And of course, if you find a hack that works, you can send it along to Tom so he can test it for a wider audience.

http://imgur.com/EPXkY.jpg
http://img408.imageshack.us/img408/3035/dsc5357.jpg

If I can get that working for everyone, I’ll switch over to it.

In any case, if ‘making it a fixed width’ is the correct answer to your problem, I think Stylish is what you’re looking for. It allows you to do anything that can be done in CSS, on a per-site basis. In this case I imagine you’d be working with the div.mainColumn class – on stock CSS its width is specified by margins from the sides. Default stylesheet for James is here.

Greasemonkey is the obvious fallback, but speaking for myself ‘simple’ Javascript is much more difficult than simple CSS, and I find the fact that it has to download and render the page and then rearrange it intensely annoying.

I had a similar experience a few months back, I’d had the computer for about 2 weeks and had a power surge. Most of the computer turned out to be alright, but the graphics card didn’t survive. I actually ended up buying most of a computer worth in new hardware and upgrade the graphics card to a GTX260 from a GT9800. I built another computer out of the spares though, so it’s not so bad.

Also I think KOTH is helping some of the more rabid fanboys admit/realize just how terrible Arena was. I was playing a game that went into overtime when one of the players was AFK, so all of us dead people had to sit there for a couple minutes watching as the enemy team searched high and low for some idiot who was idle in the spawn area. I made a crack about how this was “almost as retarded as Arena mode” and NOT ONE PERSON on either team tried to convince me that spectating for minutes at a stretch was an awesome gameplay innovation.

The GLOWING LIGHTNING SHOVEL versus COWERING BABIES thing is also one of the best little tweaks they’ve ever thrown into the game. The new effect even manages to make a successful Kruber feel even more badass than it did a couple of weeks ago. I also love the critboost on flag cap.

I will say, though, that this business about a spy disguise utterly nerfing all the medic unlocks is annoying as hell. Medics are high-value targets who hang back and keep a strategic outlook on the broader situation. This naturally makes them one of the first classes to spot a disguised spy. The old rules increased the medic’s benefit from being observant. The new rules weaken the medic unlocks generally and only seem to benefit amateurish spies.

I always thought it’d be cool if source took a 3d snapshot that you could rotate and remove UI elements. I seem to remember some promo thing for one of the Halo games that was a 3d picture you could pan around, and I remember having to run it in Quicktime, of all things.

For some reason I instinctively hit it when I earn an achievement. And in Fallout 3, I subconsciously screenshot every time I’m offered a Speechcraft or ability-exlusive dialogue option.

Oh yeah, and well done on that whole nomination thing. Now you just need to win. =P Good luck anyway!

Otter: Agreed. They should have found a way to get these out that wasn’t imitatable by phishers. Just from the letters we get at PC Gamer, it’s obvious phishing is a huge problem for Steam, and this promotion shows a surprising insensitivity to that. Particularly when most of the victims who write to us are doing so because Valve are ignoring them.

I’m not going to be the guy who complains about Valve’s free content updates to a game they released more than two years ago. It’s great and experimental of them and I even hear there’s plans for a new 5-point CP map by Valve, so that’ll be a new map I actually play (5-point push maps, and maybe a couple CTF maps, are the only ones that’re really viable in a 6v6 setting). That said, would it kill them to try one rocketjump before sending out the new self-damage patch?

I’m not going to bug Valve about it, though, because they might track me down and take my new medal away.

Also, VALVE LOVE THE OVERTIME – one of the patch notes tonight:

“Due to many requests, added server ConVar “tf_overtime_nag”. When set to 1, it keeps the broken announcer behavior”

Then my team wins, and suddenly I have the opportunity to smash some heads with my GLOWING LIGHTNING SHOVEL.

Somebody needs to friggin’ hire you to take in-game screenshots, as yours are always awesome.

Can’t get this (x2)
Can’t get this (ove-over ove ove over-ove-overtime) (x2)

My-my-my-my Uber rush hits you, so hard makes you say oh em gee
Thank you, for blessing me with a hat to wear and two unlocks
It feels good, when you know you’re top
A superdope sniper from the 2_fort
And I’m known as such
And this is a hat, uh, you can’t get

I told you newbie, you can’t get this
(ove-ove-overtime)
Yeah that’s how we’re unlocking and you know you can’t get this
(ove-ove-overtime)
Look at my hat man you can’t get this
(ove-ove-overtime)
You know let me spam the cap point you can’t get this

Et cetera. Except I can’t be bothered to continue as MC Hammer’s lyrics are actually rather crap.

– Added graphical ‘First Post!’ achievement

Oh sh…

Of course, in another thirty seconds I realized that the page’s artwork was a fairly convincing seal of authenticity, and “teamfortress” wasn’t spelled as “teamfrotress” in the URL or somesuch, so I calmed down. But the incident I had there has made me reconsider how easy it would be for a phisher to get me; I bought a very generic “Hey, check out this new medal thing with the update today! Here’s the link” message from a guy on my friends list that I didn’t even know too well (not to mention that his account could have been stolen already even if I knew him), clicked the provided link, and the urgency provided by the “first come, first serve” presentation made me fill out my information right away without examining the page too closely.

In other words, what Valve designed and then leaked was basically a perfect model for a scam artist to duplicate. And the deception will be bolstered by the expectation they’ve just built into their player base that these secret websites will exist, ask for their info, and be totally safe and official. Grab a piece of old concept art that most people won’t remember, duplicate the site design and you’ll probably do well enough to fool me. I’m not Valve, but if I were I would be trying to reinforce the wariness my players have for clicking links their friends send them and then entering their account details, not undermine it by offering unique rewards for that behavior.

Sorry about the essay — getting phished wouldn’t even have set me back that much, and it didn’t happen, and instead I’m apparently getting some prize that most players won’t have. But the process still made me uneasy and I’m hoping it doesn’t set a precedent. One of the loudest complaints I hear about digital distribution is that you can get your account stolen and lose all your games without a trace; I might equally point out that your clunky physical gaming artifacts might be stolen in real life, and be irretrievable, but the point remains that a buyer of digital goods must feel safe about his ownership of those purchases or he’ll go straight back to retail. Anything that makes a phisher’s job easier and increases the number of accounts stolen is thereby going to diminish the aggregate perceived security of the system. Valve usually seems to take this stuff seriously.

I’m pretty happy about the sandman no longer knocking out ubercharges – that always seemed dumb to me.

Some pretty major stuff in this update, from what I’ve seen. I haven’t had a chance to play with it, but I’m fairly certain that is/usedtobe an achievement?