Month: June 2013

Here’s a good one for me right now :

I get the feeling that if I had been able to leave my damaged bits alone, I’d have healed up by now. What I’m desperately trying to avoid in this post is turning it into a Pain Level = High post. Which it is (pain level). But I don’t want to dwell on it.

Different people have different ways of dealing with their problems. My preferred method is to attempt to block it out and ignore it. Definitely to not allow it to get in the way of what I’m wanting to do. That’s one reason why the skin thing has been such a big deal – it’s stopped me wanting to join the work people in town and generally have fun in other ways. It’s got in the way of me doing other things to move on with my life too.

But the baseline stuff, I’ve kept going with that.

I can well understand when people can’t. Especially when the damage is all on the inside. I’m struggling on two fronts right now – internal and external. Fortunately I’ve been able to keep on top of the depression lately but that’s been a struggle because of the constant 2 steps forward, 2 steps back of the skin thing. Especially as a lot of the backward steps have been self inflicted due to me dropping the discipline.

But I’m lucky there. The things that are making me struggle are very obvious :

The skin thing – it’s less obvious than it was but one look at my elbows gets people realising I have issues there. Peeking at my upper arms on a Friday when I’m just in a t-shirt is a good one there too. They’re still rather shredded.

That’s where the Cone Of Shame reference comes in too. My arms look like they’ve been hugging bears … bears with claws. Although they’re not on the bathing cats level of shredded.

Muscles … Ouch. This weekend has been quite painful due to a bad neck. I reinjured it a few months ago (had cramp while driving, ignored it until it went away, it hasn’t) and it hasn’t forgiven me for not finding someone who can give it some TLC. But it’s still possibly obvious from how I’ve given the pained looks or been slow or deliberate in standing up. Neck, back and shoulders are all poorly.

Or maybe not – people seem very surprised when they’ve spotted the signs.

But at least I have the signs. I really feel for people who suffer from depression. I’m relatively up at the moment but I’m utterly dependent on my confidence level. I was having a really hard time of it this time last year, my every move was being questioned and I was being bounced from task to task. If I’d got a good handle on something, I was ordered to stop doing it and would be moved on to something I was unfamiliar with.

Grr. That situation is long gone though. It did have its effect, my confidence was shattered and depression was taking hold. Perhaps that depression was the initial trigger for the skin thing ? (No – I think it was the healthy eating). I dealt with it in my usual way :

Show no weakness
Out last the bugger

I can be really stubborn that way. I also prefer being around other people too. There’s not many problems that we can solve on our own. We often need help. It can be a shoulder to cry on, a person to talk to, someone to give you a cheery wave, colleagues to recognise the effort you put in and who seek out and value your opinion.

The cruellest thing about depression is that it’s all internal. There are no outward signs to show that you’re struggling. And with no outward signs, people don’t believe you have a problem. Their attitude changes and it can go very cruel. People don’t realise that inside, you’re crying out for help and can’t take that first step to ask for it from the right people.

The key word is that V word. Value.

You all have value. You all matter. Whether you believe it or not. And that’s one big root cause for the depression, forgetting your own value.

Even me ! I don’t think I can contribute to the cricket that much any more but my team mates do. I don’t know if I believe them. But I wouldn’t get that positive feedback if I wasn’t involved.

So that’s my plea to the depressed people I know. Don’t withdraw. Let other people in. Share your problems. Let them help you.

Even if it’s just a silly grin because they can’t think of much more when there’s a pretty face in front of them.

Lots going on this weekend.

We have :

Wimblydon
British Grand Prix
Glastonbury

And that’s just the 3 biggest events of this weekend. Wimbledon tends to have tickets available on the day, the British Grand Prix rarely does but they’re available this weekend and Glastonbury is … Glastonbury. There’s also a bunch of Twenty20 cricket matches on this weekend which would have ample tickets.

You have to ask though, how much value do you actually get from going to the events ? Is it better just to stay at home and watch them on the telly ? Do you gain much from being there ?

And that point of “value” has to be considered in terms of the cost it takes to get in there. I’ve just googled “British Grand Prix tickets” out of curiosity :
£75 for Friday’s testing
£100 for Saturday’s qualifying
£200 for Sunday’s race

Oh my god.

