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Advent day 13 and we nearly caused a security incident

by Sleepypete

December 13, 2024

11:09 pm

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advent, music

Hello everyone,

I’ll get to that oopsie later. First … Day 13 !

Picture. We're looking at our advent scene. Dwagon is helping on the left by allowing a couple of the models to be on top of him. The new piece is a white and red shuttle. It's on top of a big d20 with the 13 showing.

That’s Ahsoka Tano’s Jedi shuttle there. Not from a Star Wars thing I’ve watched, it’s from one of the Disney series. I have to admit shifting from being a total Star Wars addict to being completely out of touch now with what’s on the streaming services. I saw those as another unnecessary expense that I didn’t have the time to actually get the value out of. I’ll catch up on series telly but I’m a bit behind on the recorded stuff.

I think my losing touch started with the deletion of the Expanded Universe books from the established canon, with those being swept aside in favour of movies that turned out to be … a bit awful, especially when episode 8 ignored a lot of the established Star Wars universe rules (gotta be consistent with how your universe works, even in fantasy) and then episode 9 deleted a lot of the promising threads from the movie before. I was unimpressed and they didn’t exactly make me interested in signing up to the streaming service to watch more.

Game screenshot. Star Wars Outlaws. We're in shadow, looking into a ravine with terrain walls to left and right. We're standing beside a speeder bike, looking towards the wreckage of a star ship that fills the end of the ravine. There is a stream running to our right.

However, after bouncing off the Jedi Outcast due to having fundamental personal conflict with its control mechanism and experiencing bugs I didn’t want to troubleshoot, I massively enjoyed Star Wars Outlaws. It was a wonderful little bit of Star Wars to experience, wander around in, do crimes and have fun with the story. I’ll buy it when it gets a tempting enough discount on Steam.

Wait ! Today’s post concept was supposed to be a bit of a music party 🙂 It’s been a little while since I’ve gone down the Youtube recommendations and let them do impromptu karaoke to the videos (sorry neighbours). One remembering from Steelpanda aka Nikki’s lovely chill Lego building stream (Twitch link) was Floppotron … She’d played a weird synth version of Last Christmas, so I had to check if there’d been a Floppotron version. Answer – yes, here’s a link :-D.

It’s … different.

What’s a Floppotron ? It takes hardware from the Dawn Of IT Time and uses in ways that were never envisioned by the designers. We used to depend on floppy drives of 3.5 inches, 5.25 inches and 8 inches. And then there were the printers … All of them have motors that would make a hell of a racket. And Mr Paweł Zadrożniak gave us the Floppotron. It looks like it’s evolved over the years since the (here’s the Star Wars link!) Floppy Duo playing an absolutely brilliant for what it’s on version of the Imperial March.

They don’t make the hardware like they used to. But my headache is increasing listening to that so time for less grating music.

We're looking at the face is a white furred animal, which I think is a seal. It has a small black nose, their eyes are closed and there are many whiskers. The captions are "Listening to music. Very very nice"

Something I’ve thought absolutely magical since I first saw it was this animated video to Goldfrapp’s sublime cover of It’s Not Over Yet. That song may have started me on listening to Goldfrapp and led to me buying all their albums. And then there’s the animation which is beautiful and heartbreaking.

Next up is going to another animation, this time of Communication by The Cardigans. They said on a collection album that they like to write lyrics that are subtle until they come up and hit you on the head with an axe. And Communication is another very thoughtful, maybe not so much with the axes, song.

Going back to another song on in the background of stream today, I’ve always been a huge fan of the incredible voice that Kate Bush has and she was always massively ahead of her time with the music that she gave us. And it’s still popular with tunes like Running Up That Hill. And she made brilliant albums too that would run the songs in together.

Talking of brilliant albums, there’s always Pink Floyd and Wish You Were Here is always a favourite. Maybe not so much for the middle tracks but oh so definitely for Shine On You Crazy Diamond and the title track, Wish You Were Here which started on the album as someone tuning the radio to find something they liked before starting to play along to what they found on their guitar.

A much more recent discovery for me has been Metric, here they are with IOU. They have a different sound that caught the ear with Gold Guns Girls and a definite catchy energy.

