Meant to also include something about the plans for the new computer in this post, but now that I started writing it I realized everything’s too unclear and parts of it still quite unlikely, plus that what’s going on with the exchange rates makes it quite a bad idea to jump on it next month as planned but at the same time an even worse one to wait even longer, so I wouldn’t even know what to say and all of it may easily end up being wrong anyway. As such, I’ll just stick to a few paragraphs about the third attempt to run and what I’m thinking of playing next on this computer.
Yes, that means I ran again, on Monday, and this time I apparently covered about 1.9 kilometers. It was still through the park, as I meant to go buy something after that and the track would have once again been out of the way, and it was still too fast, as it took me 11 minutes, which again works out to a speed of over 10 km/h, but maybe the speed will sort itself out as I’ll increase the distance, as it would have been difficult to maintain it for much longer. When will I try the track for the first time, I have no idea at this point, and if it’ll involve anything except simply walking in I’ll probably shy away anyway.
As for games, as I say on my playlist on MobyGames, I mean to start Quest for Infamy after the next patch will appear, as there appears there will be one to fix some more bugs, and also to restart King of Dragon Pass at some point this year. What I don’t say there is that King of Dragon Pass is a game I definitely intend to finish, by which I mean to win a long game, before getting the proper computer for myself next year and passing the one which may be bought this spring to dad, so there is some rush, but at the same time I’m not that keen to start it again while I’m still using this computer and then need to move the save, even though that shouldn’t pose the slightest problem in itself, so it’s lower down the list when it comes to what I may actually move on to right now.
In fact, at the moment there’s a higher chance to decide on one of the games listed there as likely to be played in 2015, namely Might and Magic I and Age of Wonders, than on King of Dragon Pass. Not that I’m particularly keen on those either, considering the difficulty and frustratingly outdated gameplay of the first one, which I only started initially out of curiosity, wondering what such an old RPG was like, and the fact that I did play part of the second way back, before abandoning it for some reason, as I say on my games played page.
The thing is that I find myself rather keen on Quest for Infamy at the moment, though I know I may get frustrated with it quite soon after starting, but I want to wait for that next patch, so if I’m to play something again soon I’ll need to decide on one of the others, and likely between trying to remember what I was doing and struggling to continue Might and Magic I and installing Age of Wonders to start it again. Admittedly, there are plenty of other options as well, even after eliminating anything that may require a dedicated video card, as I plan to use that temporary next computer without one, but finishing five games would make it a good year for me from that point of view and I already finished one, so going through these four may be a pretty tall order even without including anything else. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean I won’t get frustrated and decide to start, or perhaps continue, anything that at the moment I list as unlikely on that playlist.
Considering the sweeping rule changes, most people were expecting Formula 1 to be plagued by reliability issues and mistakes last season, especially in the early part. However, what happened was that the first rounds saw unusually few problems, in fact more being noticed later during the year, and even those were fewer than what most were prepared for.
Based on that, the fact that the rule changes between last season and this one were few should have made most expect most teams to have few problems. That obviously didn’t include McLaren, considering their testing woes and the fact that Honda is only now returning as an engine supplier, nor Marussia, which the public didn’t even know will try to enter the competition until shortly before the first race, so doubt anyone was surprised to see that they weren’t even able to get a car on track under its own power over the course of the weekend, but all the other teams should have been quite safe. Even Force India, which only got this year’s car running for the final two and a half days of testing, demonstrated excellent reliability during that time, so there were few reasons for concern.
But things didn’t quite work out that way, did they? First it was Alonso being advised by doctors not to race this week, following his crash in testing, which resulted in him being replaced by a Magnussen who didn’t merely qualify 18th and last, but then didn’t start at all when his engine failed on the way to the grid. Then it was Sauber’s legal troubles which, while having nothing to do with reliability, did cause them not to take part in free practice one. Then, on top of other issues that restricted running for several cars, Massa and Ricciardo didn’t run at all in free practice two, the latter even requiring an engine change. Then Bottas somehow hurt his back during the second part of qualifying and, despite ending up sixth on the grid, was ruled unfit to race. Then Kvyat joined Magnussen in retiring with mechanical problems on the way to the grid, leading to only 15 cars actually starting despite the fact that 18 participated in qualifying and 20 were present at the track.
