All Discussions - Icrontic

I need a new laptop.

Sonorous — Mon, 20 May 2013 23:32:10 -0400

I currently have a Dell Laditude E6400 but it is starting to showits age after a few years of beer and mixed drinks being spilled on it while DJing local bars.

I am having an unusually hard time finding what I want due to the vast amount of selection available on the market now. I like the idea of an ultra book but I know that I will be disappointed if I ever try to game on it. I love OsX but I hate the steep price and lack of the ability to repair Apple hardware. I also think having a touch screen would be nice but as I said with the ultra book, I haven't been able to find a laptop with a thouch screen that I feel would handle moderate gaming on. Which leads me to full on desktop replacement, boss hog, balls to the gaming laptops, but their bulk and lack of battery life isn't appealing either.

So maybe you guys could tell me what you use for laptops or make a suggestion. Every time I try to look at laptops I get distracted by the choices and end up losing sight of what I want versus what is available.

Roommate halp

Canti — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 17:32:58 -0400

Ok so here's the deal. My lease is up at the end of this month, my roommate is moving out, I want to move to Springfield, Mo. to start school. I've tried everything I can think of (craigslist, roomster, facebook) to find someone with a room available or someone who needs a roommate willing to look for an apartment and so far that's not getting me anywhere. I can't really afford to get a 1 room place by myself. I have 15 days before I don't know what will happen. Does anyone have suggestions on how to go about finding roommates?

AMD launches Radeon HD 8970M

mertesn — Fri, 17 May 2013 18:50:33 -0400

AMD launches Radeon HD 8970M

Just announced: Steam Trading Cards

primesuspect — Wed, 15 May 2013 14:35:16 -0400

This is certainly something new.

Introducing Steam Trading Cards. Steam Trading Cards are virtual cards earned by playing games on Steam. Sets of cards can be turned into game badges and tradable Steam community items.
Play any of the participating Trading Cards Beta games to get trading cards. Up to half the card set is dropped through game play, the other half is earned through your collecting prowess.

Jboog's pro tips for a Monday afternoon...

JBoogaloo — Mon, 20 May 2013 16:21:09 -0400

If you're going to get into a car accident, you always want to make sure it's a good bad experience. For example, if you're going to get sideswiped at an airport, make sure that you get sideswiped by a Congresswoman's aide driving her car. But, don't forget:

* Make sure it's done while he's coming to pick her up in her car because you want to really make sure he makes a lasting impression with her.
* Make sure that it's at an airport that sits in the middle of some of the worst traffic spots you can think of.
* Do it at the beginning of rush hour.
* Lastly, make sure that you and the other driver can't really agree on anything other than to waste as much of each other's time as possible ensuring her anger and frustration before they even get on the road.

** Oh, and make sure your insurance call ends with, "Well sir, it looks like we might be eating this one, but we'll see..."

League of Legends anyone?

cola — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 19:09:11 -0400

So I finally caved and got this game a couple days ago, and last night I had a really fun time playing with Preach, Rex, Lynx, and Duck. Since the game is free to play, and there are at least a few IC members who play, I thought we might as well have a thread or something :D

Happy Birthday BlackHawk!

kimono54 — Mon, 20 May 2013 15:24:20 -0400

He's only 28 but he thinks he's getting old! Let's all give him a cheers; he's not at the big 3-0 yet!

Katawa Shoju (Deal with it)

cola — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 03:10:50 -0400

Potential spoilers included, read at your own risk :P

I'm making this thread because the waifu thread simply can't function as the only place to discuss/post (non-H) images of KS/youtub. That, and Lynx can't into waifu. Also, I've just started this and love the style of story and art, the characters are deep (lulz), and Lilly is smalltime.

***Lynx ninja edit***

For those of you who haven't heard of this, KS is a bishoujo-style visual novel set in Japan. You play as a dude who suddenly has a very serious heart condition, and ends up at a high school mainly for disabled people. It's not a dating sim, like everyone wants you to believe. It's more like a weeaboo choose your own adventure - except that it's American made.

The really cool thing about KS is that it started on 4Chan with a single image back in 2007. A bunch of nerds worked hard for over four years to make KS a reality, and as a project of passion from fans, it's an awesome example of what people can do out of communities like 4Chan.

Oh, and if you were there at Expo 2009 when the "Lynx is a weeaboo" thing started, it's all because of this game

A word of warning - it DOES have mature content in it. This content can be enabled, just know that ahead of time. Also also, you should probably watch this:

Now, back to Cola:
*********************

I made it to two of the endings to Hanako's path, one was lame and the other gave me some major feels.

