Adventures in Space and ... Time ?

Yep.

Spot the Doctor Who quote. Although I think it's the other way round in that.

Where has this week gone ? Feels like time has been sped up, it seems to be going faster when you look back and wonder what you got up to. This week seems similarly rushed. Let's see if I can remember.

Monday - late at work, followed by a very late (50+min wait) bus and then I took advantage of zero traffic in the main road off my road to head over to Supermarket with the Harvester. It's tricky to get out of my road at the moment, there aren't many roads out of my part of Bristol and considering that they've closed one of those exits (to build the highly unpopular Metrobus), the traffic is absolutely nuts.

I needed more popcorn anyway. And there happen to be Easter Eggs on offer with a Buy 2 Get 2 Free, on eggs costing £1.50. So I have 3 more eggs waiting in the cupboard. Well, actually 2 because 1 will be going to someone else :-).

Can't honestly remember what happened Tuesday or Thursday evening, save that I didn't bother leaving the house after I got in. Think it will have been video watching and general chilling out.

Wednesday was Deadpool which .... I'd thoroughly recommend for some brainless entertainment. It's rude, crude, nasty, funny, irreverent, topped up with all the references. Definitely not one for the kids because it's a proper Deadpool movie with everything that goes with that, the good, the bad and the extremely adult content. Would I watch it again ? I don't think so. But I did enjoy it the first time. And XMen Apocalypse (Deadpool brings in a couple of XMen) should be incredible. I did think the first trailer for Dawn Of Justice showed off that film better than the weak trailer before Deadpool.

Friday ? Ermmm ... I may have taken advantage of my flexi credit to expand the Fleet ... I must get a picture of the whole Fleet at some point when the next addition is built. Oh and then chilling out to a Heychrissa stream last night while I was so exhausted I could barely keep up with reading a Waterways World magazine after watching the cricket (England disappointed again with their batting and fielding).

And a fair bit of Elite piloting today.

The Fleet ?

The one at the front is one I've had for years. Very ickle, very cute. Little things tend to be very cute don't they ? I know some very cute small people and there's one in particular who I'm hoping can be tempted to go to London Comic Con ... Could well be the first time I've driven into London deeper than the tube stations. Car will work out better I think.

The snowspeeder at the back is a new one and was a little bit of Build Therapy yesterday. I should really dive into the From The Depths game (check out EnterElysium's videos) because that looks like fun.

But an idea cropped up with the pic.

(pic credit to Merrena off Deviant Art, Google sent me to the pic which I've used in the background!)

You know how there was an old fad for Geese on the wall as decorations ? How about 3 snowspeeders ... I know. Silly. This is the thing about having fun. Sometimes fun involves being very silly. That can be the best kind of fun. I know I was having the most fun in cricket when I could be silly while still getting the job done. Things like fielding while standing on your head. Yep, did that once, had the grass stain on the hat. Can't remember if I got close to the run out but I was upside down as part of full commitment to getting the ball fielded and back in.

Gave myself whiplash once too ... If you imagine a clockface with straight ahead as 12 o'clock, I was going full speed to 12 o'clock and had to throw to 7 o'clock and to do so and get leverage on the throw, I had to throw myself backwards. On to my head. Yep, saw stars that time. But it almost got the job done, definitely gave the batsman a fright.

Wonder if there is a bigger Snowspeeder kit ? I vaguely remember snowspeeder toys being very popular so many years ago after Empire Strikes Back had them in the Battle of Hoth.

I've been back into Elite today as well. One of the strengths of that game is the variation in what you can do in it. It's a fairly lonely game but my interest is kept by changing the target for what I'm up to. The priority has gone through :

Building up to bigger and bigger ships - I reached the Anaconda (was biggest ship for a while).
Touring the galaxy trading rare items - started doing this again.
Helping out with Community Goals - where you take items to a station in return for rewards.
Running missions to get rank with the factions.

