Year: 2015

The hype train is going nuts at the moment …

It’s E3 time, which is where the Entertainment industry tries to get you all very excited about the stuff they’re coming out with. For me, it’s the games. It’s all about … Buy our stuff. Preorder our stuff before we deliver. Kickstart our stuff.

But it’s mostly about the getting you excited about stuff they want you to buy.

Bit like this post. I have no clue what’s coming !

Yeah. The entertainment industry these days want our money. All our money. And they aren’t that bothered about giving us all the product we want or all the product they promised. A big thing in the games industry at the moment is Downloadable Content (DLC), where they’ll sell you the base game and then expect you to buy lots more bits and pieces for it. Flight Sim X is on Steam sale at the moment, you could buy it for £4 (I’m interested) with discount. All of the DLC (with discount) would set you back £177.

Crikey !

And you’d also be looking to spend £100+ on a flightstick and throttle to get the most out of that. I have a flightstick and throttle, I think it’s essential for Elite. But I only spent £45 on mine (don’t buy the Cyborg Fly5, it’s trash, breaks early and the middle deadzone makes it awkward to use). My Thrustmaster Hotas X is a good bit of kit, I’m glad I ditched the Fly5 for it.

Where’s this going ? I dunno ! I forgot. Oops.

So all this hype.

Try to resist. Trust your judgment, not the shiny promises made my the marketing men. Figure out whether you can trust your sources. They may be taking incentives to promote the good while ignoring the horrid (I put no credibility in games mags, they continually promote awful buggy rubbish)

Personally, I never buy stuff when it comes out. The exception is the new Elite and the WoW expansions when I was still playing. Why wait ? Because you’ll see the opinions of others, there are rarely important spoilers and discounts are usually not too far around the corner.

Why pay full price when a bit of patience will save you cash ?

Who do I trust for opinions ? I watch youtube people like Totalbiscuit, Jesse Cox, Hannah and Kim of Yogscast. TB gives dangerous first impressions videos, his enthusiasm for gaming is very catchy and I’ve bought a few games on his recommendation (that I’ve subsequently barely played!) because he made them look awesome. Similarly, TB and Jesse will usually not hold back if they see flaws in a game. That’s valuable honesty. I’m not so sure about other youtube people, the impressions they give for games sometimes ignores the terrible elements of those games.

But I still love watching Hannah and Kim stuff, they’re the two Yogscast people who I still regularly watch, the interest has waned from the rest. They either play games I have no interest in or they’ve … just gone terribly boring, puerile or childish and most of all, only funny in their own minds. But they still have big audiences so their target audience must like them.

Mentioning audience …

I used to think of this blog as a bit of a guilty secret, based on the reactions of people when I told them about it. Think of the Heinlein quote “writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.” I like that quote.

Recently, when I mention the blog or send links to post, I’ve been seeing people tell me it’s a really cool thing that I’m doing with it.

That’s the lovely lady who keeps telling me the posts are great posts. (All feedback appreciated, good feedback sends me wibbly)
There’s our new finance angel (and she is an angel, with a look that gets more action from us than the cattleprod that we knew her predecessor had hidden away for us)
And everyone else who keeps coming back.

I see the hits coming in on the hidden hit counters and think it’s awesome that people are stopping by to have a look. It moves this away from being that guilty secret to … hey ! maybe I’m entertaining someone, getting them to think about stuff or just getting a chuckle or a smile.

If I do get chuckles or smiles, that’s a major win in my book.

Ramble Detector ALERT !

Watched Mad Max last night – awesome film. The promise from the trailers is fully realised. It’s an epic thumping of the senses but also has a bit of story, lots of attitude and some pretty decent characters too. Thoroughly enjoyed this one.
Back to work – and it was 3 days before a teacake was on offer. I may have faded away.
(Except I’m nowhere near fading away right now, need to lose weight again !)
An amazing lady’s birthday is coming soon, hopefully she’ll let me get her something shiny.
I should be doing my hard disc upgrade while the cricket’s on ! After this.
I’m trying not to rant about cyclists with attitude problems who ride on pavements and/or ignore cycle paths.
Steam and GoG summer sales are threatening my wallet but I have mostly resisted so far (the old classic Homeworld and I’ll buy Creeper World too)
And Lexus summer sale is being curious too. Only had this car for 17 months and they want me in the next one already !

Last bit – don’t succumb to hype !

Although saying that, I fully intend to not miss out on Jurassic World. Cya !

Hmm – that time again.

I wish.

Back to work tomorrow after a week off that I sorely needed.

That was me before I disappeared for my week off. I’m still feeling tired now but that’s mostly down to the latest attempt to watch the whole of the Le Mans 24 hour race. I didn’t, I gave up at 3am and started watching again at about 9.30am.

I’ve improved over this last week. I haven’t done much, which was mostly the point. It was a rest and recover week to hopefully get some of my older strength back. The problem with my outsides has taken its toll in more ways than you’d think, plus work has been more stressful than ever lately due to :

Too much being expected of too few people (isn’t this a universal constant ?);
Destructive IT changes (isn’t IT supposed to work for you instead of get in the way ?);

Actually, that’s just two reasons for work being stressful, although that too much work thing is a fact. I’m currently covering 2 gapped posts as well as the work I’m supposed to be doing. And it looks like the fella who was in one of those posts before retiring did almost nothing. I’m discovering all the gaps. We’ll get help for those gaps soon but … the straw’s already broke and I need to find somewhere else in the organisation to work. Too many people are feeling that, which just compounds the problem.

