Josh’s Blog

A fourth standard girl from rural Tamil Nadu has become the youngest to qualify the Microsoft certified professional examination. The Microsoft exam, usually taken by techies for better job prospects, measures problem-solving skills and Lavinashree (9) passed it with flying colours. By achieving this feat, she broke the record held by Arfa Karim, a ten-year-old Pakistani girl.

I’ll start off by saying this is a wonderful time when the youth of this world is so gifted. Though I am extremely pissed off about this and it has nothing to do with the fact she is an Indian but with the fact that she actually is certified by Microsoft! I don’t know about these stupid tests they give out to prove you have enough brains to help people with their technical issues. That doesn’t stop the fact I am freaking tired of getting Technical Support from people that know nothing about computers cause they can pass one of these stupid tests. Yes, you heard it first here, when I call for help and I get someone as smart as a 9yr old trying to help me, that is why I am pissed off.

Now I know there is a certification that is so easy that a 9yr old in a county that is technologically inferior in many ways to the United States can pass. Then it seems these are the people that are supposed to help me with my computer problem. Does this make sense to you? Instead of droning on and on about how it makes me angry I am going to end with a simple request.

When I call Technical Support I don’t want someone to read to me from a book. Give me the book, I learned how to read and read well. Please employ people who can talk well on the phone, I have a hard time enough understanding my friends on the phone, hell I can hardly understand myself and I know my own language well enough.  Finally please try to help me when I call, if you cannot help me please find someone that can and yes I don’t care about your policy. I do not want to spend an hour repeating myself and trying to understand someone while they read from a book about what problem they ‘think’ I may be experiencing. I am not looking for a free ride, I am looking for a solution to a problem without jumping through hoops, if you are unable to accomplish that for me, please fuck off and hand the phone to another person that can find that solution, Thank You.

via 9-year-old TN girl cracks Microsoft exam.

My power supply for my laptop burned out over the weekend. Good news is there is no damage done beyond my power supply and a new one is ordered and on its way. However I’ve been borrowing my mom’s power supply when I can, so I won’t be online too much till I get my power supply in the mail. Hopefully that will be Monday. Then I can finish up mixing the podcast.

Blackbird is a Mozilla based browser designed for African Americans and connects in various ways to the web so you stay connected to the African community. While the face value of this tool might be mistaken for being supportive of the African American community, don’t kid yourself, it is not. As a web designer and non African American I find this concept of using a different browser cause of your race very offensive.

Let me start here so you can understand. Now suddenly there is a browser that a certain community is told they can use to stay connect to their community. Next there can be content designed for this certain browser that other browsers cannot use. It starts with add-ons and themes then if it catches on there will be certain websites that can only be viewed with that certain community browser. After that is the final straw, they will start deviating from the web standards and demand that your website be compatible with their browser or you will be neglecting an entire community of people.

You might be saying “Josh you are silly this would never happen!” Bullshit! It already has. One special community browser is called Internet Explorer. While this is not restricted to race, it is restricted to a certain Windows based operating system, and thankfully so cause being a racist bigot is terrible.

Show your support for not being racist, sexist, or anything else and use the same browser as everyone else and support multi-platform browsers such as Firefox. If connecting to your community is important, join a forum or chat room, and in a rare chance there might be a plug-in for your browser that might assist you in that goal.

Blackbird staff if you read this, make a plug-in! Not an edited browser, thank you.

Now I have being beating a dead horse for months now since I got shafted by Spore. Now I am going to say DRM is a good thing. I recently have fallen in love with Steam since I bought STALKER Shadows over their service, and now have a huge list of games to keep it company. A lot of people are under the impression that Steam does not use DRM, that would be a misnomer cause they do. The best part about their DRM is it prevents you from sharing the games with people who have not purchased them and not from you enjoying your game. That is the reason some people are under the impression that there is no DRM cause there is no major problems.

Gabe Newell from Valve which is part of Steam has made his view on DRM very clear.

As far as DRM goes, most DRM strategies are just dumb. The goal should be to create greater value for customers through service value (make it easy for me to play my games whenever and wherever I want to), not by decreasing the value of a product (maybe I’ll be able to play my game and maybe I won’t).

This is possibly be the reason why I will be buying games through Steam now instead of shopping in any other way. Maybe I do want increased service value and not decreasing of the value of my product. Imagine that, they will be getting more of my money.

As you can tell I make a big stink about DRM and this is why I don’t tend to talk about those issues with my girlfriend. I wine mostly cause I want to pay for video games, I want to reward the enjoyment of a product with money for their long efforts. A great example is I’ve never played Sonic CD till a few days ago and I’ve owned a copy for years. Why you might ask would I wait for so long? The game would not work, so I’ve resorted to emulating instead. Though I have bought the game I still end up doing illegal means to play it. No one should have to do this, fix your software and support it!

http://xkcd.com/511/

Here is a link to the list on the Steam Forums.
The Dumbest Players I’ve played with - Steam Users’ Forums

The Dumbest Players I’ve played with

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Shotgun Sally:
- Convinced the shotgun(s) is the be all end all
- Uses the Shotgun at long range
- Thinks peeling zombies off you with the shotgun is a good idea
- Usually likes to stand in the back

Petey Pyro:
- Doesn’t know what a pipebomb is
- Shoots every gas tank / explosive as soon as it’s in sight
- Thinks Molotovs are useful when someone is “boomed on”
- (duffdaddy67) Thinks throwing a Molotov on downed survivor with zombies swarming him is the ONLY way to save him

Ricky Rambo:
- Runs ahead of the pack no doubt trying to race to Zombie Genocide
- Complains when he gets jumped by a Zombie Special
- Usually also a Shotgun Sally
- (Disodium) Upon death proceeds to abuse team about how noob they are for not keeping up
- (MWM|Talon) Always rushes the people in the lobby, even if there is only you and him

(continue reading…)

Do we care? Surprisingly yes. For $15.98 and twenty tracks this might be the best way to experience the game of Too Human as I suppose it has won some awards. Too bad the game wasn’t as good as the sound track.

Too Human Soundtrack Now Available From Amazon and Others

It is amazing such a simple animal is really extremely complex. Plus they give us eggs and provide us with meat, handy animal.

http://cad-comic.com/sillies.php?d=20081115