The Community Goals keep a faint story going too, today's piloting was spent setting up for one of those by working towards getting a bigger ship. Of course I could have gone directly to the place to get the ship but where's the fun in that ? So I meander about doing missions while on my way to the good shipyard.

I did manage to get one run into the latest Community Goal place. I've done things like fetch metals to build shiny ships (Imperial Clipper, still got one of those beauties) ...

... build space stations and the latest involves taking slaves to a planet where they will be freed and given their own colony. Yep, totally not smuggling the illegal items at the moment.

They should put paint jobs like that into the game actually. It's another Gimp product, where I've used its shading/recolour feature and because the front of the ship was Extremely Bright White, it hasn't recoloured. I like the effect as the purple takes over further aft. You can get a Purple Clipper paint job but ... I don't like it. The solid purple doesn't work in my opinion. Plus it's like £5 for a cosmetic item, no thanks.

Gosh - ramble wall of text alert is going off - time to close.

More cricket to watch tomorrow ! Hopefully better results for both the women and the men's teams tomorrow. No more playing cricket for me though. I am tempted now that I'm so close to being fixed on the outside ... but my insides are more battered than ever. I thought I could get away without seeing the doctor about my hip and shoulder but ... the shoulder isn't particularly happy at the moment. Feels like it has loosened up more and it likes to pop into positions which aren't quite right. Yep, numb hands and things like that. I can manipulate it back into where it should be but ... long term solution needed I think.

If I played cricket again, I'd throw myself into it 100% and damage myself more. Hell, even my left shoulder (which wasn't dislocated but was so badly jarred once that I could barely move the arm for a few days) is creaking and grinding now.

Falling apart ? Maybe.

That's where the games come in - they let me enjoy stuff without the physical intensity.

Oh - I mentioned Waterways World up there in the cloudy top of this post - the narrowboat barge life still has my full interest. I'd love to move onto one. There are 3 options for where to keep it :

Centre of Bristol - convenient for town, not so much for car mobility.
North of Bristol - great for motorway and for nipping up to Worcester for cricket watching, bad for non car travel.
East of Bristol - not so good for motorway, excellent for non car travel (nearby stations).

And then there would be the adventures touring the canal system. It'd be great to combine touring with being able to remotely work. Don't think that's a possibility in my current line of work though.

But it is good to read about the temptation that trip reports in Waterways World give. It's a quieter, peaceful, idyllic life, at least how they present it.

Peace is good !

A piece of my Asp

Prepare yourself for more really bad puns ! And perhaps some pretty crude ones too. I apologise in advance and am preparing to catch everything that's coming to kick my Asp.

(I did warn you - haha!)

I thought a little more about yesterday's post and how I was talking about being in that virtual spaceship wandering the galaxy. I think that may borrow from some real life urges.

A pic ? Here we go :

Does my Asp look big in this ?

In the virtual world, it's an Asp class explorer ship but it also makes for a perfect long range trader ship. It can shift its Asp all over the place pretty quick, the Asp is just the right size to hold what it needs, although more curves would be pretty awesome in an Asp.

Still in that virtual world, that Asp needs a better name. A name more befitting its current purpose as a trading ship. Profit Aspiration ? I like that one. Journey Aspect ? There's a few more potentials : Aspersions of Infinite Trade.

Definitely better names than Sleeper Shuttler. It's unlucky to change ship names unless it's for a very good reason, so the current ship is stuck with the unaspiring name for now. Until I lose it to especially determined pirates. I don't think that's going to happen any time soon, a few pirates have tried to kick my Asp and they've all ended up as gas.

A pun too far ? Time for a shift back to real life.

I think a sense of wanderlust is awaking in me. Perhaps that as I get closer to being fixed. I'm not there yet, there's still a fair bit of damage to repair. But it's getting closer and ravaged outsides are steadily getting reclaimed to healthy pasty white goodness.

