tigerfort | Reading

Ice hockey:

I'm trying to practice more regularly with Womens Blues on a Friday, this means I have 4 practices a week over 3 days (Friday nights are double-practice, with just over an hour between Womens Blues and Warbirds). I played for a joint Huskies-WBs game against UCL two weeks ago, and for Warbirds against Chelmsford Chargers last Saturday, immediately followed by watching Huskies play Oxford Vikings B. I had begun to fear that Huskies could only win when I wasn't physically in the building, so was very glad to be proved emphatically wrong by a 7-4 scoreline. Both Saturdays I went out with the students after the game, and ended up staying up way too late (worth it though, I love my teammates very much).

I have yet to play a winning game this season, across any of my four teams (Kodiaks, Warbirds, Huskies, Womens Blues). I'm still having fun every time I step onto the ice to play, and that's what matters. But I would really like a win any time now. This weekend for a change I have no games to play, but will be doing game ops for Tri-Base Lightning vs Peterborough Dynamo, followed by the same for Mens Blues vs Imperial Devils. Huskies are having a social watching the MBs and then going out (of course!). Next week I am driving to Sheffield with Womens Blues for a late night game Monday and taking Tuesday off work to recover.

Theatre:

I love living in the same city as the ADC Theatre, and especially getting a staff discount on the already reasonably-priced tickets. Two weeks ago I took Charles to see Hadestown: Teen Edition (that means they changed the register of some of the parts to make it easier for youth theatre to stage), along with Mick and Joye and a couple of my friends, and he loved it. This week we saw Noises Off together, which is as funny as I remembered. We've been through the rest of the current schedule and while I can't get to anything in February, we're hoping my schedule will let us get to a whole swathe of productions from March to May.

Languages:

Modern Irish classes have resumed for this term and I am still so very happy to be studying again, and also happy to have no compulsory homework or exams. Highlight of this week's classes: we were discussing plans for the weekend, and the professor gave us the Irish for "watching a hockey game", saying "as a Canadian, it's 'hockey' not 'ice hockey'".

I have both Pimsleur and Babbel apps to work on other languages (primarily French and Czech at the moment), but I'm struggling to make much time to use either of them at the moment, the university ice hockey season is so intense.

Reading: I'm continuing to make my way through the Rick Riordan backlist and enjoying the journey very much.

rmc28

I managed to be awake to watch the livestream, and I'm very glad I did. My uncle and cousins spoke movingly, there was the most wonderful collection of photographs (some of which I recognised, many of which I did not), and a gratifyingly large number of people in attendance. Apparently they had to print extra service sheets and still ran out.

Helen was a creator: of quilts and crafts, of food, of community. I am sorry not to be there and see her needlecraft on the walls and hear the stories in the community centre where she ran playgroup, but I am so glad to have had this glimpse from afar of how she was valued in the place where she lived.

wellinghall

Did anyone here send some rather nice artificial flowers to us?

jack

General thoughts on large changes:
* Having three ages with only some things carried over between them actually works really well. If you do well on the victory tracks on one age it helps in the next age, but it's not impossible to catch up. And it's meaningful to pivot from science one age to conquering in another age to economics in another.
* Adding hexes to cities is simpler and meaningful, but confusing to people used to earlier Civ games. Each tile has a natural yield. When you grow the city (when you get a new pop) into that tile, it gets the appropriate improvement. Hexes adjacent to city tiles (within 3 of the centre) don't produce any yield but count as controlled by the city. (That's where you can expand into) Placing buildings also grows the city. Building count as urban hexes, they all need to be contiguous with the centre.
* Gaining influence spent for diplomatic actions works really well. It makes investing in diplomacy meaningful, for warlike civs as well as friendly ones. It makes a difference which civs you butter up, but you can't infinitely butter up a civ that doesn't like you. And influence is used during war to influence war exhaustion, so a more/less popular war makes a real difference.
* There is a soft cap on the number of settlements which I like. It's less runaway victory/failure than how many settlers you can build. But it's less dramatic when building a settler isn't A Big Deal.
* Independent powers make a bit more sense. There are villages which can be hostile (like barbarians) or can be befriended (when they become city states). Late in the age you get auto-hostile ones who act like barbarians. It feels more organic.
* I like mixing and matching leaders and civs, and mixing and matching different civs appropriate to the region between ages.
* They got rid of rock-paper-scissors units. But overall the balance of military seems fairly good. I really enjoy it when I have good unique milirary units, like horse archers (just always OP), or elephants with machine gun mounts (Siam FTW) 🙂
* Some of the victory tracks are really fun. In modern age, economic requires connecting a rail network and processing factory resources. In exploration age, military/expansion track rewards settlements in foreign lands, extra if conquered, extra if your religion, so it can reward a variety of play. But some feel more unfinished, just "do X amount of Y".