Talking of catchy energy, another fairly recent vibe has been The Veronicas with the sexy energy throbbing through their Untouched, which I’m selecting on the youtubes while chair dancing to Gold Guns Girls.

Back to a couple of favourites from when I was growing up, plus one a little later. All About Eve were a big part of my listening when I was a kid, here’s their breakthrough hit Martha’s Harbour. And one from a bit more recently, Blue Sonic Boy for the Doctor Who fans. I love how she just wanders off into the back of the set for a little while to let the guitar soloists have their moment, with the wander timed just so to have her back in time for more singing.

Picture, sketch. We're looking at a green dwagon wearing a multicoloured tie holding up an implement. He's just emerged from the door of a tall blue box, with panels lower down and windows above. There is a light up top. The caption is "Regeneration gone awry?"

I nearly reposted another thing there but that feels better :-D. I kinda miss sketching, although my head isn’t quite ready to return to that yet.

Next up in this musical mystery tour is something from Chris Rea (I was looking for a bloke singer to post a link to, it’s almost all been ladies so far). It’s not one of his Christmas songs, it’s the bright and happy Loving You Again.

I feel like I need a bit of cute and there’s Lisa Hannigan waiting there to brighten up this particular pub’s evening with I Don’t Know. Must look up to see if there’s anything new from this lady.

Last few ? Here we go. Gotta pick up the iPad soon so I can get that at least one chapter in before bedtime. Talking of books … sometimes they’re awesome in the first draft, sometimes they need a : Rewrite. There’s Sia.

And here I am tempted to go on listening to the great music on the youtubes. Maybe one day I’ll find my way to Mexico ? (Maybe not, bit toasty there). Anyway, that’s a lovely song by The Staves, who do have an album out that I need to get.

Penultimate song for this post – if you’re sad and need a cheering up, one thing is guaranteed to give you some happy feelings, a Kitten Marching Band.

Last one for tonight – I’ll be setting the recording thing tonight so I can Wake Up (wonderful happy track from Sakura Girl) to the cricket that’s on too late for me to watch before going to bed.

Night all, sleep well have a lovely day.

PS The security oopsie was me leaving my bag in a coffee shop after having lunch. Unattended suspicious bag left under a table ? Eeek ! But courtesy of a guy (who I was watching because he was tripping the threat warnings talking to someone on the next table) was watching me a bit too close as I left, I picked up bag before getting too far. Kinda indicative of bad brain times though !

Book exile and music hunting

by Sleepypete

February 4, 2021

10:37 pm

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music, picture

Hello everyone,

This last week seems to have gone in a bit of a blur ! Let’s see … the Daytona 24 hour IMSA motor race happened, that was a good one to have on in the background. The IMSA racing series is pretty strong because they have a nicely varied set of fields and they get their balance of performance spot on. There’s also been book, lots of Mars Horizon and as always, music on in the background.

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

I caused some amusement at work this week by saying that my car is in some ways, on a par with the racing cars … The IMSA series has a couple of Lexus RC F’s entered and they were doing pretty well in the races that happened last year. The RC is a coupe conversion of my IS but the RC has a much bigger 5 litre V8 engine giving 472bhp. Mine has a much more modest 2.5 litre straight 4 engine plus the hybrid bits giving a combined power of 220bhp. However, the motors mean it has much more torque than that suggests.

Wot dat mean ?

Maximum theoretical speed is much lower in mine, 125mph ish compared to probably limited 160mph ish (the Lexus site isn’t cooperating in my data mining efforts). Plus when the hybrid batteries drain, it won’t be able to sustain that 125mph.

Acceleration is much closer … because that depends on torque. Plus the way the transmission works, it holds the engine at the most effective revs for what you’re wanting to do. Acceleration holds the engine at max torque, cruising holds it at just above idle developing just enough power to counteract 70mph drag.

I then caused much more hilarity by saying that the high spec race bred cars you can buy are actually more powerful than the cars in the races … This sounds weird doesn’t it ?

