The Spam Thread!

[huckleberrypie]

Seeing KPs in macOS often is more common on Hackintoshes than on real hardware lol. Since it's GPU-related I hope it's just the drivers or the OS considering the class-action suits Apple and Nvidia faced for a batch of defective chips.

I'm guessing it's just ElCap not playing nice with the old GeForce 8800GS. Vivaldi has rendering issues, and the KP only occurs with YouTube videos, so far. I get no graphical errors or KPs if I'm drawing with FireAlpaca, and none have shown up during my little USB OS tryouts.

In regards to potential downgrades, OS X Leopard is a no go. I thought I had SL, but the iMac discs I got on eBay only have Leopard, and the Huion driver won't even start. FireAlpaca crashes right away. 

So I erased the Leopard setup and made a Mountain Lion USB stick, installing now. While I'm waiting for that, I'm watching some British documentaries on the dangerous ways Victorians and Edwardians lived. 

Ooooh I always have a soft spot for toxicology. Maybe it's my somewhat irrational fear of poisons, but nevertheless I'm intrigued about how toxic substances are detrimental to one's health. Take for example arsenic: unscrupulous companies use it for things such as wallpaper, paint and even children's candies such as in the case of the Bradford sweets poisoning. Not to mention that it was said to be the contributing factor for Napoleon Bonaparte's death when he was in exile in Saint Helena.

[cpd2009]

Ooooh I always have a soft spot for toxicology. Maybe it's my somewhat irrational fear of poisons, but nevertheless I'm intrigued about how toxic substances are detrimental to one's health. Take for example arsenic: unscrupulous companies use it for things such as wallpaper, paint and even children's candies such as in the case of the Bradford sweets poisoning. Not to mention that it was said to be the contributing factor for Napoleon Bonaparte's death when he was in exile in Saint Helena.

Same with me, but it's also eye opening to learn how much sickness and death occurred in these eras, and part of it was because of total lack of regulations regarding chemicals and additives. Edwardian and Victorian foods were also dangerous, such as the Bradford Sweets incident you mentioned. Before the FDA or any sort of food safety board was established, companies got away with adding all sorts of toxic stuff to foods in order to make them look better than the competition, or as cheap replacements for more expensive, yet safer, ingredients like sugar.

And it was public outcry and independent investigations that finally led governments to create food regulations which remain in place today. While regulations aren't perfect or foolproof, food safety is now so common it's largely taken for granted, until the occasional E.Coli outbreak happens of course.

[huckleberrypie]

Ooooh I always have a soft spot for toxicology. Maybe it's my somewhat irrational fear of poisons, but nevertheless I'm intrigued about how toxic substances are detrimental to one's health. Take for example arsenic: unscrupulous companies use it for things such as wallpaper, paint and even children's candies such as in the case of the Bradford sweets poisoning. Not to mention that it was said to be the contributing factor for Napoleon Bonaparte's death when he was in exile in Saint Helena.

Same with me, but it's also eye opening to learn how much sickness and death occurred in these eras, and part of it was because of total lack of regulations regarding chemicals and additives. Edwardian and Victorian foods were also dangerous, such as the Bradford Sweets incident you mentioned. Before the FDA or any sort of food safety board was established, companies got away with adding all sorts of toxic stuff to foods in order to make them look better than the competition, or as cheap replacements for more expensive, yet safer, ingredients like sugar.

And it was public outcry and independent investigations that finally led governments to create food regulations which remain in place today. While regulations aren't perfect or foolproof, food safety is now so common it's largely taken for granted, until the occasional E.Coli outbreak happens of course.

To think that my aunt would say "it's better in the old days when food isn't processed with chemicals" and whatnot when in fact it was no safer if not worse off back in the day when regulations were even more lax.

