Is this thing dusty yet ?

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October 15, 2020

9:45 pm

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Probably 🙂

Oh ! Just spotted that WordPress allows captions on images. That’s new … never had that on Blogger. And there I go with the opening up a post and goi…. SQUIRREL !

To be honest though, I should probably have what amounts to the Cone of Shame from the same movie that made the Squirrel joke thing popular. Up was a remarkable film, one of the best to come out from Pixar. Going from heartwarming to heart breaking, all in the intro before the main body of the movie kicked off. I should watch it again some day.

Some of you may be coming here via a Work Thing that’s probably been published by now. HI THERE ! And welcome. I try to keep this as a place where I talk about what I’m thinking and things I’ve been doing. Like the internet spaceships :

USS Sylvia Tilly

There we go. New toy played with.

If I’ve been someplace, I’ll usually talk about that as well although I do notice that I didn’t put anything on the old blog about a trip around SS Great Britain that happened almost two years ago now. That was a good little walk around the ship and I’d thoroughly recommend people going for a look when things are less scary out there than they are now.

SS Great Britain

I’ll have to post the rest of those pictures some day. And then there’s the Lego and other building things I’ll do. I like how they steadily come together. Sometimes the designers of the model will hide little Easter Eggs away inside as well, which is something I like a lot.

The art is something that’ll appear when it’s done as well, although there are limits on what I can post here. Some of what I do is modifications made to other people’s work. Typically emotes … those will appear on their discord servers and I’ll send them on to other people I know as well. But it’s a Really Bad Thing to essentially copy someone else’s art and take it as your own. That’s one reason I’ve been looking to acquire an art style of my own, that way I own more of I post here. (I note that WordPress has added a (C) to the bottom of the page too !)

I try to keep this space relatively free of current events and what’s happening in the world. You’ll see far too much about what’s happening in other spaces and I find it a massive drag on the psyche … especially as you have to apply a heavy quality filter to everything you see because pretty much everything posted is bent one way or another. But yeah, there’s far too much of the bad stuff out there, I like to keep this space free of it unless there’s something I really have to get out of my mind and into typed in thoughts.

The blog template as a whole is something that still needs more work. The blogger version has a couple of lists of links and I want to bring that back too. It also has a blogroll where I can see if people have posted new stuff recently. That’s an excellent thing to have. But I’ll look to keep the white text on black basic format. Heavily contrasting colours aid readability and dark mode is easier on the eyes, it means you don’t have Big White Background blaring out at you. Black text on white paper works for books but I’m a convert to dark mode for screens.

I haven’t done anything really new lately with the art (outside of posing screenshots), it’s all been modifications. Spooky emotes are in and I’ve spookified three of them. One got adopted and is on the lovely Margaret Krohn’s discord (website link). I didn’t like the middle one and I don’t know whether the recipient of the third liked her one. But I was very happy that the animation conversion of another thing for Maggie K’s discord got adopted.

It’s one thing getting positive feedback, that’s always awesome especially to someone who lives on that like me. It’s a whole other thing having your art adopted for someone else’s posts or pages. That goes far beyond “I like your stuff”. People from work may vaguely recognise another one :

That was a fun little one that I did a little while ago. I’ve been finding that taking of pictures of what’s on the paper using a camera does odd things to the colour balance and it can turn the paper into grey, which the image disappears into.

That’s my current avatar, edited and updated to bring him out of the page some more. I left the grey down at the bottom to show him sitting on something. Oh and I still have the awkward feelings about how his knee is bending the wrong way :-D. The book needs tidying as well, I deleted too much when removing the grey.

That’s the kind of style I’m aiming for with my own drawings. I was a big fan of Garfield and Calvin and Hobbes as a kiddie. Those were very simply drawn cartoons that were absolute genius. If you look up close at a lot of drawn cartoons or animations, it’ll probably surprise you how simple they actually are. Simple works !

But simple also needs precision that I don’t have yet. The artists I like tend to have very precise lines and curves, which they then fill with colour. I’m sure the process behind the image is a bit more complex than that.

I’m a bit limited though by my body … I’m having a fair few upper body issues at the moment. My neck and shoulders are suffering in particular from stiffness that’s getting more and more uncomfortable. The shoulder issues extend down my arm into my right wrist as well. It was with a fair bit of relief at work when I was able to shift from doing written meeting notes and into things I’d type into a Word document or a draft email. Typing is way easier for me than writing or … drawing.

That said, the graphics tablet I have is great for doing those sketches. And I need to draw more of my dwagon alphabet and the dwagon rock band. Maybe next year’s April Fool will be setting up a rock band, although I did that already in 2015. Gosh, that’s longer ago than I thought.

And this post has gone on a bit longer than I thought it might too !

Physically – struggling. I need to greatly reduce how much of certain games I play. I haven’t been back to Final Fantasy XIV and may have to add Star Trek Online to that danger list as well. Elite has been on a bit of a break due to being disillusioned with the combat side of it.