It better be good to justify that kind of price. And cricket is guilty of similar excess too with the pricing. The price for a ticket for Day 1 of the Third Ashes test (England vs Aussie) at Old Trafford in Manchester would be £50 per adult, in a not particularly brilliant location.

The trouble is though, the prices are so high because there’s plenty of people willing to buy them at that price. Is it worth it ? For motor racing and international cricket, I’d have to say a definite no. The TV coverage is so good these days with cameras all around the circuit or multiple angles around the ground, plus those ever present replays mean you see on the TV what you miss at the ground.

What you do get though is ambience.

There were still a few people at the IST20 this year talking about the cheating guy who was instrumental in winning the tournament for his team last year. To be honest, he did a lot more than claim a dropped catch, he was a star with bat and ball. But … it’s all tarnished by that dropped catch. And everybody in that stand knew about it. Bit like everyone in the seats at a Wimbledon match will live and breathe every game with the players.

(Doh – quick peek – Laura Robson is playing … time to open up the iPlayer which GP coverage and later the T20 coverage is on !)

I’ve not been to any for far too long but live music is similar. There’s an interaction between crowd and performer that you just don’t get when it’s not live.

I still feel a bit bad for missing out on watching Bat For Lashes when she was in Bristol last year. A very good friend ages ago was practically drooling (yes you were !!!!!) when she was saying how close she was going to be getting to Jon Bon Jovi. I bet another very good friend will be equally ravenous with Robbie Williams tonight ;-).

And for me to miss out on getting involved in a Natasha Khan (Bat For Lashes) performance ? You only have to see the power in the performance even when it’s only in a small Youtube video window to know that a whole live concert would be something very special.

So

Live sport – maybe, maybe not. I’m still thinking about doing the Spa run and I’d definitely think about doing Le Mans next year. International cricket is a no-no, although I’d look into joining a Barmy Army tour trip if there was someone to come along. County level Twenty20 games are a definite possibility, they’re short enough that crowd ambience and “watch your head!” comes in.

Live music – dunno if I’d want to do the festivals. My “too many people” sensitivies (call it paranoia) would interfere with me enjoying one of those. But if it was to see a Bat For Lashes or an Alison Goldfrapp in concert ? Hold me back.

But not this particular weekend. No details but I’ve apparently eaten something that’s bitten back. That’s so rare for me (unless it’s the skin reaction thing). It’s unheard of. I think I know what it is, I’ve been forgetting to have the apples lately so they’ve been getting old in the cupboard. Think I’ve eaten one that’s a little too old, the timeframe fits.

Oh noes ! Laura Robson’s losing ! Time to tune in to BBC1 Iplayer to lend support and feel that crowd.

This post is dedicated to all those people who are struggling right now. I know a few of them personally. They’re hurting so much that they don’t realise that if they just look up, they’ll see a helping hand waiting to pick them up and envelop them into a healing hug.

Hell, I’ve been struggling so much lately I’d have appreciated one of those massive hugs. Like on Tuesday where I thought I was heading back into yet another relapse. I’ve improved back again now, which has actually surprised me.

I can’t give that big hug over the interwebs though. Hopefully I can do the next best thing though by attempting to cheer up a few of those people through …

It’s the return of the music link posts !!!! 🙂 I do enjoy doing these, although I suspect it takes me more time to do them than the cumulative time spent reading them.

Starting off – I’ve been feeling especially broken lately. Hopefully I won’t be totally a lost cause When I’m Sixty Four.

It’s not going to be a summer holiday (more like Autumn) but we just had confirmed a bit of holiday time, which I’m looking forward to already. (And I’ll just confirm right here and now, there is no Cliff Richard in my iTunes library. It is a Cliff-free zone. Although it does have an excellent cover of Devil Woman in it).

This one probably sums me right me up. I still haven’t found what I’m looking for. Yep. True. That darn dust pan and brush is hiding from me somewhere … (dropped something the other day and needed to pick up every crumb instead of being able to do it the easy way !)

