VRchat- a lost Utopia.

----Before the Fall-----------------------

I have spent over 1,300 hours in VRchat. In a Utopian world.

Day in, day out, I would argue to anyone that would listen, that the True Metaverse exists already, and it's a utopia named VRchat. That it is not just a game, but an open platform, where you and your friends can play, or make, anything.

Endless creativity, in worlds, avatars, and client modifications.

You can be WHAT YOU WANT, you can do WHAT YOU WANT, WHERE YOU WANT! You have never felt as free. Want to fly, do it, want to become a giant suddenly? Done! Want to spew smiley faces from a ghostbuster quantum pack, while music blasts... yep, sure. No matter how serious, or how random, you have* the freedom to do it!

----The Fall-----------------------

*had the freedom to do it.

Unfortunately, the developers of this utopia, this universe built entirely around what the Community does-have decided to show they know only disdain for their playerbase.

They have in recent days (07.25.2022), VRchat has pushed forward with an update, that disables almost all client modifications, reducing the user's ability to alter the way they play the game greatly.
They have stripped the ability for disabled players to alter the game to make it playable for them, disabled modifications that made the game run on lower end hardware, and of course, removed a plethora of massively helpful QOL modifications. 

Including those that so often gave one that feeling of freedom. That you were truly in the future- able to summon a mirror at will, fly through the air, or teleport to friends in an instant. Your freedom, has now been reduced, and the game will now run worse.
Why run worse? Because many mods as mentioned above, improved performance! From simple things like hiding avatars at a distance, to supersampling.

----Why Fall?-----------------------

But why did they do this at all? Why? We don't know. We have been told that it was to prevent malicious modding, and attacks. To help reduce the amount of complaints they receive about stolen accounts, or people grieving others. They claim modified clients "even ones that aren’t malicious – are a burden for creators." That any frustration caused by modified clients causing issues with their creations, "ultimately has a chilling effect on VRChat creators, hurting their enthusiasm and preventing them from building awesome things. "

As a creator- it does suck to not know if an issue is innate with the game, or caused by a mod. What hurts far more though, is knowing an issue exists in the base game, and not being able to fix it- knowing the devs, as they have proven over years, will not release an update to improve or fix said issue in any sort of vaguely timely manner. Luckily, a modder will-- or would have.

Instead of hiring said modders, or buying out their code- instead, they now will ban them. Even ban people making tools for any Unity game, that could be used to mod VRchat.

This of course, also ignores the FACT, that Mod makers are creators too. They have added so much to this game- and, in return, they have been vilified by the developers they tried to help.

----An Insult------------------

The first insult, is that in the past, when they first mentioned removing mods, they backed down- then claimed they would work with mod developers.
Unfortunately, by their own words, all they did was garner “feedback and insights that they had from their unique position.” In short- or, again in their own words, “Much like the feedback you provide via our Feedback boards, much of that conversation fed into our production process.”
Aka, they used it to help decide what they may work on next- not actually work to integrate anything someone else made, nor buy said mods for integration.

It should also be noted, that they have done this, all the while telling those that find fault with this, to voice their opinions… not on the actual update mind you- but on what features should be added next.
From their announcement of this update: 

“I rely on a feature that I only get through modifications. What should I do?”
“While we can’t promise any particular feature is going to be added into VRChat, we’d suggest actively using our Feedback board. This helps us decide what features to work on, and what things our users really want. ”

There is more to this response of course, speaking of how difficult it is to add features, and how aware they are that people really want some of these things.

Unfortunately, in the end, it basically can be translated as:
User: “Hey, I need this feature to be able to actually play?”
VRchat: “Yeah, whine about it.”

Let us also not forget, the overall dismissive manner in which they have communicated with the community, and often ignored most feedback on the Feedback board.

Follow that up, with the fact that this update was scheduled to release within 24 hours of it being announced. A shockingly small time to process, and attempt to comment on such a massive change. Clearly intended to prevent any chance for the community to comment or complain.

----Community Response------------------

Rage.

Given how much many people depend on, and love Mods- given how the game is based entirely around freedom of creativity, and expression- the backlash was immediate. For many, it started out fairly civilized, a push to organize, and make our voices heard. Tens of thousands signed a request to reverse this mod ban, and not push forward with the launch of EAC.

This was done not only on their Feedback Board, but on Twitter, Facebook, and Discord. Even VR Youtubers, V-Tubers, and some News Outlets began to cover the community's disagreement with the developers.

As the devs refused to respond to this, and given the short timeframe until this was scheduled to go into effect, people were understandably rather passionate. At times likely too passionate- When faced with such an apparently uncaring, and disconnected developer--- who doesn’t appear to understand the kind of game they ended up with…. I cannot blame people for being passionate- but threats of violence are still a shameful, and unacceptable thing.
But- the passion people feel, that I feel, is surely understandable given what is being lost.

----Developer Response------------------

Unfortunately, with over 20,000 votes for them not to move forward, and who knows how many other forms of communication urging them to back down from this odd choice. They doubled down.

When asked if they had expected this much of a pushback- they answered in the affirmative… and a nice big Smiley Face. . .
They knew, this was going to be bad, and went ahead anyway. In fact they said they had been preparing this update for over a month.

(07.26.2022) They announced that they have heard our feedback, but instead of listening, would use it, once again, to change what they worked on next. Let me remind you, these are notoriously slowly working Devs. Something that isn’t really a problem, when the community basically makes the game… which will not be a bigger problem, now that the community is being prevented from working on the game.

What did they say about what people actually wanted?
“we are going to be releasing this update, and we do not have plans or intent to revert or roll it back”
A no- even after a huge swath of their community voiced strong disagreement, they make it clear, they will move forward. They don’t care.

*They don’t care.*

----Real Reasons?------------------

We know, given they claimed this update was because “We’ve been listening to you cry out for a solution to being harassed, griefed, and constantly crashed,” --- then promptly ignored our “cry out” for them to stop this update, that they are not doing this for their user base. This cannot be denied.

So, it makes you wonder, if they are not doing this for the “security” of the community, and to help the people playing their game- why are they doing this?

Unfortunately, at this point, we don’t know, and can only speculate… 

“Why are they doing this?”

Well, on July 1st, 2021, Forbes reported VRchat received 80 million in funding, to help create a “Digital Economy.” Such a thing obviously won’t work as well, if people are modding their client, and in doing so, maybe leaving other exploits for manipulating or ignoring your false economy.

Maybe now, just over a year later, they finally had all the pieces in place to begin making this push. To begin removing mods- to maybe fully crack down on NSFW content, even though they have a tagging system for such things when they are being uploaded?
Maybe shortly begin cracking down on how easily, and freely people upload and share content?

----In Conclusion------------------

I’m angry, but more than that, I’m heartbroken.
VRchat set me free, more than any amount of alcohol, or convention hopping could have. It gave one endless freedom- and allowed me, and so many others to explore the worlds of our dreams.

Unfortunately, even if I was willing to play the game without mods- this experience, more than anything, has proven that we can’t trust the devs. They have proven they don’t care. That even if the community makes a utopian paradise, with a developer reaping the rewards of it- at any moment, for no known reason, they may burn it all to the ground. Probably for greed, maybe for spite, or maybe just because they don’t understand the beauty that exists in the game they created.

Thank you for your time, maybe I’ll see you in ChilloutVR.

