Penguin – Page 2 – Fooyah

March 19 2024

Dune: Part Two

I went to the Cineworld cinema at Rochester to watch this film. It was a wet, murky, dank day. The tide was high with ripples tickling the wharf, the river looked imposing. After watching this film I rated it on IMDB and in the past I would have tweeted my result, but I don’t to Twitter anymore so I’ll just have to write the result here, and it’s a shocker, I gave this film 4/10.

I think I probably need to explain my rating, especially as I rated part one very highly. This film looks absolutely amazing. The cinematography is gorgeous and I reckon you can take any part of this film, put it in a frame on your wall and be proud. The film looks serious and sumptuous. The sound is excellent, I would have liked more bass-vocalisation stuff like the sentence at the very opening of the film, but it was so good I considered buying the soundtrack.

I think my problem is the story. And possibly Chalamet being not a great actor. And possibly an inability to tell two of the actors apart. And possibly the sexism, I don’t know. Maybe this should be rephrased to say that the problem is the story. I don’t think it’s my problem. Let’s start with the easy point.

We get introduced to the Emperor’s daughter, she may have been in the first film, I’m not sure. This lady is being manipulated by the Bene Gesserit to do their bidding and to work towards the “grand plan”. Shortly after her introduction we see a lady with very similar features discuss with the Bene Gesserit about how she seduced the Harkonnen nephew and that a daughter is assured. For most of this film I thought the pregnant woman was the emporer’s daughter and I found it quite confusing. From looking at IMDB there were two actresses playing different people.

There will be people saying this story has strong female characters but to me they were all witches whispering in the background to get the future they want. The men had all the power. Men are celebrated. Women work in the background and do their things sneakily, not out in the open and by fighting. This isn’t a positive look for the women of this film, it conforms to stereotypes.

The lessons from this film are that to maintain power and have freedom you have to be a man who fulfils prophecy and marries for political reasons rather than love. Oh, and you have to be as macho as fuck and kill your opponents in hand-to-hand combat. I hated the aspects of this film that glorified the feudal systems in society. My problem is that we still live in a feudal society where the rich and powerful maintain that money and power by giving the masses “democracy”. Yes, we vote. But money speaks and until we have a society where everyone has the same chances from birth and we actually care for each other then I will find these stories of power ridiculous and enraging.

Prophecy is a poor writing technique. It means that you can only succeed in life if everything is pre-destined. This is how the powerful like us to believe the world works. There is no caring about people in this type of society. There is no “working to be successful”, there is only pre-destiny. I hate this type of writing. I hate this type of story. I understand why people do it, but it’s bollocks. Don’t have your main character being born under the fifth moon of the year, have them actually work for it, have them call out the belief bollocks and have them care about people. In this film we see Paul turn from being a rich brat into a rich brat with an army of religious fanatics (mirroring Bin-Laden?). He is still a privileged twat who forgoes love for power and macho-kudos.

This film, nay story, envelopes everything that is wrong with current society and our mostly European views of history. Kings, Dukes, powerful Houses. Deference through birth right. Power through duels. Mating for politics. Using the poor as your army through religion. All of these things are bollocks. It left me cold. It left me wanting to tear down the fabric of our society and show people how they flock around their leaders as if we owe them something.

I have found a review of this film that resonates with me and I have ended up with the review in Private Eye. Issue 1619. Find it, read it. It makes sense.

March 7 2024

NVMe

I recently upgraded a part of my gaming PC where a disk drive was running out of space. The Windows drive had pretty much become full with only a few tens of GB free. I was also worried as some apps keep NEEDING to be on the c: drive for some reason.

For these reasons I bought a 2TB SSD and installed it into my PC with a SATA link. This, I now know, was the wrong move but I migrated my c: data using the Samsung software and changed the boot order of the disks in the BIOS. This all seemed remarkably straight forward and didn’t actually take that long. I was happy.

