Rainbowtrout

Rain for a few days, cloudy for the week ahead. This is the middle of summer in Britain.

Mixed sets were the worst. They're unfair on everyone involved. The higher ability kids were held back by the lower ability kids, and the lower ability kids were confused by the work. I'm not sure as to why schools believe mixed sets to be a good idea, but let me tell you: they are poison for enthusiasm. Mixed-set philosophy at my old secondary was a mess, where it took two lessons to get through a single lesson's material. The work had to be watered down to suit those who were less able. Some of the kids were stupid, but at the end of the day, they're not going to be occupying positions of power or relevance in 10-20 years time. Chances are if you don't know what country you are in ("What country do we live in?" being an actual quote from an old classmate), you're not going to get far. The stupid kids didn't get to me past the first couple of years (I used to be a pretentious smartA). Chavs (Note to non-Brits: chavs are what you might call city white trash) were bad, but the key is to understand how they operate. At the end of the day, it's a tribal mentality. If you adhere to the social norms, you're alright to them. If you act like them, then they will welcome you provided you fit the social norms. If you deviate, then you're either going to be easy picking or you need to go under the radar a bit. It helps to have a large circle of friends. Chav mentality is pack mentality. It was always a group of at least three chavs that gave everyone grief. Larger groups roamed the grounds and you were to stay well away from them. If not, you would get shoved. They establish dominance over people. Some more than others. It was a rule that every non-chav got grief from chavs, but if you appeared vulnerable to them, you would be targeted more often. As mentioned before, the best way to deal with chavs was either to become one (bad idea), or be in an equally large group with many non-chav friends, and don't be a victim. My experiences with state school were not great. If I ever have kids, I would gladly pay for them to go to a fee-paying school, or pray that they get into a good grammar school.

I decided to go lunar today. The ship crashed down on the surface, but the two kerbals survived. With some "NASA-Mandated Three-Dimensional Mobility Device Exploration", one died. I then (for poops and giggles) to send the other one into a suborbital trajectory. For science, I assure you. He hit 500 m/s, and then collided with the surface head first. But, not before this poetic shot. http://imgur.com/a/uF7qh One last look at home before death.

Well, it's finally acceptable to listen to Christmas music! At long last! I think we can all agree that Fairytale of New York is the best Christmas song - no argument.

"I shall either find a way or make one." -Attributed to Hannibal (The Carthaginian one)

Monday was the biggest and longest torrential storm I remember. Absolutely throwing it down in the morning. Coupled with heavy winds, it was painful. Then it died out a bit, but still overcast and lightly raining. Around noon, the heavens opened. The water covered everything, and it lasted about 90 minutes. Interestingly, there was no hail. That was for the best though, I can't imagine the horror of hail being intermixed in that. Now it's more typical British weather. Overcast and raining occasionally.

I succumbed to the hype and bought Civilization VI. I've only logged about 21 hours on it (I got it a couple of days after release or something), and it's alright. It's certainly not the best, and is missing a lot of things (Good diplomacy, anyone?), but with some time it's going to be a solid entry into the series IMO. I've been continuing the Great Europa Universalis IV binge (After toning down a while ago) given the release of the Rights of Man expansion. Honestly the best expansion for the game; £15 well spent! However, today my decent colonial Spain playthrough was soullessly crushed by a coalition with HRE minors and France. Oh, and the Ottomans declaring war on me over Corfu. So I maybe possibly ragequit as soon as that happened, and now I'm just holding tight until the winter sale, and to a lesser extent the Black Friday sale.

As a lifelong Nintendo fan, this has my attention. Hopefully it isn't as bad as the catastrophe that was the Wii U, because if it isn't then I fear for Nintendo's future. Another bad console with a weak release selection could damage the company beyond repair.

I have gotten to Munar orbit in Career. I'm more of a sandbox person. I just want to increase efficiency by sending 100 kerbals to their deaths at he start of the save, not hours and hours in!

Given the longevity of some software, KSP could conceivably last to 2030. It would be a big maybe though. If it does get to that point without dwindling into the forgotten plains of the internet, it would hugely benefit from the advanced technology that we will have developed in 14 years 1, giving us an extremely realistic space simulator with amazing graphics. 1; With that being said, 10 years ago I thought we would have colonies on Mars by now. I was most definitely wrong.

After nearly 850 hours on Europa Universalis IV, I'm ready for a change. To Hearts of Iron IV. It looks really good, and should tide me over until the new EUIV DLC is released in October (?).

A pokémans.

That sounds like quite a life. I wish I was alive during that period - it was a really important time in history.

One cannot simply escape EUIV.