CDATA[So I was looking through the stats for bbot.org, when I saw a whole lot of incoming hits from <a href="http://www.rediscussed.com/2008/02/23/futuremark-3dmark-vantage/">http://www.rediscussed.com/2008/02/23/futuremark-3dmark-vantage/</a>. Clicking through, I noticed an image that was awwwful familiar...<br /><br />

<img src="http://bbot.org/blog/images/before.png"><br /><br />

And sure enough, that's frame 250 from my <a href="http://bbot.org/projects/water.html">water simulation</a> page. This is called "hot-linking" and boy oh boy is it not cool. First of all, he's using my image without permission. I don't care, but he's also using my <em>bandwidth</em> which means he is directly costing me money, which is completely unacceptable.<br /><br />

Second of all, what little content there is in that blog post seems to be about DX10's water simulation capabilities, which will look pretty much nothing like the output of a non-realtime CGI suite like Blender. Not only is it a stolen image, but it's an <em>inaccurately</em> stolen image.<br /><br />

And third of all, he's using my hosting, which means he's pointing to a file on my server. And there isn't a thing in the world to keep me from <em>changing</em> that file.<br /><br />

<img src="http://bbot.org/blog/images/after.png"><br /><br />

Hot linking isn't cool. Don't do it.<br /><br />

(I would be remiss in not mentioning <a href="http://dansdata.blogsome.com/2006/10/17/i-know-its-childish/">Dan's Adventures In Hot-Linking.</a>)]]></description>

</item>
<item>
<link>http://bbot.org/blog/archives/2008/04/25/ugh_internet/index.html</link>
<guid isPermaLink="true">http://bbot.org/blog/archives/2008/04/25/ugh_internet/index.html</guid>
<title>ugh, internet</title>
<dc:date>2008-04-25T18:59:08-05:00</dc:date>
<dc:creator>bbot</dc:creator>
<dc:subject> rage</dc:subject>
<description><![CDATA[<a href="http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/antichrist.asp">http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/antichrist.asp</a><br />
<blockquote style="padding:4px;background-color:#f1f1f1;border:1px solid #ccc">According to the Book of Revelations the anti-christ is: The anti-christ will be a man, in his 40s, of MUSLIM descent, who will deceive the nations with persuassive language, and have a MASSIVE Christ-like appeal.... the prophecy says that people will flock to him and he will promise false hope and world peace, and when he is in power, will destory everything. Is it OBAMA??</blockquote>
<br />
Answer: No, you idiot.]]></description>

</item>
<item>
<link>http://bbot.org/blog/archives/2008/04/17/there_goes_35_bucks/index.html</link>
<guid isPermaLink="true">http://bbot.org/blog/archives/2008/04/17/there_goes_35_bucks/index.html</guid>
<title>there goes 35 bucks</title>
<dc:date>2008-04-17T01:31:04-05:00</dc:date>
<dc:creator>bbot</dc:creator>
<dc:subject> rage</dc:subject>
<description><![CDATA[So I just got the "3D Lenticular Print" version of Theodore Gray's celebrated <a href="http://theodoregray.com/PeriodicTable/Posters/index.html">periodic table poster</a>, and I must say, I am disappointed. The <a href="http://theodoregray.com/PeriodicTable/">Periodic Table Table</a> site itself is excellent, and I have yet hear bad things about the element sample business he runs on the side, but this poster is an expensive gimmick. The sample photos don't really "appear to stand out from the surface of the paper", (at least to mine mortal eyes) and the poster itself came in a rather large box, with piles and piles of bubble wrap.<br /><br />

It's a <em>poster</em>! You can't just put it in a big envelope? I wouldn't have much to complain about if all this was <em>cheap</em>, but the poster itself was $25 and shipping was another $10! Not worth the money. Not recommended. ]]></description>

</item>
</channel>
</rss>
