So you download and install Global Agenda, update and patch, and get cryptic messages for missing .dll files like d3dx10_39.dll or random PhysX files you didn’t think you’d need for your ATI graphics card?  Here’s the fix:

Step 1:

Open the launcher and click the poorly-labeled options tab in the upper left-hand corner.

Step 2:

Click on the “Rerun Pre-Requisites” button, which will, at least on a Windows 7 64 bit machine, run them for the first time:

Once you re-run (that means run for the first time) the check for prerequisites, it’ll install all the necessary files and libraries to actually run Global Agenda without error messages.

Just installed Ubuntu 10.04 on your laptop and found out it kills in one hour the same laptop Windows 7 can run for five hours?

Found out you can get the same look and feel as Windows 7 or Snow Leopard by installing Windows 7 or OS X?  Figured out the answer to the question “Why does every Gnome theme look like OS X or Windows?”

Ready to uninstall that piece of shit?

Oh, GRUB and Windows didn’t play nice, right?   Even if you hadn’t run Windows since installing Ubuntu, it’s Microsoft’s fault your master boot record got screwed up.  Yep, they’re so evil and manipulative they can fuck your laptop up without even running their software.

Don’t ask me how, but check any linux help forum for affirmation.  Not necessarily proof, but just a shot of confidence when you’re not sure why GRUB spontaneously had difficulty loading your other OS.

So here’s how you fix the minor witchcraft Windows performed on your hard drive (it HAD to be them!) so you can get back to fully embracing Evil on a beautiful, efficient, and stable operating system:

• Turn on your computer and wait for the boot loader.
• Punch your desktop when Grub says “GRUB loading. error: no such partition grub rescue>“
• Remember you have access to an OS which hopes for sunshine (like Linux distros) but prepares for rain (unlike Linux distros) and includes recovery tools.
• Pop your installation CD into the drive.
• Reboot
• Boot from CD/DVD by pressing any key
• Select a language or time zone just like you’re going to install Windows
• Click “Repair your computer”
• Click on “Command Prompt”
• Type “bootrec /fixboot” and wait for the magic fix.  Obviously they’re used to Grub screwing things up and aptly named the argument “fixboot” instead of “-h -RR –flag-unfuck-mbr-yes -qq -#$$PP{-::”
• Type “bootrec /fixmbr” just for good measure, which repairs any other possible self-destructive code which ran while windows wasn’t even loaded.  That’s how they make their money, by blowing up their own operating system while you’re running another one.  Obvioussssssslyyyyyyyyy.
• Reboot.  You’re fixed.

I can tell you who has more chins...

While it couldn’t handle this request, Wolfram|Alpha was able to confirm there is a Wang for every Chin in China.

Well, actually three Wangs for every Chin.

Ever wanted to play a fantasy multiplayer game with a two dimensional graphics engine and horrible user interface, but were too cheap to lay out ten bucks for a subscription fee?

Well congratulations fatty, you can summon all the demons you want and dominate the tens of players still making chairs or bandages for hours on end and not pay a dime for it.  Join a fan created Ultima Online server (or shard) and crush all the monsters your heart desires.

Just follow these simple steps:

• Download an old version of the game client.  (Apparently 3D graphics, even used in a two dimensional interface, “suck”)
• Download Razor, a third party add-on which makes the shitty user interface almost bearable.
• Download UO Automap, a map application, because the “X-Wing vs TIE Fighter” HUD isn’t really all that helpful.  Some dude who stopped supporting the application still wants PayPal donations of course.  I still want checks for all the hard work I put in at my last job.  Let’s see who gets theirs first.
• Download some other UO helper program, EasyUO,  for more macro fun.  Mostly this game is about making macros and running them in conditions with less latency than the other guy.  I think.
• Download a “Tree Hack” so that all trees appear as stumps, and don’t block your view in the shitty top-down interface.  Someone needs to make a “Penis Hack” for the “Tree Hack” IMO.

Once you’re done with all that, find a player-run shard.  “Shard” is a stupid UO fantasy term for server.  Apparently users were expected to learn to make macros, install third party applications, and learn specialized scripting languages, but they figured using a metaphor for “game server” was necessary to ease the learning curve or “immerse” people in the metagame features.

