***
And so, after my grand adventure the other day, I got home and installed KOTOR II on my laptop. And then found out that it didn't work: it kept dumping me back to the desktop when the game engine fired up after the introductory movie, and that no patch was available (though one is on the way).
Research revealed that the system requirements for KOTOR and KOTOR II are the same (which was why I assumed that the latter would work on my laptop), and both do not support the ATI RADEON 7500 chipset, since it only has drivers up to the OpenGL 1.3.4650 standard, when KOTOR II requires OpenGL 1.4. And so, while waiting for a patch, I attempted to install and play it on the desktop.
Amazingly, it only took 2 installation attempts (punctuated, of course, by a sponteneous reboot) to install the game, even though it's spread across 4 CDs. Playing it was a different matter. Although the hardware detection utility passed the desktop, the game kept Crashing To Desktop (CTD) either during startup and before the opening screen, at the beginning of the opening movie (I see the words "A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away..." fading in, and then the game hangs) or after character creation and the opening movie (ie The same place as the laptop, except that the laptop at least shows me the opening frame before dumping me back to Windows while the desktop shows some mysterious blue-tinged shapes - perhaps they are the Sith Lords alluded to in the game's title).
A search on the net reveals that I'm not the only one with a Radeon 7500 who has problems (DriverHeaven.net - Severe Kotor II problems, Obsidian Forums), so hopefully they'll release a patch to solve our problems, especially since the Radeon 7500, though old, is still owned by quite a few people.
Incidentally, the game cannot be returned or exchanged for another, since "the hardware requirements are already printed on the box". Ah, the joys and rewards of buying original software; many (most?) pirated CD shop uncles would have let you exchange your CDs if the game didn't work.
So now I may choose from a wide variety of unsavoury options:
i) Give up
ii) Try to sell off the game to recoup my losses
iii) Write a vehement editorial condemning the evils and immorality of money-grubbing capitalism
iv) Wait (, probably) in vain for a patch (since particle effects are the only part of KOTOR II that needs OpenGL 1.4, providing an option to disable them should solve the problem)
v) Fix my desktop
vi) Get a new computer sans monitor and peripherals assembled
vii) Go somewhere else to play the game
viii) Wail, gnash my teeth, beat my breast, rip my shirt while smearing ashes on myself and shake a fist at the heavens
ix) Retreat into asceticism and ponder the meaning of life
x) Wait for The Associate aka He Who Must Not be Named aka mindgame aka nw.t. to dig up some beta drivers for my graphics card for me
All of which are testaments to my sad, sad life. Moral of the story: Buying original games isn't necessarily good.
Add to this the fact He Who Must Not Be Named's pulling of a Harry Potter on me last weekend. I swear, the next time he does that, I shall soundly thwack him or lace his ice with cockroach dung. Or even splash his name and picture all over the seedy highways of the internet.
"Agagooga's desktop computer is totally screwed and so crashes unpredictibly, estimated at the (conservative) rate of 10 times an hour with intensive use (eg Number crunching with Excel, opening a browser window with 30 tabs, burning a CD-R or copying 200MB files to an external hard disk).
Assume that the number of crashes per hour follows the Poisson distribution.
Find:
i) The mean and variance for the number of crashes in a 3 hour session of Knights of the Old Republic II - The Sith Lords (KOTOR II) (ie How many times he will have to restart his game in a 3 hour session and the variance of this result)
ii) The probability that he will be able to play KOTOR II for a whole hour without the game crashing
iii) The probability that, with his rash of bad luck, he will get a crash every minute"
Of course, since I can't even get into the stupid game, these questions are moot.
Someone: you know, if you were a lecturer in nus... i can imagine how my midterm tests and tutorials and probably exams will be
we'll be learning little bits of your life throughout the sem
you've got the mentality of a porno star
in a weird way hahahahahah
exhibitionist hahahahahaha
***
A friend of mine has been written into a fanfic. Maybe I need to become more active in PR forums, then maybe someone will write me into one too!
