Thoughts and ideas of a dyslexic designer/developer
I voted in Coasterbot‘s Votecoasters. You can too. As I did in 2021
The list goes beyond the 50 as I did spend time in Wallbi and some old rollercoasters no longer exist (goodbye Jetline).
Worth noting how a bunch of the 4D freespinners are group together and how a lot of the special one time riders are near the bottom (looking at you Th13teen, which needs replacing with something new!)
Following my review of last year… here’s my New Years Resolutions for 2024 which follows on from 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008 ones.
2023 has been a super busy year. This is the year when the United Kingdom and the freedoms we held tightly fell a part. Like last year the strikes haven’t stopped and the cost of living crisis isn’t going anywhere.
I have avoided Covid but opted to have the flu jab, which is still terrifying.
I spent a lot of time talking this year. Some of the best moments include, Cory Doctorow in conversation, the DotSocial podcast, tech leadership and a whole bunch during publicspaces.
From a Quantified Self data point of view 2023 looked like this (worth noting its harder to get the data from some of the services)
Now its time for thoughts on my 2023 resolutions.
Combining a number of the previous digital nomad things
I really need to understand the tax side of a digital nomad from the business point of view as an employee of a large company not a freelancer. With this knowledge I can build the solid business case for being a digital nomad for a year.
This has moved forward a little bit. There is a interest at work and I have a plan to visit the Portuguese embassy in Manchester when I can finally get an appointment (they open the appointments every 3 weeks and seem to go very quickly). It will cost a bit of money but it will be worth it if I can get the answer to the tax question from an official.
Finish my dating book
The book is being worked on and some are suggest I’m a lot closer than I think . The book has structure, being edited, I have illustrations and even decided to use mid-journey for the cover. After reaching out to many agents and publishers with not much success I decided self-publishing is the way to go. I’m setting myself 2023 as the year to finally do this.
This is moving forwarded, I have all the illustrations now except the front cover (but have plans). I also formatted the latest version into the 8×5 inch book format using templates, added the illustrations and shared it with a selected few. I await there comments over the festive season, then another check and final look at by Hannah.
There is still work to be done but its getting closer to self publishing status and I expect 2024 will be the year it goes to epub/print.
I’m planning to go the Amazon self publish route but I’m keen to know about better routes, as I’m not keen on Amazon’s licence agreement.
Head even further a field with the scooter
2022 I didn’t go as far as 2021 but, I am up for driving on the scooter either up through Scotland or finally Netherlands and Belgium. 2023 has to be the year.
This is another year with less scooter driving. Although its worth noting I spent a lot of time flying which wasn’t the plan post pandemic. I did look at the train multiple times but the price between Manchester and London is always a killer on price and time. (Don’t get me started about HS2)
Hopefully next year I’ll finally drive to the Netherlands instead of flying or getting the train.
Learn to drive a car
Its also time, I’m not ever going to buy a car but being able to rent one for trips to IKEA and for longer journeys when the weather isn’t great makes sense. Its super clear the weather is going to get more extreme and being able to rent a car is more sensible. The other side of this is I can actually drive a car and passed my theory test with flying colours a long time ago (of course I need to do it again)..
Not even started this but its something I keep thinking about, as hiring a car for certain journeys would be handy. Especially with my partner Although I did buy some panniers for my scooter, to carry even more stuff when on longer journeys (like potentially Europe)
Listen to a Audiobook at least once a month.
This worked out so well last year and to be fair I want to keep it going. Especially if I start using the gym too, although I’m thinking music is better for repetitive exercises. I also think I should write a some short reviews for them as some are excellent.
This has been excellent with 17 audiobooks completed and started another 4. No idea why its registered the tyranny of metrics twice but you can see some great books in the list.
I am listening to most of the books while in the spa using waterproof headphones. I also started listening while on longer journeys like train rides to London, Bristol, etc.
Go to a new country
I missed this over the last few years and really like to get back into the flow of this. South Korea is certainly of interest along with a few of the European countries I have missed like Norway and the Czech republic.
Another year missed but I’m thinking about some of the European countries for a short retreat.
Go to a new Rollercoaster park
This is a repeat of last year but I really want to go to some of the European parks which I hear a lot about but never actually been. There are so many including Europapark in Germany, Efteling & Walibi in the Netherlands and Energylandia, Poland. Heck I have overlooked Flamingo Land in Yorkshire, forever!
Well I got to Walibi in the Netherlands and it was amazing. Certainly would go back again, as I finally got to go on a RMC wooden rollercoaster, untamed.
