20 Bookish Questions

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August 23, 2020

9:27 pm

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Hello everyone,

I just spotted something over at Cyberkitten’s blog and thought I’d join in too. Here’s the link to CK’s answers.

20 Bookish Questions :
One: How many books is too many books in a book series ?
The book after the series ran out of steam. A few cases here … Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern books were excellent … up until the main story was told and the direction was lost. It was flogging the dead horse after that. With David Weber’s Honor Harrington books, these were fantastic in their earlier days when it was all about the space navy action. Where these ran off the rails was the steady escalation into a more political sphere. The politics and espionage were boring and it dragged the stories out way too much.

But with James S.A. Corey’s The Expanse series, I’m wondering if they can finish off their story in the last book … Could be a big book. They’ve been clever with that series too, with it feeling like a trilogy of trilogies, where there’s a time step between books 3 and 4 and another skip between books 6 and 7. The authors will finish The Expanse on Book 9, even though there’s a lot of fan desire to have more books in that universe. I think they have the right of it.

Two: How do you feel about cliffhangers ?
The best cliffhangers are the ones that provide a step or a break between books. The previous book tells its own story to completion and then sets up the scenario for the next book. Done well, a cliffhanger leaves you satisfied and hungry for more. The Expanse books have done this pretty well. Another of Anne McCaffrey’s though (the Freedom’s Landing ending) felt like a padded first book of a set of 4 that could have been just one book.
(Translation – it’s all about the book and the narrative)

Three: Hard cover or paperbacks ?
Paperbacks because they are cheaper and lighter. But … if I’m in a book cave and they have a hard cover copy of a book I’m interested in, I won’t pass up doing the collecting thing just because it’s hardback.

Four: What is your favourite book ?
While it wouldn’t be my Favourite, I keep going back to The Martian. It combines the space scifi that I love with a joyful style. It’s fun to read. The books I’ve enjoyed most over the past year are the first two Murderbot Diaries books by Martha Wells and Fleet of Knives by Gareth L. Powell. Now those two books set up cliffhangers well.

Five: What is your least favourite book ?
Farnham’s Freehold by Heinlein. There are probably others (Rama II) but this one came to mind recently. It’s about a family who dive into their nuclear shelter and find themselves transported to the far future. And then the racism starts … This is possibly the most racist thing I’ve ever read. Heinlein has his great moments … but he also let the fascism out a bit too much and it’s joined here by really offensive racism too.

Six: Love Triangles – Yes or No ?
If it’s good drama, go for it. However, if the book gets mired in the love triangle to the distraction of everything else then I’ll get bored. This is one of the things that drove me away from Rama II. Too much bad interpersonal drama between poor characters. But there’s also a lot of potential for interesting drama here too.

Seven: What was the most recent book you could never finish ?
Rama II by Arthur C. Clarke Gentry Lee. Rendezvous with Rama was an excellent book. It had mystery, it rattled through its story, it kept you interested … and it was over in a flash. 10/10 would consider reading again. However, I abandoned Rama II after over a third of it was tied up in tedium before they set foot on the artifact. I then did a bit of research, finding out about the Gentry Lee thing where someone else wrote it under essentially endorsement.

Eight: What is the book you’re currently reading ?
Existence by David Brin. I’m not too far in so far. Tiredness and the recent heat were keeping me away from reading. But I’ve also not really been engaged with the writing style so far. Early days, must get back to it.

Nine: What is the last book you recommended to someone ?
I think I’ll say “A Big Ship At The End Of The Universe” by Alex White here. I really enjoyed this one too. It’s space fiction again but the New Thing here is that while science is in play, this book is all about the magic in the universe. Oh and motor racing too, plus fun characters. Angry characters, evil ones, good ones, naive ones. I’d definitely recommend this one.

Ten: What is the oldest book you’ve ever read ?
Not sure here. I think it’ll be an H.G. Wells, although I’m having trouble remembering there. H.G. had a gift of writing in such a style as to avoid the danger of having their books appear dated, even now.

Eleven: What is the newest book you’ve read ?
I wonder actually, could be A Big Ship At The End Of The Universe, could be Embers of War. I tend to wait a little until the price has come down. I’ve got a big list of unread books, so it’s rare that I feel that need to immediately pay full price for the newest book. Thinking about it, this could be Tiamat’s Wrath, book 8 in the Expanse series.

Twelve: Who is your favourite author ?
Hmm … I think I’ll put Timothy Zahn here, for what he did for the Star Wars Expanded Universe by giving us a much better set of sequels to the movies than we got in cinema … Oh and there’s also Michael Stackpole and Aaron Allston for their XWing books, James S. A. Corey for their Expanse books, Gareth L. Powell and Martha Wells. There are too many books to lock it down to just one author :-).

Thirteen: Buying or Borrowing Books ?
I’ll happily borrow a book, dive through it and hand it back but I do like to own my own books. It helps the author, probably doesn’t give them much cash but the more people buy their books, the more likely we are to get more books from the author. And more people support artists, the better.

Fourteen: What is the book you dislike that everyone seems to love ?
Hmm … Ignoring that the author seems bent on destroying her own reputation at the moment and intent on turning herself into a pariah, I’d pick Harry Potter. Yep, went there. I couldn’t finish the first book. Perhaps I’d been seeing the issues inherent in her universe before they were brought out and highlighted. Maybe it was thinking Diagon Alley was a name completely lacking in originality rather than something clever or cool. And while I liked the character Luna Lovegood because she was an interesting character, I don’t think the name Lovegood was an appropriate name for a child character in what’s supposed to be a kid’s book. Another one that may have sounded “cool” but … pick something else. It sounded like it was inspired by the names given to Bond Ladies.

Fifteen: Bookmarks or dog ears ?

Thou shalt not dog ear.

Sixteen: What’s a book you can always re-read ?
The Martian, due to the sense of fun running all the way through it. The simple intelligence in how the author develops his character and his answers to the problems he faces. It’s a very enjoyable book to read through.

