I like exploring in computer games, music, cricket, drawing and pizza and sharing those with people. Oh and I also inherited the name Sleepydwagonman too ! The site is a work in progress at the moment but it's getting there, features will come in over time !
A highly secretive organisation got in touch and they want me doing things for them. Not quite sure what yet but it’s going to involve a pretty sharp new suit.
Proudly reporting for duty
Apparently they’re into a diversity kick at the moment and want to bring in all sorts of talent (yes, they said talent!) from outside the normal places. People who would look beyond the normal and see the actual situation, despite what the conditioning and prejudice tells them they’re seeing.
Someone who hears a fellow alien say “It’s not easy being green” and go “Yeah dude, I been there too.” And then go do the obvious thing :
Wonder what kind of weird and wonderful pizzas they have ? But yeah, a couple of people appeared a few weeks ago with the offer. They kinda looked like this :
Ooo, mysterious
See the familiar car marquee sign there ? Yeah, the latest car is one of their training cars. It’s to get new recruits used to the systems inside the equipment without it having the daft levels of wonderful imported alien technology that the front line agents have access to. Yep. My latest one looks the part but it’s a bit more modest.
Although … they have let me take a spin on one of the rocket bikes …
Let ‘er ride !
It went whoosh, which made me happy (see that smile? Happy).
They’ve taken me on the tour already, Jay said hi. I was starstruck. The Worm Guys are back and are being the Worm Guys. Frank the Pug is getting older but still hanging in there (although he said that if we called him adorable, he would bite us). It was a little surprising that things seemed to be business as usual with no immense crisis going on. (A quiet day, although there was a vague memory of a pen and a red light).
I’m wondering how soon it will be before I get given an assignment that sees me out in the field as Agent S, alongside one of the more experienced agents learning the trade from them. Defending the Earth against those who threaten our peace and way of life.
Oh and also keeping the secret safe.
On that note …
Don’t worry about the shades
I was bursting to tell you all the news, hence writing this post for this special day of the year. But one of my new colleagues is tapping his hand on my wing. He needs you to look into this pen type object and look out for the red light.
Just look right here at the light please
FLASH
Really enjoying the car everyone, it’s great ! Oh and I have next week off work too, which should be great. I need to find some excuses to get out and about around the galaxy seeing the sights, taking in the atmosphere, bathing in that purple sunlight.
See you around. In the meantime,
Stay safe, be well and treat everyone as you would want to be treated, whether they be as you are or a little bit different. Oh and watch out for tentacles, they’re really sensitive you know.
This post probably should have come out a bit sooner ! It’s been a weird weekend, definitely haven’t been feeling particularly great over the last couple of days. That might be more fallout from vaccine but it’s probably more cumulative effect from getting close to needing more time offline.
Still, the deed is done, wrapped up the second last loose end today (the last one is getting the work related stuff updated but that’s fairly trivial), just need some excuses to get out and about in it.
Erm … what am I talking about ?
New blue shiny
There we go. That’s Car as it was when I picked it up at the garage on Friday. Curious to see an electric charger point on the wall behind … That’s for their UX electric cars. This one is an ES300h hybrid. The power train is essentially the same as the IS300h’s I had before, except that it’s been turned through 90 degrees (I think !) and powers the front wheels instead of the back wheels. There’s a 2.5 litre long stroke* engine again with a couple of electric motor generators providing the hybrid bits and acting as a pseudogearbox.
*Engines are normally very similar bore and stroke. The bore is the diameter of each cylinder, the stroke is how much the cylinder goes up and down. That all calculates together to give the cubic capacity of the engine. More capacity, more power. What Lexus have done with their engines is to make the stroke a bit longer than usual, it doesn’t give as much power but it does extract more energy out of each boom that happens as the engine fires. And then there are a couple of big motors there to supplement the power.
This one is a little longer than my last few, which kinda takes them in a direction that I don’t want to go as I prefer smaller, nippier cars. I haven’t tested it round corners yet, outside of choosing the off motorway stretch I can go to when coming home. Felt good on that.
There’s more toys on this one, including a nicely chunky 12.3″ display in the centre. The music sounded great on the way back too. I’ve lost the seat coolers from the previous car but there’s a Climate Concierge thingy that apparently automatically blows cold air up from your feet if the temperature gradient suggests that should be a Thing. Hopefully the seats will be an improvement, the old ones weren’t bad but I am being more prone to cramping and hip issues as I get older.
The dwagons seem to like it
I had to stop off at the farm shop on the way back, partly because of LOOT, partly due to wanting a couple more pictures and a little reset before the rest of the trip home.
The toys are a little different on this one. Low level autonomy is still in the car in the shape of radar assisted cruise control and lane keeping cameras. I don’t think I’ll be using the lane keeping assistance because it feels a lot fiercer than the last car and it felt like I was fighting the car instead of relaxing into the cruise. The road sign cameras can apparently pass the message on to the cruise control now, must try that. When the speed limit changes, I usually take back control and do the change in advance and more smoothly than cruise control does it, so it’ll be curious to see what the electronics do.
I need to read the book more to see how to get the best out of the satnav. The idea is to get the technology making things easy for you, instead of you having to interact with it to show you what you want to see.
As an aside, I can still vaguely remember the old days where I’d have an A4 sheet of paper that would have the big directions elements written down on it, from planning ahead with a road atlas. It’s like … remembering but I don’t miss that at all. I’ll come back to satnav later.
I don’t have all the toys on this one (like the automatic boot opener alas!) but I do have many, many toys to take advantage of and get used to. Like a blind spot manager that lights something up in the wing mirrors when someone is coming alongside. And the ones from before like the darkener for the mirrors that stops you getting dazzled when someone comes up behind with bad lights. I would definitely miss parking sensors and the reversing camera, they help out massively.
Loot !
