Mint 21.1

 I know I know I still owe a World of Warships, Favorite ships part 2.  :)

I updated Mint today.  21.1 has made a number of changes (many under the hood and not really noticed).  Apparently they are preparing (at a low level) for more integration with Wayland.  But they also made some UI tweaks!  They tweaks are not bad, in general, but the new icons, while shaped well, are just plain old manilla with the highlight color as a diagonal stripe across the icon.  I don't like it.

You can 100% still change the icons to the old ones, or anything you prefer.  Then new highlight green color is much more vibrant than the old, so I switched my icons to Tela Green.  The color is almost a perfect match.

They also changed the default desktop icons, BUT... they allow you to still configure as you like, so I quickly switched that to the way I like it, and also changed my panel sizes to match what I had before.  Finally, I had to reinstall my applets.  No big deal, took seconds, and they worked fine.

So far 21.1 seems responsive and works well, as one would expect from Linux Mint.

Give me a break...

 I am so tired of the narratives:

Daughter of mixed Mexican and Puerto Rican parents, Ortega makes it very clear to her audience that she is proud of her heritage and grateful for having the opportunity to share her culture with the world. In a 2016 Pop Sugar interview, Jenna conveys that succeeding in the American film industry as a Latina was an uphill battle, throttled by subjective casting and strict ethnic guidelines followed in the early 2000s. Despite this difficulty, Ortega did not let cultural barriers and prejudice hinder her progress as a rising star.

What uphill battle?  How many children become actresses who have acted in multiple series and movies?

Such bullshit.

SerpentOS and Ikey

 I was a fan of Solus OS years ago.

Unfortunately the main driving force behind that distro suddenly "up and left."  He disappeared for quite awhile only to reappear announcing a "new linux OS" he was working on.

Now he is pushing how wonderful this new linux distro will be (and no doubt it WILL be wonderful) but ... when will he tire of this project?  When will he decide "oh I've had enough again" and drop it like a red hot coal?

This is often what makes or breaks a linux distro.  Solus has seen little development (or interest) in at least one, maybe two years now.  But for regular people who just want an OS they can be comfortable and rely on for years to come, this is what makes linux a difficult choice.  There is no stability.  About the only distros you can "count on" are debian and Ubuntu.  Right now any linux users/developers are angrily shaking their fist at me saying "then spin your own!" or "then contribute more!", etc.  Yes that is yet another issue.  The main support you find for any linux questions are in forums run by 20+ year old programmers or children who angrily attack you if you "ask a question that is could easily be resolved if you review the source code comments" or some such nonsense.

Face it: the linux eco-system is unprofessional and toxic.  On the other hand I do love linux, being somewhat of an OS connoisseur myself.  I still have my OS/2 and BeOS disks lying around somewhere.  And an open source unix-like operating system with a wide choice of UIs and nearly infinite possible configurations is rather enticing.

Torture.  Self-torture.

My favorite ships... PART 1

 I've been playing this game for well over a year now.  Maybe 2 years?  I lose track of time.  I've gone all the way to Tier X in several lines of ships (the tiers organize ships by their strength level and limit interaction between tiers so that you are never so overpowered that you are killed the second a match starts).  I also recently was able to get my first research ship, the Paolo Emilio.  But I thought I would list out my [current] favorite ships here.

I don't really like ORDERING them so I will just list them in no special order... maybe alphabetic.

Before I do, I just want to note that over the years of playing this game my choices have varied.  When I first started I tried a destroyer.  I hated it.  I immediately went to the opposite end of the scale and picked up a battleship... and I liked that.  They are hard to kill, and can really hit hard.  They are also generally slow and easily seen (big targets).

After playing BBs (battleships) for awhile I decided to throw in with cruisers (CA - normal or heavy/CL - light).  I found that I really liked cruisers.  They were a little more stealthy, hit pretty hard, and were faster and more maneuverable.  I played cruisers for most of the time I have played the game.  But along the way I found that I preferred LIGHT cruisers (CL) because while they were not as well protected, and their armaments were generally smaller than regular cruisers, their reload was easily twice as fast.  I LIKE firing rapidly.  Who wouldn't?