Motorsport Manager has been a great one as it’s mostly hands off with occasional intervention for tactics. I may well see if I can lead 3 teams to success this time around, swapping from single seaters to GT cars and then into Endurance, with the switch happening when the team wins.

I haven’t written about music for a while either, that’s overdue ! I can happily report that my ears are back to normal again, which came as a bit of a surprise because I didn’t get that POP feeling from them. I suffer with tinnitus as a baseline (which is probably why I like multiple sound sources going on) but had a blocked ear for a few weeks too which was affecting me more than I’d like (headaches as well).

Wrap up time I think … for any new people, this is a fairly typical post where I’ll start out with one idea, go SQUIRREL, talk about something else for a bit and maybe, just maybe get back to the original theme.

I’ll hopefully see you next time !

PS There’s a few extra posts around in that archive too, I need to delete them ! The proper import tool didn’t work, so I had to use a messier alternate. Instead of a little over 1650 posts, it added in 2841 … I need to get deleting !

PS2 I just had a mental image of a Dwagon holding a big eraser too. So that may happen if my hands are up to it.

Over to WordPress ! Migration Time

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October 13, 2020

7:21 pm

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Gosh,

That was a bit of a strain today. I decided to make the switch to WordPress today due to the changes that Blogger is introducing to their interface. And this means …

Shiny new domain name and a new format for the blog. Actually, the blog will evolve over probably the next month or so until I’m happy with it and then I’ll undoubtedly play with it even more as I find new things to add in.

I’ll have to see how it works out. Thoughts so far :

I’m using Bluehost on the recommendation of various sites. The site hosting looks good but their onboarding process is very broken at the moment. It hangs at the initial step and doesn’t believe it’s actually done when it has set the site up, so it tries to bring you round to the start again. The site is good … but Bluehost’s systems don’t think it is. You have to go in through the page admin in order to set things up.

But you don’t really want the set up process to be good (if you can pick 1 good 1 bad), you want the hosting to be up to the mark. Oh and it’s a paid thing as well, so that’s something new.

The new edition is working on WordPress, which seems ok. Editor is looking ok so far (and categories / tags are back).

The blogger import/export feature is broken, or it could be that I have too many posts. I’ve used the WP All Import plug in to make the transfer happen. It’s not for the faint hearted or techie averse. There’s another tool out there but it got bought by people who want £15 for essentially a 1 time use. Nope.

There are a few things I want to transfer over from the old blog as well. I’ve used “Collapsing Archives” to get an acceptable archive list again but I need to rebuild the blogrolls and the other lists.

But hopefully it’ll get there over time. I’ll also be looking to add back in the ability to pull in images from the phone because that became very useful.

In other news … I’m on leave this week ! Needed it after going a few months without a break. I don’t think I’ll be going too far, pandemic second wave and all. But I should look to escape the house at least once this week.

Outside (inside?) of that, Star Trek is happening :

That’s the Ellen Landry, an Akira class escort. The origin starter levels story for my character included an episode with a couple of the characters from Star Trek Discovery, which is where that name comes from. I’ll need to look up the other characters from that episode because they need to go shippy as well.

Star Trek Online is the only internet spaceship this week though. This week’s Community Goal has gone to Conflict Zone combat again, which … I’m steering well clear of. It’s not game play that I find either fun or productive.

There’s also Motorsport Manager things happening. I’ve pretty much got that game figured out now in terms of how to build a team to win. But I do enjoy the path to getting there.

And it’s ok for my body too ! Motorsport Manager is fairly hands off, whereas other games like Star Trek Online tend to really aggravate the various issues with my body. I can feel tight shoulders and poorly wrist at the moment.

But I am enjoying the game.

Time to hit post for the first new entry for this WordPress blog ? Here goes !

PS Stay safe everyone. Be well.

Possible Drastic Change Coming. And the Lander

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October 7, 2020

11:31 pm

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Hello everyone,

There might be a very drastic change coming here very soon, as in a change of host, change of address and change of platform.

You see, Blogger’s been threatening for a few months now to change the interface for Something New and, in short, it’s an abomination. Apparently it’s due to the technical infrastructure that it runs on needing to be retired and turned off. I wonder if that means, like Farcebook, it’s going to be subject to massive slowdowns like what’s happened with that interface change. I have access to the old interface with my desktop but as soon as I reload the web page, it’ll be gone.

It’s actually such an abomination that you can’t put feedback in about it when you look at the site on a mobile. And that would be a Google Pixel 4 running Google Chrome on a Google site. Shocking. I’m testing out what the interface is like with this post and my opinion about it is still pretty bad and declining. I await to see the results on posting … (Line spacing is wrong and I’m not seeing an option to change it. COME ON ! That’s a basic feature in anything above Notepad).

So I’ll be doing a bit of research on WordPress and seeing about a possible site migration. If/when I do that, I’ll pop a link to the new site in the last post I write here. Hopefully I can do the move clean with a migration over of all of the posts but there’s over 1600 of those going back 15 years.

