Jump to content

efaardvark

AF Member
  • Posts

    2,437
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    214

Everything posted by efaardvark

  1. Hello! Welcome. Hmmm... stimulus. Well, if you have some money you could always place a bid on a slightly used MegaBot, if that's your thing.
  2. At the risk of going even further off the OPs topic, if we're talking streaming vs buying then the other issue I have is that I tend to lose access to stuff if I rely on streaming. I have a few discs/collections that I've bought specifically because I either could not find them on streaming sites or they disappeared off the streaming site I'd been viewing them on. If I like it enough to buy it in the first place then I probably don't care too much about the price of the DVD. I mean, I'm not going to buy it at $1000/disc but even $100/season might be a consideration. Like I said, I don't go for the animes with multiple seasons anyway, so if we're talking $100 for 12 or 24 episodes that works out to about $5-10 per episode. Ridiculous, but not out of the question. As others have said, a lot depends on the quality of the packaging. If it is no-frills (no insert, poor/minimal artwork, etc.) then $20 for a season on DVD seems reasonable. If it is good quality - maybe even something I'd put out in front of the rest on the book shelf as a display item - then I might be ok with $100 per season. Maybe even more, depending.
  3. Just saw Elon Musk's SpaceX anniversary talk.  The guy is crazy... in a good way maybe, but still crazy.  Hard to believe it was only a year ago when he announced his "BFR", and now he's already got an engineering prototype that's supposed to start test flights in a matter of months, and "to reach orbit in 6 months".  True, those are "Elon months", but still.  It'll be interesting to see if he actually gets 2 of these rockets done in time for an unmanned Mars test flight/mission at the next transfer window in 2022.  He's also previously said that he might land one on the moon during testing.. because "It may literally be easier to just land Starship on the moon than try to convince NASA that we can."  😮  

    https://arstechnica.com/features/2019/09/after-starship-unveiling-mars-seems-a-little-closer/

    1. Illusion of Terra

      Illusion of Terra

      It is absolutely insane how much he has accomplished in a few years (especially compared to ESA/NASA). If he actually manages to achieve his planned goals in the next 5-10 years, I seriously think NASA should just hand over their budget to him 😂 

      My uncle (worked on astrophysics stuff) is a huge fan of his, so I always get the latest updates from him 😂 

    2. efaardvark

      efaardvark

      I would love to see that happen.  NASA has their own planes and such for research purposes, but they don't own and operate their own "NASA airlines".  In the same way I'd like to see NASA do the same for space R&D and regulation and just buy transportation to/from space like they do for air travel.  Cost-plus contracts and Congressional pork seem to be the main obstacles to commercial space these days.  Don't get me wrong, NASA does a lot for air travel, safety, research, and regulation.  That first "A" in "NASA" is for "Aeronautics" after all.  I'd really like to see NASA do things the same way for the "S" and drop the semi-operational, perpetually over-budget NASA-sponsored programs like SLS in favor of buying commercial services from the likes of SpaceX and Blue Origin.

      NASA does have a "COTS" - commercial off the shelf - program for some space operations like satellite launches and cargo delivery to the ISS, so there's some progress there.  I'm hoping space travel will quickly commercialize as a transport industry like it did for airplanes back in the day.  The time between the Wright Flyer in 1903 and the Ford Trimotor (airplane used in the first commercial airline in the US) was only about 8 years, and the DC-3 was in service by the end of the 1930s.  I'll make allowances for space travel being harder - not to mention that there's no established extraterrestrial destinations to justify a scheduled service to - and give them a little more time but I'm really looking forward to the first regular commercial "spaceline" service!  :) 

  4. I want to say yes, but I can't remember the details. IIRC it wasn't a meeting per-se, she just she saw one of the clones briefly, and from a distance. She thought it was Misaka. I'm pretty sure she never found out about the clones. I could very well be misremembering however. I didn't pay too close attention to the railgun series. The only part I liked was the index/railgun crossover episodes.
  5. Been playing the RLCraft modpack on my private server this afternoon. This pack is brutal. If your idea of a good time in minecraft is messing around in creative or goofing off in easy mode then this modpack is not for you. Everything is trying to kill you, and you can be one-shotted with only 3 hearts-worth of damage due to hit locations. (Your head and torso are considered critical-damage areas and only have 3 hearts each.) Also, if your arms get injured then your combat abilities are affected. If your legs get hit you slow down. There's environmental effects that can hurt you. Deserts will give you hyperthermia. Icy climates will give you hypothermia. You get hungry as usual, but you also get thirsty. If you drink water without cooking it first there's health debuffs similar to eating uncooked meat. A full meal won't heal you either. For that you need bandages, or a good night's rest in a bed will heal half of your health damage. Just to make it even more difficult there's also skills. You have mining, attack, defence, agility, farming, and magic skills that you have to level up to get anything done. Breaking potatoes or sugar cane requires farming of 4 or greater. Breaking iron ore needs level 4 mining. You get experience pretty much as you would expect, but now you have to allocate those points towards your skills instead of saving them for your enchantment table. This pack is also brutal on the server side. There's over 50 mods in the pack! I have a pretty beefy 2700X AMD system and it is still lagging occasionally, even with just one player and 4GB RAM allocated to the server. Currently I'm messing around with the settings to see if I can do anything about that. No idea what these are. I call them moss dinos. The plain beyond had "velociraptors" and all I had was a flint knife (with an attack skill of 3) so I didn't go any further. Definitely not in Kansas anymore Toto.
  6. Phftt! That's not old! I'll be 4,000 years old next year! In minecraft years that is. Welcome!
  7. I don't go in for those animes with hundreds of episodes anyway. 2 or 3 filler eps and I drop it. I don't see how people can stick with a series for that long without some sort of ending/closure. I'm also a binge-watcher and usually I don't start watching a series until it is already over. I'd be highly unlikely to even start something like Naruto or DBZ.
  8. You know you're a game nerd when stuff like this rotates through your Spotify feed during your commute...

