A friend posted a great joke pic earlier … I just have to pass it on :
Which brings me to the admin note … A couple of people were talking on Twitter about Alt-Text for images last week. I got to thinking … why aren’t I doing that ? Because it’s actually quite an easy thing to do and it massively helps out the partially sighted or blind people who use screenreader software to read out website pages.
Backing up slightly – alt-text is where you write an audio description of the picture. Waving over the picture will make the text appear. Here’s one I made earlier.
Techie note – I’m putting the words into the alt-text attribute and the Title attribute. I didn’t figure out how to get the alt-text attribute read out but the Title attribute does the trick. Alt-text is only on this post and the last one so far but I have a kinda plan for how I might go backwards and add it to more posts.
If you recall the lady at the cinema who does the audio description advert, that’s the kind of thing I’m aiming for. I’d be curious to see if my word pictures let people properly visualise the actual picture. I don’t think adding the description is any chore at all, I’m actually finding that I’m enjoying doing it.
There’s lots of other admin things still to do. I need to go back through the ancient posts deleting the posts that aren’t actually posts. The proper WordPress import utility didn’t work, I had to go for an alternate one which was a bit too keen. I don’t think I wrote 500 posts in 2008 … I definitely didn’t write anything in 2007, the old blog was on a break at that point. I also need to write the links list (need another addon for that) and I think a glossary is required as well. That’s with alt-text in mind as well.
Yep. That happened over the last week in Mars Horizon. I won’t be doing that again any time soon ! It needed a good few attempts and some crazy eyed tunnel vision playing to make it happen, with a few evolutions of path to the finish along the way. There’s an excellent guide in Steam that will give you pointers for how to get that achievement.
I think that one was actually Russian … I’ve massively enjoyed Mars Horizon. It came out late last year (released November 2020) but it’s easily my best game of last year. It’s got very easy gameplay mechanics, where you pick the research, choose the missions from what’s available and make sure you have the rockets available to allow you to carry out the missions.
They’ve delivered a lovely game there. And it’s not just that … it has a Spacepedia included which is a thing of total joy for a space nerd like me. There are entries for our solar system and every actual space probe and rocket made, plus older concepts that didn’t happen and future concepts that are still on the drawing board.
The Spacepedia is worth getting the game for just to unlock the entries for that. I’d actually kinda like to reset it so that I can enjoy reading the articles as they steadily unlock (I rushed through the game first time and didn’t discover the Spacepedia until later) but the game is proving smarter than my efforts there so far … I try and delete the unlock file and it just recreates it. More Thinking Cap needed.
I think that was a future Russian rocket concept again, a super heavy lift rocket that was going to take my astronauts to Mars.
Yep. Game is a joy, if you’re interested in space then I’d definitely recommend checking it out.
I’ve been back in the other internet spaceship game today … I’ve been away for a bit due to a poorly back.
The poorly back started last Monday, hasn’t really let up yet. I think I need to avoid Elite again for another week because it stiffened up more towards the end of today’s session. I believe it was caused by sleeping with a twisted back … with the cold getting into it. Oops.
Oh, I’m trying something out with the spaceship pictures. There’s a setting called “Supersampling”, which ups the resolution at which the pictures are drawn. I’m seeing the game at the resolution of 2560 x 1440 that my monitor supports. Supersampling means the game is drawing more pixels and then reduces it down. It should reduce the jaggedness I’ve been noticing. A setting of 1.25 was working ok on my hardware (3200 x 1800) but 1.5 was probably past what my current graphics card could handle. It’s only a 3GB card, I’m on the hunt for a new one but graphics cards are rarer than common sense in the mob at the moment.
One thing about the bad back though … if I’m needing to avoid playing the games due to the posture that gets me in, that can only mean … reading more books !
I’m on book 4 of this year.
Book 1 was the finish of Absolution Gap by Alastair Reynolds. This felt like a harder slog than it probably should have been. I was kinda expecting an epic finish, picking up from the fantastic vignettes of the second book (Redemption Ark). That second book had a desperate interstellar starship chase and the inexorable march of the Inhibitors as they were setting up in how to sterilize a star system. I was expecting more of the same and bigger. The story went a different way. It’s the story of a starship and his crew …
I’ll be looking forward to reading Shadow Captain and Bone Silence at some point but I have other books to read before going back to Alastair Reynolds again.
Book 2 was Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells, the third in the Murderbot diaries. These are very fast and short books but I’ve enjoyed than immensely more than some epicly long books. I didn’t finish Rama II or Existence, I’ll go back to Murderbot after finishing them all. I’ve acquired the fourth novella already … One for later.
Oh ! Murderbot is a SecUnit that’s managed to become self aware. A SecUnit provides security for people. It’s mostly artificial construct but there’s an organic brain in there too. Anyway, all Murderbot wants to do is hide away from people and watch soap opera serials but … life doesn’t work out like that. To adventure ! Whether Murderbot likes it or not :-D.
Book 3 was Light of Impossible Stars, by Gareth L. Powell. This is the last book in a trilogy that stars with Embers of War, continues with Fleet of Knives and ends here. I’d thoroughly recommend trying at least the first book. I like the universe that the author sets up and his technique of swapping between first person perspectives for each character works very nicely.
Book 4 is me going back to some oldies … I picked up the R.A.Salvatore dungeons and dragons books via Humble Bundle a while back and started Homeland, the first of the Drow trilogy, last night.
And I think it’s time to hit Publish (and do the other related buttons) and get back to book, plus Easter Egg Number 1 of the year, plus D&D stream at 9pm.
Have a great evening and week everyone. Stay safe, be well.