Author Archives: essiep

52

Posted on by
Reply
16°C, light cloud & SW wind

52 downloads: overnight, 10 hours that is. I can’t imagine the River Angara will be as popular as the Chernobyl scenery files were, fewer people will fly to an area that’s not very famous. Chernobyl will have been puplicised by a few FPS games set there over the past year or so (CoD4, Stalker). River Angara is probably largely unknown, but its ommission is glaring should a flight simmer stumble upon it. One forum writer said it was also missing in the previous version FS9.

Uploaded scenery for FSX

Posted on by
Reply
18°C, Changable, mosrly bright

FSX scenery: Uploaded the River Angara file tonight. Thus:
River Angara, Siberia
Scenery for FSX: to replace a 380 miles section of this major river that drains from Lake Baikal in Siberia to the North.
From  N58° 57.191′ / E101° 14.592′
to:
N58° 6.028′ /  E92° 59.629′
The default section of the river are left untouched.
The default scenery shows this river empty, except for coastlines. For a waterway that is up to 3 miles wide, and a source of hydro-electric power, this is some omission. This scenery fills the gap. I have tried to set the river’s shape to fit seamlessly with the default water shapes, this includes using a similar number of corner points.
As a bonus, I have placed autogen polygons to represent the some of the bigger villages/towns from Kezhma to Strelka.
To install, simply drop these files into your addon scenery folder and run FSX. Make sure, of course, that Addon scenery is listed in the Scenery manager.
The optional file VFR Bratsk R_Angara can be placed in:
My Documents>Flight Simulator X Files
It is a flight plan you can use to make finding the river easier if you are unfamiliar with Siberia.
Hope they like it, the last one has now just about reached 1,000 downloads from one site, good eh?
The Harlech & Llanbedr area is starting to look right. It should be ready fairly soon, I’ll show you another day.

Solaris

Posted on by
Reply
18°C, rain

Solaris: a film by Tarkovsky, as you know, I like Tarkovsky’s films. This one was released around the time of Kubrik’s 2001 a Space Odessy. Solaris has dated less well  than the American counterpart, is my initial opinion. That means that Stalker rates more highly for me. Cinematography is where this film-makers appeal lies for me. He shoots moving pictures, and each shot in the film could be printed as a picture and seen in its own right. Stalker has better pictures – I would say.

Indistrial brownscape

Posted on by
Reply
18°C, strong winds (West); 56 miles cycling

Very strong Westerlies all day, though warm & dry. It must be tough in the northern apporaches, sinkings happen on days like this.
Oh what now- another picture of Mugwort. It’s becoming more obvious which are mugwort and which are wormwood. As the mugworts mature, the top surfaces are getting darker, while the workwood keeps that silvery green on both sides. they will flower soon, one is white the other yellow.
/unramble.

Brakspear

Posted on by
Reply
12°C, rain.

"Like full-on rain innit": Mid-summer’s day, and little chance of seeing the sun today.
Brakspear: one of the most bitter drinks I can recall. Remarkable, none of that slightly sour after-taste that some beers can leave; as bitter as Rocket (the lettuce leaf). Bitterness can be so refreshing.
River Angara: just about ready for upload, final Beta testing right now. I hope the slightly ridged join doesn’t show up when the river meets the R. Yenitsey. I’m inlcuding a flight plan file with this one so those unfamiliar with Russia can find it. Apparently, this missing section of river mas missing in FS9 as well as FS10. How did that go unnoticed? It’s en-route from Irkutsk/Bratsk to the Tunguska Event site.
Any suggestions what I could put in to mark that meteor impact site? Remember the object was an air-burst, so there is no crater.
R_Angara-Yenitsey

Elections open to the deceased

Posted on by
Reply
17°C, rain, it’s only light though

Mayoral Elections are open to the dead inRomania ( isn’t that part of Transylvannia?). Laurie Anderson had a premonition to this in the late 1980s in one of her records. See here BBC
Crime: Govt. clutching at straws, look…
What about this:

The PM was responding to a Cabinet Office report suggesting people felt "cut off" from the justice system.
Louise Casey’s paper said criminals’ punishment needs to be much more "visible" to restore public confidence in the justice system.
It said many people felt it was "distant" and "unaccountable" and suggested neighbourhood police hold regular public meetings and issue leaflets so victims and local people know offenders have been caught.