The funny thing is that more or less recently I decided I need to expand my horizons a little more and started playing destroyers (DD) and even carriers (CV) and I even have one submarine.  I have gotten better at my game play, enough so that destroyers are no longer intimidating to play, nor do I perish immediately like I used to.  :D

At first I went for super-stealthy, long range torpedo destroyers.  I realized that I actually preferred to be more aggressive, and I like the "gun boat" style destroyers.  These are DDs that focus on their main batteries more than their torpedoes.  I found that there are some higher tier (8, 9, 10) destroyers that when they were built, were almost going to be considered light cruisers, or escort cruisers!  I found that these were the boats for me.  For example my two favorites are the Kitikaze and my new Paolo Emilio.  Since I am still not the best DD player, I just throw myself into them and play them like light cruisers... and I have had some good success that way!  Anyway, on to the topic at hand:

ATLANTA (light cruiser)

This has been and will likely always be one of my favorite ships.  It and all the variations of it.  It has virtually no armor, it is short ranged, has mostly useless torpedoes... but there is NOTHING like ripping off 14 shots at a time, over a hill and setting an enemy ship on fire.  It reloads quickly as well.  It is just so fun to play... although you could die at any given moment if an enemy gets a good bead on you.

DUNKERQUE (battleship)

This is a French battleship.  It is a downsized version of the Tier IX Jean Bart, but at tier VII it is a lot of fun to play.  It has virtually no goodies (no speed boost, no reload boost) but its reload time is pretty short and its smaller guns (at this tier) hit very hard.  It has a the forward (chase) design, where it has to main turrets with 4 barrels each, so you always face toward your enemy, so it is good at bow tanking, but the turrets also rotate quite a bit so you can play a more aggressive broad-side kind of battle if you want.  French ships have good HE and good AP.  So up close battles can hurt the enemy a lot, on the other hand you really don't want anyone shooting at your stern.  One well aimed shot through the aft storage door and *boom*.

KITIKAZE (destroyer)

This is such a fun destroyer to play.  It's a mainline Japanese destroyer that is almost as large as a cruiser and it has these amazing 100 MM guns, yes, TINY CANNONS, that penetrate better than most other larger guns in other destroyers, even cruisers.  On top of that its torpedoes are not bad.  They have decent range and reload fairly quickly.  I don't bother smoking it up to hide (except when I am trying to escape), I just head in and start dodging and shooting.  It burns ships down quickly.

PAOLO EMILIO (destroyer)

This Italian destroyer WAS originally designated as an escort cruiser.  It is similar to the Kitikaze in many respects except it has a much slower reload time (due to the SAP shells - which the game nerfs by slowing reload times, otherwise Italian ships would destroy everyone all the time).  It is very fast although not as maneuverable as the Kitikaze, but it is enough so that you can do some open water dodging and firing.  Its torpedoes are also not bad and hit pretty hard.  Just not a lot of them.

ROMA (battleship)

The Roma is an Italian battleship that is a special purchase.  It does not have the amazing Italian SAP shells, and is a variant of the mainline ship Vitoria Venito (which DOES have SAP).  A lot of people do not like the Roma, but I find that it can be a ton of fun to play.  People are so obsessed with Italian SAP shells that they forget the Italian AP shells are pretty darn good.  But they do not get the angle benefits of the US and British AP, so that means if you want to use them, you have to catch the enemy ship exposing their broadside.  But if you do?  And you are within 14 KM?  BOOM.  Almost always guaranteed a citadel, or even a detonation.  Good stuff, and it forces to you get down and dirty, not take pot shots from 18 KM.

WICHITA (cruiser)

The Wichita is an American cruiser (not light) that is related to the Baltimore class line of cruisers.  The strange thing about this ship is that compared to its sister/related ships its fire power has been weakened just a tiny bit.  But that hasn't been a problem for me.  This cruiser seems to be more stealthy and more maneuverable than the related ships and does really well in open waters.

Paolo Emilio! Italian Destroyer

After forever it seems, I have gotten my FIRST research ship, the Paolo Emilio!

It is an interesting ship, most players I know feel I was crazy to go for this ship because it is supposedly boxed into a specific role by World Of Warships.  But I read an in-depth review of it written by Little White Mouse and she noted that it has some surprising features.  I also did some research from other players (players who were also wrapped up in naval history) and learned that the Paolo was originally designed (or at least considered to be more like) a light cruiser, larger than a typical destroyer.

Well, my favorite ships to play are light cruisers in game.  They have next to no armor so you really need to "dance around" and hide when you can, and then appear and fire off as many rounds at a target as you can.  Another nice feature of light cruisers are torpedoes; most have them.

So it occurred to me that, hey, if I treat this over-sized destroyer as a light cruiser, and play to protect myself from being hit but hit as often as I can I should be good, right?

I learn to play ships in co-op mode (which means people vs bots) so the score is not necessarily very indicative of how a random match (player vs player) or a clan battle would go, but even so in my second battle with this ship I was the top scorer in the match and here are the results:

I am not displeased with that.  In co-op mode it is every man for him/herself.  People play co-op to earn easy points, to earn badges, to "practice" a new ship, etc.  I have no idea if I can have success in a random match, will have to try that, but I am encouraged to find that with my gun range, and reload speed build, I can play this destroyer like a "light cruiser" and survive.