Worse, both Lotus drivers retired without even completing the first lap, Maldonado being the quite innocent victim of an early tussle between the two Ferraris and Nasr and Grosjean crawling to the pits with a technical problem which had actually begun manifesting itself during the formation lap. That left 13 drivers racing with 57 laps to go and, while only two more retired by the end, they did so under rather unusual circumstances as well, Verstappen’s engine failing on the first lap after his only scheduled pit stop and Raikkonen being unsafely released from the pits and ending up on track with a left rear wheel that wasn’t properly attached, which probably means he’ll also carry a penalty into the next race.
It now remains to be seen how things will continue in the following races and what shape each team will be in at the start of the European season, which tends to be the deadline by which early issues need to be solved, but at the moment it looks like many went backwards in certain ways, while issues that have nothing to do with the cars seem to “conspire” to add to the uncertainty. And I guess it also remains to be seen whether Marussia’s stated attempt to race this season is serious or a mere publicity stunt and, in the former case, whether it’ll be in any way successful, by which I simply mean whether they’ll manage to start the next few races.
I’m writing this week’s first post so late because I meant to do it after finally managing to finish all adventures included in The Witcher, by which I mean the two “official” ones and the few others which I understand were added along with the 1.5 patch, and I only managed to finish the last one this evening, at 7:45 PM. At the start of the week I thought I might manage it Friday, or perhaps even as early as Thursday, but that didn’t quite work, and even completing this last one now took some effort, so if I wouldn’t have had to post something I’d have likely left it for tomorrow or even next week.
Of course, this means I now have to start thinking about writing the review, and that’s quite a scary prospect. It probably won’t happen next week, and either way I first mean to install The Witcher 2 and get it to run on just about minimum settings to import the save from the end of the first one and then save again right at the beginning with it imported, keeping that save for whenever I’ll have a good enough computer to play it properly, but I definitely aim to do it by the end of the month. That doesn’t mean it’ll work out that way, but at least I have some notes to rely on, which should make it somewhat more manageable.
Otherwise, as I was saying, my trial for Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2015 finished on March 7, so I had to pair something else with Comodo Firewall 8 at that point, and that something was G DATA Antivirus. That was a rather rushed decision, since I initially meant to try one that’s generally seen as a poorer choice at the moment and was thinking of Panda Antivirus Pro 2015, but then I noticed that a firewall was included in that, as it seems to be the case for McAfee AntiVirus Plus as well, and I feared conflicts even if I’ll disable it, so I had to quickly find another option and decided on this with little time to spare.
Uninstalling Kaspersky took a while, but that was largely my fault, as instead of following the instructions and turning off the Anti-Virus and then running the tool normally, I first tried to run it in safe mode, twice, and it didn’t seem to do much of anything, as it tries to use something that can’t run in safe mode. After that, I had to run it twice normally as well, since the first time Comodo really didn’t like what it was trying to do and I apparently couldn’t give permissions fast enough, but finally the fourth time it worked out all right and seemed to clean up after itself very well.
As for G DATA, at first it seemed to have a more significant impact on performance, but between scanning everything once or twice to have it remember that all those files and processes are safe and, possibly, me getting used to a few quirks, I’m now getting along quite fine with it as well, and it does seem to be a particularly powerful security product for a number of reasons. As such, I can easily continue this little, though scary, project, the plan currently being to move to Emsisoft Anti-Malware when this will end. Then, if everything goes well, I should have a new computer by the time that will also end, so I’ll decide what next depending on other factors.
Confirmation was received at 1:36 PM GMT, which means that, as of about four hours ago, we know that Dawn entered orbit around Ceres, becoming both the first spacecraft to visit a dwarf planet, ahead of New Horizons‘ flyby of Pluto, scheduled to take place in July, and the first spacecraft to orbit two different solar system bodies. According to the information currently available, the actual orbital insertion took place around 12:39 PM GMT, though the way in which this is achieved and the exact trajectory are rather unusual, so at the moment I’m personally not quite sure what that means in terms of how long it’ll be before achieving its first stable science orbit.
