2018-06-01 11:11:09

Welcome to another of our monthly chat topics for, well chatting, each month.
Feel free to chinwag about whatever you fancy here as per usual.

Wow is it June already? Honestly I am wondering what on earth happened to 2018.

Things over here are a little crazy. Wednesday I had the most disastrous journey I've experienced for a long time, with delayed taxies, delayed trains, and what should have been an hour and a half train journey taking close to four hours! so yesterday was pretty dead.
On the plus side, Mrs. Dark and I have Finished Rose Madder by king. This is one of her absolute favourite king books and I can see why, though I'll write an adendom to the books by steven king topic rather than go on about it here since I definitely intend to write a review.

fortunately being on the train did give me chance to play a little more of the delight games library and also try out animal escape which was nice, though there are other Ios titles I need to try out for the db, as usual, so many games, so little time.

My quest to at least make Mrs. Dark acquainted with Dr. Who also progresses, yesterday we continued our trot through the tenth doctor's era, and she surprisingly really enjoyed the cybermen.

Actually with the exception of the tenth doctor being a total arse to micky, I forgot how much fun these stories were, then again, seasons 2-4 were always my favourite of the series, before the dreaded mof took over.

Other than that same old unfortunately, though I hope everyone else is having a semi decent june at this point.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2018-06-01 12:50:04

Hi Dark!

Welcome to the fine old month of June! And yes, the year, like most of them these days, is flying by like there's no tomorrow.

Years ago I saw a show on PBS about how time is precieved. It was quite interesting. When compared to other creatures, the faster your heart beats, the more slowly you precieve time. That's why it's so hard to swat a fly, what you precieve as a fast moving fly swatter, they see as a slowly moving branch in the wind, so it's easy for them to get out of the way. But when looking at just humans, our sense of time speeds up as we age. For a child of eight, a year is a significant part of their life span so a year seems a very long time, but as we age a year becomes less and less a significant part of our life span, so they seem to get shorter and shorter as they go by.

At least for me, May turned out to not be as awful as March and April were, thank your favorite deity!

Well, that settles that, on the latest Blind Bargains podcast, in the feedback section, they commented on some feedback I had given them a month ago, and guess what? I'm infamous! LOL! I can think of a lot of way to describe myself, but that wasn't one of them, but in a way I guess it fits. I was born on December 7th, just not in that particular year.

Enjoy the month everyone, and be safe.

2018-06-01 15:50:41

Sorry the seventh of december thing went past me there a little Orko, was it an infamous date or something?

I don't know about time going quickly or slowly, since sometimes time really does seem to crawl, even when your getting older.
Indeed the line from love changes everything "love can make the summer fly, or a night seem like a lifetime" seems worryingly accurate quite a lot of the time, and not always in a good way big_smile.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2018-06-01 18:55:23 (edited by Orko 2018-06-02 01:29:34)

On December 7th, 1941, Japan committed a sneak attack on the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii without provocation or declaring war first. Until then, America was determined to stay out of World War II. The following day, President Franklin D. Roosevelt started his declaration of war speech with, "December 7th, 1941, a date that will live in infamy"...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufoUtoQLGQY

2018-06-02 04:23:17

Hello guys.

I have good news for the month of June. If you may remember, I was looking for programming teacher. But most of them were not willing to give me the time of day. But I did manage to find one, and I am quite happy with that.

I am currently starting with C, and once I learn that language, I naturally move to the next one. What’s interesting is that the guy doesn’t have any problem explaining things to me. He explains rules regarding the language, and then we do some practical examples.

Also, he is quite impressed by me, since I handle my computer quite nicely. In fact, with few differences, he said that I use my computer just like a sighted person.

On regarding college, I have been admitted in one. There were only 60 seats there, so I did have to hurry a little bit. Anyway, after the 20 June, I am going to be quite busy with my programming lessons, and college.

So far, the month of June has brought me relief from the relentless heat of the summer from its very first day. I hope rain starts soon.

Also, I am looking into music composing software, but there is not much information available which I can use. Would you guys be willing to help me with my questions?

2018-06-04 22:22:52

Hi folks,
Things have been quiet on my end. I'm back in Canada waiting on a work visa to return to Japan. I have a high school English teaching job there starting in September, so I'm spending a lot of my time researching teaching styles and brainstorming lessons. On that note I'm wondering if anyone has experience with hooking up their computer to a projector and delivering simple presentations?
Other than that I've been binge reading the Malazan Book of the Fallen series. It's been quite the rollercoaster. I love it when an author commits to creating a huge, developed world that you can get lost in. He's a trained archeologist and anthropologist and it's certainly reflected in his writing.
    I think you have a point Orko about things seeming to speed up as you get older, but I think it has more to do with conscious involvement or effort. As a child the simplest things are still difficult, but as you get older you slip into a routine and days can just slip by. My first month in Japan felt like an eternity between working on the language, learning the layout of my neighborhood, finding new students, figuring out the public transport and so on. Dark seems to always be throwing himself into one project after another so that's why he might feel the length of each day.