Linux Mint

 So I've documented bits and pieces of my linux journey over time.  I started using linux in the early 2000's but I still consider myself a n00b and a very casual user.

That being said, I kept running into various issues with MX, Pop, and a couple other distros... I ended up switching to something more simple, Mint.

To be fair, it does NOT solve all the issues, but it does simplify how much I can muck with my system and break it.  :D

But I really like the simplicity of Cinnamon, yet it also has the ability to extend it, and the dark theme is gorgeous.  It is also easy to get Steam up and running and even add proton-GE as well as wine and lutris for gaming.  I also (because I am a dolt and cannot leave well enough alone) found it easy to install and use xanmod kernels.  AS LONG AS YOU ARE NOT USING ZFS as your root file system.  That hoses it up something fierce.

Anyway that's it.  My puppy is growing like a weed.  She's a little beast.

World of Warships... continued

 Just a general update.  

I managed to save up enough coal to get the Forrest Sherman, I've reached tier X in multiple lines, etc.

Next I plan on trying CVs and Subs.

In the meantime, maybe I imagine things but... I love my Italian ships.  I've heard people badmouth the Roma but oh MAN I love that ship.  It is quick, nimble and if you maneuver close enough and manage a broadside?  BOOM that AP hits HARD.  I've one-shot'd cruisers, DDs, even multi-citadel'd BBs with it.  Sweet.  I also started playing destroyer lines and have picked up to Tier VIII in Italian line and am having fun with that as well.

MEANWHILE.

I have a puppy.  I got her at 8 weeks but she is 14 weeks now, a standard Schnauzer.  She is crazy, stubborn, mouthy but... she is sweet and fun.  She drives me nuts at times, but once she gets past her puppy months she will be my best buddy.

And that is it!  Cheers!

Gods and Aliens

As humans we are both intelligent and ridiculously stupid.

We have a good side, as we (in my belief) are reflections (albeit super imperfect) of the creator of the universe.

But... we are also corrupted and everything that is reflection of the nature of God we have taken and corrupted and reshaped into our own... well... whatever you would call it.

So I have been watching this series on ancient astronauts and it kind of cracks me up because there are also religious explanations for the same stuff.  Of course I see the irony here, scientifically minded/naturalist minded people will see both the religious and speculative people's views in the same light:  garbage.

Even so, one of the things that people overlook in the Bible is the topic of heavenly beings.  I am not just talking about Angels.  Angels are heavenly beings who play a specific role.  There are many other created beings in Heaven other than "angels".  God is the creator of them all.

It is clearly noted in the Bible that these beings have been interacting with man for eons, and are even equated to the "gods" of the ancient civilizations (prince[s] of Babylon for example).  Part of the reason the angels were "spanked" by the way.  It is pretty clear that God was offering a line of redemption to rebellious heavenly beings by "managing" human civilizations but... they obviously became the objects of worship instead of guiding lights.  And of course that wouldn't fly.  But that is something you can research for yourselves.  God Himself reserved the right to manage the "Israelite" people.  Hence stems the entire latter parts of the Bible (outside of Genesis and Exodus).  But I am rambling.

The particular episode I was watching was in regards to the predecessors to the Inca, and I absolutely love the various bits thrown in about "a great flood" and relationships to the ancient Sumerians, etc.  I mean, you KNOW Abram (later Abraham) hailed from Babylon and the Sumerian peoples, yes?

Aww.  I will stop now, I am rambling a bit.

It's just that man would rather accept aliens from another world in the same universe over a God who CREATED the universe, and other realms and beings.  A God who pursued humanity to the point where he became a human... and not an original human, but a corrupted version of humanity, in order to sacrifice His life to pay for the corruption we helped spread.  By the way, the serpent in the Garden of Eden?  Why did Adam and Eve just talk to some crazy serpent there?  Because they were familiar with it.  It wasn't NEW to them.  Many heavenly beings have different forms, or can take different forms.  The Serpent?  The Serpent was "common" to their experience...  But that is another story .

Why the Linux community is a pain and why Linux just can't succeed as an everyday desktop.

Please, before I begin, I LOVE Linux operating systems.  I've even petitioned our laptop team where I work to research Linux laptops, since our application servers also run Linux.  So please don't think I am anti-Linux.  I am not.  I have Pop OS running on this PC, dual booting with Windows (for gaming).

But here is the problem with open source projects, especially of the "flavor of linux" kind:  people.