Then, one day I happened to have a look at the physical set up of the drives in my PC and I realised there was a M.2 slot and the original c: drive was based on that. It showed up in the OS as a 250GB drive which was now empty. Given the improved speeds for read and write via a M.2 slot I decided I would upgrade the PC even more and move the OS to the direct motherboard contact.

I ordered and then installed a 2TB M.2 drive into the correct slot on the motherboard. Once I rebooted the PC I had a few screens of death and that was curious but checking the BIOS it all looked good. So eventually Windows started and I went about adding the Samsung 990 Pro to the drive list. Except, it wasn’t there! For some reason Windows couldn’t see the drive. I was frustrated.

I did some internet searching but a lot of the solutions pointed to AMD chipsets and I don’t have that. I tried re-booting and looking into the BIOS settings but I couldn’t see anything wrong. I used the Disk Management tool to see if it would see the drive but it refused. I genuinely didn’t know what to do until I found something that, I think, was called Storage Space. It was using the new drive! I have no idea what it does but I stopped the service and told it to stop using my new drive for this. Once that was done the M.2 SSD showed up in disk management.

It took around forty minutes for the data migration tool to transfer the contents of the c: drive to the new drive. Then I rebooted and told the Bios to boot from the 990 Pro. The computer seemed happy to do this and worked well! This was good news. I cleared the old SSD of the Windows files and now have a good deal of spare storage. I think I might move my gaming files to the older SSD as they are currently on a physical hard drive. I’ll think about it.

February 29 2024

Random Events In Pairs

I’m really not a fan of “loot boxes” in computer games. The latest version of Gran Turismo has a kinda-loot box but at least it’s not one you can use real money to get. The task is to complete just over 26 miles of driving within the game within a day. If you manage that you then get a “random” prize. The prizes go from around 5000 in-game credits to cars and even a million in-game credits [I think]. Anyway, plenty of people moan about the consistency of “winning” the 5000 credits. As a counter argument this is what happened to me on consecutive days:

Gran Turismo Not A Loot Box - 1 — Gran Turismo Not A Loot Box – 1

Gran Turismo Not A Loot Box - 2 — Gran Turismo Not A Loot Box – 2

I guess it’s not all bad.

February 24 2024

EBM Day

Today is 24 February, which in European date formation is 24/2. I doubt that EBM day is widely recognised because it is a tiny sub-genre of music and definitely not as well known as pi day or Star Wars day or even Fulham 5 day. EBM is Electronic Body Music a genre of electronic music that combines elements of industrial music and synth-punk with elements of dance music [Wikipedia]. I only found out about EBM because of seeing Rammstein at Wembley Arena in around 2009.

If you are wondering why EBM day is the 24 February then you only need to understand that one of the biggest bands in the movement is called Front 242. I’ve seen them at M’era Luna and I’ve got a load of their albums. I prefer some other bands but I’m very happy to have 242 as the lead proponents of EBM and the use of their name to create EBM day.

February 15 2024February 15 2024

Argylle

I went to the cinema to watch the film Argylle. There wasn’t much else on and although I wasn’t that bothered about seeing it, the film was the best choice possible. The Cineworld cinema at Rochester is alongside the river Medway and this part of that river is tidal. For a reason lost to time this is important as I now mention that the tide was low when we arrived at the cinema. I could see all of the mud banks at the side of the river. It was a lot higher when we left and travelled home.

After watching the film I rated it on IMDB and there’s a system for the ratings, you should read that here. I used to then tweet the result when I was on Twitter but I left that platform when Musk took over. It had already descended into a whirlpool of the worst of mankind and I’m glad I left because there’s only so much hate I can tolerate. I rated this particular film 4/10. It was a borderline 6 but it didn’t hold my attention enough and I only thought the film was worth watching for one particular scene.

This film was just about ok to watch. There were many plot “twists” along with many time when I wasn’t really following what was happening or who to trust. This was a Hollywood film and so it all ends up very happy. I’m not sure if I’d recommend this to other people, maybe only if they have a little time to waste and don’t mind a silly film.