Enough about work ! There’s still a few hours of holiday left …

Still, work has its benefits. There’s a few awesome people I work with, although they’re not all on the same site, we still keep in touch and help each other out. There’s a nucleus of people with a can-do attitude. They’re good to be around or be in contact with. I know one of them has led to a rise in the rate that I post stuff here. A few work people know about this blog but not many work people regularly look. One special lady does keep an eye on me though and I think that’s awesome.

Yep. I mean it.

That goes for another very special little lady who keeps me amused with oft-crazy-always-funny text messages. Miss ya, not seen you for too long !

Ok, what have I been up to outside of sleeping and popcorn munching ?

I started off a trip (in game) to the centre of the galaxy in that there internet spaceship game. I’m back in the populated zones now though. The game hasn’t been as stable as we’d like since the Powerplay metagame expansion came out and one thing that’s broke is the Star-Nav (like a satnav except it navigates by stars, not satellites). You used to be able to plan routes up to 1000ly distance, which made it easier to plot a course to the centre of the galaxy (27,000 light years). I was lucky to plot distances beyond 130ly today though when completing the return trip.

Yep. Back in the populated areas now, I think I’ll dabble in that metagame thingy for a bit if I do the internet spaceship gaming thing. I did 3000ly out, 2600ly coming back (return trip was more of a straight line) and the ship was only 12% broken. Hmm – that doesn’t actually bode too well there, as if you multiply up the distance and wear by 10, then ship gonna break or get paper thin and very likely to break.

Been watching lots of cricket ! Both on the telly and for reals. Thursday saw the annual pilgrimage over to Lords for the Interservices T20 tournament in aid of our service people. That’s a worthy cause always worth supporting, they’ve had a hard time lately what with Gulf War 2 and Afghanistan.

Wednesday saw me head off to Cheltenham because the car wanted to say hello to the dealer again (a “maintenance required soon” alert hadn’t been reset). That gave me the excuse to wander around and hunt for shinies.

Coulda got more shinies to be honest.

One thing I did notice on Wednesday evening (after watching San Andreas – ok amusing but not great) was that the bounce seemed to be coming back. That’s awesome. I was also bouncing round Lords on Thursday too.

That’s encouraging. I have various parts of me that are pretty broken now (back, hips) but I’ve seen progress with my outsides, they seem to be genuinely trying to heal now although it’s still a case of steps forward, steps back. Energy levels seemed to be recovering 🙂

We’ll see how that goes over the next week back at work. I suspect it won’t be long until I start itching to throw the desktop out the window. On that … I have something coming soon, which will be the second major upgrade this desktop PC will have had (the other was a graphics card). It’s done well to only need 2 upgrades in 3.5 years.

Oops. I almost talked work again. Must stop that.

Enjoy the rest of your evenings !

Day at Lords yesterday !

Believe this or not … but the sun was out all day.

And not just clear skies, it was getting pretty warm in that sun too.

I spent one of the innings watching from the upper deck of one of the stands, looking at the Lords Pavillion over in the distance there. I posted a similar pic to this one on Facebook with the comment “Shoulda brought me helmet” because that spot was right in the firing line for straight hitting. Ok, it would be a big hit from a batsman at the other end but very possible.

There wasn’t actually that much big straight hitting, most of the 4’s and 6’s were shots clobbered round the corner into the stand off to the left of this picture.

Bit like that.

At least I think that was a thump to the boundary.

As well as enjoying the cricket, I was enjoying playing with the camera. It’s a Canon Ixus 265 and I haven’t had that many chances to play with it so far. I kinda forgot that I got a 16GB memory card with it, I barely scratched the surface of that yesterday with 53 photos and an early play at taking a few videos. Not watched those yet, wonder how they turned out.

It’s much better quality than the old iPhone camera but …

iPhone camera – can talk directly to Facebook
Ixus – needs the pictures to go via Macbook
(and the Ixus refuses to talk to my Win7 desktop at all)

That’s from the iPhone camera. Similar quality (except for that little spot upper right which won’t budge) but there’s no zoom, which makes a hell of a difference for getting right into the action. I was pleased with the speed of the Ixus too, pictures were taken pretty much on the click of the botton. With my last digital camera, the picture was taken over a second after the button click.

Enough about cameras !

Navy vs Army first. I missed most of the first half due to … travel. The game started at 10am and I targeted getting to Hillingdon tube station at 9.30am to get an offpeak ticket (makes a clear different cashwise). Navy knocked up an under par 104 all out after losing too many wickets early on. An indisciplined, lacklustre and possibly even lazy performance in the field saw the Army clear that target with a couple of overs to spare. Extras very nearly ended up as top scorer, anything over 10 extras is inexcusable in these kinds of games, to give away over 30 ? Criminal.