 About Star Citizen's 10/10/2020 Anniversary Vanduul Helmet Event.
This was sent to CIG, hence the ending.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Recently, an item was added to the game, a Vanduul mask, aka, an item that calls out to the purely PvE faction of the game. You would expect to be able to earn this item purely via PvE, unfortunately, it is the exact opposite.

This on it's own is rather upsetting, but the fact that Star Citizen has been sold as a PvE game, from the Kickstarter onwards, with minimal PvP, and ways to avoid it, show this to be an utter betrayal of the game's core design. To provide proof of this, I shall now quote aspects from the Kickstarter page- 

---- https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cig/star-citizen ----

() What is Star Citizen "A rich universe focused on epic space adventure, trading and dogfighting in first person." - Please note the "and dogfighting" implying this wasn't the main focus. It also speaks nothing about PvP in this, given that dogfighting can be done between players & NPCs.

() "Single Player – Offline or Online(Drop in / Drop out co-op play)" - while this was never the promise for the PU, and in many respects only applies to SQ42, it still shows an idea. That the gameplay would be built more around Co-op play, rather than anything involving fighting other players.

() "Mod-able multiplayer (hosted by YOU)" as opposed to "Persistent Universe (hosted by US)" - while this has clearly been phased out- the idea that you could avoid PvP by having your own server, understandably morphed into trust in game systems to allow you to avoid such unwanted conflict. I'll go into why this morph happened later, as this was not a thought pattern change made without developer prompting.

() "Fully dynamic economy driven by player actions" This has been brought up by people to say that Piracy & PvP would be the driving forces behind this- yet the next line makes it clear, that this isn't even the main idea. "If too many people fly iron ore to the smelting plants of New Pittsburgh, steel prices will drop. Buy low… sell high… you hope."

It clearly speaks to the amounts moved, and prices set, not those that would interfere using violence as the main way to alter the economy.

() "play the multiplayer space combat Alpha" aka, a separate environment dedicated to senseless violence against one another. This is the only time Player vs Player is really implied as a serious form of gameplay. This idea eventually became Arena Commander of course- but this sentence is followed by "then 20-22 months in they will get to play the Star Citizen Beta, adventuring around the huge open galaxy," which could indicate the same gameplay would be carried forward into this open galaxy- but given it mentions adventuring, not combat, it's a reasonable to assume that the gameplay mentioned elsewhere on the page, would take precedent.

() "outside earth’s infrastructure and protection. The downside? No military or local police to protect you from an opportunistic pirate!" This could indicate Player vs Player action- yet again, the game only speaks about direct conflict between players once, in a dogfighting module. Piracy can, and does exist in game, devoid of player control. So those that would use this text to say it validates forced PvP - are blatantly incorrect. 

() "It’s about the gameplay and your interactions with others" This section contains the strongest argument against mine- "For example, it’s a perfectly valid choice not to be a Citizen and operate outside the protection of Earth." Implying it's acceptable to attack NPCs & Players alike for piracy- which yes, it is. Though it is quickly followed by "We think there will be people that gravitate to crime or helping enforce the law or defending the galaxy from the alien raiders or just accumulating as much money as possible. " Please note when it discusses Alien raiders- a completely AI driven group. In short, this enforces the comments made previously, and puts the entire paragraph into a more co-operative light. As in, you work with people to comfit piracy, you work with people to defend the law, not necessarily you work against any player or party who is taking part in this. One would even expect, that should it have had a more PvP focus, it would have discussed competitive organizations, not merely working with existing game factions.

---- Moving on from the KickStarter ----

https://youtu.be/QvmeGoQFLlg

A direct video, which I think summarizes what we were all expecting. This is what I referenced earlier, when I said a change in thought wasn't unprompted.

() The PvP slider was brought up multiple times over years- engraining it into the psyche, and making it extremely clear, that this game would not be PvP focused. In fact, in the video linked, it is directly discusses the idea, that you could have piracy, without PvP, adding strength to my previous arguments about the base of this game being PvE, with CoOperative play. 

() While this slider has phased out, it was to be replaced with an automated system, that would detect how much PvP you actually engage in, and attempt to match you with like minded individuals. Unfortunately, this system cannot be implemented yet, as server meshing is needed- but the idea still stands.

() This is unequivocal proof, particularly in this video, that one is to be able to enjoy this game, while largely avoiding PvP. In other videos, it's been stated fully lawless areas would have more PvP interaction- but not guaranteed actions. In the current game, I again reiterate that we are missing the server meshing needed to funnel purely PvP players away from those that do not wish to take part in it.

-----------------

With this in mind, all events should focus on the base ideas of the game, which most gameplay is focused towards, PvE & Co-op. This recent event, not only disregards those that do not wish to take part in PvP to get items, it forces it upon them, by making their deaths beneficial to those that want to PvP. This is a direct betrayal of the original ideas, that the game would be PvE focused. No reward should ever be locked entirely behind PvP lest it is something directly to be taken from a player- or group, such as a rare ship(Bengal Carrier), station, or homestead. (Which these will still need heavy balancing to insure griefing & rampant PvP do not become commonplace, in particular for homesteads.)

The current event, has unfortunately taken actions some players already make, senseless killing, and griefing for no other reason, than to make others feel grief- and legitimized it. Now mining is even more dangerous, as these one time griefers have a reason to shoot you down. Obviously this isn't intended gameplay, as if it was supposed to be, we would already have NPCs that would attack - which we don't have, and again, as stated above, the game is PvE focused. 

While the event as a whole is a betrayal of Star Citizen's core game design, it's added sin, is that it has empowered these griefers to be even worse, and turned the community extremely toxic over night. Those that offer free rides, ships, or assistance, have all but vanished, leaving only "get gud" & "carebear" attacks to be hurled through chat. This is not the game I backed, it's not the game that was promised, and it's excessively toxic. 

Please, roll back this challenge, and put in something that stands true to this game's design. Once we have server meshing, an event like this still should never exist- but something that compromises, where NPC kills count as less- but still count.

Even then, should another event like this show up, the reward should also match the hostile- not just PvP, for a PvE callout item.

I do see the logic behind "Vanduul Fighter, vs Gladius" being "Human vs Alien," & the mask of course being a better way to say Human vs Alien, without having AI- but this again, ignores the core foundation of this game, and forces everyone into PvP. If one was to have this- it should have been an "invading force of Vanduul" that upon defeat, are revealed as being humans masquerading as aliens, with stolen ships. Hence, the mask. If PvP was to be worked into it at all, an optional mission, that would give you the mask more easily, would be to join the invaders for a set of missions, that are more likely to pull players- but again, even this goes against the core of the game. Ideally, any mission put forth that makes getting the mask easier than simply defending against the invaders, would involve attacking authority(UEE) facilities, not players.

TL:DR - A PvP only event, particularly in the PU & not in Arena Commander, is a betrayal of the core design of this game. This cannot stand. This cannot be the way this game continues.

Please, undo this nightmarish event which forces everyone into PvP, and rebalance it so that those that do not wish to partake in this senseless violence, don't have to do so to get a reward, that specifically calls out the PvE hostile faction.

The Hypocrisy, of the "Pro-Life"

Ok mother funker, I'm not in the mood for your short sighted, un-educated, anti-intellectual bullshit.
What is a spirit? Energy, where does it exist? The brain. 

