This weekend World of Warcraft is free for previous players–like me!
I’ll probably poke around, but I think it will only remind me of how I hanker for a massively multiplayer game world that is like WoW, but somehow better. Less focused on combat, more focused on just doing stuff and exploring the world.
Or maybe I just want a good single player RPG.
On a semi-related note, I’ve had several dreams about City of Heroes (2004-2012) recently. This is weird because I pretty much never dream about games and nothing has happened lately to prompt me to have dreams about it. Maybe seeing Captain Marvel triggered the dreams. Maybe my brain is just weird and random.
I’ll report back on my WoW revisit after the weekend. I expect minor shenanigans at best.
In which I feel it a little more than last time, but stay on-track for the full 25 minutes.
This time the timer was set to the standard 30 minutes, so I got the cooldown at the expected 25 minute mark. Unlike Thursday’s run, I did not particularly get a second wind tonight, and I also supped from my water bottle several times during the run. Still, I ran the full 25 minutes, then walked during the five-minute cooldown. I stop tracking the run when the cooldown begins, so the pace doesn’t get thrown off by all the lazy walking.
My BPM was slightly higher at 155, but that was because I was working harder–my average pace dropped from 6:16/km to 6:11/km. You may wonder how you improve your pace on a treadmill that moves at the same speed for the entire time. So do I, a little. Really, though, it’s easy to recognize when I’m over or under-performing. Under performing = moving farther back on the treadmill. Over-performing = running into the grips at the front. I did a bit of both tonight.
Overall, though, an effort I am happy with, and no issues to note.
Stats (note the 2+ minutes difference in time vs. the last run):
Distance: 4.01 km (4.39) Time: 24:50 (27:34) Average pace: 6:11/km (6:16/km) BPM: 155 (153) Calories: 283 (297) Total treadmill distance: 38.54 km
Urban treehouse on Main Street. Seriously, this is just weird. The area around the bottom of the pillars is a nice park-like place with boardwalks and water, though. Also note that one of the pillars–but only one–looks like a tree trunk.
Today Apple quietly announced two sort-of new iPads: the iPad air and the iPad mini. Both of these have already existed, the Air reaching version 2, the mini reaching version 4.
The mini was badly in need of an update, having last seen hardware improvements in 2015–par for the course with the current Apple, neglecting its products for years on end (the Mac Pro is still the reigning champ, now sitting at 5+ years without a single update, though Apple has promised a new version this year).
The reason I call Apple’s vision for the iPad kooky is because I don’t think it was planned, it’s still a bit of a mess, but it is, finally, a kind of actual plan and presents a clearer vision of the iPad line-up.
In 2010 the iPad line-up was simple. There was the iPad, selling for $499. That was it.
In 2011 Apple brought out the iPad 2 for $499 and that was it. The same philosophy continued through successive models:
The New iPad (2012). This was an improved version 2, with the dumbest iPad name ever.
iPad (4th generation, also 2012). Basically The New iPad, but with a lightning port.
iPad Air (2013). This featured a lot of improvements–a better display, thinner, lighter (hence the name), but still kept the $499 price.
iPad Air 2 (2014). Like the Air, but with refinements.
In 2012, when the fourth gen iPad appeared, Apple introduced the iPad mini. This was the first time buyers had a distinct choice of what iPad to get, but it was still pretty clear: get a big iPad, or get a small one. In terms of specs, they were very similar.
In 2015 Apple mixed things up again by bringing out the first iPad Pro. It had a whopping 12.9 inch display and similarly whopping price. Again, the difference between the three models was clear–size (and price, with the Pro model).
In early 2016 Apple added the 9.7 inch iPad Pro and here things got confusing. The smaller Pro sold for $599, only $100 more than the Air 2. It had Apple Pencil support, a faster processor, generally enough improvements that people might be tempted to spend that extra $100. Apple was now in a position where it would cannibalize its own sales–but not in a good way.
Apple “fixed” the issue in 2017 by coming out with both a new iPad (again just called iPad, this being the sixth generation), killing off the Air 2 and bumping the specs of the 9.7 inch Pro to a 10.5 inch model. They sealed the deal by increasing the price of the Pro to $649 and decreasing (!) the iPad price to $329. Apple also made a lot of compromises with the iPad and its tech, essentially reverting it back to something more akin to the original iPad Air.
Now the gap between regular and Pro was clear: price! The smaller Pro cost almost twice as much.
This continued into 2018 when Apple introduced the third generation of Pros, with the now 11 inch model selling for $799 vs. the still $329 iPad. The 12.9 inch model started at $999.