My one recommendation is that everyone watch the scene where the two lead characters shoot their way out of the evil lair. The use of smoke in this scene was inspired and it looked amazing. It’s well worth watching that scene alone, but you don’t need the rest of the film that surrounds it.

February 7 2024

Multi-Modal Transport Weekend

Over a recent weekend I travelled to Portsmouth with the Legend. We stayed in an hotel near the sea front but we didn’t get a seaview window, unless you craned your neck, which was a little disappointing. The journey down to Portsmouth was via a car. But the best journeys over the weekend were not by car. Although there were jobs to be done on the island of Portsea as well as one job just off the island we decided to make it adventurous and on the first afternoon we travelled to the Isle Of Wight for my second ever trip there.

Solent Flyer - 12000TD Hovercraft — Solent Flyer – 12000TD Hovercraft

The Solent Flyer took us across the Solent to Ryde on the Pile Of Shite in about ten minutes. The maximum speed was around 35mph as measured on my iPhone speed app. The ride was pretty smooth and the whole experience was really good fun. Things I noticed – there are two engines, once the first one starts the skirt inflates a little. Shortly after that the second engine starts. Hovercraft float on a cushion of air and that air is retained by the skirt – I have a piece of repurposed discarded skirt at home now – the forward motion is provided by the big fans at the rear of the machine. I’ve been trying to get technical details off the internets but all I can find is length and payload.

I’ve just found some engine specifications and they are MAN V12s specially designed for hovercraft. They are 24.24 litre capacity and are air cooled as hovercraft don’t touch the water. Each engine produces around 1079HP and means the hovercraft could travel at up to 50 knots. The lift fans are electrically powered by the diesels and then the thrust fans are shaft powered. Noise inside the passenger cabin was surprisingly low.

Both outward and return journeys were smooth and I was super impressed with the transition from ground to water, there was no noticeable difference, which I should have expected. The windows are a struggle to keep clear because of sea-travel and big fans so the views weren’t amazing but I could see enough. After travelling to Ryde I asked to see the cockpit (because I’m a child at heart) and it was super impressive. Ryde itself was a bit of a shithole. But at least I have now been to the Isle Of Wight twice. The previous time was to celebrate Dave Goddard’s birthday in 1994 I reckon.

Earlier in the week I had read that both of the UK’s aircraft carriers were alongside in Portsmouth. During the last visit I had definitely seen the control islands of one carrier but hadn’t realised they were both in. So, we booked a harbour tour by boat from the historic dockyard. Things I noticed – entry to the dockyard is free, you just have to ask, it’s the individual “attractions” you pay for. The security search of bags at the entrance was poor because I took my lock-knife in by mistake – I keep it with me along with a torch because – reasons. We got tickets for the harbour tour.

The tour was on a catamaran and it had loads of seating inside the main cabin which was warm. We sat by a window. There were some noisy people on board but I tried to remember that other people do and are allowed to exist. This noisy group wanted tea to drink – I was surprised (but shouldn’t have been) that the first thing they thought of was buying tea. The tour started with HMS Warrior, then left the confines of the quay and passed the two carriers.

The Prince of Wales had a lot of scaffolding on top and was clearly undergoing a serious amount of maintenance. This is what a few billion GBP gets you and it is massive. 280 metres long and it towers above everything else in the local area. It would have been nice to see them from the top of Spinnaker Tower but it was shut for work. The Queen Elizabeth was meant to be departing Portsmouth that evening but during pre-checks they had discovered an issue with one of the propeller drive shaft couplings and so her departure was cancelled. I believe the PoW is being sent instead to scare off the Yemeni “rebels” but it will take about a week for it to be made ready. It could take that long to remove the scaffolding!

Another form of transport over the weekend, assuming transport is to change the location of a person or thing [I understand that a person is a thing], was the lifts in the hotel. They were swift and could apparently take up to eight people. The upper lift capacity figures have always amused me – like they are joking right? It’s purely a weight force limit rather than the number of people you can physically fit into the space. I can tell you that three people was enough, especially when one of them was an over six foot tall boxer. There were university boxing championships going on in the city.

