Messages

1

Trouble Shooting / Re: New monitor font looks like dogshit

« on: January 12, 2025, 07:01:42 AM »

I've seen that font before and it's probably in a pak file for that game mod. What mod are you playing in that screenshot?
The fonts in Q2 are defined in pics/conchars.pcx or possibly conchars.tga and mods can customize them.

You can change it in the mod by locating that file in the mod folder and either deleting it or replacing it for something you find more pleasing.

Keep in mind those typefaces were designed for a 640x480 resolution and when you get a better microscope you see details you never noticed before.

2

Railwarz / TMG Version 0.2.64 Release

« on: January 02, 2025, 09:47:52 AM »

This version fixes a bug where players couldn't connect if the user_o.txt file didn't exist.

3

0x1337c0de / Re: Share Config/Console Code Stuff Thread

« on: October 16, 2024, 06:32:06 PM »

There is also the

unbind

command.
unbind <key>

4

/dev/random / Re: Whatcha watchin'/streamin'...

« on: August 10, 2024, 11:51:52 AM »

My Name is Nobody - Great movie. I saw it in '73 when I was 18 years old. Took the GF who just didn't get Westerns. I think this movie was one where they all got together and said "Let's have fun with it.", because it sure was a fun one and now that I am older and ready to retire I understand Beauregard much better. I really liked Morricone's score, especially the Ride of the Valkyrie segment in the desert. I wonder if this was the original telling of the little bird in the cow pie fable or whether Sergio Leone merely wrote it into the script from somewhere else. So much different a story than Once Upon a Time in the West that preceded it. I think spaghetti westerns had run their course by the time this movie was made.

5

/dev/random / Re: The Good Old Days thread

« on: June 07, 2024, 09:06:29 AM »

Ah, I see. It was my impression from the videos in your prior post that it was a windowless mall store. The windowed structure is "old" Sears stand alone store type that dominated downtown life. There's one near downtown L.A. and I believe it's been a warehouse for decades, given up by Sears even before Eddie arrived on scene. I can remember those days as I had been to those types as a kid. I can still remember the "bing bing" sounds of the stores comm system and I can remember Boston Store's pneumatic tubes for transporting order sheets or records through the store. It was a different world then.

6

/dev/random / Re: The Good Old Days thread

« on: June 06, 2024, 07:16:25 PM »

Eddie Lampert in some ways got his come-uppance on both bankruptcies. Bankrupting Sears in 2018, it's been in court and ultimately, the SCOTUS refused to hear his appeal of the 2019 decision that the collateral was only worth $433.5 million vs their estimated $718 million in unpaid debt. The properties owned by Sears and Kmart, still held in the bankruptcies is now, post COVID, worth far less than that $433.5 million and it's very unlikely to rise in value for many years now due to the collapse of the commercial real estate market nationwide. I doubt he will live to see his investments recovered. BTW, he came out of Goldman Sachs, possibly the most crooked bank in the U.S. but IMO it's a tie between GS, BA and WF.

If that apartment scheme is working then I'm happy for the landlord and tenants but I'm not sure many people would like living in a windowless condo complex born from the death of big box retail. I expect if you could research the developer and landlord books they are underwater on the deal.

Lampert even made a bid to buy all of Sears (as part of a scheme to get first-priority creditor status in the bankruptcy) but it was financed by more debt than cash and he tried to get out of paying Sears' former employees the pensions they were due. (That's another story. Underfunded pension funds are rampant in corporate America. Companies defer funding of pensions, holding back the cash to keep the books well-cooked and stiff the pension funds down the line. You're better off with a 401(k) and/or IRA than a pension.)

 

7

/dev/random / Re: The Good Old Days thread

« on: June 05, 2024, 05:06:22 PM »

Q. What happened?
A. Private equity companies. Eddie Lampert (Lamprey) who used the resources of Kmart to buy and bankrupt Sears. All the assets still being held by these empty shells are owned by ESL Investments who is the primary creditor for all the debts and Eddie owns ESL. Prior to that, the management at Kmart used it as their own piggy banks to support a high lifestyle until SEC sued chairman Conaway and president Schwartz for misleading investors about the financial position of the company.