One of the changes that will happen between a Porsche 911 RSR coming out of the factory and being race prepped is that they’ll strip the nice bits out of the inside and reduce the weight as much as they can. Safety features will be added, as will the mandatory systems that the race organisers demand. That’s including things like race information displays, numbering systems, transponders, radios … However there is also the Balance of Performance.

That’s how the races end up being so close. The organisers will continually look at how well each car is doing and required adjustments are made in order to even everyone up. An inlet for the supercharger or pressure for the turbo will be limited to cut power slightly. Aerodynamics will be adjusted to even the cars out in the corners.

It doesn’t lead to “My car is better than your car” type stuff but it does make the racing incredibly interesting. Although the scrutineers can get it wrong sometimes like when the Aston Martins qualified unexpectedly well and the Balance of Performance adjustment meant they were maybe 10mph down on top speed compared to the others … at Le Mans with the super long Mulsanne Straight. Oops.

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

Oh to have the kind of cash that would see me being able to get one of the more powerful cars. Although, to be honest, I’m happy with the level of power in my current car and more power is kinda wasted on UK roads. We’re limited to 70mph on the fastest roads and slow people spoil the fun on the twisty roads. There are also insurance conditions which restrict using the cars on track days.

It is good to watch the racing though.

I was going to write about more stuff ! Listening to a Cardigans song followed by a The Staves song popped a thought into my head that I should do a music post sometime. Book first …

Book 5 of the year was Exile by R.A. Salvatore, the second in the origins of Drizzt series. These three books suffer somewhat in that being released after the Crystal Shard book which introduced him, that backstory is already known. The author does a good job of fleshing it out in the books. I’m currently at the beginnings of the third book, Sojourn. I’ll read something different before diving into the next in the series.

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

I’ve actually listened to all the songs in my library again and I’m hungrily looking for more again … A couple of those albums are (with lots of youtube links) :

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

I talk about The Cardigans a lot but it’s tough to call up songs from them because a lot of them are really, really dark … Algebra is a good one and it got included at an especially apt moment in the series Haven.

And then there’s also Communication with a wonderful animated video. The internet is being a very helpful thing at the moment, keeping us in touch with each other.

Oh dear. I’m singing along again. The neighbours will be worried … This calls for … Run To The Hills !

Another one who I think I need more from is Lisa Miskovsky. I have her Falling Water album which has wonderful songs in like A Brand New Day but there are several more albums I don’t have.

Thinking of Algebra, one thing about Mars Horizon is that success, failure or better success in that game is determined by mathematical counter based puzzle games. Little Boots did a song about Mathematics …

Next album up is one by Norah Jones, she has an album out as well that I don’t have yet. This lady has done some wonderful songs over the years too. Here’s one that makes me chuckle, Man Of The Hour.

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

I do miss the dogs. That’s Old Man Scruff from half a lifetime ago. A very faithful companion. Edie Brickell sang about a few dogs too … here is the joyful Woyaho! (looks like the only links are copyright theft links, not posting that)

It’s probably getting near time to wrap up and post though but there’s a couple more songs that want out … Agnes Obel surprised me with a lovely voice and haunting songs, her albums are on the list too. Here is Close Watch.

Oh ! I also managed to watch all of Star Trek Lower Decks. Rather funny, most definitely the consistently craziest that Trek has ever done. I’d give it a try.

I think that’s it for now. Couple more ? Kate Bush has always been a favourite, here is Wow.

Oh and I also acquired Katie Melua’s Ultimate Collection pretty cheap … Here’s Nine Million Bicycles.

Have a great rest of evening everyone. Stay safe, be well.

New year, new lockdown

by Sleepypete

January 5, 2021

9:20 pm

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books, internet spaceship, music, skyrim, stayathome

Hello everyone,

I know if I was to start writing about what’s happening in the UK at the moment, it would start an avalanche of ranting. So I’m going to try and avoid that :-). Yep, lockdown again … although personally, I’m not seeing much change there.

However, there are a few things that are getting more urgent that are on hold for now until it’s a bit safer to be around people. I was back on duty with work today, we have the facilities to allow us to work remotely. It did feel a bit weird though. (Could have been the lack of sleep from Brain not wanting to shut down for Land of Nod !)

Thumbnail pic ?