After the harbour trip and after nearly buying a piece of HMS Victory’s wood – because who wouldn’t want a piece of that – we headed to the village of Tangmere about half an hour away. Tangmere is home to a military aviation museum and around six years ago Mr O and I tried to visit there but it was closed for the winter, I think we ended up at Goodwood. So, I had finally made it to Tangmere. It’s quite exciting driving around the corner and seeing the road guarded by an RAF Phantom!

RAF Phantom - Tangmere Museum — RAF Phantom – Tangmere Museum

This was a pretty nice little museum. I won’t talk to people but thankfully the Legend does and so I learnt about the RAF Sector Clock along with some interesting stories about pilots and their dashing bravery. There was a good display of aircraft including two actual speed record breakers – A Gloster Meteor and a Hawker Hunter. Also, there were Harriers, a Lightning, a Spitfire, a Lysander and a Sea Vixen. Very nice they all were too and looked after well. Overall, a top weekend.

January 28 2024

Taking In The Views

I’ve spent a little time recently flying in X-Plane. Now that my journey around the world is complete I’ve decided to spend some time learning start up and shut down checklists to get a real feel for the aircraft. I’m currently playing with the T-6A Texan that the RAF uses as a basic jet trainer. It’s a good little aircraft. Here are some views that I’ve photographed recently:

RAF Wittering - Through The Ages — RAF Wittering – Through The Ages

I’m really enjoying the whole – potter about a bit – approach to exploring the UK. I’m trying to improve my take-off and landings at the moment, a little crucial you might think, but making them smooth and “butter” is taking some time.

January 23 2024January 23 2024

Platinum Trophy

Well, I’ve finally done it. I’ve got all the Trophies in Gran Turismo 7, or any PlayStation game, and I am happy. For the last couple of months I have been either working through challenges, racing online, or grinding to get money. I had three trophies to get when I thought a Platinum was within reach. I had to complete 50 races online, this was easy, just time and frustration at people trying to knock me off the track, but I completed the 50. I had to take 100 pictures using Scapes mode, this was time again especially as I didn’t just want to keep pressing the shutter button – I wanted most of the pictures to be a decent quality. The final trophy was to buy three absolute classic cars.

Prius in a car park. — A Detailed Version Of My Actual Car In a Car Park – Taken within GT7

A Jaguar valued at 20,000,000 credits
A ford valued at around 5,000,000 credits
A Ferrari valued around 9,500,000 credits

These cars appear occasionally in some in-game dealership and so not only did I need the money to get them I also needed to keep checking the dealership to buy the car when they appeared. I think this has taken around a month. I managed to get the Jag and Ford easy enough but have spent the last two weeks waiting for the Ferrari. I also as orking hard to secure the 9,500,000 credits I needed. Part of me considered using actual real cash to buy some in-game credits but they are about GBP15 for 2,000,000 credits and so I asn’t going to spaff GBP60 or so real money on an in-game car. The grinding continued.

Yesterday morning I checked the game store and the Ferrari was in there. However for whatever reason was decided it now cost 20,000,000. I was a little gutted as I had already saved 9,500,000 for the original price. I decided that I could wait and then it struck me. I have loads of cars I don’t care about and so I sold some of the racing cars I own. This I did and very quickly made the required purchase price.

I now own a Platinum trophy in the cybers and I’m very happy. There’s still plenty of the game I have left to complete. I’ve got to get gold in all the new licences, win every standard race and then maybe compete a little online. Oh, there are also the challenges or mission things to do so I have plenty more things to be getting on with.

PlayStation screen capture of GT7 trophies. — GT7 Trophy List

December 29 2023

Wonka

So, yesterday the Legend and I took a trip down to Ashford to watch the new Wonka film. Why Ashford? To experience the 4DX cinema there; moving seats and jets of air and water. I would normally use this section to explain what state the tide was in but as we didn’t drive near any tidal waters I can not. I guess I could look it up but what’s the point in that?

