T w e n t y S i d e d

No, I’m not talking about any incarnation of Warhammer as an expert or even an informed noob. As much as I *may* know about Warhammer, there are people who have lived and breathed either all of Warhammer or some particular variant for long enough to pick anything I say apart. So I’m not even going to pretend special knowledge. In fact, other than knowing what Warhammer 40,000 was; I never had any interest until a few years ago. And as far as enjoying the core dynamic, tabletop war-gaming aspect, it’s not gone well. A few years back I got keenly interested, bought an Adepta Sororitas box set that was getting harder to find but was still reasonably available (I bought it off of eBay from Britain, something nearly impossible at the moment) and one of my kids got a Space Wolves box. And then a new version of Warhammer 40k was released that changed the rules, and according to some people made both box sets at least half-pointless.

We still have the boxes. I like building models and have never gotten in to miniatures-building, so that’s a possibility. Except every time I think I’ve got a grasp on how to paint miniatures I come across another video that does things exactly the opposite and claims it’s the best way to paint. And fundamentally, my inherent OCD conflicts with, as far as I can gather, a fundamental conceit of Warhammer 40K: it’s not meant to be taken seriously AT ALL.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “The Omni-lore of Warhammer”

Paige Francis He/him

I’ve been talking a lot about the upgrade plans (such as they are, at the moment) for Twenty Sided. This has coincided with several other upgrades. I had mentioned already (a few times now) that my PC got hit by lightning for a second time and has resisted easy solutions. I have just about reached the point that I will likely have to build a new computer. At least, I’m hoping replacing everything that DID NOT get replaced when I upgraded the video card will finally fix it. Using my laptop as a main PC; something I originally bought it to be capable of back in 2017, has revealed that I probably need to upgrade this machine at this point. It does normal computer-use things just fine; editing documents, even editing pictures. Watching YouTube (obviously). I can play some games just fine…Lord of the Rings Online, for example. Others have problems. Star Wars The Old Republic is a weird one anyway, and y’all may even remember getting it working on Linux wasn’t straightforward; and that incidentally was ON this computer. I remember when I ordered this Dell 2-in-1 I wanted something extremely light and portable but still capable. I ended up not paying for two upgrades that I now wish I had. The system is capable of running 32GB of RAM; I only had 16GB installed. And since it’s an APU, AMD’s unified architecture with a built-in GPU, up to 4GB of that memory can be tapped for that system. It’s probably what makes it capable of some gaming; but it also means there’s only about 12GB left for the system. Not bad, but not great. Also, this laptop uses some more-niche NVMe setup, which means; in a nutshell: it can only operate certain drives and it only supports a maximum of 512GB. And unfortunately, I ordered it with the 256GB option, which is *really* hurting now. The 512GB drive, while not *readily* available, is *technically* available, but I kind of think given the SATA 6Gb interface I wouldn’t be too badly served by getting a new external NVMe plugged in through the USB-C. It’s 3.1 spec; 5Gb/s…but if I use that for installs and storage and left the system on the 256GB drive, I would still be better off than the current setup of reading installs off a much older SATA USB that I’m pretty sure maxes out at 1Gb/s.

But with needing to build a new computer for myself, and a new computer for my spouse as…*something*…has gone screwy with the sound input on their computer (that no-one can find an answer for so far)…upgrading the laptop seems like a pointless exercise.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Upgrade Everything”

Paige Francis He/him