PhobosAnomaly

Awesome. I miss the raised numerals on the front of the card.

I don’t think there is in terms of process, I think payment handlers just add a higher charge for processing credit card payments, which is why stingy retailers dislike them.

I’m happy to be corrected though.

Sorry, maybe I wasn’t clear.

I’m assuming the 16 digit card number, start and expiry dates, and CVV are printed on the reverse - whereas it used to only have the CVV on the reverse and the rest of the details on the front.

What’s stopping someone with a picture of the rear of the card visiting an online retailer and going wild with a picture of just one side of the card these days - aside from multi-factor authentication at the point of authorising the payment?

Absolutely spot on, thank you - always handy to know.

I’m wondering what it does to mitigate the “card not present” fraud though, for online purchases or remote purchases?

As entertaining as that is, it does raise the question - why do they put all of the details on the back now?

I thought one of the main reasons that the CVV was on the signature strip was so if a card was photocopied, photographed, or carbon copied (literally on carbon paper), then it was still less possible to clone the card.

Is “physical” cloning so small of a problem now that it’s more beneficial to make fancy looking cards? Anyone in the industry able to shine a light?

I think that’s a fair comment, and to extend it a bit further, people expect a standard quality of life in games now that either have emerged over the years a a positive gameplay trait (regenerating health, accessibility customisation, the yellow paint guide) or a technical innovation (auto save, autoaim, customisable graphics etc).

I find it really tough going back to play Perfect Dark (the original, not the excellent remaster) and really struggling to play through the brilliant game at sub-20fps; or playing Metal Gear on the NES without the ability to return to the same room on death, seeing as the password system was a bit clunky.

We’ve come a long way, largely for the better.

Oh wow, Perfect Dark Zero had much higher metacritic scores than I expected.

I thought it would literally be a 50 - I didn’t think it was a good game, I didn’t think it was a bad one either - it was the most middle-of-the-road competent shooter I had played in years. I remember it getting largely hammered at release though, I suspect that had more to do with having Perfect Dark in the title and not meeting unreasonably high expectations than actually being a poor game though.

That ending song about a sex act was really weird though. The song was an absolute banger but the lyrics just had little to no context to them.

also branding

particularly the style that gives up on capitalisation and punctuation

this is not primary school

I saw the exhibit and got a little bit emotional if I’m honest when it was revealed near the start of the show.

Partly because of the sheer scale of it right in front of you, but because of where it’s been and how much human ingenuity, experience, and hope was put into it to make it work.

Great stuff. Well worth going to if you’re ever at Kennedy Space Centre Center (man that feels weird).

It was, but as Atari was known for, was just a fancy new shell on eight year old hardware not too dissimilar to the 2600 or VCS or whatever your region calls it.

My parents went down the home computer route, and I ended up with an 800 XE.

It was beautiful. The detachable keyboard, the IBM-grey sleek housing, the pastel console buttons, and satisfying “chi-chuunnnggg” of the spring loaded power button.

I felt like I had the future under the palms of my hand.

Game Pass is cool and all, but the rebrands and weird omissions make it a bit of a shambles.

I still have an Xbox One, but I’ve got a chonky internet connection (at least for my area) and Cloud Gaming is a fantastic bit of kit. I was tempted to buy a cheap one-month Game Pass code and play this Black Ops 6 campaign and another game or two… but this isn’t on the Cloud Gaming service.

It’s shit like this that makes the high seas a far more attractive option. I know not every game is Cloud Gaming enabled, but one would expect that certainly all the Game Pass titles would be included.

Oh well, I just won’t play it I suppose, I’m sure I’ll find something else to do with those five or six hours!

When the Xbox 360 was out in stores, I wasn’t really arsed about getting one. My Dreamcast was still doing me just fine.

Mass Effect looked cool (it was), and Alan Wake had taken my fancy and looked great (it was).

What really tipped my hand into spending a couple of hundred quid on a console was… Doom. The XBLA version of the original.

I’m a massive Doom nerd, but the first time I heard the new positional audio of a Imp’s fireball in 5.1, I just about spaffed - and I took a day off work to hoon through Doom 2 and No Rest For The Living.

I think there’s something quite satisfying about playing a game on a device massively overspec’d for it. I played Quake III on a Pentium 3 450mhz with 64mb RAM and a TNT2 M64 card, and every new PC or laptop that I get, I still find it deeply gratifying installing Q3 and seeing it run silky smooth.

I do it for two reasons: partly because it’s fuck all business to anyone else (within reason) what the status of my relationship is.

Mainly though, because it generally messes with folk because they don’t understand what it means, and feel compelled to ask silly questions about it.

Well that’s just fuckin awesome, thank you my friend.

That’ll be a giggle on the weekend 👍

Awesome, so it’s usable without an account now?

Honestly, I never checked after I stored it.

I bought a second generation of Rift (no idea what model it was, but it was the second retail one, not including the CV1 or whatever dev build it was) - and it was fantastic. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

The moment they forced the use of a Facebook account, it stopped getting used. The visor, controllers, and sensors have been sat in a cupboard for a year or two.

I really should see if it has been jailbroken, or if there’s a way to utilise the Rift features without any Meta bollocks.

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Is this the same as plugging an extension cable into itself to get free and unlimited electricity?

One, two, three, four, let me hear you scream if you want some more

Push it, push it, watch me work it, I’m perfect

Underrated banger.