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Car’s Haunted

March 15, 2021

8:10 pm

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Hello everyone,

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).

Picture. An old red car with chrome trim and white walled wheels. The caption is "Christine. She may weigh 3,510 pounds but, I'm sure as hell not going to call her fat." — 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 …

Game screenshot. Elite Dangerous. The ship is landed on an orange/grey moon, with various smoke geysers erupting. We see the aft starboard side of the ship, pointing away from the camera. She has new colours, part yellow, part grey and dark grey. We see the planet's rings in the distance. The galactic ribbon rises from the surface and at the end of it, is a sun. — 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.

Game screenshot. Elite Dangerous. The ship is in front of a water planet with ice at the pole. The planet is ringed with a mixture of white and black rings. The ship is above the rings and is showing off the new paint job, which is orange at the back, going into yellow, with the rest of the flank being light grey and dark grey. There is an orange tip. The top is in shadow. — Shoulda put a ring on it, oh wait !

Nice place. Can’t land on it yet.

Game screenshot. Elite Dangerous. We see the spaceship from the port forward quarter. The buggy is to the right. They're on a dark grey reddish moon. In the top left, we see a planet that looks like our own, blue ocean, white clouds and green land. — 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.

Game screenshot. Elite Dangerous. We see the port side of the ship, with the buggy a short distance away. She's in what looks like a curved plain, with a mountain about 5 times the height of the ship in the background. There is a faint arc of another planet above the hill. — 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 …

Game screenshot. Elite Dangerous. We see the starboard upper side of the ship, fully lit except for the part above the engines. She is orbiting a ash coloured planet with a lot of red lava patches. The ship is above planetary rings, grey to the outer edge and white on the inside. — 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.

Game screenshot. Elite Dangerous. The ship dominates the image. We see a bit of the upper side, with the orange wings to the right side. There are two large square engines. She is descending to a light blue coloured planet with reddish canyons that look like something huge has clawed its way across the surface. — 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.

Game screenshot. Elite Dangerous. We see the landed ship from the front port quarter, with the buggy in front again. The scene is very well lit showing a pale blue (icy?) surface and at ground level, we see a hint of the reddish canyons. A brown gas giant is in the upper left and we see a hint of its rings. — 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.

Game Screenshot. Final Fantasy 14. My character is on the left, looking at the mysterious fellow in a white shirt and leather overtunic who is kneeling down checking something out on the ground. — 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.

Game screenshot. Final Fantasy 14. My character is looking at the camera, wearing a metal breastplate which is bronze on the shoulders and dark grey in front. She has dark metal gauntlets and a yellow helmet. One eye has a shiny iris. — 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.

Stay safe, be well.

Final Doxx Fantasy and (Spaceships)

by Sleepypete

March 6, 2021

10:44 pm

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ffxiv, games

Hello everyone,

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 …

Picture. A small packet of chocolate Mini Eggs beside a Pocket Dragon sniffing the air. The Pocket Dragon is wearing a chest tabard that says "Feed Me" — 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.

Game screenshot. Elite Dangerous. We see the Anaconda from her starboard bow pointing right. In the background is a white planet with surface features that look like scarring. There are delicate rings around the planet. The galactic ribbon is in the background. — 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 …

Game screenshot. Elite Dangerous. The Anaconda is landed, we see her port side. The buggy is to the lower right, in front of the back end of the ship. There is an icy looking canyon wall to the right. A very faint dark gas giant can be seen in the background. — A restful stop

XCom 2 has had another little look and I’ve figured out how to the get the old mods loading …

Game screenshot. Xcom 2. Character customisation. We see Natasha Bambam, in plated armour with blue fabric underneath. She has long blonde hair with eye shades. She wields a gun that looks like an elongated Corgi. — 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 …

Game screenshot. Final Fantasy 14. A dazzlingly cute young lady stands in a city scene. She is in front of a cherry blossom tree with silvery pink/purple leaves that almost match her silver hair. — 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.

Game screenshot. Final Fantasy 14. My character is standing up straight in a soft lit dream sequence. She wears a bronze metal chestplate with shoulder pauldrons, otherwise it's black leather gloves and black fabric trousers. She has a red Pointy Hat. — 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.