Plan A tonight was to go out on the town to party with one of the Finance Angels who is moving abroad. But I was feeling too old and broken to come along. So Plan B – watch the cricket. Doh ! Rain intervened. I was going to link Summer Son to banish that rain but … I’ve linked that before and Halo is more appropriate word for our Finance Angel.

Finance Angel’s reaction ? Disbelief that I was 38 and therefore justifying a bit of that “I’m old” feeling 🙂 Perhaps I haven’t grown up way too fast and my Hourglass still has lots to go. That’s a Mindy Gledhill link, really looking forward to her next album. And I have a signed by Mindy picture too 🙂

And talking of something I’m looking forward to, here’s one from Goldfrapp who have a new album coming soon. This is the one which nearly got me in trouble on the bus last week when I nearly went Head First joining in.

I’m hoping that someone in particular is still reading, this one’s for you ! Shame I can’t pull out those Moves Like Jagger as much now but if the right person is around to smile at me, you never know 🙂

It’s not the overt things that matter though, it’s the little things, the Incidentals. (Yeah – I’ve linked that one tonnes of times but every time I hear it, it reminds me how good Alisha’s Attic could be)

And while I’m in the A’s, this can be a hard life but there’s a bunch of people I know who I could honestly say this to : “You Make It Easy“

To close out, I’m thinking about heading into Bristol centre again tomorrow afternoon. I wonder if I’ll find another Caro Emerald* when I chill out in one of the coffee shops ?
*(would need to be someone who can cope with a 2 left footed person)

Maybe I’ll run in to someone I know again ? That seems to be happening a lot lately. But it won’t happen if I keep hiding away.

Things are improving 🙂

Slowly yeah – but that skin condition finally seems to be under control again, with the bad bits seeming as if they want to repair themselves (slowly).

The secret has been to try and have much more self discipline to stop myself from “helping” it get better. The help has the opposite effect. It does feel good though, to touch bits of me that were quite bad a couple of months ago and find them to be ultra smooth.

It’s not perfect yet, not by a long shot (there’s still bits of me that are well torn up) but I could probably wear shorts in public now without putting people off their lunch.

Erm. Maybe. Hairy legs can really upset some people.

So yeah – I’m in better condition (externally) than I have been since last year, although there’s still a patch on one of my knees which will get scoured again by my knee pads if I played any cricket this week.

There’s two games I could play in this week but I’ve not declared any availability for either. I’m technically available but there’s a few reasons why I’m hiding :

I could do with a few more evenings chilling out
I’d rather see fit and keen people play ahead of me
I’m still far from perfect on the outside and need more healing time
I’m definitely coping with a lots of broken bits inside

But there’s actually a bigger reason – I don’t trust the captaincy (it’s a stand in tomorrow). I’m best in the field where I can get in close and put pressure on the batsmen. I keep moving and keep chatting. I’m involved in the game. However … I tend to get dispatched further out because of what remains of my speed. That’s bad because I can’t throw and don’t trust my eyes at the moment.

I’ll play for the other team next week but I’m a bit more wary about the team with games this week. I actually walked away from one team I used to play for due to the same reason, although that was more because I was driving back from uni on a weekend to play and doing nothing but field. Yawn.

Besides – I’ve been invited out on the town by a gorgeous lady on Thursday which just happens to clash with one of the games. (Finance Angel K is leaving us to join her hubby).

Have you noticed that ? There’s quite a few finance girls I know who are absolute angels. Wonder how that comes about ? Does the finance specialisation/profession attract that type of personality ?

So yeah. I’m technically intact enough to play again but I’m not going to. Partly because I still feel a bit too broken. Although you can bet that if something happened like a pretty lady who needed her car push started, I’d be the first to volunteer and those muscles would help out. (I used to be able to provide enough pushing power to get a small car up to bumpstart speed on my own – no kidding).

I’m rambling again aren’t I ?

Here’s a few more random thoughts :

Putting your hand on your bum and finding it to be very smooth = Very cool feeling.
Still thinking that to be a novelty = sign that you’ve been through something unusual.
Having a shower and having to hide from very bright sun = strange
(my bathroom window is on an angle conspires with the sun at this time of year)
GoG.com sales are dangerous (I’ve bought 7 games so far)
Steam sales are too, unless it’s a Paradox sale weekend
(they make great concepts but something goes wrong between concept and implementation)
Every time I listen to Goldfrapp’s Utopia, it gets ever more incredible.