If anything, I'm glad lobby groups such as the Ecowaste Coalition exist to remind consumers of goods laced with toxic substances, though the thing is that enforcement is sorely lacking and it's hard for vendors especially in street markets such as Divisoria to ensure that they're not poisoning their customers. I also did realise that it wasn't until 2013 when lead-based paints were phased out and that's in spite of an earlier ban on leaded petrol here since the 90s.

[huckleberrypie]

Perhaps the lawsuit by Philip Morris towards Sega's use of "Marlboro" imagery forced Capcom to swap the names of M. Bison, Vega and Balrog on the Western releases of Street Fighter? Nowadays the "Mike Bison" parody would've been dismissed as protected under First Amendment rights or fair use, just as how various media has parodied the American Girl dolls without any apparent response from Mattel (though one such parody satirising the Karen sociopolitical stereotype did get an angry response from AG), and also considering the unsuccessful lawsuit by said toy company when Aqua caricatured Barbie.

Though regardless said tobacco ads would've been culled as even if the names are minced to BlandNameProduct levels they can still be seen as a Trojan horse marketing tobacco towards children.

[cpd2009]

I recall in the original release of Mario Kart 64, one of the faux brands in the Mario Circuit stage was "Marioro", a pun on both Mario and Marlboro cigarettes. Said billboard has been taken out of every re-release since.

Now, time for a game that is a close relative to the original Tony Hawk games...


This is Spider-Man, a PC game made by Neversoft, makers of the Tony Hawk games. Spider-Man even uses the same engine as the first Tony Hawk Pro Skater game as well, which I never knew until I was reading the game's TVTropes page. This game was made before the 2003 Spider-Man movie franchise, and it's starting to show it's age. For the time, it was a rather fun licensed game with a good story, good controls, and overall wonderful experience. I played only a small demo version of the game on PC in 2001, but I played the full game via the PS1 port around 2006 or 2007. I'm thinking of getting a copy of the original PC version someday and playing it under my iMac Windows XP setup. There was even an N64 version too which I didn't know existed.

[huckleberrypie]

I recall in the original release of Mario Kart 64, one of the faux brands in the Mario Circuit stage was "Marioro", a pun on both Mario and Marlboro cigarettes. Said billboard has been taken out of every re-release since.

Now, time for a game that is a close relative to the original Tony Hawk games...


This is Spider-Man, a PC game made by Neversoft, makers of the Tony Hawk games. Spider-Man even uses the same engine as the first Tony Hawk Pro Skater game as well, which I never knew until I was reading the game's TVTropes page. This game was made before the 2003 Spider-Man movie franchise, and it's starting to show it's age. For the time, it was a rather fun licensed game with a good story, good controls, and overall wonderful experience. I played only a small demo version of the game on PC in 2001, but I played the full game via the PS1 port around 2006 or 2007. I'm thinking of getting a copy of the original PC version someday and playing it under my iMac Windows XP setup. There was even an N64 version too which I didn't know existed.

Well, Nintendo being a "family-friendly" company didn't want to be under pressure from tobacco critics hence why the Marlboro parody was cut out of the games.

Neversoft's connection to the Spider-Man franchise also led to Spidey being a bonus character in one of the Tony Hawk games iirc.

[cpd2009]

eBay storytime...

So I found a nice, sealed, legit copy of Corel Painter 11 listed on eBay. It appears to be the full version, not an upgrade or educational license. The price, including shipping, was only around $20 USD. An amazing deal for an older piece of usable software. Before I decided to purchase, I emailed the seller to see if they knew if the serial number required to activate the program is in the package.

I then get a reply back from them saying they didn't know if there was. They also said they trashed the copy. The listing was deactivated soon after.

I've been in email contact with this seller for the past few days. The seller has been nice and cordial, which is a good thing, but it's clear they aren't tech literate. They said they delisted the software because they don't want to have unhappy customers, which is a good thing in itself. I have since emailed them a reply, stating that if they haven't truly trashed the disc yet, I would promise to buy it if they relisted it, also stating that if I couldn't get the software to work, I would dispose of the discs myself and take the loss. If I am able to get Corel Painter 11 at $20 USD and it has the needed serials and requires no internet activation, that is one hell of a deal for a premium drawing program.