2018-06-05 08:43:10

Hi there, things are some what hard in here, I have alot of freaking tests and things like that, but that is not a problem.
The real problem is, I have a cousin or what ever it is spelled and she is little and she makes alot of noises, drops alot of things, literaly hugs my keyboard, bluetooth or the one from my laptop when I am writing important things, in short, he does not let me learn for exams, so, please tell me some methods to get read of her noises and getting onto my keyboard, dropping things on my legs and things like that.

I am myself and noone is ever gonna change me, I am the trolling master!

2018-06-05 13:26:10 (edited by Orko 2018-06-05 13:26:41)

@Angel

How about a sound proof cage? (wink)

2018-06-05 17:18:59

I do not know what it does, but I had some antysound headphones, but that is useless, cause they are only for having the sound quieter, not for connecting them to the laptop, so, with them, I can not learn anithing.

I am myself and noone is ever gonna change me, I am the trolling master!

2018-06-05 18:51:33

@Angel

How about a sound proof cage for your cousin? (wink)

2018-06-08 17:16:59

Here's a neat trick, or at least a way to get a little peace anyway.

I have my iPhone set up so that people in my contacts list generate a ring tone based on the tipe of contact they are.

Family and friends play Music Box Dancer by Frank Mills
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpqucmEA3P4

Businesses play Money by Pink Floyd
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0kcet4aPpQ

If the incoming call isn't from a caller in my contacts list, it's more than likely a solicitor or a telemarketer, or something equally useless and annoying, so I don't answer them, they can talk to my voice mail. They play the default ring tone, It would have been nice if the iPhone had an option of "None" for ring tones, but it doesn't. So I found the next best thing. In the iTunes store, I found a ring tone called "Silent" which is simply ten seconds of complete silence. So now that is my default ring tone. The phone still announces incoming calls by reading their caller ID information, but that only takes a few seconds which is much shorter than how long the ring tone would play, so for those unwanted calls, I'll hear their number, but no ring tone.

A nice little slice of peace at last!

2018-06-09 20:03:00

Congrats on the programming lesons there dark eagle.
and the japanese teaching Nile. I'm impressed by people who do things so out of  comfort zone.
Lol amusing phone trick there Orko, wonder if it impressed King Randor?

I'm not sure about me throwing myself into projects, generally my life is rather quiet until I'm involved with someonthing, albeit I have a major deadline at the end of june so right now its horrible amounts of work for me and what gaming, reading etc I'm doing tends to be of the low key fun variety.
For example, I tried reading The Chimes by anne Smail, which is a complex and beautiful take on a post apocalyptic world, but the writing is just a little too dense and the story a bit too weird for me to concentrate on right now, especially since I'll need to write a review.
So I've put the chimes aside for a while (a very infrequent occurence for me, and am reading a very simple collection Aliens bug hunt.

This is "aliens" as in tRidley he scot, chest bursting acid blood variety.

The stories are fun. its good to catch up with people like hix and bishop, although the hix story was a little silly (I think if he'd had an x wife who was killed by aliens he probably would have said something during the film), the bishop story was cool though.

I particularly like the premise that the chest bursty aliens aren't the only nasty alien creatures out there, so thus far we've had evil flying creatures with  raser sharp wings and based bodies that explode in fireballs when shot, and evil cocroaches that burn when they touch people and lay eggs inside the stomachs of their victims which then eat the person from the inside before crawling up in waves from their mouths.

yess super hyper gore yuck!

I will admit that the constant action and lack of character is getting a bit irritating, since really having someone die a hidious gory death is a little more affective when the author has told you about the person and given you a reason to care, on the other hand, one note though many of the stories seem to be, that note is a pretty awesome one most of the time (though of course like any collection it has its moments).


@Nile I really ought to read malason book of the fallen, I have a lot of steven erecson's books, and the site I write reviews for www.fantasybookreview.co.uk really recommends his stuff and to say I've read most of the  major epic fantasy series out there from the wheel of time, to thomas  covenant I really ought to get to malasen, although when I don't know big_smile.

