=VG= SemlerPDX

When I first got here to my Pop's house in Wisconsin back in July, they had DSL internet through AT&T (coming in though a tiny old school phone line) and were paying $46.99 a month for internet speeds equivalent to circa 2004 internets.  I have just upgraded them to Spectrum (Time Warner) high speed broadband internet via cable, with a top-in-class consumer modem (Arris) with dual band WiFi, 16 channels, and speeds of up to 250Mb/s Down and 20Mb/s Up (for a monthly cost of $47.99)

.... yea.  ... yea.

I feel bad for the parentals that they've been wasting money on terribly frustrating slow speeds for years, but glad I was able to get them up to 2018 USA standards for nearly no change in price.

What a world!  Gonna pop onto the ARK Server (finally) and feed my dinos before the rest of them starve to death like the little ones did a week or few ago.  Don't want to start over with my breeding program, put a fair bit of time into that.

Might even get onto the Falcon server for a multiplayer flight to show my Pops what it's like.  NASCAR next weekend at Road America, the "clowns" of the road course - will be fun to see those 2 ton monsters try to navigate that classic road course.  We'll take plenty of pictures.

The Different between Soccer and American Football 

Elite: Dangerous -- Deep Core Mining for Void Opals is the new "Gold Rush"!  I've made hundreds of millions doing passenger runs in the Wu Guinagi Loop, but now that it's nerfed, I figured I'd get into mining.

It takes a bit of learning and reddits and YouTube, and then some more, and maybe more, but then when you get the hang of it, and find yourself a little hotspot far away from the overplayed and overpopulated depreciated areas like I did, you can make 60 million from cracking open just a couple asteroids in no time at all.

Took less than an hour to get this from three motherload asteroids... and they're EVERYWHERE! (if you know how/where to look)
(link to coriolis - the ship I used for this mining: https://s.orbis.zone/3mpt )

We never get snow like this in Portland - thick and wet, and sticking to every branch and twig, and even the sides of buildings.
Sure makes for some good pictures!

Check out the other 9 pics on Imgur (click here)

YAAARRRRRRRR!!!!! 

...yar. 

Love you all!  Work around the house is winding down just in time, the rainy season has hit - we didn't quite get all the moss scraped off the roof, but at least we got all the gutters and downspouts cleared.  My legs and back are killing me, and usually it's just my arms - so with them on top of it all, I've been having some very rough mornings for a few weeks.  At least I've not had any headaches to deal with, I get those from my neck muscles, not your typical headache or migraine but like a big general thing that kinda reduces when I lay my head down (whether sleeping or not).

I got all my old gear dusted off, including my X52 HOTAS, looking forward to setting up HELIOS (instead of YAME64) to get some BMS gauges onto my little touchscreen and just generally get myself set back up for Falcon BMS.  When I get back into it, gonna take it easy - just one or two flights in a session, then get up and take a break.  So worried I'll fuck my neck or arms, but I'm very antsy to get back into it regardless.

At nights, I've been spending some time here and there learning Stationeers in an "easy" mode singleplayer world on Mars.  Had to start over twice, but third time I figured it out (pausing ANYTIME I was just thinking, checking the wiki, as well as when AFK).  My goal is to learn the basics enough so that I'm not as helpless and useless as the last time I hopped onto our last multiplayer Stationeers world on Europa.

This has truly been the Year of Hell, and I'm glad it's nearly over.  Hoping to get back into a routine of casual multiplayer gaming with you all once again, and to stop hiding from the world to deal with my shit.

PROMOTED!!  

(I always think of the Battlefield Friends show whenever that happens here or in a game!!)
I wonder if I get a company car now?  Or at least the keys to the company jet, I mean, right? haha!

I am unable to properly function, so I'm copying a note I sent to a few of my oldest friends here at VG:
I can't login, I can't think. I can't even process life right now.  I've been in a stunned shock since Sunday (Dec 31st) evening.  In moments of clarity, I am reaching out to those I can think of - I consider many of you real friends, and I just want you all to know what has happened and why I'll be absent.

On New Years Eve morning, my brother took his life.  We were extremely close our entire lives almost like twins, but he had cut off contact with us all and moved far away for over a year.  He had been struggling with mental health issues including audible hallucinations (hearing voices) that berated him and tortured him "verbally", as well as addiction problems, and we all have to just accept that he felt there was no other way to stop it all and escape.  He was a talented musician and a knowledgeable composer.  If any of you have watched some of my old gaming videos on YouTube, you've heard my brother's music in the background.