I’ve broken from tradition a little there by taking the description out of the alt-text and into the main text. I couldn’t go past the farm shop service station without bringing some things back with me. Here’s the list … In a box in front is a salted caramel chocolate brownie. To the left and right in front are a couple of bags of strawberry bonbons. On top of the box is a Chocolate Dwagonsaur and Chocolate Bunny (I oopsed! It should have been 2 Dwagonsaurs!) and lemon sherbets. Behind is an (empty) box with a large chocolate mint choc teacake (chocolate dome with marshmallow inside) on top, flanked by a bag of chocolate brownies on the left and all butter fudge on the right. On top of the box, there are 2 bags of Kola Kubes and a bag of candy mice. Behind, there is a blue box from the garage (which holds a bottle of Prosecco) upon which sit my Red Dwagon and my Green Dwagon. On top of the blue box sits a smaller black box with a brown case on top (which holds the spare car key).
Gosh, that’s a lot. That’s the kind of description I’m attempting to put in my alt-text for screen readers, it just felt like I needed to have that in the main text this time because there’s a lot going on there and some hidden things.
That loot should last me a good few weeks.
Gosh. Running out of speed. (Plus the F1 has started and I’m watching that live with time delayed cricket on the telly)
As to why I changed, there were a few issues with the last car which prompted changing away from it.
1 – annoying and embarrassing … the centre compartment lid liked to open at random, especially when the car was at rest. Probably expansion of air in the heat. This would make the alarm go off …
2 – annoying but mostly manageable – a change happened in the satnav which meant it just gave up before the crucial Last Mile.
3 – worrying … On one of the last pre-covid business trips in late 2019, I was driving back with colleagues when on the motorway, a large sturdy canvas bag came bouncing down the road towards us. I couldn’t avoid it due to cars to left and right, I had to drive through it with it going under the right side of the car and past. I never felt any effects after like the car pulling to one side but the mpgs were down by 10-20% since. Instead of getting 50+, I was getting 43-45. Car drove fine, nothing was spotted on 2 services since but I think there was damage there.
Oh and I think the dead car incident at the end of last year might have damaged the 12V battery.
So it will seem very extravagant making the change again but I think my reasons were good.
I’d better sign off there cos the F1 and cricket are kicking off 😀 … One last pic :
Is that something in the sky ?
Did something strange appear in the sky between going into the farm shop and coming out again ? Hope they make it back to their time safely.
Stay safe everyone, be well.
PS A little covid related addendum … the garage adapted to the new situation we find ourselves in pretty well. Everything was done online, including digital signatures for finance documents and sending the other documents through via email. The only face to face meeting requirement was right at the end, where we did the handover and this was done outside the showroom with us being masked up.
Last week’s been a bit weird, at least since Saturday. I got jabbed …
Doctor will see you now
Yep. Jab on Saturday. I was pleasantly surprised to get the call actually, I’m a little below the 50 year old threshold got called last week but whatever the reason, I’m glad I had it.
I think I have had side effects from it but that’s something I’ll happily accommodate if it means opening everything up again. Besides, that’s a sign that the vaccine is doing its job in getting your body’s defences ready to fight a pretty nasty virus. I’ve mostly been in a bad brain condition for the few days since, although today has been better. My muscles were complaining over the weekend as well.
If you’re hesitant about the vaccine due to a fear of needles, don’t be. I barely felt a prick as they did mine and couldn’t see the evidence of the hole it made. I’m a bit nervous about needles. I make a point of looking away, so that I don’t tense up as I see the needle going in. Being relaxed makes the job easier for the stabby person and that makes it easier on you too.
It’s been a weird year hasn’t it … I’ve barely seen anyone I know all year. I’ve seen my mum once. I’ve seen barely any of the friend people, just in random encounters in Tesco. I’ve spotted my neighbour Cyberkitten a few times. Chinese happened a couple of times. It’s good to see the lady who slips bonus prawn crackers into the bag. Pizzas have kept coming … Shopping trips were cut down to a bare minimum.
I’ve seen work people on two occasions since this time last year when we were at an away trial. Our place went work from home very early and stayed that way even over last summer.
Hmm. Must think of something to write up for April 1st. I’m short on ideas at the moment.
But yeah … this last year has been very different. Perhaps it’s indulged a reclusiveness tendency ? Yeah, I’ll need to break that.
The internet communities have probably gotten a lot stronger over the last year, outside of a certain amount of craziness last summer when we didn’t really know what was going on. Some of the internet communities are better than others, I’ve walked away from one and I’ll walk away from another soon. Gotta look at your own mental health and if a community is bad for that, find a different one.
Oh ! This blog happened as well, in a crazy few days in October. I need to do more work on it to be honest. Things like carrying over the blogroll and the useful links from the old blog. There are a few other things too :
Alt-text – first up because I think this is really, really important ! I’ll get back to accessibility later but this one is for people who depend on screen readers. The alt-text for images is my attempt at describing them for people who can’t see them. I would have liked to go back through all the posts when I got time but it ain’t gonna work for the 1700 or so posts that were imported over from the old blog.
Dark mode / light mode – accessibility again. It’s really important that when you make a site, it’s accessible by everyone. Some people get blinded by dark text on white background. (I don’t like that on screens, it works for me in books though). I like white text on a dark background with screens. It’s kinder on my eyes.
And a few other points that are escaping my still a little addled brain at the moment.
Accessibility is absolutely key though. I’ve clicked on a few links and then immediately closed the site due to things like paywall blocking, cookie popups and other things that force you do to stuff you don’t want to agree to. Or it could be because you simply cannot read what’s on the screen.
That’s ok. If you’re affected by accessibility issues, then it’s the responsibility of the person making the site to make sure we accommodate you. We want you to stay and read, if you can’t then we lose you as a reader. Every reader is important, whatever the scale of the site.
I think I’m rambling … Screenshot time ?
Pointy Hat ! Errr, wait ?
Got a new hat ! And shiny armour that, contrary to fantasy game norms, actually looks protective …
I’ve been having another look at the Pathfinder Kingmaker game as well. More on that at another time, I’m barely through the prologue on that one but it is great to see that it’s grown a turn based mode. That’s a weird thing. Table top role playing games started with pen and paper systems, where everyone, player and monster, took turns to act. When Baldur’s Gate came around in the 90s, everything still took its turn but it was presented to the player as a simultaneous action thing. My brain never really got on with that. It’s funny to see things turn full circle again now, with Pathfinder growing its turn based mode and Baldur’s Gate 3 also going turn based.