I rated this film on IMDb and I gave it six out of ten. For more information on the rating system please read this communication.

So, I enjoyed the film. I was a little put off at the beginning when there was singing and this turned out to be a musical but I coped quite well with that I think. The overall look and feel of the film was in keeping with previous versions and the story worked really well. The fact that this was written by part of the Ghosts team and it also had some amazing British actors in it meant that overall it was an excellent film.

As with previous 4DX experiences I think a good film doesn’t need the gimmick. It’s fun to experience now and then but I wouldn’t make it my usual cinema experience.

December 21 2023

Godzilla Minus One

Well, this has been a while. I can’t even remember the last film I saw at the cinema so this review will probably not follow the standard procedure. I can tell you that I observed the tide on the way to the cinema and the tide was low. I could see all the mud banks along the Medway. As is customary I scored this film on IMDB and because I have deleted my twitter account I can no longer place those shared scores on this as an embedded picture. So, I rated this film 8/10 and you should read the scoring system here. I am able to share the average review score:

So, now to the review. I find it curious that Cineworld emailed me to let me know this film was subtitled. When I checked with them before they said it stops people moaning at them once they realise they have to read actual words. There was a small child in the cinema and I don’t think they could read well and they got bored and made some noises throughout the film, but then that’s not really their fault, the parents should have been more thoughtful about their child’s experience.

I really enjoyed this film. I really liked the placement in time and place. End of the war Japan, which is when Godzilla first appears. The politics was very interesting and I think it’s interesting to see the burnt out results of Tokyo following the bombing by the USA. The overall story was fantastic, if a little sentimental, but it showed the social conventions and character development over time. The human story was, as ever, really important to the story and the monster is almost a by-product.

The fight scenes were great and I really enjoyed every aspect of this film. I will watch it again, but I’m not sure I’d pay money to do so, hence this film scores an 8. This is a good film.

December 12 2023

Whoops! – Follow Up

Not long ago I wrote about my death in The End and how I lost all my lovely stuff. Clearly this is in my Minecraft world and I had spent ages trying to find the End Portal. Once I had opened the portal I decided to pop through to see what it looked like. This was a silly mistake as the only way back was to kill the Ender Dragon, which wasn’t going to happen or die. So, I died. I lost my kit.

Then, one day, while musing this loss, I figured I could sneak through to the end with an Ender Chest. If I could get all my kit and dump it in the Ender Chest it should appear in the Overworld chests that I have already used to transport stuff. There’s a time limit to objects that have been dropped and that is five minutes of render time. I hadn’t been back to the End so everything had existed for a very short time. If I could get through the portal and collect my stuff and dump it in a chest before the five minute time limit then I would be a happy person again and not have to grind to get all my stuff.

I built an Ender Chest and loaded just enough kit for me to survive in the End for a few minutes. All the good stuff was stored back at my spawn point. With bravery I headed through the portal and into the End. I managed to find my kit, place the ender chest, pick up some things and die. I dropped all the stuff again.

Once more I headed through the portal and found my kit. This time I managed to place the remaining bits into the Ender Chest and then I died, happy in the knowledge that my kit was safe and there for me once I respawned in the Overworld. I was happy once more.

December 11 2023

TCM(t)

I was recently wandering around one of the largest shopping centres in this area with the wonderful Legend when I spotted a dispenser of Traditional Chinese Medicine. I had noticed this shop in the past but hadn’t been bothered to take a photograph. Not this time though. I managed to use my phone to collect the lovely information on their sign.

To Be Honest The Answer Is "Nope" — To Be Honest The Answer Is “Nope”

I think I was drawn to the sign because of the very opaque tape over some of the health claims and I was tempted to look further into what had been once claimed. But let’s have a brief about the things that are problematic. This would be ALL OF IT.

