The seemingly-massive Valve ARG that started with a mystery update to Portal could be teasing either Portal 2 or Half-Life 2: Episode 3 – or both.
On Monday, a surprise patch to the three-year-old fan favorite Portal spawned a massive Alternate Reality Game that had internet communities from Steam to Something Awful racing to figure out the puzzles. Two days later, we may not have the puzzle solved, but we have a lot of very interesting new information – frustratingly, there’s very little that’s concrete; everything that the intrepid puzzle-solvers have uncovered seems to be just designed to tantalize and tease.
The original post in its entirety is below, and while I’ll attempt to recap the new information, it really does help to go to the Steam forums themselves.
Most of the new stuff seems to have come from the ASCII images – a cleaned-up version can be found here, and a colorized version can be seen here. There are plenty of fan theories bouncing around the forums: For instance, some fans are speculating that what I called “Vortigaunts holding hands” in the original post (second column, at the bottom) are possibly Combine super-soldiers as seen in the Half-Life 2 games.
More interesting, though, is this image, which appears to show what could very well be an ASCII-ized screenshot from a hypothetical Portal 2. And then there’s this, which is unmistakably a human female holding what could be the iconic Portal Gun – perhaps the game’s protagonist, Chell?
The mysterious ASCII images aren’t the only things fans have uncovered, though. There are also some “confidential” Aperture Science documents that offer some insight into the workings of the secretive laboratory – ideal “Low Risk” candidates for testing include “hoboes [sic] and tramps, orphans and foundlings, psychiatric patients and seniors” – as well as its founder, Cave Johnson.
“A lot of you have been raising concerns about the so-called “dangers” of what we’re all doing here. The beancounters told me to tell you that as of today, testing will no longer be as mandatory or as dangerous. That’s not gonna happen and here’s the reason.
Science isn’t about why, it’s about why not. You ask: Why is so much of our science dangerous? I say: Why not marry safe science if you love it so much. In fact, why not invent a special safety door that won’t hit you in the butt on the way out, because you are fired.
Plus, in the event of your death, I personally guarantee that, thanks to the form you were required to sign this morning, your family will not suffer the indignities of a prolonged and costly legal battle against Aperture Science. Trust me, I am rich, and it is a burden I would not wish on anyone.”
It’s clear that much of this is white noise, designed to mislead as much as it is to inform – but how much of it is made up of red herrings, and what does it all mean?
The immediately obvious answer is that this would all seem to be pointing towards a reveal for Portal 2, but the presence of main-series Half-Life imagery leads some to believe that there could be an Episode 3 unveiling in the works as well. Perhaps Portal 2 will bridge the two series together, leading to an epic conclusion?
We’ll probably find out on March 11th.
Update: The game now has a new ending. Shock!
The original post is below in its entirety:
A surprise content patch to the three-year-old Portal yesterday has spawned a feverish race on the internet to decode an ARG that seems to be teasing… something big.
There’s something lurking behind the scenes in Valve-land.
It all started yesterday when owners of the beloved physics-puzzle FPS Portal discovered that the game had a new content patch – which was odd, given its age. That innocuous little patch has since spurred a massive race on the internet between communities like Steam and Something Awful, as they scramble to unravel an ARG that appears to be teasing a new Valve game. (An ARG, by the way, is an Alternate Reality Game – something that asks gamers to figure out real-life puzzles; arguably the most famous example of which is Halo 2’s ilovebees. It could also stand for the noise you make when you can’t figure out the puzzle).
There’s a ton of dizzying information about the game so far, and we’re still learning more, but I’ll attempt a recap: The Portal update included a new mystery achievement, and people who loaded the game up again found that the radio in the starting chamber now had a green light. If players stood in certain areas of the Aperture Science test chamber while carrying the radio, it would start to emit strange static interference.
While they could have done things the hard way, it was much easier to just rip the .wav files from the game itself. The static turned out to be a code when fed through a steganography program (*I have been corrected on this – more below*), a code that resulted in numbered images which – when fed through another program – led to a land line in Kirkland, WA (near Valve’s HQ). Only it wasn’t a land line at all, but a data line for an encrypted BBS. On said BBS, people found strange data which turned out to be interesting ASCII pictures.