It makes for more relaxing gameplay, especially when there’s a lot going on in the encounters. Like 15 characters and enemies in the encounter that Fuzzy is playing through at the moment on stream. (Twitch link)
As a weird aside, I find myself craving tomato ketchup. I haven’t had tomato ketchup in years. Wonder what reminded me of it ?
Thanduc’s Retreat
I’ve visited another black hole since the last post … Managed to get a great angle too.
Where’s the bar ?
I wanted to see what that paint job really looks like though.
All shinied up again
Looks rather smart doesn’t it ? Happy with this one.
I better sum up here, it won’t be a week until the next post. Car’s coming on Friday and I’ll be going someplace to a) pick it up and b) get pictures. The fact that the place to get pictures will also have a farm shop is purely coincidental … honest.
Believe in Dog
Stay safe everyone, be well and if you are offered a vaccination soon, please do take it. The side effects are worth the pay off we’ll all get later when shops, cinemas, restaurants and the rest are able to open up again and we’re able to go Out There again with no fear of plague.
Haha, that’s a fun title from a fun meme. But that’s a little what it felt like on Friday night when I tried to do shopping. (The TLDR is that car was resurrected, shopping happened and the ghosts are quiet again).
Eek
I can’t remember watching that movie but the meme’s there. It’s from Christine, penned by Stephen King and filmed by John Carpenter, where a car is haunted, possessing a possessive personality that has taken a liking to her new owner.
There’s another meme about the Moon … This one goes like :
NASA Employee : “Hey, you guys are back early”
Astronaut : “Moon’s haunted”
NASA Employee : “What ?”
Astronaut : (loading a pistol and getting back on the rocket ship) “Moon’s haunted”
And here we come to Friday … I’ve mentioned this before but it’s worth saying it again (mebbe), hybrids have 2 batteries. There’s a 12V like a normal car and a massive 220V (they vary) traction battery energy store. Whereas a normal car will start by the 12V cranking the battery and then run off the alternator, the hybrid starts up all of its electronics on the 12V and then the engine is cranked using the traction battery.
However, if the 12V battery goes flat when the car isn’t used, odd things can happen. The first sign is weird messages on start up if the charge is getting low, or a dead car if the battery’s flat. The locks work off the 12V battery (there’s a mechanical key as backup).
If the charge level is just too low to allow the car to start up, Very Strange Things Happen. Like lights flickering on and off, which steadily reduce in brightness until dead car happens. This was when all the doors were unlocked too, so it needed sorting out that night.
Thankfully, I’d made preparations and had acquired a portable jump starter thingy (A Thing With A Battery And Jump Leads), in anticipation for this kind of situation occurring again. I’d seen the process done before a couple of times on 2 Lexii by AA People but this was the first time I’ve done it myself. There’s a connector under the bonnet that you’re supposed to use, or you can attach the leads to the battery in the boot, if you can get to it (mechanical lock again). I won’t describe that too much here, there are videos that do it better.
So yep, car behaving like it was haunted, throwing up a few errors for a while after I got it going again (low battery level). But it’s all ok now, verified by taking it kebab hunting last night. (I needed to find a recycling place for bottles and needed an excuse to make sure car was still ok). The cause is consequences from driving much less these days in the situation we’re all in.
I need a name for the next car by the way … I’m drawing a blank and should move away from the Star Trek theme from the last 3.
First IS was called Grey Ghost, because it was silent and grey. The name was what they called the Enterprise in WW2. So …
Second IS was called Alpha, after NCC 1701A. And then the third one was called Stan, after NCC1701B was an Excelsior class. Stan Lee did like using the word Excelsior. Following that trend, NCC1701C was an Ambassador class, but I think I go away from Enterprises because it’ll be a different type of car.
Other travels have been occurring …
Fiery whoosh !
Shiny. That’s how I logged back in the other day and I was experimenting with trying phone aspect ratio screenshots. (I.e. tilt 90 degrees and then rotate the result in MS Paint). Sometimes the best screenshots have a bit of planning, sometimes they’re just the fortuitous result of logging in just at the right time.
Shoulda put a ring on it, oh wait !
Nice place. Can’t land on it yet.
So close to the tea
That’s me visiting an Earth Like planet, actually one of those in the database, a planet called To Behold. A little taste of home, far from home.
That hill fell from the sky
What looks fairly flat there is actually an impact crater on a moon … You might just be able to see the faint circle of a planet above the top left of the hill. The hill is the impactor. It felt like a good place to stop for the session …
Firey
Not a great place to set up the summer house but a spectacular place to go by. I could have stopped there today on one of the moons of this place (for the tourist piccys) but wanted to cover a bit more distance.
Lovely canyons
Bit of a rushed pic, I snapped that one just as the ship was about to transition to the dive that they do between space flight and planetary flight.
Blue campsite
This is where I stopped the session tonight, after going a little more around the north side of the galaxy. I’m definitely wanting to be back in the civilised areas of the galaxy now, although it’s good finding curious places to take hopefully great looking screenshots at.
Investigating …
Final Fantasy XIV is being fun still. I’m about to move on to a place where I should be able to get my dangerous dragon lady some fancy armour too. Still a bit early days for this one but it’s a fun game to dip in and out of.
Hat needs more pointiness
I still have the pointy hat.
Hmm … I think after rambling like that, time to close ! So …
Car’s haunted (I think the dead battery before Xmas caused some permanent damage to the battery), internet spaceship travels are finding some nice places and Dangerous Dragongirl has been helping people out. There’s been a couple of physical issues as well though. I hurt my arm by playing Mars Horizon with the mouse in the wrong place, that’s mostly recovered now. Doing stuff with the car on Friday had an impact over the weekend as well but that’s mostly better as well now.
Time to catch up on today’s news … which I’ll be avoiding talking about because I’ll say things that at least a few people would spark off on ! Like appearing at a vigil with a protest shirt on, causing trouble and then getting photographed with said protest shirt. That’s not being respectful to the person the vigil was organised for, that’s being unforgiveably political. See ? In danger of being political :-D.
Another week in the books … Getting closer to Easter ! I’m enjoying the Mini Eggs while we have them. Hmm, maybe it’s find for the Mini Eggs avatar …
Tasty Things
It’s the usual things this week. Work, which I don’t talk about much here (it’s a separate thing). Relaxing in the evenings, I’ve been enjoying watching Fringe again, it’s been getting repeated on SyFy channel over the last month or so. It was a cracking series in its day and still stands up really well. It felt like there was a plan going through its arcs.