Game screenshot. Final Fantasy 14. My character is in the centre of shot in the background. 4 men are pictured left to right. A to be recurring character stands to the right with white hair and a black outfit with white sleeves. The dialogue says "Thank you. If you hadn't come along, those bastards would surely have slaughtered us all" — One merchant at a time

Just helping out there.

Game screenshot. Final Fantasy 14. Interior scene. My character and another lady are standing at a pedestal. A small robot thing is also 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.

Game screenshot. Final Fantasy 14. My character (in pointy hat), is standing by a balcony. There are bushes in pots to her left and right. In the background is a cityscape. There is a waterfall to the right and a set of domed buildings in the background. — 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.

Right ! To the book.

Have a great rest of weekend everyone, back soon.

Stay safe, be well.

Cluttered Thoughts

by Sleepypete

February 28, 2021

4:31 pm

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games, lockdown, stayathome

Hello everyone,

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 ?

Game Screenshot. Elite Dangerous. The Anaconda ship is pointing towards left of screen, the two engines at the back are emitting cones of blue flame. The background is a diffuse blue, with an eye like black hole upper middle. — 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 !)

Map picture. A capture from ED Discovery, showing a map of our galaxy from above. Overlaid on it are different colour blocks for the regions of space and there is an extensive white line showing my course. — Going long distance

It’s not like you need to drive to the end of the universe to charge up the battery or anything.

Game screenshot. Elite Dangerous. The Anaconda starship is shown from the port side, pointing towards left of shot. It is showing off the battered looking paint scheme of purple highlights over mainly grey hull. — 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 …

Game screenshot. XCom 2. A propaganda poster with caption "Off our planet. It shows the squad. From left to right: A buzzcutted Fuzzy Freaks in purple carrying a sniper rifle. Maggie Luperza in mostly blue, with goggles above her eyes. Cyberkitten in green with a baseball cap and shades is pointing a huge gatling cannon at the camera. Outrider in a long coat and hood is looking at the camera through a gas mask. Gamingftl looks heroically on at the right side. — 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.

Game screenshot. Elite Dangerous. We see the Anaconda starship pointing towards the right of shot, dominating the lower half of the picture. Her top side is angled towards the camera showing the colouration of purple on star bright white. The galactic ribbon of stars is in the background. — 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.

Anyway,

Hang in there. Be well, stay safe.

Sojourn, Murderbot, Space, Salvage

by Sleepypete

February 18, 2021

9:39 pm

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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 …

Game screenshot. Elite Dangerous. The Anaconda is flying by a black hole, lit only by glowing radiators at the rear. We see the exhaust trails behind the ship as she flies level towards the right of shot. Behind the ship we see the lensing effect of a black hole. It is mostly an unseeable globe but it curves the space around it, in this case the dark browns of the stars of the galactic ribbon. — 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.

Game screenshot. Elite Dangerous. The spaceship is landed on a barren grey slope, with the rover (with red lit wheels) facing towards it away from the camera. In the background upper right is a ringed planet. There is another smaller ringed planet to the top left. — 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.

Game screenshot. Hardspace Shipbreaker. We're seeing from inside the helmet of an astronaut. Yellow head up display elements are visible. To the right and left are red openings for a furnace and blue openings for a processor. Ahead is a boxy derelict space shuttle ready to be dismantled. — 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 …

Game screenshot. Hardspace Shipbreaker. The head up display is showing the words "You have failed your work order. Your next of kin will be billed for unreturned equipment." In the background is a chaotic mess of broken shards of metal from the exploded spaceship. — 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.

Game screenshot. Elite Dangerous. The Anaconda ship dominating the lower half of the image has now very shabby paint work lit by several stars. At top middle, we see a bright yellow star. Between the ship and that star is a tiny neutron star. It's a bright blue dot with curly streamers coming away to left and right in cones. There is a bluish cloud across the rest of the image. — 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.

Game screenshot. XCom 2. We see the captured UFO Avenger which is the base for this game. On the left, research by a glowing reactor. Lower centre is where you build facilities. It's a 3 wide 4 high grid of compartments. The Bridge is highlighted up top and the Armoury top right. — 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 …

Game screenshot. XCom 2. Soldier customisation screen. We see a female soldier with a nearly shaved head carrying a large sniper rifle. She has sun shades resting on top of her head. Her uniform is a mix of purple and orange, with bare arms. The name shown at top right is Squaddie Fuzzy Freaks. — 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 …

Game screenshot XCom 2. A victory poster with caption "When XCom wins, we all win!" It's showing a base in the background with overhead spotlights. 3 soldiers are visible. Fuzzy, Cyberkitten and GamingFtl. They are all making very noble poses standing up for the camera. — 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;

Stay safe, be well.