But now Apple had a problem of their own making. The iPad and iPad Pros could both do all the same things, run all the same software. In 2018 Apple even added Pencil support to the cheaper model. The current Pros are great tablets–provided you don’t need a headphone jack–but the price difference was now so stark that most people wouldn’t even consider the Pro models, unless they had an extremely compelling use case or simply didn’t care about the cost.
Thus, today’s additions.
The revived iPad Air (not called iPad Air 3, just iPad Air, but at least it’s not New iPad Air) does three things: it cements the return of Air branding (started when the MacBook Air was refreshed–finally–in October 2018), further underlines Apple moving away from version numbers (only the phones and watches persist) and most importantly, provides a product in-between the cheap iPad and the ludicrously expensive iPad Pro. And the price?
Yep, $499.
In reality, the new iPad Air is essentially the just-discontinued iPad Pro 10.5 inch. It was selling for $649, so the Air is significantly cheaper. There are some features cut, like the 120 Mhz refresh rate Apple calls Promotion, but all of the important stuff from the 10.5 inch Pro has been kept, just at a lower price.
The mini is in a weirder place. I thought Apple was going to go the cheap iPad route, and revert the min back to the iPad mini 3 era of design–thicker, heavier, non-laminated display and so on, to keep the price down. Instead, they went the opposite, actually improving the specs. The display is even better than before, it adds Pencil support and so on, without changing the price, which remains $399. There is one downgrade–the mini 4 was reduced to one configuration with 128 GB of storage. The new one starts at 64 GB, so the cost is the same, but storage is now halved, though one might argue the improvements make up for it. I bought my mini 4 in late 2016 and back then I paid $499 Canadian for a 32 B model. I can now get the new 64 GB version for $529, a modest (for Apple) price increase that reflects the drubbing the Canadian dollar has taken over the last two years.
The iPad mini, then, is sort of a semi-pro, so Apple must be counting on people wanting the smaller size being willing to pay for it.
And now, for the moment, the iPad line and its vision are complete. There is a low end model, a smaller model, a mid-range model, and a pair of high end models. Prices start reasonable (for apple) and progress up to through-the-roof. And for the first time in a long time, all of the models are current. None are year-old models sold for less (or the same price, as the 10.5 inch Pro was).
This may help Apple keep iPad sales from stagnating, by tempting more people into spending what used to be the old iPad price of $499 to get the nicer specs. I wonder how it will affect the Pro models, though. Face ID and slimmer bezels are nice, but not hundreds of dollars more nice. For me, at least.
And for me, I’m content to stick with my iPad Pro 10.5 inch. It still works great as it nears its two year birthday and the new Air would only be an upgrade in terms of the processor boost–but the 10.5 inch has never felt slow.
(Also, congratulate me for not making a single penis joke after typing out 10.5 inch so many times.)
My iPad mini, now over two years old, is suffering worsening battery life. It will run itself all the way down in just two days of idling, so I have to charge it every other day instead of just once a week. I’m not keen on having to replace it, but at least when I do I won’t be paying much more (or maybe not more at all if I wait for a sale), and I’ll be getting some nice improvements, as well.
Probably the dumbest move Apple has made recently in regards to the iPad is calling the second generation Apple Pencil…Apple Pencil. See this Verge article for more.
As with most anthologies, this collection is filled with stories that are mostly fine, a few that are great and some that are merely okay. That Bev Vincent managed to collect enough stories based around a specific theme–terrible things happening on aircraft, makes the overall quality noteworthy.
All but two of the stories have been previously published, but given the narrow focus of the collection, it’s likely you will not have read many of them. Here’s a short summary of each. Overall I can recommend this collection to fans of horror or suspense. And if you read these stories while flying, I salute you.
“Cargo” by E. Michael Lewis is an effectively creepy opener in which a Loadmaster onboard a Lockheed C-141A StarLifter transport must deal oversee dozens of coffins being sent back to the U.S., straight from the Jonestown massacre. Things go bump in the plane.
“The Horror of the Heights” by Arthur Conan Doyle. This story has been scuppered by the inevitable march of progress in air flight (not to mention space travel), but it’s still a nifty epistolary of a pilot who dares to fly his solo aircraft into the unheard of reaches of 40,000 feet, where strange and hostile creatures are rumored to dwell.
“Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” by Richard Matheson. This is easily the best-known story of the anthology, and if you’ve seen the classic Twilight zone episode, which Matheson also adapted, you’ll find it is largely faithful to the original story of a man convinced he is seeing a creature on the plane’s wing, trying to tamper with the engine. Chilling, suspenseful and an all-around good time.
“The Flying Machine” by Ambrose Bierce. An odd short short more about procuring investment from gullible types than flying (Bierce died in 1914).
