I like exploring in computer games, music, cricket, drawing and pizza and sharing those with people. Oh and I also inherited the name Sleepydwagonman too ! The site is a work in progress at the moment but it's getting there, features will come in over time !
How are things going with you all ? Hope you’re doing ok. As for me, I’ve had another couple of runs to the hospitals (routine stuff) and I’m getting started on the rehab. Life’s had to change a little bit down here, as you’d expect from being mostly down an arm. I should get most of the mobility back, although I can feel that the left wrist is still quite delicate. Oh and I’ve been told that playing games can also be a decent part of rehab activity.
How’s that ! Not sure if I quite believe that but I’ll go with it. Talking of the games, I got a care package through …
That’s a plushie from the Intel people who were a key sponsor for the September Creator Meetups event. There’s a get well soon card with a lovely message. A Creator Meetups coaster and my red dwagon there is sporting a event sash (actually wristband, don’t tell the dwagon). There’s also a t-shirt, although that’s not in the picture.
The care package was a lovely thing to open today. I’ll talk more about the event some time but for now, I’ll keep it to just mentioning the Intel part … they were one of the main sponsors, which helps to make events like the last Creator North happen. We need their support and it’s hugely appreciated. I think they (could have been Asus too) were running the PC speed build thing at the latest event which was fun to keep an eye on. I didn’t take part in that … I’m excessively careful when I’m building my PCs so speed running them isn’t something I’d do but it was good to peek at.
Talking of PC building … it’s shameless shill time ! Bunny is an AMD build but I figured I owe Intel a mention, both due to the care package and for them supporting the events that they do. Disclosure note – the care package is a gift, attendance of the event was paid for by me, Pumpkin PC (about to mention) was fully bought by me, no other compensation has been received. I.e. this is an unprompted post.
So I mentioned that my current build is AMD, my longest serving PC is still Pumpkin built Oct 31 2011, going until July 2019. Pumpkin did really well and was super reliable. I don’t look for extreme speed in a PC, that tends to double the price for not really that much extra speed. I look for a build that I can put together, set up and then forget about for years while I watch videos and game on it. And Pumpkin excelled at that. The only technical issues it had was a Corsair power supply popping and the motherboard sound hardware popping.
And that was the trend with Intel for a very long time. They had a performance edge on AMD until recently but what they excelled at was lazy reliable performance. They could do what they do incredibly reliably and without fuss. Hassle free computing is exactly what I go for. So why did I go away from the Sandy Bridge i5-2500k powered Pumpkin ? It was struggling for performance in games due to only having 8GB of system memory. It was approaching time to change in 2019 and I’m glad I did because we all know what happened in 2020. Almost 8 years service is a phenomenal amount of time for a PC to be properly good for.
What would I get if I went Intel now ? Here’s a Partpicker link. That’s pretty much the same bits as the new Bunny PC except for the Intel core in there. The prices are about the same too. The Intel chip has a lot more cores than my AMD Ryzen 7 9800x3d at a count of 16+8 vs 8 doubling to 16 threads for the AMD. Not entirely sure what the 24+8 means …
That’s another thing actually … The Partpicker list there is fairly arbitrary although I can vouch for case, RAM, psu, graphics and SSD. I’d need to know the difference between the P and E cores. And that’s where the research comes in. It’s a lot of money to invest, gotta be sure you’re investing in the right bits.
How about me though ?
The hospital visit last week was to get an initial follow up and they changed my cast as well. Oh and I may have hit a food allergy event too. So … good visit, bad consequences for me because I didn’t realise that the cookies I’d been munching and the giant Twix all had soya within and I can’t tolerate soya. Oh well. But I did get a slightly lighter cast, some basic physio exercises and advice that playing computer games on controllers would help with the rehab. Oh and I don’t need the arm sling any more.
Good results both there and a local hospital visit with a very lovely physio who gave me a few more exercises for the rehab and an injection of hope in getting all better. Having a little hope is ultra valuable.
How about that gaming though ?
I’ve had a couple of Truck Game sessions so far. It’s a little awkward because I use a Xbox style controller. The left hand needs to cover the d-pad for set and forget options like lights and wipers. The middle finger does the brakes, first finger is left indicator and thumb does steering. Awkward but possible. The drawback with the two Truck Games is that when you start a run, you really need to finish it and my State of Being at the moment means that when I hit a certain point, I will need to STOP pretty much immediately which isn’t compatible with having to finish the runs off.
And then there’s Elite Dangerous, which actually got me started doing two handed typing again.
I use a Thrustmaster Hotas X for Elite (linky). It’s a basic Hotas as they go. You can get a lot fancier and expensive than that (search VKB and Virpil) but the Hotas X has been solid, reliable and above all comforyable for me to play Elite with. The pitch, roll and yaw are all done on the right hand stick. The left hand throttle has the forward and back and a rocker arm I use for left and right. My left thumb uses buttons for up, down and boost.
I’m not fluent with the Hotas yet in Elite but I had enough for a short(ish) travel session of 54 jumps (a session would normally be around 200 jumps). I can’t fully grip the throttle side yet, just half of it. It’s enough for travel where you can’t go up/down/left/right, not for more fine control although I could manage the external camera which is how I get all the screenies.
Oh and the big bonus …. because I do a few things very quickly, like renaming screenshots, I started two handed typing again. Big result there. Oh and Elite offers up interesting places to land at where you can often set up a good view.
I better close up there …
I’m having to do a few changes. My snacking is much reduced (which is good) and I’m adjusting to having less in my left hand. I’ve been ticking off a few IRL achievements like being able to lace up the boots, although I still have very little grip strength and even less carrying strength. Haven’t attempted long sleeves yet or the laundry (weekend thing). I need to do more of the physio exercises to get mobility back.
I’m doing ok and am fully independent here in the house, within my limits. I’m very low on energy still but it has been good being in some of the games again.
Oh and the online communities I hang around have been wonderful and have sent a lot of love my way. It’s vastly appreciated.
Credit to Purr.In.Ink there, they’re always coming out with these cute little cartoons with the best vibes.
I’ve been shaking up my reading habit a little bit this year. I saw a challenge near the start of the year involving looking at reading a book involving every letter of the alphabet. The original challenge was about author names but I didn’t think I could fill all the letters there, so I’ve cheated a little bit (lots) by including book titles as well. I’m up to 19 read so far out of the 26. It’ll be a huge post though writing about all 26 in one go so … here’s a bite size one !
First up though, admin note … I had a “you need to install this plugin to comply with GDPR and the rest” thing appear so I’ve added the cookie notice that you probably see appear. Click what you want there, whether you accept cookies is very definitely up to YOU. I’d like you to accept, because I like to see where my few visitors come from. WordPress is a very money oriented service for the content creator, you get what you pay for and I’m not willing to pay someone for any more than the free stuff. So the only info I see is Country, Pages visited, Referrer clicks and maybe, just maybe … city if I’m quick enough to look at things on Google Analytics.
Hopefully if you accept the cookie, you only need to click the pop up once. Books ?
I actually have to report an abandon. First of the year too. The A to Z has been opening my eyes to new authors as I attempt to fill the various letters up. Some are outstanding, on a level where you find yourself adding the sequels to the wish list for later when you’re part way through the first book. Others are … ok, enjoyed the book but not likely to come back. Some of stinkers.
And I have a cautionary note about reviews too. (Actually as I look at Amazon, I’m seeing different reviews info to what I saw the other day). Low reviews get deleted, high reviews get added out of laziness. Reviews on distribution sites (like Amazon) will be geared towards you buying stuff on their site. I.e. they want you to spend money. I think I’ll be looking at sites like Goodreads as well as Amazon when things catch my eye from the “Hey here’s the list of books we sent you last week, wanna buy them this time?” emails I get.