Can a human survive without a heart, lungs, kidneys, spleen? Yes, long as a machine, or a replacement can be found, but this cannot be said when a brain is destroyed. Therefore the Spirit, if it exists, which I believe it does, sits in the brain.

What can we assume the spirit is then? Energy, and it manifests in brainwaves. At what point can we detect brain waves? At 5-7 weeks.
Therefore it is logical that any abortion that takes place prior to 5 weeks, could be considered not taking a human life, if we are to assume taking a human life involves the removal of a human soul from this mortal plain.

To say abortion is "killing a life" would be to blatantly argue, that the cessation of any life, including cell life, is "killing a life" - which I highly doubt anyone would agree, that the statement "killing a life" when used in abortion, is talking about the simple loss of cellular activity.
If that was the case, then the same people would be calling out in terror every time someone harvested vegetables.

So, we are now assuming that "it's killing a life" refers to the destruction of the human form, and more-over, considering most who use the term are religious, the destruction of a human vessel, containing a human soul.
Yet, as I mentioned earlier, a human soul, if it does exist, in absolutely all likelihood, is represented in the human brain, by brainwaves- which are not detected till 5-7 weeks. Meaning prior to that point, you are not likely "killing a life" but simply stopping cellular development, and preventing a vessel from developing.

Could I be wrong, might the soul actually be dedicated to a form, created, or sent from heaven prior to this point, might the machines be wrong, and simply be too week to detect whatever activity exists to tell us a soul is present?? YES! **YES!**
But given the information we have at present, it's illogical to simply assume that a soul is formed, sent, or received at conception. If that was the case, any time a woman had her period shortly after sex, after a sperm had already impregnated an egg, her body would be killing a life, her body would be acting in sin. Same goes for miscarriages. 

So, do I support abortion? Prior to 5 weeks, begrudgingly, and barely; but even then, I'm furious that people don't take responsibility, don't see to it that their tubes are tied, a condom is used, that they have self-control, or don't fight to have access to birth control.
I find it infuriating, that a blind answer of "it's killing a life" is so often applied to all types of abortion, when it's such a short-sighted answer.

---------------------

Furthermore, even though I put "it's killing a life" in quotes, showing I have disdain for the saying, it doesn't mean I have an anti-life position! As I have clarified, I have great repulsion to blind dogma, but also great sorrow for those that decide abortion is the way for them, even if it is before 5 weeks.

Continued- I do defend my original, implied argument, that someone can dare claim to be pro-life, yet support weapons sales, can support war mongering.
So often these groups that claim to be pro-life scream and shout about there being too many immigrants, too many leeches, too many poor, too many draining our resources.
Yet their only answer to these solutions is hate, is to deport, is to ignore, is to blame the downtrodden. That, THAT, is anti-life, that is to hate the life that exists.
Sure, I definitely agree that abortion after 5 weeks probably is "killing a life," and before, it is definitely snuffing out potential, which is shameful- but the sadistic dogma that has taken hold in the USA, is that War is good, violence is acceptable, and killing is something not to be ashamed of- unless it's an unborn child.

Where has our compassion gone? Did we never have any? Do we really not care about those suffering abroad? Do we really not care about those who will find hardship when waters rise? Do we really not care for those who don't have access to clean waters, and find their children dying at a young age, or themselves crippled by a disease that could have been avoided?
Our country, has lost it's compassion. To call for an end to abortions, even those that lack logic, while being alright with leaders shouting for war, shouting to bomb our enemies into oblivion, civilians and nearby allies included, while shunning those lives that flee from such areas- that is hypocritical to no end, that is the devil's way.

So turn a blind eye to all life except a small group you have been programmed by corrupt men & women to care about- turn a blind eye to logic, to reasoning, and to life, and pay attention to the one little light you are told you are supposed to care about- but know, deep down inside, you are the devil's puppet.
He let's you care about one good thing, but only because he knows he can blind you with it's light, to the point, where the other lights, will never be noticed, when they get snuffed out.

Fuck this Pro-gun nonsense.

You wouldn't need a gun to protect yourself, if our society wasn't so thoroughly flushed with violence, if everyone wasn't able to just get a gun, like it's a human right. Never mind access to the Internet, why should you have access to something that will help you better yourself? Never mind clean air and water, why should people expect to be free from disease causing pathogens, to a healthy life? Never mind being able to live in peace, you should have to look over your shoulder constantly, you should live like our ancestors, terrified something, or someone is going to kill you at any moment! Or we could be reasonable, and try not to live like cavemen.

In response to the "Guns don't kill people, 2nd amendment rights, mental health, and It's a government conspiracy to take our guns!"

In response to the "Guns don't kill people, 2nd amendment rights, mental health, and It's a government conspiracy to take our guns!" arguments. I have this, rambling irritated nonsense to say-

You're right! The issue isn't with guns, it's with people! But guns are used to commit these crimes, to commit mass shootings, to remove human lives. There is nothing wrong, with reasonable restrictions on gun sales, with real background checks, with preventing the deranged from getting weapons.
What? You agree?
Well, why do you keep supporting GOP members, why do you keep supporting men like Trump, who claim to want to take action- but never do! They claim to want to stop these things, but never do anything about it, and never make any suggestions, except for empty platitudes, in an attempt to distract from the issues.

If you really believe mental illness is the issue, then why haven't you passed a Single Payer healthcare bill, that at the very least, insures free access to mental healthcare? Started a campaign to get people to seek help if they are feeling violent, if they find themselves in a downward spiral.
Do something, other than simply claiming guns are not the problem, sick people are, without actually taking action!
If you are not going to take action, then stop pretending to care, go back to your golf course, enjoy your NRA money, and enjoy listening to the bodycout rise higher & higher.

The Hospital Visit

A man sat slumped against the wall, head in his hands.
He spoke quietly, more to himself, than anyone nearby- "I was a good man, wasn't I? I was a good man!"

Next to him, in the hall, a nurse stood, glowing pure white eyes. Skin white, unnaturally so, with darker lines breaking it up, showing where the pieces of artificial skin joined together. Inside it's head, a mechanical mind, whirring away. A copy of a great nurse from long ago, altered to be what they would considered, "the perfect nurse."
It spoke - "You ARE a good man."

The man looked up quickly from his hands, tears clearly on his face, a face of sorrow, mixed with worry, and fear - "But WAS I a good man," he then pointed to the door behind him, hand slightly shaking - "Was I a good man" he said, voice starting to break.

- 10 minutes earlier -

The man walked into the hospital room, machines gently beeping, and an old man, in his late 80s or 90s lay in the bed, eyes closed. His face one of forced peace, with a gentle smile, and relaxed brow, that frequently was disturbed by some internal discomfort. The visitor approached the bed, and knelt down beside him.
The old man's eyes popped open suddenly, and he looked at the visitor.

Old Man: "It worked?"
He asked, in a calm voice

Visitor: "It worked."
Said the visitor, equally as calm, and somber

Old Man: "The OCD?"
He questioned, with slightly greater energy

Visitor: "Reduced by 90%"
As he formed a gentle smile

Old Man: "& the eyes?"
Now with some excitement in his voice- but with his own eyes clearly out of focus, unable to focus directly at the visitor.