I say lazy there … when I fielded, I made a point to attack the ball. I would be anticipating where it was going to go, even before the batsman played his shot. I’d predict where I’d need to go from what shot they were looking to play. And I saved a lot of runs that way … including running a lot more than I needed to. Hey ! I liked scampering around the cricket field like a mad thing ! Most of the fielders yesterday didn’t seem to be doing much anticipation. 1’s became 2’s and so on. I like to think I saved maybe 20 runs each innings from my fielding, not from picking up the ball and pinging it in but from convincing batsmen that it would be a Very Bad Idea to attempt a run.

Cricket’s a mind game …

So – 1 win for the Army. Next up, RAF vs Navy. And RAF promptly bash more runs in their innings than both teams combined scored in the first. Navy come second again but at least they make a reasonable effort at it.

Last game, Army vs RAF. Cagey game. Tight bowling and wickets at good times* led to RAF getting just 119 in their 20 overs. The chase was fairly cagey too, although Army started bashing it more towards the end to take victory on the day with overs to spare.
*(RAF have a star player who dominates, he got out cheaply in this game after bashing a quick 50 against Navy. Army’s team performance won them the game)

Handshakes to finish. Tea and medals for the victors and a Sleepy departing for home.

Not through those gates. Those are the Grace Gates at the Pavillion end of the ground. I legged it through the Nursery gates (closer to the Tube station).

I enjoyed the day out there. I didn’t see anyone I know, the usual cluster of friends couldn’t make it this year. It’s always better watching events like this in company as you can talk about what’s occurring. Maybe next year, or at one of the county T20 Blast games. That’s a weird one though because I don’t want to have anything to do with the local team. Perhaps Taunton for Somerset or Ageas Bowl for Hampshire.

Tired now. It was a 7.30am start, getting home at 11pm. I have the England vs New Zealand cricket on telly at the moment and England have made a promising start to a chase of 399. We shall see who wins …

Oops. Started typing, thought I’d better add a spoiler warning. Now how many words do I need to add at the top I wonder …

Just seen the end of the England vs New Zealand cricket. Great day for it, the game was a day night game which … has finished in sunshine.

Yep ! The sun occasionally shines in GB ! Perhaps not on Thursday, that’s when I toddle off to Lords to watch the IST20 games.

It’s been a good day’s watching of the cricket. Lots of incident, lots going on, England got themselves into a very strong position quite quickly after an early setback. And … highest score ever posted by England, first time 400 has been scored in a one day over here.

Add to that, a very successful return to England colours for legspinner Adil Rashid. Not only a match winning performance with the ball, he crafted out a wonderful supporting innings with the bat too. Hurrah for sticking it to the detractors and showing us what he could do. He was there all through the West Indies tour as well but didn’t play, mostly due to our current Test captain and the as-then coach being muppets.

Yep. 408 scored today with a “BOOM !” from me pretty much every time our boys hit it into the crowd and a “Good Shot Sir !” for most of the fours. Great game for the England boys, New Zealand played pretty well too actually but fell way short with the game ending in a bit of a rush with lots of wickets.

It’s distracted me away from :

That’s my Diamondback Explorer looking at the galactic core from maybe 25,000 light years out. The starfield is definitely bigger as I’ve got 3000ly closer to it. That’s only 1/9th of the distance. And one thing I’m impressed with in the game is that the starfield gets more prominent as you go away from a star. The brightness of the star suppresses the starfield.

I’ve been promised sights like the neutron star fields and the black holes. You know what a black hole is right ? Get too close and nothing escapes, not even light, because the gravitational attraction is so much that it pulls everything in.

A neutron star is different. It’s formed from the remnant of a star that’s gone through the most violent of explosions, a supernova. What’s left is maybe 2 times the mass of our sun, in a space only 12-13km across. Here’s the wiki info about them.

The basic building blocks of everything (to the atomic level ! it gets weird beyond that) are protons, electrons and neutrons. (Deletes long boring spiel about basic atomic chemisty, you ain’t interested in that). Neutrons are mostly inert particles and in a neutron star, there’s a massive number of them that collapse in on themselves to become the smallest thing they can become without becoming a black hole.

So you have something massing twice the mass of our sun, in that ball 12-13km across. In comparison, our sun is almost 1.4 million km in diameter. You’re getting the idea that a neutron star might be something very dangerous to get close to. Not just that, you might not see them due to them being so smal, unless they are gamma or x-ray pulsars which are also, horrendously unhealthy if you’re in the neighbourhood.

The way the game is set up, it has a procedurally generated (translation – guessed at but consistent for everyone) map of our galaxy. It’s based on what we know, up to a point. There’s only so much our astronomers can see. There’s also made up clusters for areas like the starting cluster from the original game. There’s a ring of these neutron stars modelled in the game, not just are they dangerous but if you go too far in, you run out of fuel and can’t get out. You can only refuel from certain types of star, definitely not from a neutron star.

And then there’s the supermassive black hole in the middle of the galaxy.

The game implements black hole lensing effects (where the light beams bend around the black hole) and I’m looking forward to seeing how those appear. Not for a while though, I still have 24000 light years to travel in my little ship.