Yeah – feeling better today. Definitely better than the depression inspired post last week. Perhaps it’s that theory of if you analyse and talk yourself through a problem, it helps you cope with it better. A lot will be down to having a much easier weekend than usual.

Here’s to hoping those improvements will continue. I won’t be all fixed tomorrow or even next week but if a couple of bits fix, then another couple of bits fix then sometime soon I’ll be all fixed.

And that’s what I’m looking forward to. It’ll be a closing of that chapter and possibly the opening of a new one.

Yey !

Kerbals on the Mun. And back again.

I’ve watched a few more videos, learned a few more things, observed what was happening (often with horror for the poor Kerbals), trusted to luck and crossed a few fingers and toes.

This is the latest rocket in the assembly hall, before a few modifications. Like those yellow fuel pipes moving from the top of the tanks and down to the bottom where they actually do Stuff. Lots more struts too to keep the thing from flying apart.

One mistake I’m making is to build too much into the rocket. The best designs (watching the Scott Manley videos) are very simple. The rocket above has lots of boosters and engines down low which will :

Make the rocket topple over on the launching platform
Unbalance it so it doesn’t fly straight
Collide with each other
Flex hugely (which doesn’t help with the collision thing)
Overaccelerate (it’s possible)
Squish the rocket in the middle

All of the above are bad and tend to have hilarious disastrous results.

Anyway – after one incredibly nervous launch, where bits of the rocket were threatening to harpoon other bits of the rocket, it’s up in orbit around the planet and I’m next sending my rocket the way of the Mun.

I have to say here, I’m very lazy and have been making extensive use of autopilot features. I’m pretty confident that I could fly the rockets myself but the autopilots make things so much more efficient. They provide in game calculators to give you that precise time to make manoeuvres. That’s possible to do by eye but fails the “you’re making this way too hard for yourself” test.

Games are supposed to be fun, not hard work. If I need to use a few autopilot or calculator mods to increase fun and decrease tedium, I’ll use the cheaty mods.

Soapbox over ! More screenies !

Kerbals on the Mun :

I was just on the day side of the Mun, which let me get that great shot of the Kerbin home planet and their sun in the same view. I was down to just the lander and return home stage at this point, with less fuel than I wanted because the ascent stage hadn’t done all that I needed it to.

And home time – I’ve cut here to where I’m thinking about setting up how to get my guys home :

I’ve left the Mun behind, with my capsule being the little grey icon in the middle. I’m heading towards the planet at this point with lots of time to go until I can do the next manouevre. Orbital mechanics have 2 important points : Periapsis and Apoapsis. Periapsis is the closest point of approach, Apoapsis is the farthest point. To change one, the most efficient way is to make the manoeuvre at the other.

Plan – drop into the atmosphere to burn off speed. To do this, I have to change that 194.2km periapsis down to below 70km (the edge of the atmosphere). And I have to do that with only 93m/s delta V left. Delta V is the way fuel remaining is measured – it takes into account :
Acceleration (as a Thrust divided by Mass thing)
Actual fuel remaining (time the thrust is available)
And tells you the amount of change of velocity you can do.

93m/s works out to 209mph. It’s the same as being able to accelerate a car up to 35mph and stop it again, 3 times. I bet you’ve done that in traffic, it’s not that much. (3 stops for the bus). At the mid point in the orbit, the ship was doing 350m/s, at periapsis it’s doing around 3000m/s.

Scary. But the braking is still possible … The screenie above shows me manually setting up a manoeuvre at apoapsis, which led to :

That’s a move that skips the ship off the atmosphere and scrubs some speed off. The periapsis is dropped from 194km to 61km by just using 19m/s of delta V. After a few more orbits and braking using the atmosphere (and a reentry that would have been extremely toasty) :

Kerbals on the ground, home and safe.

Yey ! Dunno how much more I’ll do with this game. I traditionally don’t stay long with open sandbox games as I run out of objectives quickly. I will keep following the Scott Manley videos though.