Simply put people are people and since these are open source projects and little anarchist societies that pull together with a starting goal, very very soon, one year, two years, five years, some major conflict hits and the distro goes *poof*.

Yeah yeah, "well then SPIN YOUR OWN".  No.  I seriously have a full time job++, I have a family and other responsibilities and I just don't have the extra time to spend on building out my own gentoo or slackware or some other build... and I want support.  I want the apps to be updated, the OS to continue to grow and improve... and again, no time.

As an example, two very good distros recently went AWOL:  elementaryOS and SolusOS.  Both were excellent distros.  Both had interesting and "different" features from the mainstream.  But in both distros PEOPLE got in the way, resentment and anger built up and soon the lead developers abandoned the projects (more or less).

I will stick to my Windows PC for gaming and my Mac Studio for other stuff.

The hypocrisy of this is I am now following SerpentOS closely...

One can only hold out hope.

Check this place out, please. Lots of super short videos on many bible themes.

The Bible Project 

Knowing God and Humanity

So I have said before that I am Christian.  Many Christians, including myself, often find it difficult to convey what we understand about ourselves and God, the relationship that is there, who and what we are to God and one another.

We do have a mission and one part of it consists of sharing what we know with people who don't know, or who think they know but don't really because they've never looked at it in depth, they've just heard about it.

So our mission stems from God's two great commandments (yeah I am sure you have heard of the 10 commandments, but the 10 commandments actually depend on these, and in fact the first of the 10 commandments ties into the 2).

1) Love god with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.

2) Love your neighbor as you love yourself.

The 10 commandments sort of expand on these.  And then the old testament contains many more laws that also tied onto the 10 commandments.

So back to our mission...  we need to know who God is and to do what he wants of us, to be what he wants us to be, we need to first love Him.  If you love him, everything else follows.  The second great commandment is what we do when we love Him...  we love other humans.  What does this love look like?

Well, Jesus himself is a good role model.  He did amazing things that you can read about.  And I am not saying we need to do miracles, but what did Jesus do?  He fed the hungry, he touched lepers and comforted outcasts, he forgave people... etc.  He was kind and had compassion for people who needed kindness and compassion.

You've heard of that "golden rule", do unto others as you would have them do unto you?  It is sort of the turned around version of love your neighbor as you love yourself.

Well, I am rambling.

THAT is our basic mission.  But now the reason WHY we do that.  WHAT we know about God.

This can get very very complicated if you delve deeply, but the short and skinny of it is this:

1. We are all sinners.

But what does that MEAN?

Well it has different meanings but, sin is behaving contrary to the will of God (who is perfect).

Unfortunately there isn't anything we can DO about this, because since the beginning of humanity we have been doing this.

2. The price of sin is death.

We die.  Right?  The original plan did not include us dying.  The new plan is the same way.  But while we are here in our lives on Earth and while we are still in our current physical state, we will die.

3. Jesus paid that price.

The REAL purpose of Jesus coming to us (God born as a man, in our current physical form) was to DIE for us as the ULTIMATE sacrifice for all man.  Remember?  Sin is death.  We die because of  sin.  Well, Jesus is God, eternal.  He offered up his eternal life to pay the price of all our sins for all time by accepting the punishment, death.

4. He rose and took his place in heaven and he is our advocate in heaven.

This part might be weird but Jesus died and God resurrected, and there are things Jesus did while he was dead that are referred to in other books but the gist of it is, he gave the rebellious heavenly beings who started off this whole mess in the first place, a good talking to.  Now, his ascension to heaven... Jesus returned in a new physical form.  This form is what we will all receive at "the end times".  AND we will hang out with Jesus in heaven as God's adopted children.  If we accept this gift of Jesus sacrifice, he will stand before God for us and advocate for our place in heaven.

There is a LOT of stuff in #4 that requires more of a deep dive, but when Christians share the Gospel (the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus) we often stop there and people do not have a clear understanding of the WHOLE story from the beginning.  That's what the Bible is for, after all.  But that is not exactly what we are supposed to be doing.

Really our mission comes down to this:

1) Act like God's priests on Earth (feed and cloth people, help people in need, etc)

2) Share the story of God and man

3) Continue to represent God on earth in how we live and act.

^^^^^^^^^ That's it in a nutshell!  ^^^^^^^^^^

There is a lot more to this of course.  The Bible is an AMAZING book that tells it "like it is" (remember "keeping it real"?).  Some parts of it can be difficult to read, sometimes you might need to ask questions about something that might not make sense to you, but it is a good read.  There are sections where you will probably struggle not because it is difficult to understand, but because it seems so repetitive.  And in many ways it is repetitive but there are subtle differences.  ANYWAY!

