Rick's b.log - 2021/11/06
You are 18.118.32.7, pleased to meet you!
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Rick's b.log - 2021/11/06 |
| It is the 24th of November 2024 You are 18.118.32.7, pleased to meet you! |
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mailto: blog -at- heyrick -dot- eu
In the Forum features, Andrew had this to say regarding moderations: Meanwhile, if you want moderation, be careful what you wish for. I may for example choose to suspend accounts of people who routinely post things that are off-topic for a thread, derailing the conversation therein. Both this thread and the topics thread are already being thus derailed.
I find it quite unsettling that - having described the sort of moderation that I meant, and specifically saying not a thread nazi, that being an over-the-top thread nazi is used as the example of why moderation isn't a good idea. Does he not grasp the idea of degrees of moderation? The "nuke it from space" option given above is... damn close to trolling.
Following this, funny that I've only looked at the forum once today. There's a discussion about the sort of people using RISC OS that I could have contributed to, and one about how to do a backtrace in C (which I just did for my game). But, alas, I'm just not.
One thing I will say is that everybody talking about downvotes and ways to filter out people who habitually post rubbish... what you are attempting to describe is something called a reputation system, and proper forum software has had this since forever. Generally there is some method by which individual posts can be rated as useful or rubbish; and those messages that get too many negative votes will be automatically hidden, requiring some sort of user action to show.
Anyway, this is the last I shall talk about the ROOL forum. I'm just a lurker now.
Would you like some hints? ☺
There are two cheats built in - however if you use either of them your "score" won't count because you cheated. They may be useful if you wish to wander around and explore the different levels to get to know the layout.
First up, I couldn't find the lighter. I don't smoke, so the last time I would have used it was... probably October 31st last year.
Here's the pumpkin 'lit'.
I turned around and took a photo of what my pumpkin was looking at.
Looking towards the house. The bizarre blue light is a ghost in the living room. Literally, it's an LED ghost. ☺
Finally, looking to the west. The empty area is the shadow of the house. Bright dot left, Altair again. The one centre-right is Vega.
A few seats behind me, some gleakit woman holding a mask but not wearing it. You always get one, don't you? But this woman looked like she had problems managing to engage her brain just in order to exist, so...
The only problem was the wing mirrors. The fixture (the ambulance windscreen) is actually broken, so I will need to use some hot-melt glue to put them in place. If I order some spares in the future, I can get a new windscreen for €2,60... It's pretty impressive that Playmo keeps all these parts.
There used to be a fluo tube in the kitchen. When it packed up, mom and I both decided that wiring up a regular light fitting would be better. The regular bulb wasn't as bright, but it was a much warmer colour (the tube was nasty blue white) and it came on immediately without buzzing, blinking, wibbling, or warm-up times.
So the normal bulb was unclipped from the old fluo housing, and the whole assembly unscrewed from the ceiling.
This was being done by torch light, as I know the light in my room glows dimly when it is turned off. A part of me suspects that it may be the neutral that is being switched, not the live. With this in mind, I don't trust neither of the wires to be live when the switch is off. So I shut down my server and threw the main switch.
I whacked up the new fixture with a single screw at each end, hooked up the wires, and turned the power back on to check it worked.
The light can go from a warm red to a harsh blue. The default is a bit of both, "daylight" colour. It didn't seem particularly bright during the day (but then I don't like bright), however at night it seems quite a bit brighter. If I ever get around to doing something in the kitchen, it'll be nice to be able to tweak the lighting according to what I'm doing, like a brighter daylight for drawing or anything 'intricate', and a dimmer and redder light for relaxing whilst cooking up something.
Trolling?
I guess Andrew H. is somebody who thinks in a very compartmentalised way. There's a thread for Forum quality, another for Forum topics, and a last one for Forum features. All nice and tidy.
But at risk of failing to see the wood for the trees. As I said on my forum, everybody is trying hard to devise technological solutions to an emotional problem.
If you really want me to go ahead with such suspensions, I will. Otherwise, let's ignore accidental off-topic posts - people make mistakes, it happens - and please focus on discussing requested features.
The better forum software will also track a user's general reputation from their posts, and those people who habitually post things that are voted negatively may well have anything new that they post hidden by default (so trolling in the past will affect the now, and make a nicer forum for everybody).
How is Mamie?
For those who have purchased my game, Mamie Fletcher's House, how have you found it? Do you like it? Do you have any suggestions? Are you stuck anywhere?
Feel free to leave comments below.
