I did very poorly at Caverna last night, even though I got third. I went super military, but didn’t get the military point buildings. There were also too many people going military that game, and since I was so specialized it took a toll. I managed to get 3 level 14 weapons pretty early on, but that wasn’t good enough. I wasn’t able to place the 14 level weapon people since all the adventure spaces had been taken. It was a very low scoring game, and nobody took the office. Adam and Tina were decently far ahead, and I had Erik and Cynthia at about my score level.
This was a very strange book, although I knew that going in. The ideas in it are ones that I’d like to think could never happen, and some of them won’t due to the internet. At the same time, things like wikipedia being changeable make it possible for untrue things to become commonly accepted. There are many examples of this, and the way it can become the readily accepted facts makes it very interesting. The full acceptance without thinking is something that I don’t think could happen. The double think is also something I don’t believe could happen. There is too much going on for it to happen now, and the internet is too untamed, and untamable. The base story itself is just depressing.
I had a rough time today getting back from Seattle. There are many ways I could have had it go better, but most of the bad things weren’t predictable or fixable. I went to the airport in Seattle last night, and took a nap before heading in for my red eye flight. The flight was delayed, and when we got on the plane there was an issue with the door so we had to get off. A few hours later we got on the plane and headed to SFO. I jumped on the sky train, then got on BART, then switched on BART, then waited 30 minutes for Caltrain. Once I got back to Palo Alto I noticed the distinct lack of my bike in the racks. The space where it should have been was flanked by a few lonely wheels locked to the bike racks. I then hoisted my bags and hiked all the way back home. Once I got there I again noticed the distinct lack of something, the hidy key. Steph had moved it inside after Lindsay had taken care of the kitties. Luckily she was nice enough to come by after lunch and give me the key that she still had. I’m not sure exactly what I’ll be doing about the bike, but I’ll probably be buying used or from an outlet site. I’m not going to hold out hope of finding it, as the bike isn’t fancy enough to be sold as a unit; it will most likely be parted out.
Candice was nice and picked me up for a trip to the Fremont GameKastle. We got a group to try out the multiplayer app version, and got some really good feedback. It worked really well, and they were able to understand it pretty quickly.
This book was very interesting, as it really dived into what we know about the lives of these great people. Besides the religions they started, and the traditions surrounding that, there isn’t much in the way of written records of their lives. The written records also tended to be written years to centuries after their lives. The similarities in their teachings was also interesting, with the Buddha being the most different. All the others were dealing with how to live well with others and how to have good lives. The Buddha taught about how to let go of life, and not worry about earthly things anymore. The others taught variations and specific instances of the golden rule.
I had a good time at PAX Prime. We spent most of our time on the floor at the Indie Megabooth as well as the PAX 10 booth. These are mainly the indie games, which are the games doing the interesting things. I really liked the games we played, although some were not well done. The ones that weren’t well done were at least pretty. The puzzle games I found to be a little simple, but I can’t expect too much out of them, especially in the demo. I look forward to playing a number of them when they come out, and I need to buy a few now.
Steph and I went to a few panels about Kickstareter and indies. They were pretty good, but we left the Kickstarter one early since it was pretty much the same as the PAX Dev one.
Steph and I also took Sunday morning off, and walked around the Aboretum in Seattle. It was very peaceful and relaxing, especially after the people and noise of PAX.
I had some delicious food from Piroshky Piroshky to How to Cook a Wolf. I also got to play some Super Fight with the Google Games Services team, as well as some MTG Drafting.
The early morning flight out was a little rough, but not too bad.
This was an interesting book. The focus is on the history of the texts and not as much on the content of those texts. The history of thought on all of these texts seems to be a movement from infallible single source, to a scientific view of being an amalgamation. This is especially true of the old testament. The most interesting part was the section on the Koran. The source is the most infallible, but it is still slightly questioned by recent findings of the oldest known versions that have slight changes. It is only a few words, but it would make the complete infallibility of the text questionable. There is also an interesting part in this section about the views of the Koran on Jesus and other prophets. With the way the texts have been shown to be amalgamations the view of the other prophets is very appropriate. I also really enjoyed the section on Baha’i. My personal world view is still most closely related to this religion, but there are too many fundamental differences for me to claim to be Baha’i.