I’ve abandoned a book ! I’d been attempting to get into the 1978 novelisation of the original Battlestar Galactica. From the book, it’s obvious that there was a lot more thought gone into the backstory of that earlier version than went into the new one. I think that’s what soured me on the new series. The space scifi action stuff was amazing but it fell apart for me with the psychological aspects and … a lot of it just didn’t make sense. It hit a pinnacle with the storming of New Caprica episode and dived down a tunnel from there.
The next book is going to be Shadow Captain, book 2 of the Revenger series by Alastair Reynolds. Haven’t quite opened it yet. Later :-D.
Ringy Loveliness
A little bit of internet spaceship happened, to be honest though I wasn’t feeling the spaceship thing much this week so I only did a short hop. Still 64,000 light years from home. I ended up pitching up the tents in a canyon …
A restful stop
XCom 2 has had another little look and I’ve figured out how to the get the old mods loading …
Let Slip the Dog Of War
That’s one of the silly ones, called the Acorg-47 mod. I won’t be using that one much (the other weapons are better and this mod is funny but silly) but it was a good test case to get things working again. Anyway, this was a semi frenzied thing today before stream watching started up. More XCom 2 at some point when I’ve done more customisation. It’s a good challenging strategy game and it’s great to see your people progressing through.
Oh and this also means that the Hello Kitty armour and weapon pattern mods are working again.
Talking of overwhelming wholesomeness …
Baby Dragon Girl
I opened up Final Fantasy XIV again. I went away from this partly because my shoulder was giving me trouble but mostly because I got heavily distracted into Star Trek Online. I kicked the ST Online habit, mostly because I was getting bored with where its stories were going as well as the game mechanics at maximum level. It felt like you were doing the busywork that increases as you level more instead of enjoying the storylines.
Final Fantasy XIV is definitely an incredibly cute game. It’s engineered that way. I’m mostly retracing steps from my first character, albeit with a tank class instead of a damage class. Definitely enjoying it though.
POINTY HAT
It’s going to take something good to pry that hat out of her hands. As Keldra Gondanne is a tank character, I’m looking forwards to finding some super shiny armour for this dangerous dragonlady. Maybe when I get to the part of the game where she can learn blacksmithing and armour crafting.
One merchant at a time
Just helping out there.
Beware the little guy
Game pops up fun stuff and definitely doesn’t take itself too seriously, which just adds to the charm. It’s pretty free with what you can do in game as well. Now my character has gotten to level 15 in the main “job”, she’s free to join other guilds too. So there’s the crafting guild, in this case jewelcrafting, gathering guilds … and other classes too. If you put enough time into the game, you could have one character that could be tank, melee damage, ranged damage, caster damage, healer … There’s lots of potential there.
And a storyline I’m looking forwards to playing.
City Housing Area
Some day, I’ll investigate the housing.
It’s been good being back in the game and being charmed by the characters and the story quests.
Did I mention doxxing above somewhere ? There’s something I really want to whinge about. But I can’t because if I do, you can find out stuff about me that I’d rather remain confidential. That’s so annoying isn’t it ? Venting denied on this occasion.
There’s also been the inevitable Mars Horizon (I have all the achievements now!) and Motorsport Manager. I’m close to the final phase of the GT car part of my current campaign. When they’re built up to maximum, I’ll quit that team and move on to the endurance racing.
I’ve been looking at the time since last post happened and wondering … what’s been happening since last time ? It’s being a weird time for things like that. We’re in our lockdown bubbles waiting for the numbers to go down, while thinking of things that will happen when we come out again.
To be honest, I thought we’d be out by now. Or at least early enough to be able to do Mothers Day type things. Perhaps in the USA where it’s in May. Our one is March in the UK. The first lockdown and all the fear around that last year was all enveloping but florist deliveries were still happening so we were able to still mark the day even if no visiting was happening.
Not sure what will happen this year. I’d rather not drive this car too much over the next month, with the next one coming “soon” (not had a date yet). Mind you, I did have to give it an extended run on Friday because the message “Hybrid System Stopped” popped up when I turned it on which I think is a confused message for “12V battery low”.
Thumbnail pic ?
Very blue
I was out and about again for a couple of sessions since last post. That was the Distant View in Blue, a small nebula with a black hole in the centre. This is probably a black hole that would be actively consuming the matter around it, which would normally mean a bright accretion disc as the matter is accelerated to near the speed of light as it goes into tighter and tighter orbits. Elite doesn’t do the accretion discs, just very spectacular gravitational lensing.
Car stuff ? My car’s a hybrid, so it has two batteries. It has a small 12V battery like most cars, plus it has the 200+ V traction battery that supplies the motors. (Power is Volts x Current, high Volts means less Current means thinner wires … is a big oversimplification!) While the traction battery will come back at the same charge level after a few weeks, the 12V battery is what actually starts the car up before handing over to the big one. That drains over time and then Odd Things start happening when it’s getting to lower charge. That’s not an issue, just means you might need a jump start in order to turn the car on if you’re barely using the car.
Because you know, pandemic stuff and not going to places. The quick fix is to go up the motorway for a junction, come back and realise you forgot your wallet before you go into the supermarket for supplies … because realising you forgot your wallet while in the supermarket would have been really embarrassing. (I realised just before I got to the motorway !)
Going long distance
It’s not like you need to drive to the end of the universe to charge up the battery or anything.
Where are the stars ?
Literally no stars there. The ongoing travels of the Searching for Dragons has taken her to the extreme opposite end of the galaxy from us, beyond Beagle Point and on to Salome’s Reach. That’s the farthest away from Earth you can get in the game.
There are no stars there … Literally because there are no stars in the galaxy beyond that point. (Or maybe I’m hiding one behind the ship !)
Back to reality though. It’ll be good to be getting out and about again. There’s people I haven’t seen in far too long. It’d be good to see them again. It was good getting a message from someone I used to work with (ish!) who is looking at getting into making videos. About actual real life things ! With a face ! (I’d never do that … Sleepy Face is bad). Here’s a channel link. It was good watching that first video last night.