Seventeen: Can you read and listen to music ?
It’s very rare that I don’t have music on … However, depending on the book, I might not be paying much attention to the music while being enthralled by the book !

Eighteen: One PoV or multiple PoVs ?
This can work really well either way. In The Expanse and Fleet of Knives books, the PoV changes between chapters as the book wraps together threads as seen from the different characters. It works extremely well for those books. However, others work very well from a single PoV, like Starship Troopers or Old Man’s War by John Scalzi.

Nineteen: Do you read a book in one sitting or over multiple days ?
I don’t read fast enough to read a 600 page book in one sitting :-D.

Twenty: Who do you tag ?
Nope. I don’t do that. If you enjoyed reading this as I did with CK’s version, feel free to grab the questions and tag yourself in. But I don’t tag people like that :-).

PS In other news, I did the internet spaceship thing today … I think there’s mixed feelings there. I didn’t have any wrist spasms but I have more stiffness in my shoulder now. Curious …

A Cause, Some Pain And a Relic

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August 20, 2020

10:06 pm

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Hello everyone,

I’m a little overdue about promoting a cause !

There we go.

Long time readers will recognise the little lady on the left there. She’ll be taking part in a stream on Friday 21st August that’s dedicated to a fundraiser for ending the virus of racism. In this case, it’s focusing on the endemic racism we’ve been seeing directed towards pretty much anyone of Asian descent.

Here’s the fundraiser link : https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/endthevirusofracism

This isn’t just about the plague that’s out there at the moment either. The racism has been out there a lot longer than that. It’s a fear of Different.

Sod that. Difference is good. Difference is strength. Difference is interesting. Difference gives us new perspectives, new stories, new things to learn. New ways to do things. It should be a positive, not something to bully people with.

If you’re a regular reader, you should know me well enough to know that I hate it when people can’t fight back. This particular cause has roots in how the media is presenting the Coronavirus. Even our BBC pretty much always has the Asian person in a mask as a symbol for the virus.

That’s wrong. It promotes a stereotype that gets people hurt. It’s rare that I get angry about things but I’m angry when I know that people I know and care about are facing abuse born from the ignorance of others. And I’m even more incensed because the people triggering this abuse are the media, who are the voice that dominates opinion.

It’s tough to fight a message if the abusers have all of the megaphones.

They’ll be on Kim’s channel at 2pm BST (GMT+1) tomorrow, which is really convenient cos that’s around the time I’ll close the work laptop up (I work longer in the week so I can wrap up early on the Friday). Here’s the link : https://www.twitch.tv/nanokim

I can guarantee it’ll be emotional. There will be many stories that will hopefully open your eyes. It’ll be powerful.

How about me and the Some Pain ?

(credits in the picture)
I’m still struggling at the moment. The perverse thing is that the pain I have in my arm and wrist is ok for working at home but is likely to be very bad in games. I’ve been in games only a couple of times in the evening this week, once for a Battletech session, once for Motorsport Manager. They’re both fairly hands off games.

I may have to abandon Final Fantasy XIV early. I’ve been liking it ! But that MMO playstyle seems to be really bad for my wrist.
I’m looking at alternate control methods for the internet spaceship because the yaw mechanism is triggering occasional spasms.

The issues I’m coping with at the moment are mainly :
Back – the lower lumbar area that I hurt when I was 17 never really fully healed and occasionally flares again. I think it got activated by stress tension and the muscles reacted. Anyway, that one can give the “My Strings Got Cut” feeling that I guess people with a bad back all know about. It also causes soreness in my left leg, as the damaged area impacts the nerves going into the leg.
Shoulder and arm – I think I said something about this a few weeks ago. I think the joint moved again and the arm settled into the Not Quite Right place which means I get numbness in the arm and the impacted circulation will amplify that RSI tendency.
Hips – this problem started with the cricket again but massively increased in the worst days of my skin condition (99% fixed now) when I was sitting on the floor. My hips are wrecked … I can walk around ok when I can actively control the movements but standing and turning can lead to screaming.

But apart from that, I’m ok. As long as I’m managing the issues and avoiding the activities that make them worse, I’m not needing painkiller assistance to cope with them.

I’m in a far better position than a lot of people there and I have to remember that because if I have the pain now, it’ll inevitable worsen when I’m even older.

On another note though … Relic ? Nah. That’s not me. Check this out :

Perhaps a preview of something I have in mind for December’s Advent series …

The game is Neverwinter Nights, which originally came out in June 2002. This was a quite flawed but brilliant game. It had many critics who came from the Baldur’s Gate series and they were upset because it appeared dumbed down with only a couple of characters in the party, compared to the 6 of the earlier Baldur’s Gate Infinity Engine games.

My response to that is that while I bounced off all of the Baldur’s Gate games (and the new Pathfinder Kingmaker game) due to the micromanagement you had to do in those, I took to the simpler Neverwinter Nights and played the hell out of it.

The big step onwards that it took between Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2 and Neverwinter Nights was to turn the play area from 2d predrawn backgrounds into a mostly 3d environment. that had its critics too because the environments and models were pretty crude.

But that was the technology we had at the time. I think I’d have been playing this on either a 450MHz machine or a 2GHz Athlon XP and a distant ancestor of the graphics cards we have now. (Probably a 3dfx Voodoo2 with a whopping 8MB of memory)

I didn’t particularly care about the graphics though. They tended to be a bit fuzzy anyway because that’s how cheaper cathode ray tube monitors were. LED/LCD monitors are so much better.

Nope. I was drawn into the story much more and massively enjoyed it. I even have the walkthrough book somewhere. So I just had to go a bit further and acquire the two expansions when they came out in 2003.

This was a game from the days when they came in boxes with goodies too. In this case, a manual, 3 dvds and that map you see in the background as well.

Good times. (Although these goodies pale in comparison to what came with Falcon 4. Hopefully I can find that before December !)

