Monthly Archives: January 2016

One Series Down

Posted on by

Book Complete

I’ve completed the Ancillary series (Justice, Sword, and Mercy).  They all clock in around 400 pages, which is a solid size for sci-fi I find.  As with most series, the first book is the best of the bunch as the stakes are the clearest.  The setting is hard to grasp in book number one, but it becomes more of a background in the 2nd and 3rd books.

While I already talked about the first one at length, I want to expand on the last two.  Justice is set on a single station, so it feels more like the DS9 series as compared to the TNG before it.  It deals with managing the station’s residents after years of neglect, and the politics therein.  It’s more of a setup for the 3rd, truth be told.

Mercy is the final book  and has a whole lot of hurry up and wait involved.  It’s neat to see some military strategy in this, since it’s completely lacking in the first two, even though the entire setting is in the military.  The dialogue is better here, where the writer seems to be more comfortable with her characters.  The arch-villain is quite pathetic however, a shadow of herself from the first book.  She gets trapped in a technicality and all the brilliance and planning she had completed for 2,000 years before this falls to pieces in mere moments.

I would have thought that the 2nd and 3rd books could have been combined to a single book.  There’s a fair amount of cuts that could have been made to increase the pace and therefore the stakes.  A trilogy in 2-parts, I guess.

I do want to say that it takes the concept of AI to a different level, where they appear to have more personality than the human characters.  An extension of Gibson and Asimov to a believable place.  Perhaps it’s my penchant for cold logic but the sheer amount of flaws found in every human as compared to the AI is quite staggering.  The altruism is clearly opposed to the selfish behaviors, which drastically eliminates any shades of grey.

Overall, I’d recommend the first novel but suggest skipping the latter two.

Shipping Complete

My woes with USPS have ended!  I received the package yesterday, without any notifications.  It say in a warehouse for over a week without any progress, then in 6 hours was at my door.  I think I’ve learned my lesson here and will instead use a company that ships internationally on a regular basis.

That said, the 30 washes I ordered all came in a small box.  They are in small plastic bottles (20ml), similar in size to what you’d get eye drops in.  The Testors washes are 15ml, and Citadel are 24ml, so I’m in a decent middle spot.  Did I mention Secret Weapon washes are $3 compared to Citadel’s $9?

Now that I have all the paints I need, I’m going to start up my Trandoshan hunter miniatures.  They have a fair amount of color to them, with a lot of texture – perfect for washes.  Once those are done, all that’s left is the heroes and Darth.  Should only be a few weeks to clear it all out.

 

How Long ’til It Ships

Posted on by

Shipping Woes

Second part of the shipping rant.  As I mentioned before, I ordered some Secret Weapon washes on the 15th, late Friday.  I received a notification on the 18th that they had packaged it and the 19th that it had shipped.  I didn’t order from Amazon, so I expected a delay in getting the order all set up.  Secret Weapon is a small-ish shop and they don’t have people actively working weekends.  No biggie.

But USPS?  The first scan was at 7pm on the 19th, 12 hours after they received the package.  It then took 2 hours to move a few blocks down the road in Sacramento.  A few hours later it ended up in San Fran.  Ok, I’m thinking this is a major shipping route, no big deal, it should move again.

Nothing until the 22nd, and then it’s found its way to LA, early in the day.  Then nothing.  Apparently USPS doesn’t work weekends.

In the meantime, I ordered a microSD card on the 19th, shipped last night, and it’s going to be at my door tomorrow.  And it’s not directly from Amazon either, one of the sellers instead.

Did I mention that I paid for the Secret Weapon shipping and the SD card was free shipping?  So 2 days free shipping (once shipped) and we’re 6 days and counting for USPS.

Minor Hockey

My dad’s cousin’s kid (there’s some technical term for that, thrice-removed?) was in town for a hockey tournament.  He’s only a few years older than my own kids, just how family works when it’s on another branch, I guess.  Anyhoot, we ended up heading out to watch the game with some other members of the family.