I'm really happy with the end I made it to on my first run through and I'm looking foreward to seeing the rest of Hanako and then Rin. I don't think I could become the Shoju master like Lynxsiao and complete all paths, but I'll prolly run through everyone's stories at least once just to see.

Also, lulz if you guys end up getting bad end.

Let us begin?

Icrontic Summer Shindig 2013 - UNPLUGGED

primesuspect — Sat, 18 May 2013 17:56:12 -0400

#ICSS #6
Labor Day Weekend: August 30-September 2, 2013
Facebook Event Page

We're going to really shake things up for Summer Shindig this year...

In years past, Summer Shindig started up around the Woodward Dream Cruise, but as the years went on people got less and less interested in fighting the crowd just to see some classic cars cruising Woodward Avenue.... and the million attendees didn't really help matters.

This year we decided to really change it up, in light of Renn Faire being cancelled (ANNE... THE BABY) and Summer Shindig being less and less about the cars and more and more about just hanging out between Expo and Oktoberfest.... we're moving it north. Way north.

Icrontic Summer Shindig 2013 will be held at Prime's property in northern Michigan (around these parts we call it "up north"). It's 5.5 acres of lovingly tended wilderness, with plenty and plenty of camping space as well as woods and tons of privacy. There is a trailer on the property with running water and electricity, so we do have a shower and a toilet.

Bring a tent, bring some beers, bring your favorite thing to grill, and you will have an amazingly awesome weekend of hanging out in the woods, campfires, and relaxing good times.

LOGISTICS

We will start the journey at ICHQ Detroit, to make carpooling as efficient as possible. When all the cars are loaded, we'll head up (relatively grouped up but definitely not "caravaning" which is unsafe and inefficient). The journey is just about 2.5 hours north of ICHQ Detroit. Every car should have at least one smartphone or GPS to get there. Google Maps has 115 E. City Limits road slightly wrong; it's actually about .25 miles north of where it says on the map... There is a grass driveway on the right-hand side that leads down a hill and up again to the property. We'll have a sign up.

Those who are flying in can get a spot in one of the vehicles. If you're willing to drive, let us know how many spots you have available so we can start assigning cars.

Images with overloads of Ponies

cola — Thu, 19 May 2011 22:44:00 -0400

Because sometimes, after a long, hard, miserable day, all you need is a pony.

And a little something to remember:

Let's roll.

Expo Icrontic 2013 Red Carpet

primesuspect — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 18:25:23 -0500

The glitz! The glamour! The fame! The cameras! The crowd! The cars!

Continuing our tradition, we now present our TENTH annual Red Carpet to highlight the lucky, the proud, and the amazing attendees of Expo Icrontic 2013

I got this box from LEGO

CB — Mon, 20 May 2013 15:23:13 -0400

So, LEGO sent me this box:

I asked my contact over at LEGO about the box, and he says that it's related to the new LEGO Star Wars television show, and to the "world’s largest model", which will be unveiled soon in New York. (He also mentioned a mobile video game, but had no information about it for me yet).

I'll do a proper write up of this stuff when I know more (and when I've got this model together). :D

The official "obscure (if you don't read Reddit) shit that makes us happy" thread!

Cliff_Forster — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 00:26:50 -0500

Simple concept, find something on the web, something obscure that puts a smile on your face and share it here.

Folks, this man longs for a simple time, a time when after school cartoons were designed for the sole purpose of selling a toy, and the opening theme song was loaded with delicious cheese.

If your over the age of 30 and you don't smile after that, well, there aint no hope for ya.

Next batter up!

TF2 Figures

mertesn — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 08:23:43 -0500

Found these the other day...no idea how long they've been around. Only the red ones are in stock right now. Both of the red figures arrived yesterday. I'll see about some item screenshots today if time allows.

Paging @BobbyDigi, collector of the TF2 things.

Someone take this kitten!

Canti — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 10:43:49 -0400

Seriously now, it's not going to eat itself after all. I found it under my car after work this morning. Mertesn told me to pillow case + river whatever that means. It's already been fed once which is enough for a whole lifetime right? It's also very friendly and I assume highly intelligent as the following was actually typed by the cat as it walked across my keyboard while making this thread.

"Nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn ]

5 4rbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbnt5ruyyyy\aq45////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////7"

I'm guessing that's kitten for, "Please adopt me and can has cheezburger?"

Wanting to try this "Keto" diet I've heard so much about.