People still play Neverwinter Nights too. The stream I have on the laptop is Distracted Elf (Twitch link) playing on a multiplayer Neverwinter Nights server. They made an excellent platform here.

Hopefully Kim’s platform tomorrow will be super successful too. I’ll bid you good night there, one more linkage !
Twitch stream : https://www.twitch.tv/nanokim
Crowdfunder : https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/endthevirusofracism

Good night everyone, stay safe, be nice to people you meet.

Health and …. Spaceships ?

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August 16, 2020

9:53 pm

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Hello everyone,

Another week ! And it’s been a hot one this week, changing into heavy thunderstorms … They hit here on Thursday evening (I think) and they were shaking the windows …

I was rather relieved when the weather did break, because the heat was being a massive struggle. I don’t handle heat particularly well, probably a symptom of tending more to the hyperactive side (although I’ve been really struggling for energy as well lately).

That drawing above happened rather quickly on Wednesday over a lunchtime when I was really feeling the heat. My temperature gauge is back down to 46 degrees C now, it was hitting 49 earlier in the week and it’s still feeling a little warm to wear more than shorts and a t-shirt. The usual comfy temperature is about 43 degrees C.

That’s not the actual room temperature, it’s the readout from the graphics card so it’s a little above ambient. It’s a decent readout though. Most of the time, the card is sitting idle and isn’t doing much so it steadies out to something indicative of how relatively warm it is. When it’s working for games, it’ll go up to the 70s. The processor temperature isn’t a good indicator, it goes up and down quite a lot as the processor suddenly switches into doing work.

It was good seeing England turn the cricket around last week, although this week’s game will go to a draw tomorrow because most of the available time has been lost to rain.

Back to health – I’m struggling a bit at the moment. Some of that is down to work and reasons I won’t go in to here. We’re still working from home by the way, we have been since the situation erupted in March. Apart from printing, we have the facilities we need and the network has held up pretty much all the time. Switching to working from home hasn’t affected us that much. But the situation as a whole at the moment is interfering with getting things done, which is contributing to stress levels.

I don’t like expressing when I’m in the struggle mode, although sometimes you do have to just say “I am really stressed at the moment” so that it’s registered when all other signals are normal. And the struggle signals don’t translate very well over the computer screen.

I’m struggling in other ways as well :
Not much internet spaceships happened this weekend because I’ve been suffering not just from wrist pain but also spasms. That’s not a good sign. So the last time I flew was Thursday. I’ve opened up Battletech again and have been enjoying the tactical battles in that.
My back has decided to come out on strike as well. I have an old injury from cricket which never properly healed. It’s in my left lumbar area and affects my left leg. So after that flared on Friday, I’ve been slightly restricted in movement and I’m attempting to not aggravate it further by keeping twisting movements to a minimum.
I’ve been getting pins and needles and numbness in my right arm too with some activities, which is usually a sign that my shoulder isn’t in the right place.

And there’s probably a few more issues as well. The back isn’t critical at the moment but you have to listen to those warning signs. The wrist is probably critical and I need to actually pay heed to those warning signs. I haven’t been in Final Fantasy XIV since last week, not sure when I can go back in.

I have a Lego Lunar Lander as well which hasn’t gone together yet. The hot weather would have been a good excuse there as it doesn’t include making heat like the games do. But it involves twisting (to get stuff out of bags) and fine hand movements … so it’ll stay in the box for a bit.

But it’s not all doom and gloom. I do have a few screenshots to show this week (plus there’s the dwagon up above) …

Towel of Space was still doing well but I’ve switched to another ship now. A mining session with Towel of Space needed about 4 hours to pull in 256t plus another 10 in the refinery. Here is the new one :

She’s the Hand of Caledorn. The new plan was a smaller ship, with more collectors to speed things up. A mining session is about 2 hours in this one, bringing in 192t plus the 10 in the refinery. The quicker mining rate is an answer to the problem of the wrist … and because 4 hour sessions after putting the work laptop away were making dinner be a bit late :-D.

There we go … mining collectors at work. It’s a very compromised fit for a number of reasons but it’s doing the job pretty well.

Looks good in the dark too.

Still enjoying the game … plus mining is being a somewhat cathartic activity with a definite result at the end of it. Lots of money coming in. Battletech has been good too and Motorsport Manager. I have a Horizon Zero Dawn video on in another tab at the moment and that one is incredibly tempting … but I’ll save acquiring that for when I’ve finished The Outer Worlds (on break due to wrist), played Prey and maybe looked at Alien Isolation.

And when I’m looking to give the back issues and wrist issues a rest, I have the streams and videos to watch. Plus scifi stuff to watch too :
Star Trek Discovery – I enjoyed watching season 1 again as much as the first time, including looking for things they set up early that had big payoffs later.
Lost In Space – watching s2. Interesting … not the best stuff but it’s been holding the attention.
Umbrella Academy – watching s1. Curious again. It indulges in Netflix’s tendencies to make things a bit bloody though.

Hope you’ve all been having great weekends. Mine has mostly been looking outside to see if it’s raining, keeping an eye on the lightning tracker, watching Stuff. It was good to see World Endurance Championship back on again, although there’s little doubt in who wins there at the moment.

Before I close up this post which discloses some of my struggles, my message is :

It’s ok to struggle. Especially at the moment. These are extraordinary times. The equivalences would be the two World Wars (ok, not that bad) and the Spanish Flu pandemic. It’s not over yet, not by a long shot. The long term effects on we who live through it won’t be apparent for a long time.

I’ve got a few communities and people that I can reach out to and talk about my issues. Hopefully you have those outlets as well and that you can pay it forward by helping out other people as well.

We can get through this … perhaps not together in person but we have this virtual world now that comes to us over the internet. It’s a big help.

Hang in there everyone. Stay safe, be well.

