The Rise and Fall of Alexandria

by on January 17, 2018 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

Alexandria is one of the great success stories of the ancient world, being founded by Alexander the Great, and then spending the next several centuries as one of the great trading ports of the Mediterranean, as well as a center of learning. So a history of the city has a lot of appeal.

Sadly, this isn’t really a history of the city. It does start with Alexander’s initial choosing of the site, and laying out the basics, and talks a little bit about the initial building. But past that, the book becomes almost entirely dedicated to the great minds that were at (or may have spent time at) the great library of Alexandria. So the bulk of the book is more of a who’s who of ancient philosophy. That still makes for good reading, but the authors are too enthusiastic, and make a number of statements that are problematic or error-prone.

The most startling mistake is a statement that the Julian calendar (correctly identified as being borrowed from Eratosthenes) is accurate to one day in 1,461 years. If that were true, there’d hardly be any need for the Gregorian calendar, as they’d only differ by a day or so, instead of 13 days. They also imply (in the Eratosthenes chapter again) that Columbus would have trouble convincing the King of Spain that the world was round, when the real trouble was convincing the court that he could make it, as the distance was too great for any amount of carried supplies (a conclusion that Columbus would have come to if he’d used Eratosthenes’ figure for the size of the Earth, instead of a much smaller estimate).

On the other hand, there’s an interesting note that an early draft of Copernicus’ De revolutionibus references Aristarchus’ heliocentric theory. Presumably they’re referring to the Commentariolus, and it’s an interesting connection that I hadn’t heard about before. (Though looking it up on Wikipedia shows that the authors perpetuate a translation-induced misconception of Aristarchus’ theory being considered impious at the time.)

This is a lighter, less technical, book than I was expecting, and for the lighter side of non-fiction, fairly well written… as long as you remember some of the wider-ranging pronouncements are problematic.

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Two Rounds of Mantinea (362 BC)

by on January 13, 2018 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: CC:Ancients

Patch and I continued our tradition of a couple rounds of Commands & Colors: Ancients over the last couple weeks with the second Battle of Mantinea as updated in Expansion #6. The times are a-changing with both sides having some medium cavalry, and the Thebans having three units of heavy infantry (one of which is the special Sacred Band). The Heavies and two MC are further forward to set up a sudden Theban attack on the Spartan right flank.

I had the Thebans the first time, and started with Order Two Right to start bringing up my refused flank, while Patch started harassing me with Order Lights. I Move-Fire-Moved to bring my light infantry into range, but couldn’t do any damage. Patch Ordered Two Right to drive off a Light with one of his, and his MC hit one of mine, doing a block while taking two in return. I used Leadership Any Section to activate my left, and swarmed the weakened MC, killing it, and also engaged his Light (once adjacent, and once from cavalry momentum) doing two blocks to it, and in return a MC was chased off with a banner.

Patch Out Flanked to move up his allied MH, and drove off another MC with one loss. I Ordered Two Center to move up, and he Move-Fire-Moved to do one hit with each of his two Lights. I used Inspired Right Leadership to close up some of the MH, and moved my MC up to contact while my lights drove off his at range. Patch used Order Mounted to move up his left flank, and forced my MC to evade out of range, but only after it drove off his MC. I Counter Attacked to move up my left-center, and charged the MC back into the fray against his light inf, driving it into the baseline for a block. Patch Ordered Three Center to drive off my lights there, and I used Leadership Any Section to close up my center. Patch Ordered Four Right (with only three over there) to shuffle units, and picked off a second block on the Sacred Band with archery, while I Ordered Three Right to move more MH up and drove his Light off the board with my MC before he Ordered Two Center MH closer.

