Gaming confession

I am not a platform gamer. I have always sucked at platform games. I do not have the right hand eye coordination to jump over a box while ducking under something else...on an angle with one foot in the air. Or at least, that's how it feels to me. In the past, if there was some sort of manual dexterity jumping scenario, I would either hand it to someone else, saying "get me past this part" or give up on the game. My little brother is good at this. Unfortunately he lives on the other side of the world now.

Which brings me to the point of this post. SWTOR has some really cool easter eggs in the format of datacrons. Now, I love puzzle games. I will happily spend an hour figuring out how to get to one of these gems...so long as there isn't some hideously long path with multiple fall off and go back to the start points. At least the latest one I tried didn't kill me every time I fell. One of the first ones did. I'm still giving them the 3 strikes and I'm not trying again. But its so maddening even when you don't fall to your death when jumping up a series of boxes can result in multiple fails before I get to the top...sooo datacron near camp 27 on Nar Shadaa...even though you have a stat I want, I'm turning my back on you...at least till my brother comes to visit.

I feel obliged now

Dave listed the books he read in January...and reviewed them - I'm not that enthusiastic, but at least I'll list them. Most of them are paperbacks I bought at Pulp Fiction (while on Holidays in Brisbane in January) I think the only ebook I read in Jan was the Gratuitous epilogue. I may even keep up my list through the year. I fully expect the number to plummet by March. While my reading has been strictly sci fi and fantasy, I've been enjoying the variations in styles. Beuttner was definitely the hardest Sci Fi.

Robert Beuttner
Orphanage
Orphan’s Destiny
Orphan’s Journey
Gail Carriger
Heartless
Kylie Chan
Heaven to Wudang
Jasper Fforde
One of our Thursdays is Missing
Mercedes Lackey
Werehunter
The Sleeping Beauty
Intrigues
Andrea Host
Gratuitous Epilogue
Sharon Lee and Steve Miller
Mouse and Dragon

left handedness

I just got a left handed keyboard at work - ah - so much easier to work with...except for the long pause looking at the keyboard trying to find the delete button.

ereader update

If you've read below you'll see there are two main issues I have with the ereader
1. Its really sensitive and holding it with the cover closed can result in pages turning (I fixed this by tapping the power key as I close the book. It goes to screen saver (and requires a power tap to turn back on - no nasty page turning.

2. when you swipe to change pages, it occasionally thinks you want to look at a word in the text, highlights it and gives you options for dictionaries, google etc.

I just popped the ereader on my computer to sync it with the reader for PC to download a new book and it pops up "would you like to upgrade your software to fix (problem described above)". Yes, yes I would. Lets see how this goes.

SWTOR - everyone has a twin

My mum thinks my smuggler on SWTOR looks like my little brother. And except for the bald with horns bit, she's right. I didn't see it till she pointed it out. Now I'm going to look for other people in my alts - perhaps its all subconscious.

ereading

I've now read 4 books on the ereader (guess which 4, Andrea) and have discovered how to stop the annoying page turning while the cover is shut. Tap the off button and it goes into screensaver mode - this will cause it to be be unresponsive till you tap the power button again. I dropped a crumb on it one day and it just kept flicking pages till I removed it! Hows that for sensitive! Most of the "my hands are used to knidles (I just can't type Kindle without being dyslexic)" issues are over. I think the Kindle may be a little faster (or smoother) on the turn, but I should put them side by side on the same page.

On other news, Brisbane was fun for a week - no computer meant I had a chance to rest my computer induced tennis elbow. I had a photo taken of me with a python at Lone Pine Sanctuary and it wasn't till I got home that mum mentioned that she'd had one taken about 50 years ago at the same place - I've seen that photo! She's skinnier than me in it. The snakes looked the same though.

Not looking forward to going back to uni - sigh.

kindle vs Sony ereader

I've read all of one book on the sony & so far I find it much easier to do things -the touch screen is intuitive & having had a smart phone for a while, I instinctively want to touch the screen. The down side is that the touch screen can sometimes be too responsive. There have been occasions when I turn pages only to have the dictionary function activated because I've somehow lingered on a word. This usually happens for several pages before my fingers remember how to work it. This morning I found that my floaty sleeves will also turn the pages if the fan blows them over the screen!

I like the computer reader that the sony can install on your computer. It syncs automatically and you can play around with storage as well as read on your computer - I do my manual reading on the computer while playing with the ereader.

Big plus for sony - it tells you the page you are on like a normal book - and adjusts when you have changed font size and type - I did this in seconds without looking anything up! The kindle is set up with % through the book - maybe you can change that, but I haven't found out how. Its harder to get back to places in the kindle.