We shall see ! I promised Lego Lunar Lander pictures the other day and didn’t deliver …

Shiny.

4 stages this time, distributed over a series of bags. (Btw, the line spacing looks like it’s going to be a major issue with this editor and I think I’m going to need to edit it in the old one, if I can).

Astronaut ! The book this time comes with lots of little history tidbits about the Lunar Excursion Module.

It starts by building up a flat base.

Is that a resident ?

First steps of the lander module. I think someone wants to fly it.

The red and white cylinders are the propellant canisters. It’s quite a dense, compact model and goes together nicely. And we see one of the Ladies of NASA guesting there too.

Another helper recruited and the base is almost complete.

Side panels going on. One hallmark of Creator Kits is that they have much more attention to detail with the finish, with smooth blocks finishing off the outsides.

Are those eyestalks ?

Ah ha ! Landing legs.

And that’s the lower half complete. The Lunar Excursion Module had two halves. The above piece is the lander, which stayed behind on the surface, spent.

The astronauts travelled in the upper module, which has clever little windows added in which resemble the ones on the real landers.

And away it goes ! Well, actually slightly before attaching the two halves together.

Job done, everything together.

I rather enjoyed putting this one together over the weekend.

Stay safe, be well everyone.

PS Oh my giddy aunt it’s not giving me the labels to pick from like it should be doing.

Landing the Trekking

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October 5, 2020

5:13 pm

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Hello everyone,

It felt like this today when I emerged !

Although a lot of that was self inflicted wounds again after spending maybe an hour too long in Star Trek Online yesterday. I’ve been enjoying that game, despite its short comings.

Every game has shortcomings (I’ve gone from hyped to a Nope for the new Star Wars Squadrons game) but we’ll stay with our favourites because of what they do well. In Star Trek Online’s case, it’s a mix of the starship combat stuff, combined with the Star Trek stuff on the ground. They’ve managed to make it fairly star trekky too, although perhaps more in the Discovery era or DS9 rather than TNG.

However, it has that MMO playstyle again which can wreak havoc with the old injuries I carry and in particular, the shoulder. I felt twinges start up, which I should have listened to … definitely when they were becoming more intense. And then I stay 30 minutes longer than that in the game and I’m paying for that today. Oh well. It’s just moderate pain, which is ok.

I have been greatly enjoying the game though and moved on another 5 levels since that start of the session yesterday.

One thing I haven’t done is use the new Elite internet spaceship for anything more than following the start of Drew Wagar’s latest tour :

There we go. That’s the Icarus Rising, a Mamba class heavy combat ship. I like the design there, there is a huge gun amidships aft, two large guns alongside the cockpit and two little guns up front. They’re all on the top side of the ship, whereas the Fer-de-Lance has its big gun on the lower side. (It means that if you’re chasing someone in a pitching up motion, all guns can be brought to bear). There’s also a huge amount of visibility and the only angle with more than a minimal profile is the top and bottom.

It has great potential …

… to be used for shooting things as well as following Cmdr Wagar down to a planet in loose formation. That was the only time I got into the same instance as the main group though sadly.

And then there’s other ships in a universe long ago and far, far away … which I’ve been ignoring in favour of :

There we go. The ships in the spacedock looked great, no idea what they were though. The one to the lower right looks like an improved Defiant class and I think the upper one is actually two. One has a weird massive nacelle and I think the other has underslung nacelles like the Miranda and Nebula class. Looks like there’s an Ambassador class (Enterprise C) down there too. I’m current in the Constitution class Dragon Spirit :

And the game would give be another ship at level 20. (Unless I gave them money for a special ship but I don’t intend to do that). It is a bit odd though seeing that ship being a main ship in a game that has its main elements start in 2409. The old Enterprise is a bit … ancient there.

Outside of that, cricket watching was curious yesterday with it being the end of the domestic season with the T20 blast finals day, delayed from Saturday due to rain. I don’t intend to watch much IPL. It’s a predatory influence on all cricket, to the cost of the game as a whole. And some of the commentators should not be allowed behind a microphone due to their attitudes. It’s sometimes telling who gets allowed on to the Sky commentary teams here and who aren’t invited back after a guest spell. No, not impressed with much about IPL although English cricket needs to learn from the overseas leagues but not having the finals day months or so away from the main league. Get the competition done in a single block so that the specialist T20 only players can be around for the finals as well as the league, the teams that make it to the finals tend to lose their overseas stars which makes the competition be a bit false.

But there are other issues with the game as well at the moment, although the standard in general has improved since I started with a lot of innovation coming in. I was playing when KP was doing his switch hit (and could play that shot), I’d have been really tempted to try out ramp shots if I was still playing now, if only because pulling those shots off would have hugely amusing consequences for the state of mind of the opposition. If you can knock the opposition out of thinking clearly, then you have an advantage. I used to wear a floppy hat while batting, to give bowlers a target … you could say that the person encouraging bowlers to aim at his head wasn’t the one who was thinking clearly :-D.