    IMG_4723.thumb.JPG.b322aa1d9192252e27a9c456256c2604.JPG

     

    1. Show previous comments  2 more
    2. Seshi

      Seshi

      Ooh, nice to know. Pandora is like empty

    3. efaardvark

      efaardvark

      Yeah, I subscribed to Pandora for a while too.  Spotify is better.  I even found stuff like the sound tracks for games like Kerbal Space Program and Minecraft on Spotify, and the anime tracks are extensive as well.  A lot of it is covers of varying, sometimes dubious quality, but there's plenty of high-quality gems too, including quite a few OSTs, in both English and Japanese.
       

  9. I spent the evening attempting to get a private minecraft server + the RLCraft modpack running on my LAN. This stuff is definitely not ready for prime time. I grabbed the latest versions of forge and the rlc modpack, and added them to a freshly-(re)installed 1.12.2 MC server but ran into problems getting the server running. I finally got all the mods installed on the server side and the server staying up (with a LOT of warnings, though no exceptions), but now the client is throwing a fatal exception after connecting. Looks like maybe a version mismatch somewhere. I don't really have the time to debug, then track down and install exact versions, but maybe I'll take a closer look at the modpack web site's forums tomorrow.
  10. Spent my lunch hour online looking for a server host to rent.. preferably one that I can get the minecraft RLCraft modpack pre-installed on. I might need to get my head examined.
  11. I'm always kind of sad to see a library close, especially one as historic and useful as this place.  Got to be a clueless beancounter to decide that closing a well-used rocketry library is a good idea.  Especially one established by no less a figure than Werner Von Braun himself!  My dad used to work at Redstone way (way) back in the day, and I've actually been to this place so there's a personal connection as well, though I was way too young at the time to get any actual educational or professional use out of the place.  At least some of the content is going/staying online...

    https://www.al.com/news/2019/09/rocket-scientists-mourn-end-of-redstone-arsenals-risc-library.html

  12. This ^^^ some people will gladly pay hundreds of dollars for the boxart and collectable items included in a nice "exclusive" package. Often they can even be a good investment in a dollars and cents sense if they're good quality and the series turns out well. There's also - believe it or not - people who look for ways to make sure that the artists get paid for their work, including buying official DVDs, even overpriced ones.
  13. Started a new hardcore game in the latest minecraft snapshot but died almost immediately. I should know better.
  14. "Wattles" just started a RLCraft youtube series. Wattles who doesn't mod and has never tried the RLcraft modpack. I'm sure this will be gruesome.
  15. Is minecraft pixelart still a thing? Now that's clunky!
  16. Lunch was kind of a good news, bad news thing today.  Went for "sushi" (sashimi), which is a good thing.. Yum!  Was too hungry though and swallowed a bit wrong, which sent some wasabi UP into the back of my nose instead of down where it was supposed to go!  That'll sure clear your sinuses!  Thought I was going to die!  :D

    Moral of the story:  treat that stuff with respect and enjoy it properly.  Otherwise.. watch out!

    1. Seshi

      Seshi

      First time I tried sushi my friend in high school told me to eat it with a big gob of wasabi on top... went straight to the sinuses 😳