Spaceships, a little racing, a little rescue and back to work

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August 9, 2020

10:48 pm

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Hello everyone,

One week since my last, feels like it’s flown past ! It’s been one of those weeks too where I can’t really remember what I was getting up to either. (Yes I can, cracking on with work stuff and doing spaceship mining in evenings)

It’s a bit warm here at the moment …

I was looking for the melted dog pic but that’ll do as well. I struggle in the heat. Probably a lot of that is a metabolism that tends to the hyperactive states but I’m also carrying too much weight and British houses are set up to be heat traps. It’s not been quite as hot as previous years but it’s still been pretty toasty.

Internet spaceships ? I’ve been doing more of the mining …

As usual, click for bigger. I’m playing in 1440p, so there’s lots more detail available than is in the thumbnails. Here we have the good ship Towel of Space, hard at work again amongst the asteroids. The little lights there are collector drones that go out to fetch the bits you blast off the asteroids.

The good stuff is in the rings around planets.

Loads of asteroids to have a look at in there.

It speeds things up if you get close, although you’re probably not supposed to get that close. Spot the shields activating to stop an impact from the rotating asteroid !

But something unusual happened yesterday. One of the pilots on the Kolo discord reported that they were in deep fuel trouble, as they’d been disadvantaged by getting moved by the game and got stuck without a fuel scoop or a station to refuel at. So off I pop to a station to get a small module refit …

And we’re off to the rescue. There’s an organisation called the Fuel Rats which does this as their thing that they do in the game. It’s the first time I’ve run a rescue like this.

Felt good too. And apparently the people on the discord liked catching up on the story as it was unfolding last night (we were using the discord to coordinate before getting online).

I’ve been in the Motorsport Manager game too, starting again with an open cockpit racing team (think F1). I’ve been curious about the mods for that game which essentially do a total conversion. I haven’t gone for those yet. There are a heap of mods that are essentially massive cheats for the game, I avoid those as well because I’ve figured out how to win at the game without that kind of assistance. My team was up to 5th in the lowest (of 3) championship in the third season and the races are being enjoyable to run the strategy on.

I had another little look at FFXIV again today. It has an effect on my neck and shoulder, so I haven’t been quite as addicted to it as I could have been. But it has a certain draw that’s kept me coming back. I’d rate it as being well worth a play if you enjoyed your levelling time in games like WoW.

And my little punchy catgirl has outfits that I can show off on camera again !

This is checking out Gridania.

Looking at the scenery around the town.

And being taught new dances by the locals. Need to get more outfit though. That one was provided by a quest again.

That’s one of the things about this game, there’s a certain joy that comes over in the actions of the characters that come up on screen.

Both this one and Elite have been good ones to disappear in this week. I’m finding the mining in the internet spaceship to be a calming experience that I’m enjoying. It was great to run the rescue last night. And FFXIV’s Eorzea was being charming again today.

Stay safe everyone, be well.

Quiet week with spaceships and Lego

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August 1, 2020

11:10 pm

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Hello everyone,

I’ve been having a quiet week … a bit of time away from the work stuff and to see about catching up on sleep and other non stressy things.

Cardiff happened on Wednesday, more about that in a bit (but the thumbnail will give some away!). Shopping has happened today, although it included what’s probably best described as a milk mishap. Not quite a disaster, although I was mopping up milk from the boot of the car and my kitchen floor. Looks like only a little bit escaped, which was good. (It got squeezed in the shopping bag enough to pop the seal).

There we go. More of that box in the background in a bit. (More Lego may have escaped as well …)

Been watching the cricket too, there’s been a fair bit of that this week … rain permitting.

Cardiff was ok on Wednesday. I feel it’s probably inevitable that we’re about to see a second wave of Covid cases coming in now in the UK. We never properly got close to eliminating it (getting a below 100 case in a day level), it’s trending slightly upwards again and mask discipline was shocking on Wednesday. Perhaps 1 in 3, maybe 1 in 4 people were in masks. I didn’t stick around for munchies like I would normally have done, although that was partly due to wanting to get back for more of the Kim & Becky crafting stream. It’s a good chilled out stream to listen in to as Kim facilitates and Becky produces magic.

Lots of games have been occurring this week, although I’ve been a little limited by my shoulder … I think I may have actually popped it out slightly this week, although it has improved again today. There’s been a load of music listening too :-).

I played a little Final Fantasy XIV last weekend, although that’s suffered a bit with the shoulder. I can’t show to latest screenshot because the gear system has given my poor punchy catgirl something nearly indecent.

I’ve skipped ahead a little with the Internet Spaceships and I may come back to those but this was Tea-89 on her way back to the bubble, this one is a slightly processed image by the way with “Auto White Balance” picked to make everything more visible. Looks great.

I did want to be doing something different to exploration though and this is Tea-89 returning to the hangars at Jameson Memorial.

I had a chance to give the Admiral Luperza an updated paint scheme, although the shoulder meant I didn’t want to indulge in combat just yet …

So the Towel of Space made her debut. The name and colour scheme are in honour of the wonderful Katherine of Sky (youtube link), another lady of the videos who has a lovely voice with great intelligence and style behind it. When she does streaming, she has a strict no face camera policy but did start up a Cat Cam, with a towel bed for her kitties to lie on while the camera pointed at them.

The kitties appeared to know when the camera was on …

So chat started up the cult of the Towel Of Sky and a new meme was born. The callsign for this ship is CAT404, or Cat Not Found. I’ll name one in honour of the other Lord Of Sky, Caledorn (youtube link) at some point. He hasn’t been making many videos lately but I’ve been enjoying listening to him as I catch up on other series.

There’s Towel of Space hard at work amongst the asteroids, collecting Painite which can fetch prices of around 630,000-700,000 credits per tonne. That’s not as much as it used to be but it’s still probably the most profitable activity in the game at the moment. Plus I think it’s ok for my hands too as there is less interaction with the controls.

