Welcome to the Windy Weather Website.
These are musings from my vantage point on the Oregon South Coast.
A long-time software engineer and general geek, I continue my exploration with Photography, 3D Graphics, Linux and other nonsense. Come along for the ride.
When installing Linux Mint 19, which is recently been released, into a VirtualBox Virtual Machine, the video went to snow, as shown below. I asked about this problem in the forums and didn’t get an answer so I posted a bug to the bug database on GitHub.
I was flying around the Dravinian Hinterlands completing my exploration of the map and came on a view of Idyllshire. It occurred to me that Gravity is not so much a Law in Eorzea as just sort of a Suggestion, really. The other picture is of the Floating City of Nym.
My main computer area has four computers, a KVM switch, and it has for a long time had a single 1080 monitor. Recently I was doing some video editing and moved the recently purchased 2K – 2560×1440 – monitor into that area and hooked it up with a separate cable.
There is the network backup machine – lower left – two Alienware cases – with modern Core i-7 upgrades, and a small Core i5 Linux Mint system. All the systems have SSD system drives of course with various large data / video HDs from Western Digital. And of course there is a 1 GBPS 8 port network hub.
The KVM switch is many years old and is DVI, not even HDMI. It has served well and faithfully, but it’s time for an upgrade.
Some research indicated that IOGear has recently come out with a 4K, Displayport, 2 Monitor KVM switch, so it’s time for an upgrade. This switch is $599 MSRP on the IOGear site, but it’s only $442 on Newegg. Hurray.
About a year and a half ago I bought a Vizio P65 TV. The Model was C1 at that time. This model is apparently no longer available, apparently. The new model is E1 as shown here.
Just after a year, when the TV was out of warranty, two of the four HDMI ports failed. I paid about $400 for an out of warranty repair to replace the “Main Board” and the HDMI ports all work now. The repair required two folks, since the TV is very heavy and must be laid down on it’s face for a mainboard repair. Also the folks drove over 200 miles to reach my house, so I doubt if they broke even on the repair.
Now the TV is Rebooting
However, after this repair, about twice, or more, times per day, the TV seizes up and reboots.
When it reboots, almost always, but not always, the restart process starts with the screen showing a repeating pattern of the lower few rows of the screen. Then after about 10 seconds, the TV restarts showing the Vizio brand chevron. This example happened while watching the Dish Hopper.
I can’t believe it. After what, a year of planning, and a PTR – Public Test Realm – and all the hype about a better leveling experience and the second “Big Squish” and more challenge, they messed it up.
Over the years, Blizzard has made the game easier to level at least at lower levels with Heirlooms, and easier dungeons and Wow Tokens and lots of other things. I came back to WOW in May 2017 and played through December 2017 when all the hype was going strong about the new expansion and how they were going to change the leveling experience. As some of the changes began going up on the PTR, I got over there and tried them out. Turns out I still had a PTR account, which I had signed up for years ago – they keep you signed up if you ever do. Well I found the PTR experience a real drag for reasons that I’ve talked about before. As a quick example, as a level 110, in a level 80-90 area – Pandaria – the mobs were leveled up to my level. So what does level 80-90 mean if the mobs are going to jack up to 110 to follow you? Who knows what changes and tweaks they have been making in the last seven months, but it doesn’t sound good based on these launch results.
Well, maybe now that the population in general is seeing the new leveling / progression design, they are not as psyched as all those folks that Blizzard was listening to a year and a half ago when they started talking about it.
It will be interesting to “Watch from Afar” as this plays out. I have a “Trial” account that I can use to see what things look like from 1-20, but that’s not all that interesting when the cap is 110.
Anyway, I’m having a great time since December 2017 with Final Fantasy XIV.
May you walk in the light of the Crystal,
:ww
Flight was added to Final Fantasy XIV in the Heavenward Expansion. A Black Chocobo mount and an Aether Compass is awarded from a Main Scenario quest called “Divine Intervention” shortly after you reach Ishgard. Unlike Wow, flight does not cost game currency. You do a quest, get a mount and a compass, and then just travel around in the area to find Aether Currents and do some key quests that give you extra “Currents”.
FFXIV has apparently changed how flight works along the way. Some posts or wiki pages indicate that your “Company Chocobo” can fly too, although mine cannot. I’ll have to see whether a later quest or something unlocks that. Presumably nothing else has to happen for flying mounts from the Mog Store. I’m not psyched on Mog Store Mounts since they are pricey and are not account wide, but only for one character.
