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This is a bundle of material for Runecairn from By Odin's Beard, a one player / one GM game system based on Norse legend, plus We Deal in Lead, a weird west gunfighter RPG based on the same rules-set, and a quickstart primer for their new game of serial killer investigation, Midnight of the Century.

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/Runecairn

Due to travelling over the weekend and losing all my passwords and email access (thanks, Apple and Google), I have to apologise for the delay in posting this one. I've still got 80+ emails to deal with and lots of other things to sort out so I haven't really looked at this in any detail. It looks pretty cheap and is probably worth a look if you like one on one play.

vivdunstan

I should be asleep now, but I've had a dire night with my neurological disease, sprinting to the bathroom constantly and unrelentingly for many hours. So ended up typing up ideas for my Venice virtual tour instead of sleeping! Still stuff to fill out, especially some of the details, but thought I'd share the notes so far.

( expand to see lengthy notes )

P.S. I've been to Venice several times in person, so am very familiar with a lot of the core concepts and places. Not sure I will ever get back! But this virtual tour should be fun.

vivdunstan

Replying to a Doctor Who subreddit post about first Big Finish story heard. For me it was Chimes of Midnight in 2004. Also the first time I encountered the 8th Doctor. Somehow - and I'm still not sure how this happened! - I missed knowing about or seeing the TV movie in 1996. Despite being a fan since 1978.

vivdunstan

Planning a virtual visit to Venice this spring/summer - goodness only knows when I might get there again in person, with my progressive neurological disease. Browsing Gallerie Accademia website, agog how many of my favourite paintings aren't on display at mo.

This includes my favourite Gentile Bellini huge paintings as well as the Ursula cycle by Vittore Carpaccio. So it's probably as well I'm planning this tour - including favourite and new to me artworks - virtually rather than in person now! I can sit in person for ages in front of these ones.

To be fair the paintings are not available to view because of a combination of restoration work and restructuring of the gallery. So it is for good reasons. But I'm really relieved I'm not hoping to see them in person there at the moment. Because I'd be incredibly disappointed to miss these paintings.

vivdunstan

I'm just starting a rewatch of New Who series 9, with "The Magician's Apprentice" / "The Witch's Familiar". And while I'm enjoying it, I'm finding the so very Steven Moffat storytelling exhausting. Admittedly I'm especially tired at the moment, including cognitively, as I recover from my latest neurological illness flare. But the constant jumping around from time and place to somewhere else combined with the big set pieces in between feels way too much for me at the moment. I'd really like a more simple story structure with a more straightforward beginning, middle and end!

To be fair I've seen and enjoyed this era of Doctor Who before, on original broadcast. And I'm very familiar with this style of storytelling, from especially New Who series 5 onwards, as well as some isolated examples before then. It's what we get, for example, in "The Pandorica Opens" / "The Big Bang", and so many many more Steven Moffat penned stories. But sometimes it's just too much for my taste. And tonight is definitely one of those times.

Harking back to slightly simpler times in Doctor Who history, we're planning to soon rewatch all the Fifth Doctor TV stories in sequence, now that we have all of his season Blu-ray boxes. I saw them all many years ago, and a few again more recently. Martin's only seen a few of the stories. So that will be fun, and hopefully a little more palatable for me when fatigued. That's not to say that they're simplistic, but there should be a certain lack of convolution generally. Which I think I will appreciate. Though we still have to finish watching the final BBC Narnia TV series first.

vivdunstan

Clearing out more books to go to charity, including some piano music books, though some others are staying - I don't officially play the piano, but usually use them as source material for my accordion! Keeping all my concertina music books though, especially the pirate and sea shanty ones!

We've donated many books to our local Oxfams, but in the last few months they hadn't put any online for a long period. But they're catching up with the backlog now, so we'll feel happier donating more. They often sell well for them, as well as tarot decks and card games that I sometimes donate, and it's easier for us to get things off our hands in this way.

vivdunstan

Current reading includes a reread of the second Tiffany Aching book in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. I adore the Tiffany run of Discworld books, though it took me quite a while to start reading them. Suitable for all ages, good thought-provoking fantasy. Some of Pterry's very best.