Some of the pictures are unmistakable: Vortigaunts holding hands, an Aperture Science door, the defense turrets (turn your head to the right), and of course nefarious AI, GLaDOS herself. This is where everything stands right now, because the internet is still trying to figure it out.
One interesting little tidbit of information: The ASCII information identifies the crazy AI antagonist as GLaDOS v3.11 – and as it happens, 3/11 (that is, March 11th) is the day on which Valve head honcho Gabe Newell will be receiving the Game Developers Choice Pioneer Award at GDC. Could the man be planning on making some sort of surprise announcement or reveal?
And if he is, just what would he be revealing? We’ve already been told that Half-Life 2: Episode 3 won’t be coming this year, but there’s always Portal 2.
Curiouser and curiouser, indeed. Between this, the ApocalyPS3, and the Infinity Ward lockdown, yesterday was a really weird day for gaming.
ARG!
Update: 7r3nd has written in to inform me exactly what happened regarding the .wav files and the information encoded therein – and how no steganography was involved. I’m going to be honest and say that this is a bit beyond me, so rather than try to offer another explanation that’d only end up muddying the information, I’m going to just copy/paste it below.
There’s some information noted in the “Crazy Valve ARG Teases … Portal 2?” posting which is incorrect.
Several of the dinosaur wav files that were extracted from the new portal gcf that were not morse code sound files, were actually SSTV transmissions, and not steganography as reported in the posting.
SSTV is just an audible way to transmit an image.
Essentially what is required is to play the audio back and pipe it to SSTV software which reads the data from the audio stream and in turn displays the actual image is is contained in the data.
More about SSTV can be read here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow-scan_television
There was not steganography involved.
It sounds very much like listening to the audio noise generated when you listen in on a modem.
The resulting images were analyzed and noticed that certain characters where cricled.
The circled characters where collected and ended up making a 32 character string which turned out to be an MD5 hash.
More on MD5 here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Md5
The MD5 hash ended up being a hash for the phone number for the BBS.
The BBS itself was not encrypted. It was just necessary to use the correct terminal settings to display the content properly.
Once the content displayed correctly, a username and password was required.
The username and password was provided trough the transposed morse code that was extracted from the dinosaur wav files.
It still sounds like techno-voodoo to me, but glad to know that the people working on this know what they’re doing!
Posted: March 9th, 2010
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I have stopped with the Twitter reviews and have moved to blog format, I really can’t say much via Twitter; that being said my blog reviews will still be brief and aimed to be an at a glance dynamic rather than a critique.
My aim is to tell you what I’m watching, whether it’s good, and give it my regular rating out of 10 (a 10 only attainable if there’s zombies, thus 9 being the highest, albeit nothing has scored an 8 yet); if you choose to watch it, I hope my snippet reviews help. :)
Now, on with the first blogged review! I’ve finally gotten around to watching Saw V, whilst I followed it’s production closely. The Saw franchise was the brainstorm of a couple of unknown Australians (IIRC), it started out visceral and horrific, in a true body horror sense. Then it did the obvious, sold out and became tactless splattercore.
Saw V doesn’t disappoint if gore is your thing, the plot is rather obvious from the get go. The games are often unfair and pointless with allegorical implications of some morality behind each act.
The initial narrative is very similar to the key elements of The Cube (remake), which is friggen awesome i might add! All up I’m glad I didn’t waste my cash to see it at the cinemas, horribly predictable. Nothing will top the needle pit IMHO. :/
6/10.
Posted: March 8th, 2010
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Exposure to violent video games makes players more aggressive and less caring.
Researchers say they have proved this conclusively after analysing 130 reports involving more than 130,000 gamers.
Iowa University psychology professor and video game researcher Craig Anderson said the results left little doubt – violent video games are bad for those who play them.
“We can now say with utmost confidence that regardless of research method, the effects are that exposure to violent video games increases the likelihood of aggressive behaviour,” he said.
The results are significant, as the impact of violent games has divided academics and been subject to long-running debate.
Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Simon Overland last year expressed concerns about players becoming desensitised by violence in computer games, something that was being reflected in their behaviour.