I used Line Command to move almost the entire army up, and engaged on my right-center. I picked off a couple blocks on the flanks with archery, and then eliminated two allied MH, drove off a Spartan MH with three losses (voluntary banner retreat; I could have followed up with leader momentum, but I’d be nearly surrounded), and did three blocks to his leader-led MH, which did one block in return. Patch countered with Mounted Charge, eliminated the Sacred Band, reduced the leader-lead Heavy to one block (which then retreated), did a block to a MH in the center and drove it back two hexes (three banners, reduced for support), and reduced two MH to one block each, while they did three blocks total in return.

I Counter Attacked again, activating the remnants of my line, and moving my MC behind his line. I picked on his reduced leader on the flank, and a First Strike only did a block to me, while I knocked out the unit, and used momentum to get the next unit in line. 6-1

For the second game, Patch started with Order Two Right to start moving up the refused flank, while I used a Coordinated Attack to pick on the flanks to no effect. Patch Ordered Three Right and did a block to my Light. Another Coordinated Attack moved more units up, and returned the favor with a hit on his Light. Patch Ordered Lights, and got three hits at range, reducing my exposed Light to one block, and doing a block to a Spartan MH. I Ordered Mediums to re-form my line further forward, Patch Ordered Two Right to drive my reduced Light to the baseline (two banners, which I was happy to take), and I Ordered Mediums again. The left flank drove one of his center Lights away, while the left MC did a block to one of his flanking Lights.

Patch Move-Fire-Moved to do a block to the left MC and two blocks to a MH. I Ordered Three Center to force his other center Light back, while he tried more ranged fire with Order Two Center, but didn’t get any hits this time. Inspired Left Leadership got me back in contact with two of his Lights, who evaded, but the reduced unit was eliminated with two hits anyway. Patch Ordered Three Right, and eliminated my MC with two banners. Ordering Lights didn’t do anything for me (other than get my 1-block Light off the baseline so it could evade again), and he used Inspired Right Leadership to bring his MHs into striking range.

I Ordered Three Center, forcing his Lights to evade, and break up his line, and did three blocks to a MH while taking one in return. Patch countered with Mounted Charge, coming into contact along my left-center, and engaging my MC with his on my right. The MC took a hit and forced his to retreat while he did two hits each to two Spartan MH, one of which was forced back two hexes by another three-banner hit, and one of my allied MH was reduced to a block. In return, I did two hits to one of his MH, and a First Strike eliminated a MH before it could hit a two-block led unit.

Leadership Any Section moved the remnants of that line up, and I eliminated two weakened MH while doing two to another and forcing it back a hex. Patch Double Timed his Heavies into action, eliminating two MH, while taking a block in return. I Double Timed fresh MH into the flank of his Heavies, doing a block to his MC and two blocks to a Heavy, while I took two blocks on an allied and a Spartan MH, both of which were forced back. Patch re-engaged with Order Heavies, eliminating two MH. I Ordered Mediums, killed the center Heavy, used momentum to try for a second unit, muffed the roll (four green circles, ‘And that’s a go!’), and took two hits and retreated. And my MC knocked out his. 6-5

Afterword

The Spartans have a nice enough army that I hadn’t realized just how much smaller it is than the Theban army until late in the second game when I was wondering where everyone had gone. They really have a tough time in this scenario, with fewer units, and near-equal overall quality. The five-block Spartans are nice, but that just makes them about equal to the Heavies. The first game really came apart for the Spartans after a very effective Line Command, and I thought Patch had me in the second after he got the Heavies into my smashed up center. I had to take chances, and avoided the MC combat at first since it could so easily backfire.

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Anime Fall 2017

by on January 9, 2018 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Anime

And this was another season where I ended up watching a lot of current series. I was out a week and a half on vacation, and then Smudge came down ill around Christmas, so I’m running a bit late on seeing the end of most shows. Nothing truly outstanding this time, though there’s a lot of good ones. As usual, this in rough order of my preference, though the bulk of it is really close together for me this time.

The Ancient Magus’ Bride — This is the big one getting a big budget, and all the push this season, and deservedly so. I’d have to say that I like the prequel OAVs better than the series, but I’m still enjoying this quite a lot.