Visitor: "Got them, their working right now"
The visitor said, still calmly smiling, with his black eyes, with white, slightly teal tinted irises, glowing"

Old Man: "It all went to plan?"

Visitor: "Everything seems to be in order, I feel-" there was a pause "Like, myself"

They both laughed quietly, but the man quickly started coughing, and became silent.

Old Man: "Pray for me."
The old man said, eyes closed, clearly in increased discomfort.

The visitor lowered his head, closed his eyes, clasped his hands together, and resting his thumbs against the bridge of his nose, began to pray.
Visitor: "Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed by thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day, our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those, who trespassed against us- and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, now"

There was a long pause.

Visitor: "and at the hour, of *our* death."

There was a different, gentle beep, from the machines, the old man had passed. No one would try to resuscitate him, to restart his breathing, this was his wish.

The visitor looked upwards, and closed his eyes. "God, please forgive me for my sins. I know I have not lived a perfect life, but please, forgive me." a pause "Please accepted me into heaven, please HAVE accepted me into heaven!"
As he thought the last part, of this personal plee to God, he began to cry, turned from the bed and left the room.

As he slumped down against the wall outside, a priest quickly approached.
The priest, having reached the door, looked over at a the nurse quickly approaching, before looking down on man against the wall. The priests face showed some simblance of sorrow, but also, of contempt.

As the priest vanished into the hospital room, clearly late for the Old Man's last rights, the visitor thought.
"The priest should have been there- no one should die alone."

With the EPA being picked at, and more environment un-friendly policies drifting forward, I feel, this must be said.

YES! Destroy our Earth! YES! 
Leave nothing for the ourselves in old age, nothing for our children, and absolutely nothing for theirs! YES!
Burn it all, watch as the skies turn grey with pollution again, and our children suffocate in their cribs! YES!
Rejoice, Rejoice, for we are now truly God's of our earth, and we chose to destroy it, we chose to burn the Garden of Eden, instead of care for it!
We shall cover our mouths, eyes, and ears, as our ancestors once covered their bodies! For these are the things we shall see as unacceptable!
Rejoice, for the age of enlightenment has ended, and the age of Joy has begun!
We shall revel in our suffering! For it is what we knowingly bring, and no one would ever bring forth that, which they do not want, so rejoice!
Rejoice in the end, of all things!

A future without work

We are coming up to a point in history where machines will be able to do everything, & I'm not just talking about manual labor, but literally everything.

This is a horrifying prospect to many, even most, but it has the opportunity to set us free to actually enjoy our lives. Many in America have subscribed to the idea, that you "Live, to Work" - but some, like the French, seem to remember, we are not machines, they "Work to Live."

Of course, without any more Work, what do you do? Simply "Live to Live?" Is this such a bad thing? How would you gain wealth, items, trinkets, your possessions. In such a world, would you find yourself stagnant. Never growing, always slowly withering away, bit by bit?

The truth is, that, as I said earlier, follow the French. Think of this as an opportunity, to Live. Without work, suddenly this doesn't mean you can't Live any more, this means you are free to Live more. Yes- there are serious issues created, but maybe it's time to look inwards again, and realize physical goods, wealth, and all of those trinkets we put so much faith in, are not what matters. Maybe it's free time, time to spend with the ones we love, doing what we love, that should matter.

But yeah, I do want the latest Star Wars this or that, so all of us still have a ways to go :P

Political, 8/15/2016, ignore if from the future, or not political

Someone on Facebook prompted me for reasons why I dislike Trump, they also gave me a few reasons why they dislike Hillary. Thought I would share my response.

--Hillary--
While Hillary is corrupt, I do believe that she is not morally corrupt. 75% of what she does she does for more than just profit. Countless charitable activities, some, rather unfortunately, with profit in mind, but all do actually seem to make progress towards helping people. If nothing else, at least she does not publicly condone violence, greed, hatred, and tries to fight for most human rights.

When it comes to Benghazi, her response was faultless, she did everything she could, but at that point there were no real solutions. As for what led up to Benghazi, the Ambassador's requests for more security going unanswered, yes, indeed she does share a fair amount of fault there, but it's not only her. Let's also not forget that there are situations similar to this frequently, where someone requests more security, but in the long term, it turned out not to be necessary, this is one of those times where the person (Ambassador in this case) should have been given more.

As for arming the Muslim Brotherhood, she has no blame for that, except carrying the same policies America has carried since Vietnam, something that I do think should be changed, but not something that should be taken as a personal fault of hers. The USA has been arming different factions for years in attempts to play small 'proxy' wars, in an attempt to spread democracy. This has been an all out failure, with maybe the exception of South Korea. None the less, this is an American policy, one she simply followed- do I think that makes her exempt from the sins such policies commit? No, but it is important to understand why such a thing was done.

The e-mail scandal is indeed disconcerting, at best, it shows an overall lack of understanding for the digital environment, and at worst, a disregard for the safety of classified information. As for prosecution for such a thing, as has been said before, mistakes of this magnitude have been made before, and no official has ever been charged with a crime for it. I do believe given this level of screw up though, she should have taken it upon herself to step down, and never perused the presidency.

In the end, I think of Hilary as a bit corrupt, but more than anything, incompetent. The worst thing she could do is maintain the status quo, maybe pushing America ever so slightly in the wrong direction.

--Trump--
A man who lacks any morals whatsoever, he has shown over his life not to respect anyone, or anything, except himself. He might not have a long list of mistakes, or misjudgments in the political world, but he does have a history of non-moral, non-christian activities.

He cut off medical treatments for his nephew's newborn baby, who was very sickly. Why? Money. His nephew's child was born very shortly after his father's passing(days), and when they found out the newborn would not be able to inherit anything, they sued. Instead of simply fighting them in court, he had the family medical insurance pulled from the child to try to force an end to the lawsuit. This clearly shows a complete disregard of human life.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3382756/Donald-Trump-cut-medical-treatment-nephew-s-sick-baby.html

Billings - as in billing people without reason, or warranted action. Trump built a golf course in Scotland quite a whiles back, but decided the view was not ideal, because there was a small house visible. What he did, was pile a heap of earth next to the house to block it from view, and then sent a bill to the house owner for the dirt, and the work.
How wonderful, that a man think he can do something to help himself, and then bill someone else for his actions. Better hope he doesn't dislike your child, he might have someone shoot it, then send you a bill for a 'very' late term 'abortion.'
http://theweek.com/speedreads/631714/donald-trump-built-tiny-wall-scotland-tried-make-2-scots-pay-didnt

Manipulation - In the USA, there are many laws in place to insure that business is conducted fairly, and that no one is cheating. Unfortunately, it seems that there are quite a few ways to get around these checks if you are willing to go to court over just about everything.
He has sued people, businesses, and government organizations, from everything from reporting the truth of his actions, and calling it slander, to simply trying to speed up investigations, or those silly checks I spoke about earlier. There are too many things for me to even link here, but he basically uses lawsuits as his own personal weapon against everything, from wanting his name off of something he used to own, but sold, to fighting a decision that he doesn't agree with. Greed rules this man, non-stop, and he has admitted to being greedy. I do ask you, does 4,056 lawsuits over 3 decades seem like a man playing by the rules, or a man trying to make them play by his, and against everyone else?
http://www.usatoday.com/pages/interactives/trump-lawsuits/