The other high value methods are either broken (Low Temperature Diamonds are extremely rare at the moment due to a bug) or very fussy in their mechanics. I mine by finding good asteroids and blasting at them with lasers (very simple), the game now includes methods for drilling into asteroids and blowing them apart for shinies hidden inside. That seems very fussy and I haven’t tried it yet.

I’ve actually enjoyed the mining, it’s been a different activity than the exploring and is definitely easier than the combat.

I mentioned pictures of Lego though … That’s what was in the box.

It was fun to see a picture frame take shape, including having a prop at the back.

A shape steadily takes …. shape.

More detail appears …

And I suspect you know what this soon became …

There we go. This was one of the new Brick Sketches that have just been released. I enjoyed putting this one together last night when I was a bit too warm to do much else.

And 2d vs 3d !

I’ve been eyeing up the LED light up kits as well. One or more of those may appear at some point.

I’ve also still got my eye on a Hotas upgrade, I’ve enjoyed taking an early look at Automation :

Nice little Triumph Spitfire analogue there. It doesn’t have quite the body customisation options that I was looking for but the engine and mechanicals customisation is incredible even if it isn’t going to go as far as doing Hybrids, Diesels or Rotary/Wankel engines. I may well acquire the BeanNG.Drive application that lets you drive your creations around.

Anyway, back to a bit more chillout for me this evening.

Nite all, stay safe, be well.

Final Step, New Journey

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July 24, 2020

10:21 pm

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Hello everyone,

I have masks !

They’re from a small scale supplier called Beverley’s Masks (linky), which I found via one of the discords. I like the designs, they’re cheap (£5 inc postage to UK) and they arrived on Wednesday after I ordered them on Sunday evening. Very happy with that. Would definitely recommend. I have my new Elite t-shirt as well, which was ordered as a second item to an Elite themed mask … I haven’t got the mask yet.

Three cheers for Beverley’s Masks, a hearty BOO HISS for Frontier’s suppliers.

I’ve been trying out a new game … I might well be in there a fair bit over the next week (hands permitting) because I’ve been enjoying it so far.

That’s Bashara Dannalae and she has a Pointy Hat. And an outfit that she’ll catch her death of cold in. (A better one will appear later).

The game is Final Fantasy XIV and it’s started out as a massively charming massive multiplayer game so far. They must have done a huge amount of work getting the facial expressions and emotes just absolutely perfect. It’s a very pretty game and I’ve been enjoying my time in it so far.

Bashara ventures forth … to adventure !

An upgrade later and she’s visiting the housing district. I haven’t checked this aspect of the game out much so far. I’m only on the free trial at the moment although I get the feeling that I might race through the content on offer and get to the free trial level cap before the game goes on sale again. We shall see !

And that’s Bashara as I left her this evening. Better armour, a hat with Two Pointy Things and an eagerness to punch lots of things while in search of more story to play through.

But I needed to break for munchies and I have to manage my hands these days.

I’m on leave next week though ! So lots more time available. I’m not planning on going too far although I think I’ll venture out at some point (with my masks!) when the latest cricket finishes.

So if Final Fantasy XIV is the new journey, what’s the Final Step ? The Drew Wagar Elite Lore Tour came to a close yesterday evening and I had the privilege of being involved in the final stream. Fun times, quite probably the coolest thing I’ve been involved in with a game.

Let’s see if this works … oh well, (the movie clip thing only does Youtube) … This link will take you to a 53 ship mass hyperspace jump at the end of yesterday’s stream. It was pretty awesome to have my little ship along for the ride.

As usual, click for bigger. Spot little Tea-89 creeping in to the shot there showing off her markings.

It was great to see so many ships in one place.

There was a decent variety of pretty ships to look at too, most pilots had gone for the more long ranged ships but there were some of the different types too. That shot includes a Beluga Liner, several Anacondas, a couple of Imperial Cutters, Asp Explorers, Krait Phantoms, a Dolphin,, an Orca, an Imperial fighter, a Federal Corvette and a couple of Cobra Mk3’s.

Time for a better look. Up in the top right is the megaship Zurara, which I’ll talk about later.

It’s been great listening in to Cmdr Wagar’s Lore Tour. He’s got a very listenable to voice and is massively keen for the Lore that’s gone through the 4 major Elite games. (Curiously, he shares my frustration at the development of the lore dying a death since the start of the year).

But all good things come to an end and there was no more Lore for now to tell. This is just before the final gathering for a formation flight past the Zurara …

Setting up for a spectacular mass hyperspace jump out of the system. It was great to see and I think Cmdr Wagar got a massive kick out of it during the livestream. It’s always good to see a big grin. (Link to clip again)

As for me with the Internet Spaceships, I’ll be making my way back more slowly … hopefully visiting some places along the way. But a bit slower because I think I’m a bit burned out on the game. There are more pictures to come though !

Time to say good night though and I think … open up Existence by David Brin.

We’re not out of the woods yet with what’s going on outside. Looks like there’s still a lot of dangerous people out there who aren’t taking the corona seriously enough. Live how you want to, if you don’t feel safe in a particular situation, get out of there.

Be safe, be well, enjoy what you’re getting up to.

Watching the Watches

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July 19, 2020

10:49 pm

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Hello everyone,

More venturing out has happened. This time it was a probably overdue acquisition of a watch …

My last watch did really well for me but it’s been increasingly losing its accuracy and it lost its voice (beeps) many years ago. It was in need of a service, which probably would have cost more than a new watch and was starting to eat batteries more regularly too. So when it stopped on Thursday (Wednesday?), that was a trigger for heading out to the shops again.

I’d been doing a bit of research before, opened up the possibilities beyond Accurist and this appeared …

Shiny ! And in range due to rather massive discounting. I don’t think it would be fair to expect another 23 years out of this watch but I’ll be happy with 10 :-D. Makes a fair bit of difference to the watches I used to go through at school. This Accurist :

Was acquired in 1997 and I think it cost £90. It’s older than some people I know :-D. The ones before came from Lorus and Timex, those tended to break within a couple of years. The Xeon watch I got after was very inaccurate. At least I think it was by people called Xeon, that make isn’t around any more.