Take the Diabolo skills up another level
I started undoing the bad habits but its time for the endless suicide and some vertex genocides. Really need to find some groups again, as learn so much quicker when I can see it in front of me.
This hasn’t quite happened but I’m finding new groups including one which I went to after mybrushwithdeath.
Start a new type of meetup
Manchester Futurists stopped a while ago and of course London geekdinners ended for me since 2008. Recently I have been thinking about the public service internet a lot and how there is a real lack of support for public entities.
I simply haven’t had the time but its something I keep thinking about. I noticed there being more interest in meeting up with people physically since the pandemic. However found peoples time is much more stricter and so it needs to be much tighter in its impact. I also noticed the idea of bi-monthly becoming a long stronger than previously.
Do more self-hosting
The selfhost train has really been moving over the last few years and I’m finding managing it a lot less stressful than it use to be. Yunohost has been a real joy and auto-update is great. Ideally a multiple domains would be really useful but cubicgarden.info is my playground.
This has happen although I am struggling with Docker containers on my QNAP nas and Yunohost is great but sometimes a bit strange.
If I can fully get my head around Docker containers using either container station or CasaOS, all will be good as I have struggled with Qnap’s cron. I did think about running Yunohost in a QNAP container but it seems overly complex for no reason.
Be more selective about the subscriptions
I am pretty good about this but I noticed there is quite a lot of legacy stuff which I should have removed a while back.
Well.. This was ahead of the complete move to the Fediverse, where I removed xtwitter from my life and cut down my podcast subscription too. One thing I noticed is I’m using the google feed quite a bit and consistently annoyed about it.So I installed FreshRSS to replace the ageing Tiny tinyRSS to finally get back into RSS again. The clients are much more fitting with the Android system. I also found much more up to date clients on Linux too.
Even better wellbeing
I’m not doing too bad but there is room of improvement, for example my sleep has taken a drop and I’m less active when not playing volleyball or summer. I need remind myself my spa also includes a gym which I should take advantage of more. Wellbeing also includes my digital wellbeing with not enough blogging and my gratitude diary has gone to pot. Next year I got to do something about this too.
This year has been ups and downs when it comes to wellbeing. Generally this is the year of many things including ultra processed food, multiple volleyball options, lots of early mornings, etc.
Generally its been ok but the dip in sleep has followed through into 2023. I did go the gym quite a bit but frankly it wasn’t for me. The spa is very relaxing and is a great place for audiobooks. Being active this year has been good especially during summer and now there is Volleyball options on Wed, Thurs, Fri, Sat and in future Sundays. There is a headache with booking each one but at least there are options and its clearer now than ever.
I keep thinking about the gratitude diary and what I could do about it. My quick thought is just to write something personally, then keep wondering about Signals stories. However a small microblog seems better, as I do like to look at them over time. Maybe something for Fediverse ideas?
What a year, although I’m a little less positive about 2023 in the UK.
Following my review of last year… here’s my New Years Resolutions for 2023 which follows on from 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008 ones.
There is the 12 for 2023. Covid19 is still going to have a effect on most of them but who knows.
Have a good new year all!
2022 has been another interesting year. The notion of a United Kingdom has become a total joke to me after the 3rd prime-minister in a year. UK Politics right now is on a knife edge with so many strikes due to the government and the cost of living crisis effecting too many people.
Finally getting Covid for the first time after 2 years was quite something. Not just Covid but Covid-Toe! That was bloody painful!
From a Quantified Self data point of view 2022 looked like this.
And the thoughts a year later…
Its been quite a year and everybody is looking for a better year in 2022
Following my review of last year… here’s my New Years Resolutions for 2022 which follows on from 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008 ones.
There is the 12 for 2022. Covid19 is going to have a effect on most of there but like always, some may get moved to 2023 and that is fine. I’m staying safe with vaccinations.
Have a good new year all!
I voted in Coasterbot‘s Votecoasters. You can too!!!
Its clear to me that I haven’t written enough coasters in America, France, Netherlands or Germany.
I also know lots of people will take issue with my list but generally I love steel coaster over wooden. My first woodie is Wickerman at 25 (half way down). I also have a slight hate for those 4D wing coaster with Joker and Kimu pretty much at the bottom of the list. Intamin ZacSpin suck after a few go. Likewise those skyloop coasters are just as bad. I only gave Ukko the advantage over Abismo because of the park.
You may have also noticed a big difference between Rita, Red force and Stealth. Rita annoys me, as its not a great ride, I hate standing in line for a hour for a poor ride. Stealth is much better and has the height, while Redforce is very fast but at 100+ mph the G force is pretty heavy on arms and your face, especially in the hot Barcelona air.
