Today in 1497, John Cabot lands on the Atlantic Coast of North America, claiming it for England.
He arrives with one ship called Matthew of Bristol, with 18-20 men on board.
The location of the landing is disputed & may have been in Newfoundland, Nova Scotia or Maine.
OceanGate says it believes the five passengers of its submersible have “sadly been lost” after debris found in search area. The company’s CEO, Stockton Rush, was among the dead.
Here’s the time lapse we made of ESA/JAXA #BepiColombo’s third of six flybys of Mercury earlier this week, as the spacecraft emerged from behind the planet & watched it recede 🛰️🌓
There’s also a “shape from shading” 3D flyover of Manley Crater & Beagle Rupes made with the data by Kay Wohlfarth at TU Dortmund 🛸
All set to a new musical composition by our friend ILĀ 🎶
Late night update: we‘be been working hard in the past two days on a time lapse movie of the latest #MercuryFlyby by our #Bepicolombo mission, & wrapped it tonight 🎥🎞️🎬
So look forward to that tomorrow, including a new way of visualising the data, all accompanied by some lovely music.
Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman S. Somnath on Thursday said that the space agency is planning to launch the Chandrayaan-3 moon mission in the middle of July.
Today is the 93rd anniversary of the 1st test of the Bathysphere (May 27th 1930), the first capsule to take humans down into the ocean depths. It was William Beebe’s idea & Otis Barton did the engineering. They were the first people to see deep ocean creatures in their natural habitat, setting a record dive depth of 670 metres in 1932. Beebe described it as “dangling in a hollow pea on a swaying cobweb, a quarter of a mile below the deck of a ship rolling in mid-ocean”. #Ocean#Exploration
I'm not one for "New Year's resolutions", but I am one for overly ambitious projects.
For 2023, Project365 is "One New Game Per Day".
Given that I have 634 unplayed games in my Steam account and {mumble} unredeemed bundle Steam keys, there's a reason my unplayed collection is tagged "Pile of Shame".
I'll pin this to my profile, and give a brief summary here each day (or x, if I miss x days due to work or stuff).
I'll play 15-30 minutes of (at least) one new game I've never played before (or played less than 15 minutes of). I'll give every game at least 15 minutes, even if I hate every minute of it.
I'm also open to suggestions; if you reply to this thread with a game, I'll schedule it, or tell you what I thought of it.
One of the things that's come up is that I have a bunch of games that I've played once, and not touched again.
This review is going to contain minor spoilers for the early part of the game.
Stray is a third-person game about a cat.
I count any game where I've played less than 15 minutes of the game as "unplayed".
Due to a mix-up around the release date, I missed out on the discounted purchase price, so left it on my wishlist, until it got discounted 3 months later.
As soon as it finished installing on October 15, I started playing.
The graphics are gorgeous. The cat is adorable, and amazingly cat-like. I feel like I'm controlling an almost-real cat... which turns out to be a problem.
As per the title, you're a stray cat; the game opens to find you snuggling with your siblings, high up on the wall of the city, before the intro takes you on all on a little adventure to teach you the controls.
Spoiler Alert
At the end of the intro, you jump across a gap in a pipe. The pipe you land on gives way, and you find yourself scrabbling to hold on as your siblings look down on you helplessly... as you lose your grip and fall into the city below.
You finally come to rest at the bottom of a pile of rubble. Gingerly (pun intended) you attempt to stand up, only to find that you cannot stand on your hind leg, and limp for a couple of steps, before collapsing.
It was at this point, at the end of the intro, after 13 minutes of playtime that I logged out of the game, sobbing inconsolably.
This tiny digital cat purrs, and trills, and meows, and looks around, and cleans itself, and feels utterly too real for me to see it get hurt like that.
I was overwhelmed by a sense of grief and loss as I watched this ball of fluff get separated from their siblings, and seeing them get hurt, limping and then collapsing was entirely too much for me (our furball is fine after having a sleep, but still).
I finally started it up again tonight; even 8 months later, I still feel that pain and sadness as I try to play.
The game itself is beautiful, rendering the post-apocalyptic environment full of dead robots in a gorgeous way. There were some fun "cat" moments, just jumping off things, or solving environmental challenges by knocking paint cans off the edges of a building.
The sounds made by this little ball of fur are wonderfully realistic, and everything within me wants to protect this little gem.
On paper, the idea of playing a cat exploring a "cybercity", and solving a mystery seemed like it was the perfect fit for me, as someone who loves cats, but in practice it seems to hurt too much to play.
If you love cats, and cyberpunk, and can disassociate yourself enough, then you might really enjoy Stray.
However it seems that I cannot, which is unfortunate, because Stray is:
India, a growing space power, is forging closer ties with NASA (arstechnica.com)
Details of a potential US-Indian partnership in human spaceflight remain murky.
NASA's Curiosity Captures Martian Morning, Afternoon in New 'Postcard' – NASA Mars Exploration (mars.nasa.gov)
Lighting from two times of day was combined for a stunning view of terrain that the rover is leaving behind.
Chandrayaan-3, India's 2nd attempt to land on the moon will be launched in mid-July (www.thehindu.com)
Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman S. Somnath on Thursday said that the space agency is planning to launch the Chandrayaan-3 moon mission in the middle of July.