Oh look, here’s a Goodreads link :-D. That’s for a review of I, Starship by Scott Bartlett which was going to be the I book. However, it became the first abandon of the year because while the central premise of the book looked pretty good and I was vibing with the main character, the selections of secondary characters is bizarre, nonsensical and geared towards conflict that is inexplicable in the set up of that central premise. There’s more info behind the Goodreads link. Oh, it also was getting too close to a few gaslighting incidents I’ve had from previous managers and bosses, which I didn’t want to be reminded about.
I.e. if you’re not enjoying the book you’re reading, definitely move on to the next. I waited to see if one character was ok (at which point the Ship Captain started bullying the MC again), checked to see if it improved via Goodreads and then abandoned … after checking the synopses of the next 4 books in the series. It wasn’t worth sticking with it.
A to Z ?
First up is Alien Clay by Adrian Tchaikovsky, as book A. In this one, humanity have started spreading out to the stars and have 3 off world colonies, all of them really harsh and one step off being Death Worlds. (A habitable world where everything is out to kill the colonists). This one is heavily about the politics and organisations of revolution, a thread that runs throughout the book. You see, the colonies are essentially prison camps where those who speak out against the totalitarian regime are sent. It’s one of those fictional universes you really don’t want to live in. But I did enjoy this one. It didn’t have the madcap humour of the time travelling “One Day All This Will Be Yours” but I enjoyed seeing where the story was going to go. Whether the protagonists would come out on top, how they would achieve that.
A good read. Not his best, not the worst. But one thing you can expect from Adrian Tchaikovsky is something new and different with every one of his books. And I do like my variation in my content. (Goodreads link)
My B and I books could actually swap around (including the abandon!). For B, it’s Indomitable by Jonathan P Brazee (Goodreads link actually for book 1). This is book 5 in a series that starts with Fire Ant, the book that the Goodreads link will take you to. This one finishes off the series. It’s not super cerebral deep thought scifi. It doesn’t ask philosophical questions about the universe. It’s fast, pulpy, well written action science fiction set around a main character who is part of a pathfinding group of space starfighter pilots as they attempt to defend humanity from an implacable, enigmatic enemy who always seems to be one step ahead.
It’s inventive. It sucks you in. I loved the main characters. And I bought the series before I got halfway through the first book because I was so invested in what was happening. Sometimes you want philosophy. Sometimes you want to enjoy something where you can turn the brain off a bit and not need to think too much about deciphering what’s on the page.
Fire Ant series – heavily recommend. One thing that’s always worth knowing when you start a series is whether it improves or fizzles as the series progresses. Some fizzle out (like KSR’s Mars books), some build as they develop their universe and story. Indomitable tops off a very satisfying conclusion to this arc in Jonathan Brazee’s universe.
Coming up next we C Beyond the Fringe by Miles Cameron. This is an accompanying book to Artifact Space and Deep Black. These are the two main books in the series, following Marca Nbaro’s adventures from escaping a horrible situation by running off to space. Beyond The Fringe expands the universe by including a series of short stories based around the events of the two main books. Miles Cameron very quickly became a highly rated author for me, as I read through Artifact Space and was drawn into that universe and the characters. Beyond The Fringe was a very interesting second look at that universe from a completely different angle to shipboard life aboard the Greatship.
You’d need to have read Artifact Space and Deep Black really before opening this one but it’s definitely worth a look. And there’s a sense of fun throughout too, which definitely helps me enjoy a book.
One of the objectives of this series / challenge is to find new voices to listen to. D could have been a really lazy pick of Roald Dahl but then Stranded by A K (Amy) Duboff popped up on one of those Amazon emails and it caught the eye enough to check it out more. This one is centred around a pairing of characters who immediately find themselves falling out of space in evacuation pods that have just been ejected from a colony ship that just went boom. They’re landing on what looks like a paradise planet but … it’s also got big scary monsters. And rogue humans too. Will they survive ? What’s on the planet that’s worth blowing up the colony ship for ?
This one kept me guessing to the end and I’m looking forward to steadily reading through this series as books get added to it. Stranded is book 1 and came out in February, book 2 is available and there’s more to come.
That’s one of the strengths of reading and the author community. I follow a bunch of authors on Bluesky and they’re lovely people who are always supporting each other. Us readers will devour a book far faster than an author will write said book. So we need a community of authors writing so we can have enough books to keep our reading habit going. And that author community are always cheering each other on. They understand that they’re not really in competition with each other, they love chilling out with each other and egging each other on with ridiculous memes.
Next up is F for The Folded Sky by Elizabeth Bear. This one starts off fairly gently, with our protagonist and main character, Dr Sunyata Song, being transported to the edge of the galaxy where there is an impossibly ancient and immense computer construct called the Baomind in a system with a star that’s approaching the end of its existence as a star. Our people need to figure out how to communicate with the Baomind, so they can best establish how to rescue as much of it as possible and relocate it to a star that’ll last a while longer.
It’s the third in the Synarche White Space universe, which is set a fair bit off in the future with sentient AIs, faster than light space ships, lots of mindfulness, a huge variety in alien beings and a lot of mystery along the way. Oh and a sassy lesbian wife, space pirates, teenagers, a space dragon dinosaur … cats and lots of drama going on. You’d need to have read either or both Machine or Ancestral Night, also by Elizabeth Bear, to fully understand what’s going on in here but it’s a worthy addition to the universe.
A safe choice again because I’d enjoyed the other two books in the series. The Folded Sky just came out, if you act fast then you might still be able to get hold of it on a discounted to 99p price …
For G, we have Girl on Fire by Gemma Amor. This one is a new one to me for reading, although I’ve been following along her posts on the various social medias. She’s nice, has struggles but also has the good vibes to pass on. Girl on Fire though is a very angry book. The main character has so much anger inside, she literally becomes a phoenix like person and spontaneously combusts. Not the kind of vibe I’d usually go for due to how I mirror emotions but I was invested in this contemporary fiction book. I wanted to see how the story was going to go and how it would finish.
Worth checking out a new author. I’m not sure that I’ll be back for more due to that anger vibe but this one pulled me in.
Observant people will have noticed I missed a letter … It’s E-zy to do sometimes. The E book amongst all of the other e-books is Off Midway Station by Marc Alan Edelheit. This one is the first in a new series. It’s set in future space and opens with a main character who’s faced with an impossible situation of surviving a surprise attack which has devastated his ship, only for his mortally wounded commanding officer to order an attack which would slaughter thousands of civilian bystanders. And we move on from there to have the first half of this one setting up the universe and the scifi rules of the setting before launching into a battle for survival.
Oh and surprises too for everyone. I’ll be looking forward to checking out Off Javelin Station when it comes out in October.
That’s the thing you really want in a book. To be sucked in and engaged in a developing story with interesting characters and to not really know what’s coming next.
Like I haven’t completely fixed what books L to N are going to be ! Could be Quarter Share by Nathan Lowell, another new author. Could be Last Emperox by John Scalzi. I’d like to go back to Elizabeth Moon, not read one of hers in ages. And then there’s A Voyage for Madmen by Peter Nicholls. Or it could be a Larry Niven.
And that’s the thing. There’s a huge amount of stories out there. There are all of the genres, all of the styles, there’s the deep novels and the shallow novels. And they’re all waiting for us to lose ourselves in them for a while.
Time for me to dive into the replacement I book, it’s In The Shadow Of The Ship, a novella set in Aliette de Bodard’s Xuya Universe.
Checking in again ! Has it almost been a fortnight again since last time ?
Before I dive in – this is VERY important. We’ve just had a bit of dumb legislation imposed on us in the UK, which could potentially spread beyond our borders too. It’s the Online Safety Act. If you’re in the UK then you’re affected, please do hit the Petition link and add your signature. It’s a terrible law and it needs to go. Why ? It protects no one, it harms those who need the services behind a number of the adult only sites. For me, it means my protected personal information is now on several third party sites who will almost certainly get hacked and the information stolen. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg with this one, there is so much more Bad in this new law. It’s not a Safety act, it’s an Endangerment act.
I think I left the last post in a bit of a rush. I was looking to get the post out before midnight and the day ticking over. Plus I’d have been running out of the steam between the ears that powers the brain.