Can’t close this post without showing this one though :

Next time – I’ll ignore the “3 points of contact = best” theory and put a few more legs on the lander.

PS – I’m watching the Le Mans 24 hours today. There was a crash at the start which I thought was fairly ok. Motorsport safety has improved so that injuries are rare and fatal crashes, at this level at least, are now unheard of. But not today. Thoughts are with the family of Allan Simonsen. Shocked to hear that a crash I thought he’d walk away from has actually taken him from us.

Actually it’s not, it’s more like moderate …

Yeah – this’ll be one of those posts where I whinge a lot and hunt for a hug … My skin’s definitely getting better but I’ve been very slow lately. It seems like while the skin improves, the old injuries are reminding me that they’re there again.

At the moment it’s my upper body being stiff and a lot of soreness from my hips. I’ve had a sore neck too for I dunno how long. If you’ve never had a back injury, you’re very very lucky. It feels like you’re a puppet who’s strings have been cut. You lose all your strength and an unguarded movement can make you scream in agony.

It’s not actually that bad though. I have a lot of my agility available, as demonstrated by me dodging out of people’s way.

But … as anyone with depression will tell you, a person in a depressive cycle has a very difficult time recognising the positives and instead live in the negative. It’s a very tough cycle to break out of. I need other people to help me out of mine. But it’s not in the way you might think.

When my last relationship broke up, my depression went in an unexpected direction – I felt I was a wreck physically, not emotionally (because I was emotionally walled off and didn’t realise). What helped me out of that was someone on the project who was an inspirational figure in her own way. She, of course, had no clue whatsoever, although if I am lucky enough to cross her path at work, I’ll try and remember to ask if she’s still sailing competitively.

I live for competition. One of the reasons I’m struggling at the moment is that I’m feeling I’m not competing that well either physically or mentally.

Physically – I’m slower even than when I was too fat. Pain level hasn’t been “low” for ages.
Mentally – I’ve felt for quite some time that I’m not operating on the same mental level as I used to. Something’s slowing me down and acting like fuzziness in my head. There are still flashes of what I used to have but I’m finding it more difficult to focus it.

There’s that perception thing coming in again.

I think a lot of the problems I’m feeling at the moment are down indirectly to my skin condition. Right now, I’m coming to the end of a week with over 700 miles of travelling in it. Lots of disruption that my batteries have trouble handling these days. And that’s after more months of broken and bad sleep than I care to think about.

I think that fatigue is deeply rooted at the moment. I’m also missing something in my diet that I need. I have that craving of needing to eat something but not knowing what. That’s complicated too by being allergic to stuff that should do me good.

I’m going to stop whinging there.

One thing I do believe very strongly in is a need to acknowledge, analyse, absorb and above all else own problems that you have. Like if you see something going bad at work that you could do something about, don’t stand back and spectate, get in there and own it, get it fixed. If it’s within your grasp to do that, then there’s often brownie points.

With my issues at the moment, I have to analyse them before I can deal with them. And one of the best ways to do that is to talk through them. Or to talk to people who make you smile.

We don’t seem quite so blessed with that at the moment in the current team. I’m able to watch my back less (there were some dangerous and obnoxious people around) but I miss a few of the very good friends. You could say it was flirting but there’s a certain objective to flirting which wasn’t part of how we used to cheer each other up. Perhaps it’s to do with those poisonous people that were around, our mob would be nonverbally saying “We got your back” to each other.

Hopefully I give that impression to people. That I have their back. I’ll be on their side given the chance and if they deserve it. Things like me keeping people in the picture if someone was asking me to do the other person’s job for them (like IT guru type stuff that they didn’t want the IT person to know about).

