Category: Penguin

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Proxima

March 15th was the last time I went to the cinema. It is July 31st. That is 138 days without a visit to the cinema, no films seen in the [not] luxury surroundings of the Rochester Cineworld cinema. There are 233 communications within the menu “Film”, I’m not sure all of them are cinema film reviews but I am sure more than 200 are. The first film reviewed on this iteration of my website was Oblivion. That’s a little amusing as I recently saw that it was on Netflix and checked this place to see if I had already seen it, I realised I had and decided to not bother watching it again. The original cinema list is here and starts with Shrek 2!

I think there are formalities to get through before I mention what I thought of Proxima and the first point is to say that I did NOT notice the state of the tide on the way in to the cinema. I checked it on the way out but I think I was just pleased to be driving next to the river that I didn’t actually look at it and register how high or low the water was. When leaving that place I did look and the river was low indicating a low tide. I saw the 13:40 showing of this film on the first day that cinemas were allowed to open. I figured the place would be cleaner earlier in the day. When I booked the ticket I wasn’t aware just how hot the weather was going to be and I’m glad I went. It is 36C out there and spending a little while in the air conditioned cinema was great. My lounge is 26C and it felt so nice to come in to the cold house when I got home. I did have a bike ride earlier today and I rode along the river most of the way so it was shady and cooler than everywhere else.

The last few years I’ve spent some time trying to find two films that haunt me from my early years. One was a sci-fi piece that was Australian I think and about the end of the world. Another was a French animation which involved time travel. I think I have found them both and I am going to watch the live action film later. I think it is called The Quiet Earth and I saw it on a list of Sci-Fi films you should see but might not have – it was a listicle and I had seen most but the summary makes me think that this is the one I’ve been searching for. The animation is called Les Maîtres du temps and I will be trying to find a copy of that film to see if it as messed up as I remember.

As is custom I rated Proxima on IMDB and there’s a communication covering all the details of the rating system here. I then tweeted the result. Normally this would be completed from my phone but I have deleted the Twitter app for mental health reasons. I therefore only check Twitter about 0.75 times a day.

I really enjoyed this film, far more than some recent, meant to be realistic films like First Man. The film covers the training an astronaut receives in the run-up to launch and but primarily this film focuses on the way this challenges the relationship with her young daughter. I liked the dedications during the credits to the female astronauts who had young daughters when they went into space.

This film uses a mixture of space training alternating with relationship issues. And it has Matt Dillon! Matt Dillon! I’ve not seen him in anything for ages and he totally still plays the sexist pig quite well. I thin he melts a little towards the end of the film which I think was nice but also rather predictable. Eva Green conveys the emotions of being a parent really well. I really enjoyed her performance. I enjoyed this film, but probably won’t be watching it again, hence the 6/10.

A thing that irks me is how so many films try to make everything look so easy and non-technical. I think the idea is to maintain that myth that anyone can do anything if they work hard enough. This is complete bullshit. Some people aren’t able to do things that they want. You can practice and you can try your best but there are a lot of other people out there who are trying to do the same as you and it only takes a very small difference for them to win. Space is hard. Space is complex. We have this romanticised view of astronauts being gung-ho cowboys when in reality they are full of the most technical and detailed information about their entire mission that the side shown to the public is remarkably false. All media representations of aircraft, boats, cars, bridges, anything designed and built by humans tend to undersell just how complex these things are. Your mobile phone is, to you, just a black box which does stuff. I think that’s how most of the world is represented to us as humans. These things just work and we don’t have to worry about how.

Proxima showed some of the technical aspects of being shot into space and I liked it for that. It showed the difficulty of training for a mission and it showed the stresses on the human. It is a good film.

The Quiet Earth

Yesterday I also watched The Quiet Earth. I paid to watch this on Amazon and I am glad I did. For some reason I saw this film in the 80s and it has stuck with me all that time. I regularly think about it. Firstly, an admission – it’s not set in Australia but New Zealand and I think I’ll have to accept that’s close enough. The film follows the journey of a man who awakes to find himself alone in the world. He does find some other people eventually after going mad and we see what happens. I enjoyed it. Here’re the main things that I remember from thirty years ago:

  • An experiment to create an energy field around the Earth went wrong
  • The charge of an electron had changed

Both of these things were in the film but they weren’t actually big parts of the plot. I don’t know why they have stuck with me so much. Possibly my admiration for aviation matters? One of the issues with aircraft [and cars] is that they have to carry their fuel with them. This means that to travel further you need more fuel so you have more mass and therefore need more fuel to transport that extra mass. If we could find a way of negating the need for fuel to be carried on the aircraft then we would have a really efficient system. The premise behind this film is that an energy field was created in the atmosphere to power aircraft. This has stuck with me all that time and I used to think about it quite often.