I miss minor hockey. I coached it for a few years and it was one of the most rewarding things I have ever done.  It’s fun to see kids develop their skills, and have fun while doing it.  Most of them on the ice had giant smiles, which is really what it’s all about.

I spent most of my childhood in arenas.  Either I was playing, my 3 siblings were, or my dad was running the association.  Up until the age of 15, I’m sure I spent half as much time in a rink as I did in school.  I play 3 times a week now, and I think it has more to do with the feeling of belonging in a rink than I previously believed.

I don’t want to push my kids into hockey but it’s one of the few sports I have any actual interest in.  I can play most any sport, as can my wife, but when you’re given the choice, I’ll pick hockey.  We’ll see what the years bring our way.

Android Games

There are a few I’m trying out, aside from reading books that is.

Time Clickers is an incremental game, with clear plateaus for progress.  There’s no real meta to the game and I’m sitting at about 1 million cubes (~40 restarts I guess).  It also drains the battery quite fast, which is an odd one to figure out.

Star Trek Timelines is another.  The UI is neat enough, though pretty cluttered.  It’s very similar to any card/team based game, though there’s no strategy involved, just the computer throwing dice for you.  If it wasn’t Star Trek, I wouldn’t even bother, as there are plenty of games that do a better job mechanically.  It’s the art/setting that works.

Soda Dungeon is the final one.  It’s an infinite dungeon / incremental game with pixel based art.  The first run is a challenge, but after that you get some passives that make a world of difference.  There’s also dungeon loot while progressing, and some element of luck getting the appropriate gear to move forward.  I do like that it has a semi-intelligent auto-play feature. This will likely replace Time Clickers in the daily checks.

Making Tiny Things

Posted on by

Decorating Tiny Things

Late last week I ended up ordering some extra items for my miniature painting hobby.  I had some old flock around but wanted to expand my base covering material.  There are remarkably few options when it comes to base building, with the Army Painter seemingly the best bet.  I was taking a look at their Battlefield line and decided to pick up some grass(flock), stone, rocks and tufts.  I received it in the mail on Tuesday (see next rant) and started applying it to the minis I had already painted.

You forget how much glue is actually required to make stuff stick.  I was a little light on my first couple passes, but learned quickly enough.  The base builds make up for a lot of the messes in painting I had with some of the earlier models.  I really need to get some pictures, at least some sort of progress update on the work.  The rocks and tufts looks really neat, and for my first time trying to get them to work, I was pleasantly surprised at the ease.  The only tough lesson learned is that the base foundation color should be earth toned rather than white, as even with ridiculous amounts of glue, you don’t get 100% coverage.

Painting Tiny Things

As much as I love the painting, I’ve come to conclude that my paint needs more options.  I tried to make my own flesh wash and it came out all wrong.  I am far from an expert but having better tools makes a world of difference, so I went on the lookout for washes.

A wash is simply thinned down paint.  I could mix my own, and I have, but the results never turned out proper.  There are quite a few options out there, though mainly Citadel, Reaper, P3 and Secret Weapon.  Those are also in the order of highest cost to lowest, with Citadel costing more than double what Secret Weapon does.  It was the main reason I stopped painting actually, Citadel prices are just ridiculous.  A Warhammer army will set you back $500 easily.

I read a bunch of reviews, videos, and what not, then ended up picking Secret Weapon washes.  The 30 paint kit.  I’m still waiting for it to show up but based on what I’ve seen, it should make my painting go twice as fast and be twice as nice.

Shipping

Canada is an interesting country.  Something like 80% of the population lives within a 2 hour drive of the border.  This drastically improves shipping lanes as it’s mostly an east-west affair.  Canada Post has dramatically improved their shipping capabilities, to a point of near absurd efficiency.  I mentioned I ordered the base building mats on Friday?  Well, that was Friday at 8pm, the shipping from the company (MeepleMart, amazeballs) went out on Sunday morning.  I had it in my mailbox on Tuesday morning.  Amazon Canada also uses Canada Post and has near identical shipping times.  Unless it’s an emergency purchase, or I’m buying food, there doesn’t seem to be a good reason to buy things in a store anymore.