(Cupid's Gift's gift of Aveeno moisturiser seems to be doing Very Nice Things there)

The idea of living on the barge is still with me.

That looks like some pretty amazing countryside doesn't it ? It's from Narrowboatinfo.co.uk. Check it out, lots of pretty pics and info there.

It's not just the great looking interiors and the potential for these things to be built better than modern houses. It's having the option to up sticks, leave the home marina and explore the canal system. You could lose yourself in them for years. I suspect you could spend a decade slowly cruising around the network. (One hidden advantage - where does the junkmail go ?)

As our lives become more electronic, we can disconnect from anchored physical locations. With me, the contact I have with the outside world (outside work) is dominated by texts, email, interweb browser, Facebook and Twitter. You can have all those on the move. I could have the telly coming in through satellite. I could unshackle myself from a set location and just cruise.

And it's not just the canals, it's offshore too. However ... the design of barge dictates where you can go :

Narrowboat - like the one in the picture above. Can go on all canals but wouldn't have the stability to go too far offshore where wind, currents and tides can batter it.
Dutch Barge - is twice as wide as the narrowboat and was originally intended to trading across Europe. (Hence the Dutch part!)

Here's a Dutch Barge :

That's from Dutch Barges.net and is the Katherine Class. Looks pretty doesn't it ? This class of boat is much wider for better living space (imagine a cinema deck by the galley ?), a proper wheelhouse and potential for a canopy deck behind the wheelhouse.

And being the techie/geeky person that I am, I'd look to fill it with lots of technology and mod cons. You can fill these boats with things like :
Hybrid propulsion - electric motors for the engines and big batteries.
Solar panels - ok, that might not be that useful in Blighty.
Underfloor heating - cosy.
Mobile data and telly through satellite - for a connected world.
And more.

Maybe a second career as a video making personality ? This could be perfect. Cruise during the day and when moored at night, work with the computers and upload the videos. You'd need that hybrid engine for that though, so you had power to work without generator noise in the background.

But ... and this is the big but. (See earlier Asp puns ? You see ! This was the perfect match of subjects !)

I still gotta work for a living. And I work in an office. I need certain amounts of mobility to support business trips. If I had one of these in a marina, I could keep the car nearby for getting to work and for longer trips. But if I were cruising, I'd need alternate means of getting to places like ... supermarket for food, pub for ... everything !, cinema for new movies and lots of other things. You can't really take a car with you on a narrowboat, although people have experimented with towing garages on the water for tiny cars.

Yeah - I think that wanderlust feeling is growing but it'll have to wait a while. I'm nowhere near a position where I could give up work. That might have to wait until I retire in ... many more years. And I'd want to find a suitable copilot / helmswoman to share the experience with.

I wonder if who I have in mind would agree ?

And on that mysterious note ... One last pic ?

I've been looking for an excuse to use that one :-) But before I go :

Knock knock !
Who's there ?
Asp.
Asp who ?

(I'm so sorry)

Zompocalypse Base

And now for something completely different ...

It's a daft thought really but where would you target as your base to fall back to if The End Times came ? We'll go for the standard Zombie Apocalypse type end time because stuff like nuclear war, asteroid impact (which also fries all the electronics) or biological stuff that passes in the air is a bit too nasty to think about.

So zombies. How come the thought's come up ? 1 - I been watching The Walking Dead again. Pretty good series, the first season was fantastic but it kinda lost its way for a while. This season has started well.

I've also been re-watching the play through of The Last Of Us by our ever adorable, ever wonderful Kim. (Linky). That game is set in a world (oh my, I just heard those words in That Movie Trailer Voice) where spore infection turns people into varying degrees of zombies. The longer they've been infected, the more dangerous they are. It's a fantastic looking game with an amazing storyline. This playthrough also tells us a lot about Kim as she's narrating her way through. (It's where that "interesting" tag got well and truly applied to our Pocket Lioness)

Yeah - go watch it. It's not just a great series that will truly tug at your heart, it's showing the emergence of a great youtube talent who I hope will stick around in that business for ages. If she doesn't get a nervous breakdown from all the horror games. (That's a point, I need more hug pics !)