The other film I mentioned earlier, Les Maîtres du temps, I have found on YouTube and will watch later. I can’t find it to stream and it costs a whopping GBP40 on DVD because it’s so rare. Having looked into it a little it looks like a joint production between the French, the BBC and Hungary so I expect it will be weird as fuck.

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Nice To See – But Disconcerting

They are always practising. If you want people to do their jobs in extreme stress then they must always practice. That’s what this RAF A400 Atlas was doing at Biggin Hill yesterday. I was looking at 360 Radar because something interesting flew over or I heard something interesting fly over. I then noticed this A400 practising approaches at Biggin Hill. To get home from there the Atlas would have to either fly low over the Cities of London and Westminster or head out over me keeping a low level to avoid the approaches for City Airport. It headed out to me.

Atlas Fly By
Atlas Fly By

I rushed to get my camera and headed outside performing a lens change while walking. I got out just in time and saw the A400 pretty much fly over my house and head north to go home. These guys tend to practise approaches to unfamiliar airports but normally at other military airfield where the noise and sight isn’t that bothersome. This year they have been doing plenty at civilian airports such as Edinburgh, London City, and Biggin Hill. This means the pilots and crew are used to going new places. This is so that when there’s a massive need for moving people to decent hospitals they can fly them for Covid treatment. Either that or they’ve been told to look good by the government. I’m quite convinced that the weekly Chinook flight through London is a “show of force”, a reassurance to the population that the boys in blue are there and ready.

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Had To Guess

I recently had to upload a photograph to a website for a photographic ID pass thing. I had already cropped the digital image to upload and then I noticed the website’s insistence that the photograph be <=40kB. Now, that’s not very big at all, especially when you consider that my cropped photo was about 150kB. So I resized the picture until it was just below 40kB. Then I uploaded it.

But.

Nope. The dimensions were incorrect! The photo had to be between 3.5 and 4.5 cm tall. Now, I ask you what does this mean? I’d already got the photograph to be within the correct size with respect to data but now I had to make sure it was the correct size in terms of cm. But, it depends how many dots per inch you are using. There was no information about the dpi the photocard people were using. It just had to be guessed!

Who does that these days? Who specifies a “paper size” for an image when you upload it? This was a classically terrible piece of web design made for bureaucrats who don’t understand what your average person understands about images and sizes. It was crazy. Do they not have an algorithm to just print the image to a particular size depending on the largest dimension? It was a frustrating ten minutes messing around with uploading files and cropping images along with resizing the image. What started off as a good detail photograph ended up almost pixelated.

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If Something Happened

So, here we are. It’s nearly August and the world is still in a state of pandemic. In the UK you finally have to wear masks in shops and the USA is slowly burning down as they struggle with the racism of the last four hundred years. Not that the UK is in the clear on that, hopefully there will be recognition over the next few years of how this country is built on the misery and murder and enslavement of the many.

I think I need to get out and use my camera. I shall do so this week at some point. I feel I could do with a change of scenery, something nice to see or at least somewhere else to be. I am not going to go anywhere special and I am convinced that the opening up of the country is going to cause massive health issues – while at the same time I am aware that this is about trying to reduce the overall risk to health from lockdown – or at least I would like to think that the government are intelligent enough to think that way but I don’t think they are.

Flight Sim Set Up
Flight Sim Set Up

This is my current flight sim set up. I’ve got a Saitek HOTAS system and an Android tablet for displaying instruments along with using the phone as a moving map display. On screen is a Grumman Goose with turboshaft engines.

Rochester Castle
Rochester Castle

I went for a bike ride and decided to see Rochester Castle. The ride involved a national cycle route and was actually quite enjoyable. On the way to Rochester I followed the course of the valley of the river but the return journey was completed by heading over the top of the Downs.

"circa"
“circa”

I met Penguin for a meal at The Bell. This is our usual meeting place and we both decided that the precautions put in place would be ok. The pub had set itself up really well and we ate outside. It appears that the manager now knows us and is happy to order the food for us which means there’s more time to catch up. I took this photograph, not because I was “out”, but because the sign says “circa” 1393. The circa part of that amused me immensely. Hopefully by the end of next week I will have some better tales to tell. I could always get some more album reviews completed!