“Lucifer!” by E.C. Tubb. A morgue attendant pries the ring off a dead body before it is claimed. He discovers the ring has certain unique qualities while abroad a flight and from there a devious mix of time travel and terror unfolds.
“The Fifth Category” by Thomas Carlisle Bissell. A man who worked for the U.S. government during the Iraq invasion, writing legal opinions on torture, earns himself a reputation for being a war criminal by some. He agrees to give a speech, with others, in Lithuania, then on the flight home, strange things happen that seem to relate to his defense of torture. This dark tale is wonderfully written, with prose that snaps and sparkles.
“Two Minutes Forty-Five Seconds” by Dan Simmons. A shorter piece in which a man feeling guilty of what he has done with his life, decides to do something about it while in a private jet full of executives. This one didn’t grab me and the rollercoaster analogy fell flat.
“Diablitos” by Cody Goodfellow. Ryan Rayburn III tries to smuggle a mask from a now-extinguished primitive people known as the Xorocua onboard a 727. The mask was worn in harvest ceremonies to summon Diablitos, or little demons. You know how you shouldn’t steal uranium with your bare hands? This story is kind of like that. And it is delightful.
“Air Raid” by John Varley. This is a weird time travel story taking place on a commercial flight in 1979 (the story was written in 1977) and I can’t really say much without spoiling it, but it’s a neat idea, filled with quirks and people just doing their jobs, however strange their jobs may be. Another good one.
“You Are Released” by Joe Hill. This story os one of two originals written for the collection and is my favorite. It’s a simple story–a group of passengers on a 777 are returning to Boston when the pilot announces a report of a flash near Guam. Details emerge that it may be a nuclear strike, and the various characters–an actress, an alcoholic, a MAGA adherent and others–begin to realize that a full-on nuclear exchange is likely taking place as they cruise 30,000 feet above what could be the start of the end of human civilization. Harrowing and authentic.
“Warbirds” by David J. Schow. An old flyer from World War II tells the son of a fellow flyer, now deceased, about the warbirds, strange creatures that he swears flew with them through their battles in the sky. This one has a haunting quality to it I liked.
“The Flying Machine” by Ray Bradbury. A short and dark tale sent in China in AD 400, in which the servant of Emperor Yuan spots a man impossibly flying, using some kind of contraption he has apparently built himself. The emperor, fearing what might happen if flight became more common–and the great defense of The Great Wall was trivialized–orders the flier executed, and swears the servant to the same, hoping to prevent anyone else from inventing another flying machine and using it for dark purposes. Well, we all know how that turned out. 😛 Bradbury writes well, as always, but the lesson here felt a little too on-point.
“Zombies on a Plane” by Bev Vincent. This is a short, slight tale about a group of survivors amid a zombie apocalypse trying to escape dodge on a small passenger jet. A twist ending of sorts and there are zombies, as promised in the title. A decent take, but nothing revelatory.
“They Shall Not Grow Old” by Roald Dahl. I adored this story, not just for the language, but also for the sheer earnestness of WWII pilot Fin, describing to his baffled comrades how he came back two days after a surveillance mission, long after his plane would have run out of fuel. Published near the end of the war, it brims with authentic detail as Fin depicts his trip into the light.
“Murder in the Air” by Peter Tremayne. A straight-up murder mystery on a commercial flight, with suspects, an investigation, the explanation and everything neatly wrapped up by the end, including, presumably, the body. Despite the gore surrounding the deceased, this is probably the closet the collection gets to high brow. There’s Latin and all that. I enjoyed it, though murder mysteries aren’t really my thing.
“The Turbulence Expert” by Stephen King. The other original story, this story hints at people who can see the future and conscript others to avoid worst case scenarios–in this case, potentially fatal clear air turbulence on commercial airliners. It’s fun and the characters are smart and witty and engaging. My one nit is the Mary Worth character (literally named Mary Worth) seems a little too quick on the uptake, given the oddities she is presented with.
“Falling” by James L. Dickey. Stephen King introduces this with, “Before you groan, shake your head, and say ‘I don’t read poetry,'” which is exactly where I stopped. It may be a dazzling poem and perhaps I will go back and read it one day. But not now.
Tonight I wanted to go farther between intervals as my main goal. I focused at the start on two things: my breathing and how I generally felt. And I felt pretty decent.
Once I got to about the 14 minute mark I knew I could push to 20 without slowing to a walk, and probably go right up to the cooldown at the 25-minute mark.
Which I did, though the cooldown mysteriously did not begin at the 25-minute mark. I discovered after that the previous user had set the total time to 32 minutes (signs near the machines ask you to limit workouts to 30 minutes as a courtesy if others are waiting). That meant the cooldown didn’t stop until the 27-minute mark.