It has a name by the way : Searching For The Larks

There’s a meaning behind that name, I’m curious to see if anyone will guess it … I may have to get the new Imperial Courier ship :

The Diamondback is small and highly useful but it isn’t what you could call “Pretty”. Bit too angular. And I know a few small, very gorgeous people who I’d like to name a ship after.

But there’s me disappearing into a game world instead of doing stuff in the real world. Perhaps a few busy days ahead :

Wednesday – off to Cheltenham to get a niggle on the car looked at. It’s asking for maintenance to be done, which should have been done at the service (someone’s missed an electronic tickbox). I’ll also look around Cheltenham for Shinies because … why not ! Shinies are good.
And then it’s back here to watch San Andreas which could be … bad and pretty amusing.
I also need more snacks for :
Thursday – Lords for the cricket ! After flirting with looking at the train, I’m going to take the car. It means more time travelling but I should be able to watch more of the games without being limited by offpeak travel times. It’s almost £70 difference between starting at 8am and starting at 9am. That’s daylight robbery.

Saturday and Sunday – Le Mans 24 hours. Looking forward to this, there’s always a story that develops throughout the race. Sometimes cars get totally rebuilt and carry on to the end. I haven’t looked at the entry list yet but I hope there will be a few Brit cars to cheer on.

And more cricket on the telly too.

Ok, have rambled on enough for tonight (including way too much science than I can justify !). Last pic ?

Hope the racing at the weekend is safe but fast and that no one gets hurt this year.

Internet spaceships !

And pretty pilot pics too.

Been back in the game today. Which in one way is a sign that I’m getting a little bit of mental energy back again :-). They’ve just updated Elite with 3 new ships and a whole new political metagame thingy.

I’m going to avoid the metagame for a while (it would restrict me too much and the benefits are not clear) but I have acquired one of the new ships. Sooo …

The old Sidewinder is in my garage in one of the old systems called Zaonce (it could probably fit into the Python’s holds). It’s joined the Python and the Clipper. I’ll go back to it after two Plans :

Explore.
Trade.

There are two community goals going at the moment where you get handy bonuses but most of all, a direction to go in. You can get lost in open world / galaxy games like this. There’s literally so much you could do, you end up doing nothing. The Eve people call it Ship Spinning. However, in Eve it’s a bit different. That game has gone towards it being essential that you go multi player. If you venture out on your own, it’s very easy for player-griefers or just the local player security force to come get you. Elite is very different, the biggest player group you can have is 3 (Eve is essentially unlimited) and you can avoid even that by using the Solo mode. You’re still connected to the online servers and the partly player driven economy but you’re not fighting players.

Pretty pilot pics ?

That’s one of the new ships, it’s called a Diamondback Explorer. And it’s very yellow indeed.

It has replaced an Asp :

The Asp is a bigger ship. Both ships have the same job, to go out into the black and see what’s out there. I might well do a bit of that this week – the trading community goal is a bit far away from that Zaonce garage.

The explore mission would involve heading off to the galactic core for the pilgrimage that quite a few Elite players are doing.

There’s 220 lightyears between the blue diamond (current location) and the red spaceship (Zaonce garage) and another 27000 light years to the galactic core. What’s there ? A supermassive black hole called Sagittarius A*. And lots more on the way.

I plan to go west for maybe 1000 light years (this is the max distance you can set up a route for) and then go pretty much straight in. So I’ll do a box pattern coming back to the blue diamond.

We’ll see. Judging how the other pilots report their trip, it might actually take a month to do the run. I don’t plan to be buried in the game that much this week.

Wait – there hasn’t been a glamour shot yet … Here we go :

The original was too dark, that’s been Gimp-i-fied for extra brightness. Looks awesome doesn’t it ? If yellow.

I’ve been ignoring the Grand Prix while tapping this out. At least it’s been better than the football was earlier. I actually turned that off midway through the second half because it was so boring. Plus the cricket was starting on the other side.

One last pic ?

Go go Pilot Dragon !

Not done one of these before.

The Throwback Thursday is a meme that I’ve seen running around the net for a good few months now and you know me with memes …

Here we go – this Throwback Thursday goes back maybe 5 years now. Could be 4. And a pic ?

Apologies for the blurriness, this is an excerpt from a scanned in old style camera pic. It was my last game (and one of very few!) as a wicket keeper, where I played for one of the work teams against the other work team. It was the last game of that season too before the rains set in. I can’t remember much of it (it was a bit of a blur !) but I can remember :

Being under the helmet for 19 out of our 20 fielding overs.

Getting the captain irritable for standing up to the stumps to him*
*(he was bowling up slope and anything that came to me standing back was coming to my feet, which is … awkward. Better to up the required skill and stand up than risk having stuff go through)

I got a catch ! It was a fine nick down the legside, which is one of the tougher catches to take because you only see the ball coming after it has passed the bat. I didn’t have to dive much but did the roll anyway 🙂 And then checked the glove to make sure I’d actually caught the ball. Confidence hey ?

I played the switch hit in the game ! This is a new novelty innovation, it isn’t played much now but I liked doing it and was getting decent with it in the nets. As a right hand batsman, my right hand is normally on the shoulder of the bat with the left hand above at the top of the handle. When you play the switch hit, you swap the hands over as late as possible. I did that too early this time and the bowler was able to put the ball in a really awkward spot, so the ball barely got 10 yards. A shame because the shot was on, there were no fielders in the shot’s hitting zone and the ball would have run away down hill.