I haven't played with collections etc yet on the sony, so I can't compare that..and there is no australian sony store (unless its started since last I checked). So far not an issue for me as I get my books from smashwords.

Covers (mine are the ones with lights)
I like the light more on the sony case. The kindle light set up makes me think I'm going to pull it out too far and break it & its non-adjustable, though in a good position.
I like the elastic strap on the kindle case, which case keep it shut in transit, though I have yet to have the sony one open up.
The biggest issue with the sony case is that it has a softer cover than the kindle - I often pick up books by the bottom and I find that I auto forward a couple of pages because there is also a forward and backward button at the bottom of the ereader. This shouldn't be an issue as the ereader insets into the back cover, so a firmer front cover would avoid the problem.
The sony comes with a stencil since you can write on the screen (fingers work too), but there's nowhere to store it. I was slipping it over the top of the book cover, but I lost it once that way. Perhaps a compartment for it would help.

Overall so far, the sony seems looser and more flexible, the kindle is more rigid and controlled - steps to get to places take longer, but I am much less likely to do something accidentally.

And lastly,
Having two different ereaders is resulting in me trying to page forward by pressing the non-existant bottom right button on the sony and touch the screen on the non-touchscreen kindle.

So, I'll be doing a little more reading on the sony & determining whether I get over the sony paging issues or whether it drives me nuts. I should also try getting books from a few more sites & determine whether one ereader is easier to get books for. I also need to put some journal articles on the sony to check how good it is with reading science articles - and annotating!

SWTOR

The physical game came today. They have my account details, I have the game. Now to play, knowing I won't get booted tomorrow.

Yay!

Frivolous

And the purchases continue.
I got my leave loading for christmas, so I'm now spending it on things that I've wanted for some time but are now at a decent price;
1. A pod coffee machine (came with the milk frother and a bunch of pods included)
2. a terabyte plug & play back up device - I want to convert all those burned CDs of pictures over
3. a decibel meter (not a particularly good one, but its a nice toy)

Hmm, I'm sure there was something else other than the last of the christmas presents...I'll think of it later I expect.

The one thing I didn't get but would like to is a digital microscope (circa $100). I saw one but I wasn't too sure of the quality - it didn't look quite as good as one someone at work is using. They only go up to 400x (so no good definition of bacteria, but fine for larger structures). this one looked a bit like they had dodgy magnification. I'm told logitech makes one but I have yet to find it on the web, so the student may be talking through their hat. I'll keep looking.

Now, off to eat san choy bow sausages (also an impulse buy from our local award winner butcher)

Superfluous

When I first wanted to buy an ereader, I held off because I decided the sony version had more of the bells and whistles I wanted for reading and commenting on research articles. But it wasn't available, so I bought a kindle and generally loved it. Now sony has a new version out, with all the bells and whistles. So I bought it. The plan is to test it out for all those work things as well as rereading Andreas touchstone novels on it.
In my short reading of things so far I think that the kindle will be more useful for generic reading (I am suspicious that I'll be able to get a wider range of stuff as mobi files - unless its on smashwords of course) and the sony will be easier to make the sorts of impulse notes over documents that I want to make on my pdf's - and its touchscreen - glee!. The sony store in Australia is not yet up, so I have to download from my computer....but since that's what I do with the kindle anyway, its not a great loss.
Anyhoo, at some point if I'm diligent, I'll put up my personal pros and cons for the two. If it turns out that the sony does everything the kindle does just as well (including book variety), my little brother might get an unexpected kindle present.
For the people for whom the cover is important; I have a black kindle with blue case and a red Sony with red case - red goes faster, don't you know.

A book printed...just for me

I've been reading Andrea Host's books as ebooks & my favourite series just finished. I asked Andrea if there was going to be a hardcopy of the whole trilogy together & she organised one just for me...and now you too can buy the Jenny Edition.

Christmas...Arrrrgh!

I just collated the christmas presents I've bought for this year. Andrea's is about the only complete one (and I have her birthday present for next year done too. Everyone else is a bit spotty...though I do have a theme idea.

A first for today

I was down the back cleaning up all the dropped mangoes (mainly eaten by flying foxes) when I noticed the awful smell...Dead flying fox in the back yard. We've had trees for 40 years, had flying foxes visit and eat them for almost as long and this is the first dead one. I'm a little dubious given the spreading Hendra zone this season. It could be natural causes, but I aint picking it up with anything but a long shovel straight into a pit.

New power supply!