I dropped my channel fairly early. I did enjoy the learning how to do the videos, seeing the production process through from planning (yes there was a semblance of planning), to set up, into production and direction, editing and release. But I also realised that doing that along with a day job was not particularly viable. I do like watching the videos, playing the games, listening to music and hanging in with the streams … you can’t do that at the same time as recording. You need the quiet time which means none of all that other stuff.
But I can still remember a lovely HeyChrissa lady saying I need to do more videos because she liked my voice. It’s a shame she retreated from the public life and stopped doing the streaming, she was a good egg there but it was causing mental distress so she had to walk away from that life.
Gosh, this is a bit rambly isn’t it.
XCom2 is also happening on and off …
The squad is growing
Fun game. Although it can quickly turn murderous if the random number generator is feeling that way. Long game though, I’ll probably still be in this campaign for a while.
Finished another Mars Horizon run. I now hold all of the achievements in that game. I’ll be back for more at some point.
I haven’t been back in the Shipbreaker game yet, I’ll hold off until the update and progression reset. There are other games to play in that time.
I’m also thinking of outside computer games … Seeing Lego bring out a Remote Control Buggy made me remember playing with those way back. I only had a cheap 2 wheel drive buggy but it was fun putting it together, taking it apart, putting it together again and driving it around the place. Good times.
I’d like to do that again, although not with the Lego one. Too heavy, delicate and slow. I’ll get a proper one when things open up again and I’ve made steps to seeing what clubs are around.
I was collecting the Nitro RC (I think that’s what it was called) magazine thing where you build up a remote controlled car every week or month. I stopped that though because it was a seriously cheap thing which meant easy cheap manufacture and an insanely difficult build. The biggest problem I hit with it was misalignment caused by the builder being expected to thread holes with self tapping screws cutting the threads into plastic, instead of the holes being pre-prepared.
More research required I think.
Looking back at the galaxy
Sooner or later, we’ll be able to freely and confidently go out and about again. That shot is from the other side of the ship taken from the same place as the other one. It has me looking back at the galaxy from the edge.
Last thoughts for this one … the internet is taking away some of the isolation in these times. It’s weird, I remarked over a Skype call that our little group of the team at work is probably talking even more than at the office. Because talking as much would have been disruptive in the office, the Skype chats don’t interrupt anybody.
What would we have been doing 10 or more years ago before youtube, Netflix and so on ? Probably watching a lot of dvds and reading books and overloading the texting system to stay in touch.
Is it really another week gone by since the last post ? Oops 😀
What have I been up to … 2 books finished, Sojourn and Murderbot 4. I’ve been doing the internet spaceship thing again as well as attempting to salvage spaceships … I’ve got the anticipation rising in another window for the Perseverance mission and the rebellion against alien invasion has begun again. That feels like a lot …
Black hole flyby
Yep. I’d been avoiding flying the internet spaceship because the cold weather was making my muscles really unappreciative of me. But they’ve relented a bit now and it was good to get around again and see sights like the black holes again.
I’ve been continuing to go through the books again, finishing off Sojourn by R.A. Salvatore, the last of 3 Drizzt Do’Urden introduction books. This one is the better of this trilogy, it felt like it had more scope to breathe and say something new that hadn’t already been summarised in the books that were written before. (The intro trilogy was written after the Icewind Dale trilogy but came earlier in Drizzt’s timeline). A good tale, sets things up nicely for The Crystal Shard, the book that really kicks off the stories.
I also read through Exit Strategy by Martha Wells, book 4 in the Murderbot series. This one sees our intrepid Murderbot head off to more adventures in possibly hopeless scenarios. Can’t say more for spoilers. These are expensive novellas but I think if a book is enjoyable, it’s also worth it. And the Murderbot diaries get in, tell their tale and get out again before they overdo it and outstay their welcome. Bit like the Douglas Hill legionary books, those were shorter than average but also tightly focused on their narrative.
Cosy campfire spot
That’s where I stopped after Monday’s shorter session. Nice place. The ship is on a moon of the ringed water world to the top right of centre. That water world co-orbits with the farther away ringed gas giant to the top left. Nice place.
Ready to cut and slice ?
That’s Hardspace Shipbreaker. It’s an in development game in early access. I only had a quick (90 minute) look because they’re doing a major update soon and they’ll reset all progress. It was a promising start though. You play a salvager who is taking the chance to flee a dying Earth, choked by overpopulation and pollution. The cost is massive debt and essentially indentured servitude to a company that has you cutting up spaceships for parts. But that’s just the set up for the game. It’s a curious mind exercise seeing how efficiently you can do the job while avoiding hazards like explosive decompression and …
Oops
May have blown up the reactor by sending it down the inside of the ship instead of towards the reclamation barge. Oh well. Being exploded by unstable reactors is not a way to get out of your contract apparently because they just clone you from parts and put your mind back in the new body … and charge you for it.
Hardspace Shipbreaker is set in a pretty hard universe setting but from what I hear, your lot as a person cutting up spaceships is actually much better than the average …
I watched the Netflix thing Space Sweepers yesterday too. I would thoroughly recommend watching this, even if you’re not bothered about space scifi. It has that as its setting but it’s more about the characters and sheer energy pushing it through a somewhat silly and highly entertaining story.
Oh and my eyes ended up moist at the ending too with alternating “YEY !” and “NOOO!” and more “YEY!” plus “that was sweet”. Thoroughly recommended watching.
Set the controls for the heart of … which sun ?
That was a stop at Hypatia’s Lighthouse. I’m close to the North end of the galaxy now. It’ll be time to start the second half of the circuit to home, although I’m only 100k light years into a 280k light year trip. Lots to go.
I’ve opened up a game closer to home too … The setting is Earth in the near future in XCom 2. This is a sequel to the remake XCom game and the story goes that your side lost the first game heavily. Earth is now in the hands of the aliens, although they’re appearing as benevolent rulers of a pacified society. However, the population has been decimated, cities around the world are in ruins and a Mysterious Plot is afoot for the resistance to foil in this second game. I enjoyed XCom 2 more than the first game to be honest and it’ll be good to get the gang together again.
Home sweet home
That’s the Avenger, a captured alien UFO that acts as your base for this game. Instead of being anchored in an underground facility as in XCom 1, this time you fly from mission to mission and area to area. It’s a concept that worked well for this one.
