babychaos's blog

I've been using GoPro's for a long time now. First one I owned was the original GoPro Hero HD (released in 2010, capable of 1080p/30, which was unbelievable at the time, most portable cameras were at 640p resolution). I still use a GoPro 5 as a webcam, and have a couple of Sessions (Still my favourite form-factor) for ad-hoc static/mounted images. My normal "go-to" cameras are a GoPro 7 Black and a GoPro Max (360 camera). I still really rate the hardware, however the company have been falling further and further behind on software and connectivity.

I didn't set myself my usual raft of Resolutions this year, simply as back in January we had no real idea of what was going to happen. Eight months later and there is still a huge chunk of un-certainty, and many aspects of my life have changed.

My "daily driver" machine is up for a refresh, my XPS 13 is almost 3 years old. Since I got it the world has changed significantly. When I got it I was;

So we got a dog. Been a long time coming.

A few things happened in the latter part of last year, and those, combined with confirmation that both our companies were going to be adpoting some sort of flexible working policy meant we finally able to make the move.

All round 2020 was a good year for gaming, however during the traditional "Game of the Year" phase of publications it turned into a close battle between "The Last of Us Part 2" and "Hades", with Hades posibly edging it. It had been on my radar since September when it released, as it ticked pretty much every box for me;

OK, so 2020 was properly fucked up. Let's have a quick game of "what's going to happen in 2021"?

Heres some for starters.

• I reckon that the USA will have it's first ever female president, after Biden is assassinated by a complete MAGA lunatic.
• New Nintendo Switch will be released
• The UK's last lockdown will end in August, though vaccinations will not be complete by the end of the year
• Birmingham will become a desolate wasteland, devoid of intelligent life

Reckon one of those is a sitter...

A part of my mini-project to fill up my in-house media server, I've been hunting down some older stuff I liked. One of the rareties that I found on Youtube was someone had uploaded some really low quality VHS rips of The Mary Whitehouse Experience and Newman and Baddiel in Pieces.

I've been using Google Music for years...I spent about a week while in Glenrosa ripping and uploading all my CD's across about 4 PC's, having all the CD drives whirring full-time, and I have/had a gloriously curated ~6,000 song/50Gb library of music. I've made a lot of use of the hybrid downloaded/streamed data model on my phone (I spend a fair bit of time out of network connectivity...be it holidays or cycling in the middle of nowhere).

I've previously look at Stadia, which impressed me technically, but I don't really like the business model (pay for service+pay for games on top). GeForce Now is a competitor with a better model (pay for games, and pay for additional features), with the added bonus that (in theory) games you've already purchased from other services can be brought in.

After a fairly stressful week I needed a bit of escapism, so went hunting through the (really rather awful) Switch eStore. One series of games that has popped up on several recommendation lists is the Steamworld series. I've seen them before, but was never really sure what they were about...and the artwork (in stills) looks a little forced.