Archive for category News
At The XD Project board meeting
These are the minutes for the recent XD Project board meeting – attended only by myself.
Myself resolved to continue the website for another year. Motion not seconded, not passed, ignored and the administrators have seen fit to reduce it to a two-sentence paragraph.
Myself resolved to uphold the standards of the website as in our appropriate rules page for another year. Motion not seconded, not passed, and is off crying by itself in the corner.
Myself resolved that the primary purpose of this site is stil to provide a blogging tool with a humourous touch. Motion not seconded, not passed, and is shaking its head in amazement at the lack of support it received.
Myself resolved that for the purposes of time management, spam and comments would still be ignored. Motion not seconded, not passed, and this is beginning to get a little repetitive don’t you agree?
Myself resolved that future resolutions would be assumed seconded by Bob, the helpful pixel – check the About page for further details. Motion seconded by the newly voting member, motion carried!
Myself resolved not to allow any posts which are of a purely view-grabbing nature by playing on the popular culture and keywords of the time. Motion opposed by Bob, as he feels a need to exercise his voting rights. N.B. If he’s not careful he’s going back in the damn cage!
Myself resolved that Bob was not permitted in future to oppose resolutions proposed by myself. Motion not seconded until myself threatened that something would be carried, and if it wasn’t the vote, then…motion carried.
Myself resolved to restrict access to members who had not posted in a significantly long period. Motion seconded, motion carried.
Myself resolved to not upgrade beyond WordPress 3.3.1 as the site runs perfectly on the current version. Motion seconded, motion carried under the proviso that this decision should be revisited in a future board meeting.
Myself resolved to not care about the non-existent Google advertising revenue and post whatever the hell myself wanted. All members were in favour and the motion was carried.
Myself resolved to publish the notes of this meeting online. Motion seconded, motion carried out.
Australian Standard Business Reporting
Here’s my experience with the Standard Business Reporting software for Australia, I hope it helps some of you decide whether or not those guys should get paid a salary.
Little bit of background first. I’m looking at writing some software with a payroll system hanging off the side, and came across the Australian Standard Business Reporting software online while looking at payroll info and thought to myself “Why not sign up, get the technical details and work out if it will add value to my software?” The Standard Business Reporting software essentially lets you create tables that interface with government databases.
I signed up, put in my company information and personal details, sent it off and waited for the license application papers to turn up. Instead, they call my phone to tell me they’re going on leave and could I contact someone else the next week. I think to myself “WHY?” Just send me the license papers. Oh, apparently they “just want some information about the software you’re developing”. Yeah, and I ask again “WHY?”.
I just don’t get it – all I want is the technical information on implementation to work out whether the costs of implementing it will provide enough benefit long term to outweight the cost of me just manually keeping it up to date myself. I don’t really need to describe the operations of my software to a third party. It’s not a secret, I’ve already got a website about it, but I dislike when their instructions state “Send us all your personal info to apply, make sure you fill in all the required fields” then they don’t send out what they promised, and “ring to confirm details”.
Long and short of it is, I didn’t bother getting back to them as I think they answered my question with their absolutely terrible first contact. “Yeah, I’m on leave next week so contact X”.
I’m an accountant, I keep up with crap like payroll/gst/etc just because that stuff is overall part of my job and I deal with it every day. Customers keep me up to date with changes, and constant support requests on accounting issues force me to stay up to date or look like a fool.
Seriously? I mean, seriously? They couldn’t even forward me the license APPLICATION forms? DERR DERR DERR BRAIN SHUTTING DOWN NOW
Whatever.
Come to think of it, this post wasn’t very funny was it. I mean, on a scale of 1 to 10 it probably rates fairly low, heading towards dead boring. I mean, really, it wouldn’t make a dead man laugh would it? Probably wouldn’t even get a smile off a carcass.
With no further ado, I hereby present the funny version of the above:
“So I was on my holidays in Bundaberg and it was late, but I was still up looking at pictures writing software for the program I’m developing when I came across a website advertising a great opportunity for software integration with government databases. Whatever that means. My first thought was “Let’s see what this does” and it seemed legit so I went ahead and filled out my details (it was midnight) and sent it in. The next morning I came out of the shower to a missed call where the lady left a message, “Without a secured deposit on your soul and two friends we can’t forward you an application form sorry, call me back when you’ve got a line of credit from You Know Who.” I thought that was a bit creepy, so instead I ignored them.”
Star Wars: The Old Republic is granted Grace Period
Well, in direct response to my earlier post (yes, I’m that important) Bioware and EA have decided to actually give a grace period on the game Star Wars: The Old Republic. There will be two days in which people can play for free and register their key. In good faith, if I receive my copy prior to the two days being up I will register earlier – however the chances are pretty damn slim, even though it shipped today.
http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=28618
This means that my previous post on this topic has been nullified by this recent news. Originally I intended to just update it, but as at the time it was true and Bioware/EA had reneged on a promise I have decided to leave it up until Bioware/EA/Stephen Reid press charges, at which point I’ll transform into a giant sea eagle and throw them into the ocean.
Star Wars: The Old Republic grace period
Heh, so I thought I could do a mini rant here about a lie by Stephen Reid about the grace period.
See, I don’t fall for the “Head of customer relations doesn’t know about grace period” gag. Doesn’t make sense, he had to know or he’s definitely a bad employee. So what’s the issue, you ask? In a post in August he stated, no ambiguity, that there was a grace period where people could play temporarily while they wait for their physical game box to arrive.
As of today, grace period is no more! Those people who bought physical editions won’t be able to play after the 20th December until their boxes arrive (providing they get to play prior to the 20th December at all). Ah, the rage was tremendous – roughly two pages of posts every 30 seconds, it hit 4000 posts in about an hour and a half.
Of course, there were the defenders who tried deflecting the blame to EA, and others who deflected the blame to Bioware, and even others who said there were no lies and things change. Since this is the XD Project where we are right and the world is wrong I’m going to go ahead and state categorically that those people are morons. That is all.
Car Stereos.
I was recently tasked with sourcing a car stereo upgrade for one of the admin on here (hint, NOT the one with the WRX), and so began an afternoon of researching speakers and amps.
It occurred to me part way through my research that I always end up having to try match sound systems to an already purchased set of speakers. It makes for an interesting challenge, trying to source the rest of the gear to match the already installed speakers. When I had a Supra, I had to match an amp and sub to work with the JL Audio components I had in the front, I couldn’t get an amp that would over power the fronts – but under power a 10in sub, and likewise find a 10in sub that had the right RMS to suit an amp that would suit the components. Quite a lot of running around in circles, but eventually I did it, got it all installed, and it sounded fantastic.
With this setup, I had an already in place set of rear speakers to work with. The end result has to be front components, rear splits, and 6x9s in the rear shelf. See the problem? Yup, six speakers. Now, the head unit is obviously only a four channel (2x front, 2x back, or sub), and it’s bloody expensive to get a six channel amp – or a 4x and a 2x. So, that left running the back speakers in parallel or series. That flung up a whole load of problems, mainly relating to ohmage of speakers and amps. Read the rest of this entry »
-
You are currently browsing the archives for the News category.
Polls
Loading ...