Where was I ? Zompoc base.

I wouldn't want a static base. Too easy to assault. If you go high, then you get swarmed from below. If you go low, then they just pile in on top.

A moat is handy. Some way of isolating the base from the rest of the world. Being able to move around from place to place would be handy too. That suggests caravans and motorhomes but they're a bit too easy to get to. There's no moat with those.

So what would I choose and why ?

The idea starts with the narrowboats. They're self contained units with everything you need to keep a decent standard of living going. Plus they're mobile and have that moat protecting them. Zombies on the side of the canal ? Just move on down the canal. Locks and swing bridges might be an issue though.

But I wouldn't go for a narrowboat. I'd go for a Dutch Barge :

That's a luxemotor style barge. They're wider than a narrowboat and have that wheelhouse near aft. They're descended from coastal trading barges but the live on board dutch barges of today are of immensely luxurious standard.

Zompoc survival is all about ticking off the essentials :

Power - rig the roof with solar panels and wind turbines to supplement the generator. Fuel will be scarce, so avoiding using it will be critical. Also have as many batteries as will fit to power things like freezers and fridges to keep the food good for longer.

Food - the odd run into towns would be needed to supplement this. Or there's fishing from over the side of the boat. The drawback is that with no permanent base, there's no potential for organised farming, although you could be picking from bushes while going up and down the canals.

Water and sanitation - there's usually enough tankage to hold a fortnight of fresh water. That could be supplemented by a reverse osmosis (water maker) plant or there's stills to catch rainwater. There's similar tankage for the loo as well.

Cleaning - there's a thought. You could use the washing machine that these barges usually have but I doubt you would due to saving : power consumed + noise made. But ... there's all that water over the side ...

Consumables - you'd want everything running off electric eventually as you couldn't guarantee gas bottle supplies. But a wood stove also has potential for heating. Wonder how long you could keep a cooker or a microwave going on the batteries ?

Stealthy exits and entrances - hybrid power is coming into the narrowboats and dutch barges. Normally, there's an engine that goes directly to a propeller shaft. The hybrid powerplants can use electric motors to move the boat. So ... to avoid attracting all those Zombles, just turn the engine off and motor in there in silence.

Security - it's a boat ! Hopefully those zombies can't swim ...

Getting places - the dutch barge's big advantage over the narrowboat is that they can go on open sea. Narrowboats don't have the stability for that. There's also the potential for rigging sails, although that might get in the way of the solar panels.

You'd want somewhere you could do repairs and fix up the boat too if it got damaged. I take inspiration from a certain Bear Grylls there. He lives on a Dutch Barge moored up in London but he also owns an island where he can take his boat. So if extra room is needed for a machine shop (highly likely) or just places to store Stuff, then it can go on the island.

So - there's my thoughts on where I'd see me living out the Zombie Apocalypse. Dutch Barges are pricey though, they're the ultimate of the canal barge world.

There's only one thing more I'd want. Someone to act as sentry, as second pair of eyes, as person to help me keep my sanity in a mad, bad world. Someone kick ass who'd have my back as I'd have their's.

I wonder who would be Tess to my Joel ?

Perhaps it could be a new Empire ? Clear the Isle of Wight, Isle of Man or Anglesey and turn it into a farm, then send out scouts in Dutch Barges. Sign me up :-)

Oh - another pic. If the worst comes to the worst :

How to build a multimedia boat

I been thinking some more ...

And I hope that last sentence didn't have some of you (who know me best) scurrying for cover.

I've been pondering more about the narrowboat. Now, bear in mind that the narrowboat is at least 5 years off in the future and that technology will have evolved hugely in that time. That's opportunities coming like piping your videos to the projector over the airwaves. I already do that with my music with an Apple Airport Express (Airplay format - must not be overlooked) but have to plug things in to get video.