How have I been doing ? While I was in the last post, I was suffering from a blocked ear still … I’d had that for maybe a month … I was using ear clearing thingy drops, actually switched from one softener thing to a different softener thing and while it was making a difference, I was still down one ear. It’s quite disorientating …
That was while I was doing the Gromit Hunting at the start of the month too. Gotta do that post ! I’ve managed to see half of the Gromits so far, although that’s been held back by feeling a bit rotten at times, just simply doing other things like massively enjoying finding the lovely MissVadams on Twitch (linky). She’s got a very clear voice, which definitely helped when my ears were bad but also very friendly and just one daft comment from chat or antics in stream away from breaking into that type of laughter that will brighten anyone’s day.
Is also a new catmom having adopted Penny, joining the tortoise Billy who inspired a collection of wonderful Twitch emotes. It’s been a pleasure watching Vic since finding the channel due to a raid in by the also fun to watch FGSquared.
PC stuff ? I came unstuck (or nearly!) a few times with the new PC I talked about last time. It’s a very big unit at 13kg for the case. It’s probably more like 20kg+ now. It’s huge. Which is fairly ok because I’m not going to be moving it around very much. But while I was swapping the cooler in and out all the time in vain attempts to get the All In One Cooler working, that was taking all I had at the time, which is another reason I didn’t immediately migrate over to the new box.
I still haven’t migrated everything over properly yet either. The old PC hasn’t been booted up in a few months now but I have the old data copied over but not sorted into any real sense or order yet. Not quite had the mental spoons to do that just yet.
It has been fun seeing what the new machine can do though …
That’s a mostly static diorama type location from Star Wars Outlaws but the detail there and how it’s brought out by the graphics card is quite incredible. What you’re seeing there is a frame of the big sand crawler vehicle, with textures spread over that frame. They’re then processed to add the depth and to make them look good as a 3d object that you can walk around and see from all angles. Plus there’s the animated characters down there too and the smaller objects in the scene as well. That’s genuinely better than what we would see on movies, such as the originals all those years ago. In earlier generations of 3d graphics, we’d have detail but if you looked close, the textures would repeat over the sides of an object as the systems didn’t have the memory to capture massive detail like what we have there.
Finished Outlaws again, although I need to go back for the second expansion. It’s a long game, fun but feels padded with lots of added optional sidequests. I’ve also been in the Elite world again …
That’s the latest antics, where I’ve taken the brand new megahauler ship and turned it into an explorer craft. That’s the Searching for Rainbows, quite possibly the first Panther Clipper Mk II to visit Sagittarius A* at the centre of the galaxy.
What I call a hole in space in the alt text is Elite’s representation of Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy. The game might be showing its age a little there, although it probably has an easier time with this than it looks from the picture there. The game has very impressive gravity lensing effects, where the visuals of the stars wraps around the big black hole. As you move around the black hole, what you see through it changes dynamically with the angle. It’s very impressive and the static shot doesn’t really do it justice.
That’s been part of the antics in Elite. I haven’t been playing with the alt too much, outside of that speed run, but it’s been a lot of fun tagging along with Ninjaspaceunicorn and Thebigboo with the Hungry Unicorn expedition to the far side of the galaxy and back. We’re on the way back now, not actually that far from the centre of the galaxy.
Anyway, thought I’d better check in. It’s time to post now and read a bit more of book …
I’ve been running an A to Z challenge this year, where I’ve been looking to read something from all of the letters, whether that’s an author or a book title. The latest is The Folded Sky by Elizabeth Bear, as the F book. It’s the third in the author’s White Space universe, a future science fiction universe where AIs run spaceships that go all across the galaxy. There are pilots, a lot of mindfulness, very relatable people and stories that keep you wondering what’s coming next. I didn’t enjoy Hammered that much (different universe, near future Earth) but I would happily recommend Ancestral Night and Machine.
And I think that’s me about out of batteries for tonight. Not sure what’s been happening there, so many people have been commenting that they’re incredibly tired, far more tired than they think they should be or even would have been a few years ago. I think my tiredness starts from burn out over covid times but it’s gotten worse since.
Perhaps it’s worry about loved ones or could be socio-economic pressures. Covid seemed like a scary time but the world seems a lot less settled now. Like things got a lot more dangerous for everyone while we were distracted by a pandemic.
Who knows. All we can do is look after our people. Be kind. Send a little bit of love out there. Be good to people, don’t default to trying to exploit them. Communities of good, nice, wonderful people are out there, I hope you find yours.
Hi all, first of all … why would you want to do that ?
There are lots of manufacturers and sites that will happily assemble and set up a PC for you. So why would you want to build your own ?
The answer for me is very simple. I get total choice on what’s going into the machine for both the components and the software. I can put a bit of extra money in one thing that I think is important and make a sacrifice in something else that I don’t think will matter. I can future proof without breaking the bank. And probably the most important, it gets set up without any of the garbage software that the original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) will preinstall that either doesn’t go away completely when you uninstall it or it comes back again. It’s also bundled stuff like the malware that masquerades as branded anti-virus security software.
You could even choose to go away from the Microsoft Windows ecosystem and go to Linux now. That’s more viable, although I’ll come back to that in a while.
The most important thing is to do as much research as possible before you buy. Retails and online sites will be very keen to put discounts on selected models in their range. If you get tempted by those, ask yourself why the discount is happening. Is the discount because they have a stack of stock they can’t shift out of the warehouse because no one buys it ? Or are they dumping stock because it’s just gone obsolete and end of line. I’ve actually taken advantage of that for my last two laptops, they were both acquired on heavy end of line discounts and happened to be specifications that met my requirement.
This is probably the time for … Disclosure note ! All the decisions for the bits here were mine, I paid for everything, the companies mentioned have no idea who I am and no approaches had been made prior to selection of the bits. (Outside of the usual Overclockers and Scan we’ve got your email in our database robot marketing emails)
The catalyst for this post is to introduce the new build PC that appeared here over Easter. It’s the BunnyBox, named for when it was built again :-D. It follows Pumpkin, assembled on Oct 31 2011 and Meltdown, built on the hottest July day of 2019. But the main aim is to tell all of you reading that : You can do this too. Yes. You can. If you can handle a screwdriver and have a fairly light touch, you can build your home brew PC as well.
The key thing is to do all of the research before you part with any money. I have to admit to making a few mistakes with the BunnyBox, some of which were down to not researching properly, some were trusting the reviews a bit too much. Some mistakes and problems were making some bad assumptions. Oh and I may have forgotten to add the system memory to the order and had to hang around Stoke on Trent a while so they could fetch some out of the warehouse.
But the absolute key thing is : It’s YOUR money. YOUR decision to commit to spending it. Don’t ever feel pressured about spending YOUR money unless you’re absolutely comfortable in doing so. That goes for any pressure you may feel to up the spec when you don’t feel that’s affordable or presents value that you’re comfortable with.
Here’s the BunnyBox spec from Partpicker (linky). Partpicker is actually a really decent site to go to when researching the bits that go together to make a PC. They cut their selections down to what’s compatible. So if you choose an AMD cpu, they won’t show motherboards made for Intel chips. When I updated the list for the memory, it didn’t show memory that the board couldn’t handle. So it’s a handy thing to start from to see what’s out there and quickly get a list of bits.
That’s your motherboard, which everything plugs in to. There are different connectors for everything and they only go in one way around, so the only mistake you can make is to press too hard and break something that way. Don’t worry about that. Modern computer electronics are far more robust than when I was a lad too. It used to be that TTL (Transistor Transistor Logic) chips would break if you touched them wrong, electro static discharge wrist bands used to be required so you wouldn’t zap the bits. I don’t believe you need those these days. (Please no sue me if something doesn’t work ! 😀 ).
