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Kid almost becomes Darwin Award winner
triforcer | 10:07 PM on 08.21.2007 5 comments


By cooling his Xbox 360's power supply unit in water... while he was using, but it's okay he took the precaution of wrapping it in plastic and tape. This should teach the kid not to listen to the internet ever again.

http://kotaku.com/gaming/just-add-water/boy-fries-himself-with-hot-hot-xbox-360-291988.php

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The Need for Mob Justice
triforcer | 7:18 PM on 08.20.2007 0 comments


I may still be new to these community blogs, but since I've been checking out these blogs on a more frequent basis I noticed there's a lot of crap and I don't mean this blog post:


This is the best plush toy ever made

I'm talking about these one word post of "hi i'm new here and have nothing else to say," that are pushing more deserving stories in to the back pages. So my modest proposal is that we implement a voting system similar to that of Digg's "bury story." But instead of burying the story it is replaced by something more entertaining...


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Pixel Whore: Making Destructoid Less Ugly
triforcer | 10:20 PM on 08.15.2007 23 comments


As a daily visitor to Destructoid two things have always caught my attention whenever I visit the website: their off-color remarks and their inability to properly use their pixel font. While most visitors probably don't even notice or even care, I have made it my mission to try to correct these eyesores. We'll start by addressing the easier of the two problems as seen in these examples from recent front page post:


Crisis Core PSP bundle will rape your wallet (and your Mom)


Nielsen data: PS3 played longest per session, Wii is the least used


Notice anything wrong? No not copyright infringement this is the internet, the problem is that the text is unnecessarily made blurry due to anti-aliasing. Anti-aliasing is a process in which lines and surfaces are made to look smooth rather than blocky. When using different types of fonts this is a good thing as it creates nice and smooth curves in round letters. However for pixel fonts anti-aliasing is counterproductive as the sharp 90 degree angles of the pixels are distorted to create a smooth surface.



To remedy this issue in Photoshop select the "aa" drop down menu when you access your type tool and select "none" as your anti-aliasing solution. Remember to select one of the other options when using normal fonts or your type will resemble an 8-bit title screen.




Now your pixel font should be as sharp as the corners of your robotic steel hearts, but we still have more problems in these following examples.



"Postal blows" sez Wired, "F*ck your mum" sez Uwe




While I do agree Uwe Boll and Tara Reid are problems, they are problems for society as a whole and beyond the scope of Destructoid. The real issue is the uneven stroke of the letter forms in the "spoken" words of Mr. Boll and Ms. Reid as well as the "popular stories" graphic. Pixel fonts are usually meant to be used at a pixel level, when you go larger than that the font is scaled causing distortions. This makes the stroke, or line thickness, of the letters uneven and retarded looking. 04B_03B seems to be the de facto font of Destructoid and works best in point sizes that are multiples of 8, while other pixel fonts will have a different "correct" point size.



From the above visual aid you can now see that your cocks are now fuller looking.


Now that you're an expert on pixel fonts see if you can find what's wrong with these examples:



Postal III is coming to PC and Xbox 360, have some screens


Quiltbert (yes, I'm blatantly stealing their title)


This lesson in design has now come to an end, but before you go back and use that pixel font again, think about the responsibility you have to the Dtoid robot. So the next time you create blurry text or uneven strokes know that you're saying that the robot is myopic and/or retarded.


Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a psychiatric disorder (more specifically, it is an anxiety disorder) most commonly characterized by a subject's obsessive, distressing, intrusive thoughts and related compulsions (tasks or "rituals") which attempt to neutralize the obsessions. Thus it is an anxiety disorder. It is listed by the World Health Organization as one of the top 10 most disabling illnesses in terms of lost income and diminished quality of life.

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Destructoid is an independently-run publication forged by our love of video games and the gaming community's need of accountable enthusiast press
living the dream since March 16, 2006