And then you shake hands at the end of the game and step away from all the on field psychology stuff.

Landing ? I did a little bit of the Lego therapy over the weekend …

4D looking suitably impressed there.

However …. After that horrific example of shameless temptation, I better leave that series of pictures for another day as I can see from the scroll bar (it gets littler as the post gets longer) that this one has hit that Certain Length.

Obligatory Outside World Stuff :

Numbers have been going up again here, we’re in that second wave that means we should be in lockdown already … I’m ok. Put that trace app on your phone so you have a bit of warning to tell you if you’ve been around someone who’s been exposed, watch out for idiots and look after yourselves. And that can be reaching out to people, being a Good Person in the communities like I try and be at work and with the various discord communities. If you find yourself doomscrolling in Twit/Book, just step away from them. People talk about fear of missing out but I doubt whether you’ll miss out on much there and social media can and will cause a massive hit to sanity. Don’t engage with the idiots.

But if you need a bit of help, reach out. We are in extraordinary times. The last time the world saw a pandemic like this is 100 years ago with the Spanish Flu. Be well. Stay safe.

PS I think I recognised a similarity …

That’s the star fighter from Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. I wonder if it inspired the Mamba ? Two big engines, very slim rectangular profile, incredible visibility.

Smuggling Cigars and Otherwise Trekking

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September 28, 2020

10:00 pm

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Hello again,

It’s been a week again ! Must post more often. Noot that sure why I’m not, perhaps it’s a sense of wanting to isolate from the world, even more than just staying inside.

Lots of nasty news out there at the moment, whether it’s the virus situation or the various political situations. I’ve been steadily unfollowing a few people who I’ve kept an eye on for a little while. The world’s changed and they’ve changed with it. People write about doomscrolling and if all the people posting do is post Doom, that can be really bad for your mental health.

If it’s getting you down, cut it out of your feed and your life. We see that sort of stuff from all over the place, so Fear Off Missing Out doesn’t really apply. I’ve temporarily muted a couple of the Farcebook people, especially when they go overboard with the political stuff and into broken record territory. I used to follow George Takei on the Twitter, he was legendary for jokes and memes … now totally overly political.

That’s not to say that people shouldn’t use their voice … but if they become the cause, they’re not what made them fun to follow any more. Authors like James S.A. Corey and John Scalzi definitely have a great balance there. They’ll occasionally talk about the world situation but they’re more about their work and keeping to Fun Stuff.

Apart from that … Nurburgring 24 hours motor race was last weekend ! I got set up to watch the whole race this time, with pizza … And then rain happened ! The two 24 hour races got shifted from June to September this year. Le Mans got away with it, the threatened rain never erupted and it was a dry race, despite some juicy footage of lightning from near the venue. Nurburgring Nordschlieffe was another story though. They got some dry running in but they had to red flag the race overnight, calling a pause due to fog and heavy rain.

There had been a couple of damaging crashes for the leading cars in the half hour or so leading up to the red flag, so it was a good decision.

Only 1 Lexus in the race this year. I like following the RC F’s because they’re reasonably similar to what I have. Except for the coupe bodyshell, strengthened chassis, uprating all round and … oh … 5 litre engine. They were doing ok overnight, although I didn’t see what happened to them in the morning after the restart.

The coverage up the field is good, via youtube and there’s a good timing site which lets you track all of the cars … but the coverage isn’t great at keeping up with perhaps 2 thirds of the 97 car field for this year.

Still, it was good to watch and the treacherous conditions were keeping the result in doubt all the way to the end.

In real life stuff, I got me some ear drops … which have somewhat brought my head state back a bit ! I think the ear got so blocked, it was causing pressure on the rest of my head along with the tinnitus and one ear only hearing. But the ear drops have been improving.

Spaceships ? I’ve been enjoying the X52 Pro stick. It feels easier to use compared to the old one. I’m not too sure why, I think the action might be a little damped so instead of you putting a force in to move it and stop it, the damping stops it. I could do with the throttle being looser though.

I completed the trip back last weekend and along the way, visited one of the Guardian sites which have been left behind by a long dead race. Was that their high street ?

Is that a way in ?

This was a fairly extensive site, although I didn’t find a puzzle here. I must come back and do the Ram Tah mission chain, which apparently tells you much more about the Guardians.

I didn’t do the trip all at once, this was a stop off at the Eagle Nebula facility.

It was good to be back in civilisation though and Tiamat’s Chariot looks great in her new livery.

Someone mentioned that they needed a zebra prop though, which gave me a demonic idea … That’s photoshopped Gimp’d, although there is a Dazzle Camo paint scheme for one of the smaller Imperial ships.

That’s a fun thing that the stick can do. It’s a bit limited by the display size (3 addressable lines in the middle, that’s it for such a big area) and I needed third party software to make it do anything but having the landing pad instructions was cute. And about the most useful thing I’ve managed to get out of it so far. Maybe combat will be different.