Cars, racing cars and sweet things

by Sleepypete

February 10, 2021

5:10 pm

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cars, racing

Hello 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.

Picture. My fuzzy red dwagon and the thin, tall green dwagon are buried in a collection of sweets. There are two small bags of strawberry bonbons, one bag of kola kubes, one bag of lemon sherbets, a bag of chocolate mice, a small number of chocolate brownies and a bag of fudge. — Beware entering food shops while hungry

Cricket and the Covid Post

by Sleepypete

February 8, 2021

10:09 pm

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cricket, plague

Hello everyone,

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 …

Picture. A dwagon model is holding up a sign saying "Ready For Cricket!". On the base of the model is "Pray for Sunshine!" The background is Lords cricket ground. The pavilion is in the background and we can see the lush green playing area. It's overcast and threatening rain ... — 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.

Picture. The Another Monday Dwagon is walking towards the camera, holding his paws out in front as if to show steady, nerveless hands. I've drawn on gloves on his paws, cricket pads on his legs, a cricket bat and a helmet with a grille. Caption "Tail End Dwagon ... Showing not nervous about fast bowler. — 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.

Picture. Sitting on top of a cardboard box is a chocolate teacake (a dome of chocolate shell with marshmallow inside). There are green mint chips on top. — 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 :

Picture. A Lego Porsche racing car in white, with a red feature at the front and a black bumper. The red 4D fuzzy dwagon is looking at it from behind and a Pocket Dwagon is leaning towards the driver door. — 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.

Stay safe everyone, be well and …

Picture. 4D the fuzzy red dwagon is sitting on a chair, wearing a mask with sailboats on. In front of him is a second mask with various cricket related pictures on it. — Masks are good

Masks save lives.

Book exile and music hunting

by Sleepypete

February 4, 2021

10:37 pm

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music, picture

Hello everyone,

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.

Picture. A small green pocket dragon is driving a small red clockwork car. The dragon barely fits in the car. — 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.

Picture. A happy looking dog is sitting on a sofa with a stash of tennis balls. The caption is "I'm rich!" — 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.

Picture. A dog is standing up to a table, his paws are just clinging on. He is looking pleadingly at a tennis ball. The caption : "My god... it's beautiful!" — 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) :

The Staves – Wisely and Slow has wonderful harmonies in it.

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.

Picture. A very old dog called Scruff. He's got black fur, a bit unkempt and a while chest. He's lying down but his face is looking towards the camera. He had very big paws. — 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.

Looking back – good stuff, bad stuff

by Sleepypete

January 27, 2021

7:35 pm

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prejudice

I think I’ve been destroying the impressions of some of the stuff I used to watch or read many, many years ago …

Last century even. Although that’s not quite as bad as it sounds considering we’re only 20 odd years into this one !

Meme picture. A kitten is slumped over a thin keyboard. The captions are "Press F5 for Refresh" and "It's Broken." — Things have changed …

I’ve been looking at a few older things lately … One thing they show is how the world has changed since I grew up. I talked about the Drizzt Do’Urden books the other day and the ones I read of those back then were great (although there is a Room Elephant that I’ll get to later). Homeland and the half of Exile I’ve read so far are still great books now. The Shadowdale, Tantras and Waterdeep books by the Richard Awlinson name (multi authors, one name used, can’t remember the term) were pretty good too, although I didn’t get on so well with the Cyric books that followed because they go into madness a bit too much.

My brain seems to bounce off madness and insanity in books, it’s why it took me a while to return to Alastair Reynolds books after struggling in Chasm City.

Room Elephant ? Dungeons and Dragons is set up with a lot of built in races, borrowed from various legends and myths. Elves are thin, pointy and haughty. Dwarves are short, strong and wide and beardy. Halflings eat everything. Orcs and Goblins are green and evil. You get the picture.