Traditional Chinese Medicine – TCM – is absolutely not a thing that works. During the post WWII period China sent doctors out to the countryside to look after people. Well aware that some places would not have drugs or suitable medicine (defined as stuff that works) the government sent the doctors out with a book that also had a load of stuff that didn’t work. This book had a list of medicine and, for the worst case scenario of no kit, a list of not-medicine that might keep the locals thinking they were being helped. So most of this traditional “medicine” is not.

A Barefoot Doctor’s Manual instead showed what the worst equipped Chinese medics would have to resort to under the worst circumstances.
Dunning, B. “Mao’s Barefoot Doctors: The Secret History of Chinese Medicine.” Skeptoid Podcast. Skeptoid Media, 24 May 2011. Web. 16 Nov 2023. <https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4259>

So, Traditional Chinese Medicine does not work. I am quite concerned about a number of the conditions that the shop claims they can help with; infertility and miscarriage seem to be playing on the emotions of people going through tough situations. A lot of the others are of a similar vein. I’ve looked at their website to gain a better understanding of what they claim but the website just seems to sell boring things and cleverly makes no actual medical claims. They sell; tea, soups, capsules of some various herbs and stuff. It’s all pretty boring “boost your immunity” stuff. The website does have a blog page but the most recent post was 2021.

I do find it amusing and worrisome that people will pay money for this and that practitioners have probably paid money to get “trained” in this stuff. Just think of all that effort and resource that could be put to use in something that actually works.

December 5 2023

Whoops!

One of the things I’ve been doing in Minecraft is searching for the End Portal. I don’t have any real ambition to kill the dragon but it is something within the game that can be done and so why not? I started the other day using Eyes Of Ender and throwing them into the sky. I found the stronghold and then got stuck. The entire area I had searched didn’t have the End Portal, none of the corridors went to the special room. I used a few more Eyes Of Ender when I was in the stronghold but I couldn’t find the room.

This led to me looking for another mapping software. I had used Bedrock-viz because it allowed me to make a web searchable page and I could see the map without being on the gaming PC. For some reason though, the recent Minecraft updates have messed this up and bedrock-viz ends after ten seconds and doesn’t produce a new map. I did the googles thing and I found uNmINeD which produces a lovely looking map from the data files.

I found that the End Portal was hidden just a few blocks of digging through a wall. I had enough Eyes Of Ender or whatever they are called once I found the room so I thought, why not, let’s open the portal. I did and then thought, well I might as well go through and see what it’s like. So, I did that. I was NOT aware that I couldn’t get back without killing the Ender Dragon. This caused a bit of a problem because my load out wasn’t set up to kill the Ender Dragon, it was just my roaming around the countryside loadout.

I DIED.

I lost all my lovely kit as I respawned over 1000 blocks away because, like an idiot, I forgot to set my respawn point when I got to the village with the portal. What an absolute idiot. I had really nice stuff. I’m gutted. I just stared at the screen for a few minutes once it happened. Bollocks.

December 4 2023

Project Progress

Nope, this communication isn’t about how I would like the government to make changes to improve peoples’ lives. I almost wish it was but then I don’t think I have the space for all the things I think government should be doing. If you know me then you also know I’m a raging lefty who is all for social progress, self determination and people paying taxes. This communication is about Minecraft and the current project.

The above picture shows the very first steps of this project. I think you can see a staircase and that’s about it. This was in September and I’ve been messing around since then. Here is what the mountain looks like at the moment:

Minecraft - The Project — Minecraft – The Project

A lot of the work that has gone on is actually hidden from view and so I’m hoping I might get a short video together to show the stupid amount of mining I have actually completed. At the top of the picture is a mob-spawner that’s working quite well. Towards the bottom of the picture there is a slice of mountain that I have cut out and I am planning to cut out more slices. I’m not sure what it is going to look like but I’m having fun. I am also thinking of surrounding each slice with some precious blocks to make them stand out.

Yesterday I spent time trying to find an End Portal and although I’ve found a stronghold I haven’t yet managed to locate the portal inside that and I’ve found that quite frustrating. I guess I need to learn about stongholds and their generation. Anyway, the Minecraft world is far nicer that the actual real world, even with mobs that try and kill you.