The Community Goal for this week is one that deals in small quantities of good though, so as Tiamat’s Chariot isn’t really suited for that, Zoomnarr gets a little more flight time. There’s an Imperial shipyard near the collection site too with a couple of capital ships …

Also, some rare goods may give you more than you bargained for. They’re actually looking for beer, caviar, cigarettes and shiny fire opals.

Outside of Elite though, I was checking out other internet spaceships last night …

That’s from Star Trek Online. A curious mix of ground pounding combat like other MMOs and space based combat. It felt like Star Trek should feel, with phasers on the ground and something that feels similar to the Starfleet Command games in space.

But … it’s a 10 year old game that looks like while it’s had lots of story content for it over that period, it looks like a 10 year old game. It was making me think of Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic and the other games of that era.

A promising start though. That I might not be able to continue for the same reason as FFXIV ! My hand and arm aren’t a fan of me today after a couple of hours in STO last night.

A pity.

I’ve also been in Motorsport Manager 🙂 Sleepy Dwagon Racing were smashing the competition in the lowest league, so it was time to promote and they’ve got the points they should need to stay in that league already … after 3 races. I’ve got a definite formula for How To Win in that game, which makes it pretty much a certainty that I’ll eventually get them winning in the next league up … but you have to be on your game in order to keep winning. The AI doesn’t handle transitions between wet, dry and back to wet, which is a weakness that can be exploited.

I must get some screenshots from MM.

Oh, techie buying may well be adding another thing to the list … a keyboard ! The Steelseries M800 that I got 4 years ago was a wonderful keyboard for feel … but is feeling increasingly prone to mis-keying and double tapping of the keys. I’ll be looking at Logitech, Corsair or … (shock horror), the cheapie own brand one from PC World that actually felt really nice to type on.

Although that would mean going outside more …

That too.

New Toy, Getting Used to It

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September 20, 2020

10:07 pm

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Hello everyone,

I’ve been buying a couple of things …

There’s one. Hoping it’ll be good, haven’t put it together yet. Been a rough feeling few days, although I think some of that is due to pressure around my head from my poorly ear. Yesterday was headache time, not quite sure why I don’t have the headache now !

It was the Le Mans race this weekend, although it was a little different from usual. The race was being run to the same rules, although there were less practice and qualifying sessions. We were also missing some of the competitors in the GTE classes as Ford have pulled out and Corvette couldn’t come over due to pandemic. I did get some sleep this morning though and then watched the rest of the race on time delay. It was a good race too, with incidents happening typically when things had settled down.

There was a bit of an end of an era feel about it too … This was the last Le Mans with the LMP Le Mans Prototype cars before LMDh (Le Mans Daytona hypercar) takes over. It should lead to better racing, with more manufacturers coming in. LMP got a bit too expensive in the last few years, with the hybrid systems coming in and manufacturers pulling out. LMDh should be a good reset.

Nurburgring next weekend should be interesting and there will be many more cars on the much longer circuit.

Oh, I did a start of a Stellaris game overnight as well, I haven’t been impressed with what they’ve been doing in the game lately. The changes brought in intentionally don’t seem great and the bugs being introduced just don’t get fixed. That’s the disappointing thing. But it was good to be in there again with the Nomnivorian Swarm having a good start eating one of the nearby races. Hey ! They declared war on me … We just bit back. Literally.

What’s the new toy ?

There we go, it’s an X52 Pro flightstick and throttle unit.

Dwagon included for scale. They’re a chunky pair … So chunky, I think I’ll be acquiring a board to put them on like an extender to the keyboard tray they get put on. When the throttle is full forwards, the 4 way switch clashes with the main deck of my desk. The mounting board will let me pull it backwards a bit to give access.

It’s got lots of buttons … and lights too. I’ll be looking into how to get useful information out of a little multi function display that’s on the throttle. Thoughts so far … and this may read like a mini review so :

Disclosure note – bought from Logitech, not a free product.

Main flight stick has a really smooth nice action and that wrist rest you see there is moveable upwards for different sized hands. I’ve had to lift it up so I can access the switches and buttons on top. There’s a lovely two stage firing trigger but I wasn’t getting on with the lower pinkie trigger that’s at the bottom of the stick. Felt like it was getting in the way. The disc at the bottom of the stick also interferes a little with moving the stick off the centre, although that might be a New Thing thing. The obstruction relieves if you rotate the disc, so it’s an interaction with the spring.

Throttle is similarly sensitive with moving off the centre, although that could be New Thing thing. It’s useful to set up a little dead zone.

There’s a nice little thumb mouse on the throttle too, with button and scroll wheel too. I thought this would be great for the discovery scanner system in Elite, where I think stretching to use my main mouse there is damaging me. Having a mouse on the throttle is an amazing concept but I wasn’t getting the wiring in my brain to match up with using it effectively. Perhaps it would have worked with more training but I just went “Nah, can’t be bothered, ditch it for old method”.