The hypercoaster sit nearer the top with Steel Dragon 2000 and Shambhala at the top, beating the best coaster in the UK, the Smiler. I do love those point to points coaster like Vertical Velocity and Stunt drop. Deja Vu would be on there but it no longer exists. Just like Thunder looper. Some will be surprised about Icon being at 7 and lower than Nemesis but if Icon had more in the later part of the ride it would be higher. Nemesis is full on right to the very end, likewise for all the rides above it. Worth noting Nemesis is the best inverted rollercoaster on my list. Only Infusion comes close.
The Votecoaster system is good and theres good grounds why it works over existing systems. I did wish there was the ability to export and even import the data as XML or CSV, as I’d like to add to do more with it generally. I also wish the coasters linked to the Roller Coaster Database
Don’t like my list? Start your own…
I love Rollercoaster’s and there is there is a lot terminology, this is a good summary for those who may not know but always wondered..
I was blown away by the recreation of Alton Tower’s Smiler. Its all pretty much there. I looked at planet coaster at the start of April but it doesn’t run on Linux or the Steambox, sadly.
On Sunday I went to Alton Towers as the park was open from 10am – 8pm (this is normal hours in Europe for most theme parks). Part of me wishes I didn’t bother, but as the UK is on the brink of another national lockdown I decided to drive there and back. Its not the first time I’ve done it and this time at least it wasn’t pouring with rain.
As I drove in to the car park I could see the huge long queue to enter with social distancing. I think the monorail was closed because of social distancing too. After 40mins, a bag check, temperature gun check and a check of my eticket I was in.
First stop the Smiler. This is when I spotted the sign about single riders. There will be no single rider queue due to social distancing guidelines join the main queue. I knew then it was going to suck…
Standing in the queue, which was extended up and around the top ridge of the Smiler compound. You could see markers on the ground of where you are meant to stand. Problem is most people were not standing on them no matter how much Alton Towers staff shout over the loud speaker system. Heck they even called out a few people and it made no noticeable difference.
One of the biggest problem with the Smiler queue is it exists underneath the ride structure and its setup to be like a maze for mice. Of course this isn’t good for social distancing at all. You could see there were obvious gaps to allow distance between the fences but people just took it as they were 2 meters from the people in front and back and that was enough.
I got on the ride twice and I’ll be honest twice I had to glare at the people following me to back off. I really should have worn my mask, which you only need to wear when entering the station. I honestly didn’t feel that safe while queuing. Of course all this queuing means you are in close contact with people for a long time. A hour each time for the Smiler.
The Smiler train has 4 rows of 4 seats (16 riders), I shared a row with a couple the first time (there was a seat between us) then had a whole row to myself the second time. You can easily see why queues were so long.
With two rides I looked around and saw the horribly long lines for food so decided to head over to Nemesis and Galactica (I didn’t bother going to Rita or 13). The queue for the cable cart was 60mins (Imagine it would be 1 household per cart), so I walked over. Nemesis had a queue time of 55mins and they had opened the line up to include the extended line right up in the field, last time I been up there was back in 1999! Usually Nemesis’ queue is no more than 5-10mins. The bunch of men/lads/idiots behind me stood within 0.5-1 meter. I did tell them to back off and they made stupid faces and silly noises. I couldn’t be bothered so popped my headphones on, pretty much ignored them. On the ride I had a whole row to myself again. No wonder it was such a long wait. For all that waiting, Galactica was only 30mins wait which isn’t that far off the last time I was in Alton Towers. I did share the row with another couple like the Smiler.
Listening to the excellent #guiltyfeminist book in the queue for the Alton towers wicker man ride. Currently 95mins through the audiobook. pic.twitter.com/qMcxPdwXQI
— Ian | #blacklivesmatter | @cubicgarden (@cubicgarden) September 20, 2020
The killer for me was Wicker man which I have never been on and finally got the chance but there was one hell of a time cost. Almost 2 hours of queuing in to be fair a socially distance observing line. The line was moving so slowly, most people had given up standing and were sitting around. It was dire, make no mistake. After listening to 2 hours of the Guilty Feminist’s audiobook I finally got on the ride and it was clear why things were so slow. Each row had 2 seats and they were seating every other row. Meaning a maximum of 12 riders per turn, not the usual 24.
By the time I got my ride on Wicker man I decided I was fed-up and close enough to the entrance to drive home before the sunset and I didn’t fancy driving at night through country lanes.
