prophetik music   Judges ⚖️

uh, i wipe the old thermal paste off with a paper towel and lightly buff it with some high-grain sandpaper to remove residue, usually with a bit of isopropyl alcohol. if it's on the cooler, i do the same thing. i've never used any remover - it's just silver in goop suspension, so it's sorta pointless when the remover's just alcohol and a bit of detergent anyways.

i recently upgraded to a 1440p monitor from Qnix. they included free two-day air from Hong Kong and the monitor arrived with zero busted pixels. got it for in the 425-450$ range. i'd recommend that route =)

i used a k60 forever and loved it. i wanted something a bit smaller and went with the tenkeyless model, the k65. it's still great. if i were you, look for a unibody design with the switches sticking out of a closed case, like what the k60 did. easy to clean with some air and a paintbrush, the keys are significantly raised from the back so it's easy to pull them off for cleaning as well, and the wrist-rest makes a big difference as well for keeping your left hand (usually the most active one in gaming) at the proper height. i'd suggest not going for a particularly expensive model until you're certain you really like mechanical keyboards. cherry reds are the best switches for gaming imo since they've got a relatively light touch and very consistent activation - once you get used to not fully depressing the key, your fingers can just dance on the keyboard at speeds you never dreamed possible before because you're not wasting so much time pressing all the way down, and you're not anchoring your hands to a specific key while you depress it.

mini-itx is fun, but you'll want to make sure that you're comfortable working in tight spaces. my first itx build was a mess because i hadn't really planned on making the space sacrifices requires to balance it out.

i use registered mail, via the USPS. it's pretty cheap, includes insurance, and is basically the safest form of transit i know of. everything gets bundled into a big package, and someone has to sign every time it's touched. this prevents the whole bootprint-on-the-side issue i used to deal with when shipping systems, and it's easier to claim damages on them as well since all corners are closed with paper tape. a system to the east coast is about 40-50$ usually, depending on weight and if it's a weird box.

i sold the game key, but still have the monitor, case, mechanical keyboard, and graphics card for sale. additionally, i now have some games for sale! a few are black label where listed. i didn't write down which was which for the PS2 games so some may be. all have original cases, some are dinged a bit but play fine. PS1: Gran Turismo 2 (GH) - 3$ Chrono Cross (black) - 10$ Final Fantasy Tactics (black) - 25$ Final Fantasy 7 (GH) - 30$ Final Fantasy 8 (black) - 15$ PS2: Final Fantasy X (black) - 10$ Final Fantasy X-2 (black) - 5$ Final Fantasy XII (black) - 10$ Shadow of the Colossus (black) - 15$ God of War 1 (GH) - 3$ God of War 2 (black) - 3$ Enter the Matrix (black) - 3$ Metal Gear Solid 2 (black) - 3$ Okami (GH) - 20$ Kingdom Hearts 1 (case jacket is damaged) - 7$ Kingdom Hearts 2 (GH) - 10$

and with that, four pages of neblix shouting everyone down is irrelevant.

not being able to add crystal to vst is a feature, not a bug.

to be honest, the vector change is huge for me - i'm on a 2560x1440 monitor stretched to a 1050x1680 as well, and the ui in FL10 looks like it should be on a flip phone. it sounds like most of the changes are big positives for how i use the program, actually. i'll need to check it out. it's the first time i'll be booting up FL without having an audio interface in ten years, so that'll be new, but i'll get over it =P

so, i got an email about FL12 today. i've not used FL Studio since 10 (due to indolence, not due to switching DAWs). is this a worthy upgrade? i know there's some real citrusheads here so i'm hoping i can get a quick overview of what's changed practically from 11 to 12.

still have the graphics card, monitor, the case, and a mechanical keyboard for sale. i also have a key for the Witcher 3 game that i got with my last graphics card. i already preordered and want the special edition myself, so this one's useless to me. if someone wants to throw some cash at me, it's yours.

same! i am super excited.

i voted for marcus fenix

and here's the ones of my system, as promised. i had to upgrade from my venerable storm scout (still one of my favorite cases of all time!) because my new graphics card was too long. i didn't realize this thanks to newegg listing the pcb length of the card, which is useless when the cooler hangs an inch over the end of that. i went with a corsair carbide air 540, which is a cube case with some interesting design choices that i really liked. here's my old case. this was a working system so the cables aren't as nice as they were when i built it in early 2011 (thread here) here's a few pictures of the new case. note that the motherboard tray's in the middle of the case, as opposed to offset to one side. this allows the motherboard and associated cpu, cooler, and gpu to be on one side, and the psu, ssd tray, and optical drives to be on the other side. there's also two hotswap bays for 3.5" drives on the mobo side, which work pretty well. note the width and the bevy of customization options for fans and other sundries. here's my system in the case. note the USB3 and graphics power headers - they're just too thick to really route properly. if i get motivated, i'm going to remove the looming on the wires, spray the wires white, and route them cleaner with some wiring to train the wires to sit better. same with the USB3 header. you can really see the cable management options here. it's amazing the room this thing has to fit any cable set you want. here's a few in-situ shots. i'm planning on getting a cool white light bar for the top of the case, or swapping my hyper 212 evo for an H100 or similar self-contained watercooling loop. i'd get more of the white-led fans that the case had if i do that. i've been really inspired by the design of this case. i've been meaning to paint my office for some time since the green in there is not particularly my favorite, and i'm thinking about doing the walls in white with a black stripe offset down the middle, like the case =) combine that with my recent storage acquisitions and i think it might actually look pretty good. regarding the case, i am debating dropping my optical drives completely and replacing the 5.25" bay with either a monitoring window (like, a temp monitor) or a fan controller. if i go with more fans in the case, i'll likely do the controller.

