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Thank you for mentioning this. I really like Peter F. Hamilton's books and I didn't know that the latest Salvation book was out. I would rate Peter F. Hamilton as one of my favourite authors along with Ian M. Banks and Vernor Vinge. You can probably tell I'm a bit of an S.F. enthusiast.
Well, if anyone is interested... teaching trout to sing seems pretty hopeless at this point.
Even a live trout just stares at you, and if you take it out of the water and squeeze it, it just makes bubbly, squishy sounds... I mean you could squeeze in tune if you want, but that's not real singing and realistically squeezing it to make sounds is no better than one of those accordions made out of guinea pigs.
Granted the whole endeavor was doomed to fail from the onset because I can't really sing all that well... though stray cats seem fascinated by my singing... and dogs usually howl along, but not so much with the humans.
I'm still stressed out by the migratory gnus... (or wildebeests... or wildebai... or t'Gnu in the Khoekhoe language, with the apostrophe pronounced as a "click")... I deliberately haven't been following the migration too closely as its maddeningly stressful and previous migrations haven't turned out so well and this time I want to wait for the Wildebeests to arrive wherever they are headed before I start drinking heavily so I can fall into a coma for a couple of days.
Did you know that Gnus and Wildebeest are are antelope?... But not Wildebeets... those are giant migratory taproot vegetables that also migrate from the grasslands of Kenya's Masai Mari to Tanzania's Serengeti plains... only they do it the opposite of the Wildebeest, which can very confusing, especially if you are narrating a play by play of the whole thing
Also... GNU is also a completely free software system created in 1984 by Richard Stallman who was a huge wildebeest fan... despite having created the software specifically for wildebeest who don't often have much money and therefore couldn't afford Unix... "GNU" is actually an acronym for "GNU's Not Unix" and has nothing to do with Gnus...aside from the fact it was created for them and uses one as its logo...
It's interesting the places ones mind goes when they are ready to tear their hair out.
Gnus, Wildebeests, Wildebai or t'Gnu... either way, it's a stressful affair and I'm ready to climb a tree... well, mainly because I threw my sneaker at a squirrel earlier and it's stuck in the tree... I was trying to mellow out and there was a squirrel making this horrible squawking sound over and over... my guess is it's a mating call or a way for them to get humans to give them footwear to make nests out of... either way, it's really annoying because it sounds like the noise a squirrel would make if you placed it in a wooden squirrel press and rhythmically squeezed it for two minute intervals.
Which is why my sneaker is stuck in the tree... I was going to knock the squirrel out of the tree with it, but the second before the sneaker left my hand I hesitated because I had an idea about using squirrels to make an accordion instead of guinea pigs... I lost my concentration and luckily the sneaker grazed the squirrel's tail and landed on some branches, where it stayed... this was fortunate because the squirrel, being a squirrel, was too stupid to run away and did that "What?... Did someone call my name?" thing they do whenever you throw stuff at them...
You could throw an old Volkswagen Beetle at them and unless it landed directly on them, they'll do that... I'm not entirely sure if they are just stupid or they do that on purpose to get you to throw more stuff at them in hopes it'll be something they can use... I'm pretty sure that's how the squirrels got my neighbor's weedwacker.
Anyway... what the squirrel didn't think about was that the sneaker was my sneaker and when he went to investigate it, the moment he stuck his nose inside, he passed out and tumbled right out of the tree into the basket I had waiting for him... or rather would have landed in if I had walked a little faster... but I was closer with the next two squirrels... the fifth an sixth actually almost made it completely in the basket which was filled with other unconscious squirrels...
I'm not sure how many squirrels I need to make an accordion, but eight seemed like a good number, and eventually the tree ran out of squirrels.
I know none of this is probably helping anyone who might be stressed out from the Wildebeet migration and or the store being wonky, but I figured maybe someone else with really smelly sneakers might want to experiment with squirrel based musical instruments and that in turn would or could distract them for a brief period of time while things go to hell even further... or things get better... I'm not holding out hope... I've been hurt before... actually just earlier... one of the fatter squirrels landed on my head... little bastard must of been gouging himself on walnuts for weeks... I'm thinking though, fat squirrels probably make a deeper richer tone... like those operatic tenors are usually plump... it probably works the same with squirrels.
Anyway...
I hoped this distracted anyone looking for distraction for a few minutes... in a world gone mad, a few moments of witless respite can be a healing balm upon the mind... or a painful acid burn on the last remaining shards of one's intellect... it's really up to you... I didn't have many intellectual shards to begin with and 2020 just blasted whatever was left into micro dust which was carried away on the winds of frustration.
Hmm... wow... I almost said something profound... came like that close... I guess that thing about a hundred monkeys with typewriters is probably true...
You know, the one about if you "fill a room with monkeys with typewriters and leave them alone long enough, they'll eventually escape and start a user account at a 3D software site and write totally insane crap with no intrinsic value whatsoever, but not before setting the room on fire and throwing poop all over the typewriters before they escaped"...
I don't know if that's exactly how it went... but you probably know what I mean...
Anyway... hang in there folks...
Remember... there is always alcohol.
Hm, so maybe the old "Guru Meditation" message when there are system errors could be a misspelled "Gnu Meditation"?
It's certainly a "30 days of darkness, frogs raining, cats and dogs living together, mass hysteria"-thing going on. But I know how these things go with overhauls and messing with the coding of stuff during an upgrade of a site. I wish the DAZ crew well and keeping their sanity in all this.
I've been exploring all the cool stuff I already got, and it's wonderful!
Store functionality seems to be returning. Perhaps it will all be ok!
It's kind of funny to refer to it as a Storepocalypse and it made me realize that hanging out at the DAZ store *IS* the hobby now, ... more than rendering or doing something with all the stuff I buy.