Player run servers are run by nerds even more epic than you.  They download broken, unfinished server ripoffs, spend countless hours tweaking game mechanics and populate their private versions of the world, and pay gobs of cash to have it hosted.  The main motivation for setting up a private server seems to be all about creating a game  popular enough to create a support forum which they can’t be kicked off of since they’re the admins/owners.

Mostly these forums seem to be filled with fights over who the biggest douchebag is, and whether or not other players who are better PvP‘ers are in fact human at all, of if they’re Russian.  In deeper UO circles, not only have players not experienced OpenGL or DirectX gaming, but their politics are also stuck in the early 90′s, where Russians are still real life bad guys.

So, anyway, you need to install all this shit, and configure it, and then find yourself a server to play on, like DefianceUO.com and then find their login and account creation instructions.  If you notice the noob documentation is a little scarce, it’s because you’re playing a 12 year old game on a 15 year old game client on a server sparsely populated with a fraction of the fringe of a player base which is measured in tens.  They’re not really expecting on welcoming any neophytes anytime soon.

Good luck in your adventures, be sure to tell your LARP buddies all about the free MMO alternatives so you can have a little more for the VFW rental fund for your next vampire war or Anime costume mixer or whatever you clowns do.

Related articles by Zemanta

• World of Warcraft celebrates five-year anniversary (guardian.co.uk)
• “Return To Britannia”: Ultima Access (rockpapershotgun.com)
• Play Ultima Online Free For Two Weeks (cinemablend.com)
• Turbine Launches Free-to-Play Dungeons & Dragons Online: Eberron Unlimited (pc.ign.com)
• Everybody Back In The Britannia [Free Time] (kotaku.com)

Please stop telling me what you don’t have, won’t do, or are not able to do.

Me: Hi, I’d like to order a double cheeseburger meal with a Coke to dr….

Stupidity Fountain/Loudspeaker: We don’t have that.

That’s a perfectly adequate answer if your job was to prove or disprove my beliefs about what was on your menu.  If you’re working on passing a test of the new menu for your management team, they’d be pretty excited, as this is probably one of many trick questions designed to ensure you’re paying close attention.

However, if you’re working the drive through window your primary responsibility, presumably, is taking orders.  You may even be expected to perform this duty with some degree of speed or accuracy.  If you’re progressing along your career path and have earned the right to wear a restaurant-branded London Fog jacket or no longer wear a visor or paper hat as part of your uniform, you may be expected to maintain both speed and accuracy.

The problem with “we don’t have that” is that it doesn’t further any of your goals.  For example:

You’re not taking my order, are you? You’re challenging my knowledge of the menu.  Maybe I’m just not as smart as I think I am, and you’re just the one to prove it.

You’re not making this very quick, either. So I’m sitting here wasting time, and that shake machine isn’t going to clean itself, so what’s the hold up?

You’re missing the point of this accuracy thing. The goal here isn’t to tell me how wrong I am, but to enter my order correctly so you can take my money from me when I pull around to your closet and drop my spare change into your little Hannibal Lecter transfer box.

So you do know…

• You are supposed to take my order.
• You serve double cheeseburgers, which I want.
• What a ‘meal’ typically consists of, and that I want one.
• You know what I would like to drink.

Knowing this, which of the following is the most appropriate response?

• Tell the customer you don’t have a double cheeseburger meal.   (“We don’t have that.”)
• Tell the customer you don’t serve double cheeseburger meals, and then list as many foods you can think of which you also do not serve, so they don’t make the same mistake twice.  (“We don’t have that, or pizza, or cucumber salad, or fried rice, or…”)
• Pretend you didn’t hear the customer, and hope they drive away or change their order when you ask them to repeat it a minute or two later. (“I’m sorry, what?”)
• Punch in an order for something you do have, then take your break immediately after completing it to avoid any headaches.  (“That’ll be <mumble mumble> pull around for your total.”)
• Explain there is no meal or combo, but you do serve all of the things the customer wants, you’ll just have to charge them separately.
• Crayon.  Shoes.  Can of soup.