( Read more... )

rmc28

My aunt died on Saturday. The funeral will be in Australia, and streamed online. I am so grateful that technology allows this. It will be at midnight my time; I'm going to aim to be awake for it, but apparently there will be a recording if I don't manage to.

Donations are encouraged in her memory:

https://donate.strokefoundation.org.au/stroke-appeals
https://donate.stroke.org.uk/

And now is probably as good a time as any to remind you of the signs of a stroke and the importance of reacting FAST

Face weakness
Arm weakness
Speech problems
Time to call 999

purplecat

Colourised image from The War Games. The Doctor, Jamie and Zoe face a WWI soldier. Jamie is wearing a pointed helmet.

rmc28

I just met someone to return their partner's phone, which I found in the road on the way home from ice hockey practice around 1am. Phone, case and debit card all scattered and wet from the rain I was grateful to have missed, the phone itself cracked but still intact. I put them in my bike and went on home.

There I dried everything out and set out to see if I could get in touch with the owner. I couldn't get into the phone, couldn't make calls or send messages, could access emergency contact info but it hadn't been populated, could view Gmail notifications which gave me the owners email address. I emailed it (and had the satisfying confirmation of seeing the resulting notification a short while later). I could see someone had been repeatedly calling the phone, and when they did so again I answered and we were in business. The owner was in a car accident, spent the night in A&E, and just got out, poor thing. I've just come back from meeting the partner at the Co-op to hand it over.

The situation reminded me to check my own phone was set up with emergency contacts and medical info in the Emergency section, which can be accessed without unlocking the phone. I also have my email address showing on my lock screen (all my notifications have the content hidden unless the phone is unlocked). Let this be your reminder to consider what you want visible on your own phone if it is lost.

purplecat

Blue sky with fluffy clouds above a geen field. In the field are two small standing stones and a third lying flat.

Also the stones of Stenness, but not the large ones.

rmc28

I don't think I mentioned getting a new phone last month. I very much enjoyed my tiny Jelly Star for a long time: it was very good for making it unsatisfying to scroll while out and about, and instead listen to more music and pay more attention to where I was. But eventually it started to be actually annoying and I did some thinking and looking at different phones, and ended up with a Motorola Razr folding phone. Still small by default! Still easy to prioritise music over scrolling! But much easier to do messaging, emails, etc when I need to.

As a surprise bonus, I have found that having a decent camera and a screen I can clearly see the results on means I'm taking more photos. It also has a neat timer function, and the folding phone is easy to set up to take photos at distances longer than my arm.

Here is a result taken this morning: me wearing another new possession, my CUIHC fleece. It is soft and cozy and I adore it, I've had it since Monday and love it unreasonably. I want to wear it all the time.

rmc28

Heated Rivalry is on this year's Canada Reads longlist.

raven

A very little story, about not very much.

paper lanterns, one after another (4094 words) by raven
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Heated Rivalry (TV)
Relationships: Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov
Characters: Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Yuna Hollander
Additional Tags: Obon, Japanese Culture

It occurs to Ilya that he doesn't belong here. But then, this is a necessary migration.

rmc28

It's been a whole adventure watching Heated Rivalry go mainstream (for once I can claim I was a fan before it was cool!). I turned on Radio 2 in a hire car on Tuesday evening and the presenter was talking about it. Half the UK ice hockey clubs are making social media posts riffing off the show, or at minimum using music from it in their updates.

But it's also more complicated. Zach Sullivan, one of the very very few out queer male professional hockey players in the world, made an Instagram post a few days ago, about how conflicted he feels about the show. Well worth a read if you have time. Heated Rivalry is a romantic fantasy, the hockey aspects are often wrong, and I agree with Zach that I'm not at all sure the enthusiasm over the show is making things better for closeted male players right now. (I hope it will in the long term, but I worry about the harm right now.)

Also, I am developing a visceral loathing for the phrase "boy aquarium" for hockey rinks.

it's gross
it's not just boys (men) who play ice hockey
please stop sexualising the spaces where people play and get changed

That last point: I play with two mixed (male-dominated) teams, I get changed in the same room as the men, and because my teams are not gross and the changing room is not a sexualised space, I feel safe doing so. If I changed separately, I would miss out on a whole load of the team connection and conversation, all the stuff that creates a team out of a bunch of people who turn up in the same place each week. So I stay and change with my team, and it's not a big deal, and I don't want people to make it a big deal.

rmc28

Today would have been my mother's 79th birthday. It's been 3.5 years, I still miss her.