They did a cracking job with this sequel. And of course there is the soldier customisation …
Ready to shoot things
Borrowing names for games like this helps you feel closer to what’s going on. I’ve got a few name lists already, including some names from previous playthroughs. It’ll be curious to see some of those old names come back again but for the randomly generated people, there’s going to be some outlandish characters created again. That’s Fuzzy of the Fuzzy streams (Twitch link), Fuzzy is currently addicted to Valheim …
Tea and Medals time
One fun thing the game does is propaganda posters. This was after we snatched back a captured (plot things) character. Fuzzy’s on the left, returning character Cyberkitten (here’s a link to his blog) in the centre. He’s a grenadier this time so lots of explosions. GamingFtl aka Josh is on the right. The shorts were an oversight but I’m keeping them, they’re a part of the outfit now.
Many mods may have been added with extra outfits … There’s supposed to be a Hello Kitty emblem for the guns and armour though, it’s escaped !
So yeah, lots being looked at. Also back online with the work this week so it’s been good to escape back into the alternate realities of the games and the books after closing up the work laptop.
Time to hit post now though – have a great evening everyone;
I might be changing cars again soon … It’s only a “might” at the moment but there are a few compelling arguments either way. The “No Change” route would mean keeping what I have and paying off the remaining finance on it when the PCP* period finishes next year.
*PCP is Personal Contract Purchase. It splits the cost of the car three ways. There’s a deposit at the start and the value remaining at the end is engineered to be the same as the expected future value of the car. So on a car costing £35,000, the up front would be anything from £2,000 to £10,000 and they’d expect the value after 3 years to be around £10,000. And then the finance is for the difference.
The other way would be to hand mine back in early and jump into a different car after delivery.
Erm … we interrupt this post for a very important thumbnail.
Beware entering food shops while hungry
More on this later.
It’s a curious choice this time around because Lexus have been busy rejigging their range for the UK … You can still buy the CT for now :
A fine steed
This was my first Lexus, the Tardis Blue Car CT. (That was a shameless attempt at invoking search engine optimisation 😀 ). It was a lovely car too, very well put together, probably as close to perfection as I’ve had in a car and extremely practical besides that too. It had only one problem, under the bonnet there was the Prius hybrid powertrain that struggled somewhat for power. The electric motors give it excellent starting speed but it ran out of puff fairly quickly. It also had to be worked a little harder than the IS300h, which meant the fuel economy while great on paper, would suffer.
I’ve enjoyed my last 3 cars, all three of them being IS300h’s. That’s a saloon shell with more power. It’s a bit sad but there’s been issues with these … they haven’t been the image of perfection that the CT was. I’ll leave the issues I may or may not have with the current one until after it’s gone but … Car 1 had drive by wire issues where it would kangaroo hop into traffic light stops where it should have been smooth. And Car 2 had what I believe was a broken power steering pump. So that was another reason for jumping on the Offer I Couldn’t Refuse last time. Oh and Car 1 had the dead car incident caused by someone in the delivery chain not bolting the battery terminal on correctly.
I know, hard to believe that last one isn’t it. Anyway, both the CT, the IS and the RC coupe version of the IS are being discontinued in the UK. If I change, it’d either be an SUV shell (I don’t like these, too much metal) or the bigger ES saloon. I’ll be pondering on it for a few days.
One thing for this post is racing cars … I have the Steve McQueen Le Mans film on at the moment …
Zoom !
And EEK. Crash time. We’ve had a car spin and the next car through following went out of control and off the road, landing off the track and exploding into flames as the driver attempts to run away. And then another crash with one of the Porsches which also hit the barriers out of control.
The picture and cinematography work is incredible. They’re doing a lot of slow motion and freeze frame to capture the heavy drama of what’s going on.
I saw the film a while ago and was impressed back then. Both this Le Mans and the more recent Ford vs Ferrari (Le Mans 66) are well worth a watch. They’re both remarkable films.
Things I have been noticing from both though is the differences between racing then and racing now. I’ll get to the Follow The Race stuff later but the opening sequences of the Steve McQueen movie shows the drivers getting set up for the start of the race. They’re wrapping what are essentially bandannas around their mouths and neck before putting on open face crash helmets. Yep. That’s moved on since. Full face helmets, balaclavas and the HANS (Head And Neck System) are mandatory now and have saved many lives. There is also communications between driver and team which can warn the driver if they’re approaching an incident.
The pit stop sequences shown in both movies show the cars moving a little off the main straight and into the service areas. The cars are being refuelled about 10 feet away from where the racing is happening. And it’s side of the road stuff, they have a proper pit complex now with garages. Curiously, a lot of the IMSA races still operate with pit boxes without garages, although these are a long way away from the race track. If an IMSA car has a serious issue, it’s said to be “going behind the wall” to where the garage is.
Another huge difference is the cars. Ford vs Ferrari was in the time of the GT40. It was the story of the 1966 Le Mans when cars looked like :
Ford’s GT40
Picture is from this Motorsport Magazine article (Link). It’s from the days when streamlining and aerodynamics were just starting to be thought about. They knew to smooth out the cars to get more speed and maybe a little about downforce with that lip spoiler at the back but they understood very little about the more subtle aerodynamic efforts. Developments continued and designers looked more and more at this thing called Downforce, where if they engineered an extra force pushing down on the car, it would mean the drivers could push them harder through corners.
The Steve McQueen film features the Porsche 917 from 1970 :
Steve McQueen’s racer
Picture taken from a Road And Track article (Linky). See the extended bodywork at the back ? It was intended to improve the downforce, which apparently it did. However … it also led to instability and a likelihood of the car going end over end.
That’s been one issue with racing cars over the years … They’re great going forwards and around corners but if something disrupts that like a crash, then they can quickly turn from racing machine into a sail that catches the air, taking the car out of control. The tolerances were so fine that the Mercedes cars ended up flipping at 200+mph as they went over the Mulsanne Hump, the crest allowed enough air to get under the car and catastrophically disrupt the airflow, after which the driver would be just a passenger.
(Don’t worry about this for road cars, we don’t go fast enough although sidewinds can make driving into Interesting Times sometimes).