In closing, just remember that telling someone what they can’t do or can’t have doesn’t move the conversation forward, and just makes you look like an asshole.  Take a chance and offer a solution instead of taking this one opportunity to feel smarter than….well, almost all of your customers.

And by closing, I don’t mean the time you take out the garbage and clean the… Oh fuck it, nevermind.  Just give me a number one.

Mother sets fire to daughters gloating rapist.

Soriano suffered 60 per cent burns in the attack on June 13 and was airlifted to a specialist unit. He survived for 11 days before succumbing to his injuries.

Eleven days with major burns on 60 percent of his body.  Not enough.

I recently installed Windows Vista Ultimate on my new machine, and although both of my monitors were detected, only one was working.

Even with fresh nvidia drivers, my right-hand monitor displayed as a grayed-out box.  So while Vista clearly saw the monitor, it wasn’t going to do anything with it.  Rather than consult official documentation, I headed straight to the most reliable source of technical information:   random fanboy forums.

Lesson learned:  Do not hit your back button if the first reply is some worthless Tier 1 tech support answer.  There’s gold below the ‘fold.’

For instance, I almost gave up entirely on a thread because this answer appeared earlier in the discussion:

Does your 8800GT card have 2 DVI connectors and is each one connected with a
separate cable to each of the 2 displays?

I knew it was something simple!  After following these steps I bet the author of the original question found out what his problem was.  His 8800GT probably didn’t have two DVI connectors, or probably he found out he only had one monitor, or he was somehow running two connectors to one DVI port on a single screen.  That kind of genius will save you a lot of time troubleshooting.

Anyway, a few more scrolls of my mouse wheel and I found the answer which solved my problem.  It does seem to be most people mention “Vista Ultimate” when they’re experiencing this problem.  I never had this problem with my machine running Vista Premium, so maybe there’s just some other “value-added” feature in Premium which causes this dumbfuckery.

Thanks to random poster “Harm7″ on vistax64.com for straightening this mess out.  I’ve bullet-ized his answer:

• Power on all your displays
• Right-click on your desktop, select “Personalize”
• Click on “Display Settings”
• Right-click the box representing your “unattached” monitor.  (That’s the gray one)
• Select “Attach” from the menu that popped up
• Click “Apply” after your monitor brightens up
• Repeat for as many monitors as you need to “attach”

I’d ask why I’d need to “attach” a monitor that’s clearly hooked up to the machine, but I don’t want my head to hurt anymore.

Awesome. I bought a Mac for bouncing pretty icons and applications that “just work.” Apple threw in command-line bullshit and chmod silliness at no extra cost.

Thanks Apple! As if it wasn’t inconvenient enough to have a hundred extra files laying around after every install along with manually moving every installed app to the Applications folder, I get to drop to the terminal window on a regular basis. I haven’t done that on an MS machine since Windows 98.

Here’s a fix for yet another retarded Firefox/OS X-related problem, this time installing Adobe Flash 9 and getting the following error:

Error 2: Access privileges error & “Error creating file: 1008:5, -5000 Access Denied Error”

Straight from Adobe’s help section is the following:

If you have Firefox installed, use the following instructions to temporarily change directory permissions:

1. Open the Terminal application (in the Applications > Utilities folder) and type the following text:
   sudo chmod 775 /Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/components
   (Read/Write/Execute for Owner and Group, but read only for Other. Or -rw--rw--r)
   
2. Enter the password for the ROOT user.
3. Reinstall Flash Player 9.
4. Test Flash Player 9 in your browser.
5. Use the Terminal to reset permissions on those directories:
   sudo chmod 755 /Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/components

For those of you who are uncomfortable with terminals, here’s my brief tutorial:

• Use your first and second pinky finger* on your left hand to hold down “Control” and “Command”, and your right pinky to hit the up arrow.
• Click on the “Applications” folder, then click on “Utilities” and finally select “Terminal”
• Cut and paste the first line into your terminal. Enter the administrator password (which is yours if you’re the only user of the machine) Caps matter, which is why Apple makes sure to use them all over the place instead of typing everything in lower case.
• Install Adobe Flash 9 like you would in a real OS.
• Cut and paste the second line into your terminal window. Hit enter.