Bankruptcy - To most people bankruptcy is something terrifying, something to be avoided, something that means you have hit rock bottom, and have to start building yourself back up again. Trump on the other hand, apparently sees this like anything else, a tool to be exploited. At first it looks like he did indeed use them to 'survive' but he himself was never in any threat, because when his businesses failed, and so many of them have, it was the business that filed for Chapter 11, and not he himself.
In many cases, particularly six of his casinos, all that happened was he left the company in someone's hands, and reduced his share in the company to below 50%. It should also be pointed out that in many of his casinos, he was acting as more of an investor, than an actual business owner, but I think that in itself is disgraceful, as he did indeed put his name on these businesses, and if you are going to claim to be a business owner, you should be one in more than just title.
This all does mean that he knows how to start a business, and actually even come out making a profit even if that business goes under- but that's not what you need for a country, you can't just get the ball rolling, and jump ship the second things start to go wrong, you have to do things that you believe will function for an extended period of time.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/sep/21/carly-fiorina/trumps-four-bankruptcies/

Respect - Or, lack of respect. Donald Trump, long before his presidential run, has never shown respect for anyone, or in the few cases he has, he is more than willing to do a 180. I'm not just talking about his business partners, or the contestants that he verbally assaulted on his silly TV shows, I'm talking about your layman, your standard citizen.
This is a man, who is not beyond insulting one's physical features, they way they look, eat, dress or act, even if all of the above are perfectly fine, but only off by the smallest amount.
He mocked Kasich's eating habits, something a 10 year old school bully would do, showing a lack of respect for a fellow human, but also a lack of maturity in his thinking, and actions.
http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-kasich-eating-2016-4
He also mocked a reporter, for the way the man was shaped, and acting, you know, because he was disabled. You could claim that people who are physically disabled in a way that might be considered physically repulsive to some should stay behind closed doors... but we did that before, and why shouldn't one be able to follow their dreams, long as they can get the job done, the only people who are harmed are those who cannot respect the person.
http://www.newsmax.com/Politics/politifact-donald-trump-mock-disabled/2016/06/14/id/733878/
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/trump-apology-times-disabled/2015/11/26/id/703661/ (Again, denying the truth)
Like most of these, the examples I give are only the things I know off the top of my head, I suggest looking for more, I'm sure you will find a history of foul actions, demeaning to other human beings.

Killing - As I mentioned previously, Trump has no morals. He does not care about the lives of his Nephew's child, so it should come as no surprise that he doesn't care about the lives of terrorists families. Now this might seem odd, why should we care about them? Well how many times on the news have you heard about a mother, or father, whose child has just been sentenced to jail time for a crime, and those parents had no idea their child was up to no good? Can you be sure that the families of these terrorists are not in the same position? That they might assume their child, husband, father, or brother are just going to work? How many families have waved goodbye to their loved ones, and not seen them again? Many may have left their families to fight for 'their cause,' why should the family, who was abandoned also be punished for the failings of one family member.
Trump has suggested killing these possibly innocent people, something we currently do with our drone attacks, at least if the target is at home at the time of the strike. Imagine if it was mandated though, you find out there is a suspected terrorist in this house, so you follow him out to the road, sure enough he plants a IED- well, better take him out,, but wait! You want to make sure you take out his family too, and right now his kids are at school, better wait till this evening, they probably eat dinner around 6:30pm. 6:30 rolls around, and look, the neighbor came to visit... should we shoot? It's just one 'innocent' that came over to visit, everyone else is already 'guilty' - what is the harm, with one more person who is clearly friends with a terrorist.
You have just killed A dad (Terrorist, had it coming, right?), a mom (scared, but loyal, overall innocent), their kid (innocent as innocent can be,) and the neighbor (Who happened to be  a local cleric coming to try to persuade the dad from taking terrorist actions.) No sin in that right? You didn't just betray God by killing all of those innocent people? They might not believe in him, but they are still his children, but eh', terrorist blood doesn't count, and long as you are near terrorist blood, you mind as well be one too.
Now Trump has said that he never said that, but unfortunately for him, we live in a world where you can actually record these things, and you can hear him say it yourself. This is a man who clearly does not care about human life, who clearly is not a Christian in the slightest.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/02/politics/donald-trump-terrorists-families/

Torture - Trump has said that we have to go beyond the torture we already do, this of course is already a 'touchy subject' for many, as the USA is already violating international law in the interrogation techniques we use, but Trump claims that even our simple violations do not go far enough, that we should go farther. Just as what I said previously, on his deny of saying some things, he said he changed his mind on this subject. I remember watching his speech, I was glad that he had, for a moment I had hope that he could change on some of his immoral beliefs, then I watched his next speech, the next day. Trump, had decided to go back to fully supporting torture, completely against the United Nations Convention against Torture, completely against any moral standing. Remember, torture has been used, go ahead, look up what we already do, it's pretty horrible, but if that doesn't sound so bad, look up what we did in Vietnam, or what we let others do on our behalf. Torture does not only destroy the flesh, but it destroys the mind, and of course, it corrupts your mind too, by accepting these things done in the name of 'freedom' we are destroying our own souls. Also do not forget, that just because someone is tortured, and confesses to something, that doesn't mean that they are actually guilty, torture is well known for getting false confessions, and bad information. The best interrogator there ever was, was a Nazi named Hanns Scharff, who after WW2 joined the USA, he got information not by poking, prodding, cutting or drowning, but by simply talking, and befriending those he was questioning.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-torture-waterboarding_us_5775d740e4b04164640f6597
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Convention_against_Torture
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanns_Scharff

Trump calls for a return to the 'good old days' - which conjures up pictures of Black folk hanging from trees, Asians locked up in camps across the USA for fear of being associated with Japan, or the 1950's government propaganda(Something which became legal again not too long ago!). We must work to improve our country, not look to 'past glory' or an attempt to 'make america great again.' America has many issues, but looking back, being led by hate(Sin), greed(Sin), and violence/killing(Sin SIN SIN!) will not make things better, we are God's children, he gave us souls made in his image, capable of doing such great things, let us not be led astray by someone who so readily embraces the devil's works at every turn.

VR =/= 4k

I have heard people say VR screens are roughly the same as 4k, thing is, that doesn't appear to be the case. A 4k screen is 4096x2160, where as a VR screen, the Vive for example, is reported to be 2160x1200.
Both do indeed contain the number 2160, which might be where people are getting confused, but the thing is, for 4k, that number represents the vertical pixel count, and for the Vive, it represents the horizontal pixel count.

- Pixel Count -

4k: 8,847,360

Vive: 2,592,000

Below I have attached a image showing how many pixels a Vive would take up when compared to a 4k screen. The small text, that probably just looks like dots in the image, are "4k" text & "Vive" text, both @ 12pt font size. I have overlayed larger 300pt font just so you know which is which.

PS: I like the Vive, I just don't like it when people claim VR headsets have a 4k resolution.

Yep, someone tried to say Dead Space 3 was not too bad...
Even though it did have good parts, I still find it painful to think on.. so I wrote them a bit of a response, and because I love venting about Dead Space 3, I figured I would post said response here, for posterity.



  Man... so much more is wrong than just story issues though. The pacing, I loved the slower plodding pacing you felt in the original, with a feeling of tension, that I never got bored of, which when changed into an action game, was almost completely missing.

