Messages

1

dm / Re: Mute Putin Perm

« on: November 30, 2025, 12:27:07 PM »

A certain amount of smacktalk is tolerated and the system's throttles for spammy binds are expected to be sufficient to give the spammer some clues about adjusting his behavior but when it becomes evident that cluefulness is not forthcoming further discipline may be imposed. Such discipline has been applied in this case.

2

Trouble Shooting / Re: Hacking client?

« on: November 19, 2025, 02:19:06 PM »

First question that comes to mind is where did you get the client?

3

Quake / Re: invite! spam

« on: November 07, 2025, 08:44:04 AM »

I can speak from first hand experience that managing a server is a PITA and psychologically damaging to the admin who has to monitor it. It really needs to be a shared duty. The users whine about insufficient management and whine again when the hammer drops.

4

Quake / Re: invite! spam

« on: October 15, 2025, 04:49:31 PM »

I would be nice, wouldn't it?

5

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.

6

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.

7

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

« on: October 16, 2024, 06:32:06 PM »

There is also the

unbind

command.
unbind <key>

8

/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.

9

/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.

10

/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.)

 

11

/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.

12

/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.

13

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.

14

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.

15

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