UPSfooman — Tue, 14 May 2013 16:07:21 -0400

I hate the word diet, but I REALLY need some type of plan that I can stick with and start seeing results. I exercise 5 times a week. My primary workout is Jazzercise, there one hour classes with a mix of dance/aerobics/strength training and yoga, which the average amount of calories you burn in one class is around 600. So my exercise is set...it's just getting frustrating because I feel like I'm not getting the results I want and I know it's because I'm not eating all the best foods. Bobby told me about the Keto diet and a little bit about it which perked my interest, I want to give it a try...just still trying to learn about it. So for all those people who are doing it or have done it what are some tidbits you could give me? And will it be okay to do since I'm working out so much? I'm just a little nervous about it :/.
Thanks guys!

PS. This is my first discussion board EVER...I know, where the heck have I been?

Any watch nerds on Icrontic?

Thrax — Sun, 14 Oct 2012 21:45:54 -0400

After years of not wearing a watch, telling myself that a cell phone was "good enough," my better fashion sense took over and I ended up ordering the Fossil FS4519.

I bought it because it looked nice, not because it was necessarily any "good." Nevertheless, I fell in love with watches and have started pursuing it as a hobby. More recently, it prompted me to crack open my Fossil and discover that it uses a nice Citizen/Miyota quartz movement. Nine point nine out of ten times, quartz is quartz, but Miyota is reputable and reliable, so my blind purchase wasn't a total waste of cash.

Now onto the hobbyism! I've since become especially interested in Chinese mechanical watches, because they're largely unknown in the west (lolhipsterwatches) and offer some sensational value for the money. Some of the long-standing manufacturers are also pioneers in the field of horology, like:

SeaGull/Tianjin: Amongst the elite few that have developed in-house double and orbital tourbillon movements. Also engineered a prototypical microrotor movement. Manufacturer behind the legendarily good ST5, ST19 and ST25 mechanicals.
Shanghai Watch Factory: Developed the 3L chronograph, China's first auto movement ready for spaceflight. Also engineering their own tourbillon movements with a wide array of complications.
Dixmont-Guangzhou: Pioneer of an auto-winder in a tourbillon with their DG80 and DG81 movements.
Liaoning Watch Factory: Engineer of unbeatable value-for-money tourbillon and mechanical chronograph movements, the latter of which appeared in the British Horological Institute's 150th anniversary watch.

Here is my collection as it stands:

Timex Weekender T2N650: Not made in America, but nevertheless an esteemed American-owned watch company, the Weekender is a utilitarian and ultra-durable quartz model that looks great with casual wear. Most snobs will lift their nose at the audible movement, but I find the ticking strangely reassuring in a quiet room--reminds me of the old clocks in elementary school.
Akribos XXIV Saturnos AK410WT: Make no mistake, this is not a high-end watch, but I got a stupidly good deal on it. It features a skeletonized variant of the Hangzhou Watch Company's 2000 Series calibre, itself an excellent "clone" (I use that term very loosely) of the venerable Seiko 7s26. In truth, the HWC's 2000 offers more complications and equal timekeeping consistency, making it an arguably better movement than the one it's alleged to copy. It keeps time very well (+/-5 seconds over 24 hours), and the auto-wind rotor seems to work well. Again, my gamble paid off.
Orient Esteem FDB08005W: This is the watch that set me off on the path of Asian mechanical watches. I fell in love with it at first sight, but was forced to wait on pulling the trigger because it was out of stock. When it returned, I told myself to wait for a sale and I'm glad I did, as I purchased it recently for less than half of the MSRP. Orient is subsidiary of Seiko, and the Esteem is fully manufactured and assembled in Japan with the Seiko 46A automatic movement. Reliable and beautiful, this is probably my favorite watch.

And now for the BIG gambles...

In watch enthusiast forums, there's a term called "mushroom brand," which refers to unknown companies that pop up on eBay like mushrooms. These brands have no provenance and no history, often with specious quality control. Nevertheless, they often use what are supposed to be good movements from some of the above companies. If you're lucky, you get a fantastic mechanical watch for a fraction of the price you'd pay for the same guts in a bigger/better brand. If you're not lucky, you get a shitty C-grade movement that doesn't keep time or doesn't work at all.

...but it's only ~$30 to try your hand. So I did. Twice. They haven't arrived, yet, but these are what I got:

Jaragar PMW017: I liked the calendar (though it's not a perpetual calendar) and the dial, and was particularly enamored with the open heart balance wheel. I'm almost positive that this is the Shanghai Watch Factory 2L27 movement.
And an AK Homme Whothefuckknows: AK Homme is widely reported to be of above-average quality amongst mushroom brands (much like Jaragar), and again I was smitten with the open heart. The listing also describes the watch as moonphase, but in truth it's really a day/night indicator that embellishes the dial. The 24-hour dial is legit, though, and that's pretty cool. It uses the Shandong Liaocheng Zhong Tai Watch Factory ML-7101 that's been rotated to place the open heart at the 10 o'clock position.