Some years ago I read all the Discworld books in sequence. Mostly a reread, but some, like Tiffany, were new to me. Now I'm taking a leisurely reread through the Witches stories and am now in the Tiffany subset. Enjoying this so very much. After that I think I'll reread the Guards books in sequence.

vivdunstan

Still enjoying our Friday late afternoon weekly Moka pot coffee fun, sharing a 4-cup Bialetti Moka Express between us two. My daily coffee maker is a Hario Switch V60, combining immersion and pour over. But the Moka pot is a fun weekly change for us. Like the best kind of chemistry experiment!

Tray with a brioche swirl beside a Sniff Moomins mug

vivdunstan

Waking late afternoon as continue to recover from my latest neurological illness flare. Heavy sleeping daily with the most bonkers protracted dreams! Still waiting for urgent gynaecology referral appointment. NHS Tayside has phenomenal wait for this particular clinic (*), though guidelines say they should see you in 2 weeks ... Meanwhile sleep.

* Current advertised waiting times are 35 weeks ...

andrewducker

Can't go anywhere in Scotland without finding a castle.

(In this case Waverley train station)
Original is here on Pixelfed.scot.

andrewducker

Sophia, looking at her phone: "My battery is at 67%! Six sehvern!"
Gideon: "That's old, nobody says that any more"
Sophia: "Yeah, and school banned it"
Gideon: "Yeah, they abandoned it"

vivdunstan

Continuing my rewatch of the Peter Capaldi era of Doctor Who, with this episode at the end of New Who series 8. And going to go into spoiler space again.

( spoilers )

andrewducker

1. Consultation on the Proposed Edinburgh Safer Drug Consumption Facility: (tags:Edinburgh drugs Scotland safety )

vivdunstan

Staring at my folders of Infocom text adventure / interactive fiction game files (from the Lost Treasures of Infocom boxes I bought new decades ago), and wondering what Z-code format one of them is in. "Let's try Z5!" says me. And whether that's the right or wrong version, Lectrote opens and runs it. Off into foggy Victorian London for a Sherlockian adventure ...

Screenshot of a text adventure playing, light text against a black background, large font. Text at the top includes "221-B Baker Street", and the words "You are standing in the spill of a gas streetlight outside Holmes's house. The street disappears into the fog to the north and south. The door to the house is to the west." The next paragraph says "You have come in response to an urgent summons from your old landlady, Mrs Hudson. As the fog swirls around you, you huddle into your coat and shiver in the predawn chill." And then there's a flashing cursor at a ">" prompt waits for player input.

vivdunstan

Watching University Challenge. And both dredging up some astronomy undergraduate knowledge simultaneously! I studied astronomy for two years at St Andrews, but had to choose between computer science and astronomy for honours after the university had just scrapped the joint option. Martin also asked at the start of our second year if he could switch to joint, but like me was told no, and had to choose, going with astronomy. We both shouted out the relevant answer tonight at the same time 🙂

andrewducker

1. The existence of trans people is not an ideology: (tags:identity lgbt transgender uk law politics )
2. Microsoft tells people that Copilot is "for entertainment purposes only": (tags:ai law microsoft )

andrewducker

In the UK most people can claim Tax-free Childcare from the government. Which tops up your childcare payments by 25%, up to a quarterly limit of £500.

The process/website for dealing with it is, frankly, rubbish. And, in a moment of frustration, I've written up why:

Current process:

I look at the amount I have to pay to the provider
I do a calculation (based on that amount, how much top-up remains, etc)
I transfer money to them (using different details per child)
I wait two hours
I come back and check to see if the money has been transferred and topped up. If not, return to (4).
I tell them to transfer it to the provider
They pay it to the provider.

Proposed process:

once only - I give them my bank details and direct debit permissions. As I do with multiple other sites.
I Tell them to pay X to the provider.
They do the maths for how much of my money to transfer, and confirm that with me.
They transfer it, top it up, and pay it to the provider, letting me know if there was a problem.

This means I have to make 1 visit to 1 website, rather than multiple trips to two websites (them and the bank), I don't have to do any maths, and I don't have to check back in after two hours to see if the transfer has happened yet.

And then multiply up my monthly frustration across all of the hundreds of thousands of people using this every month.

Oh, and yes, I sent them a shorter version of this.