I’d like to mention a couple of people before I head back into watching Youtube videos :
We have the original Finance Angel back ! Yep – Mrs E returned a few weeks ago. She’s awesome. Nothing fazes her. She’s always ready with a big beaming smile or a sympathetic ready to listen smile if she’s detected that you’re feeling down. And that smile is guaranteed to melt any blackness that’s threatening to shroud my soul.
The one and only Craziequeen. Those hugs make you forget all troubles.
My darling Snow Queen. I Miss You !!!!! I know a lot of people abused how available to chat you were but I always valued every chance I got to try and get you to smile by doing something a little nuts or strange or random.
All of the Canteen Girls. Cos they’re the ones who make the day start so much better when I’m on the hunt for teacake.
CK for being a good friend. Although I suspect that one or two of the people on the bus think we’re gay partners. Lol.
The acceptance girls from the old project. This is another of the “We got your back” things … The 4 of them that are still left still have an excellent working relationship going because they know that while I could embarass them when I spotted things that needed fixing (and a certain person would have loved as much ammunition there as he could have got), my first interest was always getting things right for the project. Point scoring is pointless and hurtful.
And the Boss too, although the people in her new team keep her too busy to chat much.

The cricket people have been good lately too. I know I’m getting older and far slower than I have been but they’ve been picking me up by recognising the effort I put in and making me feel valued.

That’s what we all like to feel – value. That’s the nub of what causes my struggles.

What fixes it ? Things like checking something out for the acceptance girls and getting a massive thank you coming down the email from Scotland when you find something that helps them out. Things like random people catching your eye when coming the other way and smiling when they catch your grin (even if mine is painted on a lot lately).

Oh and sleep too. It’s getting late and this is a Mountain of Text now, so I’ll hit post before I add even more …

Things are getting better. Although I often feel I need someone to point me in the direction of the shininess. Or in the direction of the cakes. Hmm … Snow Queen cakes … wibble.

Well – maybe not as much as that but :

Weekend – off to see my mum and dad for Father’s Day. My sister and I don’t tend to get back there too much so it’s good to pay a visit occasionally. Lol – only occasionally because I like my freedom to have the music going, random stuff on telly and videos/games on the PCs.

Oh and there’s also the tendency to break out into song as I join in with something that’s come over iTunes. I don’t tend to do that when there’s other people around. (Except if there are Hot Swedish Girls on Mumble). Actually, I think it’s one thing that may have contributed (in a small way) to my last relationship breakup. The songs I tended to join in on where the heartbreak type theme songs. Oops.

Anyway – it’s All About Eve’s Are You Lonely at the moment and yesterday I nearly made someone start screaming when Goldfrapp’s Head First started on the iPod. I won’t be doing the singing thing that much tonight, for the next couple of hours at least I can only see a couple of Seal songs in the queue as being potential sing-a-longs.

Yep – Father’s Day run last weekend. They’re still worried about me because they see some of the signs of my skin condition that I can’t hide from them like I do everyone else. It is improving – but very slowly and I have to be very careful as to not set that healing back.

But I don’t want to dwell on my skin condition. If I do, I’ll unconsciously drive myself to “helping” it more … Which is bad.

Talking of travelling – the parents thought the Spa Grand Prix trip has potential. Although they’d want to stay a bit longer than just the weekend. I would too, although I have in my mind the 5 day return limit on some Eurotunnel tickets. It’s quite an expensive trip too with the whole weekend costing at least £800 per person.

We shall see.

Outside of travelling – it’s summer. Which means :

Summer dresses. Yey !
Also means summer sales. GoG.com have one started already for old games. If there’s some classics that you miss because they don’t run on modern PCs, check out GoG.com. It stands for Good Old Games and what they do is take old games (some from the DOS days) and make them run on current hardware. Sometimes it’s not so old games too. The Witcher 2 is on there, as is Don’t Starve.

And I’m now thinking of those summer dresses again and maybe revising a plan for the rest of the week. Plan A was to bring my work laptop in on Friday because they like us to connect them directly to the works network occasionally. And on Friday, I’d have the car. However … it means I’m not supposed to leave the laptop in the car unattended, which would put a dampener on the potential of a trip into town or the Mall.

I think I may do the laptop thing tomorrow instead by lugging the laptop on the bus with me. Not ideal but still feasible. We shall see. (I’ll do it Friday because rain is predicted and it will scare those summer dresses away).

Oh – more travelling. Yesterday was what’s becoming an annual pilgrimage to :

That’s Lords from the top of the Edrich stand, looking at the pavilion. And that’s from one of the rare moments where shadows were sighted …

It was a good day’s cricket yesterday, although the standard wasn’t as high as you’d like. Sloppy fielding and batting that got strangled easily meant the games weren’t that close and therefore weren’t as exciting.