And yet (you knew that was coming) the shipping from the US is near on par with ordering from China for delivery times.  I had order a laptop earlier last year, it took a whole month for it to ship from California to my door.  The washes I’ve ordered are through USPS and though I received notice from the vendor it shipped on Sunday, nothing happened until Wednesday and then nothing again for 2 days.  It can’t be like this for people who actually live in the US right?  If you live in Podunk, I get it, but not one of the largest cities in your country?  Why the heck does it take so long to ship from San Diego to any Canadian distribution center?  And then why does it sit around for days without anyone doing anything?

I guess I’m just spoiled in service quality up here in my igloo.

 

Hugo and Me

Posted on by

Transport

Driving is more than the act of sitting in a vehicle, it involves actual movement.  Living in Canada in the winter, the capital no less, means that there’s not much driving to be had, so I end up taking the bus to and from work.  I don’t particularly like the bus as I can spend 20 minutes waiting for the damn thing to arrive, only to be packed like sardines, but it is a greener option and less costly overall.  When things do end up just right, I get a seat and can get some reading done.

Reading Goals

Murf had mentioned this late last year, getting some heavy reading done with a particular focus on the Hugo Awards. That works out, since I have quite a liking to the sci-fi genre.  I used to read quite heavily on my e-reader, though over time I found it less and less practical compared to having a tablet.  So I’ve loaded up some software and started at it.

I will say this about sci-fi, and fantasy even, authors have a love for trilogies.  I don’t get what people are so fascinated about the number 3, but it seems like everything is linked to something else.  The downside to this is that you have trouble moving between series and feel some sort of obligation to finish it (if possible) or end up waiting years between the books to close some cliffhangers.  Robert Jordan and GRR Martin are notorious culprits in the length of writing, though quite nicely offset by the quality.

Back on track.  I wasn’t quite sure where to start with the Hugos, either the golden age or the new age.  Then I started looking at the titles and realized that I’ve already read a fair chunk of the older stuff.  Clark, Asimov, Dick, Heinlein, Niven, Card…heck, without realizing it I’ve probably read 20 of them on the list already.  So I’m going to move from the newest to the oldest, skipping those I’ve already done.  If all works out, I should have 20 novels done by the year, though that will likely include books in the series rather than just from the list.  Some of them will be long to get through, such as Robinson’s Mars series but other’s I’ve already done, like Herbert’s Dune series.

Ancillary Justice

While I know the Three Body Problem should be first, I noticed that the Ancillary series was already there twice, so I started with the first one, Ancillary Justice.

Set in space, with a very high tech empire bent on conquest and annexation, the story deals with a ship AI who’s been stranded in a single body and is looking for revenge.  Ancillaries are corpse soldiers, captured enemies who get implants that allows for the ship AI to take possession of their body.  Not a hive mind as much as a bunch of puppets.

The book is most notable for its parallels to the Romans.  Conquest, culture assimilation, language, citizens, emperor and quite a bit more come out from the background.  There’s actually quite a bit found here that’s already been explored in the Foundation series, though this one certainly has more action within the pages.  The second piece that makes this series stand out is that the main culture is gender neutral.  I speak French, and as with most latin-based tongues, it’s heavily focused on gender.  A ball is feminine, while a book is masculine.  English really only focuses on pronouns (he/she), so there’s certainly less of a gap to be had, but it’s still hard to read through a book where the word “she” is used for both males and females.  It makes is hard to visualize the character’s attributes, but otherwise has little impact on the story.

Truly good sci-fi has technology as a setting and not so much part of the plot, which for the majority of the book is the case.  It’s the people that matter and their decisions, and they are all generally relatable.  The hardest part to get your head around is the concept of many bodies but a single mind, and the impact that has on society.  I’ve been in sci-fi for a long time, so the hive-mind mentality isn’t too far-fetched but I’m sure for a lot of folks, it’s a hurdle.  It does bring some interesting ideas to the table, certainly near the mid-point and the plot twist (well, you can see most of it coming), which I think is why it won the Hugo.  It’s not a perfect 5/7, but it’s certainly a solid read.