“They see it (violence) happen in the movies and in video games and the person always gets up. Well, sadly, we know that’s not always the case,” he said.
The latest research comes as the Federal Government considers the introduction of an adults-only R18+ rating for games.
The move, which requires the agreement of all state and federal attorneys-general, is bitterly opposed by anti-violent video game activists, who argue it will expose children to unsavoury content.
The video games industry and gamers have mounted a campaign for reform, arguing the introduction of an adults-only category for games would bring Australia into line with the rest of the world.
The new study was published in the American Psychological Association journal Psychological Bulletin.
The team of international researchers, led by Prof Anderson, said exposure to violent games helped increase the risk of increased aggressive thoughts and behaviour and simultaneously decreased empathy toward others.
“From a public policy standpoint, it’s time to get off the question of ‘Are there real and serious effects?’ That’s been answered and answered repeatedly,” Prof Anderson said.
Australian Council on Children and the Media spokesman Dr Wayne Warburton said the research offered fresh ammunition against introducing an adults-only rating for games.
Posted: March 7th, 2010
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Posted: March 7th, 2010
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I pull into the only close car park with it’s gate open as a pacific islander security guard the size of a fridge waves me down, redundantly as he was standing in the gate, so I thought I’d play this game. I throw him a fake smile and eye his cheap suit, obviously the ‘uniform’ given to them, definitely something you can’t buy in any of the places I shop.
“What’s up?” he asked, “Not much, you?” I reply, honestly thinking he was just making small talk. “What are you here for?” he asks giving me pokerface that Lady Gaga would be proud of, “To buy something!” I answer so cheesily I almost grimace. “What are you buying?” he asked over the loud square waves coming from a cheap mobile phone in his hand, I think it was some form of rap, but from a 5mm driver running at +30dB gain it could have been a manic mullah chanting the Quran whilst being submerged in molten steel. “A game. Now you just lost.” I reply. “From where?” he replies not questioning my superfluous commentary that should have tweaked some interest had he any brain left that hasn’t been shattered by sonic abuse of tiny speakers. “A shop.” I reply flatly.
He looks at his watch then back toward me, as though I’m wasting his busy time and am clearly not worthy of a parking spot, “Shops don’t open until 9.” he snips, “I know, I’m just going to have to wait.” I reply instantly realizing how redundant that statement is. No, really, I was going to smash the shop front and loot it. “Just try and park over there.” he says, gesticulating towards the car park section as far away from the shopping complex as possible. “Sure.” I reply, pulling into the first spot meters away from him, casually winding up my windows and cranking my stereo to blog about the ridiculous ivory tower of parking under seige of train station visitors looking to dump their cars and head to work.
I just want to buy a game.
Posted: March 4th, 2010
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Between chasing venomous spiders and being offered wonderful packages from Telstra to resolve TPG’s ongoing breach of contract it has been a very odd day. The distributions manager of K-Mart have my number for consultation on big game releases they should cover now they have more 24 hour stores and can catch in on gamer impatience to wait until business hours to buy a new release.
Digging around a glassware cabinet that came into my possession from my family, and never really investigated, I found a heap of 150-200 year old books and documents of kith and kin, as well as letters from various armed services, telegrams, notes, you name it. It adds to the confusing mass of family and ancestry related stuff I already have in my study and decking out countless book cases through the house.
How does one file such? Do I sort it or leave it as I found it, with most documents tucked into pages of ancient books? Do I get them restored where they’ve been shoddily mended with cellotape as old as the 3M manufacturing plants in Europe? How do I store them? I need somewhere to put them rather than scattered across a residence as these things had enough meaning to my ancestors for them to hang onto and pass them all the way down to me.
Do I return documents to people mentioned on them who probably would have no interest or care for them as of my surviving family? Do I assemble a package of whacky crap tucked into a bible or book of poetry or a journal from my time period and pass that down? I really am at a loss.
Had an otherwise uneventful day, still being screwed around by TPG, my out of pocket so far is nuts. Telstra made me a good offer but haven’t contacted me back to seal the deal even though I’ve prodded them on Twitter. K-Mart AU don’t have a Twitter account, how backwards? Maybe I should offer my services as a new media consultant to get them engaged with their customer base?