Last Man — This has continued to be good, and really well written. The rabbit hole is still going down, and I’ve been wondering just how long this complicated prequel can go, though it’s showing signs of going for an ending.

Recovery of an MMO Junkie — It’s a small world, but I wouldn’t want to have to paint it. The members of a MMO guild are all relatively close to each other in real life but don’t realize it (which is a lot easier in Japan than in the US…). It’s a romance between the main pair, and not only did well with the MMO side, but had a good story. Also, my favorite opening of the season.

Voltron: Legendary Defender — And fourth season was short again. I’m certain they’re doing just enough episodes to get to another point where you yell ‘noooo!’ at the fact that you’ve hit the end.

Garo: Vanishing Line — This is the lastest in a series of stories all set in the same world; Smudge has seen a couple of earlier Garo series, but this is my first one. And it’s surprisingly good. The world’s a bit odd, as you have what’s obviously a successful American city as the start point, and then you go off into a mid-west and Rockies that have been abandoned to the Horrors, so it’s not actually Earth, despite a lot of US signage….

Food Wars — The season started out with a standard story, with a big public fair/contest, but then went off the rails with a hostile management takeover, which surprisingly is tying directly into the backgrounds and attitudes of some of the secondary characters. It’s been a very effective changeup.

Pokemon Sun and Moon — Continuing to be a good series. I sometimes wonder if the new style for the show is just so they can do some Tex Avery takes.

Blend S — Okay, a show about a fetish cafe shouldn’t really be my thing… but it’s hilarious. It helps that all the characters are characters away from their ‘on the job’ personas, and the chemistry between them is surprisingly good.

Kino’s Journey: The Beautiful World — With how great of a show the original series was, this was promising for a top spot in the season. However, a decent number of stories were re-cycled from the original (admittedly, it’s been so long, I only recognized one of them, but Smudge noted others), making me wonder just what’s going on. Smudge was also unhappy with Kino’s design here compared to the original, and I think I agree, though not as ardently. At any rate, it never seemed to really recapture the surreal feeling of the original for me, which it really needs to to make a world full of isolated ‘countries’ work.

Two Car — Girl’s sports anime. I didn’t really expect a lot out of it… but it was actually solidly written, and had a good overall arc as well as solid individual episodes. Probably the best ‘overlooked’ anime of the season.

Blood Blockade Battlefront & Beyond — Four-word title lotto bonus! This was a good follow-up to the original series, and maintained all the crazyness of it, while, I think, having better stories. I certainly hope that we get another season of this; though I hope they don’t feel a need to add another ‘B’ each time.

Konohana Kitan — Okay, this is cute, and fluffy, and awesomely cute. An inn between the worlds with kitsune staff. Really charming, but not necessarily very deep, so I have a hard time truly recommending it, even though I do.

Infini-T Force — Tatsunoko does a crossover fanfic of several of their properties. Somewhat surprising is the decision to do it in CG, and I felt the animation was a bit weak in places, but it held up pretty well, especially for a TV budget. The story itself was pretty good, and and Smudge especially enjoyed it, possibly because she knows the properties better than I do (I’m aware of two of the four used, but have never seen them). The last couple minutes sets up for the movie sequel, which hopefully I’ll get a chance to see too.

Elegant Yokai Apartment Life —The current season of this has been interesting, with a fair amount of focus on Inaba finding his place in the world, and a decent amount of moralizing on the various ills of today’s youth.

Black Clover — The real big shonen push of the season was extremely underwhelming, and I was more than ready to drop it after a couple episodes. However, I did end up sticking with it, and the writing has gotten a lot better. Yelling as a substitute for characterization is wearing, but as long as it doesn’t draw out plotlines (ha!) it’s good.

Code: Realize — League of Extraordinary Bishies. The general ideas here were good, but poorly handled. Poorly-done steampunk (just stick a random gear on it!), with period literary characters… that are way off concept. If it was done on purpose, it doesn’t show, and just looks like the creator stuck known names on characters ‘because’, since nothing matches but the general role, and everything else is wildly off.