Our local Mall was a mixed bag on Friday. I’m still hunting for masks (I have a selection coming in the post – so that’s sorted) and was sad to see only one shop stocking them. Well, theoretically 2 but I thought the ones in HMV were a waste of time. I almost picked up a few from WH Smith. Not sure why I didn’t. The Gromit shop had sold out.

The shops themselves were a mixed bag. Some were observing the social distancing rules with maximums set on the people allowed in at any time, some had hand sanitiser at the doors, some had one way systems. There was a one way system set up for the walkways around the Mall. Other shops were just open season, not limiting the numbers inside and having no idea how to deal with rude people pushing past.

Oh and there were also people coming out of shops and walking the wrong way on the one way system. Stupidity is real.

My advice to you if you are venturing out into shop areas :
If you’re not comfortable going into a shop, don’t go in. I should have just not gone in to the shop with the crafty gear where I was looking for a mask again.
If a shop isn’t practicing distancing or limits, don’t go in.
Respect the systems;
Use the hand sanitisers;
Sign in to track and trace apps if you’re eating anywhere.
Be wary.

Idiocy is real. I’m not planning to go to that many shops in the near future, although I do need to initiate new glasses still. My Homing Signal started pinging very soon after that crafty shop that had way too many people inside and I disappeared back home without doing the glasses.

(Mind you, the Homing Signal was probably firing partly because I wanted to get back to watch the cricket and to not miss too much of the Fuzzy stream).

Internet spaceships ? The tour continues. Last time, I left things at the conclusion of the gravity dive at the home of the Empire.

The next stop was the very dark Thetis Generation Ship … In the Elite lore, these ships left Earth from the end of the 21st century, continuing their departures into the 22nd century. This was before the hyperdrive was invented, so it was slowboat time at sublight speeds. In theory, there should be around 70,000 of them seeded in the game and the sublight speed limit means they should be within 1200 light years of Earth. Some survived to reach their destinations but most have very dark endings to their stories …

The Thetis is no exception. As the comms logs go, they pick up a mysterious message on a planet they pass by. Apparently there is a subliminal message within inciting violence among the crew. Violence that quickly spreads out of control. Centuries later, the ship is dark. Lost amongst the stars.

Perhaps there was a way in ? We may return later when suitable gear is available for entry.

(Incidentally, No Mans Sky has just released a content update that allows exploration of mysterious space hulks … may have to look at that game again !)

That’s the Yellow Sidewinder, a base in the Lave system which was the next place to visit. This system and its neighbours hold a special place in the hearts of Elite players … This is the screen that greeted the initial players when they looked at the galaxy map way back in 1984 :

The old systems were restored into the newer games, starting with Frontier Elite 2 and continuing through to the latest game. They are the home systems of the Systems Alliance, another independent power group. They’ve been updated for the current game, with names for the space stations within them being names like “Ridley Scott”, “George Lucas” and probably a bunch more that I don’t recognise. The Ridley Scott station lets you acquire Leathery Eggs as a rare, unique commodity. Wonder what would hatch out of those.

I moved swiftly on from there though, with the next landing place being 12 Trianguli … at an abandoned base that I’ll talk about … next time !

Oh and there may be screenshots of a very cute anime inspired game coming soon, I’m being tempted in to trying out Final Fantasy XIV and the benchmark takes what you put into the character creator and turns them into people that combine utterly enchanting expressions with an easy Chop Monster In Two With Big Sword cutscenes.

Could be a fun one to try out, hands permitting.

Venturing Out

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July 13, 2020

9:25 pm

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I’ve been out of the house ! Even further than the local supermarket place !

It was work though. Not sure if that really counts. It was good to see and talk to people I know in person again instead of just over the phone and Skype. Can’t say what I was getting up to though cos … work.

I’ll be ending with more Internet Spaceship pics but before I get to that :

Being out and about more ? I’ll wait a bit longer there I think. This current situation isn’t over yet. I think I may actually have been lightly touched by the virus because I wasn’t particularly well back in April. It wasn’t serious enough to think about contacting for aid but I did have numerous symptoms that I put down to other things like : April allergies, dust, bad buns from a service station and otherwise adjusting to the new situation. I’m still incredibly lacking in energy though but that could also partly due to not doing much.

But yep. I need to be getting a few things sorted out, like new glasses in particular and a few other things as well. Plus I want to do one of those city centre wanders that tends to see me going past book caves, Lego shops and places that sell music.

I think I might have to look at alternatives for my next car … I’m on my third Lexus IS300h at the moment. I’m not planning on changing it but they do keep trying to tempt me into changing. At the moment, it’s to get one of the last ones to come into the UK. They’re discontinuing it … which feels mad because it was becoming an increasingly popular car in the car park. Looks like they’re looking to move in to SUV type cars and are abandoning that particular part of the market. I’m not a fan of SUVs, I can see why people might like them but for me, all that extra metal isn’t doing anything for me so it’s just slowing things down.

What would I get if I had to change now ? It’d be between the bigger Lexus ES or quite possibly a Toyota Corolla … they have a 2.0litre hybrid which looks fast and efficient. The Prius is efficient but slow and the CT I had was a wonderful little car but … slow and less efficient.

We’ll see ! But yeah, not planning to change any time soon.

Internet spaceships ? I’ve been continuing the tour. I’m hoping to catch up to one of the live streams, which is a definite possibility and might actually lead to some hanging around not doing very much. I think I’ve been burning out on the game again, or it might be a case of needing to do something different.

I’ve actually been in different games as well, courtesy of Steam sales.

That’s Gear City, which I found while looking into a different game. This one sees you set up a car manufacturer and try to survive and thrive. I’ve been starting off in 1900, the era of vintage cars. We’ll see where it goes.

I picked up the DLC for Battletech and have an early campaign game going there … It started pretty well but then turned a bit rough. I’ve got a pretty firm handle on the tactics there now, basically speed is life and concentration of firepower is the way to go. Get guns off the field is a strong theory to run with.