I’m sitting on the end of my bed with my mind going a million miles an hour, watching Baz Lurhman’s Australia. It’s Red River set in Australia mixed with corny attempts at iconicism and liberal dashings of racial stereotyping and the anachronistic ‘noble savage’ take on Australian aboriginies. All up it is as disappointing as the originality of the title suggests it would be.
Wow, what a vent. It’s been a while since I’ve blogged for the pleasure of blogging, I should keep that up again. Goodnight folks.
Posted: March 4th, 2010
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Posted: February 28th, 2010
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As we learned last summer in Iran, whenever a dictatorial regime senses trouble in Totalitarianville, one of the first things it does is tighten its grip on the media. And whenever the thick walls of censorship go up, Twitter is there to slip through the cracks.
Case in point: Venezuela, where we may be witnessing the signs of an Iran-like brouhaha. With its economy floundering, crime rates skyrocketing, and civil unrest escalating, Venezuela isn’t exactly the happiest place on Earth these days. In the face of this discontent, President Hugo Chavez has decided to step up his propaganda game and has unleashed a major campaign to suppress any oppositional media outlets. When five cable stations recently refused to broadcast one of his speeches, Chavez ordered them to shut down operations, a decree that set off a firestorm of protests, police intervention, and the eventual death of two student dissidents.
The catalyst behind most of these protests is, of course, Twitter, which anti-Chavez activists have used to organize demonstrations and to spread their cause internationally. Dissidents have also taken to Facebook, where a group titled “Chavez esta PONCHAO!” (”Chavez, you struck out!”) is already 80,000 members strong. Chavez, not surprisingly, has undertaken efforts to squash this social media mini-revolution, going so far as to equate Twitter, the Internet, and text-messaging (?) with “terrorism”. As FOX News reports, Chavez has promised a “radical” response to the Twitter-fueled uprising, and has already “launched an army of Twitter users to bring down online networks and try to infiltrate student groups.”
Chavez used his weekly propaganda television and radio show ‘Alo Presidente’ to rally Latin America behind the ’cause’ of his Argentine counterpart Cristina Kirchner by making a direct demands to Buckingham Palace.
“Look, England, how long are you going to be in Las Malvinas? Queen of England, I’m talking to you. The time for empires are over, haven’t you noticed? Return the Malvinas to the Argentine people.” ignoring the fact all occupants of the Falklands are British citizens and don’t want a bar of South America and their petty dictators.
Still addressing the Queen, he went on: “The English are still threatening Argentina. Things have changed. We are no longer in 1982. If conflict breaks out, be sure Argentina will not be alone like it was back then.”
He described British control of the islands in the South Atlantic as “anti-historic and irrational”.
Mrs Kirchner sought to win new allies in Argentina’s claims to the islands when she made a direct appeal for support at a meeting in Mexico of the Rio Group of Latin American and Caribbean countries. Venezuela and Nicaragua rallied to Argentina’s side even before Mrs Krichner’s appeal, and it was reported that Brazil was ready to support any resolution backing Argentina’s sovereignty claims.
Argentine anger is likely to increase after Desire Petroleum, the British oil company that has towed a rig from Scotland to about 60 miles off the north of the Falklands, announced on Monday it had begun drilling, the natural gas and oil surrounding the Falklands are naturally the only reason Argentinians suddenly interested, as most South American countries are in dire financial shape.
Argentina is attempting to hamper oil exploration, insisting last week that all vessels using its ports must now seek permission if they plan to enter or leave British-controlled waters. Argentina wants other South American countries to impose its transport restrictions to the Falklands but it is unlikely to win support from those closest to the islands such as Chile and Uruguay.
Chile, Argentina’s traditional enemy, has long been a major supplier to the Falklands. An operations manager of a Uruguayan shipping agency who came out to Port Stanley on Saturday to discuss business was dismissive about the effectiveness of the latest Argentine decree.
Meanwhile, passengers from the British cruise liner Star Princess disembarked at Port Stanley on Monday for a day trip after the vessel reported leaving Buenos Aires with no demand for permission to sail to the Falklands.
Stepping on to the jetty for a few hours watching penguins or touring one of the battlefields from the 1982 war, passengers said the ship’s captain had reassured them several days ago it was “perfectly safe” to get off at when they reached the islands.