The first thing to go in was a 4TB Solid State Device (SSD) storage device. This is an nVME drive, which is the faster one. It’s an M2 format, which is a small card like a stick of chewing gum. Don’t eat it, too crunchy and expensive 😀
Here comes my first error, because I bought the more expensive one with a heatsink on. Cos … Meltdown’s similar SSD gave no problems in almost 6 years but it did run warm. The mistake was not researching that the board came with its own heatsink. I didn’t need to buy the one fixed to the drive. Oh well, coulda saved some cash.
I bought a single SSD because I was assuming that BunnyBox would be running a version of the Linux Operating System and didn’t know how that handled multiple drives. So I bought a bigger (4TB) cheaper one for significantly less than a quicker one of the same size.
Techie note – you’ll see PCIe, that’s the interface of how the components talk to each other. If you look at a computer architecture diagram, the wiring will connect blocks together mostly with the Peripheral Component Interconnect express (PCIe). It’s express cos it’s the considerably improved Mk2 version of PCI, which first got into PCs in the 90s. M2 SSD drives will show a Gen 4, Gen 5 and if you read this in a few years, probably Gen 6 and beyond. The newer versions offer improved transfer rates which might give you a benefit if you’re doing heavy data crunching but I figured I could save pennies (to go into better other bits) by not noticing going for a cheaper ultra fast drive.
That’s the memory going in. That picture actually shows the stick the wrong way around, because I wanted to draw attention to the notch that’s in the bottom of the stick. That’s a polarising notch and makes sure the memory goes in the correct way around because the polarising notch is slightly off the centre. When it’s in right, the grabby arms to the sides of the socket will do their grabby arm thing and close up. You might need to rest the board on something very solid here so it doesn’t flex when you put the memory in. Use the anti-static bag it comes in between Board and Solid Thing to protect everything.
Something else to note here is the sockets to use. There are 4 on the board there, so I could add more in later. However if you look real close (left side of the socket) and can read upside down, you’ll see DDR_A1, DDR_A2, DDR_B1 and DDR_B2 with a “First” beside them. Processors can gobble up 128 bits of data at a time, however the memory sticks send out only 64 bits at a time. So you double them up to get full performance. But they only work doubled up if they’re in the correct sockets. The board manual will tell you which sockets are best. If you put the memory in sockets DDR_A1 and DDR_B2 (mismatched sockets) then your new PC may not boot up at all.
Pardon the messiness of my bedsheet ! The camera picks up all of the dust and I don’t think I have the hand capacity to edit it out :-D. That’s the box, it’s an absolute unit of a Montech King 95 Pro. The 6 fans there are utterly silent when the machine is on and have the gloriness of already being assembled and cabled in to the box. You might see a bit of ducting below and there is more ducting above. The power supply goes in the back and the motherboard sits on that vertical plate. I’m extremely impressed with this case, it has exceptional build quality, it was easy to fit the All In One Cooler in the box above there and the box can fit the biggest coolers. However, it’s also a massive unit, comes in at 13kg and was a pricey £125. Honestly, with the build quality and 6 included silent fans, probably well worth that.
That’s the power supply going in there. Two things here … don’t skimp on the quality, so extra money went into the Lian Li supply there. I have a few power supply makers on my list of shame, Lian Li is actually a new one for me but they have a stellar reputation. The other is to get a big enough one that it can take it easy with the components in the box. So a 750W supply taking it easy at a 500W draw will last so much longer than a 500W supply straining to consistently deliver the same 500W.
It’s a false economy to go cheap on the power supply. Getting a good name one (like Lian Li) will lead to a more reliable and stable machine. And if it breaks, standards like 80+ GOLD means that it won’t break anything else when it … explodes. Not like a friend’s PC which broke all of its components when the cheap no name inadequate power supply melted. PSUs don’t explode … but don’t take one apart to find out as there is 115/240V in there, definitely don’t mess with the big round capacitors, those are the bits that can go boom.
That’s a modular power supply. The older ones came with all of their cables attached to ends on the inside, so they had a mass of unused cable to hide. A modular supply has those sockets there, so you only plug in the cables you require. Less untidy.
That’s skipping ahead a little to the motherboard installed in the box with the processor in there too. The box there is an ATX format box, with ATX dating back to the 90s. Literally IBM AT PC extended. There are newer formats like ITX out there but ATX has been consistent for decades. There is a sockets backplane on the bottom right and the board is secured by an array of small screws.
That’s an AMD Ryzen 7 9800x3d and BunnyBox has one of those due to a big discount that put it in an unbeatable price / performance bracket. I also have a lot of wariness about Intel at the moment because their quality and part resilience has gone downhill lately due to decisions made by their management.
The installation is a bit different again this time around. That’s an AMD AM5 socket. The lever on the left is for a so-called Zero Insertion Force socket. (It’s not zero force!) You use the lever to allow the socket to open and slide the ickle processor into the socket. Again, it’s polarized with the little dot you’ll see on the lower right corner to make sure you put it in the right way round. When you lower the retaining bracket, the black cover seen previously pops off and the lever then locks it in to place.
We can see a couple of black plastic things there too, every processor needs to be cooled because they’ll kick out a lot more heat when they’re busy. The first cooler this machine had was an All In One (AIO) Cooler by Thermalright. These work by having a heat block that clamps on top of the processor using the hooks on the plastic things above and below. The AIO is then connected to a radiator with a couple of pipes filled with cooling fluid. There’s a pump that circulates the fluid and fans to cool the radiator. It’s a lot easier to install coolers on the AM5 generation of socket than the previous AM4 generation.
That’s everything together ! Not quite, because there are buttons and plugs and lights and sockets to wire up too. The PC case has 2 older USB, 1 new USB-C, a couple of audio sockets, a reset button, a power button and a power light. These all plug into sockets on the board, the motherboard manual will have the where to’s here.
But that is actually it. The graphics card is in there as well. Note how close it is to the processor, I’ll come back to that. Also note how close the memory is on the right there. (Foreshadowing anyone ? 😀 )
The next thing is to take a long solid drink, clean up the mess from any blood sacrifices that might have happened along the way. Depending on the build quality of the components, you might have picked up a cut or two. Cheap cases have many more sharp edges. I only got a very minor cut this time around for the somewhat required blood sacrifice. It keeps the Machine Spirit happy :-D.
Plan A for BunnyBox was to abandon Microsoft and go over to Linux. I attempted using Bazzite Linux, as the reviews and things written about it were favourable. It’s worth checking out Linux, it’s free so you lose nothing but a bit of time in exchange for learning about the alternatives that are out there.
This lasted 1 day.
He he, overly dramatic moment there. The machine actually fired up and installed easily first time but I removed it from the machine because I was getting terrible performance with older games like Idle Champions and Motorsport Manager. The Steam platform is starting to get more games designed for Linux but can also support Windows only games by using the Proton translation library. That wasn’t working so good for me, possibly because the Bazzite install didn’t have the info to allow it to properly use the brand new to market nVidia 5060Ti 16GB I bought. And because I couldn’t see how to install the new drivers, I put Bazzite in the bin and went straight back to the known entity of Windows with a WIndows 11 install.
You live, you learn, you add more knowledge.
So I pop Windows in there, install the Horizon Zero Dawn in there and run its benchmark. All is good. Temperatures go up but it gives a result of 160 fps wibblies which was up from the 71 fps wibblies that Meltdown could achieve. It’s an older game but has a good benchmark for testing purposes.
I then look at the BOINC science sums application and … the temperatures rapidly go off into orbit and as AMD Ryzens do, the machine goes into thermal protection where it slows itself down to around a tenth of its potential performance. This is where the panic comes in. I’ll do a bit TLDR there (this post has gone LONG!) and say that I think the AIO cooler wasn’t taking any heat away from the processor, the pipes and radiator were cold. So I swapped it out for …
Yeah. I went back to what I know and bought the most massive air cooler from a good make that I could get hold of at short notice. That’s a Noctua NH-D15 and while it is a fantastic cooler, I did make a couple of errors when choosing it. The fan there is a massive 140mm, there are supposed to be two but the other one clashes on the memory sticks. The cooler is installed off axis as well, about 7mm above where it should be, because it clashes with the graphics card below.