Samhain photos
I had meant to post these after Samhain, but the forum nonsense got in the way. So here they are a week late. ☺
So I got a wooden stirring stick and set fire to it with the gas stove, and used that to light the candle in the pumpkin.
Trying not to burn the house down.
My pumpkin is proper lit.
The bright dot on the left is Jupiter. Nearby, down and right a little, is Saturn. Follow the line along for the same distance, Pluto is there, but there's no way you'll see that without a big telescope.
Jupiter, Saturn, and Altair.
The bright dot to the right is Altair.
For such a long time now, Jupiter and Saturn have been close in the sky (including that time when they were nearly on top of each other, the best conjunction since 1623, and the most visible since 1226), but they are now moving apart. Come November 2025, they'll practically be on opposite ends of the night sky. The next time I'll see Jupiter and Saturn together again? Because we're talking about the monstrous planets that take forever to orbit, 12 years for Jupiter and 29 for Saturn, they appear together roughly every twenty years (as seen from Earth), so around summer 2038 they'll be in the sky together, approaching for Novermber 2040 - and amusingly, it is as if Jupiter bumps into Saturn, as it's ring will flip right over, starting from the 28th of September 2040 until the 13th of October. Yup, in about two weeks it'll flip. You would see this change daily.
Of course, you won't actually see any of this for the simple and depressing reason that there's something else trying to muscle it's way in between Jupitar and Saturn... the sun.
In other words, I probably won't ever see these two dancing in the sky again.
The dot above the living room is Aldebaran. Going up, you can see Subaru, known as the Pleiades in the west. Or The Seven Sisters. Keep on going up and left a bit, the bright dot there is Algol. Looking to the left, the bright dot at the upper left is Capella, and the one at the lower right is a solar light in a plant pot. Perhaps I ought to call it FORTRAN?
Aldebaran, Pleiades, Algol, and Capella.
Altair and Vega.Our Father...
The religious service on the 1st of November was pretty unexciting. There was no priest, so the woman who assisted with mom's funeral led the service. A lot of standing, sitting, standing, sitting, and plenty of songs although most people didn't bother to sing.
The Lord's Prayer, and the Creed, were things I dimly remember from having church inflicted on me at boarding school... though I could have sworn the version we said went on a bit longer - something about power and glory? Maybe it's one of these "Catholics do it differently" things? Speaking of which, still can't figure out how anybody can make sense of The Trinity.
Nou Papa ki dan lesiel...Playmobits
The replacement Playmo bits turned up a couple of weeks earlier than expected in a much smaller parcel, in a bag and wrapped in several layers of tissue. The order form had each part ticked off. I wonder if it was sent UPS, and if so, if it was the same guy. Part of me hopes it was.
Playmobits.
A kitted out ambulance.A new kitchen light
I was wandering around the Noz after work today, when I saw an LED light fitting for €12. What attracted me was that it offered variable brightness and colour temperature.
Do you remember that fat fluo tubes used in shops in the '80s? The unpleasant ones that were bright in the middle and looked burnt at either end? It was one of those.
The old light(s).
It did, so I added the other four screws. The weird effect in the photo is because the lights flash rapidly and alternately and the camera wasn't happy with this (it's far worse with the diffuser fitted).
The new light (without the diffuser fitted).Dumb typos in this document?
Okay... I worked this Saurday, so I got up at half three this morning to start work at 5am. So if you'll excuse me, I'm not going to read through this. I'm going to post it, heat up a ready meal, feed the cats and myself, and then enter Standby Mode.
David Pilling, 7th November 2021, 03:01
Mamie - I don't have the right screen mode. Gotta work on it I suppose.Steve Drain, 7th November 2021, 13:31 Steve Drain, 7th November 2021, 13:33
I'll raise you: "Fiddling while Rome burns"Steve Drain, 7th November 2021, 13:35 Stuart Swales, 7th November 2021, 15:36
Subaru. Useful when you live 100m up from the valley on a single track road with hairpins.
The damage to the site is done.Pieter, 12th November 2021, 05:07
"Keep on going up and left a bit, the bright dot there is Algol." Not sure if I am looking at the right dots, but if Aldebaran, Pleiades and Capella are what I think they are, then that bright dot there would be Zeta Persei rather than Algol.
Pleiades, the "Seven Sisters" in Greek mythology, have six stars (one big, five small) in the Subaru logo. An old Japanese name for Pleiades links them with six stars. They are differently arranged, too.
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