If you do any online gaming, you’ve probably run into this. It’s the idiots who seem to think that because they’re behind some sort of screen, that they can act big and tough. You know who I’m talking about. The people that try and flame you out because you head shotted them, or the players that try and bully you in a game because that’s the only place they have any type of masculinity.

Now, I see a lot of this because I play a lot of online games. I actually just had someone nerd rage on me in a free RTS game called Evony, because I took one his dozens of valleys. He decided that sending thousands of troops to my cities would make up for the less than one minute he didn’t have the valley, and then message me. Now, in this game you can join alliances, which is the same as a guild. This was his message:

I am recovering wages for lost time and lumber. :- Joining alliance I give everything back plus more….no biggie.

So, basically this player’s attempting to bully me into their alliance ::rolls eyes::. Now, for anyone who plays Evony, you know that attacking another players city costs you as well as the city you’re attacking. I’ve played this game for awhile, so I know how to defend my cities, and what to do if there’s an incoming attack. I move all my resources to another of my cities until after the attack. So, let’s take a look at what he gained and lost by attacking my cities.

The first city he attacked he sent 70,000 Archers. He lost 68,000 of them and only plundered (stole) about 4,000 in resources. That’s a serious loss, when you look at what it costs to build an archer.
The second city he attacked, he sent 60,000 Archers. He lost all of them, and plundered nothing.
The third city he attacked, he sent 1,100 Transporters and 4,300 Ballista’s. He lost all of the Ballista’s and 900 Transporters, while plundering nothing.

Now, you put in the cost of the extensive army he just sent to attack, and he’s just lost about 10,000,000 in resources, give or take. But, of course, he doesn’t care as long as he can try and bully someone in a game.

Another good example of this, is about 45% of the World of Warcraft players. You’d think that being a pay to play game, it’d have a higher quality of player, but since a lot of the players are kids who got their parents to pay their subscription fee, you end up running into quite a few of the nerd rager’s. This is done in PvP (Player vs Player). I find it quite funny, because the opposing faction player will attempt to belittle you after they’ve killed you, but Blizzard created different languages for each faction and race, so you can’t read what they say.

To you nerd rager’s: Go out, get some sun and stop trying to be something you’re not. Being able to type insults you got off Google or kill other players in a game because you spend your lives doing nothing but gaming doesn’t make you cool.

To the victims of nerd rage: Remember that most of these kid’s (and sometimes adults) are going to have nothing to show for their time on earth but a high in-game PvP score, and a lot of people who wouldn’t mind finding out where they live.

Until next time,
-Nito

Now, I’m hoping this doesn’t turn out like Cricket. I ordered ClearWire this morning, which came out to about $140 with buying the router instead of leasing it. So, I check the bank account I used to pay for it, and I have seven transactions from ClearWire – one for $16, another for $154 and five for $1… So I contact them, because well, they only gave me a receipt for $140 so wtf? Here’s the convo we had.

Kayla James [9:45:19 PM]: Welcome to our real-time support chat. How can I help you today?
Nito Belmont [9:45:19 PM]: About payment.
Kayla James [9:45:46 PM]: How can I help you with your payment today?
Nito Belmont [9:45:52 PM]: I just ordered ClearWire yesterday morning, and just looked at my bank records.
[9:46:06 PM]: 141.97 AMOUNT PAID
[9:46:17 PM]: Is what I *should* have been charged
Kayla James [9:46:39 PM]: May I have the phone number associated with your account please?
Nito Belmont [9:46:40 PM]: Why am I seeing $16.09, $154 and 5 charges for $1
[9:46:50 PM]: [censored]
Kayla James [9:47:49 PM]: There is a security question on the account. What is [censored]?
Nito Belmont [9:47:59 PM]: [censored]
Kayla James [9:49:24 PM]: You were charged $137.98. The rest are holds that will be relesed in 3-5 busines days.
[9:49:49 PM]: For some reason when new card is placed in the systm the banks like to place hold for odd amounts. But it will come back to you .
Nito Belmont [9:50:26 PM]: My bank doesn’t place a hold on any of my transactions, which means that your company is doing it, not any bank.
[9:51:13 PM]: And if they were holding transactions, they would have all been in one transaction, why is there 7?
Kayla James [9:52:22 PM]: It will be refunded to your card in 3-5 business days. I apologize for any inconveninece.
Nito Belmont [9:53:27 PM]: I’m saving this chat, and holding you to your word. Have a good day.

So, they’re holding *does the math real quick* $37.11? See, I want to believe that this is the truth, but I already know that the better conclusion for this is that they do the same thing as MoneyBookers. Funneling out little increments of money for themselves for each transaction, hoping no one catches it. Oh yes, I don’t play that “You pay us a middleman fee” bullshit with people. Only the company selling pays a fee for their services, not me, and I make sure they know that every time I get my money back from them.