So while Partpicker will give you a LOT of info about whether everything will fit together, it doesn’t know everything. I don’t know everything. I still make errors like that by (going back to the start) not doing all of the research. I checked whether the cooler would fit in the case … not whether it would fit around the rest of the components.
But it all works, BunnyBox is rock solid so far, it’s an absolute powerhouse running the performance hungry Star Wars Outlaws with no frame drops on very high detail so I’m a happy little bunnydwagon here tapping this post into it.
I think that’s where I’d better leave it before I end up posting tomorrow instead of today. I’ll leave you with :
You got this, you can do it too. Read about what you’re planning to put together, use hardware review sites (like Tomshardware) and borrow the specs from their testing rigs. Learn about the bits and it’ll help you out when you have the screwdriver in hand and assembling.
Take it easy, take your time. Don’t panic if things don’t turn on immediately. Just check that all the wires are where they are supposed to be. Repeat your steps if you have to, measure twice install once that kind of thing.
And compare notes with your local geeky techy community too. We’ll love to gossip about components and tempt people into buying new bits and pieces. Just remember that it’s your money, your budget, stick to those limits. If you’re not sure about what you’re about to do, hold off and learn a bit more. Computer bits only get cheaper and better if you wait.
May your Machine Spirits be contented little beasties.
Apologies, it’s been a little too long since I wrote anything here last. Now that I’m starting up a post again, it’s feeling good to be tapping the words out again. How come there hasn’t been a post for a while ? Probably a lot of exhaustion there. I realised that instead of being on the recovery from the massive burn out (and probably very long covid) from a few years ago, I’m probably even deeper in that burn out.
Not quite sure how I pull out of that burn out, it might need some more bigger lifestyle changes. We’ll see there. So what’s been happening while I’ve been away ? What’s at risk of disappearing into lost memory because I didn’t write it down somewhere ? Here goes !
Last time I wrote that new PC bits were going to happen. This post is being written on the BunnyBox PC, so called because it was (mostly!) built at Easter this year. I’ve just done a Partpicker list of the bits. There we go. It was a bit more eventful than it really should have been, let’s just say that it’s on :
Its second Operating System;
Its second cpu cooler …
Yep. There was some light drama there … Only light drama though because nothing actually exploded. The Bunny actually benchmarked the same in a game called Horizon Zero Dawn with the non functioning original cooler as well as the massive lump that’s in there now. But I’m getting ahead of things there …
There we go. That’s the gubbins with the big lump of an air cooler in there. Bunny’s story needs its own post really but the TLDR is that I experimented with going with Linux first. That didn’t work out because the performance in games was pretty nasty, probably because the system was working off older drivers that didn’t fully support the brand new to market 5060Ti 16GB card that’s in there. And I couldn’t see how to quickly and efficiently update them. So Linux came off and my 2019 copy Windows 10 went on. And then that updated to current Windows 10 … and finally I’m running on Windows 11.
Actually this really needs its own post before I tell everything in geek level detail here ! The cooler in the picture there is the replacement for an All In One cooler which … didn’t work. Those are a waterblock to take heat off the cpu. Pipes to circulate that heat around, with a pump. And a big radiator and fans to dissipate that heat. It wasn’t taking the heat away from the cpu.
I now have a failed All in One cooler to disassemble so I can see how it works.
I could attempt to return it but … it has 3 good 120mm (big but not biggest) fans on there which I can harvest for the top of Bunny PC. Plus I’ve never had an All in One cooler to take apart before.
What else have I been up to ?
That’s from Lords again and we had a full day’s play in the Interservices T20 games this year. I managed to get there super early, pretty much as the games opened. I got there before the tea selling people were selling tea ! There should be a post about the cricket day as well at some point. We’ll see about translating the “want to post need to post” into having the energy left over to actually get posting. I think we’re doing ok here at the moment. Again, the cricket day is one that should get its own post soon.
Following the cricket was a day spent at UK Games Expo. This was a fun Saturday. I stopped overnight on the Friday but just did the one day and night there. Hotels be pricey. Looking back at it, the event is big enough and crowded enough that it could do with a second day there.
I got loot too ! The dice and tray there are from Trayed and Tested (Etsy link), which is run by the lovely Aby. Good to see them again at UK Games Expo. I also ran into Curlylocksgamer who is enjoying farming in Stardew Valley as I type. Good to meet them too.
And the afternoon was spent with Andy of Billietrixx‘s (Twitch link) community and Billie, browsing the rest of the Expo. Was a very enjoyable bimble with great company. These shows are always best with friends to share the experience with and to point towards the things we may have missed.
No Comic Con this year sadly, Comic Con Friend wasn’t feeling so good so we’ll pick another one to go to. I wasn’t that great either, I probably well overdid it for the Lords trip (Thursday before Comic Con weekend) and needed that weekend to recover as well.
Feel better soon Comic Con Friend !
Better close out now. I’ve been enjoying being able to slam the graphics options up with the new PC. It’s definitely a bit of a beast compared to the last one, which was still going pretty strong. That’s Star Wars Outlaws again, I just ran across this little vignette of Stormtroopers being set the task of target practice. Someone spotted the little critter there looking like it was wondering if it was safer in front of the stormies instead of off to the side.
The game is full of little moments like that. They did a good job with it, although combining the story with randomly generated heist or fetch or elimination missions may extend or pad the game out a bit too much. I’m kinda wanting to be done with it again now. Fun game, maybe feels too long to get everything done. The buildings will be a frame covered by a texture but there is so much detail now in both frame and texture and the graphics cards have the sheer power to turn that complex structure frame and texture picture into a super realistic convincing 3d environment. Says me who will drop 40 hours into a Little Big Workshop run over a couple of real time days. It’s amazing the level of detail in there as well now. The characters will all have full animated skeletons.
Oh I’m not the healthiest with my gaming play profiles ! Little Big Workshop does look much better with the graphics turned up in that too.
It’s been good to pop up again and drop a post in. I have that little few lined up that I need to write words for so that helps preserve them in the memory banks. But for now, back to book. I’m in Off Midway Station by Marc Alan Edelheit at the moment. New author for me, it’s taken half a book to set up his universe but it feels like it’s lighting that blue touch paper to ignite a story that’s going to take off.
To the stars ! Until next time, thanks for reading 🙂
It’s been a while ! I think I needed to dive under the covers for a little while. But first ! We need that thumbnail …
I think the big reason it’s been so long is a steady realisation that I’m probably descending deeper into the burn out, instead of thinking that I’d hit as far as I could go down and therefore the only way was to improve. Nah. I think the burn out is getting worse, if that’s possible. I’m hanging in there but there’s a general shell shocked feeling where I think I’ve retreated back within myself somewhat. Will have to see what I need to change to start recovering and improving. But first, what’s been happening outside of going into the shell for a couple of months ?
We left things last time in the middle of January. A massive highlight for this year was heading off to Megacon at the end of January. This was over in London at the Excel arena and I’d thoroughly recommend checking out this particular convention.
It’s a smaller convention than Comic Con, covering a lot of the same things. It’s perhaps a third of the size, so I was able to get around there a few times as well as just enjoy and soak up the vibes coming from the anime dancing ladies at the Performance Square. There was a lot of joy coming from watching them bounce around their stage. And wonderful vibes coming from the other dancing ladies off to the side, who were bouncing around as well.
It was just a wonderful, happy thing. And then there was what looked like an impromptu mass dance party later on. Amazing lovely happy vibes and it was wonderful to see.
I came away with some awesome loot too. The main reason I knew about Megacon was because I’d seen it on the wonderful Aby of Trayed and Tested‘s (Etsy link) Etsy page that’s at the link there. It’s always lovely to be recognised and a surprise too considering I’d only met Aby once before, at Insomnia 2024. Good to see them again and have a little natter.
The bits there include (there’s too much for alt-text there so here’s the list) :
A dice tray with rainbow coloured dragons flying.
