Behaviour, loss, tampering ... adventure !

Chill out time is going well. Sleep is happening and I'm feeling fresher than I was last week.

At least I think I am ! I was getting pretty burnt out by the time I disappeared on leave and my body's usual reaction to that is to dig deeper into the reserves and give me a boost of hyperactivity until I can fall over later when the energy is not needed.

That tends to cost after a while though, there's only so much of a reserve to your energy before there's nothing left for the hyperactivity to draw upon. But that's just me. I have a few random mostly unconnected thoughts for you today ...

The picture is from the opening of the latest leg in the Volvo Ocean race, it's Dongfeng racing with a previous winner, Steinlager 2, accompanying the racers on their way out of Auckland. There has been sad news in the race this week ... Scallywag lost a man overboard on Monday and the only conclusion is that he's been lost to the sea. (More here, there isn't much more news)

It's a harsh reminder that even as we improve our ability to conquer our environment and go places we were never meant to be, that environment can still bite back, hard. The perception of dangers fade as success normalise the conditions into those which are readily conquered but events such as this are a reminder that the danger is still very, extremely real. It can happen to anyone, even those experienced and prepared for the conditions.

Thoughts are with the family, the crew and the other racers.

On to another sport and in cricket the Australians have been even more thoroughly embarrassed by the behaviour of their players than we were in GB of the performance of our team.

The behaviour of our players is not in question (except for the fella who is going to trial for public affray in the summer) but the Aussies have had a few issues building up inside their team for a while now. A couple of players can undermine the honour and behaviour of a team.

I believe there is a certain code by which you should behave while playing sport. You should always, ALWAYS, behave with honour towards the opposition. That means giving them due respect for their abilities. If that honour is not returned, fair enough. Respond by beating them honourably and fairly. The Aussies haven't been doing that.

More on the story at cricinfo at the link (beware, they have an autoplay video on that). Basically, a senior player embarked on a plan to tamper with the condition of the ball. He did this with the knowledge of the captain and used the most junior member of the team to carry out the deed. Despicable. If you're going to cheat like that, you should do it yourself and not bully a junior member into being the scapegoat. He's been banned for a year which is probably not enough.

Why alter the condition of the ball ? It's very difficult in cricket to get a batsman out (unless it's an unprepared England player in that first innings). A team will work hard to manage the condition of the ball by polishing it, with the idea of working the ball into a condition that will swing ... or move sideways through the air.

There are a few ways of doing this :
Polishing (legal) - I was a master at this. I could turn a ragged worn ball into one that would swing around corners. That was partly my bowling action which presented the seam well with it rotating truly and not wobbling, partly from being able to shine up the ball and put weight into one side of it.

Polishing the ball is a legal and accepted practice. The idea is that one side wears naturally in contact with the bat and the ground. (Umpires are hot on people bouncing the ball unnecessarily these days too). I think what I did differently was to pick a good candidate for swing ... usually the hardest, old looking ball in the bag. Those would swing nicely given time. Balls go soft after a while, those are no good to anyone. I'd also polish the ball on my shirt instead of the more abrasive whites.

Using sandpaper (illegal) - this is what the Aussies were doing ... You can substitute anything for the sandpaper, people have used things like dirt from the ground or special white trousers with a roughing pad built into them. The idea is that the shiny side is polished as per normal, the other side is roughed up more quickly.

Chewing gum (legal but frowned upon) - the idea here is to promote saliva to aid in polishing the ball. But there's also potential for odd things to be in the gum to then go onto the ball. I don't get this, surely those Odd Things would have done nasty things to the player ?

Anyway. Bans of a year for captain and senior player, 9 months for the intended scapegoat. They'll be back and the captain will undoubtedly continue being the despicable example of a player that we've seen over the past few years. He has stunning numbers with his batting but that doesn't excuse behaviour. It's good to see the Aussie authorities act strongly.

Which brings me to what I've just witnessed on the news ....

Not a playground but playground behaviour. (It was PM's Question Time, which is a weekly event on a Wednesday).

The behaviour there is even more despicable than you'd find on a playground, a football field or ... anywhere you would expect the lowest form of civilised behaviour.

It's a bit sad to see it actually. The MPs had to be warned again by the Speaker about excessive behaviour ... Jeering is common, MPs will attempt to shout down those who have the floor. It's very poor behaviour and our MPs should be ashamed of it.

Adventure ?

Of all the games I have which are unplayed, Skyrim has been opened again ... Let's see :

(as usual - click for bigger)

According to my screenshots folder, I'd left this game alone for 6 years. It's a particularly gorgeous game with stunning visuals :

Even for a 6 year old game, it looks good.

That's the town of Whiterun, with my player character indulging in a selfie. There are lots of things to do, lots of people to meet, new friends to make :

Poor Stumpy has been left out at night again.

How did it look in the old days ?

Bit more grungy, bit less defined. I think my machine was still running the same processor then but the graphics has been upgraded 3 times since then and I'm not on the maximum graphics settings. It shows in things like how sharp the textures can be on the walls, the ground (That's anisotropic filtering) and the roof of the Companions' building in the first pic of Whiterun.

I'll be back there quite soon. Hunting dragons :

It's such a massive game though, over 90 hours in my 2 previous characters and I had mostly just scratched the surface. A good one to dip into though.

And then there's Motorsport Manager, Surviving Mars, Stellaris, Duskers and all those other games. Oh and Revelation Space too, which seems to be warming up nicely now that I've got to the middle of the book.

Resuming chill out mode ....