Dark Elves are impossibly corrupt and maliciously evil. If you don’t see the problem with the black people in the setting being portrayed as the most evil and murderous race, then you haven’t been paying attention to what’s been happening in the world. Drizzt is the exception in the books, he’s a good guy and the books do go into that somewhat … are the Dark Elves bad because of an innate nature or does their society make them that way.

I think the owners of Dungeons and Dragons are steadily sorting out things like this in their settings. Some of the changes involve removing disadvantages that different races had. That’s a good change and it’s good that the game system can move on over time.

Meme picture. 4 horror film characters (I recognise Michael Myers and Freddy) are looking at the viewer. The caption is "Dear 1980's I miss you, please come back" — No. Please no.

Errr no.

The catalyst for this post is mostly watching some oldies again. I’ve abandoned both for different reasons.

First up … Captain Scarlet. But not the classic from 1967. No. I started watching the remake from 2005. It’s not that it was terrible. It was actually fairly ok and a nice update. But with it disappearing from A Certain Streaming TV Service soon, I didn’t see it worth investing time into binge watching all of it before it did disappear. It was watchable but not particularly inspiring. If you have limited time to watch things, spend your time on the good stuff.

(I’ve signed up again to watch the latest series of The Expanse plus I had a voucher deal thing if I’m still subscribed in a couple of months – I will cancel it after that).

Oh and I was also badly missing the old 1960s Captain Scarlet outro music. Let’s see. Attempt one : Here’s a link to the intro. Ah ha ! Here’s the outro music (linky). The new outro is watered down and not very good. It was a great series in its day. I loved the music, plus you never really knew who was going to win in an episode. Sometimes the enemy was allowed to win. That was unheard of in kiddie fiction …

Meme picture. A man is in the driver seat of a car. He is playing a computer game. The caption is "You might be 80s. But you will never be as 80s as David Hasslehoff playing Atari while driving a Pontiac Trans Am." — Self driving cars soon ?

That’s another theme tune that I loved, the iconic Knight Rider theme. (Of course I looked it up ! Linky). I must see about rewatching those some time. I enjoyed the remake / update that was on screens in (gapes at IMDB) 2008.

However … this is where I fuel up the flamethrower. The thing that destroyed a bit of the childhood was 2.5 episodes of Terrahawks yesterday. It’s another from the Gerry Anderson stable and (looks at wiki) the first puppet series he did after a decade and also the last.

From the opening scenes, it unleashes racism. I was shocked to hear Lt Hiro coming out with “Exactry”, with that establishing the meme for his character. You don’t need to do that as a writer. It’s … just no. Don’t do it.

And horrors continued from there. The members of Hawknest are assisted by Zeroids, robotic spheres with eyes and guns that bounce around and shoot things. The ground soldier Zeroids are led by Sergeant Major Zero, voiced by the dearly departed Windsor Davies. It was a little watered down but I instantly recognised his Sergeant Major character from series like It Ain’t Half Hot Mum.

Quite early on, Zero is being berated by the lead character as being nothing, less then nothing and even worse than that. That put the Bully Detector sounding off immediately.

Oh and the bad people are also portrayed as extremely ugly too with the goodies being the glamourous ones.

So you have racism, bullying and objectivisation. And there was probably much more in the rest of the series. I didn’t stick around to find out. Thing is though, stuff like that was tolerated in the last century. It was even encouraged.

It’s good to see that the world has changed somewhat and those old ways are starting to get swept aside. There’s still a way to go though.

The story doesn’t end quite there though. After having bitter disappointment with Terrahawks, I was on the lookout for something 90 minutes long ish … (was getting later). I found …

From My Neighbour Totoro. Two girls and three forest spirits (one tiny, one small, one huge who has an umbrella) are behind a plot of tilled land, urging the bare earth to erupt into growth. — Grow !

That’s from My Neighbour Totoro, made in 1988. It’s a charming tale of a man and his two daughters who move into a house in rural Japan. While playing, the girls find the forest spirits. Including the legendary sleepy Totoro. Totoro is about 12 feet tall and has dark fur above a lighter coloured belly.

(I’m enjoying the alt-text writing style, it’s making me think about how to find the right words to describe images).

Adventures commence and a charming tale of wonder unfolds. I thoroughly enjoyed watching it last night and I’ll be back for more Studio Ghibli films later. The only other one I’ve watched is Spirited Away, which was marvelous too. Need to rewatch that.