I think I did pretty good in this game as keeper but … if you’re not used to it, the keeping takes its toll. I was shattered by the end of the game, from the keeping as well as having the helmet on for over an hour. Sweaty noggin = ugh.

We won ! Hence the celebratory picture. The other side legged it fairly quickly. I think this is one of those games where the fella who goes out with my last partner, Ravenwolf, was playing and chatting to me. I still treat him like a mate, which I suspect freaks him out. But there are boundaries where he quickly realises he should stop talking about the subject he’s gone on to. (Lesson – there’s too much hate around, if a break up happens treat it as a learning experience, don’t carry malicious thoughts around, life is too short for that).

Mentioning “life is too short” sentiments … Why the Pink Hat ?

This goes back a few years. Our team was merging with another team as the start of an initiative to change the way we support our kit. The other group didn’t really integrate that well, there were a few blockers in there who were being obstructive. One is still there actually. But one of the people that helped bring us together was The Rose.

She was a beautiful lady who always caught my grin and answered with a little smile of her own. I can still remember her face.

However. She was one of too many who are struck down by breast cancer. She started treatment the season before the Pink Hat season and died not long before the start of the season. We were devastated. It was a terrible shock to lose one so beautiful, so kind, so early.

My original idea was to raise cash for a cancer charity on a form of performance incentive thingy. However, I knew I was approaching the end of the time I could support running around like a mad thing and didn’t organise the charity collection thing. I knew that if I did, I would put too much pressure on myself to play games when I should be resting torn muscles and abused bones. I played 8 games that year, I’d normally play double that.

I did do a form of performance based donation though. I got two catches and a run out and for each of those, I put in an extra donation to other people’s charity collecting efforts. I would have donated anyway but this was a nice little bonus for them. In the end, the only performance benefits were those catches and the run out, I didn’t score any significant runs that year (wonder if it was the year I got hit for the second time ?) and my shoulder was past the point where I could bowl with it.

What I did do was raise awareness. Whenever people questioned the Pink Hat, I would tell them about The Rose. We went quiet for a little while after that and if you’ve seen me around a cricket field, you’ll know I’m pretty gobby with giving encouragement to the team. I saw that as part of my role, to make noise. A quiet team is a sleeping, drifting team and you have to attack in cricket to win. I shed a few tears under that Pink Hat too. I did miss that Pretty Lady smile.

So that’s my first Throwback Thursday post !

I hope your screens didn’t crack with the picture of me. I hope you don’t tear up too much with the story about The Rose. I think she’d want to be remembered for that wonderful smile rather than for sad reasons.

I never like to end on a sad note though.

That’s from my last ever game, hope you don’t get blinded by the sun glinting off the skipper’s head.

Remember the bad but don’t be defined by it. Live for the good.

Almost holiday time !

Really feeling the need for it.

When I get really tired, I start losing track of days, which is affected by times when I’m not in that regular Monday to Friday work schedule (Monday was an away day). What day is it today ? Yep. Wednesday but it’s a tiredness sign for me when I have to actively think about that. Bins tonight too !

Whinge time – the hurty bits have got more noticeable this week. My sleep has been compromised and I’ve been in awkward positions (stop sniggering ! ok, I admit it, I chuckled) to stop damage to my broken outsides. But that doesn’t help poorly back or shoulders. My legs have also been a bit strange, they’ve bulked up again. It’s not the swelling that I had before, my knees are ok so I don’t have the protective swelling keeping my knees happy. No, it’s like I’ve been building up the muscles in the legs again which makes them more prone to my greatest enemy, cramp.

Yep. Pain level is … noticeable. It’s not quite at “send me painkillers” but for the first time in I dunno how long, I’m considering that. Yep. Ouchies.

But I don’t want to dwell about that and you don’t really want to hear it. It’s like a call for sympathy and that’s not me. I’d do things in the past like warn the cricket people that I wasn’t up to par. And then play anyway. Daft thing is that when I was suffering from a bad back one season, playing was actually what I needed and it freed itself up pretty much as I was running on the field.

Perhaps exercise is the key ?

Two more days at work to go though. I can do that. I draw strength from lovely people who chat to me (although today the pooter nearly went out the window, our Win7 Enterprise is wobbly as jelly). It’s like giving a happy response or trying to get a response that’ll make them chuckle will rub off on me and make me a little bit happier to.

It won’t work for everyone but if you have those depressive tendencies, talk to people. Even if it’s taking advantage of accepting that offer of a 10 minute insanity break to get a coffee. If you try and hold it in, the bad thoughts become self reinforcing. And if you think a 10 minute insanity break loses you 10 minutes of work, think of how more productive you’ll be if you exorcise those bad thoughts. 10 minutes away could lead to 30 minutes less being dominated by the bad thoughts at the desk.

Happy thoughts.

But watch out for that insanity break if you have fiends who would actively consider time bomb sodas for amusement. Yes. I mean you. You know exactly who I mean.