Great, you’ve had your house burgled and then the local police give you a leaflet.

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne
added: "Things like naming and shaming and high visibility tabards are gimmicks.

I took to this idea quickly this morning. I love the idea of dressing up criminals, but flourescent jackets are a dull idea. It’s just not fair on builders and road maintainence blokes, they’d find themselves dressed like criminals. Why not dress up the criminals in something they’d really dislike- they are criminals after all. What about a tweed jacket and a Fedora hat, thay’d really hate that. We’d have criminals who normally wear a white tracksuit and gold chain before getting caught would then wear tweed once they’d been found guilty!

I’m full of good ideas me.

Foxgloves

Posted on by
Reply
13-18°C, cloudy cool then it warmed up. C=51 miles

Cycling: hedgerows full of Angelica that has taken over from Cow Parsley. Elderberry trees are in flower and lots of Foxglove, deep purple/pink and dominant along some roads. Artemesia is most noticable on bridges, especially sandstone bridges- clearly they don’t like standing water. I did shoot a picture, but the camera focussed on the background: stupid automatic cameras, give me manual control! the picture below is probably Mugwort, (A. Vulgaris).

Advice: raw meat

Posted on by
Reply
19°C, drizzle then clearing

Dammit: no ride today because the weather looked poor, but then it cleared up as I drove in. Then the car-radio news was full of fuel shortage and price doubling stories. Regret.
Fox food: I sought advice, the suggestion? Give them raw chicken, wings will do as they are cheap. The fox will eat it all, skin, bones – the lot.

Following vulpecula

Posted on by
Reply
21°C, cooler & more wind. No cloud pm. Hay-fever is strong.
The Fox: hasn’t eaten the dog-biscuits I put down last evening. Perhaps he ate some but I can’t tell with certainty, there are other animals that could be interested.
Soma: In the thick of report writing season again and I wish for some tonic; a preparation that can, on consumption make it seem really interesting instead of that cloying dullness that descends when writing the scripts.
Note: "Soma" is a reference to Brave New World by Huxley.
STALKING one year on: Just idle curiosity, I have been playing this game for a year now. That’s quite something for a RPG/FPS game, they are scripted and contain a limited number of levels meaning that most are "completed" fairly quickly. Perhaps it is the virtual life element that keeps this one going. I hope the sequal isn’t delayed too much. September – in case you didn’t know.
Artemesia (A.Vul.): found a plant growing 200m from home. Am I getting obsessed- note the fill-in flash is a bit overdone.
C-Orchard_Wormwood

Vulpine visitor

Posted on by
Reply
26°C, hot summer’s day, no cloud or wind.

Get home and doze in the hammock in the garden with a good book: what a fine way to end a fine day. I can listen and see some interesting urban wildlife there, including a visitor that was low on my expected list. On waking slowly and looking up, I saw a fox in the garden. We made eye contact, he was evaluating the threat from me, I was looking on in surprise and trying not to alarm him. Then turned  tail & slipped out through the gap in the fence. After a while- I noticed that he was still there, curled up and waiting just outside the boundary fence.  He looked up, eyeing me up with one side of his face hidden behind the fnce. Why would he stay there? Why not continue his patrol?
There is a big pile of branches, twigs and other stuff on the top left of the garden, that set me thinking- for years we’d assumed that it was a home for hedgehogs. But now there is the possibility that it is a den: a den for foxes. The photo below is of low quality, but at least I managed to sneak into the house and get the camera.
Looking here, I worry that he has mange.