A bus in the form of a cat with 6 legs on each side is dashing across the screen from left to right. The cat has a bushy tail and headlights coming from his eyes. — CATBUS

Also has Catbus.

Stay safe everyone, be well and remember that some of the stuff in the past, needs to get buried there whereas there are other stories that are still quite wonderful today.

Back Space Book

by Sleepypete

January 25, 2021

8:11 pm

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Is that a proper title ? I’m not sure if that counts as a proper title.

But it’ll do until I find something better. I’m trying to do at least a post a week at the moment, although in these strange times, it’s a wonder what to write about these days. Need to acquire more meme themes. The quiz question posts are always fun to do and get you outside of what normally gets written about.

Thumbnail pic ?

Humour picture. A cat is biting a page of a book. The words say "A good book will feed your head. An excellent one will feed your cat, too." — Quite

I’m aiming to read more books this year too. Reading is stimulating and hopefully always fun, although some books can go into some quite harrowing situations especially if they are bringing to mind past trauma.

I finished Homeland last night, went straight into Exile in the same series. They’re part of the extensive Legend of Drizzt series by R.A. Salvatore, who brought considerable life to the Forgotten Realms setting created for Dungeons and Dragons. I remember the books being excellent when they first came out and Homeland was still good. The various series are :

Dark Elf Trilogy – Homeland (1990), Exile (1990), Sojourn (1991)

Icewind Dale Trilogy – The Crystal Shard (1988), Streams of Silver (1989), The Halfling’s Gem (1990). These books were written before but are set after the Dark Elf Trilogy.

Legacy of the Drow – The Legacy (1992), Starless Night (1993), Siege of Darkness (1994), Passage to Dawn (1996).

Paths of Darkness – The Silent Blade (1998), Spine of the World (1999), Servant of the Shard (2000), Sea of Swords (2001)

And a whole bunch more. I raided the titles and dates above from a Book Series In Order page at this link. I think I got as far as Siege of Darkness and then lost track of the series after that when the clan had all disappeared off to various universities and we couldn’t share our books any more. Sleepysister was a huge fan of these books as well.

When the whole series came up for sale as a batch on Humble Bundle, I couldn’t resist and picked up the lot for I think it was around $20. Bargain ! Humble Bundle occasionally comes out with fantastic bundles like that, plus there’s a charity thing to it as well.

Joke picture. A cat is looking up at a packed bookshelf. Caption "Excuse me, Miss librarian... Where would I find the section on World Domination?" — Enquiring minds need to know

What are they about ? The Dungeons and Dragons books tend to be based around adventuring parties. Some of them have their genesis in the adventuring modules, so the characters are often set up to be a balanced party. In this case, The Crystal Shard sets up with Drizzt Do’Urden as a ranger with magical companion Guenhwyvar. Drizzt is a legendary weapon master specialising in dual wielding swords. Oh and he’s also a Dark Elf attempting to fit in on the surface. Next is Bruenor Battlehammer, dwarven fighter. Wulfgar gets adopted as a human barbarian. Regis the halfling rogue gets them into trouble. And the last main member of the cast is the archer Catti’Brie.

There are various curious additional recurring characters along with the main protagonists as well. It’s been a while since I’ve read these books, it kinda felt like it was time again :-).

Game screenshot from Prey. 3 globules have been stuck together to form a snowman like thing, with gloves and other items added to give the snowman hands and a face. It is weird and a little disturbing. — Weird

My back hasn’t been too healthy over the past week, so outside of the books, I’ve been playing the less active games. I did try Prey last week but cut that session short after about an hour because I could feel the alarm bells preparing to go off with pain to follow. I haven’t been back into Elite since last Monday as well.

The back has been steadily improving since the weekend but I still need to give it a few days I think. I believe it’s been affected by the cold snap we’re having at the moment, plus a night spent sleeping a bit twisted.

Ouch. But getting better.