Sengoku Night Blood — Okay… alternate world that name-drops all sorts of Warring States people, but they’re pretty-boy vampires and werewolves. And a modern-day girl gets dropped into this. The plot is all over the place, and while there’s hints of an overall situation behind the scenes, what’s presented is fairly directionless.

I managed to find time to see a couple of older things this season:

Girls und Panzer: The Real Anzio Battle! — The ‘missing episode’ of the series, it actually features the series opening and closing. I have some problems with the main fight as several tanks probably really should have thrown tracks. But it was well done, and there’s some good bridging with the surrounding episodes in the series as well as a good overall story.

Girls und Panzer der Film — Finally got to see the (first!) Girls und Panzer movie recently. Definitely meant for the fans, as they don’t give a lot of re-introduction to Sensha-do, but the setup is fairly solid. The school isn’t as saved as it seemed from the series, and gets closed down, with the solution being more tanks! Or at least a Tankery fight against impossible odds, with even wilder vehicles than the Maus, a 1941 reference… needless to say, it’s packed, and probably could have used a few more minutes even when you know what’s going on.

Patema Inverted — Okay, playing around with the camera angles to drive home the opposite gravity problems felt heavy-handed at first, but does work, and I came out of the movie with a couple, ‘no you’ll fall!’ moments. As with a lot of movies with a bit of gimmick, there was an extra layer of twists, and I managed to spot a couple of them a bit before the big reveal. Solid writing, and I’d like to see more. Recommended.

Tokyo Godfathers — Smudge has been wanting the rest of us to see this as a Christmas movie, and managed to round us all up this year. Another really solid movie, that manages to present a sympathetic, but not romanticized, look at homeless people in Tokyo.

Fairy Tail — VRV doesn’t have the ‘hole’ in the series that is a problem with the Funimation streaming service, so I finally saw the rest of this. Tartaros Chapter was in many ways about what I expected… too big, too drawn out, and too ‘the stakes must be higher!’ to be a really good story. Not bad, but overwrought. Fairy Tale Zero was a good prequel story that I enjoyed a lot more.

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Konya wa Hurricane Coalition Turn 13

by on January 5, 2018 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Konya wa Hurricane

Crossposted from the SFU blog on BGG.

With the collapse of Klingon supply into NW Federation space, I had some serious problems to face. Overall, Income was just slightly down over the previous turn, but that was partially from a shift from Lyran and Klingon income to Romulan. The major planet in 2306 generated two EP in a partial grid, and I used one of them to supply six ships in 2708, as I knew I needed them to go a full six hexes.

Survey rolls were very poor this turn, with only the Romulans getting near average (3 on 1d), while the Klingons rolled 3 on 2d and Lyrans got 4 on 3d, for a total of a 3, two 2s, and three 1s across everyone.

Builds:
Klingon: B10, D7C, D7V, D6M, 5xD5, 2xAD5, MD5, D5S, F5L, 6xF5, 2xF5E, E4R, PDU, D6V->D6U, D6->D6S, B10->B10A
Romulan: CON, FHF, SP, SPB, SPC, SPF, SK, 2xSKE, SEH, WE, SNB, 2xWB->KE, BH->BHF
Lyran: BC, STT, CW, CWE, CWS, STJ, 2xDW, DWE, 2xFF, FCR, FRD, FTM, CP, MB->BS(F), CW->CVM, 2xFF->DW, FFE, CWE

However, the B10 rolls continue to do well, and B10-1 Invulnerable completed this turn, and was immediately fitted with an SFG kit to become a B10A. Paying for the Invulnerable’s fighters caused me to cancel a second Klingon PDU. Well after the fact, it came to my attention that the Romulans can only convert one WE into a KE per turn, so there was some post-turn adjustments to the Romulan fleet.