It was at that point that I switched to a fast walk and I walked for the last five minutes. I ended the run to keep my average pace up, then switched to an indoor walk for the walky part. Then I forgot to turn it off, allowing me to test the Workout app’s ability to sense when a workout has ended and ask if you wanted to stop. It did do this, albeit about two minutes after I stopped.
In terms of results, I felt a mini version of the runner’s high midway through, which was spiffy, brought my average pace down, and despite running the entire time, also brought my heart rate down. When you compare the distance and calorie counts below, keep in mind that this run was about two minutes shorter than the previous.
If you add the distance of my walk after, I hit exactly 5 km (and burned another 59 calories, for a total of 356. Woo.
And here are the stats (note I am now tracking total distance for treadmill runs and will go back and start numbering the treadmill runs, which I am too lazy to do tonight):
Distance: 4.39 km (4.38) Time: 27:34 (29:26) Average pace: 6:16/km (6:43/km) BPM: 153 (157) Calories: 297 (327) Total treadmill distance: 34.53 km
Since getting the internet connection upgrade, I occasionally check to see how the connection is running.
Just now, I did two tests on the Mac mini. Here are the results:
speedtest.net using a BCNET server (this is the service used by many post-secondary schools): 74.97 Mbps download, 21.01 Mbps upload, 12 ms ping
fast.com (provided by Netflix): 53 Mbps download, 20 Mbps upload, 4 ms ping
Now, I’m no internet scientist, but it seems to me even allowing for some variation between different sites, I shouldn’t be seeing a difference of nearly 22 Mbps when conducting tests literally within a minute of each other. And tests earlier in the evening were even lower from fast.com, peaking around 43 Mbps.
Even though this is kind of terrible, I’m not overly concerned right now, because for most of my purposes, the speed is still fast enough that I’m not left squirming in my seat saying, “Faster, faster!” And the speedtest.net result is actually very close to my expected speed.
But eventually I may start squirming, and if I do I’ll run a bunch of tests over multiple days and times and take the results to my ISP and say to them, “What’s going on, you big lovable corporate entity?” And they may just LOL or whatever, concluding the saga on a lighthearted note.
Tonight I tried the exercise bike, to see if it would torture my knees as the elliptical had two night earlier.
The answer is: Yes! Not as badly, but still enough for me to bail out after 45 calories (five minutes) worth of pedaling.
I went back to the treadmill and managed to run longer between walking and walked less overall. It all went fine. The stats, with previous run in brackets:
Distance: 4.38 km (4.22) Time: 29:26 (29:35) Average pace: 6:43/km (7:01) BPM: 157 (156) Calories: 327 (327)
Yes, even though I ran harder, had a significantly better average pace, I still burned the exact same number of calories. Or so my Apple Watch says. Perhaps it is a big fat liar. BPM remaining virtually identical despite the harder push was nice, though.
I’ve actually written two outlines, the first is based on the outline template mentioned in this post, and I quickly sketched in some ideas about where the story would go, providing it with an actual ending and other crazy things a reader might expect.
The next was an outline of what I’d actually written, 20+ chapters (the number is imprecise because some of the chapters are themselves only outlines and not actually written out). This is right now the more interesting of the two (to me) because it reflects the story as it currently is. The process of putting it all down has laid out how lumpy the story is.
By lumpy, I mean how the story sometimes has scenes that don’t really add much, or seem to build toward something, then peter out. It’s not a smooth ride. The classic three act format is classic because it works, and Road Closed currently does not follow this. There are foundations in place and some of it works pretty decently now. There is, I think, a progression of the deterioration of Christian. The harder he tries to pull things together, the more things unravel, with his drinking accelerating and leading to near-collisions while driving, episodes of vomiting, the DTs and an overnight stay at the hospital. But the concurrent idea (spoiler alert!) of him inevitably leading toward a spectacular car crash that wipes out a bunch of innocent bystanders–which the ghost of Simon obliquely warns him about–is only hinted at very late in the story as written, and I wonder if it even works now as a conclusion.
Also left unaddressed is the entire plot point of revealing Russell Stave as Wendy’s killer, allowing Wendy to find peace, which is a plot point specifically referenced by Christian and Kevin multiple times, so this should really be expanded upon, which means Russell needs more than a few brief cameos.
But now that I have the whole story laid out in front of me I can start yoinking scenes that don’t work and figure out what to fill in, then come up with a convincing third act that pulls it all together in a spellbinding package of spellbindery. Or something.
The next update I’ll report on how this has progressed.