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Before All This

Sometime last year I managed to run home from work and then the following day run in to work. This I did once. Mostly because I lost the fitness bug and also because I became mentally unable to do much. I might have written about it somewhere within these pages but I can’t remember and I’m not going to search. I wanted to get more exercise and try to lose some mass but I wasn’t in the right frame of mind. Earlier this calendar year I was feeling bad about the environment and how much we have messed up the future of this world for my children’s generation. I think the Extinction Rebellion demonstrations really got me thinking. So, I decided maybe I should ride a bike to work. I’d save a little on petrol, use less fossil fuel and keep fit. I decided I would investigate a bike.

Then. The world blew up. I was working from home and there didn’t seem to be a reason to suddenly investigate a bike. Once my routine had settled I started looking at bikes online and getting advice from friends. Would you believe it? Every fucker was buying a bike for something to do. It would appear that walking or running was too hard work for them and loads of people got the biking bug. I couldn’t buy a bike. I still planned to though. Mind you, this also meant getting a shed that would fit the bike as I don’t have a garage or anything like that to store the machine.

A few weeks ago I checked a local bike shop’s website and THEY HAD STOCK. Well, I was browsing really, not that bothered about buying at that point, but if I didn’t order something then I would be waiting another few months so I pressed “add to basket”, added some accessories and then waited for my delivery date. It took about 8 days for the bike to be in shop. I guess that’s not so bad. It’s very easy to forget that in this world some things you have to wait for, we are so used to everything being there right now. The next issue was a bike carrier for the car. In case I wanted to take the bike to the other end of the country and to move small bikes around. My car, Bora Horza Gobuchul, is a stupid shape and so I had to spend quite a bit on a bike carrier. Having now used it, I’m not sure I would take bikes on a long journey but it functioned well.

On delivery day I was persuaded to buy a year’s maintenance plan for the bike. I have no idea if that was good value for money but it seemed sensible. I haven’t maintained a bike, ever. Even when I was young all I did was make sure the tyres were at the correct pressure. I never really cleaned a bike or did any other type of maintenance. Pretty similar to my motorcycle history too, washing bikes was something other people did. The bike now rests in my dining room and will eventually live in the shed, but as you probably know, there is a seven week delivery time for a shed!

Commute Vehicle
Commute Vehicle

My observations on the first ride I had in over twenty years was that it was not a smooth ride. I did a little tarmac but mostly footpaths across fields which are fine to run on but cycling caused arse issues. I was being bumped all over the place and I did wonder if rear suspension would have been sensible, then I realised that the front suspension didn’t seem to be doing much. A even cycled down the North Downs on a footpath that I normally run and I found that a little scary as I had to keep the brakes on the whole time and was convinced I was going to hit the gate at the bottom of the track. I’ll have to try again soon.

On another ride with other people it turned out that the level of comfort was much better because we weren’t travelling so fast. The bumps in the footpaths seemed levelled out with a lower speed and perhaps there’s a lesson for me. I will have to try another ride soon across some tracks and see if I can go slower. I’m not convinced I will be able to, we all have our natural riding speed I reckon.

I’ve completed a practice commute, to see how sweaty I get and to check out the route. I got very sweaty. I’ll have to plan cooling down time and somehow work on the logistics of shirts and clothes which will be ferried in the car on days that I can’t use the bike. I’m also slightly worried about being able to see in the darker months but will figure that out when it happens. I’ve got a good head torch I use when running so maybe I can fit that to the bike helmet? Who knows? Plenty of time to think about it.

I actually have quite enjoyed discovering new stuff. More paths further from home. There’s plenty to explore and further to travel. I’m looking forward to it all. Except the cars.

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Still Happening

With all the recent lockdown easing and opening of shops etc every now and then I still have to think to myself THERE’S STILL A PANDEMIC. While this doesn’t really calm me down it does let me remember that my cautious approach is still sensible. I am not really looking forward to the deaths that will come in September in trade for the economy. This is mostly what this is about. Making sure the economy is OK while we accept a certain number of deaths. How does a government accept that trade off? How have governments always accepted that trade off? Or, do they just not understand the implications of their actions? Humans are terrible at assessing risk and probabilities, our brains just aren’t built in that particular way. It’s why we have mathematics and science. Science allows us to remove the human brain and observations from the problem so that we can really see what is happening. Maybe there are times when not understanding science and disease and maths and transmission vectors would make it easier to cope with all this? I have removed most social media from my daily references and am doing my best to avoid “live” news. The news shouldn’t be covered “live”. The news should be reflective and evidence gathering before announcing “news”.

What Are These?
What Are These?