For raids, the Lyrans sent the DNL after the Kzinti CONV in 1801, but was forced to retreat before it could make a real try at it, while a BC disrupted a Fed province. A Klingon C5 tried to restore supply to the South Fleet, but naturally was only able to eliminate one of the blocking POLs. But both raiding D5s were eliminated by Federation reactions (an F-14 squadron, and a CA that reacted out from 7th Fleet to rescue a blocking FF). A DNL responded to a Romulan raid, and luckly the SP got out intact, while the other two disrupted Federation provinces.

With a fair number of ships out of supply, my offensive options were limited. Hydran space saw the usual after-party cleanup as the Klingons reclaimed all the Hydran planets they’d been booted off of last turn. The Romulans split their attacks, and didn’t hit anything with major force, but concentrated on trying to get deeper into Federation space, more to try and force reserves to move towards them instead of shutting down Klingon operations.

On the Klingon side of Federation space, two main targets emerged. C8V Vindicator struck at BATS 2609, hoping to retreat onto Federation planet 2610 afterward, while other Klingon forces struck at the adjacent defended Federation planet, so that the defense couldn’t concentrate on one. The other was a major attack on the 4th Fleet SB. This happened after the Kzinti Marquis Fleet reacted off of it to an attack on planet 2106.

The Lyrans were overstretched in Kzinti space, but struck at all the major targets outside the capital, including the convoy in 1801.


Confusion all along the Kzinti-Federation front.


Driving past the former 6th Fleet SB.


Counterattack on the Gorn border.

Battles:
1701: SSC: Kzinti: dest POL
1704: Kzinti: dest FF
1706: SSC: Federation: dest FF
2705: SSC: Federation: crip FF; planet captured
2804: SSC: Klingon: crip F5
3807: SSC: Federation: dest cripFF
0801: SSC: Kzinti: dest POL
2407: SSC: Federation: dest POL
2109: SSC: Federation: dest POL; both sides retreat
3113: SSC: Federation: dest POL
1801: Kzinti: dest FKE, CONV, crip FF, EFF; Lyran: crip STT, DW, DDG
1802: Kzinti: dest EFF; Lyran: crip DW, planet captured
1001: Retreat after refused approach
2204: Federation: 1xSIDS, dest CA, SC, 3xFF, FFE, SWAC, crip CA, 3xNCL, 2xDD, 4xFF; Klingon: dest D7C, 3xD7, D7A, D6D, D5A, 2xAD5, MD5, F5, crip C8, D7V, 5xD5, D5S, F5
2106: Federation: dest 2xDE, SC, crip 2xNCL, FF; Kzinti: dest MSC, crip MEC, EFF; Klingon: dest D6D, F5L, crip C8, D6, 2xF5L, 5xF5
2006: Klingon: FF captured
2509: Federation: dest PDU; Klingon crip D5
2609: Federation: 2xSIDS, crip 2xNCL, 3xFF; Klingon: dest F5, crip D7C, 2xD5
3509: Federation: crip 3xFF; Romulan: dest SPF, crip KE
3210: Federation: crip 2xFFE; Romulan: crip FH, SP, WE
3206: Federation: dest BATS; Romulan: dest SP, SK, K5
5008: Gorn: dest BATS; Romulan: crip WE
4808: Gorn: dest BATS; Romulan: crip KR, SK, 2xK5
4008: Gorn: crip 4xBD, DD; Romulan: dest SUP, crip 3xSN

As usual, there were a number of small battles scattered about that were weighted in the moving player’s favor, but a couple of out of supply Klingon ships ended up tackling a Federation fighter squadron in 2804, which rolled an 11 in SSC to force a cripple on a ship a long way from home….

The Lyrans had a much tougher force for the convoy fight in 1801, though they made up a lot of damage in fighters and during pursuit. The real annoying thing is the convoy (like several I have scattered around) are part of the opening setup, and really exist to support colony creation, which we’re not using. So I doubt he’ll try this again with a convoy he has to pay for, and this battle only happened because of a SO rule.