There was a Kmart near my home that we used to buy clothing and supplies. The lot was always about half-full and they seemed to be doing OK but Eddie made sure it would fail. Now it's a dark and unused carcass with yellow tape surrounding the parking lot and 24 hour security patrols in beat up used police interceptors and a chair in front of what used to be the automotive bay. The only blue light specials are under the remote surveillance trailers and Eddie isn't even popping for those anymore. That's for the Home Depots.

If you see reports of private equity investing in a company, immediately sell any stock in that company or its subsidaries on the open market at the current price, do not wait for the tender offer because it will cost you in the long run. PE is the vampire death of finance.

8

/dev/random / Re: The last movie you saw....

« on: January 24, 2024, 10:26:10 AM »

Reading some of the stuff posted about how they did the explosion for the movie, it was non-CGI practical miniature explosions in a studio as big as they could manage without destroying everything. I guess they didn't want to use the actual footage from Trinity because it wasn't filmed in the proper aspect ratio for wide screen cinema and would have detracted from the movie. If you go to YouTube and watch them there are enhanced versions of many of the nuke tests but when they add sound they don't account for the delays and I think it detracts from the experience. A 20kT observed from 5 miles away would be utterly silent until just before the shock wave arrives and the first thing you would hear would be the sound emanating from the earthquake under your feet created by the impulse of the explosion at ground zero. You can't observe the flash with your eyes even with goggles on or you'd be blinded so all you can see would be the fireball after the primary detonation.

I haven't seen the movie but from what I've read about Oppie and the team, they had Germany in mind during the project and once they had achived the goal of creating a practical nuclear weapon they really didn't want it actually used but wanted it to be the big stick to force surrender. Truman didn't want to risk a possible dud in a demo explosion in front of the world so I guess it was all or nothing in a drop on Japan. They were fire-bombing cities all over Japan except for certain targets and still the empire wouldn't surrender so Truman decided to make a sudden impression on the preserved target cities. I think racism and revenge for Pearl Harbor had a little bit to do with it too and that also entered into Oppenheimer's regrets, IMO.

I should also say that the argument that there might be a possible dud is rather specious. Trinity was a plutonium device, similar to Fat Man and it worked perfectly. Little Boy was a Uranium device, a gun type A-bomb, virtually guaranteed to work so the actual risk of a dud demo was very low. Lower even that a live drop from a bomber.

9

Trouble Shooting / Re: New PC video issues

« on: January 22, 2024, 11:19:49 AM »

3840 /2160 = 1.7777 (your monitor's multiplier for the x-y ratio)
1920 /1080 = 1.7777
1280x720 = 1.7777

1024 /768 = 1.3333
800 /600 = 1.3333

3840x2160 and 1920x1080 both have the same ratio, so at least 1920x1080 should run with no problems and fill the screen without distortion.

Otherwise known as 16:9 and 4:3 aspect ratios, respectively.

10

Trouble Shooting / Re: New PC video issues

« on: January 21, 2024, 09:48:44 AM »

After setting pc to native res then mucking around with it vid_fullscreen then vidmodelist 800x600@60 was perfect got rid of the stretched look

If you're getting no stretch at that resolution and scan rate and if you can alt-tab out of it to the desktop without an ugly resolution swap then your desktop is at 800x600 and not at whatever you think you set it at. The ultimate or "native" resolution of the card has no bearing on your issue. Your screenshots seem to show that the desktop & game are at 800x600. To see what your active settings are, use Start | Settings | System | Display to see what is actually going on.

You should be setting your deskop resolution in Windows control panel and then setting q2pro `video mode` to desktop in the video options. The same thing goes for q2rtx with the additional option of using the builtin OpenGL or the rtx renderers.

The setting page you are looking for in Windows has the items shown.

