efaardvark

Welcome back.

I really haven't been keeping up either. I lost a lot of interest when GPU prices hit 4 digits. Prior to covid I was probably averaging about a 4 year cycle on builds if you include upgrades. (IOW ~4 years to replace everything even if piece-by-piece.) My timing was lucky enough that I'd done my last major build just about a year before the lockdowns. Then I was so busy during and prices so high - if parts were even available - that I simply stopped paying attention. The only thing I've bought in the last 5 years or so was a new GFX card when my old RX480 finally died. The replacement was a 6600XT too. Not exactly a top-tier item. Only lately have I had some spare time to start thinking in any seriousness about a new build but I'm finding prices are still quite the show-stopper.

Getting back into KSP(1) Just took another set of Minmus tourists up to the orbital station where they transfer to the vehicle that will do the flyby or landing on the Mün or Minmus. I call it Tourist Trap station.

I do play games on occasion. Not into gathering or gambling but I do have Cities: Skyline in my steam library and I was a fan of SimCity from the earliest releases on the Commodore Amiga until EA made me swear off. Lately I've been mostly into Minecraft with my brother and his family but most recently I've been getting back to Kerbal Space Program. Still on KSP1.. not impressed with the latest release of early-access KSP2.

It's "california freezing" weather, which is to say upper 30s to lower 40s (F) overnight. The bigger issue is a wind warning for this evening through Thursday, with gusting winds on Thursday getting to over 80 mph. Not sustained but that's basically category 1 hurricane level. People unlucky enough to be in one of the canyon areas that can channel the winds will see even higher gusts. (That would be me.) The high winds and maybe even snow flurries mean near zero visibility on the "grapevine" freeway to the north and the 14 freeway to the east of Los Angeles. (North and a bit west of me.) Don't know what all that wind will do to the wind chill but I'm getting cold just thinking about it. Time to dig through the closet for the heavy jacket for sure.

Anyone have or building an AM5-based system? I'm starting to get the BYO system bug again and I'd like to hear of anyone's experiences. Prices are still quite high but my old Ryzen 2700X-based system from pre-covid days is looking a bit dated at this point so I'm looking into what what sort of trouble I'd be getting into if I wanted to upgrade. I've done some initial investigation and came up with a pcpartpicker list. Like I said prices are still a bit unreasonable but this is the sort of system I'd be interested in if prices were to come down to something a bit more tolerable: CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D 4.2 GHz 8-Core ***CPU Cooler: Corsair H100x Liquid CPU Cooler Motherboard: ASRock X670E Taichi Carrara EATX AM5 Motherboard Memory: 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory Storage: 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 3.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive ***I also have a 6T Synology NAS which has all my data on it which I netmount so the above is just for system data and maybe a "hot" project or 2 for performance reasons. Video Card: Radeon RX 7900 XT 20 GB ***Case: Silent ATX Mid Tower ***Power Supply: 800W Fully Modular Monitor: 34.0" 3440 x 1440 100 Hz Curved Monitor Items marked with "***" are ones I'll probably re-use what's on my current system. OS would likely be Linux. Ubuntu is what I'm currently using but I've also used Manjaro and SuSE in the past, as well as a couple BSD. Any sort of *ixian OS would be compatible with work & personal preferences.

Hey! I resemble that remark!* I can read on my cell ok but typing with my big fingers on this tiny keyboard is a challenge. I tell myself to remember to respond properly when I get home on my real computer + keyboard but the reality is that by the end of the workday I'm usually too preoccupied with higher priorities to remember and/or too tired to actually do the deed, especially for the sort of lengthy replies that would require a keyboard. I agree. I've done the discord thing occasionally too. (At least for other forums. I think the old AF channel is defunct at this point.) I actually prefer it in some respects. My "problem" with something like discord is that it is too easy for me to sucked into the realtime chattiness and spend more time on it than I really ought to. Forums also tend to have a higher signal-to-noise ration so I don't avoid them so much. As a consequence I think I actually pay more attention to what's posted to a forum than I do to discord-style chat rooms, even when I don't post or respond quite so much.

I agree. It is easy to get caught up in trying to meet other peoples' expectations. Other people aren't always considerate of your particular circumstances or abilities, and often they're more about getting you to do what they want you to do than motivating you to do better at what you want to do. I don't usually make NY resolutions but my overall philosophy or goal is to just to always do better than I did last time at everything I do. It's a simple, realistic goal, you can't cheat (or at least you know when you're cheating), and it still provides motivation in a positive direction so you don't slack off. Over the years I've also found that by simply using myself as a yardstick I ultimately tend to wind up well ahead of the crowd in areas I care about, which provides more positive reinforcement. It's a lot less stressful than trying to live up to unrealistic goals such as beating out the other 7 billion humans to be "the best" at something.

Mesas are also right up there!

Yakitori

How I feel kinda depends on when you ask me.

Dylan's Masters of War classic

I don't get along with cold but if I can stay inside and look at it through the window with a hot chocolate or a toddy I can appreciate the beauty. I'm in S. California however and snow hardly ever happens around here so it's kinda a moot question. For myself I'll probably just play a bit on the computer and enjoy the thought of not having to go to work tomorrow. It's raining with a low cloud / fog layer so unless the neighbors get rambunctious there probably won't even be the fireworks thing as an option.

I've had the same issue for years now. Decades even. Compounding the problem for me is that I like -science- fiction and pretty much nobody cares about getting the science part right. I gave up completely on Hollyweird long ago as a lost cause but anime and books still had the occasional gem. Lately anime is all fantasy - or whatever isekai is - sometimes calling itself science, and I have to really go digging for any real science content even in books. (WTF do bookstores always lump SF and fantasy together anyway? But I digress...) I too can appreciate the skill, effort, and even money that goes into creating the works themselves, technically speaking. Some of it is even entertaining but I'd be lying if I said I was truly engaged by any of it. Lately I get more value out of my entertainment time/money budget with gaming. (KSP for fun and minecraft for socializing.) I fear it is only going to get worse with big mainstream names like Sony ensconcing themselves as gatekeepers too.

Found and raided a mansion w/my brother and his wife. (There were actually -2- of these chicken rooms in this one. And they were right next to each other. What are the chances? )

Welcome! (haven't seen Suzume yet but it's on my to-watch list)

To the tune of "We Didn't Start The Fire"...

Got a creeper head.

I also got the Distant Horizons mod working. Again. My brother updated the server to 1.20.4 less than a day after I finally got the alpha version of DH working the last time under 1.20.2. That broke it again and I had to find some time to put things back together. Finally got a round tuit yesterday after work. Planning to play/test it some more this weekend.

Made some froglights .. and a sword..

Built a mud pond in minecraft for making mud and then turning it into clay. In my case I'm thinking of making bricks for a fireplace & bbq pit.

Welcome!