Now, there is no way in hell my bank took the money I’m holding in my account in their bank and then turned around and put a hold on it. And there’s no way that the merchant they’re using did either, which leaves their company. 3 – 5 business days, and we shall see and I will update then.

Until next time,
-Nito

As most of my regular subscribers may know, I’m anti-facebook, and have been since a few months after they came out. I read a piece on their newest monopoly move the other day about their patent application, which has everyone in the OSS world in an uproar.

On August 9th, FaceBook applied for a patent on Crowdsourcing Translation.

What is Crowdsourcing Translation?
The Crowdsourcing Translation has been used for years by multiple sites to allow members to create multilingual translations for websites/pages. It is a free open way to translate web pages to other languages.

What it means if FaceBook gets the patent?
To sum it up, it means that FaceBook would hold exclusive rights to Crowdsourcing Translation software.

What are my thoughts on this?
If this gets passed, OSS is doomed. Why you ask? Because this means that the government is overlooking the fact that this has been an open source of translation for years, and just allowing the first person/company with the money for to apply to get the patent.

What do you think about FaceBook trying to patent this open translation tool?

So I watched District 9. It was a cam version, because I’m not big on paying $15 to go see a movie. Obviously when watching a cam version, there may be some things not right with it – in this case, the aliens speech was translated into Russian.

All-in-all, I think it was a good movie. Would probably have better had I been able to read what the aliens were saying, but whatever. The aliens – if you could call them that – were decent, even though I probably would have gone with something a bit different. At least they weren’t giant gray or green people, lol.

The previews were a bit misleading.. I had the idea there was going to be an intergalactic war of some sorts, but alas, only a few fight scenes (I don’t count the scenes where they pull the aliens out and shoot them at random).

Graphics were good, and the plot, as I said before, was great. Acting might have been a little better I think. I don’t think I knew any of the actors in it… But, yeah. Definitely something you should look for when it comes out on dvd.

-Nito

I’d like to welcome all the new visitors there may be, and welcome back the old ones.

I just finished migrating the database to this new server, and *hopefully* changed all the link-backs in my posts. If you find any link-backs to the old site (nito.phux.org), you can leave a comment on this post. I’ll appreciate it.

I’m going to be trying to dim down the swearing, but I can’t promise anything – I enjoy swearing, because it usually reflects my attitude towards what I’m writing better. Like this whole fucking FaceBook patent ordeal… Didn’t hear about it? Oh, I’ll most definitely be writing about it later today.

Until next time,
-Nito

It seems there’s a new name associated with the rental scam I posted a little while back. Katie Hart, which I assume is the same person who created the Anne Brooks scam.

I won’t go into all the details, because it’s an exact duplicate of the Anne Brooks scam, which you can find in a previous post here.

Remember that by law, no land lord can force you to fill out any personal information over the internet. If they won’t meet you in person, cross off the apartment and move on. Never give anyone your credit information via email, instant message or any other way online (Excluding certified credit monitoring websites).

I’d like to thank all my subscribers for bringing this to my attention.

Until next time,
-Nito

So, I’ve been reading the newspaper the past couple of days (I’m not big on reading sell-out publications), and keep seeing articles on the Rochester airport.. Evidently it is now testing an X-ray machine to replace the current metal detectors used for scanning passengers.

Now, as this may have been an idea that *sounded* good when it was pitched, there’s a few fucking flaws in their little idea. Let’s go over them =)

First and foremost, this is a blatant invasion of privacy. I don’t know about the rest of you, but even after being in the US Army, I don’t feel like having my genitalia on a screen that some random ass security guard can look at. Can you imagine if they find a way to somehow save the x-ray images? I can see the FOX News headline now – “Airport X-Ray Porn”. Or what about children? Shouldn’t we then consider anyone not licensed by the state of New York in the medical field, who are viewing those images to be a predator?

I don’t think it’s right to be forced to get an X-Ray by anyone. I don’t go to a doctor with a cold and get a fucking x-ray, why would I want to get one when I’m boarding a plane?

Secondly, can we smoke in airports again? I mean, honestly… Cancer *is* cancer, right? Some people may try to bash me on this, saying things like “You can’t compare x-ray’s to lung cancer!”, and my reply to that is – Why the fuck not? Obviously the government is condoning cancer, so why wouldn’t it be okay to smoke too?

So, I can get cancer if the government is the one handing it out, but if I CHOOSE to smoke, I’m in the wrong? Do you see the contradiction?

I could go on about this shit all day, but I’m done for now. The government’s a bunch of god damned hypocrites.

What do you think about being X-rayed to board a plane?