  17. Started a new "hardcore" for 19w38b snapshot. Finished my starter hut and found that it has a wonderful nighttime view of the nearby coral ocean from its observation tower..
  18. A full response to "how to play minecraft" would take forever. Of the two basic modes, "creative" and "survival", creative is the least stress. Nothing is hostile, you have unlimited access to all resources, no health or food to worry about, breaking blocks is instantaneous, etc. You can even fly around. You can do whatever you like, with the corollary that you kind of have to come up with your own activities since most of the structure of the game is missing. Unless you're the kind that likes to jump right in at the deep end I'd recommend that your first experience be in creative mode, at least until you get the hang of things. Beyond that, I've been playing for years now so if you have any specific questions feel free to ask. It also helps a lot to be able to find an experienced someone who can play with you online for a few "days". In "survival" mode you have to build, grow, or find everything for yourself. You have to worry about food and health, and hostile mobs ("mobiles", aka monsters) spawn in the dark places like caves and at night. The first day is therefore kind of important, as you'll want to find a safe place to be before your first nightfall. If you don't then you'll have to be dodging skeletons, zombies, and spiders all night. That can be either fun or traumatizing, depending.. My "first day checklist"... 1.. punch a tree. Literally within 10 seconds, find the nearest tree trunk and start breaking it for wood. 2.. take the logs you get from the tree and make some planks. 3.. make some of the planks into sticks 4.. make a crafting table 5.. place the crafting table down next to you and use it to craft some wooden tools from the sticks and planks. You'll want at least an axe, a pick, and probably a shovel. Use the axe to get more wood. The pick is for (cobble)stone, and the shovel is for dirt. 6.. build a tiny hut. The roof can be open (for the first night), but It should be about 4x4 blocks lengthxwidth, and 2 blocks tall. you can use dirt, planks, stone, sand, or anything else you like. Mine are usually dirt or planks, but anything that's handy where you spawn is fine. 7.. knock a hole in one wall of the hut that is 1 block wide and two blocks tall. 8.. use some planks to craft a door, and put the door in the gap you just made. You might also want to break the crafting table down at this point and place it back down in the hut. At this point you've got a little protected area that you can hide in during the first night. Don't worry about anything fancy to start. Keep a minimal mindset for the first few days. If you have time on your first day after doing the above, or the next day if not, then the next things you'll need are light and a bed. Look around for some stone. You'll need to mine 9 blocks to make into a furnace on the crafting table. Put it next to the crafting table. Put a log or two in the top part of the furnace, and a couple sticks or something wood in the bottom for fuel. pretty much anything can be used as fuel.. doors, wooden tools, sticks, logs, tree saplings, etc. There's an optimal way to do things, but I'm not going to spoil the fun by getting into it here. if you put enough fuel in the bottom part you'll turn the log into charcoal. a stick and coal or charcoal will make a torch. Torches make light. Monsters don't spawn where there's light. Torches are thus handy for making places like caves or the inside of structures you build safe places where monsters don' surprise you. Beds are kind of like save-game markers. When you die (note that I did not say "if" ) you will respawn either at the world spawn point where you started the game or near the last bed you slept in. You also need to sleep every three days or so in recent minecraft versions. If you don't then if you go outside (exposed to sky above) you will be attacked by phantoms. To make a bed will take "wool" and wooden planks. Wool you can create from spider silk or from sheep. There is a shear tool, but it requires iron to make, which you'll have to find as iron ore and refine in the furnace. You'll have to kill spiders for the silk, so that's also problematic for newbies. Sheep will also drop their wool when killed, as well as food (which you'll also be needing). Sheep are non-hostile mobs, so killing sheep is probably the best way for a newbie to get wool. Mkae the wool into a bed, and cook the meat in the furnace. At this point you should be relatively safe. You can make a sword and go off to fight mobs. You can make a hoe and start a farm for growing seeds/wheat, carrots, potatoes, and beetroot. You can build pens and farm pigs, cows, chickens, and sheep. (Cows can be milked, and produce meat and leather when killed. Sheep for wool and meat, like I mentioned. Pigs are just for meat. Chickens produce feathers, which are necessary for arrows, and also meat.) You can make a pick and start mining for iron, gold, emeralds, redstone, and diamonds. You can build a huge castle. Or you can just go off and explore the world.. find villages, avoid raiders and other hostile mobs, etc. There are horses, donkeys, and llamas for pack animals and riding, if you can tame them. If you get bored with all that there's a portal you can build, which lets you get to the Nether. Mostly lava and nasty mobs, but the Nether also is the only source for key ingredients for potions. There's underwater temples, abandoned mines, the End and the End Dragon and End cities. Lots of stuff to work for. Here's the minecraft wiki, and like I said, just ask.. For the extreme MC survival players...
  19. Anyone ever played Pokemon Red... in Minecraft?
  20. I've been watching too many let's plays and not doing enough actual playing. It is too easy to become a couch 'tuber! I have gotten into the odd habit of starting a new survival game every time a new minecraft snapshot comes out. Those don't last too long though since I usually play them on "hardcore", then die within a couple hours. Or at most a few days.
  21. Did some small tweaks to Sonic Ether's shader mod on Minecraft but I'm afraid I'm at the limits of my GPU. I'm actually amazed it works this well. I can see how this would look awesome with a nice hi-res texture pack, but my poor GPU is about to melt as it is just with the shader. I'm only getting in the low 20s (at best) in terms of frame rates too. I'm sure that trying to push more pixels would just turn it into a slideshow. Isn't that how it has always been with Minecraft though? Feels just like old times.
  22. We got to play with the InSight Emmy when they brought it by for a photo op here in the SFOF today.

    IMG_4711.thumb.JPG.67404287a3ddc549e8b5bdc6214a51d9.JPG

  23. My sister-in-law just got that for Xbox. I haven't played it but it looks pretty interesting from an over-the-shoulder perspective.
×
×
  • Create New...