Cricket in the sun can be a good chilled out day in the fresh air. I’m thinking of watching a few more games, possibly at Worcester’s ground. Taunton for Somerset is the wrong side of Bristol so there’s a huge chance of getting caught up in the motorway traffic.

Anyway – T20 county cricket at Worcester – anyone local interested in chilling out at the cricket ?

If there’s ever a time I’d thought seriously about making gaming videos for Youtube, this is it …

That seems to be what I’m doing more than gaming at the moment. Playing a game can pass the time but if you’re watching someone like Sips of the Yogscast, then they draw you into the fun they’re having in the game. With Sips, he’s got a play through going of Skyrim at the moment where he has Uthgerd (female fighter type) tagging along as companion. All the way through, he’s chatting to Uthgerd like he’s chatting to the viewer.

They’re quite amusing to watch and listen to.

What’s occurred to me very early in the experimentation with the Kerbals and their suicide rockets is that making a video of these things would be absolutely hilarious. There’s only so much you can do with screenshots :

Cue something about to go horribly wrong (again – and the Kerbals survived).

It’s a merciless program, if you miss things out it’ll let you know in hilarious ways. It’s also consistent and very fair with how it makes your rockets blow up.

Anyway – progress. I’d been having problems with the early stages of the rocket making things go squish in the middle. The separator that links the space stage to the ascent stage was breaking very early. The screenie above was quickly followed by all those solid rocket boosters (the things on the outside) trying to harpoon the upper stage of the rocket. That was shortly before all of the bits on the ascent stage went their separate ways.

What I tried was peeking at the space stage :

That’s it in the middle surrounded by solid rocket boosters. The game models mass and thrust, if your thrust is less than the weight, the rocket doesn’t get off the ground. So there’s all those boosters there to allow the test.

This one worked ! Although the space stage doesn’t have the power to make orbit.

However … those screenshots don’t really do it justice. They don’t capture the rocket wobbling all over the place like a video would. They don’t have the audio of a commentator who can see things are in the process of going very horribly wrong.

I think I know what I need to fix. I have peeked at a wiki tutorial … That one is a recreation of the Apollo 11 craft within the game. It’s using a different stack separator and has stiffeners joining each stage together. I didn’t think you could do that, I thought the stiffener pylons would stay attached after you wanted them separate.

I’m getting there on this one I think – I want to do it with a rocket I’ve put together though. What I don’t want to do is blindly copy someone else’s craft from a video or that Apollo 11 recreation.

And it gives me something else to natter about instead of this darn skin condition that still isn’t going away ! It’s stress related – I get stressed I attack it and make it worse. It’s improving … but sometimes I think it’s forgotten what “normal” should be.

Oh – one more “It’s gone horribly wrong, will they survive ?” screenie :

This is after I realised that my space stage wouldn’t get to orbit. What I should have done is turn off the engine before hitting the “throw it away” button. What happened is that the engine kept firing, the whole thing started swinging like a pendulum and for 10000m or so, the pod with the Kerbals in stayed stubbornly attached to the explosive thingummy with lots of fuel left in.

That’s where commentary would have been priceless …

Oh and the game itself is discounted on Steam this weekend. If you’re interested in rocket science or were a wannabe astronaut, this one is an essential.

One of the most famous quotes of the Twentieth Century went something like this :

“We will go to the Moon. We will go to the Moon in this decade or the next and do the other thing. Not because it is easy, because it is hard.”

It goes something like that. It’s JFK challenging a nation to achieve the near impossible. They threw money and people at it and … succeeded.

That quote came to mind today … Although if I wait until the end of this decade before getting a screenshot of one of my Kerbals on the Mun, that’ll be a bit sad. Either that or :

I’ll have dived into Jack Campbell’s latest book;
Steam’s summer sale will have broken out;
I’ll have been dragged into more games of cricket;
(at the moment – screaming … see below)
Cricket on the telly will have drawn my attention
Or I’ll have been bopped on the head by one of the girls on the bus and dragged off to a girlcave.

Only one of the bits above is pure fantasy. Although I’m sure one of them was watching me very closely this morning.