What's the multimedia boat need ? And also bear in mind that this is my personal requirement, which would differ from other people. I'd see it as a Middle Of The Road that gives a great experience without spending megabucks.

5.1 movies, preferably with a big screen - This is the complicated thingy because it needs connectivity, plus it needs speakers and screen hidden in suitable places where they won't get in the way.
Screens at a comfortable height - a watchable screen should be at eye height or below. If it's higher than eye height, you crick your neck looking up at it. So height is utterly critical.
Connectivity for devices - including having other people bring their ipods and laptops
Fitting in with the boat - it mustn't get in the way when not in use
Low power consumption - because there's only so much power in the batteries and running the motors makes noise which other people in the marina wouldn't like. Hell, the whole thing with the multimedia boat is subject to the noise it'd make ...
No trippy hazard - all wires that are permanent have to be hidden away.

That's the rough design I'd be looking at in a boat, with the saloon area in the bow (left of picture) adjoining a galley area in the middle. You could set it up two ways :

Opening to the side as above - And have an L-shaped sofa which could be rigged as a dining table. There should also be room for a comfy chair in the gap to starboard. The hidden bonus here is that the sofa/table could also be re-rigged as a double bed in case of boarders.
Opening in the middle to have 2x L-shaped sofas. This was my original thought but you'd lose that sweet spot in the middle.

The pic above has a U-shaped sofa/bed right at the bow. I don't like this because it restricts access to the bow deck. Instead, this is where most of the electronic gubbins would go. The amplifier, the skybox, the bluray player, the multimedia PC and all those blu-rays and dvd movies. Shelves etc.

About those electronics ...

A narrowboat is steelhulled, which should elminate all the radio frequency interference that you can see. So wireless is a viable option. You just need to have your gateway to the internet have antennae outside the boat so it has a chance at a signal. This would also handle routing all those different signals to all the different devices.

Kit list :
AV amplifier - number one job - to give great sound. But also as a plug in point for extra devices so it would want an HDMI input on the front.
5.1 surround speaker set - the big bit is the subwoofer, which you hide. The other 5 speakers are pretty discreet.
A multimedia PC - the thing here is to design for efficiency, which is a departure from what I've done before. I usually build power PCs with no regard for keeping them small. So this would be tightly packed.
Projector - to be roof mounted with a screen coming down into the bow area. Idea is that it's out of the way when not in use.
Separate blu-ray player - the thing you learn with PCs is not to be too optimistic with how they connect. The software always tends to get in the way or you get unexpected issues like surround sound connectors that don't carry surround sound (that got Asustek on the blacklist). So, you avoid the problem by having a dedicated box to play through.
Separate touchscreen display - because you might want to be using that multimedia PC without the projector on.* And a touchscreen because using a mouse on board could be awkward.
A pair of wireless enabled speakers for music. Cos sound quality out of laptops is nasty.
Wireless keyboard and mouse for when the touchscreen isn't enough.

* One of the things that would definitely change with the narrowboat life would be I Would Learn To Cook. I've been developing a taste for different stuff to eat and the narrowboat change would be a good catalyst for that. And that touchscreen would be ideal for having recipes visible to the galley.

The biggest thing is Power and the limited amount of joules you have available. That can be supplemented by having things like solar power panels but there's a couple of things you can do to improve things :

Choose low power consumption components
Use something different when you don't need the greedy bits

Hence a separate touchscreen and wireless enabled speakers. The projector and amplifier would eat up around 500W minimum, which would munch those batteries quickly. So you need to think of more efficient ways of getting the same satisfaction.

Oh my - this post is getting long. Closing points :

A lot of this would need to be designed in at the start, if not included at the start. The actual buying of the PC, the projector, the amplifier could wait until late. But - you'd want to have the electronics and wires all plumbed in when the boat was built.

