Author: Peter Jones

The Wif and I were going to the Pet Expo and we detoued to get coffee. Since we were next to Top Pot, I recommended there so we could get donuts as well. Of course, this made me realize that I couldn’t have a beer rather than coffee, but no worries as we could get donuts. Seemed legit. That’s when it hit me. I want to make cold brew coffee by pouring cold beer over a basket of ground coffee. Of course, the Wif pointed out I would need to pull a shout to infuse into the beer. She’s recommending I use my Aeropress. Maybe I should do that and consider following up with a nitro system. Important thing: code infused beer. Go.

Right. Goals. Plans. Build. Trigger. Reward.

I keep thinking of Resident Evil 2 (movie) andor (btw, I now use this word) Ghosts of Mars when whichever gentleman pulled out a dope brace of guns and said “My shit be custom.” For two pretty bad movies, they’re pretty quotable that way. But in all seriousness, I want to Mange things to the point where someday someone asks where I got (item) and that’s totally how I would respond. Of course, the key is having a unique bit of branding on something to sucker in the rubes.

By it, I mean most anything. I have certain standards of workmanship, redundancy, security, aesthetics, and morality. Very rarely does any one item meet all of the above qualifications. The only solution then is to do more things myself as opportunity avails itself.
This cane to mind this morning. I had two beers I wanted to rate last night, but I was too lazy to blog them like I occasionally do. So, once I reached home with its joyful and bountiful WiFi, I installed Untapped. This morning I fired it up and started to register. That’s where I stopped; I stopped right there. Username, password, email: sure, that’s registering. First, last, dob, gender, country: that’s totally marketing. I appreciate that I will see advertisements to help me buy beer easier, but all that other information is entirely built around selling demographics, directed advertisements, and profiling. Of course, that’s all just my humble opinion.
It’s not like I’m a ninja our something. Anyone who wanted to could look up my name through ICANN or whoever. Using a name and address, with a little work, we have a birthday. However, when I volunteer to give that information with specific buying habits, the conglomerates have won.
So really, on my to-do list, easy beer ratings. Go.

Just realized the goal versus timeframe in that last post. The Wif will be out of town on the 24th, and I’d really like to build fun things during that time. This means I need to trigger the reward phase early enough to not pay exorbitant shipping. This weekend is totally booked, yay working on the weekends! However that leaves me a solid week and a weekend to spare. I don’t have any studying to do for now, which means teh building is on. I can do this!

Because I totally need more stuff. I think I’ll get myself a RedBot for kick starting my projects. Maybe I should use that as a reward, my happy little trigger target. My trust could be… build a functioning work bench and shelves. Basically, make my shop hospitable. Right.

Trigger.

Well, three scanners.
By darkened I mean torn down into the component parts.
It’s not as good of a film reference though is it.

I now have a metric (ton) of parts to get building stuff with. I have servos, stepper motors, normal motors, pulleys, gears, chains, brackets, pretty boards, and ugly boards.
Basically, I have a lot of work on front of me. The Wif is done with the quarter tomorrow, so I’ll be able to get constructing tables and shelves and stuff soon(tm).
Now to actually doing it.

Once six dollar teddy goes under the knife, that’s going to be his name. Referencing Making Plans for Nigel, which I obvious double checked to make sure it was chill. I always thought the song was about someone with special needs, which I’m really not down with parodying. It turns out, it’s actually a song about parental domination of a child, ie go to school go to college get a job…
Either way. Nigel. I’m feeling the name Nigel.
Or maybe Roland.

Microsoft put through that damnable Windows 10 reminder on my tray. That’s just rude. Also, it’s a waste of time I’m my case as I never go bleeding edge. From what little I know, and I do know little, Microsoft is changing their model much like many other software companies.
Back in the day, when we complied with style off the time by wearing onions on or belts, you bought a program that came on disks; done.
Then came game subscriptions. You bought a game and payed a monthly subscription to access the content you bought. I’m looking at you World of Watercraft.
There were then day one patches. You bought an offline game. Installed it, and watched it patch everything for the next two days. I can’t remember the last time that happened to me, bit I do remember I was annoyed.
From patches we got to DLC. I’m cool with DLC. Assuming that any paid DLC isn’t required to unbreak gameplay. Enemy Within made Enemy Unknown into a totally different game of awesome. This DLC which augmented Enemy Unknown made me excited to see what the next X-Com have is adding to the mix. Europa Universalis just adds more content and more gameplay options. It adds more depth to an intensely challenging and large game. Awesome. But. But then there’s Civilization. Every Civilization have ships broken. The fix is in the DLC. The fix you pay money for when it’s things that should have been fixed day one. I have a co-worker who won’t buy any Civilization game until is been out long enough to have a GOTY edition. I totally concur.
Traditional Free-to-Pay is equally terribad. I play game. I have to pay money to access content that’s thrown at me constantly. Guild Wars Two and your freaking Chests. Since I’m not paying for keys, would you stop clogging my inventory with this “loot”.
Now we have Software as a Service. I can now pay Adobe something like $49.99 a month. This gives me compatibility breaking updates where it has to download whole programs. It provides me fonts, that no one uses. It provides me a way to pay for the right to have the worst memory management this side of supply side economics.
Here’s the kicker. For gaming, I do pay regularly for a game or two. I don’t mind paying. The thing is, I’m paying for something. In the Secret World, on a monthly basis, I see what the new comment of the month is and pay if I want it. I can go back and add it later. I pay for them to make the game better. In Eve, they add content constantly. I’ll pay for that. At some point I’ll get bored and stop paying. Later I resubscribe and catch up on all the new to me content. A whole gaggle of ships in this last case.
While Microsoft isn’t making money off of a subscription, I’m going to assume they plan to make money somehow. I figure the devil will be in the details, and there are always details.

For the go ahead a few weeks ago to scrap three old scanners at work. It took a solid month our so to get then pulled down from the tallest shelf in the shop, but down they are now. Gonna guess they’re a total of something like 200 pounds. These are only desktop scanners if you live in communist Russia where desk sits at you.
I’m positive that I had top explain why I wanted to do it a dozen times.
Motors, rails, gears, sensors, solenoids, random other parts, big hulking sheets of glass. Rest goes to the recycler.
Vs.
Put scanner in electronic recycling pile. Puke put in cargo container. Cargo container shipped to the coast of (poor other side of Pacific country). Container dumped out. Acid rain leaches out all the toxic heavy metals which form pools that children wage through looking for things with a trace of gold.

So during my breaks, I’m getting free parts. Woot. Unfortunately I have the scanners and two weeks…
No rest for the wicked.

Went into hull last night, first time since I signed back in. Well, second time. First time was in the brand new (to me) Algos, getting my feet wet, watching my ship meet like ice on a grill. Of course, ice would do more damage to the grill than I did to the enemy.
Important thing is, I went into hull. In Eve, you go far enough and you have smoke billowing out of your poor ship. Now I have a desire. Some of the Ammar ships can have the Blood Raider looking skin which if that includes a drone ship, I could totally even use this as a daily driver. My fitting skills are probably high enough I could for one or two oversized turrets, billowing smoke, blood and rust covered ship.
Reavers.
I need to check if the visuals of oversized turrets are appropriately oversized.
Reavers.