My old supply died last night in spite of technically being above the level required for my new card. My computer guy put in a new one for me without labour fees since he'd just put in the video card. Its a gigabyte superb 720 (which gives me some wriggle room for other upgrades). He also suggested I get a bigger case, mine's a bit old and not really designed for big gaming components and max airflow. Since he has a similar set up, in a similar not air-conditioned environment, I'm thinking hew understands what I need best. He suggested I look around and find the one I like most (he'll do the swap over if I want). I was going to get a couple of suggestions off him today but I forgot.
Anyhoo - I have a power supply replaced with something nice in about 2 hours with no labour cost. I like my computer shop :)

now off to reading up on case brands :D...I may wait till another couple of pays to buy one.

new card!

I just replaced my old Geforce 8800 video card with an Asus gtx560Ti. With no load, its running over 20oC cooler! Now, lets start up LOTRO....heh 25oC cooler than it was - and the fan had to be on 100% for the other one. This one is on 44% speed tops!

So far, so cool.

Incorrect assumption

There's a book in my cupboard that Andrea gave me in 2000. Spindle's End by Robin McKinley. Every time I've been thinking about reading an old book, I've brushed past it thinking "thats the one with storyline X" I'm not in the mood for that. I pulled it out the other day thinking..mmm.. storyline X, that'll do. And its Not!
All this time I was mixing it up with another book - which I'll now have to find. Its also been so long since I read this one that the story was completely new to me. It didn't ring a bell at all!
I like Robin McKinleys books, so its not that I skimmed through it and didn't actually read it...I think I must have read it only once however and somehow got my brain wires crossed...perhaps its been written over in my long term storage because I lost the link to it.

checkout the new link

funny - on the places to go list

Apparently this is not unique

I have no dial tone on my home phone, but my internet works. I've spent a couple of days with looking for the fault and so far no dice. Wednesday they come and check the lines in my yard. I finally thought to google "no dial tone but internet works fine" and lo, I am but one of many. Apparently one line can break and the other will carry the internet (or something like that, I choose not to understand any more than that) but both lines are needed for a phone call. Alternately, some sort of connection at the exchange may have lost contact with my phone line but still be contacting my ADSL. I'm expecting the former since a tech has already apparently looked at the outside my home things. I've tried 3 separate phones and combination of direct into the wall and in via the internet splitter - so its from the wall onward somewhere. I know theres an old line under my house that we don't use, but its split off after the main entry point (I think) so I'm hoping thats not interacting with it.

Wildlife carer! - not!

As I drove in my driveway today I noticed a car swerving up the street & something white and pink on the road. The next car also swerved and I thought... that looks like a galah - why isn't it flying away. Then a car backed out of the driveway right next to it and it did a weird - my wing is broken-flail to avoid turning into a recently deceased parrot. They didn't even see it. So I walked up the road thinking - "I should have got a box and a towel - this is going to hurt - large, injured wild bird with big beak - but there's too much traffic - I'll just shoo it off the road and then come back".
Another car saw me walking towards it and just stopped on the road to give me time to get there. When I got there it let me walk right up to it and just edged a bit away, then it let me touch it, so it was either really badly off or a tame bird.
I picked it up and carried it off the road and it only bit me gently before it got out of my hands. Then it made a "I've learned human speak noise" and I picked it up again more stably. The lady drove off and I thought "great, now I'm going to have to deal with an injured bird and find the owner" (at least I have some big empty cages at the moment).
Luckily a guy walked out of a yard before I had a chance to walk home and said it belonged to a neighbour who lets it wander. Apparently the wing break is old. Anyway I handed it over and it walked up his front onto his shoulder, so he took it home to care for until the owner came home.
If he hadn't I would have had to take it to a vet to check on the wing & there aren't many bird savvy vets here. (plus I expect they would have charged me).

The owner is very lucky the backing car didn't go right over it.

Ye old family reunion

I'm going to a family reunion this weekend. In anticipation, mum has had me scan some (many, many, many)old letters that she's had in storage (handed down from her mother and her grandmother). Its been an interesting experience putting them in order and getting some of the back story on bits of them. They were prolific letter writers.

It was an eye opener seeing how poor one side of my family was. I had been told, but seeing the letters saying that James was off looking for work or one of the children who are off working is sending money orders home, really emphasizes things.

Theres also a series of letters from an uncle who went off to Canada and then signed up for WW1 - he died in France. I was able to read about his life from 1906 to 1916 when he died & the letters afterwards from the military, informing his family of his death.

There are also a bunch of WW2 letters from several brothers. Wow, they are interesting (and some have bits cut out)Lots of "somewhere in France" addresses, or desert areas. There's also telegrams from the military with messages monitored from Japanese propaganda radio, purporting to be from them saying they were alive and well in POW camps, and similar from private individuals monitoring radio after the camps were liberated (they listed names and who to get the message to).

What I should do - if I could find some time - is collate them properly and find out some of the surrounding information & then epublish them. I could call it "The Chalmers Letters - snapshots of 3 generations of Australians"