But the good news is that Flight is Cheap and Easy in FFXIV, unlike Wow where it costs a lot of currency to fly – currency for a flight skill at each level and currency to buy a mount. And it’s easy to fly in FFXIV, unlike Aion, where the flight controls are inconvenient in the extreme. In FFXIV the default is use SPACE to take off and then aim your bird with the mouse and use Motion [ WASD ] keys to move in the direction you like. Flight is fast out of the box. To land, just aim down to the ground and when the mounts feet touch the ground, you land. Simple. No funny keys to land. You can hover easily. Just let up on motion keys. Unlike Aion, GW2 and Tera, flight “Energy” does not run out. So if you need to fly across the map, you can. Unlocking flight in an area requires visiting 10 “Aether Currents” and doing Five special quests. Apparently one of the zones takes less than this normal number. One of the quests in the first area involves the first Heavensward Dungeon Duty. But it’s not that hard.
The only odd thing is that the Aether Compass remains in your “Key Items Bag Storage” which is an area reserved for Quest items. Odd. I’m not clear why the Aether Compass just doesn’t unlock a Skill in General like “Dyeing” or “Glamour”. They are careful to say if you lose the compass there is a fellow that has another. It’s not possible to lose Dyeing, so why the compass? I just dragged the compass from the key items bag section to my hot bar so it was easily available and the good news is that it has a very short cool-down, so you can use it frequently. See it below on the Ctrl-0 key?
This wiki page has details of the quests and Aether Current locations for each zone. The thing missing though is a map of each zone with the Aether Currents marked so you can pick them up efficiently as you start the zone. When I take my next Alt through each area, I’ll capture the locations and make a map of the area with the locations so you can easily plan a trip around the area to pick them all up. Location numbers and messages from the Aether Compass like “184 yarms North East” is not all that useful. Possible but not as easy as it can be.
Wow has an ethic that you need to do a lot of work in the zone before you can fly there, at least for the first character in the account. For FFXIV, there is no account wide benefit for flight, but no steep learning curve either. Compare visiting 10 places and doing five quests to the work required to unlock flight in Wow Draenor, for example. Draenor Flight requires visiting literally a hundred places for a Treasure Hunter achievement, and doing a pile of quests and unlocking an advanced reputation with several factions. Yep, I’ve done that, and it takes more than a week in Wow, not a couple of hours in one afternoon.
Flap On!
:ww
One of the early quests after you reach Ishgard is “At the End of Our Hope”. As you wander North, doing quests and gradually opening the map, you come to the Duty entry for this quest. No spoilers. This is the first Heavensward solo duty and it’s held in a huge area. Unlike the ARR duties, which are in very small areas, this one drops you into the great open wastes with few land marks. I messed up and spent 10 minutes finding my way back to the quest and that was after seeing a video. So take care.
I called Dyson recently to get some attachments for my Ancient DC 44 portable vacuum, and they offered me a special price on a Dyson V7. Now I get why. And I’m not unhappy, but also not surprised. The latest model is V10, so they want to dump those old V7’s they still have in the warehouse, apparently. My DC 44 is old enough that someday I’ll need a new battery and those are expensive, so I was hedging my bets by taking the V7 deal.
The V7 has some new attachments and a more convenient latch for them. Instead of having to use two hands, you can remove the attachments with one hand. How cool, and how obvious.
I got the V7 “Motorhead” which came with a wide floor motorized brush, straight extension, combo brush and crevice tool. In addition, a few days later a package arrived with the “Up Top” bending tool, the angle brush and the extension hose, probably due to having done automatic registration or something.
Anyway, the V7 is very cool. Easier to empty, with even more cyclone thingies and more powerful suction.
I have allergies, and Dyson’s allow me to clean the house without sneezing since nothing gets by those cyclones. I have an old pre-ball model for the floors and portables for dusting. No rags for me to dust. If you have allergies, you might like to try a Dyson.
:ww
Upon completing the “A Realm Reborn” main story quest “Before the Dawn” you arrive in Ishgard, the capital city of the Heavensward expansion. No Spoilers, but you will want to get a box of tissues and allow plenty of time to finish up “A Realm Reborn”.
At this point I have been doing Daily Main Scenario Roulettes and have geared up jobs I don’t even have yet. I have fully augmented Ironworks gear for White Mage [ Level 62], Red Mage [56], with Paladin [30’s] and Dragoon [40’s] following.
But Ishgard is in the Mountains of the Far North. So my outfit is hardly suitable.
The Ironworks Healer and Caster “Tent” has been “Glamorized” to something more attractive, but really only suitable for Warmer climes. These show the Red Mage Caster variety. The Elezen top is quite attractive. The healer variety employs a long open robe with the white Ironworks Healer boots. A little nicer for the cold, but clearly the “Caster” gear needs work.
Here are some quest helper maps and tips for quests in FFXIV. For some quests, maps are just quicker than videos.
