Now that I’ve decided to reactivate my blog, I might as well start sharing inconsequential life updates on it. I recently started collecting typewriters - I didn’t really mean to, it just kind of happened, and now I own, like, eight. I don’t care a lot about mint condition or anything like that, I want to actually experience what it was like to use them, and my favourite piece is also among the more scratched-up ones. ...
You might notice that this website looks a bit different now. There’s a reason for that: Thanks to the current ongoing drama around Wordpress.com, Automattic, and its competitors, I no longer felt confident in having my website hosted there, and frankly, I didn’t feel confident using a self-hosted Wordpress instance either. This post will give you a quick rundown of the changes, and then a somewhat longer ramble about the new tech stack, and my experience upgrading. ...
Boso View Express, or BVE for short, is one of those train simulators that have been around for a very long time but never quite managed to establish themselves at the top of the food chain, at least not here in the west. But if you want to simulate Japanese railways, BVE is essentially the holy grail. You can find a huge variety of routes and vehicles, all of them with appropriate train protection and signalling systems courtesy of a highly-flexible plugin interface, for absolutely no money at all, but there is a downside: Basically the entire community is based in Japan, communicates in Japanese, and works on Japanese computers - which makes it difficult to get into the sim, or even to get it working, if you are not able to read and understand at least a bit of Japanese. (Google Translate, while definitely useful, often chokes on technical jargon.) This guide aims to help you install the sim and addons, understand principles of how Japanese railways generally are operated and how they differ from what we Westerners would expect, and also point you to some up-to-date, high-quality add-ons.
It’s cold as shit, so I figured I might as well sight, edit and upload my vacation photos from Venice, several months ago. There’s far too much to reshare here, but you can see them on my Flickr. Highlights include: Animals! Shipping! A Weird Funicular! A Tramway But Done Wrong! ...
With only 5 hours to go, it’s my last chance to tell y’all which games of 2016 I liked best, which is apparently a thing many people do. So, let’s go. They’re not ranked, I like all games on this list equally. Overwatch Not including Blizzard’s newest franchise on a GotY list is apparently a game crime, so let’s get it out of the way first. It’s good. The characters are diverse, colorful and likeable (except for Reaper, who’s kind of a dipshit). Gameplay is extremely well-paced, fast-flowing and deep yet intuitive. But you probably knew that already. ...
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Recently, I did a couple of trips to Zürich for a job application (it didn’t work out). This also meant I had a couple of hours for some photographing each time. Yay! The first thing of note is the Sihltal-Zürich-Uetlibergbahn (SZU). They operate two lines, the Sihltalbahn (with 15 kV 16.7 Hz AC) and the Uetlibergbahn (with 1250 V DC). Funnily enough, both lines share the tracks on the last kilometer or so before reaching the central station, so somehow they need two separate power lines on those tracks. How did they do that? Easy! ...
Today’s ASL match went really fast. Really, really, really fast. As usual, that means I got my ass handed. We played Shin 5 “Sparks Fly”, from a free scenario pack published by View from the Trenches and downloadable here. As the name implies, it’s about Operation Shingle, the US landing at Anzio. Some of the scenarios in there are really weird in a very interesting way. Ever wanted to see three Shermans brawling with two Tigers and six PzKpfw IV Ausf. H? This set got you covered. Unfortunately, according to the almighty scenario database, it sees very little play. Our chosen scenario, for example, got zero entries - which is sad, because it’s a blast. It has a Tiger in it. If that doesn’t convince you to play it, I don’t know what else will. ...
This sunday, I tagged along with a friend for some trainspotting in the Allgäu. Thanks to a burnt down diesel engine, some ALEX trains near Immenstadt are currently operated with NE81 DMUs that are not indigenous to the region. While waiting for our mark, we tried some motifs with other trains on the quite busy route from Immenstadt to Obersdorf, like this InterCity:
In 1972, Munich was host to the Olympic Games, and the region got a nice new regional train (S-Bahn) system for this event. The stadium area was connected to the rail network by a new-built station, which was closed down after the games because it wasn’t needed anymore. The subway (U-Bahn) now connects this area to the city center, with Olympia-Einkaufszentrum being the nearest stop to the former station. I wanted to take some pictures of this ruin for a while now, but never actually went there, mostly because I was told it was a bit hard to find and there’s not much to see anyway. Yesterday, I spontaneously decided to just go there for a couple of photos in the snow. That turned out to be a rather bad idea, because it was hard to make out anything in this weather, and I’ll definitely go back there in the summer. ...