Tasman Sea

It’s been tough, this last term. There’s plenty to moan about and discuss. But I’ll leave that to private conversations rather than let everything be out in the open on this site. If you can believe it I have my limits. I’m typing this as my flight sim heads across the sea from Hobart, Tasmania to an airport in New Zealand. I’ve got about fifty minutes to go. This is the longest over sea flight I have done and I keep looking at fuel levels. I think I might travel the length of New Zealand and then island hop to Hawaii, after that I’m not so sure how to get to the Americas. Maybe I’ll head to Galapagos and the South America. I honestly don’t know. I’m not even sure what the maximum range of my aircraft is. I can tell you that the T7 that I’m flying seems remarkably “loose” in the sky and I’m not sure if that’s the updated aircraft or just my flight sim. I guess I’ll find out when I try and land.

I’ve been tweeting the flights for a while now and I’m looking forward to whatever I’ll do when I return to the start point. I’ll need a new challenge but I’m also hoping that X-Plane 12 will be out by then. If they could make a version that uses multi-core rather then a single core then that would make me very happy. I don’t know how complicated that is but I do know they use an Apple computer for writing everything. I get a reasonable performance at the moment except over very built up areas and so multi-core could sort that out for me.

I’ve been checking online every now and then for PlayStation 5 stock. I was curious but I didn’t think I’d actually end up with a decent result, but . . . the other day I checked Argos and then Currys/PCWorld and it turned out there was a bundle in stock at PCWorld. Well, what could I do? I didn’t think I would buy one but the dream of GT7 on a 4K TV with raytracing got me and I clicked the order button. It’s coming on Tuesday. I need to rationalise AV corner now and think about getting game saves etc over from one machine to another. It’s probably time for the DVD and Blu-Ray player to go. It’s very rare that we actually watch anything on disc and the PS5 can be called into use whenever that ability is needed. I’ve promised myself I’ll try and get into more games over the next year. I want to use the games I have in the library. I will possibly report back on if it’s good or not in about a week.

The kids play mostly PC games when they are here. One on a laptop and the other uses my beast of a machine. I use my own PC for flight sim mostly. My fingers don’t really operate at a ASWD level, they are too used to a PS5 type controller. I could learn but there are other things I’m going to try and learn to push my brain a little. I guess I might reveal those things sometime in the future.

I’ve recently actually paid for a couple of albums. I’ve had Children Of The Dark by Mono Inc. in my head for ages and decided it was time to try and purge the earworm. It turns out that didn’t work and I keep getting their songs going through my head. I’m looking forward to seeing them in concert at sometime in the future. I’ve been wondering about whether it is best to buy an album or to stream music and I’ve mentioned that before on this site. For me, I thought buying an album meant more of the money I’ve spent would go to the artist. If I don’t listen to the songs many times more of the money in terms of royalties goes to the artist than if I just streamed the songs. Now, Daniel Graves from Aesthetic Perfection has said that he makes more money from streaming that album sales because I guess some people play individual songs over and over. I don’t know if it would make my contribution more to the artists as I often only play a song a couple of times and not over and over. It’s something I’m going to think about over the next week or so.

Well, I arrive in New Zealand in about ten minutes so I need to head back to the flight simulator and get ready for landing. I’m really worried about the handling of the aircraft and I hope I don’t crash on the landing as by my own imposed rules I would have to start the flight again!! Keep an eye on Twitter for progress.

This is communication 1997. Here are some things that happened in the year 1997 ACE:

• Hale-Bopp makes its closest approach to Earth.
• The UK hands Hong Kong to China.
• The country went Diana mad. I was left remarkably unfazed by the whole thing and didn’t really care.
• The Prius goes into production.