  Also the weapons changes, instead of having classic, easy to remember weapons, you had a pile of random components, that never formed anything fun or enjoyable.

  Suspension of disbelief also became a problem, in Dead Space 2, you only had one or two minutes where the game felt like it lost the plot, and Isaac could be flung through space like a rag doll without suffering great harm, or suddenly feeling like he was something out of an Anime.

  In DS3, suddenly with the "action" focus, this often felt like it was a norm. These scenes 100% of the time felt contrived, and as if someone had paid to have them put in to attempt to garner a larger audience.

  As I mentioned before, about the feeling of tension being lost, this is also an issue caused by the actual environments themselves. While above the planet, you still get a fair few good vibes from the environments, long as you ignore the fact that the ship interiors are repeats of one another. (Even though that kinda makes sense for mass produced space ships.)

  Problem is, once you get to the planet, even though there are some truly beautiful small interiors, they are almost always forgotten when you are in bland concrete corridors, or in the shocking un-inspired outside.

  Imagine for a second that instead of the snow being a white wash, it was more of a gray, not because the snow is gray, but because it is so dense, the sun is getting blocked out. Now imagine, instead of vents being something you have to fear 100% of the time, the shadows you always see dancing around you in the snow are your true enemy. Never knowing when a shadow will actually lean forward & attempt to remove you from the living world, or if it is just a dense clump of snow drifting by. If they had done this, instead of having enemies randomly pop out of the ground, it would have been far more interesting. Give you a directed target to fear, not just "all of the ground can kill you." Let you fear the shadows in the snow.

  Back onto story, I have a billion minor complaints, but the more I think about it, the more I think it was a good story, just poorly executed- except for one aspect of the DLC. The Spheres talking to you. They had One voice.. it didn't sound like a billion souls speaking as one, but just 2-7, if that. If they were to speak to you, let every time they speak, the world around you fill with those that you have lost, or, since DS3 decided to go the idiotic rough of Isaac suddenly killing an assortment of Unitologist terrorists, have hordes of those he had sent to their maker surround him.

  Even if the Spheres do not truly hold the spirits of the diseased, why should they ever drop the charade. Why try to get Isaac to show them to Earth.. so he won't try to stop them, what could one man have done in the end anyway? The gameplay in the DLC felt far better than the rest of the game, like a return to form, but the story itself in this part did leave me feeling rather ill. Particularly the very end, which just felt too fantastical, and too standard sci-fi fair.




(YT edit I made, when I decided I had more to say) Edit: As for the multiplayer, I think they failed... miserably... With a game that focuses so greatly on the Phychological effects of the Markers, they barely touched on it with characters seeing something different. The few times they did, it was simply replace X model, with Y model, and call it spooky. How about Isaac sees you in a run down bunker/facility, but you... you are back home, in a proper moon-base house, that just happens to have the same turns as the bunker, but overall, nothing you are seeing is the same. Dear lord, I remember Jesse Cox's playthrough of DS3, when Dodger sees the "bleeding walls" of the elevator, she describes them as something truly fantastical, and horrifying! So I go to watch her video.. only to discover that nothing impressive had happened, only a simple texture switch of the elevator walls. Flat textures, next to no depth.

  If they did "teleport" one person to another environment, their body would remain still, fighting unseen enemies- if you are going to do this, separate the players physically before you lock one of them "in their head" that way the player who is not experiencing anything out of the ordinary has more of a clue- or better yet, have the character move about in their environment, acting strangely,and not just shaking their head.

  In many ways, the multiplayer felt tacked on... which can often be a good thing, because it means the game is still viable to play Single Player, as one would expect you to play a Dead Space game. At the same time, they did just enough to the environments to make it painfully apparent that there were supposed to be two people there. Like the ladders to get up a 3 foot ledge, when a stairwell, or an already extended ladder would have been suitable for gameplay. Then there is of course, the multiplayer only sections of the game, which you would expect them to go all out on, which of course, as I described above, they most certainly did not.

  As for "playing it with friends" I never really wanted to get a friend involved in Dead Space, and when Dead Space 3 came out, I found I had none I could convince to come on a journey with me. Not to mention, knew of no one who would take the game as seriously as I, and hence did not want to involve them. If they like the game, let them experience it their own way, just as I would like to experience it my own way- except in an attempt to make the game open up for a new audience, they killed so much of what made Dead Space beautiful.

  If they wanted to make a Multiplayer Dead Space game, then they should have done so. Not as "Dead Space 3" but as it's own stand alone game. After Dead Space 2, for a time I actually wondered what human vs human combat looked like in their universe, I wanted a game set there, not a Dead Space game, not something to do with the Markers, with Convergence, with Unity, but something just set in that same world.

  Something I forgot to mention before, the combat; in the original two, as I did mention, the combat could feel plodding, slow, determined. In Dead Space 3, they decided to try to mix things up, not as they did in Dead Space 2 by creating new creatures for us to rest our eyes upon, but by changing the way things worked. They did indeed create a few new enemies to fight, most of which never felt like Necromorphs in the slightest.

  First, the starving bastards you find locked in their bunkers. Starving for food, emaciated, running madly! Like a zombie.. just like a zombie. Nothing interesting, or unique about them, in Dead Space 2 they had something like this, but it was horrifying, it was painful to shoot at them, because they were children. Something pure, that should be full of joy, slain, and changed, charging at you, deformed bowls, and twisted hands! Not something that starved to death, that looks like a survivor from a twisted camp. Like something a Artist would make just to pass the time, on a particularly standard day.

  Second, the pic axe wielding buggers- Very cool... in no way shape or form. Even worse than a zombie, it resembles a crazed man- bu no fear, in the end they are Necromorphs are they? Surely beneath their clothing or armor lurks something more insidious? No- of course not, this is a game designed to appear to a new audience, designed not to scare those who were too terrified to play the previous ones, even though as "horror" games go, they were not considered so terrifying.

  With so many of these, you could not even rely on tried and true method of combat, aim for the limbs! Remember, the previous games, they kept saying this one. In fact, in the second one, they repeated it quite often out of fear of the player forgetting what was one of the main draws of Dead Space 1. So much so, that some of the original advertisements, and talks to get people into the first game, pointed out their "strategic dismemberment" system. The fact that you were to aim at specific limbs to get the job done.

  With two games of "training" under ones belt, at first sight of something not right, you aim for the limbs, slow them down, arms, even Necromorph arms are not as fast a way to move as legs- until Dead Space 3 that is.

  A "pick axe" bastard, for instance, if you were to shoot off his leg, he would fall to the ground, and begin moving at the same speed, or faster. So, let's improvise them, aim for the arms, or even for some silly reason, maybe the head. No? What has this done? Disabled it, no arms, no head? Oh, good, it has changed, this feels unique. But wait! How is it changing?

  Once it's upper limbs are gone, does its chest burst open, to attempt in a last ditch effort to impale you with it's ribs, now twisted & pushed outwards? Maybe possibly burst two smaller limbs from it's abdomen, as Necromorphs of the past have been seen to have, then try to grab you?

  No? None of that, well, what does it do? Oh.. it splits in two- a necromorph, a being which uses necrotic flesh to form new shapes, or at least the very least refit existing shapes, now throws away 50% of it's biomass, 50% that still has back muscles a spine, and assortment of other things- to have 3 small spines all of a sudden, and to try to stab you with them.... wonderful. Very original, not an instant reminder of another series that had undead creatures attempting to kill you.