There we go. I haven’t been travelling too far in real life but I have done that travel to far away imaginary planets in the internet spaceship. Some are places that are recommended by the sightseeing sites (https://elite.kamd.me.uk/), some are places that I’ve run across in the travels. I have a few rules (pointers ?) there for places that should be worth a closer look. It’s good to get there in sunlight too …

Light makes the screenies more usable.

It hasn’t all been internet spaceships though, I’m having to somewhat ration the time in the more active games. The shoulder was getting more prone to pain spikes last week. Wrist actually isn’t so bad but I have to watch for unwarranted moves in the wrong angles or I get the ouchies.

I haven’t gone too much further into Per Aspera, although I’m very intrigued by that one and I have a very promising start now with an established growing colony. I had that little look into Prey and will go back when shoulder issues and time allow. I started a new Mars Horizon run as well, this time as Russia with different rockets and a higher difficulty. Mars Horizon is a game that I can see myself getting all the achievements on at some point and then I’ll keep coming back to it for some chilling out times.

I’ve also been back moseying around Skyrim …

Another case for a little bit of light going a long way.

That’s the mine side of Markarth, a towncity built into the side of one of the mountains.

And after a little raiding of the local dwemer tomb. Need to complete that armour set for Lydia there. I’m going for the heavy armoured tank with big sword approach again this time. Stealth archer is another powerful build but I get in trouble with that one as the enemies close, so it’s more a case of letting them close and then chopping them up.

It’s not just games though. I managed to finish Absolution Gap by Alastair Reynolds. It might be a while now before I go back to his books, although I do have Shadow Captain and Bone Silence of the Revenger series lined up. It’s not that Absolution Gap was a poor book, it was pretty well written. It’s just that over 660 pages it didn’t really go anywhere that was of interest. Kind of outstayed its welcome.

You can’t say that about the Martha Wells Murderbot series. They’re expensive … but they get in, tell their story and get out again before you can blink. Cos you’ve probably opened one of the novellas and read it in one sitting. Expensive … but more value in these ones than a lot of longer books.

Not sure what the next one will be, I think later on I’ll start Light of Impossible Stars by Gareth L. Powell to finish off that series.

One thing about Elite, the solar system generations can tend towards moons that are a bit close to each other …

That was my landing spot to finish one of the sessions … perhaps a bit of sulphur in those geysers ?

Here we had a pair of undiscovered water worlds that were orbiting each other close (the tides must have been impressive) and the Steam Horse Nebula in the background.

And that’s where I am at the moment, perched on the edge of a crater by a canyon system with the parent gas giant over there in the background.

It’s a curious counterpoint. In real life, we’re in our lockdown and we’re not supposed to be going anywhere (people are … mutter mutter mutter) and I’m pretty much just heading out for emergency stuff and restocking the food cupboards.

In the internet spaceship game, I’m off on a trip around the galaxy. But even there, it’s a kind of lockdown of its own. Normally in the game, I’d be either mining and going to the best selling station or I’d be on a trading route going from station to station. At the moment, it’s just me and the crew of the ship bouncing from star to star and the only interaction with people offboard is when I visit the fleet carriers dotted around the galaxy. Staying at home, with home doing a circuit of the galaxy.

That one had a nice perch, in the sun too.

Oh ! New music arrived as well with discount opportunities on a certain website I need to find a viable alternative to. Albums from the following have arrived and been enjoyed :

Katie Melua – Album Number 8 and her Ultimate Collection

Ellie Goulding – Brightest Blue

Lisa Hannigan with the hypnotic At Swim

Mike Oldfield with Tubular Bells II

And I thought I had the Per Aspera soundtrack, apparently not ! (I think I was going to evaluate it in game before buying).

Time to disappear into a book now for me. Be well, stay safe.

Impending New Year

by Sleepypete

December 30, 2020

10:15 pm

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games, music, stayathome

Hello everyone,

The offline time went to plan, was a good little bubbly meeting up north with the mum over Christmas. We were both in Tier 3 areas at that point so it was a case of a support bubble meet up, which is still ok at the moment. Well, for a couple of hours time and then we’re into Tier 4 due to this new more infectious variant of Bug.