I went to Seattle for PAX Dev and PAX Prime. The PAX Dev part was really great, and I was able to learn a lot. I especially learned a lot about how I can use the Google Play Games Services. I’ll take a closer look at that when I get home, and start incorporating it into the login system. The only part that I’m not sure about is the login, but the rest should be pretty simple. I got to spend a good bit of time with the Google Play Games Services group as well, and hope that I can keep close with them, they are pretty cool guys.
Steph and I joined Lindsay and Jeremy on a 7.5 mile hike and backpacking trip to Henry Coe State Park. We all met at Jeremy’s place and drove to the park from there. It was only about a 45 min drive from San Jose, so not too far away. The park itself was gorgeous, and it wasn’t hard to find our way around. On the drive up to the park we saw a tarantula crossing the road.
I hadn’t realized they were around here, and this one was huge. We then got to the park and set out on our hike. We walked along some really pretty fields for a while and sat down to have lunch.
While eating we got to see some Woodpeckers putting acorns into holes in the oak trees. It was pretty amazing how many holes they had filled up with acorns.
We then got into some hillier forested areas. We got down to a dried creek bed at a place called “China Hole.” There were some small pools of water there, but not much, and nothing flowing.
There were some frogs, turtles, and decently large fish. After hanging out for a bit there, we hiked down the dried stream bed to the next road. There were a few puddles along the way, but nothing major in the way of water. We ran across a recently dead dear.
We had one huge hill to climb before we made it to the campsite. Past that hill it was just a short walk through another field and we got to the Lost Spring. There was only a drip coming out, but beneath the drip there was a large basin of water. That water was what we used to cook with that evening and the next morning. We also filtered some for the hike back. We set up camp and then had a nice dinner. During dinner we saw a deer walk by, but didn’t get any pictures of it.
After dinner Lindsay led a meditation session, where both Steph and I had our legs fall asleep. Then we played a game of Hanabi and a game of Boss Fight. We did well in Hanabi, but there was a little bit too much table talk. The game of Boss Fight was ok, but there wasn’t enough agency, or depth to the game. We then got to sleep, as everyone was very worn out. The next morning we got up around 10am. We had no idea that there was a 6.1 earthquake in Napa at 3:30am that morning, but we did realize that Jeremy was snoring and his alarm went off at 7:30. We then got a big breakfast and hit the road. While filling up water at the Lost Spring, we had a humming bird sit along the edge of the trough and drink water out of it. We hiked back along the dry river bed, and got to see some pretty wildlife around the few water holes that were left, including a bright red dragonfly, some quail, and a good number of butterflies.
We had a really good hike back along the river bed, and took another break at China Hole. We saw another group of day hikers, and decided to head out before they left. We chose a different, more direct route back, and the day hikers came along the same route. We passed each other a few times and then made it to the top of the mountain for lunch.
We were getting pretty tired, so we booked it out, and made some good time after lunch. We stopped by a Starbucks to treat ourselves to something cold and sweet before going home.
It was a pretty fun time and the views were amazing. I would love to do more hikes like this. It also was a good training for the Grand Canyon hike I have planned for November. The pack I took on this hike was 40 pounds without the water or containers. With full water it was getting close to 60 pounds. I expect to pack lighter personally on the Grand Canyon hike, but to be carrying more of other peoples stuff. the air was just as dry as I expect the canyon to be and it was more constant a temperature, but not too much cooler. The water I used was 4.5 liters on the hike in, and about 3 liters on the hike out. I did a full day’s worth of Soylent, but it wasn’t quite enough for a day’s food. The apples and peanut butter also weren’t worth their weight. I’d say it is probably worth bringing the trail mix, and filtering more water. The Soylent will still be a decent plan, but won’t be enough to hold me over the whole time.
We had a six person game of seven wonders that I did really badly in. I wasn’t able to get enough resources to do any of the good buildings or any of my wonders. I was beaten on military by Jeff, and didn’t make any science. The only thing that got me some points was the yellow buildings.
I did ok in acquire, but wasn’t a major role in the largest liquidation (a size 41 company) so the people who were part of that ended up winning. I was close, but the stock sold out before I could get a larger interest.
I had the most fun playing a double game of Factory Fun, where Tina and I set two factories up next to each other and played with 20 machines. It was great fun, we had Eric join us for half the game, and we scored midway through. Tina ended up winning since I had 5 blue unused. I did have an impressive orange corridor of 10 out to 10 in, all interconnected. I’d be up for playing that again, or in some spare time making it an app. This would probably be a single player app for simplicity, maybe becoming multiplayer at some point in the future.
It's an Exciting World 