Hello everyone,
How are things going with you all ? Hope you’re doing ok. As for me, I’ve had another couple of runs to the hospitals (routine stuff) and I’m getting started on the rehab. Life’s had to change a little bit down here, as you’d expect from being mostly down an arm. I should get most of the mobility back, although I can feel that the left wrist is still quite delicate. Oh and I’ve been told that playing games can also be a decent part of rehab activity.
How’s that ! Not sure if I quite believe that but I’ll go with it. Talking of the games, I got a care package through …
That’s a plushie from the Intel people who were a key sponsor for the September Creator Meetups event. There’s a get well soon card with a lovely message. A Creator Meetups coaster and my red dwagon there is sporting a event sash (actually wristband, don’t tell the dwagon). There’s also a t-shirt, although that’s not in the picture.
The care package was a lovely thing to open today. I’ll talk more about the event some time but for now, I’ll keep it to just mentioning the Intel part … they were one of the main sponsors, which helps to make events like the last Creator North happen. We need their support and it’s hugely appreciated. I think they (could have been Asus too) were running the PC speed build thing at the latest event which was fun to keep an eye on. I didn’t take part in that … I’m excessively careful when I’m building my PCs so speed running them isn’t something I’d do but it was good to peek at.
Talking of PC building … it’s shameless shill time ! Bunny is an AMD build but I figured I owe Intel a mention, both due to the care package and for them supporting the events that they do. Disclosure note – the care package is a gift, attendance of the event was paid for by me, Pumpkin PC (about to mention) was fully bought by me, no other compensation has been received. I.e. this is an unprompted post.
So I mentioned that my current build is AMD, my longest serving PC is still Pumpkin built Oct 31 2011, going until July 2019. Pumpkin did really well and was super reliable. I don’t look for extreme speed in a PC, that tends to double the price for not really that much extra speed. I look for a build that I can put together, set up and then forget about for years while I watch videos and game on it. And Pumpkin excelled at that. The only technical issues it had was a Corsair power supply popping and the motherboard sound hardware popping.
And that was the trend with Intel for a very long time. They had a performance edge on AMD until recently but what they excelled at was lazy reliable performance. They could do what they do incredibly reliably and without fuss. Hassle free computing is exactly what I go for. So why did I go away from the Sandy Bridge i5-2500k powered Pumpkin ? It was struggling for performance in games due to only having 8GB of system memory. It was approaching time to change in 2019 and I’m glad I did because we all know what happened in 2020. Almost 8 years service is a phenomenal amount of time for a PC to be properly good for.
What would I get if I went Intel now ? Here’s a Partpicker link. That’s pretty much the same bits as the new Bunny PC except for the Intel core in there. The prices are about the same too. The Intel chip has a lot more cores than my AMD Ryzen 7 9800x3d at a count of 16+8 vs 8 doubling to 16 threads for the AMD. Not entirely sure what the 24+8 means …
That’s another thing actually … The Partpicker list there is fairly arbitrary although I can vouch for case, RAM, psu, graphics and SSD. I’d need to know the difference between the P and E cores. And that’s where the research comes in. It’s a lot of money to invest, gotta be sure you’re investing in the right bits.
How about me though ?
The hospital visit last week was to get an initial follow up and they changed my cast as well. Oh and I may have hit a food allergy event too. So … good visit, bad consequences for me because I didn’t realise that the cookies I’d been munching and the giant Twix all had soya within and I can’t tolerate soya. Oh well. But I did get a slightly lighter cast, some basic physio exercises and advice that playing computer games on controllers would help with the rehab. Oh and I don’t need the arm sling any more.
Good results both there and a local hospital visit with a very lovely physio who gave me a few more exercises for the rehab and an injection of hope in getting all better. Having a little hope is ultra valuable.
How about that gaming though ?
I’ve had a couple of Truck Game sessions so far. It’s a little awkward because I use a Xbox style controller. The left hand needs to cover the d-pad for set and forget options like lights and wipers. The middle finger does the brakes, first finger is left indicator and thumb does steering. Awkward but possible. The drawback with the two Truck Games is that when you start a run, you really need to finish it and my State of Being at the moment means that when I hit a certain point, I will need to STOP pretty much immediately which isn’t compatible with having to finish the runs off.
And then there’s Elite Dangerous, which actually got me started doing two handed typing again.
I use a Thrustmaster Hotas X for Elite (linky). It’s a basic Hotas as they go. You can get a lot fancier and expensive than that (search VKB and Virpil) but the Hotas X has been solid, reliable and above all comforyable for me to play Elite with. The pitch, roll and yaw are all done on the right hand stick. The left hand throttle has the forward and back and a rocker arm I use for left and right. My left thumb uses buttons for up, down and boost.
I’m not fluent with the Hotas yet in Elite but I had enough for a short(ish) travel session of 54 jumps (a session would normally be around 200 jumps). I can’t fully grip the throttle side yet, just half of it. It’s enough for travel where you can’t go up/down/left/right, not for more fine control although I could manage the external camera which is how I get all the screenies.
Oh and the big bonus …. because I do a few things very quickly, like renaming screenshots, I started two handed typing again. Big result there. Oh and Elite offers up interesting places to land at where you can often set up a good view.
I better close up there …
I’m having to do a few changes. My snacking is much reduced (which is good) and I’m adjusting to having less in my left hand. I’ve been ticking off a few IRL achievements like being able to lace up the boots, although I still have very little grip strength and even less carrying strength. Haven’t attempted long sleeves yet or the laundry (weekend thing). I need to do more of the physio exercises to get mobility back.
I’m doing ok and am fully independent here in the house, within my limits. I’m very low on energy still but it has been good being in some of the games again.
Oh and the online communities I hang around have been wonderful and have sent a lot of love my way. It’s vastly appreciated.
Credit to Purr.In.Ink there, they’re always coming out with these cute little cartoons with the best vibes.
Have a lovely day everyone :-).