I’ll be frank Alton Towers is a horrible place to be during a pandemic, I felt a lot safer going to Blackpool Pleasure beach. The staff seemed a lot more knowledgeable, gels (for example there was no gel in the line for the smiler over 2 hours) and cleaning was a lot more visible.
I’m not the only one who had worries about Alton Towers.
Maybe I’ll revisit next year out of season…
I didn’t get to Japan for good reason (Covid19) but I found this video to remind me of what I love and miss about Steel Dragon 2000.
Shambhala is a steel roller coaster located at PortAventura World, in Salou Spain. The ride opened to the public as Europe’s tallest roller coaster, taking guests up 76m (249ft) high before allowing them to plummet back towards the ground below. In this video we’ll explore the type of ride experience Shambhala offers, as well as its many statistics and developed theme.
Its certainly one of my favourite rides. With 32 rides in one day.
Tony tweeted me about this thrill machine which uses body data to influence how the ride operates. The link comes from Mashable and I was able to trace it back to the original
“…while building this attraction I also wanted to change the usual one-sided relation – a situation where the body is overwhelmed by physical impressions but the machine itself remains indifferent, inattentive for what the body goes through. Neurotransmitter 3000 should therefore be more intimate, more reciprocal. That’s why I’ve developed a system to control the machine with biometric data. Using sensors, attached to the body of the passenger – measuring his heart rate, muscle tension, body temperature and orientation and gravity – the data is translated into variations in motion. And so, man and machine intensify their bond. They re-meet in a shared interspace, where human responsiveness becomes the input for a bionic conversation.”
https://danieldebruin.com/neurotransmitter-3000
Its a good idea but unfortunately couldn’t work on a rollercoasters, which is my thing. Or could it? For example everyones hand up in the air means what? The ride goes faster? How on earth does work? How meaningful would this be if you could actually do this?
Its one of the research questions we attempted to explore in the living room of the future. How can you combine different peoples personal data to construct a experience which is meaningful and not simply a medium of it all.
These global changes don’t seem meaningful or so useful? Maybe its about the micro changes like mentioned previous.
Of course others have been working around this type of things too.
2018 has been quite different in a good way.
Looking from the Quantified Self point of view
Regardless of the data he’s the review of my new years resolutions from 2018.
This didn’t happen, maybe Kates appetite for adventure has dimished?
I'm a home bird 😉 … what about the moon 🌚
— Kate Norman ♥ (@sarahkatenorman) September 25, 2018
Either way, I’m also quite impressed with work friend Jimmy Lee’s travelroulette to Hong Kong. I keep seeing good prices to fly from Manchester in early 2019.
No go on this one. I had planned to head to Rotterdam to visit my volleyball friend Barbara then drive around the Netherlands and maybe into Beligum and north west Germany? Going to some theme parks on the way, before going back to Rotterdam and then back to Hull.
Oh I busted this resoultion mutliple times over. Starting with Parque Warner Madrid and Parque de Atracciones de Madrid.
Grand total today at Parque Warner madrid
26 rides on super man
6 rides on stunt drop
6 rides on batmanHeart rate peaked at 125 BPM and as low as 53 BPM both on superman
Stunt drop had technical faults closed and batman is still nothing compared to 22yr old Nemesis
— Ian Forrester | @cubicgarden (@cubicgarden) March 28, 2018
Then in my next trip to the nordic countries I went to Gröna Lund
Gröna Lund grand total after 8hrshttps://t.co/U2RbMnnTGn
Jetline 35x
Twister 4x
Kvasten 1x
Insane 16x pic.twitter.com/S0gGFGMYzv— Ian Forrester | @cubicgarden (@cubicgarden) June 18, 2018
Then hit my person best of 49x times on one ride by visited Tivoli theme park in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Tonight at Tivoli Gardenshttps://t.co/zKuMziXNAO
1x the mine
1x the rollercoaster
48x the demon
1x the demon with vr pic.twitter.com/uNNzqqGjyo— Ian Forrester | @cubicgarden (@cubicgarden) June 25, 2018
49 times on the Demon, people asks why didn’t I do a round 50? Well I did try but the ride closed just as I made the last journey. Unlike UK parks, the park was open very late 11pm so I took it easy and stopped for food, etc. So I wasn’t trying to break some personal record or anything. Just going around and around enjoying each ride.
Then I thought it would be just too rude to not visit Linnanmäki in Helsinki, Finland while attending Mydata 2018 which happened next door! Although I didn’t like much of the rides and it opened at 4pm?