However, Maurice and Sylvia Bellamy from Felixstowe reported some unusual Falklands-related advice had been issued over the ship’s tannoy system.
“They told us we had to refer to the islands as the Falklands when we were there but as the Malvinas when we were in Argentina,” said Mr Bellamy, 74.
Argentina wants other South American countries to impose its transport restrictions to the Falklands but this would mean that they, too, could miss out on the lucrative profits from providing refining and port facilities if, as drillers believe, large amounts of oil and natural gas are retrieved off the Falklands.
###
Related Articles
Latin America backs Argentina in Falkland dispute
Falkland Islands: Argentina can’t scare us, say islanders
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British firms could be hit in Falklands oil revenge
Posted: February 25th, 2010
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Okay so it’s more a slip than gaffe, but watching their advert for the millionth time where they show CGI windscreen chips turning into cracks and miraculously being healed when filled and repaired I realized that the voice over guy says “And in dirty minutes the windscreen is strong again.”
The mind adopts context and applies interpretation subconciously so one doesn’t even pick up on it, but I was repeating a certain part examining how poor their CGI glass rendering was and thus that part played several times and caught me by surprise.
Now you know he ballsed up the ad you’ll hear it every time! It’s like the arrow in FedEx! :(
Posted: February 23rd, 2010
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Posted: February 21st, 2010
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I was watching Dead Like Me: Life After Death (2009) the movie length sequel to the series. Throughout it there’s a dying cat which plays an impetus in the narrative of a side story. Ultimately the cat owner decides to put the animal down.
I tend to notice a lot of small things others don’t, and for not even a second a cut-shot appeared of a needle drawing serum from a vial and something tweaked in my head as not quite right about the image. And for once it was something other than the ugly little troll of an actress in her mid 40’s playing an ‘18 year old’.
On further inspection, and fifty attempts to pause it just right this is the clearest image I could get. You’ll note the fictional name of the substance is “Sleepklon-B” TM and under it reads “Euthanasia Solution,” now I may be splitting hair here but to me that’s pretty fucked up shit.
‘Zyklon-B’ was used as part of Hitlers ‘final solution’ for those who slept through history classes. How did something so morose slip through unnoticed? Searching the name of the fictional substance or any names related to the program with keywords relating to anti-semitism yielded nothing, but surely something this distasteful has been noticed by someone else out there?
Posted: February 16th, 2010
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Telecom New Zealand’s Australian arm, AAPT, has started offering unlimited ADSL2+ broadband service to customers who are willing to sign-up for two years for around a $99.95 per month.
AAPT claims that the service is the first not to impose throttling or give preference to off-peak traffic.
AAPT chief executive Paul Broad said that the carrier’s offer would prompt its rivals to lift their broadband caps.
“This is a milestone day for Australia as AAPT’s benchmark decision will force our major competitors to do the same thing. All Australians will benefit from AAPT leading the way with unlimited broadband,” Mr Broad said in a statement released today.
AAPT has also struck a deal with music label EMI to bundle an online music service with the offer which will include $50 worth of song downloads and unlimited streamed content.
“As consumers, we all have a moral responsibility to ensure recording artists receive the royalties they rightly deserve and by offering our Entertainment Bundle we’re encouraging Australians to do the right thing,” Mr Broad said in a statement.
Posted: February 15th, 2010
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I usually avoid posting about truly personal things, and stick to keeping religion, politics, or any such similar things clear of my public life; however I recently found myself reading 65 pages of ancient poetry. There’s possibly nothing in the world more shit than poetry, but ancient poetry is just an entirely new shade of shit nature never knew existed. Soooo exciting!
The poem in question is a Masonic manuscript known as The Halliwell Manuscript or the Regius Poem. The first known Masonic text. The poem begins by evoking Euclid and his invention of geometry in ancient Egypt and then the spreading of the art of geometry in “divers lands.” This is followed by fifteen points for the master concerning both moral behaviour (do not harbour thieves, do not take bribes, attend church regularly, etc.) and the operation of work on a building site (do not make your masons labour at night, teach apprentices properly, do not take on jobs that you cannot do etc.). There are then fifteen points for craftsmen which follow a similar pattern.