  Luckily, the devs did create a few new creatures. Bosses, something Dead Space 2 was missing, saw their return in Dead Space 3. The devs also added "aliens" to their list of creatures.

  Now as much as this seems like it should be a boon to the game, it is not. It would have been a boon, if the creatures that attacked you in the depths of that planet, had not looked like the statues surrounding you. If they were Necromorphs, similar to the Axe buggers above, why had they not been changed? Laying down in those forgotten tunnels, should they not have decomposed, leaving only twisted wretches to be re-animated. Why did they still hold so much of their shape, when on the Ishimura, these freshly killed beings found themselves distorted & twisted so quickly.

  Then we have those quick buggers, which again, looked so very much like a man in a suit, or standard zombie. Remember in Dead Space 1, when you ran into the military troops who had been changed? Their armor split, their body forced in an unnatural way, it looked like something was wrong with them, and their suit.... since it was the suit, and it's stasis module that allowed them to move so quickly... but on that frozen planet, suddenly you have beings that barely look like they have been through a rough winter, maybe with a few tears to their back.

  So many others felt like re-skins, such as the dogs, and frankly so did the aliens down below much of the time. While they replaced these old necromorphs, I still found myself missing some of the other types we once saw. The fat ones, the charging ones, luckily the "raptors" still returned, but overall, the game felt like it was made by a different studio almost.

  I long for the days of walking through a Dark ship or station, listening to the sounds in the walls, wondering what amalgamation might show itself next. Not a love triangle, set on a painfully bright world, full of bog standard undead creatures.

Video Sage - Computer Specs

----------4k Tower----------
Capable of viewing, and playing @4k

-Case-
Cool Master, HAF Stacker, 935 ATX, Full Tower

-Power Supply-
EVGA SuperNOVA 1000G2, 1000W, Modular ATX

-Hard Drives-
Samsung 840 EVO, 500GB (SSD) (OS)
Samsung 840 EVO, 250GB (SSD) (Scratch)
Hitachi 4TB, 7200RPM (HDD) (Apps)
Hitachi 4TB, 7200RPM (HDD) (Storage)

-Motherboard-
Asus X99-Deluxe, ATX LGA2011-3

-CPU-
Intel i7-5960X, Eight-Core 3.0GHz

CPU Cooler:
Corsair H100i 77.0, CFM Liquid Cooler

-Ram-
G.Skill Ripjaw 4 Series, DDR4 3200, 4x4GB (16GB)

-GPU-
EVGA GeForce GTX 980 4GB Superclocked

----------Original Tower----------
Now used for Second Sage footage.

-Case-
Cool Master Storm Stryker, Full Tower

-Power Supply-
COUGAR CMX 1000, 1000W, ATX12V

-Hard Drives-
512GB Crucial CT512MX100SSD1 (SSD) (OS)
128GB Samsung SSD 840 (SSD) (Scratch)
1TB ST1000DM003-1CH162 (HDD) (Apps)
1TB ST1000DM003-1CH162 (HDD) (Storage)

-Motherboard-
Asus P8Z77-V, ATX LGA 1155

-CPU-
Intel i7-3770 Ivy Bridge, Quad-Core 3.4GHz (3.9GHz Turbo)

CPU Cooler:
Cool Master Hyper 212 EVO

-Ram-
G.SKILL Ripjaw X Series, DDR3 1600, 2x8GB (16GB)
G.SKILL Ripjaw X Series, DDR3 1600, 2x4GB (8GB)

-GPU-
EVGA GTX 690, 4gb 512-bit

Joint Survival, Video Catch up (Why I am behind)

I'm trying to get a video out every day to catch up to Arron & Scot, but it's allot of work.


   If we recorded for 4 hours, that means at absolute least I would need to edit for 4 hours to get through that footage and that's not counting the time it takes to cut out silent bits, bits that luckily are no longer relevant, putting in music in the background, text on screen if I feel it's needed, or would add something more. Even if I'm cutting something out, I usually watch/listen to it first to insure there isn't something worth keeping in it. Then comes the exporting of the file, which usually takes around an hour or so for a 30-40 minute video.... then the nightmare that is uploading. On average it takes 3-4 hours to upload a 30 minute video, 2 if I'm really lucky.

   I could edit more out, I could cut out anything that doesn't directly affect me, or if Scot dies, just skip ahead, but sometimes knowing what they are working on explains why when I go over to them later, I'm confused at a lack of progress, or vise versa. If i'm working on a ship, it's suddenly done, and I fly over to them and ask "Did you get it working?" You would have no idea what I am talking about, no idea why I might be grumpy, or on the brink of laughter, if I just edited out the silly conversations of people failing, or getting killed by doors.

   With that explained, continuing on with the editing, if I start working on a video in the morning, to make a 30~ minute video, that's probably going to be about 45-60 minutes of footage I edit through, with extra time taken to edit in the things I mentioned before. So if I start working at 9:30 am, it's going to be at least 11:00 am by the time I'm done editing, and that's if I don't take a break like I am right now to type this & let some stress off, so really around 11:30-12:00 before I'm done editing. Then I que the video up to render, and that takes about an hour, so by now it's going to be 1:00 pm, provided the render doesn't fail, or I don't see a problem with the finished file. I usually get lunch, or take a break while it renders, since it's an hour of my computer working fairly hard to generate the file. Then I start the upload, which on average takes 3-4 hours as I said above... for a 30-35 minute video. I could edit another video, or do something "productive" with this time, but frequently I don't, I go for a walk with my Dog, or something of that sort, or play a offline/solo game. Once the video is done uploading, I check it for monetization woes, enter the description if I didn't do that already, make sure the thumb nail took, and set up the ever annoying Annotations, by then, it's probably 5:00 pm.

   Anyhow, point is, if all I do in a day is work on Joint Survival, it's a full day just to get one video out.... and that is if nothing goes wrong along the way, or my OCD or Depression/Anxiety don't cause me to lock up. I figure it's killing my channel putting out next to nothing but Survival... but, I still enjoy the actual playing of the survival 7/10 times, and I want my side of the story to get out there when things go oh so wrong. It just eats up so much time, and leaves me so drained I don't want to do anything else. If DX11/DX12 ever get into SE, I'll get a motivation boost to mod, but I really want bloody blocks inside blocks so I can make tight hallways/rooms, and put furniture inside them.


   Well, that's that, just felt like I needed to share... since so many people keep asking "Why are you so far behind Arron & Scot?" Now you know for the most part. If something goes wrong making the video, or like yesterday I was working on something for Joint Survival with the group, that we were not recording currently, then I probably won't get the video done till the evening, which means I won't start my upload till 8:00 or so, in which case I go to bed before the video is done uploading/processing to HD. I could schedule the video to release, but then it might have a monetization issue, or something else I won't catch.


-Sage

Technological Computer Hell

As some may know, I have a fairly powerful second computer that I purchased back in November so I could create higher quality content, ideally in an even shorter time frame. . . it has not gone as such. Below you will see my error report that I sent into Asus this morning, which explains some of the wonderful issues I have been getting over the last few months, and have been trying to solve on my own, or with a little help from my father, over said time.