A set of mostly transparent dice with real clouds inside (the d6 was hiding under Eeyore)
A set of larger green dice with yellow patterns and numbers on them.
A leather pouch to hold the dice tray and I keep the dice in there too.
A pink 3d printed dragon from Printing Like Rabbits.
And the Eeyore dragon that I picked up at one of the Welsh castles last year.
I’m definitely a person that mirrors the vibes of the people that I’m around, which can be a good thing and a bad thing. (Happy people make me happy, toxicity frustrates me) It’s why I went back to Trayed and Tested at Insomnia last year and why Megacon caught the eye as somewhere to go. Looking forward to Comic Con later in the year, plus there will be the UK Games Expo the weekend after.
And then there was the day after … I had what I’ll call a health event. I won’t go into details except that there was a decent amount of blood escaping, I should have taken myself off to hospital to get seen to. I’m ok, it was messy but was under control quickly, hasn’t recurred since and I still have all the bits we should have.
But whereas I’d have quite liked to get the Megacon details locked in to memory with a post, that health event is something I’d quite like to delete from the memory. It rattled me for a little while that one.
Gosh, what else has been going on apart from that ? I haven’t been getting out much. I think that’s part of the burn out. I did take a week off a couple of weeks ago, I was thinking about going up to the Lake District for a few days. Kinda like the Conwy Castle trip up to North Wales last year, except doing all of the arrangements myself this time.
Is it bad when you’re too mentally done to arrange stuff to help recover from being too mentally done ? Probably.
One thing that has happened since the last post is me doing the Space thing again …
The interest happened again due to the lovely Ninja Space Unicorn (Twitch link) kicking off an expedition in Elite Dangerous to head off to the far side of the galaxy and back. It caught the interest and so I’ve joined in with the streams so far. And they’ve been fun too, including the picture above where the 4 of us that day were all set up to do a buggy race around our landed space ships.
The expedition has been paused for a few weeks now due to IRL Stuff (we lost a friend far too soon) but having fun on the expedition made me look again at the second account I had from a giveaway from a different distributor (Ok it was Epic) … so I’m playing Elite on two accounts now. My main account is still 1000 light years above the centre of the galaxy but their carrier is supporting the alt account build up a star system.
That’s been another big draw, there were rumours at the start of the year that colonisation was coming to Elite. We could claim a system for our own and build stuff in there. Mine’s the Col 285 Sector ZU-L B9-2 gosh that’s a mouthful here’s an Inara link system. There are just two installations completed so far but I should be able to finish two more this week with what’s in the carrier … and then it goes faster from there for a little bit with smaller bases. And if you’ve had a look at that link and noticed something …
Yep. My home station is called Here Be Dwagons. It had to be :-D. And it’s been making me grin every time I go past the name in the list of things in the system. I do have a few more names in the Book Of Names. One will come soon because I have a farm station quite early in the build list. The other big name needs to wait until a medical facility is built. Other than that, looking for some really good names. There could well be a Space Unicorn themed name in there at some point.
Other stuff ? It’s April Fools Day tomorrow, I don’t have anything planned for that … although I did go back to childhood times by acquiring a game called Derail Valley. It’s a train driver simulator. It’s really early days in there for me but I’d point you towards Squirrel’s playlist of the game over on Youtube. He’ll tell you more about an interesting curious game with that progression system inside that you know I go for.
I think I better hit the post and publish button in a moment though … I’ve been keeping the reading going, I lost the reading streak again (oops) but I’ll be looking to do an A to Z of books thing this year. It’s supposed to be authors but I don’t think I’ll find enough variety there for all of the letters, so I’ll go with authors and titles.
Good to post again, I’ll try and not make it two months until the next one !
Have a great evening everyone.
PS Social media stuff ! I’ve abandoned Twixxer (the owner), I keep up to date on Bluesky (the author / creator communities are barmy wonderful fun) and most of the discords I’m in … I’ll post to Farcebook but I don’t keep up to date with what gets posted there (bad algorithm, too much).
Oh dear that’s a bit of a weak title innit … Couple of memes caught the eye this week that I thought would make an excellent theme for things to have a natter about. But first … thumbnail !
I think I broke my brain a little bit today. It’s a work related thing where we’re looking how we can add one bit of equipment to a bigger bit of equipment but it’s not entirely obvious how best to do it. So I started thinking about the problem in an abstract way. Ask not what the obvious solution is, ask what the problems actually are and what you’re trying to achieve. And you may end up with a completely different answer to what everyone has assumed the answer should be.
Actually that cues me up for a mini rant … I bet you’ve all been subjected to websites that are massively overkeen to get you to sign up for their cookies and especially their surveys or their newsletters. I had a suggestion to do that here, where one of the third party people were recommending I use that newsletter popup.
Nope. I hate that. It’ll never appear here.
You know the one I mean, where you’ve mostly randomly found a news site (often techie geeky stuff) and as soon as you move the mouse off the window, you get a popover that obscures the article that’s demanding you sigh up for a newsletter. If any website owners are reading this, PLEASE don’t do that. It’ll make random readers annoyed with you for having to dismiss the newsletter pop up and if they’re annoyed, they won’t ever sign up for updates. Whether or not someone signs up for a newsletter depends entirely on the quality of your content. If their first impressions are tainted by having to click too many links to dismiss cookies, or by a newsletter popup, then that first impression is pure annoyance and the first impressions stick.
Think of how you see the websites you look at, then apply what your impressions are to creating the style of your own site. And I have to admit to being a little bit lazy there myself with how I’ve got this site set up. It could be better, at least I hope it’s not annoying.
Because annoyance overrides being interesting. Put that newsletter or subscribe link at the end of your post. If someone’s enjoyed reading what you’ve contributed, that’s the point where you want them to see the “would you like to see more?”
Rant complete 🙂 First meme of the day is a question that a good friend on Bluesky asked. What would the title of your autobiography be ? I had a ponder on this for a minute, looked away for a second, had a random moment of inspiration and …
I got that from Google images from probably a collections site but I might look up @Beardedhorse there for more. Ah ha ! Cool, they’re on Bluesky.
ADHD Brain says “stay on topic”, the daft idea I had was that my autobiography would be titled “Here be dwagons.” What would yours be ?
Next meme … if video games cause violence, what would you be going to prison for based on the last game you played. I’m not counting Idle Champions there, I’ve played Motorsport Manager today but when I answered that meme, the answer was “Running a sweatshop style factory impriso—- employing hordes of adorable little gnomes to build products with no thought for safety”. Yep, it’s the rather special Little Big Workshop.
There we go, that’s from the end of the Xmas event that the game has at a particular time of the real world calendar year. It’s a cracking game, very addictive with definite “one more job” tendencies to keep you sucked in playing the game.
Last meme was about games that you have and own in the Steam library but have never played … I have to admit to having more than a few of these. Sometimes it’s because I just haven’t gotten round to trying to learn them. Let’s see a few of these highly regarded games that I really need to have a good look at :
Puffin Planes has 5 minutes – it’s an airline management game where you’re looking to encompass the globe with your airline taking people from place to place. Just haven’t felt the Brain to learn to play it.
Sky Haven is an airport management game where you build your airport. I did enjoy setting up Airport CEO but didn’t have Brain to learn this one at the time.
Dustland Delivery – post apocalyptic truck game. You’re not driving the truck like the Euro Truck Sim / American Truck Sim games, it’s more a strategic transport game.
Stardew Valley and Graveyard Keeper – they’re both farm type games, with Graveyard Keeper having you manage sending the dead off. And harvesting them for bits to make other things. These are both legendary standard games that I really should invest some time in to learn.
Space Crew was a freebie and I added it to the library for the soundtrack. It’s a follow on to Bomber Crew (which I did own and look at) but didn’t play it because the gameplay videos and reviews I saw for it suggested that it was a bit of a soulless grindy hard for the sake of it game that I wouldn’t enjoy. And it doesn’t have the nostalgic connection to WW2 that Bomber Crew has.