I’ve had an initial look at the latest from Jack Campbell but I’ve not been reading much lately. Will have to change that. It’s another in the long series of Lost Fleet science fiction books. I actually have a bunch of books I’ve not read yet plus I’d like to run through the Deus Ex storyline :

Deus Ex Human Revolution – set in 2027 and is the third game in the series
Deus Ex – the original game, set in the 2050s
We don’t talk about the second game. Or the fourth apparently (it’s not out yet and is going to take the series to iOS – tragedy waiting to happen).

Yep – first Deus Ex is supposed to have an excellent storyline and it’s one game I missed out on first time around. However … Steam’s summer sale is just around the corner … My wallet is trembling (in fear) with anticipation. I don’t think I’ll buy too much but I do like seeing what the latest offer is going to be.

Cricket – there were 4 games planned this week across the two teams. We’re down to just one now due to not enough players for one team and the ground being double booked. Thursday’s game happily has enough players already.

My skin is “ok” but I’m still suffering from the damage I took to my thumb in the last game. I can use it (although I wouldn’t want to write for long) but I’d actually admit to having pain from it. It hurts to open Kitkats !!!! Having a bit of time away from the cricket will help my legs get tougher. The healing is getting there, although I have to be very careful that I don’t damage it even more.

Not screaming – but definitely ouchies. Disappointing because there’s been no bruising to show off but not bad enough that it would have kept me out of a game this week if they’d needed me.

Lots of stuff on the telly at the moment too – I’ve been keeping an eye on the ICC Champions Trophy (cricket). It’s been interesting because there’s no idea before each game as to who is going to win. India are looking scarily strong though, I suspect they’ll win the tournament. Hopefully England won’t let us down although their first-up batsmen don’t really have the inspiration to drive us to big scores.

And – I’ve run out of videos to watch on the Youtube circulation. Time to see about putting a Kerbal on the Mun !

Something I’ve had my eye on for a little while has been the Kerbal Space Program.

I think I’ve mentioned it before a few times but it’s only recently that I’ve opened up my copy and started to play. (Things like another Deus Ex run and not having the mental energy to learn something new have got in the way).

What is the Kerbal Space Program ?

It’s a rocket simulator. You build your own rockets out of snap together bits and pieces, take it to the launchpad and watch it explode. Most of the time. Some of the time, you can try for escaping the orbit of the home planet and attempt to reach its Mun. Or even build huge ships out of multiple component launches and attempt to reach the other planets.

There’s a lot of scope in the “game”. Shouldn’t really call it a game actually. Something as high quality as this is a stellar teaching aid. The building of the rockets is highly simplified and they are very easy to control. You have 3 axes of freedom plus a throttle. There’s a stabilisation module that quickly stops your rocket tumbling out of control, if you’ve added the right bits.

The complication is hidden under the skin, with full physics orbital mechanics modelling at play. Going from Earth to the Moon isn’t just about pointing the rocket at the Moon and throttling up the engines. The Moon will have moved by the time you get there and the course will curve due to all the little bits of gravity in play. KSP fully models all that complication, it lets you know what’s happening and there’s a couple of tutorials that let you know what’s going on.

 

How did my attempts over the weekend go ?

Here’s the first rocket ship attempt :

It’s a fairly standard 2 stage rocket with a command module on top. The first stage has solid rocket boosters surrounding a main engine. The intention is that this stage gets your rocket to orbit. The second stage would then propel the command module to Mun orbit. This was early days so I was just looking to go Mun & back. Nothing fancy like an actual landing …

How did this one go ? It got out of the atmosphere but never made the orbit. It needed more rockets. Actually needs another stage I think.

So – I add more rockets. And …

Oops. Oh well. The little conical thing lying by the side of the support pylons is the command module. It survived ! And half a second before I took that screenie, good old Jeremiah Kerman was going “Let’s do that again!”. I think what I did this time was have the separators (which detach the boosters) firing before the boosters. Cue launching pad fireworks show.

I’m about to head back in again to see if I can make a working Mun rocket (without resorting to the wiki crib sheet!). But … something like this can’t really be described in words, so here’s a Youtube video with someone talking you through the pictures.