I had a pretty good force for the SB battle in 2204, though I forgot to use a CP, while Byron used one, so I was a ship down for the battle. I was originally thinking of just burning one SIDS per round (and did that the first round), but the EW differential was killer, and things were already getting out of hand two rounds later after I’d killed a SC and SWAC, forcing him to abandon EW superiority. I then sent in the stasis ships to try and bag things for cheap (or force him to dial EW up on the SB, which would have been fine), and they worked better than I feared, with the D7A freezing a CA and missing completely, and the D5A getting a FFE on the CVA group for cheap on a Defender Selects. The good news out of all this is the D6M present is fine, and I arranged to leave another one in the area.

The fight for 2106 was another large one, this time with Kzinti supplying about half the forces. If I’d really wanted to take it, I think I could, but it’d have meant crippling the entire fleet, and I want effective forces in the area more than to make supply easier… until he takes everything out as there’s nothing left. In both this and the SB fight, I took out some heavy scouts, which I hope sticks long enough to make everything easier later.

2006 had two purposes: 1) Make sure supply moved through the hex, which was occupied by the FF+CA survivors of a raid. 2) Provide a fight for all the out-of-supply cripples from 2306 to retrograde from, getting them much further than they could move. As luck would have it, I also captured the FF put up to let the CA get away. I may just cash that one in, even if I am losing 5-point F5s too fast.

The twin battles of 2509 and 2609 did not work out as I hoped. I had hoped to either kill the BATS or devastate the planet, but didn’t really have what it took in either place. But I had held part of a reserve in place, which was part of the point. I also had hoped to retreat onto empty planet 2610 and take it. I should have just been less fancy and taken it during movement. Byron retreated onto it, so if I went there, it’d have been a fighting retreat. But, it did keep him from doing a pursuit round he wanted.

Going after BATS 3206 meant going out on a limb, but it drew an extra reserve away from other targets. I had not expected to get get cut off completely, which was accomplished by a Federation retreat from 3210 into 3310. If I’d realized that beforehand, I’d probably have accepted wrecking a force to take one of the two planets in-between.

My worries about having hit my high-water mark are being justified, as I didn’t make any real goals this turn, other than perhaps pulling a lot of crippled ships out of Federation space. That said, 2509/2609 is much weaker, having lost one of two PDUs and the BATS being on the verge of crippling. There’s a number of ships in range of Earth, though they’d have to go out of supply to get there (but putting them into supply for the beginning of the next turn shouldn’t be too hard). Raiding the Federation capital is definitely on the ‘to do’ list (as part of reducing the Federation economy), so I imagine that area will be getting attention.

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2017 in Review

by on January 1, 2018 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Life

This is the second year where I’ve been trying to have a new post up on this blog every three to four days, and this time I made it with no extra gaps. Mostly, posts were four days apart with only a couple occasions where I squeezed it down to three (this is one of them, as I squeezed the schedule for this to be due on the 1st). At least a third of the time I had one or more posts waiting in queue to go up, which is where I want to be. Maybe another third I knew what the next post was, but needed to write it, and the rest of the time I was struggling to come up with something. Hopefully, this year I can cut down on that last a lot more, and get a few things ready for putting into ‘dead’ spots. If I can build up some spare posts, I’ll be moving to a three-day schedule a lot more.

I did 93 posts this year, up 2 from last year, which shows I mostly just avoided having any gaps in the schedule. Looking at the categories, I had: 43 posts in Books, 11 in ASL, 9 in Boardgaming, 6 in CC:Ancients, and Konya wa Hurricane, 5 in GURPS, 3 in Anime, and SFB, 2 in F&E, and Gaming, and 1 each in Life, and Computer Games. Folding those up the subcategories gives 8 in F&E, 37 in Boardgaming, 5 in RPGs, and 44 in general Gaming. This, again, points up the fact that I need split up the ‘Books’ category. Considering I did review a couple of graphic novels this year, I should at least split that off.