Game screenshot from Prey. We see from the eyes of the character. They're holding a big gun and looking towards a corridor. Webs of golden energy are in the way. — Weird tendrils of Thing

I’ve still been addicted to Mars Horizon … I’m loving that game. I remarked to someone earlier that I haven’t been back to Per Aspera (colony building on Mars) for a while. That’s mostly due to how good Mars Horizon is. This is one of the reasons why :

Game screenshot from Mars Horizon. It's a spacepedia entry for the Divine Dragon space shuttle. — Divine Dragon is the best name

I sadly can’t add the words there into the alt-text. There are too many ! However, I did just look up the wiki article for the space shuttle there. It’s called the Shenlong, which translates to Divine Dragon. Here’s the wiki link. The last complete game I did was as China, with that being their version of the reusable space plane in game. It’s a smaller spaceplane launched on top of a Long March 5 rocket. Bit like the Japanese version.

Anyway, things like this and the variations between the various space agencies just adds to the interest this game is giving me. I’ve enjoyed its planning and mission puzzles but the information in the spacepedia just elevates to an incredible level.

And what could I do after finishing China …

Game screenshot, Mars Horizon. We're on the red, dusty Mars. A China flag is in the foreground. Behind that is the Habitat lander and the crewed rover. In the background are what I think are more habitats or supply structures. — Mars Base, China style

But start again as the last space agency … Europe !

Game screenshot, Mars Horizon. We're on the surface of the Moon. An astronaut holds a flag. The lander is behind them. Earth is in the background. — We’re on the Moon again !

Yep. There’s a bit of addiction going on.

But not tonight cos I’m listening to a couple of table top rpg streams and I’m about to dive into book again.

Be well everyone, stay safe.

Admin and Spaceships

by Sleepypete

January 18, 2021

8:35 pm

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admin, gaming, internet spaceship

A friend posted a great joke pic earlier … I just have to pass it on :

Joke cartoon picture by Cordell. A dog and a man are sitting on a sofa, looking over the back of the sofa and out of the window. The man is saying "Until now, I never understood why you got so excited when someone walked past the house." — I totally get that

Which brings me to the admin note … A couple of people were talking on Twitter about Alt-Text for images last week. I got to thinking … why aren’t I doing that ? Because it’s actually quite an easy thing to do and it massively helps out the partially sighted or blind people who use screenreader software to read out website pages.

Backing up slightly – alt-text is where you write an audio description of the picture. Waving over the picture will make the text appear. Here’s one I made earlier.

Picture - capture from last week's post. It's the cosmonaut standing by a Russian flag on the Moon with a Russian Lunar Lander in the background. Earth can be seen behind. The alt text from the post last week is visible. — That’s …. better

Techie note – I’m putting the words into the alt-text attribute and the Title attribute. I didn’t figure out how to get the alt-text attribute read out but the Title attribute does the trick. Alt-text is only on this post and the last one so far but I have a kinda plan for how I might go backwards and add it to more posts.

If you recall the lady at the cinema who does the audio description advert, that’s the kind of thing I’m aiming for. I’d be curious to see if my word pictures let people properly visualise the actual picture. I don’t think adding the description is any chore at all, I’m actually finding that I’m enjoying doing it.

There’s lots of other admin things still to do. I need to go back through the ancient posts deleting the posts that aren’t actually posts. The proper WordPress import utility didn’t work, I had to go for an alternate one which was a bit too keen. I don’t think I wrote 500 posts in 2008 … I definitely didn’t write anything in 2007, the old blog was on a break at that point. I also need to write the links list (need another addon for that) and I think a glossary is required as well. That’s with alt-text in mind as well.

Screengrab from Steam showing two Mars Horizon Achievements. "Space is Very Hard" 0.2% of players have got this, it means you beat the game on very hard. The other is "Space is Hard", 0.5% of players have beat the game on Hard. — Mars Horizon …

Yep. That happened over the last week in Mars Horizon. I won’t be doing that again any time soon ! It needed a good few attempts and some crazy eyed tunnel vision playing to make it happen, with a few evolutions of path to the finish along the way. There’s an excellent guide in Steam that will give you pointers for how to get that achievement.

Game screenshot : A boxy looking robot buggy with 6 wheels, driving across the red, dusty Martian surface. — Boxy Buggy

I think that one was actually Russian … I’ve massively enjoyed Mars Horizon. It came out late last year (released November 2020) but it’s easily my best game of last year. It’s got very easy gameplay mechanics, where you pick the research, choose the missions from what’s available and make sure you have the rockets available to allow you to carry out the missions.