December 3 2023

Holy Crap – It Looks Like A Classic

Well, the other day M’era Luna released their complete line up for 2024. I have to say – I’m fucking excited.

So, here’s the highlights as far as I’m concerned:

Combifuckingchrist OLD SCHOOL SET – currently the time I saw them do this type of gig was the best gig I’d been to. I’m stoked.
VNV Nation – excellent band who just never hit the big time in the UK.
Front 242 – should be good but might be boring.
Lord Of The Lost – always great, looking forward to it.
Die Krupps – have seen this band a few times and it’s great.
SUICIDE COMMANDO – always great even if the visuals are distrubing.
[:SITD:] – another consistently great band.
OOMPH! – can’t remember if I’ve seen these before but they now have the singer from Unzucht so might be good.
Funker Vogt – one of those bands on the list of bands I want to see.
S.P.O.C.K. – saw these at my first M’era Luna I think and I can’t wait to see them again. Very pop but space TV show themed.
Centhron – if only to hear him sing that classic song “Cunt”.

It’s going to be great. I just hope there aren’t too many clashes as that will disappoint me.

December 1 2023

Flying Setup

I was looking through this site to see if there were any current pictures of the Flight Sim setup and I couldn’t find any. So this communication aims to correct for that.

In this picture you can see the PC, desk, three monitors, and the HOTAS bits and pieces. In this flight I had just landed at Stansted in the fog, which was interesting! Maybe I need to get some rudder pedals, but then I also fancy getting the Thrustmaster Warthog HOTAS bundle so I’m not sure what to do. I know! I’ll set myself a target of things to learn before I reward myself with these luxury items.

November 4 2023

Leave My Ears Alone

So, I’ve been playing Fortnite for a while and I generally have fun and enjoy it. But, I have noticed that I get annoyed at what I consider poor behaviour while on spawn island. Once spawned I would be standing there minding my own business, normally, and then there would be blaring music from someone expressing themselves with emotes. Shortly after first playing the game I would instantly run away to a quiet corner of the island and sit down and wait for the game to begin. I wasn’t initially aware of the bigger social problem that this indicated.

Have you ever been on a train or somewhere public and found yourself irritated at tinny noise coming from someone’s phone? Have you ever been in a nice mental reverie and been brutally made aware of the real world by someone’s phone making shitty noises of some influencer playing a prank? Have you ever had your ears assaulted by loud music being played in a car as it drove past or even someone walking through town carrying an outsized music player polluting an area roughly equivalent to Manhattan with music as they walk along the street.

The reason all of these situations are irritating is that you, dear reader, have not consented to the noise. If you are playing music at home then that’s up to you. If you have earbuds in and are playing music then that’s up to you. If you go to a concert or gig and there’s noise then you, by definition, have consented to that. What you have not probably consented to is other people making unusual noises in situations that socially do not normally have that level of noise. Imagine you are in an art gallery and someone is walking around with music playing out loud. This situation would be an obvious social faux-pas. We would expect that person to be escorted out of the gallery. The same is true for walking down the high street, being on a train or standing on spawn island.

I like some of the worst music out there, but when I listen it’s a consensual activity. I think that’s why I get so irritated with all the noise in Fortnite or elsewhere in the real world. Perhaps I’m old and grumpy. But also, by talking about consent to noise, perhaps the noise-makers will understand and be considerate.

November 2 2023

Latest Minecraft Things

I’m spending time in Minecraft these days because all of the events around the world keep doing their best to remind me what a shit species we are. We have ongoing events in Ukraine, Gaza. Also the Covid inquiry allowing anger to resurface from 2020 as we hear the evidence of just how utterly shit and awful the government were in the early days of covid. Johnson turns out to be an utter prick? Quelle surprise. Minecraft is a happier place and that’s even including the zombies and creepers that try to kill you.