It’s been a mixed bag for gaming this year for me. Face-to-face gaming has really come apart, with Patch too stressed and busy to make it over much, and Mark disappearing off the face of the Earth for months at a time. Hopefully, it’ll pick back up this year, but I have my doubts. ASL for the year was pretty good, with 12 games, with 5 wins and one abandoned. I will need to find some time to get a couple more PBeM games going this year. My idea to get into some of the other moderate-sized games by PBeM didn’t happen; instead I ended up with two PBeM games of F&E, one of which has a very eager and active opponent, and so it takes up a lot of my free time. An off-on idea has been to solo a few situations in SFB, and I just started gearing up for one of those; we’ll see if I actually do it.

I have one RPG review sitting in the can, which will probably go out soonish, and I’ve been meaning to write up a review of FR8 and continue my Forgotten Realms reviews, but haven’t gotten up the gumption. Recently, I was contemplating trying to go back and finish off my EU III: Divine Wind review, and get the Paradox series going again, though past that (which is about 1/4 written) I probably won’t. At the same time, I’ve started wondering about doing a similar series just on Europa Universalis IV, it has changed a lot over the course of the expansions, and explaining it all would actually take some work. I’d also like to get back to some more design and genre-related posts, I recently did one, which is far from my best, but it was nice to think about again.

Smudge has been getting her animation going again (leading to some late nights where she just doesn’t stop), which has been part of her not being involved in any MMOs, which means I haven’t either. I did finish a couple games of EU IV during the year (one as the Ottomans, and one as England), and have started a couple others, but haven’t gotten far. I’ve spent the last month and a half bouncing around various other games, including Civ IV, FreeOrion, OpenTTD and Settlers II, enjoying them all. Despite a comparative lack of gaming, I spent around $650 on gaming during 2017, which might help explain why my finances aren’t in as good a shape as I’d like. A decent chunk of that was during a few months where I got a bit ASL-obsessed, and finally decided to upgrade part of my collection to the MMP versions (something I’ve been meaning to get to for years), so hopefully I’ll have a more modest budget for 2018. Though I might do another upgrade round.

However, the big expenditure for 2018 will probably be a new computer. Azuna is doing fine, though I had to replace the type cover, as the original one wore out; I’d abused the hinge a bit. But Horo’s primary components are over a decade old now, and I’m starting to notice. For most things, the processor is just fine, though there’s a few heavy websites out there that can kill the system (one of them being for CNET, where I work…). But the F&E Vassal module really needs the JVM heap to be set somewhere north of 2GB, and my motherboard can only take 4GB of RAM, so I’m constantly running into memory issues. So I will be building a new desktop soon.

I hit this year’s Goodreads goal of 52 books exactly, and as usual have a large backlog of books to read. During July, Amazon averaged two Kindle books per week on sale that I already had on my ‘to get and read’ pile, and I’m still working through that. Best book of the year is definitely Ancillary Justice, though as I said in my review, it’s a slow burn, it was halfway through that the book came into focus, and I realized just what I was seeing. Uprooted was also very good, and the second-best of the year. Best non-fiction (and third overall) was Stilicho: The Vandal Who Saved Rome, which was a very informative look at an important juncture in the Western Roman Empire coming apart. Actually, it’s been a very good year for reading overall, and I could easily go on for quite a while with other recommended books. Reading Through History did not get very far this year, from about 1730 to about 1750, but I read five books in that period, in addition to all the go-back-because-its-earlier reading.

Personally, 2017 has been a good, but not great year. Finances are worse (not entirely my fault, but that’s a rant I’m not going into), but not disastrously so. Gaming  is overall down, despite a good start. System is showing its age. I’m about to fix that last, and that will take some stress off the gaming I am doing, as it should improve F&E Vassal performance quite a bit. There’s been a number of problems around the apartment, but we’re actually getting decent replacements now instead of crap that just breaks again.

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