On the whole, positive. It feels solid and well made, although oddly it isn’t holding to the desk like the Thrustmaster Hotas X did. Perhaps that’s because the bases are a little shorter and the controls are bigger, so there’s more leverage compared to the base. This should improve when I acquire the board to put them on.

Oh and it’s giving me some more options I didn’t have before to get better screenshots. Before, I’d have to pose the ship and then move the camera, I wouldn’t be able to go back to moving the ship. I can do that now :-D.

Talking of screenshots …

I left things last week at the Dryau Awesomes and a short hop happened on Thursday taking me to the Keelback Rings. That’s a pair of ringed planets that orbit each other quite closely, with distinctive colouration on the rings. Pretty.

Same place, at log in when I returned today. One thing that’s simulated is the orbital period of the planets and moons. So when I land, I’ll look for a good landing spot that’s got interesting surface features … plus a backlighting sun to bring out the colours of the ship.

Sometimes there isn’t a sun around to provide the backlight, you can just see the ship there on the left, with a nebula being lensed around the black hole.

It was a good little session actually, whereas I’ve been tiring quickly on other runs, I did a few hops tonight via one of the XTE black holes above, finding this ringed waterworld :

I am definitely liking the blue and orange colouration of Zoomnarr. The pop much better than I thought they would.

And my destination tonight was Neon Beacon, one of a few very rare gas giants that has neon green colouration.

I found a very rugged moon to perch upon too. (Although for some reason didn’t F10 to save the screenshot of me looking at the gas giant from there ! Oops, next time).

Promising start, took a while to figure out what the new buttons did … and remap where I wasn’t going to get on with them !

More screenshots later and I’ll put the Marble Parkour and Lego things together as well at some point. That’s going to be waiting for hands …

I’m feeling my right wrist a bit, although that might be an impact of getting my hand in around that pinkie switch. I’ve also had the pain again on my left hand, where the knuckles were damaged by over aggressive practice in cricket. That’s something that comes and goes, when they bad, the insides of my knuckles feels like there’s a broken bone in there … that was yesterday, they’re ok today.

We’ll see how those go.

In the meantime though, those virus numbers are going up again here in the UK … Stay safe everyone, avoid the idiots, wear the masks, hope you and yours stay well.

Top of the Galaxy and other news

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September 14, 2020

8:49 pm

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Hello everyone,

There may be lots of screenshots tonight …

There’s one. I followed the speed run to the galactic centre with a trip to the top of the galaxy. There will be a certain amount of cheating* going on with how it shows the galaxy but it does still look pretty.

*(that isn’t several billion entities being simulated, that’s a skybox generated from a prediction, the skybox background is then oriented according to how the camera is looking at it) TLDR – looks pretty.

I think I’ve caught a cold … hopefully not anything more sinister than that. I have no idea how catching a cold could happen, although I definitely have the sneezing, runny nose and blocked ears. Odd. Could be hay fever, probably is hay fever because I’m very susceptible to that and can’t take anything for it for various reasons.

Looking forwards to watching Le Mans this weekend, although I won’t try staying up for the whole 24 hours. Same with Nurburgring the week after. I like to watch teams that are a little way down the field, or teams that have suffered some kind of misfortune and are fighting back. That’s usually far more interesting than boringness that can happen up front.

I need to get out and about some too, despite the hayfever and apparent cold. But I won’t be going anywhere while I have cold symptoms (I have supplies until at least the weekend, am ok).

Apart from that, I’m managing hands issues again … The internet spaceships seem to be reasonably neutral with it but more traditional first person shooter type games may be causing issues. So no more Final Fantasy XIV yet but I did have a look at The Outer Worlds.

I’m not sure about this one, it isn’t holding me in like I thought it would. I’m actually feeling like diving into a fresh Mass Effect Andromeda playthrough instead (that’ll be Fuzzyfreaks and her return to Mass Effect) and there’s also the Deus Ex Adam Jensen games (Human Revolution, Mankind Divided).

But there’s also the internet spaceships. Depending on how I play, these are better and worse for my hands. I didn’t cause that dent by the way, it was there before I landed, not when I landed.

Honest.

Time to come back down though and that was another pointer from Kamd, a moon with just the right amount of inclination in orbit above its parent planet to really show off those rings. Also geysers …

And what I could only describe as pipe trees. Tight landing too …

On to a system called the Eye of Fire, with lovely copper coloured gas giants and rings. But … there was more …

I travelled round a little more until the planet was giving me an eclipse and there’s a second gas giant there that can be seen through the rings.

Moving on again though and nebulae are pretty. As must be the view from this science station :

At some point, I’ll watch the movie The Black Hole again which has the research ship Cygnus perched on the edge of a black hole. It’s a Disney scifi movie from December 1979 and as such, there’s a lot of silly about it. But I can remember enjoying watching it.

My stopping point for the evening was a place called the Dryau Awesomes … There’s a white dwarf star shining out there and in the lower centre right, you’ll see the telltale whorl of a black hole lensing the background.