That's the most important thing of this flight of fancy - the lesson :

When you're going into something, remember what you actually want. If there's something that will make things easier later, make sure it's thought about early. If there's a choice between two things that are mostly the same, remember the important features (like power consumption).

I wonder when I'll get the chance to put this multimedia boat into being ?

PS I'm trying not to mention the other reason for the multimeda PC ... It would be the gateway into a narrowboat platform management system ... something that would tell you : battery charge, fuel level, water level, loo level, gas level ... and the rest !

Directions

I've had a thought in my head for a few days now and it won't go away.

It's a carry over from the last post, where I talked about living on a narrowboat. You think about it some more and you come to realise : This is a definite possibility.

Not just yet though. Before I did make the switch to having my own little castle on the water, I'd need :

To pay off the mortgage so I'd have the equity from the house.
Get healed up.

I've not talked about my health for a little while. I'm still shredded but ... I know more than I did last week thanks to a couple of horrible days on Thursday and Friday. I thought I was having a negative reaction to my hayfever pills. And the two horrible days were when I wasn't taking them. So I'll keep on them while I heal up. And I am healing now, genuinely. I won't heal in time to get any cricket in this year but ... As long as I get my bounce back soon, I'll be happy.

This direction thing ? Back to boats ...

I've pretty much meandered through life, taking each day as it comes. My original long term goal was : Be Happy, Make a partner laugh, Have Kids. That's been frustrated by shacking up with the wrong people and recovering from the emotional fallout that comes from that. More recently it's been from not wanting to inflict the consequences of this skin condition on anyone else.

But with these thoughts of living on a boat, I have a new long term goal. I have something I can look at 5, 10, 20 years ahead and think : That's my aim. Before, that long term aim was a kit car. But ... they're toys with no real practical purpose unless you take up racing. I'm too old for that now, my reactions are too dulled. I would not be competing at the level I would expect.

A canal barge ? Compare them to new build houses and the houses come off badly. Houses are exploding in price and the quality of build is ... not great. The profit motive comes in with cheap materials and bad labourers. You look at the pictures of canal narrowboats and you're gobsmacked by how amazing the finish is. Plus you can pack up and move your narrowboat to another marina if you don't like the neighbours.

I know a close friend is having all sorts of neighbour issues and is upset with the builders too - this is at a new build house location. I remember these things. It was similar with my sister's house, the quality of materials was not up to standard.

So - quality :

Here's what they look like on the outside :

Ok, not so sure about the colour scheme. I'd look at a sky or dark blue with one of my dragons painted on with the name somewhere. Green is another possibility but wouldn't work with the dragon.

Here's the inside :

That looks stunning doesn't it ?

And with a custom build boat, you can extend your own theme like that through the rest of the boat. For me, I'd be looking at having a saloon that can convert into a small surround sound movie theatre. That would need some thought ... But I think I know where the complicated things would go. There would be steps to the front, where a couple of the awkward (amp, front speaker) things would go and a ceiling mounted projector with drop down screen would turn out pretty special. I'd also have a media centre type PC with a touchscreen somewhere to do telly without the big stuff coming out, along with the usual laptops.

One thing to consider there though - a surround sound amp plus a projector take serious power, which you'd need to account for in the design.

Layout ?

That's the kind of layout I'd look for. From Stern to Bow :
Semi-traditional steerage position, this is where the engine and noisy bits go.
Master bedroom
Bathroom - I'd go for this thinner type, other boats have you walk through the bathroom to get from bow to stern.
Galley - with the oven, microwave, fridge/freezer, washing machine mod cons. Some even have a dishwasher ... That's better than my house !
Saloon - the living area
Cratch - an area at the bow which can be used as an outside sitting and munching area.

I'd also look at underfloor heating (yes - really!) because that would save interior space.

I think the dream is real. And there's a few marinas around the Bristol area that are reasonably close to work too.

Name of the boat ? It can only be :

Sleeping Dragon.

Question before I go - what would you name your boat and why ?