Her sister, my aunt, is in hospital following a stroke last week, and not expected to recover. My cousins are on their way to Australia (possibly there by now) and hoping to arrive in time to say goodbye.

I walked to work this morning in a downpour with angsty-sad music in my headphones, and let myself cry it out while no-one was watching. In the last few minutes of my walk, the sun briefly shone through the clouds, and the music algorithm played me something more upbeat. I took in the moment of beauty, and walked on.

lnr

So last year in March the Greater Cambridge Partnership published a number of TRO proposals for Great Shelford/Stapleford, the main one of which is a proposal for road narrowing and a raised crossing to help cyclists and pedestrians crossing Hinton Way between Chaston Road and Mingle Lane.

Camcycle noticed it at the time, and publicised some problems with it, and asked people to object. Their blog includes the original diagrams:

Camcycle blog post

21 days was given for responses, and having read the proposals and looked at the diagrams I put in an objection, because I honestly felt that the proposals as given could make the road less safe for cyclists, particularly those trying to make other journeys - e.g. from the centre of the village along Hinton Way, rather than just crossing Hinton Way. This is the email I wrote objecting:

18 March 2025
Good morning,

I am a resident of Great Shelford, and I am writing to formally object to TRO reference PR1094

The proposed crossing of Hinton Way in order for cyclists to travel between Chaston Road and Mingle Lane is completely unsuitable. Not only does it make the junction more complicated for cyclists making that particular journey along the greenway it also makes things more difficult for cyclists travelling along Hinton Way, where it will be unclear if/when they should leave the carriageway to join the shared use pavement. As a local resident who uses this area in all directions this design needs rethinking and more consultation.

This junction will become more difficult for pedestrians, those on bikes, and for motorists.
I would also appreciate some clarity on whether the proposals on London Road include widening the existing shared use pavement, as the current width is unsuitable, particularly on bin collection days, and this is not very clear from the diagram.

Yours, etc

Today I was emailed to say they're meeting with parish councillors next week to decide whether to go ahead with all the proposed changes, and there's a document here:

TRO Report

From the report:

PR1094 Great Shelford & Stapleford Traffic Calming, Parallel Crossings,
Shared Use Cycleway
66 total responses 5 positive, 3 neutral, 58 objections.

The basis for the majority of objections was on the proposals for the narrowing of Hinton Way, crossing point and shared use path. Other issues raised are set out in Table 1 below, with the GCP recommendations in response to the concerns raised. Sawston Greenway has been through 3 consultations with residents and key stakeholders, and the scheme has been developed in accordance with Local Transport Note 1/20 (LTN 1/20) - cycle design good practice guidance issued by Government. This means that schemes have been developed to ensure that users of all abilities can walk and cycle on the Greenways

Table 1
Objection:
Narrowing of carriageway and priority measures unsafe and will cause congestion.

GCP Recommendation:
The narrowing is required as an additional safety feature that will reduce speeds and increase intervisibility between crossing users and other highways users. The priority will be on traffic travelling northwards thereby reducing impact on the level crossing.
The scheme on Hinton Way has been designed to accommodate those walking and wheeling (providing a wider path) and is in accordance with LTN 1/20.

I'm baffled that they can sum up 58 objections to a proposal with just "Narrowing of carriageway and priority measures unsafe and will cause congestion". I've posted about it on Facebook, and forwarded Camcycle the email I got about the Parish Council meetings, but I don't know where we go from here. Do we just let it go ahead as maybe better than no crossing and then try address any problems as they arise? Is there a way to find full details of the other objections and see how well they've been addressed?

Not being a cycle infrastructure design engineer I'm unlikely to come up with an alternative proposal that meets the relevant design standard - certainly not before the 29th! It's a staggered junction rather than straight across, which doesn't help - so its not an easy one. I'd like to see what (if any) other options they considered, and what thought they've taken for cyclists making other movements. Basically I'm willing to be convinced this is good - but they don't seem to have tried!

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Under Observation

Events of note

Funeral

(no subject)

Civ VII reactions

Helen Burke, 5 June 1950 — 24 January 2026

Random Doctor Who Picture

Good deed / public service reminder

Random Neolithic Stones on a Friday

New possessions

ahaha

fic: paper lanterns, one after another [Heated Rivalry]

It's always more complicated

Weather, emotional and actual

Cycle Crossing planning stuff

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