Yep. I’ve been getting through the stretch to this week off by borrowing a little strength from all those people who chat, who give that pat on the back for Good Things, people who smile, people who let me help them out.

Plans for the time off ?

Lots of cricket watching. There should be Twenty20 games on most of the days and there will be England vs New Zealand one day games on too. I think we’ll get hammered in those, the changes made have involved dropping our two best bowlers (who are admittedly ineffectual in one day games) while the dodgy batting is allowed to stay immune to the axe. We’re also ignoring our most promising spin bowler, Adil Rashid, who spun Yorkshire to another county championship crown on a home pitch that doesn’t suit spin. Get him in the side !

Le Mans is the weekend of the 13th and 14th. I try and watch that every year. This will be my pizza opportunity. If I try to watch the whole 24 hours, making too much acid due to pizza cheese will be irrelevant because I won’t be attempting sleep. That’s the plan at least. I’ve not managed to do an all nighter since uni.

Still need to see Mad Max ! The obvious time is Friday after work, although the first showing would be about half 6. Any readers wanna join me ?

I fully expect that me and the boys will watch San Andreas too, plus Jurassic World is out next week as well. Beware the dinosaur with tools :

And coming full circle, there is the Interservices Twenty20 tournament at Lords on Thursday 11th. I’m having strange thoughts here. To get there by car is 2 hours to the underground station, then 1 hour on the underground and the same to get back. The train would be 1 hour 15 to Paddington and then a little less underground time to Lords. I’m tempted, although to get a much cheaper offpeak ticket would see me missing an hour at the start.

Of course if there is anyone who’d like to do the trip with me from Bristol ? There’s room in the car for 3 more.

It might be a fairly full week. Hopefully I can get some healing in and not too many steps backwards this time. If I can keep my posture right too and have the right kind of food and drink intake, that should help out my insides. They’re compromised at the moment by my body trying to repair the outsides and getting confused.

2 more days to go though. And despite the tired, I can see me adopting Bounce Off The Walls Get Caged Up And Chained To Desk hyperactivity on the last day to clear all the work to be done before disappearing.

And I was swearing today – the work machine was being very obnoxious.

Message to work people – hide the drums ! Don’t let me see them.

Cya !

I apologise in advance, this post might bring out the inner geek :

But I’ll try to keep that under control. If not, leave a comment and I’ll come back and do what I rarely do … fix my mistakes !

People with PCs will have seen a new icon today … it’s a bit of adware installed (without your permission, although permission is implied by the update settings) by Microsoft to beg you to go sheepishly to Windows 10.

Are you detecting my reluctance to fix something that’s not quite broken ?

It’s a free offer but it’s time limited. I think you have to register your interest by the end of July and you can choose when to install. The blurby app tells me it’s a 3GB download which will arrive … sometime. You should read the various news outlets for better detail on when the bomb drops.

For me, Windows 10, if I decide to adopt it, will require some hardware to go with the software. My desktop PC Pumpkin (so called because it was built on October 31st) has a primary drive which is only 60GB. That’s barely enough for Windows 7, with just 7GB spare after some nasty space saving measures were taken. The Windows 10 download will absorb 3GB of that and you can bet that when it’s installed, it’ll gobble up more than what’s remaining.

Where do the games go ? There’s a couple more drives installed with loads of space. But they’re slow conventional drives.

Aside – there are 2 types of drive. Slow and fast. Slow drives are the old spinny platter things, fast ones (SSDs) are memory devices. The reason we are so frustrated with our work machines now is because they are built on the old spinny platter drives, which take ages to find all the bits and pieces of Windows that are scattered all over it. A reader arm has to physically reach over the platter to find the data and the platter has to spin at the right rate to pull the data off in order. The more scattered the data, the more those physical limits slow everything down. The SSDs aren’t tethered to those physical limits.

Too geeky ?

Conventional drives = slow to pull the data off, very slow to find the data, bigger capacity
Solid State Device drive (SSD) = fast to find the data and to send it round the system. Much smaller.

As part of my upgrade, I’ll acquire a 250GB drive that’ll cost me around £80. You could get a 2TB (8 times bigger) conventional drive for £75. But you’d be looking at the Whirly Waity Wheel a hell of a lot if you put Windows on that.

But you’re not interested in the hardware bits.

Windows 10 or not to Windows 10 ?

Microsoft have had a sketchy record, ever since Windows 3.11. But that’s history, although we have learned more recently to be very scared of what they come out with.

Me ? I’ll be holding off on committing to Windows 10 until the early adopters have had their say. This is after dodging the unholy abomination which was Windows 8 and 8.1. There are curious features in there, there are useless features in there. Having a peek at the blurb app :

Start menu is back – it should never have been removed.
Touch interfaces – curious but … they make fingerprints on the screen. I’ll stick to mouse+k/b.
Start fast, resume fast – how about operate fast ? I only start my work machine once a day and that time is irrelevant. What is relevant is how much time is wasted between click and response, partly due to unnecessary shinies built in (the animations) and mostly due to broken disc algorithms.

