"Nothing but the rain"
I’m currently working through the tests and track challenges on Gran Turismo. This is largely due to a corrupted save file that lost my 400 or so cars. So, I decided to start again. It amused me that one of my sector times was:
I was then amused even more when I was typing in “The Devil’s Coming” into the WordPress media file editor the following tweet appeared in my desktop side bar.
pic.twitter.com/E3xvdUGZqa
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) 28 July 2018
The guy’s a lying prick. Ha ha.
I’m not happy. I’ve been playing Gran Turismo Sport for about six months. I had an issue in the past where my cars disappeared from the garage and I managed to fix that one using a cloud save that hadn’t updated in over a week.
This week it happened again. I remember the game crashed while moving through the menu GUI and I restarted the PS4. Then, I reloaded the game and it worked fine. I had all the cars and I completed the daily workout. I saved the game and then exited the program. Finally, because I thought it was all working well I copied the save game file to a USB stick. After that I watched some Netflix on the PS4 and so I think the PS4 transferred my save file to the PS Plus cloud save.
Next time I go to play the game all my cars, just less that 400, had gone from the garage. Only the DLC ones were visible. So, I try copying the save file form the USB stick, but that one is corrupted. Then I look at the cloud save file but that one is bad.
So, I restore the PS4 using a back up external hard drive from two months ago. That made no difference even though an old version of the save file was there. I think the GT server file must be buggered too.
My final test was to delete the entire game. Rebuild the PS4 database and then reinstall the game with its 60GB of download and then copy the two month old save file from the system restore from the USB stick, I had copied it across earlier.
Nope. Fuck you went the game. You can’t have any of that shit.
So. No cars in the garage but all my progress saved. I am currently pondering starting again from fresh. A complete new game. It’s OK. I’ll have to complete every lesson and test again and also all the circuit experience but maybe that will be fun.
Maybe.
Here’s a replay of a recent online race I took part in on Gran Tursimo. I qualified third and then managed to win.
It was a good race although nothing too strenuous. It’s best to qualify as high as possible because there’s normally a massive shunt-scene at the first corner if you are lower down. My general method for online racing is to try and steer clear of other cars and take a wider line in corners if there are cars around me. There have been many times that I have been driving well and then some wanker punts me off! He gets a slow down penalty of 4 seconds and I end up at the back of the field. I hate that!
Possibly the last one from the mid-year season. This is a Guardians / Avengers mix-up. I’m not sure if I know which part of the MCU this actually comes from but that doesn’t matter. It’s got Groot.
Here’s the latest offering from Fooyah. A lovely little plane from the Lego universe.
It’s a mini-Lego season soon and for reasons that shall remain hidden some of the Lego has already been made.
Looking rather ’20s here is Penguin’s Arctic Roller. Another view here:
A weeks ago I noticed that the Cinema Amp wasn’t outputting sound correctly. I managed to figure out what was causing the issue, I had turned on HDMI control to make it easier to turn the whole system on but that changed the sound field settings. While it might now take three separate buttons to turn the TV on and hear stuff it now all works as it should.
Except for the Surround Back Left speaker.
SBL speak is quiet. It’s not the speaker. It could be the wires? Next weekend I’ll be re-wiring the lounge. Only 9 speakers.
— Ian Parish (@iparish) May 7, 2018
In the room there are nine speakers. These cover the following:
While playing Gran Turismo Sport, which is rather more than a hobby for me, I noticed that the sound output from the Surround Back Left wasn’t as loud as it should be. Even by changing the channel levels I couldn’t get the sound up to a decent level. SBR was on -5dB and SBL was on +5dB but this didn’t work. It is also a rather unsatisfactory solution.
I have had a few bits of work done in the AV corner. There was a new electricity meter installed and something might have happened when that was fitted. Also, the speaker wires to just the SBL and SBR were reasonably poor quality. Swapping the speakers confirmed that it wasn’t the speakers that were playing up. So I had to face it that either the wires were bad or the amplifier was broken somehow. The cheapest of these to investigate is the wires. While I was at it I decided to tidy up all the AV corner and give it a clean at the same time.
While out at Lakeside earlier today picking up some cakes I popped into Maplins which is slowly closing. I think they have gone in to administration but I did think I might find some cheap wire. I came out of the shop with plenty of wire for a very cheap price, about 10% of what it’s worth. I also bought a hard shelled case for use as my “Range Kit”.
When I got home I decided to fix the whole problem of the speaker. I knew this was going to take at least ninety minutes. Getting into AV corner isn’t the easiest and everything was going to come out.