***
"Yet nobody ventures even a mention of why there is such a climate of fear in the first place. There is no mention of the famed “OB markers” which keep many away from being vocal about an opinion, especially a dissenting (some say disparaging) one. Or about the automatic deference expected of our culture, that demands “respect” for elders and for leaders, such that the point of debate over the issuing of an opinion is no longer about the arguments or their context, but shock awe and horror at the utterance of the “D” word (despot) – surely an act of incivility? How does anybody, literally, afford to be vocal about your dissent, in a place like this? This is not a full time job many have the stomach or pockets to take on."
The comments thread is also worth a look.
life in mono is current down, due to bandwith overload.
Against Nature: Why Nature Should Have No Say on Human Sexuality - "The homophobe who relies on ‘nature’ to defend his bigotry against gay parenting, for example, in all likelihood will have no problem at all consuming food containing preservatives, artificial colouring, artificial flavouring, and sweeteners, shaving his naturally present facial hair, keeping his naturally long hair short, using deodorant to control naturally occurring perspiration, using a car or train to get to work (rather than the ‘natural’ method - walking), sitting in air conditioned buildings, and wearing clothes made from humanmade fibres. He will moan about the ‘bad weather’ (rain, and so on), despite this weather being perfectly natural, and rush to the chemist when he catches a cold (which he will also moan about, despite the germs being natural). Nature = good is clearly a false equation. In reality, we find some elements of the natural world ‘good’ (and we use these to define ‘nature’), but most of it ‘bad’ (which we tend to conveniently ignore)."
Some Economists Say the President of Harvard Talks Just Like Them
"He prefaced his discussion by saying he would "adopt an entirely positive, rather than normative approach," looking at how the world is, rather than how it ought to be. He ended with a call for "marshaling of evidence to contradict what I have said."
Despite his caveats, some women's advocates were outraged that Dr. Summers entertained, let alone endorsed the hypotheses that family arrangements or innate abilities might have anything to do with the success of women in science. Nancy H. Hopkins, a biology professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has campaigned for more hiring and promotion of female professors, walked out on his remarks and later told reporters, "I felt I was going to be sick."
In lambasting his nonjudgmental, empirical approach to the question, opponents are not merely challenging Dr. Summers's brash manner or his evaluation of the data. They are attacking the very method economists use to address social policy questions. And, not surprisingly, some of his most outspoken supporters are fellow economists."
***
Existential Angst
"I’ve finally come to a very real and very critical place in my development. This world is full of more horrors than joys, more pain than beauty. It has always been this way and no matter what we may tell school children we cannot change the world. The world will not markedly improve, even if it manages to survive the abuses humanity showers upon it. If there is any God or a force greater than humanity I feel more like a science project than a beloved child, more like a freak show than praise-able subject. If there is a God I don’t think he/she/it is showing up anytime soon, and my gut instinct would say there is no such force. So what then? If there is no potential for bettering humanity, and no Higher Power to dance for, then what is the point of contributing, of being good, of existing at all? And where do I possibly go from here?
See, it’s a slippery slope all this existential theory.
So I’m at the library, seeking the philosopher or guru who can clarify the meaning of no-meaning. Sartre said meaning was in individuals, individual moralities and ideals and behaviors. Sartre managed to fight for the greater good against Nazi Germany and continually shit all over Simone who loved him more than anyone in the world. Jean-Paul Sartre was definitely a man. Karl Marx came up with a lovely, lyrical portrait of utopia, and fully admitted it was impossible for humans to achieve. This indisputable fact is one which millions have chosen to over look. Jesus said, “Love one another”, a gift his followers seem only able to give to those who are just like themselves. Scientists say the answer is in nature, technology, progress. They seem to expect me to see life while they autopsy atoms and grin. New Agers look into crystals, and ancient rituals, and spiritual energies and find a form of religion that is soft, benign and utterly incoherent. Whatever form it takes religious thought is a comforting way to quickly answer, and therefore deny, the real world...
I’ve grown tired of seeking in these rows of books. There is much wisdom and foolishness here but no one work which answers all." [Ed: Emphasis mine - on why reading is overrated.]
***
http://www.rafflesian.com/event/attach/Rafflesians'_Card.pdf (if the link doesn't work, try this or this and scroll to "Mon, 28 Feb 2005 ORA EGM")
There's an ORA UOB Visa Credit Card. Wth?!