He will be cremated and released to us around the 12th, and I will be spreading his ashes at Wahclella Falls near or around then, presuming it is accessible this time of year, and we will hold a private Celebration of Life rememberance in our home somewhere around the 17th.

I may not come around for the next couple weeks, or until these matters have concluded, as I do not feel sociable at this time.  Certain individuals can reach me when I am offline if there is a technical emergency, so contact =VG= m823us if there is a matter that requires my attention, and I will resolve it if/when I am able, and if not, it will go on the top of the "to do" list for when I am feeling better.  I've already noted that I will be helping Oniblood work with the ARK Survival server as he expressed interest in that, and those who knew I was developing weekly PR event "team workshops" with custom maps should know I will continue with that project before too long.

I feel like I'm walking around in a daze, like a bad dream, and my time is filled with moments of painfully deafening silence and extreme grief, and the rest of it spent with family and friends, as people I've not talked to in years come over to express condolences.  Hearing others talk about this all sounds like I'm listening to a commentary of my own life and it is too surreal to tolerate, so much so that my family now hushes up if I'm walking by when re-telling someone who has not yet heard, out of respect for my feelings.

I will eventually return because hanging out with friends online will help me to move forward and be strong, but I am having a hard time using the phone at this time and it's most comfortable for me to text for now - messages through this website or facebook are just fine if friends need to contact me.

Thank you all for understanding, and for being my friend.

28 miles of fireworks for 4th of July - at Long Beach, Washington   It was a fun vacation, but it's good to be home.

A tiny little Arduino project wot I did late last night... Road America lap timer & avg. speed calculator
(charging circuits for the wireless TrackClip should arrive Wednesday)
 

DIY Wireless TrackClip Pro
Haven't had time to spend on this project for awhile....  Been trying to find batteries that will power these 3 LED's, and previous tests required at least 4x 1.5V AAA Batteries which is way too large for a battery pack that will sit velcro'd to my headphones.

I just found some rechargeable Lithium Ion batteries with 3.7 Volts each in a "AAA" form-factor.  These things are great!  I tried running a single battery, but the LED's didn't illuminate in any noticeable way so I had to wire a second battery in serial, and they light up just fine.  They are 350mAh each, which is less than half the capacity of a standard rechargeable Li-ion AAA battery, but the trade-off for a higher voltage in such a small size is exactly what I need for this project.

I left this thing plugged in overnight and it was off in the morning, I guess I'll time it to see how long it lasts.  Next step will be to rig a recharging circuit with a micro-A USB female plug-in for easy re-charging, and then cram it all in a small black box with a velcro strap to easily attach to my headset.  To start, I'm not going to cut the TrackClip Pro wire, and I'll leave the female USB connector shown below on the battery pack.  I may shorten the TrackClip wire near the end of this project, at least to remove the heavy USB pass-through dongle hanging off it.

We'll see where this goes, I've never done anything like this before so it's a small challenge.

Update on my DIY TrackIR project -
Wireless TrackClip Pro has now been on for a several hours and the voltage on the battery has dropped by 0.40 Volts. If I do some very rough estimates, I am assuming this thing might last between 18-24 hours between charges. I'm leaving it on overnight to find out. The other connector for the magnetic micro USB charger tip is shown in this pic. They sell cords, or these tips that plug onto the end of a normal micro USB charging cable. They have a tiny green indicator light when powered. At $4 a piece (for a male and female pair of magnetic plugs) they are so worth it for the bi-directional connection option alone!

$4.00 NetDot Magnetic USB Charging Connectors
$2.92 3.7V 10440 AAA Lithium Ion Rechargeable Battery (sold in 4-pack for around $12)
$1.00 TP4056 (03962A) Charging Board with Protection
$1.00 MT3608 DC to DC Step Up Boost Converter
__________________
$8.92 Total Cost

Working on a DIY project right now between other things; "wireless TrackIR TrackClip Pro"

I have an old TrackClip Pro with several broken plastic pieces, so I'm using it for all sorts of testing and feasibility checks before cutting up my new working TrackClip Pro.  I want to use a small modern Lithium Ion battery and have the ability to charge it through USB micro-A connection, with a charging circuit, and a power on/off switch, but a few of the batteries I've tested so far have me scratching my head.

If this simple 3x LED device normally operates on a USB 5V 1A connection, I really only need to replicate that.  But I've already had little success with the batteries I have around my house.  I may have to purchase a battery specifically for the project, as well as the charging circuit.  It all needs to be very small and lightweight.