I’ve also acquired Oxygen Not Included (CK loves that), Knights of Pen and Paper 2, Reassembly and Hardspace Shipbreaker. I still need to try those ones. I’ve managed to bin the Idle Champions addiction, that’s a curious one. You barely interact with the game, outside of figuring out the strategy you’re going to go with but you feel like you have to keep monitoring it.

Still doing the miles in Elite though. I left it last time at Tau Ceti. The next step in the tour was to visit Achenar, home of the Empire.

But first, that’s the latest ship in the fleet. The name is Maverick, callsign GO-05E. Some of you may catch the reference. She’s built for speed.

Speed and fly bys of towers. I built this one to go really, really fast (we’ll get to that) and to zoom around the features both in space and on planets.

Back to the tour though. The first place to visit was the Homestead, close to the home star.

I couldn’t resist a closer look at the farm.

Quick peek at one of the planets too.

The Imperials have their own capital ships. Far more stylish than the very functional Federation capital ship design.

Coming in to dock at Dawes Hub. One of the things I wanted to try out in the Achenar system was a gravity dive. This is where you start at altitude at a high gravity planet and see how fast you can go, preferably without needing to lithobrake (ground assisted braking, usually involves dents).

The dive started out at 1000km up and the gravity meter is already showing 5.94g. That’s a lot of weight. The technique is to start off at the ship’s top speed, point slightly downwards and thrust “up”. Oh and you turn the flight assist off so that you go more like Newtonian physics instead of the ship trying to keep you to your maximum speed.

After dropping around 250km, the speed is up to 3,817m/s. The ship is already a fast one, as seen in that first screenshot. The normal maximum speed is about 700m/s.

I thought about doing a tower flyby but … kinda missed it, shooting over the top at an altitude of 375km.

This is where I thought I’d just about hit the top speed I was going to get, with me pulling the brakes on at 7,500m/s. The altitude was a mere 34.7km up (I wanted to leave some room in case levelling out wasn’t simple) and the gravity at this point is 6.7g.

Pretty good for a first attempt at doing a gravity dive. Speeds of above 10km/s are possible.

I didn’t go for a landing this time (6.7g is heavy !) but it was a fun little thing to do.

Bit like getting out of the house and on the road again ! I’m still pretty tired from all that though, so gaming sessions have been short and I haven’t opened a book since finishing Murderbot 2 either.

Hope you’re all good out there as well.

Be well, stay safe, have fun !

Potato On Tour

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July 5, 2020

9:25 pm

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Hello everyone,

More internet spaceships today … Perhaps while I ignore what’s happening in the world outside still ! The shops are steadily opening here but I haven’t ventured out to them yet partly because I know this crisis isn’t over yet plus I don’t think there’s actually much I want to buy at the moment !

What are things I want to pick up ?
Graphics card – I’m starting to pick up games that push past the limit of what my current card can do so I’m looking to upgrade from my 1060 3GB card to a 2060 or even up to a 2070. With a Next Gen card on the horizon, prices are finally starting to drop.
Keyboard – mine continues to have an issue or two. It’s currently repeating occasional o’s and the light up keys are stuck in set colours at the moment. (I could probably fix this by unplug / plugin).
Hotas upgrade – Not sure about this one actually but I am having increasing hand issues which might be down to my current stick and throttle.
Oven – needed one of these for a while but mine is still perfectly capable of burning food.
Glasses – these are becoming much more urgent and will require a trip out to get some more.

Internet Spaceships ?

As always, click for bigger. I left things last time at Cortes Base and have since embarked on the Drew Wagar Elite Lore Tour (youtube link), following that path and hoping to catch up before the end. The Warp Factor Potato may make an appearance on his stream at some point if I catch up.

The first stop was Mercury, closest planet to the Sun.

Venus is next up, still too hostile to land on.

And then we move on to our home and I’m pretty sure that’s Australia. One thing I’m really curious about is that while the game is on GMT, that’s the wrong side of the planet to be in the day time !

There’s Europe, with rather curious lighting if you have a closer look.

Both Earth and Mars have capital ships in orbit. Nice big chunky ships and the Federation ones look like they mean business. Earth is no longer the place where the Federation is run from in the Elite universe, massive ecological damage led to the end of most of the superpowers and then the Congress decamped to Mars.

There’s still a lot to look at though, this is one of the space stations in orbit.

Moon’s still there too, a station here is the starting point for the speed runs to the galactic centre.

Mars is the next stop, the 4th planet in our solar system. In the Elite universe, it’s been fully terraformed and is actually in better shape than Earth is. I think the pimple there is Olympus Mons.

There was a megaship to have a look at too.

A bit further out we have Jupiter in the background, with the moon Io orbiting. This is the setting for the 2001 and 2010 stories … at least as they were done in the films. In reality, this is a really unhealthy place to be because Jupiter is massively hot radioactively.

Of course I had a closer look.

I had a stop off at Europa too, which is another important part of the 2001, 2010 and 2061 stories. “All these worlds are yours except Europa. Attempt no landings there.” Erm …

There’s a base there too, which I mostly landed on to get a picture with Jupiter :-D. (Jupiter is at something like its highest point in the sky in the previous pic).

Saturn is the next major gas giant in our solar system. In the original 2001 book, the Incident happens at Jupiter and then after Hal is disconnected, they fly on to Saturn which is where the monolith is with the Discovery being run remotely from Earth. That’s changed for the film and subsequent books, probably for the better to be honest.

Next up is another gas giant, this is me probing Uranus. Yes, I went there. I have no shame.

Last place for the tour is Neptune, another smaller gas giant. The sun’s a bit far off in these pics hence the lack of general illumination out here.

Bit more lights in there. What are Fuel Rats ? They’re a wonderful organisation in Elite that will come out and rescue pilots who run out of fuel. I’ve never had to call on their services but they’re quite possibly the best player run organisation I know in any game.