Above is a picture of a Toucan Crossing and a Pegasus Crossing. I wonder if you know what they are? They were definitely invented after my passing into adulthood as I didn’t know about them until I had to do a Highway Code test for the RAF. A Toucan Crossing allows both pedestrians and cyclists to cross the road, we needed a special crossing for that apparently. The Pegasus Crossing allows horses and riders to cross the road. I’m not sure what the rules are for a horse by itself. When I did my first Highway Code test there were three Pegasus Crossings in this country so it’s not really a surprise I didn’t know what they are.

Attacking Apaches
Attacking Apaches

There’s been some military helicopter action over here recently. These Army Air Corps Apaches from Wattisham flew over Rochester Airport and then turned around above me as I was out running through the vineyards on the southern slopes of the North Downs. Very nice to see as we get very little military traffic down this way due to the bustling airways heading from the London Airports to Europe. Normally the best we can hope for is a A400 out of Brize Norton heading over at around 25,000 feet. It’s a noise beast and easy to hear.

Pouncing Pumas
Pouncing Pumas

Then there were two Pumas from RAF Benson flying eastwards and this photo was taken from the garden. These two then landed at Invicta Barracks in Maidstone which would have been lovely to see. One of the cadets got some great photographs of them. Oh, and yesterday while out exercising I saw a Spitfire in D-Day markings flying low on its way back to Biggin Hill. The Spitfire is actually quite a common sight down here as they fly from Biggin to the White Cliffs of Dover.

I started this communication with a moan and I don’t want that to continue because I have too much to say and need to feel happy with the day. I am not happy with the government or most of the world’s reaction to this pandemic threat. But, I have to just keep my own risks low and manageable and make sure that I don’t become a danger to my family and friends.

Leafy Lane
Leafy Lane

I took this photograph on my first cycle ride. It’s lovely. A trail up the Downs just by Wouldham.

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Beck Map

This most definitely is not a Harry Beck type map but maybe I should produce one. This map goes with the previous communication about the Minecraft world that I inhabit and the underground system that I made. Apparently we are now working on an infinity room in the server, whatever that is. I hope I have enough RAM to cope with that!

This map shows an aerial view of the meadow area of the server world. The straight lines represent different sections of the underground system.

Meadow Underground System
Meadow Underground System
  • RED – from Meadow Station to Harbour 1
  • WHITE – from Harbour 1 to Main House
  • ORANGE – Meadow House to Harbour 2
  • YELLOW – Harbour 2 to Mountain Base

Do these colours match the colours of the lights in each tunnel? Of course they do! Below is an overview of most of the world so far. We have discovered some deserts and a cold region but have yet to find a jungle biome which is a little annoying.

Current Interesting Parts
Current Interesting Parts
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You Gotta Get About

It’s been interesting removing oneself from the shit-show that is 2020 and enjoying my Minecraft server world. In the server world things aren’t perfect. I die sometimes, normally from entering the Nether, creepers seem to blow up my most treasured aspects of the world and occasionally I get lost and spend days walking back home. All of this still makes Minecraft better than 2020 or almost any of the last four years. My favourite time is when it rains in Minecraft. I love it. The sounds, the smell, the not getting wet. Now, I’m a little gutted as this is the second draft of this I’ve had to do. My first draft disappeared into the ether[net] and I don’t know what I wrote. I know I was happy with my prose but something will be lost this time around and you won’t get the chance to read my brilliance.

So, here we are, another video which is a screen clipping from the PS4. I looked into doing this properly with a voice over and all that jazz. I downloaded some software and recorded some screen clips on my computer and then starting meshing all that stuff together and having a go at a voice over. What did I learn? I learnt that I hated speaking out loud. I can just about do it for work stuff when I record lessons but I did not enjoy trying this out. Then, I also learnt that I spoke too many “ums” as I tried to commentate on a five minute clip. So I decided that I wouldn’t do it. Now, I do know that learning a new skill takes time and practice. I am giving it neither at the moment but I think that might change in the future and maybe I’ll give this another go over my summer break. What follows is a written description of the sort of stuff I was going to say.

This video takes about a Minecraft day. In fact I go to sleep at the beginning and the end so it is pretty much a day. We travel from one end of the Empire to the other but there are still aspects that are missed and maybe I will cover those one day.

So, we open at night and I am atop the Mountain Base. I sleep in the mountain top hall that I built and then head down the stairs to the internal secret hall. I think I want to make all the walls by the steps the same as I feel it’s a little messy at the moment. It was meant to be a secret staircase and so didn’t matter but every time I use it I think it needs smartening up. At the bottom of the ugly steps I look in a chest and take a rail – I’m not sure why because I didn’t even put it in its rightful place in the basement later, then I head out into the main hall and get a minecart from that chest. Then the journey starts! We get a tour of the underground railway I built.