My next purchase will be a Rotary GS02518, Sea-Gull M171S or Christopher Ward C3 Malvern Chrono Mk II.

MLP: FiM discussion thread

UPSLynx — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 15:32:32 -0500

Welcome to the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic discussion thread!

All discussions for the best show in the history of shows will go here. The Images with overloads of ponies thread will become an image-centric thread. Furthermore, IC Pony Streams (ICPS) scheduling and discussion will soon have its own thread, to make tracking of those even easier. This will hopefully make things easier to follow.

Anyways, we join our regularly scheduled programming already in progress:

******************************************************************************

UPSLynx said:
My little experiment is working.

Remember when I made that 30 seconds of Squee video a month or so back? The community has discovered it, and it's growing exponentially. I checked it right before going to bed last night, and this morning I found it had gained 700+ views overnight. It's surging popularity has prompted YouTube to ask if I want to monetize the video. This is hilarious.

Oh hey, now over 75 thousand views and climbing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVkmH-EkYqM

Source Filmmaker

UPSLynx — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 19:07:55 -0400

Guys, this is HUGE.

Hidden beneath the massive Meet the Pyro update, this video slipped out introducing what Valve are calling Source Filmmaker. This tool was developed and used for not only all of the "Meet The" videos, but as well as every other cutscene that Valve has created for their various games, in addition to in-game sequences.

Just watch this:

This is a massive paradigm shift. Filmmakers in Hollywood have been trying for YEARS to have a proper real-time animation and graphics pipeline, and it hasn't been until recently that they sort of accomplished this. Valve's been doing this since 2007 like it was no big deal.

The included animation tools are fantastic. Outside of a professional program, they're some of the best I've seen. And the fact that everything can be done and captured in a multiplayer game environment, and THEN tweaked, makes this an end-all be-all solution for machinima.

Asset creation is one of the most difficult barriers for entry when it comes to animation. But think of what Source Filmmaker means to potential artists when it's directly tied to Steam Workshop. There are thousands and thousands of assets to use, with more being created by the day in an endlessly evolving world of resource tied around a central architecture. Valve is changing gaming as we know it with TF2. They've created a massive ecosystem that continuously changes and ties back into itself. The sheer implications of all that they've done is mind boggling.

Five years after TF2's release, and the real fun is just getting started. I can't even wrap my mind around it.

http://www.sourcefilmmaker.com/

Heatsink Stuck To CPU

MrTRiot — Fri, 17 May 2013 07:22:53 -0400

I was attempting to remove the heat sink from my CPU to apply new thermal paste when the both came out attached. I have tried using fishing line soaked in both alcohol and acetone as well as brute force to seperate the two. Any other suggestions to seperate them?? Neither the CPU or MoBo were hurt in the process

I already ended up getting a new
CPU and motherboard (not enough to clearance to reseat them as is) but I would still like to get them apart so I can sell them.

Pwning @CannonFodder's high scores in Defense Grid

Lincoln — Sat, 11 May 2013 11:59:12 -0400

Some people want to play their entire Steam catalog. Me? I just wanted to beat @CannonFodder's high scores in Defense Grid.

I targeted the 4 levels of the Borderlands DLC. The first 3 fell in rapid succession, but his insanely high score on the fourth and final level eluded me for weeks... until today. I didn't eek out these victories either - they were all by at least a thousand points.

Why do this?

Mostly because I know it'll drive him nuts. <3

A Good List of Coming Survival Horror/Horror Games

MAGIC — Mon, 20 May 2013 11:31:51 -0400

http://www.nerdist.com/2013/05/top-ten-horror-games-were-dying-to-play/

I love this sort of stuff. A few on there that I hadn't heard of.

Expo 2013 Schedule!

Lincoln — Wed, 15 May 2013 11:33:19 -0400

Announcing the schedule for Expo Icrontic 2013. We have an incredibly full schedule. Events marked "Everyone" (red) we're requesting all participants attend. Obviously we're hoping for maximum participation in the TF2 tournaments as well.

The schedule is NOT FINAL. But... hopefully close.

http://expo.icrontic.com/grid

Tastings have additional fees & signup. I expect both to be amazing; they're both in their second run and got high praise last time.