Things have improved a lot … The endurance racing fraternity took a look at why the crashes were happening and enforced design changes like the shark fin that acts like an airbrake if the car goes sufficiently sideways to get in trouble. (It also pivots the car back up the right way). The endurance cars also have cut outs above the wheel arches which counter the tendency to flip before it happens.
(Rabbiting on detector alarm is going off).
I think that’s enough from me about the racing cars for now.
Steve McQueen’s Le Mans and Ford vs Ferrari (Le Mans 66) are both excellent movies and I’d thoroughly recommend a watching. They have more than their share of tragedy though amongst the drama.
Before I close up though, the information around the races is SO MUCH BETTER now. In the movies, there’s an announcer that also acts as a narrator for the audience and the people in the pits are using stopwatches to time their cars. Nowadays, we have streaming video services covering the races that usually offer extra feeds as well as the main feed. The official timings are available and in races like Le Mans and Nurburgrings with their very long tracks, the timings get split up for the various parts of the course. There are also the twitter feeds for the teams and organisers keeping you up to date.
Yep, close time …
But first … today’s out among people job was the car service and on the way back there is the farm shop service station … It’s at a lower level of service at the moment due to Pandemic Things but they’re still offering hot sandwiches (no running to the loo this year – hurrah!) and drinks and the farm shop is mostly open.
I may have visited the farm shop while I was very hungry, hence the opening picture and thumbnail. Alas though,
This one from last year didn’t last long
Gosh that film flew by. (Steve McQueen’s Le Mans). Almost at the end, the race is over and we’re getting long lingering looks between two of the stars.
Munchies ? Yep. Munchies happened. Sadly no chocolate dwagonsaur yet this year. Maybe later. They only had minimal Easter Stuff out there earlier. That’s pretty understandable given the current times. Hopefully later :-).
In the meantime, time for the traditional send off : Stay safe, be well.
I’ve had thoughts bubbling up in the head for a bit that were threatening to emerge into a post some day. It’s going to be about Covid so conveniently, there’s a bit of cricket before so people who want to filter Covid out can quietly step away …
Gosh that one’s got a lot of flaws in it
One thought that cropped up again while watching the India vs England Test Match was the old adage : “Would you rather bowl 20 overs for 100 taking 5 wickets or bowl 20 overs for 20 taking 1 wicket.” 100 off 20 is expensive but those wickets change the game.
The answer, of course, is “did we win ?” Cricket isn’t an individual game, it’s a team game. There are occasions where that 100 for 5 off 20 would have lost the game because the other team might have only been chasing 150 and the other bowlers couldn’t get wickets or pressure.
One of the cricket memories is when we won by I think 6 runs with about 5 overs left in the game. We only had 3 regular bowlers that day, so the playing conditions meant we had to make up 10 of the 40 overs (max 10 overs each) with part time bowlers. We started my last over with the other team needing that 7 runs to win, with 3 wickets left and the batsman at the other end on 48 not out. The game was petering out into a reasonably comfortable win for them. It didn’t.
We won. I took 3 wickets in 4 balls to finish with 9.4 overs, 24 runs, 6 wickets in the game. However, we wouldn’t have won without Big Dave getting the top 3 batsmen out and the captain and spin bowler creating pressure at his end for no wickets. And there were other games where I didn’t give many runs away (10 overs 19 runs 1 wicket was my most economical) but I saw those games as failures for me because my job was to get people out.
It’s like yeah, I liked taking the wickets. But I liked winning games even more and the best way of stopping people scoring was to get them out and back in the pavilion.
Totally not scared of Jofra Archer
Looking forward to another good day of cricket from India tomorrow.
Covid ? I think I had it last year around March / April time, perhaps going into May as well. I might still have some of the effects.
However, I will never know for sure. I don’t know if it’s hypochondria either … I definitely had something up with me around that time. Going through the symptoms everyone knows about :
Cough – Definitely. I had a very serious cough around March / April. It was bad enough that I was having that vision going dark think that happens when you’re coughing for too long. My voice was off as well, with feelings that if I tried to use it too much, more coughing would happen. It was quite some time before I could attempt to sing along to the music again.
Nose being yucky – Oh yes. But it’s only been around that time. Could have been a cold.
Diarrhea – yes. And this is one area where you want to be careful when looking back at symptoms after the event.
Yummy and not the culprit (I think)
Looking at the timeline again, I arrived back in the UK from Canada on Sunday 23 Feb. The car service was the next weekend (Saturday 29 Feb) and I stopped at the Gloucester Services farm shop on the way back. I think the bun I had there was then responsible for me running to and from the loo for the rest of the day. So, an example of memory joining dots that are unconnected.
I was then in work, with an away trip to a contractor sometime around then, until everyone started breaking up. My last day in office was Friday 20 March (I have a pic of a topping up shop run !). I think I had an extended number of meetings with my potential carrier vector person the week before. A few days later, he ended up in hospital with acute pneumonia and it was bad enough that I didn’t know whether or not he’d be coming back to fulfil his temporary contract.
What we never found out was whether that pneumonia was just very serious pneumonia or the more sinister thing. Testing wasn’t a common thing back then.
But anyway, my worst times were in that week or several after we all broke up from work. It could have been burn out, I hadn’t had a break since Xmas and there had been the Canada work trip.
Another timeline marker is actually a game I don’t own ! Mount and Blade II came out on 30 March last year and I’d been watching the Fuzzy and Co multiplayer streams. Or rather, I was attempting to, because half the time I was lying back in the chair trying not to overheat and overstress.
Again, could be a coincidence because my brand of hayfever sensitivity kicks off around that time of year as well. I can’t remember it ever being that bad though. Attempting to vacuum the house would lead to perhaps a couple of minutes of exerting and then I’d need to lie down in the chair and cool off.
So that’s symptoms including : difficulty breathing, extended coughing, overheating and since then, extreme tiredness. I think I also had the brain fog affecting me through April and May. This happened last year :
Shiny
It was a real effort to put that together. I’d intended to write a “Sleepy’s going racing !” April Fools post but I didn’t know if I’d be able to finish the model in time. What would previously have been easy, became a real effort to push through. I was also having difficulty framing the thoughts that go behind posts like that. Oh and with the plague situation erupting, I didn’t think it was appropriate to do an April Fools post that year.