Now onto Ancillary Sword, then Ancillary Mercy.

The Gamer In Each of Us

Posted on by

I was having a chat with my better half the other night and verbally confirmed what I had been thinking for some time.  My penchant for board games has less to do with the actual game and more to do with the social aspect.

Back in the EQ days (heck, even the BB days) I played video games for the social aspect.  Sure, there were always options to play board games, and I certainly did, but video games provided a rather easy way to play without the need to move outside my house.  I played D&D back then, but it was nearbouts an hour there and back to play with the group.  That wasn’t really an issue online.

With a wife and 2 kids, they are mine to manoeuver to play boardgames.  What kid doesn’t like snakes and ladders, or trouble?  Those are staples that will be around for another 100 years.  The challenge is getting them to play more in-depth games.  And to that end, I think I’ve found some ground rules.

Gaming Rules for Kids

The most important rule is that there are only a handful of rules and that they are presented at all times.  When kids have to refer to some manual for a rule, then they are out of the game.  Their attention span and appreciation for nuance isn’t really developed.  Having my kid stay focused on say, Decent, is a massive challenge since the player involvement is rather minor.

My kids are also primarily French and the eldest is just starting to read, so long instructions don’t work either.  An intuitive game, one that mimics what’s on the board, is what works well.  This means that dice games, counted movement games and picture games work great. Math games quite a bit less.  A game where someone rolls damage, then calculates critical change, then rolls defense, then armor and has a trigger ability, then removes health… that’s just too much.

Games also shouldn’t last more than 30 minutes.  If it’s a dice game and it lasts more than 15, there’s a problem.  My kids would much rather play 2 games of 30 minutes than 1 game of 60.

Finally, games that require some strategy/long term choices are best played in a team.  This way, the kids get to talk it out together rather than self-reason.  It’s the exposure to other thoughts here that really counts and after a while, they start thinking macro instead of micro.

Gaming for Neophytes

Let’s get this out front – everyone is a gamer.  Young, old, breathing or sleeping, people are bred to game.  From playing crib with my great grandparents to kerplunk with my little one, everyone has fun with games.

Now that said, with thousands of games available, there’s one for every itch.  Finding your personal itch is important, but finding other people who share that itch is even more important.  My wife couldn’t be bothered with MMOs but I showed her Puzzle Quest and lost her for 2 months.  Plants vs Zombies had her for even longer. She’s a fan of Pandemic and Monopoly (my family has a history with Monopoly, rage and all).  So it would seem that she has a like for strategy games, though perhaps more appropriately she likes tactical games.  She also really likes randomization, which I’ve yet to figure out why.

Playing with her has shown that while she sees the long game in a discussion, she doesn’t necessarily see the links between the short and the long.  Many board games have a ripple effect from the first dice roll, though there’s probably more than simply rely on every decision made instead.  My guess is that a CCG game like Hearthstone would work, because of the immediacy and randomness of play.  A game like Dominion, or 7 Wonders would not because of the long view required.  I’d sure like to try them out with her though, I’m all for surprises!

I know my sister likes boardgames, though the few I play with her are trivia games.  My youngest brother is more into the strategy games, more in lines with Risk or miniatures.  We 3 used to play a lot when we were younger, even playing quite a few games with my dad.  Hero’s Quest in particular was a super fun time.  But we were exposed to a lot of games, of many different types.  From those years of games, we each developed an affinity to a particular style.

And I think that’s really the conclusion here.  To get someone into gaming, any type of gaming, you just have to keep trying different types of games.  Eventually they’ll find something that clicks.