Kenshi – is a post apocalyptic wasteland game where you roam with a small band of warriors trying to carve out your place in the world. I really should play this one, it’s a unique one with its own special character.
Papers Please – another legendary one where you play the part of an Immigration and Passport Control Agent in the totalitarian authoritarian country of Arstotzka. You decide whether people are allowed in or not and they’ve included enough weird character to make this an interesting cult classic.
Parkitect, Project Hospital and Model Builder – these all arrived in the same bundle as Little Big Workshop.
Humble is responsible for a lot of the unplayed games in my library, because I’d add the games I acquired as part of a bundle but wasn’t actually interested in.
Last one for today – Disco Elysium is another legendary game. It’s a mostly text adventure game set in a future scifi world that’s descended into neglect and dystopia. There’s a lot that’s very familiar to what we have in our 21st century world, with more advanced technology mixed in. But it’s not about the technology, it’s about a murder, an uncaring city, a long suffering partner and a cop charged with figuring out what’s going on at the same time as piecing together who they are from the fragments of extreme amnesia.
It’s another classic. I really must find the time to play it !
I need to get my daily at least one chapter read now though, so I’ll bid you goodnight, have a wonderful timezone everyone.
We have the Millennium Falcon today. That iconic ship for the whole series of Star Wars movies and one that helped define the term Hero Ship. These aren’t the biggest ships, they’re the ones that the heroes of a show or movie depend on. The Enterprise is a hero ship, in whichever series its in, although the Enterprise is on the big size for your usual hero ship.
A hero ship is usually something smaller, which can do everything the crew need it to do but with that sense of danger that comes from being completely outgunned by the big navy ships. And they’ll usually have a decent crew on board as well to keep them running because that gives the basis for a decent amount of cast and crew to keep the series going.
Can’t talk about hero ships without mentioning Serenity, this one’s from the Firefly series which really deserved to tell a lot more of its story. This particular ship was centred around a main cast which had Captain Mal, pilot Wash, XO Zoe, Meathead Jayne (the actor is responsible for dumb attitudes and that pretty much sums up the character too) and lovely Kaylee as the savant ships engineer. Joining the crew for a fare and an escape were Shepherd Book and Simon and River Tam, with the final spot being Inara who would join for a while as a guest and ambassador.
The ship itself was a small tramp freighter, with living quarters and galley living area towards the front, with the central box section being where the cargo would be and the main engine being to the rear of the ship. Because the ship was so small, it could get into and out of places fast for … shenanigans, jobs other ships couldn’t do and the occasional bit of crimes, while still being so vulnerable that it would add in its own contribution to the drama.
If you haven’t seen Firefly and the follow on movie, Serenity, I’d massively recommend trying to catch it.
The Mass Effect series has had a collection of hero ships, starting with the SSV Normandy of the first game. This one was a small frigate, a stealth ship that could get in anywhere, go anywhere and was that game’s vehicle (literally) for getting the main character travelling between the various locations. There was another, bigger, Normandy later and the ship in the picture is the Tempest from Mass Effect Andromeda. The Tempest was more a very light scout ship with just about enough room to accommodate all of the crew.
And that’s the main role of the hero ship, it’s usually the home of the main characters of the series. It’ll tell its own part of the story. Like Serenity being a little bit unreliable at the most convenient times for the story. It’s there to enable the story to move along and to enable the main characters to get up to shenanigans.
We’ve got some more from the world of books … Like :
Trouble Dog from Gareth L Powell’s excellent Embers of War trilogy. This is a Carnivore class ex warship, which has an embodied AI which is a fully fledged and key character in the series. Trouble Dog is a quite powerful ship, although nowhere near invincible. She’s small enough to get in where the story needs to go and has her own past and personality, plus a fantastic crew to look after.
(Embers of War is another series I’d thoroughly recommend, although a little warning – it does get a bit dark and grisly)
Another I can’t go without mentioning is the Rocinante from The Expanse …
This ship is at the core of The Expanse novels starting with Leviathan Wakes. As your typical hero ship, it goes anywhere and this one fights hard too, being an ex warship. It’s a frigate, out of the box coming with 6 rapid fire guns covering all angles. But at the start, it’s outclassed by bigger ships that have railguns that can punch huge holes in other ships. The Rocinante is the home of the crew for these novels and while the ship doesn’t have an AI or distinct personality, it’s a solid and dependable core base for the main characters of the series.
Any more ? There’s a whole bunch more, like Moya from Farscape. Moya is a Leviathan class transport, a big living ship that becomes the home for Crichton, Aeryn, Dargo, Rigel, Chiana, Zhaan and Pilot with a few more characters occasionally living on board for periods.
And I think I’m running out of steam there. Let’s finish with a blast from the past …
That’s the Liberator, from Blake’s Seven and the hero ship I grew up with. The series was probably not something a 4 year old should have been watching but that was ok because I was just looking for the spaceship and couldn’t understand the absolutely nuts 70s era weird writing that was going on. We had some very odd stuff going on the telly back then and when you rewatch it now, stuff like Space 1999 (and Blake’s Seven) make you wonder what non-prescription pharmeuticals were going through the heads of the writers, aided and abetted by actors completely going ham with what they were given.
(I’ve just done the alt text for the picture – hover to see – and I think my brain is melted, I do apologise for people who depend on that for this particular crime to alt text!)
Fun to watch though and Blake’s Seven probably has the best and most nonsense hero ship for that time. It makes absolutely no sense, although that design is literally for space and only space. Like the Enterprise where it was an absolute crime seeing it being built on the ground in the Kelvin Timeline movie. NOPE. The Liberator was thought to be a derelict, found in space. Our characters get sent aboard as expendable prisoners and … manage to reactivate the ship and make off with it. The series sees them being fugitives from an overpowering Federation and … takes them from place to place enabling shenanigans along the way.
Would I recommend watching Blake’s Seven now, almost 50 years after it was made ? Maybe. If you can watch it on a streaming service or similar, go for it. It was a good series for its time, although you will wonder what on earth is going on at times. Don’t touch the Paul Darrow (RIP) book, it has the Blake’s Seven name but it’s not in the same universe. Afterlife is a far better sequel.
Back to Star Wars for the finish and that’s the Ghost from Star Wars Rebels and an advent series from a long time ago on a sofa not that far away from where I am right now.
Gotta go, brain empty, have a lovely rest of evening 🙂
I’m just looking at that title again and am now wondering about cameras that talk. Would they look at the picture you just took and start describing it like alt text ? Would they critique your style or make suggestions ? Could it say “Bright light bright light” if the exposure is too much ?
I think we need a picture …
Aww. That’s lovely dear heart Ben who was with us for quite a few years. Always a little bundle of staffy bull terrier love, very inquisitive and deeply protective of his people. And the perfect model to start off the post with. Good to see the old chap again.
I was wondering about cameras and what to recommend people get. That picture above is with the ancient iPhone 5 camera, apparently downscaled to 960×720 from the camera’s native resolution. Bit fuzzy but still a nice picture there, if you ignore the crack in the lens :-D. The crack was actually the catalyst to me changing phones over to the Samsung Galaxy S7 which kept me going until I switched to the exceptional Pixel 4.
(side note – gotta admit I’m struggling for mental batteries at the moment although I was able to demolish a couple of books over the weekend, we’ll see where this post goes).
I didn’t have the Pixel 4 for that long before disappearing over to Canada for work … and then a pandemic broke out and I wasn’t taking pictures of much except for apparently my old sketch art.
Hopefully the more processed version of that is visible at the top of the page. I should probably attempt the sketching again, I kinda moved back to more digital art and the photography stuff in particular.
That’s a more recent one, taken on my desk. Yep, looks like I was using my little pen torch for extra illumination too. This actually gets me to a first point about mobiles vs cameras … usability !
I knew we’d accidentally stumble upon the purpose of this post eventually :-D.
I’d been thinking about whether it’s worth people getting a full sized camera these days, or if it’s ok to stay with a mobile phone. The phone cameras have come a long way since those early days. Ignore the number of pixels (although I’ll come back to that), just think about usability and how much the camera does for you.