Many thanks to all the folks who have stepped up to coordinate events.

If you haven't gotten your ticket yet, time to get on that.

Neverwinter MMO

d3k0y — Mon, 06 May 2013 09:20:35 -0400

A friend on Facebook mentioned this game (which I didn't know existed until that point), so I decided to check it out. Take what I say with a grain of salt, I am only a level 13 Guardian Fighter (Sullivan on the Dragon server).

The game is designed as a Free-to-Play, with mostly cosmetic items for sale with real-money, but it kind of screws up the whole, not-pay-to-win part by making a middle man currency as well that works off both in-game grinding AND real-money. The pure in-game currency is Gold, pretty standard, you kill things, sell things, quest and you get gold. Every half-hour or so there is an in-game event that boosts certain activities like PvP, instanced dungeons, adventuring, or even player created quests. If you take part in the called out event during this time you get a currency called "Rough Astral Diamonds" which are essentially useless by themselves, but you can get a whole lot of it. Every hour (with a daily cap) once you hit level 10, you can transmute the rough diamonds, into full blown astral diamonds, which are then usable for High-Tier items and goodies. The downside to this is, the cost of these items fluctuate depending on the ZenMarket, or the real-money market. And allowing people to spend real-money on pure Astral Diamonds, by-passing the daily limit of transmuting Roughs into Pures. I don't know how exactly those numbers work, but I don't particularly care for a system where unless I pay money I can't be as good as someone else. I have no problems with having limits to my cheap character, but as long as those limits don't act as a permanent prevention of potential (wee alliteration). Bag size, number of bags, number of character, limit on amounts I can trade to other players, I am OK with that. But like I said, I don't know how all the stuff is figured out, or how it all works, so I might just be getting annoyed for no reason.

As for the gameplay, it does a "pretty good" job of making the game a bit more interesting than just go and faceroll your keyboard, they attempt to make it a bit of an Action RPG, with dynamic blocking and some directional abilities. Which is good, since just as far as I can remember of WoW or any other MMOs I have played, blocking is passive and direction doesn't really matter until you are behind something or something is behind you. Blocking attacks lowers your guard meter, when that is broken you can't block until it recharges, but depending on how you play it might give a boost to Strength, or overall defense, or something else. Other classes might have other things, I don't know, I have only played a tank.

The ability list is pretty limited, which is good since your hotbar only holds a few abilities, and a lot of them are locked into a specific type of ability. If anyone is familiar with DnD 4e, they are broken down into At-Will, Encounter, and Daily, with a small smattering into special "Action Point" skills that require combat recharging and some other abilities that are essentially At-Will abilities, but don't deal damage, or modify your existing ones.
This is also bad since there isn't really a lot of customization in the game currently. Later on you do get to Prestige out into other more specialized versions of your existing classes, but most of those appear to be passives and more modifiers of existing abilities. So from the look of it all the tanks will be essentially the same, all the rogues will be essentially the same and so on. One of the biggest perks of DnD for me is the fact you can customize your character to be as good, or as bad, or silly as you want, and this limits that to a pretty severe point.

The lag on some of the stuff is also kind of bad, so you tend to always be a bit behind with all your stuff if you try to change targets really quickly, or change up abilities. A lot of the time if I try to change to another target in the middle of combat I will swings 2-3 more times at the guy I was looking at before, or if I try to block sometimes I don't bring my shield up in time because I am too busy swinging. After I finish combat it isn't uncommon for me to swing blindly at the air for another few seconds waiting for my character to catch up. The attack animations, while pretty, are a little annoying and increase the delay in your skill uses, I have an ability that makes be bigger and deal more damage, however the animation takes 2 full seconds for me to raise my sword and slam it down, the whole time I am defenseless, immobile, and unable to attack so I tend to get punted around a lot during this time.

That aside, there is apparently some crafting and gathering as well, but I haven't got very far into it. All I know is that each class has a certain skill they can use to gather items around the world for free, and if they want to gather from other types of nodes they can buy kits which have a 75% success rate instead of a free 100%, which is nice that I don't have to feel helpless around the wrong nodes, but doesn't give me the ability to gather everything like a thieving goblin. But again on customization, most of the items you get out of these nodes are usually the same thing.

All and all I actually like the game so far, since I haven't had enough time to play to get bored with the lack of customization or the fact I have to spend money to get gear ballparks better than I can get with just playing. I will let you know how it goes as I keep playing.

Introduce yourself!

Lincoln — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 14:39:23 -0500

This is a place for new forum members to say hello, so make 'em feel welcome when they do :)