The general consensus on the age of the document dates its writing to between the late 1300s and the middle of the 15th century, and from internal evidence its author appears to have been a West of England clergyman. The manuscript was recorded in various personal inventories as it changed hands until it came into possession of the Royal Library, which was donated to the British Museum in 1757 by King George II to form the nucleus of the present British Library.
During this time, the document was generally described as a poem of moral duties. The significance of the document as relating to Freemasonry was not realized until it was featured in an article on Freemasonry by James Halliwell in 1840.
The text of the document states that Freemasonry was brought to England during the reign of King Athelstan from 924 to 939.
The manuscript is presently held by the British Library in the Royal Manuscript Collection, catalogue reference 17 A. I. Or go here if you think you’re tough enough to handle 60+ pages of drivel: ttp://www.masonicdictionary.com/regius.html
Don’t get me wrong btw folks, I love history and all things of that ilk, although I can’t deny how painfully dull a lot of it is to read in depth! :P
Posted: February 15th, 2010
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Posted: February 14th, 2010
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A wealthy British businessman with alleged links to gangland murders was under police guard in hospital today after a blundering assassin apparently struck at his home.
Arran Coghlan, 38, was detained by armed police after a known gangster was stabbed to death in his bathroom yesterday afternoon, The Sun reports.
The victim, Stephen “Aki” Akinyemi, 36, suffered fatal knife wounds, despite wearing a stab-proof vest.
Coghlan, who dialed emergency services as Akinyemi lay dying, also suffered serious knife injuries to his upper body in the 2pm GMT attack.
Today, officers were swarming around Coghlan’s multi-million dollar converted chapel in the village of Alderley Edge in Cheshire, northern England, where he sleeps in a bed shaped like a pirate ship. How awesome!
Father-of-one Coghlan, who survived an attempt on his life in a bar on New Year’s Day 2009, became notorious after standing trial for murder twice in six years over unrelated gangland killings in his native Manchester.
The first was of drug baron Chris Little, dubbed the “Devil Dog Mobster” because of his habit of setting Rottweiler dogs on rivals to settle scores.
Little, 32, was shot dead at the wheel of his Mercedes convertible in 1996 but Coghlan was cleared by a jury after claiming he was ‘playing computers’ at the time of the murder.
The second was petty drug dealer David Barnshaw, 32, who was kidnapped and burned to death in the boot of a car in September 1999.
Posted: February 11th, 2010
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Two things made me facepalm today, I was going to tweet about them but after many rewrites it was impossible to squeeze either into 140 characters.
Skatestan. Australian skaters in Afghanistan trying to use skating as a segue to engage kids there, a nation where 50% of the population are 16 and under.
The organizers pointed out that girls thrashing boys gives them a life lesson that they can do anything men can. I can’t help but wonder how many stonings will derive from changing one element such as the belief of Afghani women.
Sure, empowerment is good, but when you forget to tell the boys a girl beating them doesn’t mean they can flog her; well that’s plain silly. Need I even mention the fact skateboards will just provide suicide bombers with a way to go out kickin’ rad style? :P
The second is Anonymous DDoSing Australian government websites. It merely reaffirmed politicians detached-from-reality belief that the Internet is a haven of criminals and kiddy touchers. Especially given every anon and ther dog were throwing themselves, curtains and all, at the press wanting to get their name in print; such awesome soundbytes of “Don’t fuck with our porn!” isn’t marginalizing your cause at all!
Posted: February 10th, 2010
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As many of you know I was lured away from Optus not only because they kept breaching contract and restricting my connection to below 1kbps when I reached my cap (which made it fundamentally unusable as it was slower than even my mobile phone on 2G), but due to their social media VIP handling team courting me.
I thought I’d give it a shot and see how it goes, they are by far one of the cheapest ISP’s with decent caps. The first hurdle was the fact they wanted me to install a new line, $270 right there, second that they demand you use their overpriced hardware, $300 right there. So $570 later they then tell you it’ll take ‘up to 20 business days’, which is ridiculous and patent nonsense.