So, all the kit was removed. Everything was dusted and then the two cables to SBR and SBL were replaced and connected to the correct ports on the amp. Once that was done the system was tested using the speaker test tone and to my (slight) surprise the whole system seemed to be working correctly and also, most importantly, SBL was working properly. I had fixed the system.
The above picture has the amp and ONLY the speakers, TV ARC connected and a line out to the Sonos system using the phono plugs. After this the 4 HDMIs needed to be connected along with the 8-port switch and networking cables.
Once it’s all in the cabling at the rear of AV Corner looks like the above picture. I know it’s not pretty but I don’t have access to the rear of the devices and so it’s all kinda chucked in and then left. If I could I would have a tower system and then very neatly wire the whole thing while looking directly at it.
Investigations done. If not speaker then next easiest test is wires. Bought new wires. Fitted them. Speaker all good. I’m quite happy.
— Ian Parish (@iparish) May 12, 2018
This communication is subtitled 1300 because this is communication is number 1300 that has been published. I’m proud. There are more to be completed, they are sitting there in draft form, I will get around to them one day soon.
I spent a few delightful hours at Brands Hatch over the weekend to watch the Blancpain GT Series Sprint Races. I do like this type of car. I think I have grown out of F1, it’s not that interesting and full of masses of bullshit. I prefer the “honesty” of GT and Le Mans Prototype type racing. This closed-wheel racing seems more fun and spectacular. I know these cars don’t really bear much more than a passing resemblance to their road-going cousins but I like the look, sound and overall racing of these vehicles.
The first part of the WEEKEND OF NOISE was a trip to Norwich for Thrashersaurus. This was the second part of the weekend and my ears were still ringing from seeing Xentrix play the Brickmakers.
The day started with a free pitwalk and a chance to get close to the cars and drivers. Hence the above picture.
Anyway, the first race watched was the GT 4 European Series with many cars on the grid it was pretty good but there was a number of safety car periods and this stifled the racing somewhat, but it did mean there was a good lot of close racing.
I did like the KTM cars which had a lovely rear end.
After that was the first of the sprint races for the GT series and the hour of racing included a pitstop and driver change. It was an impressive sight and good fun to watch. The weather was perfect, lovely and sunny. You know it’s summer when the circuit commentators are reminding spectators to put on plenty of sunscreen.
The beginning of the race was a rolling start and I captured it here:
As I watched the race from the Brabham Straight I got to see the podium celebrations:
It was a good day with plenty of noise and ice cream.
It’s very nice being back at Brands Hatch. It’s the place I spend an awful lot of 2004 and 2005, almost every Sunday. Not sure I could have that commitment again but a couple of times a year seems a good start.
Just because I can, I decided to have a go racing a similar race to the GT series on Gran Turismo and, just because I like most of you, I have uploaded that replay on to YouTube. Enjoy (or not).
Having looked recently at the energy I use in the house and while driving I thought I’d turn my attention to not-real things. Specifically my racing life within the game Gran Turismo Sport.
Here is a collection of my pink cars taken in Hawaii. I like the photo mode in the game but it’s not the be all and end all for me. I have seen some people comment that the car editing and photomode tend to be their favourite parts but not me. I like racing the cars and the other aspects of the game are incidental.
There’s a page of achievements that encourages you to play more:
The row of pink is lacking as that is online racing and it’s quite unlikely I’ll get those filled up. Unless I find “that one race” I won’t get many pole positions, I need to find “that one race” and play it over and over.
So, the achievements page will give actual figures and from that I can work out my average speed and fuel consumption.
So, my average speed is 96 miles per hour. Given that some tracks are quite twisty I think that’s a pretty good speed. Even more so that I have spent the time to complete all the licence tests and every track experience. I do tend to race in group 3 or 4 cars as I find them the most fun.
I have used 8,567 litres of fuel within the game to race 9,242 miles. So, I’ve done that maths and that gives:
4.86 miles per gallon
I have no idea how this fits with real racing cars. We can have an estimate I think. Current F1 cars have a tank that can hold 100kg of fuel which is about 125 litres. F1 race distance is mandated at at least 305km. I’ll do the maths for you again and the fuel consumption turns out to be around:
6.8 miles per gallon
I guess that this all seems reasonable. A high fuel consumption within the game that matches the real life is probably closely worked into the game and I’m happy with the figures the game has produced.
I don’t like the use of miles per gallon as we should, by all rights, in this country use the standard of litres per 100km as the rest of the EU does but people don’t really want to change, especially those old weirdos in power and the media.
My current GT Sport Profile:
Here’re two views of the latest addition to the Lego collection. This is a bulldozer?