In the case of the dwagon dice, that could have needed 3 hands because a phone is actually a bit awkward to hold as a camera. There’s no strap with them usually and you can’t be touching the screen. So you have to hold them by the edge and with a spare finger for the shutter button. Add a third hand if you’re using a separate light. However, you can get round that by using the timer. Sorted !
Depth of field can be a curious thing to play with as well … For this close work, I’ll traditionally hold the camera away from the thing I’m taking the picture of and cut it to size. Try it with your own cameras … see what you think. If the camera is close, it’ll all go a bit fish eye. If you hold it back a bit, then it’s a flatter image. Check it out ! Experiment, see what happens and enjoy learning how to get the best out of what you have. And there are so many pixels in our cameras now that we can easily crop out the extras (no one sees my desk 😀 ) and still have an amazing image.
I could use the R50 for these but … is it necessary ? One big difference is that with the strap to hold it normally, I can quickly pull that camera up with one hand and tap the shutter button. Maybe the left hand is operating the in and out of the zoom lens. The Ixus was a bit different there, as the zoom was on a ring around the shutter button. Actually physically moving the lens works better.
Proper camera time ?
There’s a cricket one taken by the Ixus a few years ago. One thing here is that the picture is taken with the camera braced on my knee, with it maybe being a bit too small to comfortably sit in an exact position. The picture isn’t quite centred there because it would move on the shutter. If you’re able to zoom in there, it’s a bit more mushy than …
That’s from the R50, taken this summer. It’s kinda night and day there with the sharpness, especially when you consider that it looks like the Ixus picture was taken in much better light conditions.
That gets me to another point ! Is it worth buying a cheaper digital camera in this technological age when mobile phone cameras are so incredibly good ? I don’t honestly think it is.
Let’s see :
Mobile phone camera – easy, portable, maybe a bit difficult to use one handed but includes a timer function that helps there. Huge amount of intelligence in the software tools to help make a perfect image. (Except for that tool that picks out different faces for people – I think that’s a bit of an abomination). You can take selfies with them.
Cheaper digital camera – don’t bother, they’re too compromised. It was exceptionally difficult to reliably get a good picture with the Ixus, although the image stabilisation has hopefully been improved. However, you can’t change the lens, you can only work with what’s been provided. Selfies were impossible with the Ixus (too blurry).
DSLR or Mirrorless camera – if you can afford them (and I got the second cheapest Canon), then they are massively worth the investment. The R50 has made it ridiculously easy to take snapshot pictures that have all turned out really well. Another one ?
That’s actually a resurrected one from Comic Con. The original saw the people there in silhouette due to the lighting behind them. You couldn’t really see their outfits. This is with a basic Auto – Equalise filter in GIMP which has started bringing out the colour again.
Whereas I’ve done that in post processing in GIMP, a recent mobile (my Pixel 4 is from 2020) will include similar enhancement abilities.
One issue though is the battery. I did a precautionary change of the R50 battery on the Lords day with over 294 pictures taken with it on the day with a bunch deleted because they weren’t interesting. If you’re looking to use a mobile phone as a camera, you’ll need a couple of power bank things to take with you and that leads to awkward when you need to charge them up.
So …
Cheap camera like the Ixus’s and Powershots – don’t bother, use a mobile phone instead (with a powerbank to feed the battery regularly). It’s just so much easier to do stuff with the pictures via the mobile, you can upload them direct to where you want to show them off.
Mobile phone – I’m really impressed with how much they can do now. However … they do have their limits imposed with the space they have to fit in to. It’s pushing the boundaries of the physics of how the light travels around. (And battery life is nasty)
DSLR or Mirrorless camera – I think they’re worth the investment if you’re going places with a camera and want to share what you’re seeing with people. The ability to swap over lenses adds a lot of flexibility there. The bigger R50 (compared to the tiny Ixus) is a lot easier for my suffering eyes to set up a shot.
I think that’s it for my brain for tonight. Hope this was useful for anyone thinking about cameras.
Just remember, it’s your money to spend, you don’t have any obligation to spend it if you’re not comfortable that it’s going to the right place. Check out what you’re looking at via independent reviews. I don’t count me as independent, even if I’ve had no freebies, I only have recent knowledge of the Canon cameras (haha, no free samples to test the opposition with!) and older knowledge of a massively battery hungry Nikon.
And if you do go to fun places and want to share, enjoy the day out, capture the memories and share the best ones.
Goodnight everyone, have a great rest of the week.
I was thinking that it’s been a while but actually just a few weeks. I’m actually a couple of posts behind, even after this one. It’s been a good but draining month or so, I’m definitely in need of taking a break from things for a while. (Don’t worry, I’m working next week then have next week off). So, what happened on the May Bank Holiday weekend ?
We haven’t been able to get to a Comic Con since before the pandemic, so it was a lovely day to be able to make that trip with Comic Con Friend. It’s been 5 years since we’ve been able to make that trip together (there was the Oct Comic Con trip too but that was just me.). And there was another smuggle again 🙂 It was a good smuggle.
So, what happens at Comic Con ? Lots of merch, lots of stands with things to see. Comics, anime, very creative art of all different kinds. Wonderful cosplay like what we see in the picture above, from all genres.
I have no idea what genre that’s from but the amount of work that’s gone into making something that good is incredible. Top job, totally salute you there. I definitely haven’t done it justice with the alt-text.
There’s always lots to see and it’s much better to experience it with a friend coming along too. I like seeing the different artists work, especially the stuff that comes from their own imaginations instead of being inspired by the other media out there. That’s the best thing, seeing what everyone has to say and produce to show us. Be that super cute cards, detailed art to go with stories, quick funny cartoons or stunningly well realised artwork that needs to be seen.
There was a small cadre of Daleks patrolling the show, possibly in search of the Tenth Doctor who was there in the very tight blue suit outfit. I saw him there (perfect cosplay down to the appearance and body language) but he zipped away too fast for a picture.
Also dragon.
Talking of dragons, I haven’t got to the loot yet … Scorch’s Pyrography was there and it was great to see her making it to the show. She’s been in the wars recently breaking all four limbs in a bus related accident (ambushed by pavement) so it was good to see her recovered enough to make the show. There was also Ocean City Crafts … They do wonderful things with 3d printing :
That’s all 3d printed creatures, including multiple types of dragon and all different colours too. They’re fully articulated as well, with the resin segments linked together. I was a little doubtful but bought one (will show pic later) and I’m rather impressed. Well worth checking them out, hopefully we’ll see them going to more shows.
Gosh, think I’m running out of steam. I did get bitten mildly by something while at Comic Con (was ok, just a little out of sorts for the week after!) and I’m heading towards the end of the energies so I’ll close up soon. My outsides have considerably worsened as well, hopefully that’s turned the corner now into actively healing.
There are more pictures than I’ll show here, mostly because I’m very careful about putting pictures of me or friend people on the blog. When something’s on the internet, it’s very difficult to take it back again. So while selfie pictures of the shoulder dwagon are on Facebook and various Discords, they won’t go here. Same as there are a few lovely pictures of Comic Con Friend from the Sunday and other people which I’m careful about where they go to.
Shoulder dwagon ?
There we go. Possible deceptive sizes there 😀 The dwagon is the perfect size to sit on a shoulder, the d20 there is HUGE and that’s a decent size cookie there too.
Lovely day out, really enjoyed catching up with the wonderful Comic Con Friend (it’s been a while!) and sharing in seeing all of the wonderful things at the convention. Time for me to sign off now I think and pop the dinner on but … one last loot ?
I got shiny light up dice too 🙂 And t-shirts from Teeturtle. This was also the first Comic Con with the new camera, I think it’s done a wonderful job. (Some of the pics are from the mobile 😀 )
Have a lovely weekend everyone, see you all next time. Wait … one more ?
I needed to show just how big the dice was :-D. The d6 and the red d20 to the left are normal sized.
Later everyone !
Thanks for reading, would you like to share ?
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