But that’s not where the Awesomes come from :

That’s a bit close isn’t it …

There’s a fleet carrier nestled in there too, the Buurian Anchorage. I stopped off here to repair the hyperdrive and hand in my exploration data before attempting what’s said to be a very hazardous landing. I think I was ok, although landing on that smaller planet there so close to the big one could be a bit hairy.

There we are, perched on a ledge looking at the big planet.

But I moved on a bit from there because I wanted a picture with the star in the background.

Back later in the week. It’s been good to see the galactic news service make a return as well. It’s back with a bang … literally … as several space stations have been attacked.

It’s a good alternate world to fly around in, definitely a rather pretty escape from what’s happening in this one !

Stay safe everyone, be well.

Defensive Baking and Speed Running

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September 6, 2020

10:16 pm

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Hello everyone,

Book today ! Internet spaceships later.

It wasn’t that book. Although after seeing it in my search for a thumbnail today, I kinda want to read that now ! The pic above is The Great Dragon Bake Off by Nicola O’Byrne and here’s the Goodreads link.
Nah, this semi-review is about A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking by T.Kingfisher, aka Ursula Vernon.

After switching to this one after giving up on the tedious Existence (David Brin), this book was a wonderful breath of fresh air. It’s written in a light style and it’s always half a sentence away from an inventive bit of humour that’ll keep you laughing all the way through the book and quite often, bursting out into uncontrollable chuckles.

What’s it about ?

This book is centred around the 14 year old Mona, who lives in a feudal medieval era world blessed by a light touch of magic. Wizards are rare … and our Mona has an affinity for bread and baking. She can make gingerbread men dance and animate dough in various other ways.

However … not all is well in this world …

There’s been a Murder ! This is one of those lovely books that’s extremely well paced. You don’t get bored but happily get drawn gently into a tale of skullduggery and then heroism. It builds to a natural climactic finish too. Quite possibly a bit dark with what one of the characters gets up to … but you probably need a bit of evil to balance all that fluffy goodness.

I think I had all sorts of bread puns lined up when I was talking to someone about this the other day but the internet spaceships thing today has banished them a bit ! Let’s see …

A nice fluffy story. It rises satisfactorily throughout, it tempts with goodness and the humour and characters are the icing on the top. Oh and it’s consistent within itself too, coming out the oven with a lovely texture throughout.

A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking by T.Kingfisher (aka Ursula Vernon) – wonderful book, will definitely be checking out what else she’s come out with. Humour throughout and delicious inventiveness.

Internet spaceships ? I may have to be a bit more careful with these because my body wasn’t liking what I was doing with them today. (Oo-er?)

I left things last time with the Hand of Caledorn doing a different type of mining … After one more quick session, I’ve switched over to Zoomnarr, aka 5K-L4H. That’s Zoomnarr in the picture above. She’s my second Krait Mk II ship, with that type selected because there hasn’t been a record run done with them yet. Mission … head to the Core.

After a little shakedown cruise first. Seen here checking a decidedly second hand science ship.

The speed run thing is to see how quickly you can get from the Sol system to Sagittarius A* at the galactic centre. It’s been done in 86 minutes 57 seconds … in a ship with greater jump range. They’re probably seeing 75-77 light year jumps there, Zoomnarr can do 61.1 light year jumps. I think they have a much craftier route as well than the ones the Spansh plotter gives me.

The things they look for to register runs are 3 screenshots … the one above which proves you started on the same day you arrived (they changed the info in the next one). The time of departure :

There we go. 12.58.00 in the top right. And time of arrival, using the Galaxy Map to prove that you’re at the Core :

This time it’s 16.08.49 in the top left, making the run time 3 hours, 10 minutes and 49 seconds for my fastest time yet. I thought I had a chance of breaking through to under 3 hours but made a few errors at neutron stars :

That was the worst, where I bumped into the exclusion zone which drops you out of hyperspace. To go really far and fast, you drop into the streamers of the neutron stars and that lets you jump 4 times the distance that you would without the boost.

One thing about the trip is that as you get closer to the centre, the star density massively increases. It’s pretty. And I’m definitely liking the new colour scheme.

And another visit to Sagittarius A* ! I think this is the fifth time I’ve been there on this character and it’s still a treat seeing the stars lensing around the monster in the middle there.

But it was time to put the ship to bed and there she is coming to rest in Explorer’s Anchorage. The trip back will be a lot slower and I’ll be checking out places to see as well with a new rover.

Next objective – to have Zoomnarr on screen with Cmdr Drew Wagar’s next Elite tour, starting in October. I should be back in the bubble for that :-).

Hopefully with limbs that have forgiven me by then too ! The speed run play style is a bit reminiscent of MMOs, where you feel pressured to keep at it when you’d normally step away for a moment or take it a bit more chill. I was feeling this trip in my hip (strange I know !) and I’ll have reminders from the arms over the next few days.

But the setting of a new time and the screenshots I’ll get on the way back will make it worth it.

Stay safe everyone, be well.