Work with current hardware and software – I’ll believe that when I see it. I can’t use my favourite flightstick any more (a Microsoft FF Pro) because they don’t do drivers (bigger problem – it doesn’t plug in on new hardware). And my Windows 7 desktop cannot talk to my camera and is unreliable talking to my printer. That’s just one example. Although … Mac isn’t blameless there, my Macbook Air can’t talk to my old Airport Express because Apple did their thing with not supporting older components.

Beware the dependency between hardware and software.

Cortana – keep it away. It’s bloatware that soaks up memory and slows things down. Anyone had the Stickykeys pop up when they’re in a game, only for it to kill you in the game ? I see Cortana as a similar threat.
Stream from Xbox to PC – Why would you do this ??? Games are crippled at the moment by the publishers need to have them on consoles which are vastly inferior to the modern gaming PC. Even an older gaming PC like mine (mostly 4 years old, 2 year old graphics) is vastly superior to a console.

New software – “browser, Photos, Maps, Messaging, Music and Video” you mean the stuff we had already … However, a new browser will be welcome. Internet Explorer needs to be taken out back, shot and buried in a lead lined coffin.

Windows store – scary. App stores are the first step towards fixing the software that will run on a machine. Beware.

But the big final “Don’t upgrade yet!!!” nail in the coffin is that the current Windows 10 is not ready. It’s not complete. And they’re looking to deploy in under 2 months.

I’ll be holding off on the change for now. There will be plenty of keen people out there who will happily throw themselves into the Next Big Thing. My advice ? Don’t be one of them, let them test it out (and find some of the bugs) for you.

Perhaps the next time I end up in Portsmouth (my IT component supplier is now only based there) I’ll pick up one of those bigger newer SSDs. That way, I can use Acronis TrueImage (used it before, I’d recommend the time limited free version) to copy this Windows 7 over to the new drive. And then I’ll have a backup to go back to in case Windows 10 is a horrible mess.

It’s weird actually. When I built this machine, I knew that Windows 7 would likely be the last Microsoft product I would buy. My laptop went Mac, Linux is competent but not quite there yet in terms of supporting all the games. But now I’m considering falling for Windows 10. It shows how much of a stranglehold the software companies have on us, we feel compelled to have the latest software in order to be : safe, secure, interoperable with new devices, in with the crowd.

Baa.

Whichever way you go – be careful. Our software companies are a shadow of what they used to be.

Beware what might be in the tasty goodie offered to you.

And on that cynical note … cya ! Need to fish a Happy Post idea out of that Bonza Post Ideas magic hat next time.

I think I got home just about in time today !

I had another away trip today. Just 100 miles there, 100 miles back this time which is a bit more distance than it needs (can do it in 80 miles but it’s quicker to go around the houses on the motorway).

I got home just before Noah signalled All Aboard on the ark. It’s gone even grimmer since.

That’s from ages and 1 car ago but it pretty much sums up how things are today. Also add in wind that was strong enough to blow the hat off between me exiting the car and getting in the house. And that’s maybe just 12 feet !

Someone said on Twitter that it might be her fault seeing as she’s just come back from holidays. No I don’t think you’ve chased the sun away Kim ! Maybe it’s the cricket. Besides, those Kim-videos are just what we need on a grim rainy day to banish the darkness. It has no chance against that innate sense of fun that you bring to the gaming videos.

(I do hope she has a peek and reads that !)

That’s it for me and work travel until after I get back from a week off. 4 more days in office, 3.5 really because I have a heap of flexi credit now and fully intend to spend some of it watching Mad Max on Friday. Anyone care to join me ?

Hmm. Gone chilly. Which means an excuse to pull out one of my favourite pics :

Wow – that’s 2 cars ago now and I haven’t looked back at that horrid Focus at all. It was a 52 plate ST170 which had a failing 3rd gear (compromised design made the 3rd gear very weak), amongst other problems. It guzzled the petrol and didn’t have the chassis to back up the limited power it had. It was a little faster than the Puma but was slower from A to B because you just couldn’t throw it through corners with any confidence. Whereas the Puma would get airborne at 70mph on my favourite roundabout exit bump, I’d rarely go past 50 in the Focus because it was still wobbling around from the last corner.

I do like a car that handles well. It’s what drew me to the Lexus CT, although that didn’t have enough power to keep me happy. The IS has more power but hasn’t truly convinced me about it’s handling. Perhaps it’s too big and heavy ? It does do well on that B road I love (look up Colsterworth by the A1 around Stamford, south of Grantham – lovely bit of rally track road)

I digress.

It may be nasty and horrible out there (and I got in just as the spray on the motorway was approaching white-out conditions) but … Keep a smile on there.

Shut those curtains, batten down the hatches, ignore that howling wind (hopefully you secured all potentially flying objects !) and enjoy your evening, however you intend to spend it.

Me ? I have the music on, I’m listening to a Hannah video in the background, there’s another Hannah video queued up (she’s a funny lady) and I’ll queue up a few more videos after too. Not really in the mood to watch dvd’s (I need to watch Jurassic Park 3 again before watching Jurassic World!) and my brain is still a bit too fried to do gaming tonight. (Out the door at 7am, back home at 5pm, 220 miles travelled and having to act sensible most of the day)

If a little chill out still fails to keep out the apocalypse that seems to be happening outside, there’s always :

(thx Thumper!)