so i built a new computer last night for a customer (pics of my new case and build coming later this week). here's some build pictures. imgur rotated them weirdly, sorry in advance. -i7-5820K -asrock extreme4 mobo -hx850 psu -MSI GTX 970 gpu -16gb DDR4 2400 ram (ballistix) -250gb samsung 850 evo ssd -hyper 212 evo cpu cooler -haf 922 case first off, i gotta say - this case is awesome. it's freaking enormous (mostly steel, too, super heavy), and it has some really nice features that i never thought i'd like. you can see in the below picture that it has pushbutton releases for the DVD drives, which works remarkably well. additionally, they have a clever tray for HDDs that works pretty good. lastly, the amount of motherboard tray cutouts rivals any case i've ever built with. there's a ton of routing options in this case, and i love it as a result. the best part is the fans - it comes with two huge and quiet 200mm fans - one in the top, and one in the front. even cooler, every single fan mounting point has multiple size options for mounting holes, and the top fan can be removed for either two 120mm fans or a 240mm radiator, complete with mounting holes and bumpouts as appropriate. it's really nice. my only complaint was more of a generic thing. USB3 headers tend to be thick cables that are really annoying to get hidden. case manufacturers need to start making right-angle plugs for these, because it's tough to hide one that sticks out as much as this one did. i stashed it in the cords for the graphics card, but the cord's tight enough that i'm worried about it staying there long term if it gets jostled a lot. the motherboard was pretty good for the money as well. it's got a ton of plugs for everything you could want - even thunderbolt! my only real complaint was that there's no motherboards available for LGA2011-3 that aren't absolutely massive. this board's got more than most users would ever need, even for a big socket like this one. i totally overestimated on the cpu paste, since the 5820K's so big. i was terrified i'd use too little and wound up buttering a ton off the side of the chip. took ten minutes to clean it up. this is only my second build with this socket so i don't feel too bad, but perfectionist me was annoyed here's the rest of the components, in a pile. the psu box was huge. here's everything installed. note that the graphics card looks puny in this case. remember how i said i needed to buy a new case because this same card didn't fit in mine? yeah, that's how much bigger this case is than mine, and mine was no slouch. this picture you can see the fans and the extra mounting holes i mentioned pretty well. you can also see some of the cutouts - note the audio plug fitting loosely down there! the cabling in this case was so long, i had to coil it behind the motherboard. really well designed for the price.

so i've got a few builds coming up - one from a customer and one for me! mine's sort of an accidental one - i'll be gutting my system and putting it in a new case, since the existing case wasn't big enough to fit my new graphics card due to some misrepresentation of the card info on newegg. i'm using the carbide air 540, which is a cube case (very interesting design!). i'm out of town this weekend so i'll try to get it done sometime this week once the client build is done and out the door. i will post some pictures when it's done.

my 7870 2gb graphics card is still available. i also have a 27" 1920x1200 monitor that's got some banding for a few minutes after startup on one side for sale, if that's your thing. i ALSO have a storm scout computer case for sale.

HAX how did you figure this out eh? eh?

i've always imagined snaps as the dude who is so incredibly organized during the work week, all worksheets and synchronized pencils and patterned paperclips, until 5pm friday. then he tears off all his clothes and runs off into the bushes next to his office building grunting like a gorilla while chugging fireball.

i'd be happy to give you the flp files from my songs, but i doubt you'd get anything from them. i'm notoriously uninventive in how i create the files themselves and probably know less about FL Studio than most.

i'll shoot you a pm. i think you'd be surprised what's available currently.

amazon has both the original game and the expansion for 20$ each, so i grabbed them earlier today. looking forward to playing in a week or so (they don't sell game codes so i have to wait for the game to ship like it's 1999 or something )

i am planning to buy this next time the base game and/or reaper is on sale for a reasonable amount. any suggestions on characterization? i played the 360 version as a monk and found that an entertaining playstyle, but i only did the game once through and didn't do any of the higher levels or max my character out much.

i had mentioned it to jill when it happened and never heard anything, so i didn't really get into it much more than that. again, it's been eight years, and it's not like it was my only track and it drove me away or something. still got it on the site via the project release. if it gets rejected because it's too repetitive, whatever, not like that's ever stopped me but getting rejected because "it doesn't sound like pokemon" is pretty bogus.

my pokemon mix comes to mind. the melody's a note-for-note rendition of the original, slowed down, in the relative minor key. most of the judge comments were like "the source is kinda there but not enough". i blew a gasket over this one, i couldn't believe that it'd been rejected when it clearly replicated the original so closely. part of that is, again, classical training - taking a song and putting it in a relative minor key almost isn't an arrangement at all because there's basically no arranger input on the chording, but ocr looks more at the feel of the piece than the theory of it (as it should! theory is dumb). all i did was slow it down, add some background synths and percussion, and play the melody. the melody line i used in my headphones to do the recording was actually the melody line from the midi =P i won't be a dick and include your comments, but here's a good example from that review thread by orichalcon. i mean, even jill said it was too liberal, which i couldn't even attempt to parse at the time. i literally didn't know how to make it more viridian-y. i still view it as one of my least liberal arrangements. edit: not trying to be bitter or anything. words are hard and i've never been good at them. edit2: holy crap, this was eight and a half years ago!