Thumbnail time !

I think that’s enough about what’s happening in the world for now, although I will mention that I’m good for food again for a little while. My plan all along with this Thing has been to wait it out, reducing my chances of getting it by not being around people much. That might be leading to agoraphobic tendencies though, so I’ll need to sort that when the time comes.

It was curious coming back on Saturday. Storm Bella was predicted and I could see the signs of it on my trip back. There were warnings from quite far away saying that the older Severn Bridge (it’s the M48) was closed and the I think the newer bridge was closed overnight. I follow the traffic advice people on Twitter and they give a decent amount of info for when there were issues on the roads.

Like … the road I would normally come back on but avoided on Saturday ! I have a good option to come off the motorway early and take a more chilled out route back. The car was starting to feel a bit lively in building wind, so I took that more chilled out route instead of a section that’s very exposed to the wind. And … apparently a lorry was blown over overnight. That’s the real worry. Cars will be fine but you definitely feel the effects when you’re going past lorries and going into and out of their wind shadow.

The farm shop service station was almost deserted too, so I’m on the sherbets again :-D.

Been on the travels in the internet spaceship as well, steadily making my way around the outside of the galaxy. There’s still lots of distance to go. At my next main waypoint, I’ll be almost 66,000 light years through a 280,000 light year trip. With lots of pretty sights along the way …

And new habitable worlds which have the “Discovered by …” with my name on them now.

Still on leave at the moment, hence the internet spaceships … I’ve also been checking out Prey :

This one is a super atmospheric game, another one that leads you into what’s going on in stages. You wake in your apartment, take a helicopter to the Transtar offices for behavioural testing … and then bad things start happening. Turns out there’s a bit more going on than was apparent. I’m only 2 hours in at the moment. Looks great, the lighting there is amazing and the decor definitely goes for art deco gaudy.

There’s also the arrival of Per Aspera :

If you look closely enough there is a Beagle

This one puts you in the position of an AI, tasked to set up an initial colony on Mars and then to make the planet habitable. It’s a curious game. It has massive scope and takes on a number of the terraforming ideas from the slow and prudent approaches (greenhouse gases, melting of poles etc) to the quick rash approaches of bombarding the planet with asteroids and using nukes to speed up the process.

Yep. That’s a mine. A couple of early attempts were reset due to not knowing what was going on, or a lack of critical resources. This is one of those that takes a lot of time for things to happen, which can be good for those poorly arms of mine.

I’m not sure if it’ll be one that holds my attention for that long but it’s been good so far. (I may be heading back into Mars Horizon, that game is highly addictive !)

I managed to finish off reading Absolution Gap too … The middle book was great ! This end book was a bit meh. It felt like 500 pages of set up and no clear idea of where they were going with it, on the end book of a trilogy. The next Alastair Reynolds I’ll read will be Shadow Captain (cheers CK !), which I’m hoping will be an excellent follow up to Revenger. Not yet though, the next book is Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells, the third book of the Murderbot Diaries and I highly enjoyed the first chapter.

On buying stuff … Steam sales are on at the moment and I may have had a few acquisitions … I enjoyed watching videos of XCom Chimera Squad earlier in the year, it’s a nice evolution of the usual XCom tactical action thing. I’ve also acquired the lovely pre WW2 Over The Alps. It’s a fun spy narrative adventure game. I heavily enjoyed watching the Fuzzy streams of this earlier in the year.

And I really must add a list of links in.

I also picked up Core Defense and the Hexcells series. More games may appear … I’ve also been indulging in other sales and I’ve enjoyed listening to Lisa Hannigan’s At Swim and Katie Melua’s Album No 8. More took more time to arrive, including more from Katie Melua, one from Mike Oldfield and the latest Ellie Goulding.

I must do a music post at some point.

I better leg it now though … I’m seeing more reports appearing of people I either know personally or know through forums/discord saying that they’ve tested positive. I was pretty careful with my bubble trip with self isolating, outside of the AA man thing and picking up a few things afterwards. But this new variant is pretty scary with how the numbers are exploding.

Hope everyone comes out ok.

Be well, stay safe everyone.