Goodnight and if you’re a small person* who chooses to venture out in this, may you either have an anchor in your bag** or a friendly person to offer their hand to hold to stop you blowing away.

*(just saying cos I know a few very special small people !)
**(the rumours that ladies have everything in their handbags is … yet to be disproved … and is quite possibly the original idea behind the D and D Bag of Holding)

You know I like the games …

I probably don’t play them as much as people think. Often, I’ve expended so much mental energy at work, that when I get home I don’t want to burn any more mental energy on the games. Or I’ll fall back into the games where I’ve already well and truly learned the template for playing it and succeeding at it.

There is an exception – when those messages come in, my brain will go “YEY!” as it tries to think of something that’ll make the other person chuckle.

I’ve been writing more here too. Appreciation leads to more scribbles !

Now if I only had a magic hat with “Bonza Post Ideas” hidden in all this clutter.

About that gaming … I mentioned I wasn’t enjoying Elite as much as I had been in the earlier days of me playing it. There’s that psychological gratification that comes with upgrading the ship or even going up to the next ship. Milestones if you will. And that psychological reward response that comes from that little win of reaching that next rung.

And I’d hit a point where the next rung was pretty high up and I wasn’t wanting to go into the game to work my way up to it. That’s the indicative word … “work”. If a game feels like work and not play, it’s time to find something else that’s more enjoyable for leisure/fun times.

Some may say – why not get out more and see things with people ? Hell yeah ! If it rains in the cricket tomorrow, I’ll go see Mad Max. (It can wait a bit). We’ll see San Andreas sometime this week with the movie mob. I’ll hopefully persuade someone special that she really wants to see Jurassic Park 4 with me. I don’t see her often enough and I miss that bubbly chuckle. Or another amazing person who I’ve only come to know recently might like to accompany one to the IST20 day at Lords :-).

Yep. Options. It’s not all about staying indoors.

However – game time ? I’ve done what I’ve called a soft reset. I bought enough upgrades for the Python in order to soak up the available capital. Then I bought the starter ship and was left with maybe 50k. Enough to start with, bit more than you do start with but … hey … To give you a sense of scale, the starter Sidewinder costs 32k and can carry 10 tonnes the way I have it set up. The Python would cost 56m to buy now and set up costs add quite a bit to that. It’s like buying a car only to realise you need to buy the seats extra.

What’s a Sidewinder ?

There we go. Something small, paper thin and like a little box. There’s about enough room in there for the pilot and an engine … But to give it credit, it’s super manoeuvrable. The Segway of the Elite world ? (if the pilot is carrying the cargo in a backpack perhaps)

While the cricket’s been on in the background, I’ve been going from place to place carrying cargo for the best trades. And running from the one fight I ended up in. It’s not worth putting guns on this tiny ship, you wouldn’t get to fire them much if you did use them.

From a start of maybe 60k, I’m now up to a ship worth 90k (upgrades!) and have 90k in the bank. And I had fun flying the little thing around too. It’s a bit more hands on because you don’t have the space to put a docking computer in. That would take 2t of the 10t space and make it that much slower to get the money in.

Yep. Had fun.

Something else I intend to do is have a decent run through a couple of old games, Baldur’s Gate and Baldur’s Gate 2. These are old style role playing games where your character is caught up in a much more epic story. My guy is a Kensai fighter (isn’t allowed armour, waves a Big Sword) and I’ve lucky with some awesome stats. The game isn’t nearly as much fun as playing the Dungeons and Dragons game it’s based on with other people but … there’s still chuckles to be had.

There’s that theme again – would rather play with others than be on my own. Although … would you think this is true ?

Yep. There’s dragons in that there Baldur’s Gate game …

Hmm. Random thought – why these games and not others like League of Legends, Warcraft or Counterstrike ? I liked the levelling aspect in Warcraft and the interplay with Guildlink and Violence Reborn. Not so much the repetition. There would be an aspect of improving the character but to all intents and purposes, all 3 games are just plain repetition. That doesn’t interest me. The story is what interests me.

So with Baldur’s Gate, there is the legendary developer Bioware’a ability to spin an excellent tale. With Elite, it’s that progression from humble beginnings to the bigger, more capable ships.

Back to heading out – I think that’s one excellent sign. There’s still damage on my arms and legs that’s proving difficult to heal but … it’s steadily getting better, when I allow it. The damage is still incredibly easy to inflict and takes a while to repair. But it’s getting there.

And it’s at that point where I may be able to show those arms off in public without being suspected of being the harbinger of the next Zombie invasion. The legs need a little more time.

I think there’s a few people out there that think of me like that.

I have my flaws, inside and out. But to know that a few people are able to look past those flaws and like Me. That’s golden.

I’d like to pass that message on to you all. Don’t try to change yourself because of an impression that someone would like you to be different. If they are attracted to you, they were drawn to how you were instead of how you think you should be. And I know a few people who I whole heartedly believe are amazing. They’re all different, which makes them more interesting than anything.

And I’m rambling … One last pic !

I may be heading back into those clouds soon. I have that next ship in my sights.

Chase your goals ! Even if they are internet spaceships. Although real life stuff is always better than internet spaceships.