They got me connected in 8 days, and I suggest any of you wanting to use theirs or any ISP service demand service in under 10 days or tell them to fuck off and stop being prats. Here’s the kicker though; they got me connected alright, but again my mobile phone on 2G goes faster.
I’m currently on a 200kbps ADSL2+ connection, how the fuck it can get that low is beyond me, yet that’s not half the pain of the situation. The painful part is the fact when you call TGP you go to some dodgy call centre in the phillipines with horrible line quality. Every single person I have dealt with fails to take responsibility for the matter and see it through, they palm you off, and in some cases if your situation sounds difficult they’ll just outright put you on hold then ‘accidentally’ hang up.
Yes, they hang up on you! I’ve had it happen several times, if you call them at say, 7pm, and they close at 7:30, even if they answer you before cut off, as soon as 7:30 hits they just outright hang up on you mid sentence! I shit you not.
The entire downfall of TPG in my opinion, and this was told to me by almost everyone I know before I went with them, is their inability to manage customer support, services, or management of any nature. Their call centre team are under-educated in case management. I’ve had dozens of random people try and help me, every time you have to start back at square one and be VERY CAREFUL not to confuse them, if you get too technical they get confused and suddenly the line ‘accidentally’ drops out again.
I’m a week in to having a TPG/SOUL connection and it’s still 200kbps, I’ve explained to them I am not authorising payment from my CC to them until I have a connection as outlined in contract. So, for a week in, they’re as good as Optus for handling contractual obligations.
I am going to attempt, again, to contact them today. I highly doubt I’ll have any luck, and I’m so disinterested now in having to repeat my story. The biggest piss off is when they’re all “computers and p2p or routers can slow your internet”, yeah, you’re right it can, but there’s no fucking way it’ll reduce a 10 megabit link to 200kbps unless you’re the worlds biggest leech, but I happen to have NOTHING connected to the network aside from an iPhone to talk to the modem and measure speeds.
Nonsense. Oh well, let’s try this again. I love how the recorded voices are all ocka Aussie (for non-Australian’s ‘ocka’ is our term for like, really really Australian, nasal beer drinking footy watching working class type stuff) yet it’s a front for a call centre with some poor underpaid saps who are barely coherent in English.
“What is the username?”
“T-H-X-6-9-0″
“Can you please spell the username?”
“I did? Tango, Hotel, X-ray, 6, 9, 0.”
“T for Tango, R for Romeo, X for X-ray?”
“H for Hotel, Harry, Hippo, Happy, H, H?”
“R?”
“Fuck.”
[hangs up]
Eventful.
It’s like getting blood from a stone, I swear. Apparently ‘Mark’ from Telstra (because there’s only one Mark who works for Telstra!) is ‘assigned to rectify the problem’. I should update this post just so I can laugh in retrospect when my line is working correctly, and dread the day I EVER need to contact them by phone again.
I’m waiting for Optus to complain about me not paying my bill. I already told them there was an anticipatory breach of contract, and listed several other occasions of breach and advised them that further breach would void (ab initio) the contract as they cannot maintain the terms required for service.
Posted: February 7th, 2010
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twitter
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tweets,
twitter
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I am astounded that we have walked on celestial bodies devoid of atmosphere far from our planet. We have crossed all oceans, ascended all mountains, mapped, charted, surveyed most of the known world. We have advanced in science and technology beyond even our own limited imaginations. And yet, in the year 2010, we still have ignorant fuckwits in our society and we still have the naivity to humour them or otherwise skirt around their patent nonsense.
I am guilty myself, having a friend or two who practice yoga–which isn’t a mere stretching class, but a cult of pseudo-hindu hippy tripe about opening your chakras and giving each other a jolly reach around under the guidance of a yogi (see: fuckwit who did too much acid in the 60s-70s enough to believe the shit they spin) and is all about ‘healing energies’–alas I digress.
The Internet brought us many wonders. Free porn, Viagra without prescriptions, free porn. Uh. Okay, so it brought us some cook stuff, but it mixed with the cataclysm of ‘cool to be daft’ 90s culture blended to encourage tin foil hat conpiracy theorists and coffee shop intellectuals all pushing their batshit agendas down the throats of anyone who’ll stop and listen.
