That last one was cheeky and awesome at the same time.

Watched the ISS go over between the clouds earlier. Really impressively bright. We were waiting for it as part of our astronomy night. Not much else visible, and you can`t align your telescope to the ISS for all sorts of momentous reasons. Too windy and cold to stay out.

What I really want is 7 more lighting harnesses to light up the whole team.

Joker Rasio C-20 has now been upgraded to digital and the lights rewired to go through the revision H digital plug.
Second hand item, I also repaired and rerouted the power input wires as one looked to have been rubbing on the front axle.
Camera hardly picks up the lights. Odd.

Tough day wrestling with websites to renew my house and car insurances. Unknown error 427440431 was amusing. That's an awful lot of error codes! Worthy of a whole shelf. Any more than 6 error codes and you're doing it wrong.

This is more for multi-player games where up to 4 players can switch their mode any time. I do save most of the config out, including the names. The right way to do it is to save the selection with many player names. Since it`s only one button press to swap modes, people should be able to manage.

Of course it doesn`t know if I hand the joypad to someone else and don`t set their name on the score legend. It`s not a mind-reader.
Actually, I should have encouraged players to put their name in so that I learn who`s who. They all know who I am, but I don`t always remember or know everyone else.

A game-tweak came out of testing. The joypad controls can be swapped to an alternate set by any player. I thought it wasn`t preserved across games, but it is. So you set it, it stays for the next game.
I now have rigged it to default if the player name is changed, so a new player, right?

I note that my game maps have many "untidinesses" that are not an issue when I`m testing, but suddenly if I want to show it to someone, I do want to avoid any awkward questions, such as: "When are they going to finish that road?" or "Why has that hedge got a hole in it?" New pylons though!

Yeah, an extension of an already long neck. Love that shape.

It`s #Basses day, apparently. I can support that. Here`s the Gibson Thunderbird IV in tobacco burst.

A rip-roaring Sao Paulo grand prix yesterday. Never a dull moment. I note that the track should be creatable in #Scalextric and have done a track plan for next year. Might have to go round the other way, not sure. On that subject, I would like false-starters to be able to reverse back to the grid.

Those 12,000 records are in an array, so that I don`t have to allocate them. Memory allocators like to cause trouble! I only allocate memory in one place where SFML required me to. My AMPs are managed through nicely oiled doubly-linked lists, no point in reading through unused ones.

Since my application went 64-bit, all the structures doubled in size. Each AMP object now has about 160 8-byte variables, so almost 1,300 bytes. I have a pointer to the structure and read all the values from that. There`s 12,000 AMP records currently so about 15.5 Megabytes in the array. Peanuts!

That will attempt to teach me not to use 1 variable for 2 purposes. I`m not listening, because generally the 2 uses are not needed at the same time, and @xiotex.bsky.social likes to tell me my structures are too big by a mile already. I just set the variables for an unrequired purpose. No idea why!

Also there have been #Scalextric preparations. Every tournament, I assess what bits of track we nearly run out of and then try to get them. I now have 8 sets of 7 cars to race, so the soldering is all done. Just have to replace worn out braids. Not too much to do before the next one.

Seemingly there have been more extra-curricular activities over the last few weeks, including buying a telescope and accessories, outings & winter preparations. These divert me from programming. One needs momentum, otherwise I forget routine and variable names, making the job slower. Concentrate!

I believe I found the bug with the feet controller. I knew it had to be initialisation as the routine works with the player, not with the meanies. It wasn`t a case of missing initialisation, but too much, i.e. some variables that might be needed but weren`t. Been puzzling over that for weeks. Tch!

What you need, when moving your telescope outside is... one of these. All it needs is a 3.5l engine.

Today's #Scalextric tournament saw a slightly more compact nearly all 4-lane track. Just 6 drivers so straight to finals. We raced Minis, Rasio C-20s and Porsche Boxsters.

There is some mighty ambiguity there which I hadn't spotted. Funny. Real programmers don't do exercise, of course.

My feet routine looks great when taking giant strides 10 times too long, just for testing and ease of spotting errors. However, the meanie feet don`t get initialised properly despite my best efforts. They start will a giant step 20 times too long. Same routine and initialiser for player and meanies.

I wish someone would send me to Tokyo. Hajimemashite! Got to visit the Fox God Bar in Shinjuku again. Best place ever.

In other news. in an attempt to get my walking feet routine working cleaner; I have simplified it to the point where my meanies are goose-stepping around the screen. Not what I intended. Why is this so hard? I was doing this successfully in #Amiga #Uridium 2 in the sub-game that was too big to fit.

Realising how immoveable the new telescope is, even dragging it to the door to peer out is a major effort, I have ordered a padded bag and a camping trolley, in SU-METAL red. Might need another 2 bags for the tripod and mount. See if that gets me to the viewing area. Else I will need a helicopter.

Lined up the sighter scope, not likely accurately for stars further away. Re-balanced forward and back since the diagonal and eyepiece are now 4" further back. Likely 3" will be enough for the moon. Don't want to be swapping out extension tubes all the time. Got my 2" variable moon filter today.

First terrestrial test of the new 'scope. To sight up the trees over the back it likes to run this way up. Needed the diagonal and all 3 extension tubes to focus on something that close.

One of my Motorolas does have 2 SIM slots, but... it's a second SIM or a micro SD card, not both. My music library wins that one.

Here`s a thought, started by reading about mobile price rises: do I actually need mobile access? The device is handy, I need that for all sorts of things, but do I actually need it to be connected? Sadly, 2-factor authentication says "Yes". Otherwise, wi-fi at home or in shops does it. But 2 phones?

It`s a bit like having a Rubik`s Cube with one side glued. Actually, I have a double cube where they are joined at one edge so suddenly some moves don`t work. We had a real clever mathematician chap who could do it, but it`s well beyond me.
I have a 4x4x4 cube that I completed after 3 days.