Check out this web site, it is WAY better at talking about this than I can ever be:

https://bibleproject.com/explore/themes/

Constellation and Azuma

AZUMA...

 

CONSTELLATION...

A tale of two ships...

 Still playing World of Warships.  It's a fun game.  I have managed to hit tier 10 on a number of lines now and have even reset my favorite, British cruiser lines.  I am hoping to use the points to build the Ohio or some other special ship.

MEANWHILE... I have procured some special ships from Christmas boxes and after that, out of pocket.  I really would love to be able to purchase the Musashi but it has not been for sale for awhile now.  So I did some research on the so-called super cruisers or battle cruisers.  I remember when the Constellation came out and I watched some people play it and get blown out of the water.  I thought "that's a bad ship."

I forgot about the Constellation, and went on the hunt for a good battle-cruiser-like ship and since I have recently decided to go up the Japanese line, I picked the Azuma.  I had heard both good and bad things about the Azuma... that it was fragile, not accurate enough, etc.  After purchasing it I have to admit I STRUGGLED to figure out how to play her.  I finally watched several videos and saw that the key to success was to play at range and conservatively.  I mean, I kind of KNEW that but when you DO it you sometimes feel sort of guilty.  Anyway, along that vein I had watched a video on 5 underrated/good ships and the Azuma was one of them, but another was the Constellation.  I thought "really?"

Turns out I like the Constellation a lot more (so far) than the Azuma.  Despite having what others describe as "paper armor" I think she handles hits better than the Azuma, at least at tier.  I would not call her tanky, but she can definitely get in there if you are careful.  She is also faster and more maneuverable than the Azuma and can get out of bad situations a little easier.  Finally, her main batteries are very good.  The Azuma's are good too but if any of you reading this have played the Colorado, this ship hits with the same force and is slightly more accurate.

The Azuma is classified as a cruiser, albeit a BIG one.  Constellation is classified as battleship, and she is big, but she really is just a big cruiser.  Her classification is a little unfortunate.  The Constellation was never an actual ship in the Navy, but she was a PLANNED ship.  Her frame became the USS Lexington, a US navy aircraft carrier.  In fact all the hulls made for this cruiser class were converted to carriers.  The ship in game is considered what the original, planned cruiser would be, with some WWII upgrades.

By the way, oddly enough, my best matches so far (for sheer damage) were about the same in the Azuma and the Constellation, approximately 127K.  But for whatever reason, I feel more comfortable in the Constellation.  I feel like a scared rabbit in the Azuma, but in the Constellation I feel more like a sneaky fox.  So if you are looking for a premium cruiser/BB:  despite what you may have heard, I would give both the Azuma and the Constellation a good look, my preference would be the Constellation.

Aesthetically speaking, both ships are easy on the eyes.  Both have strong main batteries.  The Azuma has better secondary guns, but not much better than the Constellation's.  One thing the Constellation has that the Azuma does not have are torpedo launchers.  Constellation has two launchers of 3 torps each.  They can travel almost 10 kilometers and their impact force is between 15K and 16K damage per.  They are useful if you DO brawl with her, but they are also useful to lay down while escaping or being chased.

Thanks for visiting my web log! 

PS -  Forgot to mention, the Constellation has radar as well.  :)

Been awhile!

 I have been busy with work.  Also decompressing after work by playing games.

Still playing World of Warships.  I have a bunch of lines up at tier 10 now.  I could start resetting lines but... then I would have to regrind them.  :)  Also been playing fallout 4 again.

Our pool heater finally died after 15 years or so...  $3600.00 for a new one.  *sigh*

I am trading in my Mac Mini M1 for the new Mac Studio!  It will come in April.  Also picked up an MSI gaming laptop for my son, who needed a new laptop for college... but also this way he can play games while away from home.

I was going to build out a new PC as well but... with the insane price of graphics cards I decided to live another year with my current build.

I will try to post again soon!

First post of 2022!

 Holidays were nice.  It is always nice when my son can come home from college.  We did the family thing this year for thanksgiving and Christmas.  So that was very nice.

Ships...  I have 5 tier 10 ships now... and more coming.  I have a new favorite ship, the Alabama.  I am not a super BB player but, I like the Alabama and haven't had a "bad" match with her yet.

Work is... well work is still remote.  Work itself is good, but I have been working from my dining room table for almost 2 years now.  Ick.

Dogs are getting older.  The youngest is now 2 years old!!!  Crazy.   Our oldest is 14, the middle dog is 11.

The cats are cats... the birds are birds.

Anyway, just throwing out my first post.  Hopefully I will find the will to post something better, soon.