Official Off-Topic Thread

[Scribblette]

My Toshiba M200 Portege Tablet PC (aka ancient, refurbished laptop) just died. All within the space of about two minutes.

Started with 'delete' key not working, then spitting out '=' (key next to it), followed by random keys not working. Turned it off to clean the keyboard, back on and the screen won't come on at boot. Just beeps every second.

I'd been happily reading all these old art books off it and learning to draw, too - ideal opportunity while stuck here in rural Victoria with my fiancee for a few weeks. Looks like I'm being forced to focus on sketching skills & away from pixels - but I'm confused as to why the Powers That Be think I need forcing when that's what I'm doing anyway. o_O

[Mathias]

I AM THE SPAMBOT CULPRIT

[Dex]

My Toshiba M200 Portege Tablet PC (aka ancient, refurbished laptop) just died. All within the space of about two minutes.

Started with 'delete' key not working, then spitting out '=' (key next to it), followed by random keys not working. Turned it off to clean the keyboard, back on and the screen won't come on at boot. Just beeps every second.

I'd been happily reading all these old art books off it and learning to draw, too - ideal opportunity while stuck here in rural Victoria with my fiancee for a few weeks. Looks like I'm being forced to focus on sketching skills & away from pixels - but I'm confused as to why the Powers That Be think I need forcing when that's what I'm doing anyway. o_O

Ooh, sad to hear this. At least it'll leave you with more opportunities to draw though. Sometimes I wonder how different all our artistic insights would be without the internet. o.O

[Scribblette]

I'd be struggling horribly to learn to draw - heck, if there was no internet I probably would've never gotten into drawing to begin with and just stuck with writing. May not've even gotten into writing without the opportunities via the internet... probably would've wound up in music or IT.

Computer, oddly, seems to be functioning again - enough to have turned itself on okay, but still has random keys being 'activated' and can't do anything other than check for any files that need backing up. If I could disconnect the built in keyboard, maybe I could use it.

[Dusty]

Computer problems, especially HDD-related problems... God I hate them. I mean, I have so much time and effort stored in what seems to be a totally unreliable thing. I could wake up one day and all my work be gone for no reason(which has happened countless times for me). I hate to sound dramatic, but my computer is way up their on important things for me. Not because I spend so much time on it, but because the time I do spend on it feels just as important to me as it would if it were instead on a canvas painting a picture and such. I wouldn't like it any more if someone spilled something on a picture I spent a week painting. Except my computer doesn't just hold a single picture. It holds nearly all my art, all the coding/scripting I've done, and all the time I've spent installing and downloading things(which takes a long time to redo). I could understand if I sat and screwed around with my computer and messed something up, or got a virus doing something I wasn't supposed to be doing... but I think all my hardware failures have been completely random and out of my control. Turned my computer on one day and my HDD clicked a few times and bam, corrupted HDD and unrecoverable data. Sitting watching TV while it was snowing out and 'POP', power surge and fried power supply. Meh.

[Scribblette]

I think that tale is enough to make me better about backing up!!

Tempted to take a break from all the art study and learn to code a bit - any suggestions on what language might be best learnt if one was looking to experiment with making Facebook applications? Only know basic HTML and how to manipulate a smattering of Ruby for scripting so far.

One downside to getting into art so much (and away from coding a long time ago) is that I really prefer if I could just code by moving blocks around visually instead of actually remembering syntax etc.

I was thinking PHP for starters, SQL and checking out REBOL.

[Carnivac]

Can anyone help me find the name of a game I used to enjoy on my friends PC back in the late 90's or 2000/2001?  It's quite a console type thing being a 2D arcadey platform game.  Felt very japanese compared to other PC games of the time.  I'd know it if I saw an image of it.  The main character I seem to recall wore a fairly generic futuristic blue-ish metal armor suit (but I don't think he wore a helmet) and I think it was low resolution (part of why I liked it).  Despite it being a 'by the numbers' kind of game it was one of the very few games I've ever really liked playing on PC and I'd like to find it again and have it to keep (hoping it works on Windows XP without too much hassle).

I know the description is a bit vague which is why I haven't had much luck googling for it but I'm hoping someone here may have played it and remembers what it was called.

[.TakaM]

Argh,

I got pulled over tonight for speeding (I wasn't), I don't have a full license and I had passengers in the car.
The cop was like "Ok, I'll just give you a ticket for the passengers, but not for the speeding." if he did give me the ticket for speeding I would have disputed it, but I can't dispute the passengers.
Oh well, there goes $400.

[junkboy]

It's quite a console type thing being a 2D arcadey platform game.  Felt very japanese compared to other PC games of the time.  I'd know it if I saw an image of it.  The main character I seem to recall wore a fairly generic futuristic blue-ish metal armor suit (but I don't think he wore a helmet) and I think it was low resolution (part of why I liked it).

Abuse?

[Gil]

I never ever step into a car if I know I'm not completely in my right to start with. So I never drink alcohol when driving, never speed a mile if I don't have to, never took any passengers with my training license.

Traffic is already a dangerous hellhole when you're sticking to the rules