This first video was one that I was aiming for. On the Playstation you can see what trophies you haven’t got and then aim to get them done. I was fed up of jump-running through the Nether to get to my faraway base so I build a railway. Yes, I know a boat would be quicker but the railway I can jump on and then go and get a drink, controller input is not needed.

The next trophy was one that I wasn’t sure how to get. Some you have to work at and some just kinda happen as part of the game play. I had to kill a skeleton from further than 50 metres. Now, I’d like to think that in real life I could do this no problem, I’m pretty good with a L98A2 so I expect I could handle a bow.

My next challenge is to get the Platinum trophy for Gran Turismo. It would be my first platinum and probably the game I am most likely to achieve it. I need to complete 50 online races – seems easy – but I also need to buy three cars that are “legends”. The problem with this is that they are really expensive. I did think I could buy some in-game currency with real money, I’d happily pay up to about £20 for that, but looking at the amount I’d have to spend it is more like £200 and I’d rather grind. So, that’s what I’ll be doing. Grinding on Gran Turismo. I’ve got races to win . . . .

October 22 2023

London Views

Now that I’m back in the UK after having flown around the world it’s time to start learning how to fly. I’m going to spend time in the T-7 now that it’s X-Plane 12 compatible and start assigning shortcut keys and learning how to navigate. But, because that all seems like a lot of effort here are some pictures of London taken this morning.

Greenwich Peninsular - X-Plane — Greenwich Peninsular – X-Plane

Westminster - X-Plane — Westminster – X-Plane

I think I need to assign some new keys to the trim controls along with changing views etc. Let’s see what happens.

October 17 2023

For ENGLAND

The other day part of Squad Legend went to Battle in the south east of England to watch a re-enactment of the Battle Of Hastings. Battle is the name of the village that grew around the abbey supposedly built by King William to atone for the death and slaughter on the day of the battle. Plenty of people travelled to the grounds of the original battle and watched intrepid people dressed in wool and leather fight it out on the fields.

Before Great Britain was conquered [mostly] by the Romans there were tribes from northern Europe mainland who had settled in various parts of the island. The Romans ruled for 400 or so years and when they left there was space for the Angles and Saxons to invade and rule. Then the Vikings did their thing and the island was covered in lots of little Kingdoms. England itself, named for the Anglos, became unified in around 950CE or so. The people living in the island were descendants of Belgian, Roman, German, Danish, Scandinavian and French people. This is hardly a “pure breed” race. They spoke something that was not English.

This small history lesson is given because the commentary of the Battle of Hastings was full of inflammatory language and stereotypes. “Are you cheering for the English or the FOREIGNERS?”. It’s as if the Battle is trying to settle that the English were pure bred. They were a race of people with a right to live on the island. The accents of the spoken voices as part of the show were lovely and clear super English and also sneery French. William was referred to as The Bastard, which was his nickname, but it was used a lot, mainly when talking about the “invaders”.

It’s funny how the crowd cheered or booed the various state actors on the day. My mind was set on the idea that this country wouldn’t be as it is if the Normans [not French] hadn’t won and changed our culture and language. Talking to one of the re-enactors it turns out that these events do bring out the racists. Someone in the crowd behind us was shouting abuse at the Normans and calling for the English to be victorious. This person might have been having fun but they also called out cheering on “Saxony” which I wanted to tell him was in fucking Germany but I didn’t want to be stabbed.

At one point Harold asks if God as forsaken England, why does he allow this to happen? It’s amusing because Harold goes on to lose. God must have been on the invaders side. God cares not for the people living in England at that time. Remember, everyone should shout for “England”, whatever the fuck that means. I guess it’s a privilege I have to be nonchalant about my “country”. I have the freedom to express my distaste for what this country stands for and I won’t be strung up at the Tower. I should think myself lucky I’m a SUBJECT OF THE KING in a country where I can disagree so loudly. I don’t even know what being English means.

It was a really pleasant day and lovely to see the fights. I enjoyed it. It was just a shame about the jingoism but maybe I’m too sensitive??