They could have avoided all the trouble by simply adding to the listing, "As-is", and just place a warning stating the software may or may not work, and have the buyer assume all risks.

[huckleberrypie]

eBay storytime...

So I found a nice, sealed, legit copy of Corel Painter 11 listed on eBay. It appears to be the full version, not an upgrade or educational license. The price, including shipping, was only around $20 USD. An amazing deal for an older piece of usable software. Before I decided to purchase, I emailed the seller to see if they knew if the serial number required to activate the program is in the package.

I then get a reply back from them saying they didn't know if there was. They also said they trashed the copy. The listing was deactivated soon after.

I've been in email contact with this seller for the past few days. The seller has been nice and cordial, which is a good thing, but it's clear they aren't tech literate. They said they delisted the software because they don't want to have unhappy customers, which is a good thing in itself. I have since emailed them a reply, stating that if they haven't truly trashed the disc yet, I would promise to buy it if they relisted it, also stating that if I couldn't get the software to work, I would dispose of the discs myself and take the loss. If I am able to get Corel Painter 11 at $20 USD and it has the needed serials and requires no internet activation, that is one hell of a deal for a premium drawing program.

They could have avoided all the trouble by simply adding to the listing, "As-is", and just place a warning stating the software may or may not work, and have the buyer assume all risks.

As-is auctions reminded me of when my old man bought a Mitsubishi van some time in 2002 from an auction house specialising in (grey-market) utility vehicles and heavy equipment imported from Japan or the States. It was TLC and nominally repaired, and dad had to spend his time fixing most of the issues.

[cpd2009]

Well, the eBay seller has indeed trashed the disc. But still, I admire the sellers honesty and friendly emails. I guess I shouldn't have asked in the first place and just took the chance, but ah well. Another copy of Corel Draw should come up sometime.

I also went and ordered the new Mac for video capture purposes. I decided to go for the mid-2011 iMac, 21.5 inch size from MacOfAllTrades, the same store where I got my 24'' iMac in April. The main reason I chose the iMac is that this was the Mac I would have originally purchased back in fall 2011 if David hadn't pressured me into getting the Mac Mini instead. Plus, the iMac I chose has a 2.5ghz Quad-core i5, while the Mac Mini's I saw were limited to dual-core CPUs. The stock config lists 4GB RAM installed and 500GB 7200rpm HDD. I'll keep the RAM at 4GB for now since I plan on downgrading the OS to Mountain Lion or Mavericks and simply use this as a video capture computer. The editing will still be done on the Windows PC with Avidemux or DaVinci Resolve.

Also, update on the HDMI capture situation. Turns out it might be my little capture devices causing the audio sync issue after all. I have played back some TV recordings I made right from the cable box more thoroughly and noticed that if the recordings last more than half hour, the audio tends to go in and out of sync. It's not as bad when recorded with the Mac, but it's much worse on the Windows PC.

A potential solution is to run recordings at 1080p from either the cable box or VHS converter, which would limit the signal to 30FPS. 30FPS is not what I really want, but it may be a good temporary fix until I can get a different device that has no sync problems.

[cpd2009]

There was another message here previously about the issues I was having regarding A/V sync with my recordings from the HDMI capture dongle.

Turns out, I probably don't have to worry about it anymore. With the raw .MOV recordings themselves, the audio does have sync issues when played in either Avidemux or a standalone player. I just took another look at the final, compressed files after post-processing, and the audio sync issues are fixed during the transcode process.

I make a 480p version for archival purposes at 720x480, while doing an HD upscale for YouTube at 1280x960 for commercials or things I want to upload. The HD version is needed as YouTube doesn't do 480p 60fps at all, even if the source file you upload is 480p 60fps.