Next Up

So I have my list of games I’d like to try with the family.  I just need to find the right price point to try some of them out.  I really don’t mind paying $50-$70 for something I know I will really like and then can play for quite a few years.  Finding something dedicated for the family and youngings, that has a certain immediacy.  And spending $40 on something none of the kids like… well I might as well head to the park instead.

First Post of the Year

Posted on by

Half way through Jan and not a post to be seen.  I need to get on that.

The final stretch of the holidays was a blur, followed by the stomach flu, then more work than I expected.  Being able to write has been a challenge, one I need to actively make time for.  Still, some minor updates.

Grim Dawn

I’ve played a ton of this game.  The higher difficulties are quite challenging compared to normal mode, which is nice.  My lightning shaman is fun to play, though I’m looking at building a pure tank for the next run through.  While the maps themselves are not randomized, the enemies generally are, and the loot certainly is.  I rather enjoy that depth in the game, especially the ability to re-configure your skill layout.  That’s one of my pet peeves in Path of Exile, you’re stuck with a specific item set based on your locked-in skills.  Mind you, leveling in PoE is a lot faster than in Grim Dawn, so it sort of works out.

New Tablet

My youngest daughter took a couple tries but successfully broke my table in the fall – or at least the digitizer.  I’ve been unable to repair it, so I spent some time looking for a replacement.  I don’t generally like to buy equipment unless there’s a good deal to be had, and I’m not one for a $90 tablet either.  Things worked out when I found the Nvidia Shield Table K1 for $199.  Spec-wise, it’s comparable to tablets in the $400 range, and it has an optional controller (which works great).  I ordered it shortly after the holidays and I am quite impressed with it.  The only real downside is the lack of a charger.  Since it’s a tablet, it needs a solid 2ma plug, and cell phones are not often above 1.  I have 1 charger that’s making due but the other ones are darn slow to charge it up.

Games play and look amazing.  Spending some quality time with KOTOR now.  For a game that came out in 2003, it’s aged remarkable well.  The tablet controls are more than adequate, with the exception of swoop racing.  For that, I absolutely need a controller to get ace times.  Otherwise though, superb port and worth every penny.  Now if only I could get XCOM to work on it…I’m sure there’s an APK somewhere.

Force Awakens

I was able to see this with my family at a VIP cinema.  It’s one of those that you sit in leather recliners, they serve food and beer and overall a much better experience.  I’ll be honest, I had shivers watching it.  It’s not the best movie ever made, far from it, but it hits every single note required for a solid boost of nostalgia and “newness” to make it work.  It was enough to convert my wife to Star Wars fan and my kids are certainly interested as well.

I won’t post any spoilers but it’s fair to say that’s it’s eerily similar to Ep4 in the paces.  There’s only minor merchandising in the movie (BB8 notably, and he’s a great R2 surrogate), the acting is pretty solid, and the visuals are impressive.  I look forward to the next installment.

Board Games

This is in 2 parts actually.  Over the holidays my kids got some board games and I wanted some as well.  Junior Monopoly is pretty good at teaching counting and the games are fairly quick.  Junior Catan is about trading gains today for gains tomorrow, which is interesting to see a kid figure out (even adults).  The staples of Uno, Trouble, Perfection, Kerplunk and Rebound are also additions to the pile.

For myself, I picked up an expansion to Imperial Assault, Twin Shadows.  That came with 2 heroes, 2 villains and some extra baddies (Wampas!).  There was a pretty big sale on acrylic paints at the craft shop over the holidays, so I’m making my way through all the miniatures now.  I’d say I’m about ¾ of the way through now, in terms of actual miniatures, but only half of the way through painting, as what’s left is individual models.  Painting 9 Storm Troopers is slightly more work than painting a single hero.

It’s remarkable how much skill progress I’ve had these past weeks though.  Looking at what I started doing, compared to what I’m doing now… it’s neat.  I can paint twice as fast and it looks a whole lot better.  I’ll post a picture of my Nexu (the cat from Ep2) soon to show an example.  To finish them off, I need to restock on some flock and rocks to fill out the bases.

The next post up should deal with 2016 predictions.