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.
Back in December I started some serious Crafting Gathering Training.
But after a few weeks, and raising all DoH / DoL jobs – except fishing and culinary – to about 50, I gave up on this. There was an increasing curve of time to get each new level on the jobs. I completed Shadowbringers with the 430 quest gear.
In support of that crafting experience, I purchased two Additional Retainers.
Normally you get two retainers for each character on the account. These serve as bank and sale-agent for the market. They each provide 175 storage slots and the ability to sell up to 20 items at a time on the market board. They also can be leveled to gather additional materials for crafting or other needs.
Now that I have decided to not continue with DoH / DoL leveling, I no longer need the additional retainers, which cost $2/ mo each for an additional retainer or $12 for each 3 month subscription period for two retainers.
But cancelling the Additional Retainers Service is a Nightmare. I would avoid it at all costs. It took about 10 emails with support and then waiting on the computer for over an hour and a half for a chat with a support person to clarify how to cancel the service, and I need to wait about 2 months and then re-enter my credit card to complete the process.
Cancelling Additional Retainers is truly a nightmare.
I periodically check in with games I’ve played to see how they are doing.
So Tera got a new launcher and has a new update. Yet another new class for Elin, of course. One track mind those folks, don’t we think? Anyway.
The problem is that the update is downloading so slowly that it will take over 7 hours to get it, and I have a very fast internet connection.
And yet the download speed for Tera is 1-2 MBytes / sec, which if you convert to bits / sec is about 10-20 Mbps. What a joke. Looks like they don’t really want me to play.
Recently I’ve been listening to more of Sean Carroll‘s lectures on the mysteries of Quantum Mechanics. I won’t summarize those arguments here so this can be a short post. I’ll include a link to a recent lecture of his so you can catch up if you like.
I want to suggest another theory for an interpretation of Quantum Mechanics that I have not heard mentioned before. I may have missed it, but it’s a new idea to me. Here goes.
What if the difficulty in the interpretation of QM called the Observer Problem is actually a simplification that makes it easier to “Program” the simulation that is our Universe. That is, what if our universe is a Simulation in the sense that Nick Bostrum proposed.
Guild Wars – A Video Game
Got the power supply and have hooked it up and the system is under test. Thankfully, nothing was blown except the power supply.
Here are comparison photos between the old and new power supplies. The 850Watt Focus and the 1000Watt Prime. Same manufacturer and both fully modular so that the cables could just be re-plugged into the new supply. Worked like a charm. Back up in about 30 minutes. No cables to replace or re-route.
October, 2017 I built an AMD Ryzen System with all new components. It’s been great. I’ve upgraded it with a second SSD and a second larger HD for video game captures.
Today, the power supply blew.
As you can see, the top blew out of the main large Electrolytic Capacitor. There was even an embossed X where the blowout was supposed to occur if pressure built up. Well at least, it didn’t blow sideways all over the place.
Update: Check the end for the latest
I ordered something from NewEgg. It was a very small item – 0.28 lbs. And they shipped it for free via UPS and USPS “Innovations”.
Here are the tracking pages both from NewEgg and From UPS. I’m sure the NewEgg page is just an automatic digest from the UPS data, so NewEgg is not the issue here. But notice the route and expected delivery date reported by UPS. What a JOKE.
So the service that UPS is using here is called USPS Innovations, which is apparently a service where UPS gets to use USPS for the “Last Mile” delivery of the package to save the UPS driver from driving to my home. No problem. But there are two nonsense things with UPS reporting of the tracking and delivery times for this service.
So either, UPS just made a mistake about how long it would take USPS to deliver on that last mile – eh hem last 400 miles.
After grinding crafting for three weeks or so, I took another approach to finish Shadowbringers. With Red Mage, finishing the Role quests, and then picking up “Weathered” ilvl 430 gear from Grenoldt in The Tempest. This gear is available for free for each role once you finish the Role Quests at level 80. The Red Mage final solo duty was not that hard to complete on the average ilvl 409 gear set at the time. The Duty Finder waits on the final two duties to complete Shadowbringers was about 20 minutes each on a DPS job, but the review before hand of the MTQCapture guides on youtube were quite a lot of help.
Red Mage in Eulmore
I’ll be leveling my White Mage job to 80, completing her Role quests and then grinding some Goetia Tomestones for gear. The Any purchases with Goetia stones is gated on completing Shadowbringers so now that’s out of the way.
The Ronkan Caster Gear from Goetia stones is awful looking. But I guess that’s what glamour is for. The healer gear is the same with a slightly different tan tone. I’ve not bothered to check out the other gear sets.
Ronkan Caster Gear
So between and after trips to the Roulette, it’s back to crafting.
May you walk in the Light of the Crystal.
:ww
All DoH / DoL jobs are 50 or above now. And I crafted a new set of DoH gear. But there did not seem to be a set of DoL gear to craft, so I bought a set in Ishgard. There are some crafting pieces, but each are job specific and I don’t want to fill the Armory. I’m buying Green Level 50 main hand tool from my Grand Company for seals and crafting the Off Hand tools. Most of the leveling has come from the Once a Day Grand Company Supply and Provisioning turn-ins, which have given plenty of seals for the Main Hand Tools. The Grand Company clothing pieces are all job specific which will fill up the Armory, so I’m sticking with Generic sets.
Here’s the DoL set I found in Ishgard.
My house dates from the 1970’s, and the kitchen lighting fixtures apparently date from then too. They have LEDs, but there is lots of Spillover around the shades and with LEDs they are too bright. By spillover I mean that far away from the fixture you are looking directly at the bulb rather than through the shade. Notice the attempt to dim one of them by adding Trash Bag plastic to the shade. Not a good idea with Incandescent bulbs, but no problem with heat from LEDs. Anyway that was a failure. The spillover made that useless.
Time for an upgrade.
Wayfair had some nice ones for not a lot of money and free shipping.
WhooHoo… We are rock’n in the 90’s now. Ok So a Can Lighting upgrade was too much work. But these only have one bulb, which is right for using LEDs and they are attractive and spillover free.
I’m way happy.
:ww
I just got an LED Torchiere Floor Lamp from Wayfair.
Here it is where I’m using it. It’s probably hard to see in the clutter.
The top red circle is the top light aimed at the ceiling. The bottom red circle is the task light. I have a FLIR thermal camera and here are the temperatures for the two lights.
Task Light First. Back and Front.
And here is the top ceiling light. Back and front.
This is after running it for several hours on high. The power supply is a wall wart that supplied 24 volts at 1.5 amp for a maximum of 36 watts. Way down from the Halogen light I’m replacing that has a 300 watt ceiling directed light and a 50 watt task light.
I’ve been waiting for a couple of years and watching for an LED version of this light. For a long time only Halogen versions were available.
May you walk in the light of LEDs.
:ww