Apply date : 2015/01/27 14:36:19(UTC Time)


[Contact Information]
Name : Joseph ******* (EctoSage)
Email Address : ********@*****.com
Phone Number : ***-***-****
City : **** *********
Country : United States

[Product Information]
Product Type : Motherboard
Product Model : X99-DELUXE
Product S/N : ************
Place of Purchase : Amazon.com
Date of Purchase : 2014/11/17

[Motherboard Specification]
Motherboard Revision : What the hell is this? Your "How to find Motherboard Revision?" button just opens a blank Asus page.
Motherboard BIOS Revision : Version 1103

[VGA Card Specification]
VGA Card Vendor : EVGA
VGA Card Model : 04G-2982-KR GeForce GTX 980 Super Clocked
VGA Card Chipset : ???
VGA Card Driver : Version 347.25

[CPU Specification]
CPU Vendor : Intel
CPU Type : Intel Core i7-5960X Haswell-E 8-Core 2011-v3
CPU Speed : 3.0GHz

[Memory Specification]
Memory Vendor : G.Skill
Memory Model : Memory Model F4-3200C16Q-16GRKD
Memory Capacity : 16GB (4 x 4GB)

[HDD Specification]
HDD Vendor : Samsung
HDD Model : 840 EVO (MZ-7TE500BW)
HDD Capacity : 500GB

[Add-on Card Specificatio]
Operating System : Windows 7 64bit 

[Problem Description]
BSOD, BCCode: 1000007e
Link to Twitter picture of BSOD recover message: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B8UbHbxCQAAHC79.jpg:large

Nvidia Kernel has stopped working & recovered. Link to Error message: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B8JtIekCMAID2kW.jpg:large

This happens when playing Warframe, and have had it happen at least once when playing another high system usage game.

Almost more annoying, is an issue I have had for- ages. Upon starting the system from a completely powered down state, and if it has been in this state for at least 30 minutes the computer will freeze at "Starting Windows" - forcing me to push the power button to restart it. I will have to restart 2-5 times before it finally doesn't freeze, even though it will still have a half a second hickup where the spinning orbs that form the windows Icon freeze for said half a second before continuing. (They usually just freeze, or don't show up at all, leaving the Starting Windows message sitting on screen all alone.)

I also cannot boot from the Windows Install disk any more, if I attempt to do so, it freezes at the "Starting Windows" screen for that. The error code for these freezes on the mother board is AE.

System tests, diagnostics, fix attempts. In order as best I can remember them.

-Windows Memtest, no errors
-Checked all power/SATA connections, at least twice.
-Re-installed Windows, was able to get it to boot from the windows install disk & re-installed windows. Problems obviously returned.
-Updated Bios to v1103- will update to v1203 after I am done sending this. (Had been updating before & after the RMA of the video Card, neither that nor the video card replacement made much difference.)
-Fiddled with the Bios, turned off legacy systems because the computer wouldn't boot at all with them on. 90% failure rate at windows loading, or it would just sit with a blinking _ at the top left of the screen. This was done not just here, but bit by bit throughout all of our testing/troubleshooting of the system.
-Startup Repair, "Startup Repair cannot repair this computer automatically" "Problem Event Name: StartupRepairOffline" . . . incredibly confused at all of this. "Problem Signature 01: 6.1.7600.16385"
-System Restore, no changes, two successful restarts just to see if my issues were gone, third one once again failed to get past "Starting Windows"
-Checked PSU output in BIOS to see if it was fluctuating, it was not, very stable, at correct power output. PSU is "EVGA SuperNOVA 1000G2 1000W ATX12V/EPS12V 80Plus Gold Power Supply 120-G2-1000-XR" btw.
-RMAed & replaced video card.
-Downloaded as many of the correct drivers I could find from, The Intel Website, Asus Support Website, and even installed drives off of the Asus Install Disk that the computer had come with, that I had already done before, but more selectively. (This time I just told it to install "recommended")
-Disabled non-windows startup programs to try to prevent BSOD, didn't fix BSOD, didn't fix Startup issue. (Had to turn a few on obviously to be able to run Warframe, Adobe CC programs.)
-Windows Performance rating test failed, found a hotfix to fix this- issue was something to do with Intel Chipset having a high buffer, or whatever you call it, my mind is mush, too much stress from all of this over the last months.
-Virus Scans, not that such a thing should be needed, when the only things I had done on this computer the first time these issues appeared was install Google chrome, steam, & start installing Adobe CC programs. After the clean install, the problems came back before I installed anything if I'm remembering correctly, as I wanted to rule out as much as I could.
-MemTest86, no errors, passed.

At this point, I think it goes without saying that I have tried Googling Error codes to no avail, and done anything I could do when I did find someone with a slightly similar problem. I still don't know if the BSOD is mainly just a Warframe issue, but I do know that the startup issues, and the fact that it doesn't want to boot into a startup disk so I can run Windows Repair is incredibly disconcerting. Now that I'm done with this, I'm thinking of sending it to Intel Support as well, but not sure. I'm for sure going to update the bios again, then probably go check to see if there are any Hard Drive specific drivers that possibly did not download automatically, even though I'm not getting any errors that I can see, I still feel like double checking this, even though it seems like it shouldn't be an issue. After that, well.. I guess I will try to get some work done, and hope that if I find myself in need of a system restart, or taking a break, playing a game, my computer doesn't decide to lock me in a wonderful "Start Windows" loop.

Since sending this to them, I have installed the new bios update, found it unhelpful, even though I did get into the StartUp Repair on the install disc once, but because I had yet to have tried just booting at that point, I closed it out, went to bios, booted from there into my OS, all went well. Attempted to restart, changed fans in bios, suddenly same issue. Reset bios to what it was before I tweaked the fans, issue persisted, meaning it was a fluke that I was able to boot/run the StartUp Repair tools on the disk at all.

Disabled all legacy systems in the Bios, as everything in the bios had been reset when I flashed/updated the bios, unfortunately disabling all of the legacy stuffs seems to have caused the computer to just black screen with a few white lines... and a bit of static before that. Since then I have re-flashed/re-updated the bios in an attempt to reset it, and that's where I am now.... Writing error messages on here- because I can't send them to Intel because there "Service Request" page won't actually submit my form when I click "Submit" . . . been poking at that for a good 30+ minutes.

Anyhow, that's that, going to send a link to this page to Intel's Twitter, since it looks like Twitter is the only way to actually get a hold of any of these bloody companies now & days. I have little hope for any solutions any more... and frankly am just about ready to roll over & puke my brains out from depression that has been rekindled by this mess. Yesterday my computer might have blue screened, and refused to restart one or two times, but at least it usually started on the third attempt.... This is what I get for trying to fix things. . . even more issues.

Edit: 1/18/2015
Last night after some folks at Microsoft Windows ran a registry fixer, and cleaned up some of my systems, Intel got back to me. They linked me here, to a program which checks your processor for faults, and I can report, my CPU is not the problem with my system, everything that was supported by the CPU passed, so back to Microsoft Windows Support to see if they have anything else they can do to fix this issue. They were pretty sure yesterday that they would be able to sort it out, and the registry fixer didn't fix it apparently, even though the computer restarted once without trouble, after that it's failed 4/5 times. Either freezing on "Starting Windows" or even once with just a _ blinking in the top left corner. Microsoft Windows Support is supposed to call me around 10:00 AM EST today, so waiting for their call now.