Bonus critical thinker points for those who drew a comparison of the above to my soap box here. However, I base this on common sense and observation as opposed to the cryptic rantings of deranged desert nomads or heroin shooting hack sci-fi authors and submit to you all that it’s time we all make an effort to shun nutjobs.
I am a prolific softy. Recently I had the displeasure of dealing with a few unstable people who go from sycophantic to telling you you’re pure evil within hours. I got to wondering how these people travel through life without appreciating how bizarre their behaviour is. The reason is that we humour it.
A call was made for mass vaccination before school begins here in Australia, specifically against the swine flu. Instantly there are anti-vaccination nutjobs who put their own pathological mental disorders before the lives of their children jumping up and down. Vaccinationa are safe, ‘big pharma’ is a myth, and YOU are just deranged.
I recently had a few nasty comments put to me by some zany trailer park living born agains at my being a Freemason, espousing the usual ‘if you’re not in my sect of a cult of a church of a faith you’re going to get buttfucked by black men with giant dongs in hell’ type stuff. S’cool, once you go black and all. But yeah, again hair brained lack of critical thought nonsense, usually linking ALL the worlds fraternal or secret societies into one mythological entity; an entity however you as a member are clearly not yet aware of yet. There is no illuminati. Fluoride saves your teeth and isn’t a mind control drug, and YOU are just deranged.
I see vitamins and suppliments sold at insane prices on TV, academic google search; unless you’re mad malnourished to take vitamins in doses for therapeutic effect you’ll be mainlining liters of it. Heaven forbid ‘detox’ an equal con. Just do the induction to the Atkins diet, same effect and a millionth of the price. Or hell, whatever happened to shoving your fingers down your throat fatty?
WHY do we as civilized individuals allow this bullshit? Wouldn’t it be FAIR for the Department of Fair Trading to demand all ‘claims’ made be proven under double blind conditions in an empirically measurable way? That way only REAL things can be sold and bullshit can be canned. There goes chiropractors (another cult that believe in healing energies and curing by alignment) or homeopathy, or psychics, feng shui? I’ll feng your shui baby.
Try it out for a month. Let’s get real and stop humouring nutjob fuckwits. Hi, I’m calling to notify you that your reality check just bounced!
Posted: February 7th, 2010
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politix,
pop culture
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rant vaccination conspiracy
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UPDATE: Submissions to the Government close on February 28. Once this closes, it may be many years before Australian’s get a chance to raise this issue again.
EB Games has launched a petition, which you can sign at any of their 350 stores, urging the Government to bring in an R18+ classification so that games deemed too graphic for the current MA15+ rating can still be sold without massive edits that impact on gameplay.
Despite the average age of a gamer being 30, Australia remains one of the last major territories in the world in which an R18+ rating for gaming does not exist. As a result, games that fail to get the MA15+ rating are either banned or require editing to pass the Classification’s Board’s strict guidelines.
Last year the Federal Government released a discussion paper on whether or not an R18+ rating for games should be adopted and called for submissions. EB Games managing director Steve Wilson said the company started the petition after finding overwhelming support for R18+ ratings from customers, News Ltd. polls depicted a 98%+ demographic demanding a fair go and an EB Games poll on the R-rating attracted more than 50,000 respondents, with 84 per cent voting in favour of an 18+ game rating.
Submissions to the Government close on February 28.
“Once this government paper is closed, it could be many years before we get another chance to voice our opinion on this issue.” Mr Wilson said the call for an R18+ rating was not to gain access to more violent or sexual content in games.
“This is not a call for violent video games but rather a call for a better classification system that brings Australia in line with the rest of the world and other Australian entertainment industries, such as films,” he said.
Recently the Classification Board overturned a decision to ban up-coming title Aliens Vs Predator after game publisher Sega appealed against the decision while refusing to edit the game in any way, stating that their game will turn better profits in nations where their Governments believe their citizens are mature enough to evaluate their choice of entertainment for themselves without Government interference.
Games edited for Australian players include Left 4 Dead 2 and Grand Theft Auto IV – the latter broke sales records in 2008, both of which on many platforms include impacting gameplay butchering which leads to incompatible play with international players, especially along the Xbox Achievement and Gamer Point reward system.