Plenty of room in that tunnel by the way …

That’s what I flew inside …

It became time to move on though. The Voyager probes are apparently in the solar system, somewhere … I didn’t stick around to find them though. Next stop, Tau Ceti, which is the first extra solar colony in the Elite universe. There are a few more curious bits of lore to pick up on in the tourism beacons in this system too. That’s probably enough pictures for one day though …

There are a bunch more from today ! But I’ll hold those for another post.

For now, be well,

Stay safe. Have a great week everyone.

Books ! And a little bit of buggying around

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June 30, 2020

10:13 pm

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Hello everyone,

I feel tired ! Dunno why, haven’t exactly been doing that much. Perhaps it’s lack of sleep, or my body getting used to not doing very much. I’ll be out of the house soon though, for more than just stocking up the cupboards again.

Also been doing book … Not just one book as well but two ! Let’s see. It should be through the Google thing by now :

Actual paperback. Perhaps rare in this era of ebooks and Kindles … Signed by the author too :

Big nod. (Yes, that’s my thumb). This was a case of seeing a sequel to a book I’d already read and enjoyed and being content to pay a little more than e-book price in order to support that local bookshop and to get one with a little, superficial aye, extra.

What’s the book about ? It’s the sequel to Embers of War, which sets up this world by introducing the setting and characters which include the spaceship at the centre of this trilogy, the Trouble Dog. After being required to undertake an atrocity that ended a war, she retired from naval service and joined the House of Reclamation, an organisation dedicated to rescue and preservation of life. This middle book sees the Trouble Dog and crew embark on another rescue attempt, this time to jump into the unknown to rescue a ship of salvagers who came a cropper when they attempted to do a bit of illegal salvage on a wandering generation ship.

Oh and all hell is breaking loose in the galaxy while this is going on. I don’t want to say too much more about the plot cos it’ll spoil both this book and the previous book but …

I love the Trouble Dog, she’s a ship with attitude and an avatar that combines smart, tough, sassy and resourcefulness. The book swaps between various characters, with its 400 pages broken up in to 83 chapters which each focus on a central character. The Trouble Dog is the star of her own chapters.
As is Nod, an alien of the Druff race which are innately brilliant engineers. Every ship has a Druff engineer that keeps the ship going. They’re utterly alien, written expertly by the author and lend a welcome change of perspective to the books.
And I like the rest of the human characters too, who all have their own driving characteristics, mental flaws, issues and other quirks that make them and keep them interesting.

This one is very definitely a Middle Book and as such it moves the general plotline on considerably. It doesn’t give an end, Embers of War is definitely the beginning and … I got the last book in the queue to read. I’ll be looking forwards to that one as much as I am looking forward to reading Absolution Gap.

The second book was Artificial Condition, by Martha Wells and it’s book 2 of the Murderbot Diaries. The first comment that always comes out about these books is … HOW MUCH ? The price is a bit too inflated for my liking at £6 for essentially a novella. Still, this one and All Systems Red (book 1) were both captivating reads. The central character just goes by their self given name, Murderbot. They’re a former SecUnit (Security Unit) that’s gone rogue. Except all they want to do is have a chance to peacefully watch as many entertainment serials that they can.

It doesn’t work that way though, so Murderbot ends up on adventures that have gone from pure survival and a start in figuring out the events that made them go rogue. Cos they didn’t just go rogue originally, they were involved in the death of all of the humans in the place it happened.

I’ll be back for more of the Murderbot Diaries. They’re a fun read. Bit quick … but that also means that it’s tight writing that rattles the story along without any more padding than is necessary to tell you what’s going on in Murderbot’s head.

Recommended – both books.

Buggying around ? Internet Spaceships again ! Gotta admit, I’m having to be a little careful with play time because my hand and shoulders are bugging me again but it was good to get back to the populated bubble again and have a little explore. I left it last time at the Hawkins Gap Bases (the spelling is horribly inconsistent I know).

This was a good one to fly by … It’s a ringed planet lit by the local neutron star.

The end of this journey took me to Cortes Base, which has been adopted by a race circuit for intrepid fighter pilots and maybe by pilots of the little ships too. I may have to check that out. I took the buggy in there …

I found a couple of issues along the way, This is a dome on the outside of the base where the foundations don’t quite reach to the ground. I’m actually ok with this, although it reveals some of the magic around how these planetary bases are generated and built in the game. A couple of glitches are ok.

I never gave the birds eye view ! There we go, on approach.

This was the way in and … you may be able to detect another glitch. The ramp doesn’t reach quite all the way to the ground. That’s ok, I had jet boosters let me jump up there :-D. Little bit of creative use of a jump ramp maybe but it was still good to get in there.

And have a little look around. Click for bigger on these by the way.

One fun thing is that the scale is all good. The bases are massive … and in scale. Those windows up there genuinely look like a floor high each and the ground floor doors to that hangar building are scaled correctly for the rover.

Lots to explore too.

Bit quiet out there in the streets … I might have got there a bit late, their time.

Couldn’t get in to the actual base though.

Lots to see in there.

It was getting time for me to put the game to bed as well though …

Another peek from a safe distance and then it was time to be off and make a proper landing.

Outside of the internet spaceships, I’ve been working on a Dwagon Alphabet. I have most of the letters now, although it’ll take a fair bit of tweaking time before I’m happy with them all. People like them though. The first one was a Happy Birthday message for someone which I hope she enjoyed … and then more Dwagon Letters have sprung up from there as I produce them. I’m a fan of the Clip Studio application that I’ve been using, it makes the drawing and editing with the tablet happen very easily.

I think that’s it for tonight though. Stay safe, be well, steer clear of the internet if it’s causing you grief (lots has been coming out into the public eye lately, much of it unhealthy).

Dwagon Alphabet will come later but for now … out take from the excursion !

Landing Autopilot’s been sniffing the rocket fuel again.