I've read several DIY forums where people already did this exact thing, so I have plenty of ideas for products and procedures.  I'm very patient and I'd rather spend a few extra dollars if it can be a little more sturdy or look a little better, so time will tell how this turns out.  Will take pictures once there's something worth taking a picture of.
 

A link to the VG Club graphics, from early final drafts to the official final designs at bottom (with 'less' white lettering):
https://imgur.com/a/YI2DWfj

AHH!! I keep throwing money at my screen but nothing's happening!!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1051200?snr=1_41_4__42

Been doing some extreme overclocking today with my new nVidia ASUS ROG STRIX RTX 2070 Super - for the last 14 hours or so....  

I set a number of 1st place Overclocking records in 3DMark in my class:  i5-4690K / RTX 2070 Super -- including a 3rd place ranking in FireStrike against i5-4690K's OC's to the super extreme of 4.4-4.7GHZ!!  I can only get mine at 4.3GHz even without overclocking my RAM, so I run 4.3GHz on my CPU and OC RAM @ 2133MHz (4x4GB)

I was able to get stable at a GPU OC @ 2130MHz and VRAM OC @ 2000MHz (16GHz total across all 8x1GB GDDR6!)

It seems I won't hold all those first places for long, though, guys like Raymanauto77 could knock me out with CPU alone... lol. Cheers, Ray! Love your CPU!

I was super proud to place 43rd IN THE WORLD and 12th place in USA for Time Spy Extreme in the same class (i5-4690K) against ALL GRAPHICS CARDS and was also cool to place just inside the top 100 in the USA for a Port Royal and Time Spy (v1.1) each at 94th place.  Super fun to be able to swing around this card in it's extreme levels, took a ton of testing and work, will have to post up some pics in a blog post or something later.  The Turing GPU has some quirks and an overclocking guide with my experiences using this Super version card might be cool to have around.

For now, after a full day of this, it's time to call it a day.  Pics to come.  Fun fun!
https://www.3dmark.com/newsearch#advanced?test=...TimeSpyExtreme..i5-4690k..RTX2070S..

WOO HOO! 

Been having quite a bit of fun on the VG Minecraft server with Renainn(davestrike) and his brother LionClaw, KiwiBob, Airbats, Double13, and Jaki the past few days...  Good times!

Been loving Fallout 4, and I know it has a ton of popular mods, some that add things, some that fix things -- and I do want to just play the game through once, with no mods, as I know the game has TONS of replay value and mods only add to that.

But this issue of not knowing what my character is going to say when I choose a dialogue option is very frustrating.  Oniblood turned me on to the Nexus mod site to find the mod that shows exactly what you will say when you choose an option, and I am a very happy camper!!  Gonna keep playing the game with this one mod, and I gotta share the info for those who might not know it cuz it's just that helpful!! Huge thanks to these two modders!

Quote

Full Dialogue Interface (NewDialog English and CN-DE-ES-FR-IT-JA-PL-PTBR-RU translations) by Cirosan and shadwar

Here's a screenshot from my current mission, a long dialogue back-and-forth with the Synth Detective - and I am so happy I can see the full dialogue now:

Been waiting for the Steam Summer Sale in hope that Bethesda would loosen their death grip on the $60 price tag they've held on Fallout 4 since it released near the end of 2015 - happy as hell it got a 50% off tag, and I've been playing the hell out of it.  For the most part, it seems this game tries to cover every base in the most popular gaming genres these days from survival to open world RPG to FPS action (including random IED's here and there!) with a bit of Minecrafting and base building as well as a fair amount of item and weapon upgrading.  Hell, they even got the "Zombies" genre covered in Fallout 4 with the rotten-brain ghouls and beasts.  Finally feeling a little deadly (against the normal shit, that is) and went back home to examine that old OP Power Armor Suit that I left behind.  Spent some time to fashion up some Grade-B parts for the power armor and bought some extra fusion cores - really getting into this!
Got my dog, got my Stimpacks and RadAway, got my Minuteman painted Power Armor and my Minigun - game on! 

Between physical therapy and dealing with these crazy pills I gotta take to ease the edge, I've been not even wearing my headset and so not getting into TS3 or anything beyond chatting in Discord or here on the website for so long.  If there's anything I said I would do and ghosted on, just know it's not personal and honestly just fallen under the radar.  I get periods where I can do important stuff, and other times it is the last thing I want to put myself through.

Regardless, I have been working off and on for the past few weeks on my AVCS voice control profiles for VoiceAttack again, it's been my greatest passion for nearly five years and I enjoy making things as much as enjoy using them in games - especially now when it's so hard to type for any extended period or use the mouse for longer than a move and click or two, and left-handing it the rest of the time, or using voice dictation to type out most of a chat/text msg and then just edit what is wrong by hand.