They’ve delivered a lovely game there. And it’s not just that … it has a Spacepedia included which is a thing of total joy for a space nerd like me. There are entries for our solar system and every actual space probe and rocket made, plus older concepts that didn’t happen and future concepts that are still on the drawing board.

The Spacepedia is worth getting the game for just to unlock the entries for that. I’d actually kinda like to reset it so that I can enjoy reading the articles as they steadily unlock (I rushed through the game first time and didn’t discover the Spacepedia until later) but the game is proving smarter than my efforts there so far … I try and delete the unlock file and it just recreates it. More Thinking Cap needed.

Game screenshot. A very large rocket on the launching pad. It has a large central core and 6 boosters at its base. — Much whoosh potential

I think that was a future Russian rocket concept again, a super heavy lift rocket that was going to take my astronauts to Mars.

Yep. Game is a joy, if you’re interested in space then I’d definitely recommend checking it out.

I’ve been back in the other internet spaceship game today … I’ve been away for a bit due to a poorly back.

Game screenshot. My Anaconda flying away from the camera showing the two big engines. It's flying towards a carrier ship and in the backdrop there is an Earth Like planet. — Hello carrier

The poorly back started last Monday, hasn’t really let up yet. I think I need to avoid Elite again for another week because it stiffened up more towards the end of today’s session. I believe it was caused by sleeping with a twisted back … with the cold getting into it. Oops.

Oh, I’m trying something out with the spaceship pictures. There’s a setting called “Supersampling”, which ups the resolution at which the pictures are drawn. I’m seeing the game at the resolution of 2560 x 1440 that my monitor supports. Supersampling means the game is drawing more pixels and then reduces it down. It should reduce the jaggedness I’ve been noticing. A setting of 1.25 was working ok on my hardware (3200 x 1800) but 1.5 was probably past what my current graphics card could handle. It’s only a 3GB card, I’m on the hunt for a new one but graphics cards are rarer than common sense in the mob at the moment.

Game screenshot. My Anaconda is landed on a dark grey moon, the starboard forward quarter faces the camera. The little moon buggy is in front with its red lighting. — Also buggy

One thing about the bad back though … if I’m needing to avoid playing the games due to the posture that gets me in, that can only mean … reading more books !

I’m on book 4 of this year.

Book 1 was the finish of Absolution Gap by Alastair Reynolds. This felt like a harder slog than it probably should have been. I was kinda expecting an epic finish, picking up from the fantastic vignettes of the second book (Redemption Ark). That second book had a desperate interstellar starship chase and the inexorable march of the Inhibitors as they were setting up in how to sterilize a star system. I was expecting more of the same and bigger. The story went a different way. It’s the story of a starship and his crew …

I’ll be looking forward to reading Shadow Captain and Bone Silence at some point but I have other books to read before going back to Alastair Reynolds again.

Book 2 was Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells, the third in the Murderbot diaries. These are very fast and short books but I’ve enjoyed than immensely more than some epicly long books. I didn’t finish Rama II or Existence, I’ll go back to Murderbot after finishing them all. I’ve acquired the fourth novella already … One for later.

Oh ! Murderbot is a SecUnit that’s managed to become self aware. A SecUnit provides security for people. It’s mostly artificial construct but there’s an organic brain in there too. Anyway, all Murderbot wants to do is hide away from people and watch soap opera serials but … life doesn’t work out like that. To adventure ! Whether Murderbot likes it or not :-D.

Book 3 was Light of Impossible Stars, by Gareth L. Powell. This is the last book in a trilogy that stars with Embers of War, continues with Fleet of Knives and ends here. I’d thoroughly recommend trying at least the first book. I like the universe that the author sets up and his technique of swapping between first person perspectives for each character works very nicely.

Book 4 is me going back to some oldies … I picked up the R.A.Salvatore dungeons and dragons books via Humble Bundle a while back and started Homeland, the first of the Drow trilogy, last night.

And I think it’s time to hit Publish (and do the other related buttons) and get back to book, plus Easter Egg Number 1 of the year, plus D&D stream at 9pm.

Drawing by me - A green dragon sitting on the floor holding a book. The dragon has glasses and is smiling as his attention is grabbed by the book. — To the book !

Have a great evening and week everyone. Stay safe, be well.