Mountain to Harbour 2

The journey from mountain to harbour 2 station has smooth stone blocks and the railway lays on wooden planks. The lights start out as yellow stained glass and all the torches are placed one block rearwards from the track and with smoothstone surrounds. The emergency doors into the mountain base open and close automatically keeping the different areas secure. Once the yellow accented lights run out we get shroomlights. The whole idea of this was to give each branch of the underground from the main Meadow House a certain look and feel so you always kinda know where you are in the system. At Harbour 2 station we can see it has a purple concrete and smooth stone design to it. The way to the surface is a long ladder. The station at the top is designed to be similar to the platform area. We get a short look at the mountain base. Then, there is the harbour with the flip-flop switches that are operated by buttons and open and close the water exit to the harbour.

Harbour 2 to House

This section of the journey doesn’t take too long and we head to the main house and store room. House station is designed in white concrete with a light blue concrete ceiling to match the store room. The floor is glass and most of the lighting is torches under the glass. It costs a fortune to keep the glass clean of soot and dirt! Then we head up stairs to the Basement Storage Area which I built. It’s all nicely labelled and everything has a place. Every now and then I have a tidy up because other players on the server leave things all over the place. There is an enchantment room and a portal to the Nether. The doors to the station look hidden but are a bit obvious if you are the type of player who likes to go around pressing every button that you find. I do like the flip-flop circuit.

House to Harbour 1

Harbour 1 was the first harbour I built. I spent quite a while rowing around the rivers trying to map out the land. I have stairs places on all explored rivers which point back to the main house so if you come across a river you can find your way home. These walls on this line are a snazzy stone effect that I can’t remember the name of. The lights are white on this stretch of track. I think my favourite part of all the railways is the bit on this section where we go through a cave. I think it just looks nice considering every other part of the journey all looks the same. Harbour 1 station is red glass and wood accented. I think there’s even a tree growing up through the middle of the ground level building. We also see the first harbour and a glance at Meadow House. When looking at Meadow House you can see two platforms that were designed to give an overview of the meadow. The top one is called The Top and it’s just slightly too high for all the animals to be rendered when you get up there so you can’t actually see a great deal of detail. It’s nice up there though.

Harbour 1 to Meadow Station

Meadow station was originally the start of the railway line to the beach because it meant I didn’t have to have so many resources to build the line. Over time I wanted to be able to avoid walking and now I have achieved that. The underground line heading that way has the same snazzy stone things and pink accented lights. All turns in the system have signs on them in case you get lost. Meadow Station is a glass topped glorious sweet design that makes me happy. It was my first ever use of sea lanterns. There’s not really anything else there now but the station. It looks so nice I don’t think I’ll get rid of it but I rarely use the station for anything other than passing through.

Meadow Station to Beach

This is boring and takes around three real minutes. It’s quite good if you need a comfort break while playing as you can just get on the railway and head off to somewhere nice and do stuff. I’ve spent a while adjusting the redstone torches from the last video and putting them under the track to make it all a little neater. The purple concrete blocks allow you to find your way if you get lost. The side with the torch points to the direction of Meadow Station. The monolithic spikes every now and then were waypoints for when I used to walk to the beach. They also have torches on them which point towards the meadow. Getting back home has been quite important to me. The railway heads due west and as we approach Beach Station you can see my mob farm off to the right towering up over the land. Beach station is a glory of green and glass. I like the design of it. Once off the railcart we head to the beach, the house there, the small farm and the beach bar.

The Beach

The beach has an area nearby where I practise my redstone skills. It has the mob farm which kinda works ok ish. I also have an extensive mine which I have used to gather lots of lovely resources and the underground railway to that is in the next video. At the beach we gaze at the monolith which was a suggestion of a friend and I really like it. I think it adds a certain something to the whole area. The ratios of the edges of the monolith are 1:4:9, although I made this one 2:8:18, which is the same ratio. Then we head to the beach bar and dive into the sea pool I made. From there we are able to swim underwater to my ocean viewing platform. The lower opening to this was open to the sea but waterzombie things kept getting in my house so I used trapdoors to block it off. Finally there’s my storage basement at the beach and a short journey up to the surface and another flip-flop for the doors to my summer house. We have once last glance at the monolith and then head to bed, the end of a busy day in this Minecraft world.

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