Linnanmaki rollercoaster park In Helsinkihttps://t.co/T5pFvByfrN
Pretty dead no wonder they open at 4pm
In a hour and a bit…
11 rides on Linnanmakin
4 rides on Kirnu
1 ride on a wooden coaster from 1948? pic.twitter.com/mFuzjcVojW— Ian Forrester | @cubicgarden (@cubicgarden) August 28, 2018
Then finally I got to Port Adventura Barcelona, Spain. A very popular theme park with Rollercoaster fans.
Total rides today Portadventura https://t.co/Bz1nV0zA0i
32x Shambhala https://t.co/ozCHCd15w5
1x Diablo https://t.co/ORkdRKEXn2
4x redforce https://t.co/HVvYpTra9F
6x dragon khan https://t.co/4QHHYOBcqH
2x ferious baco https://t.co/IvvJ2vktDE
1x stampida https://t.co/aPDM3CjeiG pic.twitter.com/0kusjOUkOr— Ian Forrester | @cubicgarden (@cubicgarden) September 7, 2018
253 rides in another over country…
Truly smashed this one into pieces and loved every moment.
This year I got to two new countries. Finland and Macedonia. Both suprised me, the Finnish was fancinating and massively different from the Swedish in many ways I didn’t quite get till I was there. Also great to see old Manchester friend Gabrielle while I was there.
Macedonia was also really interesting and I couldn’t help but link what I saw in Romania with Macedonia. One of the highlights was seeing and walking around a set of flats (centar) which I had only really seen on the screen while creating the living room of the future.
I got to the Edinburgh Comedy Festival with my partner this year. The last time I was in the fringe festival was in 2007 during the TV Un-Festival. This year I did a lot of comedy from Edinburgh to a more local Cholton Chuckles.
Very enjoyable and something I’d like to keep this going for sure.
This didnt happen enough, I went to a MCR Talk: Retrain Your Brain but not much more, something to explore more next year? But I’ve given up on Funzing as the last event was pretty poor.
So this worked out well except I broke it a few times with some poor chocolate choices. One such time was eating a milkyway out of a box celebrations, there was no Twix left and I didn’t realise Teaseers were Maltesers. But I have been pretty good most of the time and its really changed my tastes when it comes to chocolate. Now I find milk chocolate far too sugarly and milky, almost sickly.
Cocoarunners has done a excellent job providing different types of chocolates monthly and the range has been super impressive. Theres a blog post previously highlighting my favourate ones.
I have a task to extend my e-residency card to 5 years which I need to do ASAP, likely in the next few weeks. After that I also have a task to look into self-signing using my estonian e-residency.
Started to reduce the amount of services but theres a lot more that can be done. But this year I have been making my home server more stable which runs Plex, Tinytiny RSS, etc.
So my partner asks…
“More daring?”
“Yes more daring” I reply with a slight smile
I have been dating my partner for almost 10 months now and like all relationships its needs work, time and effort. Luckily my partner is understanding, patient and caring…sometimes! (smile!)
Still very interested and theres some chatter about doing something around this with a potential new project in 2019. Although I’m not dating myself, theres still a moral problem I see and would like a hand in changing, regardless of my own status. Decentralise dating for the win of team human!
This has happened, especially since I starting using Mastodon.
However Facebook dropped support for third-party tools to automatically share posts to Facebook Profiles, which is annoying and means my facebook is very quiet. Twitter also changed their API breaking a lot of my linux twitter clients forcing me to use the web interface. This meant my use of twitter has dropped too.
So generally I’m doing less POSSE because each platform is locking down their systems.
I certainly have a love for B&M Hypercoasters like Shabhala in Port Adventura. Currently the 3rd highest in Europe at 249.3 ft. I assume we don’t have any in the UK due to the massive amount of space it requires?
Total rides today Portadventura https://t.co/Bz1nV0zA0i
32x Shambhala https://t.co/ozCHCd15w5
1x Diablo https://t.co/ORkdRKEXn2
4x redforce https://t.co/HVvYpTra9F
6x dragon khan https://t.co/4QHHYOBcqH
2x ferious baco https://t.co/IvvJ2vktDE
1x stampida https://t.co/aPDM3CjeiG pic.twitter.com/0kusjOUkOr— Ian Forrester (@cubicgarden) September 7, 2018
Somewhere between getting food and riding Shambhala, I caught a candid shot of this lady sitting on Shambhala’s landscape with a nice pictures of Shambhala in the background. If it wasn’t for Dragon Khan in the background, it would almost seem like a snowy scene in the himalaya?
Great sunset on a excellent ride….
https://www.flickr.com/photos/cubicgarden/42935852470/