It's easier when you unplug your computer from the internet
now lets plan what to do for the Movember contest
Heavens... I can't believe the coincidences........ yes, I have been very concerned about that migration too..... I love those animals... well, I love all animals..... though I kinda find it hard to snuggle up to a scorpion.
But isn't that Murphy's Law you refer to..... anything that can go wrong will, eventually.
But I am still concerned about how we will manage when the Sun swells up in its old age..... will we be able to migrate to a new planet by then? What will happen to the Brahams symphonies if we don't?
Anyway, I can't do anything about that... right now. So I am going to build a replica of the old Dynaco A-35 speakers... should be fun..... until the end of the world anyway.
Yes, Hamilton is fantastic. I have read everything he wrote. Anything would be a fantastic long TV series. The text you mention appears to not yet be available in Canada yet. The paperback is expensive compared to the earlier volumes in the series.
Imagine Murphy's Law being really bad...... electromagnetic pulse from the sun (not likely, right?) strikes the Earth and all your downloads from DAZ gets fried.... and alll DAZ servers get slagged....... :(
Dark Angel was a cool Miniseries
At least until they fired all the writers.
I never saw that series.
the trailer is really crappy sadly
but it is set after an electromagnetic pulse destroyed the economy
Wow, that looks fantastic!! :)
Laurie
It was published in hardback in the United Kingdom last Thursday. I don't know about availability in other countries, sorry.
Cheers,
Alex.
Between checking Twitter and news for election results, I’ve been escaping into VR, traveling to other countries, exploring native villages and war torn cities normally people would never have access to, flying in space and landing on the moon and Mars, and “working out” in VR by hitting stuff with bats or paddles to music lol. And cuddling with my cat. Lots of cat cuddling!
apparently some want him stopped
Crusader Queens :) (Paradox's Crusader Kings 3)... as Daurama, I was able to build the kingdom of Hausaland...err, Queendom. I survived assassination attempts from my former husband's Concubine (that fesking c-unit). I spun off some of my holdings to my sons, but Hausaland is a matrilinear/female-preferred society for inheritance, similar to the historical Hausa people in the Daura region. So my daughter will be the main inheritor for Hausaland.
I kind of want to punch through Oyo, claim Yorubaland, and get to the coast. Then, I'd run through the nascent Mali empire to the West (including Ghana). My natural "Empire" is to the East, though. Punching East would run into Kush/Abyssinia, which then runs up against the Islamic empires in North Africa. For the game achievement, I also need to spread the Bori religion throughout Africa (which also means displacing the Islamic and Christian groups, not to mention non-Bori African faiths... going to be a long, hard road).
It's a good challenge compared to playing as Vikings, who are super easy, IMO. Building an empire from a matriarchal African tribe is a little harder, although not that much harder since the game is pretty easy.
I didn't know it was so recent. I just bought it on Kindle but I don't know when I'll get time to read it. My video streaming is going to increase for a few days. I've been enjoying watching Agents of Shield but Amazon have announced they are removing it from Prime in a few days. They did the same thing with Smallville when I was about half way through it. Amazon are really annoying me! And its so long since I read the other books in the series I can't remember what happened, I might read them again first.
..yeah, the reason I haven't been here on the forums since Monday. Lots of catching up to do.
Did spend the day yesterday with the mates for a couple pints and cigars.
...yeah been thinking about that and how we are so dependent on technology for every facet of our lives that would go bye-bye. It not only would create a worldwide panic, but economic collapse unprecedented in history as so many assets and records are in electronic format.
...I did. Seemed very in step with a cyber apocalypse role play game I've been involved with.
Before all these online world builder/alternate history/strategic simulation games came out the next best thing to do was dress hamsters up in period correct costumes and have them act out famous battles and pivotal moments in world history...
I know that some people go with monkeys or apes because they can hold things better and the costumes are easier to make, but with hamsters your overall material costs are lower and for the epic battles you need less open space... but even I tapped out by the time I got to the battle of midway...
Carrier based sea battles are definitely not a hamster's strong point.
Finding a lake that was large enough wasn't so bad, but hamsters can't fly for shiznit and they just flew into everything and both fleets just crashed into each other, caught fire and sank... luckily hamsters will inflate their cheeks and use them as life preservers to swim to safety.
Too bad most of the parks around here banned me from my "historic simulations"... this would be a good time for such a distraction.
I dressed one of my cats up once
she found it terribly traumatic and just cringed, I was so sorry
brother and SIL's dog on the other hand loved her costumes
Sounds like a great project to pass some time. Did you ever consider going for smaller species to save space? I my youth I used to read american comics and they had adverts for Sea Monkeys. They certainly looked the part. In the ads they wore crowns, sat on thrones, held tridents. I'm sure they could be trained to fight ancient battles. Maybe being underwater would slow things down so you could watch the battles in slow motion. You couldn't buy them in the UK so I never had the chance to try.
I prefered the flea circuses myself
What do your cats feel about flea circuses?
they get a dab of Advocate™ behind the neck and hit the tiny carts and chariots around themselves
Ah, yes... Sea Monkeys...
The epitome of truth in advertising...
Truly a "Bowl full of Happiness".
Mine were neither "frolicsome" nor "like a pack of friendly trained seals"...
In fact within 48 hours of them "instantly" hatching, they were attempting a coup... luckily, despite being well armed they failed to achieve their goals of world domination... apparently one of the packets you were supposed to add to the water contained tiny weapons and armor.
Try as I might, I was never able to bargain with then and eventually they chose to die rather than submit to my demands for them to bring smiles and laughter to my home.
Also, it was less of a choice to die rather than to submit than they have ridiculously short life spans and are more fatally clumsy than frolicsome.
In the end I replaced them with some radioactive ants that were supposed to be more entertaining...
They weren't...