Mining, Reading, Working

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August 31, 2020

10:35 pm

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Hello everyone,

What have I been up to for the week ? Feels like time is flying by still at the moment.

I’ve actually turned the Seti sums back on again, because it’s cooled down enough here to be putting the jumpers back on.

Let’s see. Work’s been fairly intense lately and it really should have been a bit more intense. I should actually be in a different country at the moment under quarantine ahead of a little period away. But I’m not, partly due to physical condition, partly due to mental condition.

My head’s ok now, my mental state picked up considerably after I was stood down from going away. But there is that nagging sense that I’ve let the mental issues win this time. Some of those issues come from the frustration I was having with arranging my end of the trip. (Arranging for me seemed to be much more of an unknown than the other people – can’t go in to why here) A big one was the prospect of over a month away from home. I get anxiety when I’m away. Some of it was the conditions I’d be going into. Again, can’t say why here.

What caused the decision to be made though was that the mental issues were causing tensions that were manifesting in physical conditions. My back has mostly repaired itself now from when it tried to decouple itself and I’ve been back in the internet spaceship piloting seat as well (more later). Mining has been a good activity there, feels productive. I haven’t attempted a shooter or MMO style game for a good while though, if the spaceships are close to aggravating the wrist, then the shooter / MMO games are likely to activate that issue again.

Oh and I also needed to take a moment when I was picking up shopping last week and my hips were  getting crunchy …

Things do feel a little like making excuses though and I’m not sure if I like that. That’s one thing about mental issues, the person with them will feel as if they’ve let themselves down … which just acts as negative reinforcement.

It’s ok to talk about the mental issues. In fact, I’d heavily encourage it. In being able to express those issues with a few people, it’s let me bounce back quite a bit from when they were affecting me so much that the tension was manifesting as the physical issues.

Reading ?

After abandoning David Brin’s Existence after 100 tedious pages, I’ve been reading A Wizard’s Guide To Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher. More to come about that in a later post (when I’ve finished reading it !) but I enjoyed its first 36 pages so much, I had to share part of why I was finding it a fun read :

It’s been light hearted fun so far, very readable and the early parts quite happily drew me in to the story and I was wanting to continue despite it getting late.

Existence was a bit different. The first couple of chapters were ok … and then we hit one with a travel journalist experiencing the Mixed Reality rich areas. That was tough to read, not for subject but for readability. I don’t like the Wall of Text tendency that I can have, this was Wall of Text to the extreme. And then it goes into intermission sections between chapters, some of which were a talk show type set up that I was essentially just skipping over. There’s a lot of self indulgent stuff in there, it was distracting heavily away from any semblance of plot and I gave up on it after 100 pages, perhaps 15/20 of which felt plot related.

Internet spaceships ? I’ve been mining again …

Mining is a bit broken though, so fairly soon I’ll be switching ship again. ZoomNarr is potentially next, although I’d like to open up a little more engineering first for weight savings …

That’ll be what Zoomnarr looks like and I’ll be aiming at around 3 hours to get to the Galactic Core in this one. My record is 3 hours 6 minutes …

I’m not switching ships due to a lithobraking incident though … honest. (All the dents came out from this planetary approach).

Gotta say, the colour scheme of Hand of Caledorn was fitting in rather nicely with the surroundings she was mining in. However, mining has suffered a little lately in the metagame area. Low Temperature Diamonds were the main highly lucrative item, these are now scarcer than scarce. As a knock on to that, the Painite I’ve been mining has lessened in value as the market saturates. So … time to test something new :

Mining with explosives ! Charges set …

BOOM TODAY ! (Well. Yesterday.)

Hmm. More boom needed.

That’s better. The idea is that you use the seismic charge launcher to embed explosives into the rock and then …

Pick up the goodies exposed from the insides, find the high buyers and profit. I cut the session short a little because I was struggling to fill the hold … and also because the wrist issues were threatening again. Still, it was a nice 128m credits from the session although that took 4 hours to get, rather than the 2 hours that a Painite session currently netting 121m would take.

So I think I’ll leave the mining aside for a little bit. Next up will be a brief combat session again in a Mamba. Not the best ship but the only useful role I can see for it is mining. A Beluga Passenger Liner will happen at some point … and also the Anaconda class explorer ship Searching For Dragons will go round the galaxy. That’ll be all of the ships owned at the that point, although the Admiral Luperza hasn’t been out of the hangar yet.

We’ll see. Perhaps even a little FFXIV as well, although that was a catalyst for the wrist issues so I may have to just cold turkey drop that game.

We shall see ! Apart from that, Le Mans is coming up, having been moved to September. Nurburgring 24 hour is the week after. I’ll be watching someone down the field and hoping they do well. It’s boring to support the winners. Better to urge on the cars that have had terrible luck at some point and you can watch them battle back through the field after repairs. I was doing that with the Lexus cars last year, sadly they won’t be at the Nurburgring even this year. But there’s a custom sports car, several GT86s and some Aston Martins to keep an eye on.

Should be good.

Stay safe everyone, be well.