11

Trouble Shooting / Re: New PC video issues

« on: January 20, 2024, 09:49:02 AM »

I look at Windows settings app to determine what the desktop resoution is. Then I synchronize the q2pro settings to match them.
I've been using this in my autoexec.cfg for years (even before q2pro) and it makes alt-tab'ing out of the game very seamless and the game is centered and focussed correctly. Setting vid_fullscreen is optional, of course.

set vid_forcewidth 1920
set vid_forceheight 1080
set vid_fullscreen 1
set vid_flip_on_switch 1
set vid_optimalrefresh 1

12

/dev/random / Re: The Good Old Days thread

« on: December 16, 2023, 08:31:17 AM »

Kmart used to be a decent retailer. Most of their growth occurred from 1930 to 1980, with over 2055 stores in N. America in 1981. Walmart came along and competed directly with Kmart while management lost focus on the Kmart brand. Sports Authority was one such distraction. In the early 2000's upper management got greedy and used the company as their personal piggy banks. While in bankruptcy, along comes Eddy Lampert and his ESL Investments, a private equity firm who buys it at fire sale prices and he accelerated the bankruptcy. In 2004 Lampert, controlling both Kmart and Sears, has Kmart buy Sears via shell companies Kmart Holdings Corp., forming Sears Holdings Corp. and merging Sears into it. Eddie made lots of money on that deal since he owned both, they both paid fees to him and borrowed money from ESL to finance the deals. All the while, they're reducing inventory, deferring maintenance and closing less profitable locations. By 2019 Sears Holdings Corp. was going the Chapter 7 liquidation route and owed money to Lampert as the prime creditor when the bankruptcy judge ordered SHC to renegotiate the deal with Lampert (who owned majority stake in the company by virtue of his ESL Investments and their borrowing from him in the first place). SHC had to bid at auction for their own assets in order to remain in business. Meanwhile, Eddie had been stripping assets and selling off properties to recoup his money and the decline continued. Unsecured creditors were left to their own devices. Then along comes the federal Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation and they say there will be a short-fall of $1.7 Billion in the employee pension fund and that it would have to be paid for by U.S. Taxpayers. (You see, corporations and hedge fund managers can steal money earmarked for pension funding and simply not fund employees pension funds with the "promise" to fund it when profits permit it. Then when they liquidate the company and lay off all the employees the taxpayers are left holding the pension bag.)

"In February 2019, it was announced that a U.S. bankruptcy judge approved the sale of the most lucrative part of Sears Holdings to Edward Lampert, allowing the surviving part of the company that operated both Sears and Kmart to remain in business at the expense of suppliers, landlords, employees, pensioners, the U.S. government, and other creditors. Kmart would have 202 locations after the sale was to be completed."

"The sale of 202 Kmart stores to Transform Holdco was finalized in February 2019, with the remaining Kmart locations liquidated to partially pay off Sears Holdings creditors." In other words Lampert kept the assets and profits and passed off the debts in bankruptcy.

The rot continues.

Lesson: when the words private equity, leveraged buyout or equity management appear at your place of work, you can expect layoffs and bankruptcy in the not too distant future. Nothing bodes disaster like having bean counters running your company.

There is the carcass of a Kmart store not far from here. The parking lot is roped off with flags and there are 24-hour security guards who sit in their cars near the garage entry where the auto service bay used to be just to keep people from vandalizing the building and to run the homeless off. Big pilons in the driveways into the lot to keep the 18-wheelers from camping too. I'll try to remember to post a picture.

13

/dev/random / Re: Whatcha watchin'/streamin'...

« on: October 09, 2023, 05:52:12 AM »

It looks like he under-rotated. The stuntman was probably supposed to land on his back but didn't dive with enough momentum to rotate him through the the 270 degrees needed. Gives taking a header a whole new meaning. Lots of stunt people were injured doing these kinds of things. It was probably the one and only take.

14

weapons / Re: Bot

« on: October 02, 2023, 05:37:14 PM »

I think the TS admins will want to see a demo recording to determine the validity of the bot allegation but since WHALE is an independent server it would be primarily the job of the admins there to handle it. If he's truly a bot he would deserve a global ban.

15

art, music, etc. / Re: Hell's radio station

« on: September 26, 2023, 07:48:56 AM »

I wouldn't kick her out. Too young for me but hey, I'd die with my nose in it.