I think that mental side is part of it as well. This time last year, Covid was just coming on the scene. We didn’t know what it was, we didn’t understand it, there was no testing for it, we didn’t know what palliative care was appropriate to help people through the worst of it. We thought it could end the world. Or at least, I did cos I can be a pessimist like that.
Is there any more to tell ? Can’t remember that much of it. It took several months for my voice to recover. I didn’t get the altered sense of taste or smell. I could deal with higher summer temperatures ok. I’m still pretty tired, although the controls I’ve built up over the years usually help me counter tiredness until it builds up too much and I burn out.
Those memories do mean I take absolutely no chances with Covid, with my best means of defense against it being a very simple : Don’t People. I do miss people a lot … but I may also have passed on what I had in March last year to others. That’s the thing with this, the asymptomatic people don’t know they have it so they don’t take the precautions that could protect others. I even developed a habit where if I was talking to someone, I’d point my mouth away from them so I wasn’t breathing on them.
I think that’s my tale done. The conclusion is :
What do you think ? Do you think I had covid last year ? Or could it have been something different. Without any testing on the person who was my potential vector of infection, I’ll never know.
This last week seems to have gone in a bit of a blur ! Let’s see … the Daytona 24 hour IMSA motor race happened, that was a good one to have on in the background. The IMSA racing series is pretty strong because they have a nicely varied set of fields and they get their balance of performance spot on. There’s also been book, lots of Mars Horizon and as always, music on in the background.
Zoom
I caused some amusement at work this week by saying that my car is in some ways, on a par with the racing cars … The IMSA series has a couple of Lexus RC F’s entered and they were doing pretty well in the races that happened last year. The RC is a coupe conversion of my IS but the RC has a much bigger 5 litre V8 engine giving 472bhp. Mine has a much more modest 2.5 litre straight 4 engine plus the hybrid bits giving a combined power of 220bhp. However, the motors mean it has much more torque than that suggests.
Wot dat mean ?
Maximum theoretical speed is much lower in mine, 125mph ish compared to probably limited 160mph ish (the Lexus site isn’t cooperating in my data mining efforts). Plus when the hybrid batteries drain, it won’t be able to sustain that 125mph.
Acceleration is much closer … because that depends on torque. Plus the way the transmission works, it holds the engine at the most effective revs for what you’re wanting to do. Acceleration holds the engine at max torque, cruising holds it at just above idle developing just enough power to counteract 70mph drag.
I then caused much more hilarity by saying that the high spec race bred cars you can buy are actually more powerful than the cars in the races … This sounds weird doesn’t it ?
One of the changes that will happen between a Porsche 911 RSR coming out of the factory and being race prepped is that they’ll strip the nice bits out of the inside and reduce the weight as much as they can. Safety features will be added, as will the mandatory systems that the race organisers demand. That’s including things like race information displays, numbering systems, transponders, radios … However there is also the Balance of Performance.
That’s how the races end up being so close. The organisers will continually look at how well each car is doing and required adjustments are made in order to even everyone up. An inlet for the supercharger or pressure for the turbo will be limited to cut power slightly. Aerodynamics will be adjusted to even the cars out in the corners.
It doesn’t lead to “My car is better than your car” type stuff but it does make the racing incredibly interesting. Although the scrutineers can get it wrong sometimes like when the Aston Martins qualified unexpectedly well and the Balance of Performance adjustment meant they were maybe 10mph down on top speed compared to the others … at Le Mans with the super long Mulsanne Straight. Oops.
Yay poochie !
Oh to have the kind of cash that would see me being able to get one of the more powerful cars. Although, to be honest, I’m happy with the level of power in my current car and more power is kinda wasted on UK roads. We’re limited to 70mph on the fastest roads and slow people spoil the fun on the twisty roads. There are also insurance conditions which restrict using the cars on track days.
It is good to watch the racing though.
I was going to write about more stuff ! Listening to a Cardigans song followed by a The Staves song popped a thought into my head that I should do a music post sometime. Book first …
Book 5 of the year was Exile by R.A. Salvatore, the second in the origins of Drizzt series. These three books suffer somewhat in that being released after the Crystal Shard book which introduced him, that backstory is already known. The author does a good job of fleshing it out in the books. I’m currently at the beginnings of the third book, Sojourn. I’ll read something different before diving into the next in the series.
Down boy !
I’ve actually listened to all the songs in my library again and I’m hungrily looking for more again … A couple of those albums are (with lots of youtube links) :
I talk about The Cardigans a lot but it’s tough to call up songs from them because a lot of them are really, really dark … Algebra is a good one and it got included at an especially apt moment in the series Haven.
And then there’s also Communication with a wonderful animated video. The internet is being a very helpful thing at the moment, keeping us in touch with each other.
Oh dear. I’m singing along again. The neighbours will be worried … This calls for … Run To The Hills !
Another one who I think I need more from is Lisa Miskovsky. I have her Falling Water album which has wonderful songs in like A Brand New Day but there are several more albums I don’t have.
Thinking of Algebra, one thing about Mars Horizon is that success, failure or better success in that game is determined by mathematical counter based puzzle games. Little Boots did a song about Mathematics …
Next album up is one by Norah Jones, she has an album out as well that I don’t have yet. This lady has done some wonderful songs over the years too. Here’s one that makes me chuckle, Man Of The Hour.
Lovely Scruff
I do miss the dogs. That’s Old Man Scruff from half a lifetime ago. A very faithful companion. Edie Brickell sang about a few dogs too … here is the joyful Woyaho! (looks like the only links are copyright theft links, not posting that)
It’s probably getting near time to wrap up and post though but there’s a couple more songs that want out … Agnes Obel surprised me with a lovely voice and haunting songs, her albums are on the list too. Here is Close Watch.
Oh ! I also managed to watch all of Star Trek Lower Decks. Rather funny, most definitely the consistently craziest that Trek has ever done. I’d give it a try.
I think that’s it for now. Couple more ? Kate Bush has always been a favourite, here is Wow.
Oh and I also acquired Katie Melua’s Ultimate Collection pretty cheap … Here’s Nine Million Bicycles.
Have a great rest of evening everyone. Stay safe, be well.