This will be the first AVCS profile project to include hardware as part of the system, an external temperature/humidity sensor on a standard USB connection.  Got the parts for the prototypes from Amazon yesterday, and still working out the code, but will soon be posting up a cool DIY Arduino project and AVCS Profile for computer sensors through AIDA64 Extreme with ambient room sensor via the Arduino, and local weather from Open Weather Maps.

It's frustrating to be moving so slow but I keep plugging away, and now I've nearly finished the main menu GUI (something I've never needed for my VoiceAttack profiles yet), and I'm really happy with how it's turning out so far.  All this without needing to run another program, VoiceAttack just hosts the applet for me and saves the values to file as part of the voice profile config:

First weekend of Fall had two of the last hot sunny days of the Summer - I went up to Long Beach, Washington to hang out with my cousin. It's about a 3 hour drive from Portland.
Nothin like seeing the sun set on the Pacific Ocean. Sunday night's was beautiful. 
Got some fresh salt water taffy to share with my fellow landlubbers back home.
Good times!

From the VG Minecraft Modsauce 2 --  I've been building here and there to further develop my castle, flattened out the courtyard and started building the village.  First building I've finished is the church near the back, tons of carpenters' blocks for a proper angled roof, and some neat brick textures thanks to the chisel tool.  The larger L-shaped building near the church is next, gonna make it a Tavern of sorts.  Decocraft Mod is what makes the interiors so cool - having tons of fun building this model castle and village!
Every few months, more of that mountain becomes part of my castle.

That largest tower on the left is my indoor automated farm - it's 21 levels going well below ground, using ComputerCraft Farming Turtles for the automation, they reap every 3 hours.  Turned them off now, I have stored 10,000+ of every crop I keep.  It's mostly a Hemp farm, which I harvest Industrial Hemp String from, crafted into standard String, and then crafted into Wool as needed for other projects.

Got Middle Earth: Shadow of War last night for $17 -- it's on sale right now until Oct. 1st, I think... From what I hear, the game is now balanced to require no micro-transactions just for enjoying the main game, though the post-game or "end game" content is grindy as hell and is played to unlock a second shitty ending to the storyline, so that's where they "get you".  Personally, I'm not much interested in this weak fan-fic storyline anyway, it's the combat and Nemesis system that makes this thing so cool.

If you've been thinking of getting the game, now's about as low cost as it's gonna get.  DLC is still full price, but I'm sure that will also see sales before the end of the year.  Regardless, IMHO it's pretty weak DLC, short like all DLC and completely different "flavor" than the main game, so it probably doesn't feel like content that was gated off just to have DLC to charge for.

Gotta take a sortof 'life pause' right now, put my Twitch Streaming project goals on hold for another week while I take care of life.  Using the time to develop ideas, and reflect on input from friends - I've decided to make a 'video framework' in my Sony Vegas program so I can drop in video footage and easily edit it down for content and upload to YouTube and this will be a better way to cater to any audience I may attract with a Twitch stream as I may not be able to stream as regularly as some people are able.
While I handle things, I've been spending my time learning Java for games development.  My goal is to make a small game (2D game like the old NES or Atari stuff) that will be an exercise to teach me the different bits that make up a game in Java and how to program them.  If I do it right, my 'first game' may be a decent framework for me to make other little games out of in the future if I want.

I already know the basics of programming in a few other languages, so it's not as hard as it could be to learn, but I do need to get into some new areas for me, so it's properly challenging as well.  Had to put the 'code learning' on hold to actually draw some characters and objects (and background stuff) for this little game I'm making.  The max size of things in the world is 32 pixels by 32 pixels, so I'm using MS Paint to make all sorts of textures - grass, dirt, stone, brick, etc.  and also to make a character framework I can tailor to different in-game creatures like the Player or "monsters" or some "princess" to save, but all sharing the same style of legs, arms, head, feet - so I've made all those up, getting 2 frames that look like 'walking' when I flip between the two (will be used for animations in game).

Fun fun!

I'm spending the time to make the look good, and when it's just pixels, it's limiting - I've made my character's framework 64x64 pixels and will scale it down in-game to 32x32 pixels to fit the world, but it will retain the extra level of detail in that way.  I suppose any graphical item that needs extra detail to look good I will do that way.
Here is a little doodle I did last night, gonna turn it into a properly drawn character for my little game, it's inspired from my memories of that little mage from Final Fantasy 9 and those wizards from the Legend of Zelda game (the original NES):