What matters most, however, is that, as of today, we’re there, and by “we” I’m referring to humans as a species. We now have a presence, we now have “eyes”, around what was, for a time, in the 1800s, considered the solar system’s fifth planet, before being relegated to the status of asteroid and then promoted again, this time to that of dwarf planet, when this concept was introduced, not that long ago.
Now, as the scientists and technicians involved will be working furiously over the coming hours and days to ensure that everything is in order and the actual science campaign can begin in good conditions, what the rest of us can do is wait for more information to be released, and perhaps spread the word and attempt to create even more interest and support, which may help other such missions be approved and funded in the future. After all, even if we’re talking strictly about Ceres, many interesting questions exist and Dawn will only be able to answer some of them, while most probably replacing them with some even more intriguing ones, as that tends to be what exploration is all about.
I did say I planned to try running again and, unlike the first time, yesterday I actually managed what I meant to do. That didn’t include looking into using the track, since a store where I could recharge my prepaid phone card is next to the park and my number was set to expire on Saturday otherwise, so I went there again to take care of both things at once, but doing almost half a lap around the lake and finishing by climbing out to the sidewalk on one of those little paths felt comfortable enough this time around that I’m quite sure I could have done a full lap as well, at the same speed.
In fact, the speed was a bit of a problem, since I was apparently still too fast, covering the 1.3 or 1.4 kilometers in about eight minutes, so averaging around 10 km/h when an article I read recently concluded that the best pace would be around 8 km/h. Of course, that same analysis sets an upper limit for maximum benefits at three times per week, up to a total of two and a half hours, by which I can easily assume that once and for a mere eight minutes is well below the lower limit, and possibly that even the plan I now have, of around 30 minutes when I’ll actually start doing this properly, will be rather little. However, it’s still better than nothing, and I may work up to an hour or so later, though that will quite clearly be my upper limit.
Also had a chance to see just how light my new shoes are and how well my feet breathe in them, as I actually looked down a few times on the way to the park, because it felt like I wasn’t wearing any. Or, well, not really like I wasn’t wearing any, but the feeling was definitely highly unusual. Not particularly keen on it while walking normally, and that’s made slightly worse by the fact that, while the left is a good fit, the right one seems a bit large even with these thicker socks, but they definitely do their job right when you’re running, so at the moment they seem to have been a decent choice, especially considering the price when compared to other options.
Otherwise, in spite of my recent posts, I did keep my eyes on GOG.com‘s “Double Insomnia” Promo and continue to do so, at least for a chance at a free game. After all, two of the games included in the promo that I’m interested in are regionally priced, so I’ll never purchase them, but if there’s the slightest chance I may get them for free for simply clicking the “buy now” button, it can’t hurt to try, right? And there are a few others I’m not sufficiently interested in to purchase, but which I wouldn’t mind having around, just in case, so clicking those as well, though otherwise I stay out of it, unlike others who seem to click everything, hoping to get something for free whether they’re actually interested in it or not.
Did purchase two games, however, and those are Banished and Children of the Nile Complete, which cleared what was left on the Paysafecard purchased last April, and which would have therefore started having a monthly fee taken out of it as of next month otherwise, at least as far as I understand the terms. Also, as I do each time it’s on sale, again seriously considered Nexus: The Jupiter Incident, but once again, also as I do each time it’s on sale, decided against it, wary of the fact that I’ll give up on it after the first few missions and never try again due to the fact that you apparently can’t save during a mission.
I guess this would be about it for now, since there’s little else to say, other than perhaps the fact that Sunday evening I did manage to finish that Deceits adventure in The Witcher. Didn’t even start the next one though, and probably won’t this week, since there’s the matter of needing to switch to try another antivirus, likely on Saturday, and then there may be a protest to go to on Sunday. Also may not be, or I may choose not to go, as I’m quite undecided at the moment, but I don’t see myself as doing much of anything until next week either way.