Anyway hope people are having a nicer june than I am.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2018-06-11 03:08:36

Ahh. Yeah. It's June. Well, I've been working on calculus and philosophy work, and some pen and paper/keyboard and well...Word document? RPGs lately. A bit of music composition as well. In my reading adventures, I'm still on 1Q84. Granted, I've just been reading a bit when I get the chance. It's shaping up to be pretty okay. Anyways, that's been my month so far...

I have a website now.
"C: God's Programming Language
C++: The object-oriented programming language of a pagan deity" -- The Red Book
"There, but for the grace of God go I"

2018-06-17 21:18:04

I hope everything for that deadline is going well Dark. I don't blame you for going for some light entertainment to unwind.
I've heard 1q84's good Jaseoffire, have you read any of Murakami's other work. I do enjoy him but find his work to get a little too gloomy at times, so I read one of his books every six months or so. But one of his more recent publications, Colourless Tsukuru Tazaki and his years of pilgrimage had a more hopeful outlook, so I recommend that one after 1q84. The audiobook plays a short sample of the piano piece that inspires the main character at the beginning and end, which I found to be an excellent touch.

2018-06-19 09:26:26

I didn't know Murakami's 's work was available in audio, several of the blogs on tor.com refer to him but I've not read any of his stuff.

The deadline is going to be possible, but its bloody anoying to have to do a literature review in a subject I no longer really care about, though at least its possible, hopefully the powers that be will like it.
Since its for the end of the month though I'm still on light entertainment and casual projects. I've played a few incremental games which I'll add to the db, and I've been doing some more Dr. who stuff, most recently last months adventure from big finish lure of the nomad.
This was actually rather good, particularly because it featured apologetic alien octopuses in cybernetic exo skelletons who were a genuinely peace loving species but who's exo skeletons had been hacked by someone else to cause them to go and kill people.

Having them say in quite a regretful tone "We are don't want to harm you, but we are afraid we will have to kill you" was sort of amusing in a black comedy way big_smile.

I didn't though like the minimising of a hole new assistant for the 6th doctor, he was a genuinely good  and appealing character and twists about him were shocking, but at the same time I really don't like the fact that new who has recently had this habbit of walk on assistants, in the past the doctor's companions were always fully fleshed out characters in their own right, and making them essentially disposable one episode props really doesn't do much for the series.
So, nicely done stunt, hopefully they won't be doing it again too often big_smile.

My lady and I are also reading Chocolat by Joana harris. This is sort of a part urban fantasy, part character study about a woman who opens a confectioners in an out of the way French village and clashes with the priest who keeps going on about sin etc.

On the one hand the writing is beautiful, on the other the morality is a bit transparent, my lady is rather irritated because its once again a completely un-nuanced portrayal of no holds bard nasty repressive cardboard villainous christians, which always annoys her for its lack of recognition that there are in fact decent christians out there, and the fact  if another belief system or racial group were portrayed as universally nasty people would be up in arms.

I will admit the lack of subtlety is rather annoying, after all "look at the evil repressive priest" type plots were old hat in the fifties, and its a shame an author who has such good writing skills elsewhere seems to have such a blind spot with her villainous characters.

Still we'll see, I'll probably review the book when I@ve done.

Other than that not a lot going on unfortunately owing to huge amounts of work.
I'm very eager to try out some longer games and muds, both for the db, and personally since 3k, lensmoor, coffee mud all need pages and I'm interested to see whether epitaff has improved its combat spam accessibility since I played, also I do mean to buy The gate, but I don't really have the time or brain space to get into anything more complex than the odd casual round of crazy party so far.

Hope others are having a slightly less hectic June than I am.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2018-06-19 10:15:43

Well, I am in hollyday now until the 9th of September, that cousin went back home after the longest month from my life, I was at the country and now I am spending my time with Alexa on Audible.
Do you haave any recommendations for books from there to buy?
And I want to make a kindle subscription along with my audible one and our prime ackount.
Do you recommend me that thing, or is Audible enough?

I am myself and noone is ever gonna change me, I am the trolling master!

2018-06-19 12:05:16

Hi everyone. All I can say about the month of June is wow! Quite a few things have happened in quite a short amount of time. 1. I joined a dating site. 2 My new set of binaural mikes, that I baught in April, finally arived. 3. I have just started reading a great series by Rebecca Ethington. Last but surtainly not least, the author of one of my favorite series has started righting book 11 in the series, so I am looking forward to that. I always find it amazing how fast the time flies, especially when we do things we enjoy.

Ask, and you will receive.
Seek, and you will find.
Knock, And the door will be opened for you
Mat. 7:7