Randomness

Science Baby Updates, Etc.

Rosemary Sage is enjoying her life of solitude on the island in Windenburg. She still sees Etsuko Hashimoto occasionally. Although she is now a tenured professor, Rosemary is working toward getting her high school diploma online.

While Rosemary was attending University, several significant events happened.

California, Ari Horne’s horse, died of old age.

Chuck Tartosa, science baby of Souxie Tartosa and Bobby Ferris, and husband of science baby Kris Ogawa-Moon, died of old age.

Elise Andrews, wife of Chuck Tartosa’s twin brother, Pat Ironforge, died of old age.

Yuuko Ono, former butler, died of old age. Aiden Andrews, son of Chuck and Elise, has quietly eloped with Yuuko’s cousin, Itoko Ono. Aiden and Itoko still live in the house they once shared with Yuuko, and still share with Kayleigh Marquez.

Venus Vann Ironforge, science baby of Vanna Vann and Souxie Tartosa, aunt of Aiden Andrews, and half-sister of Pat Ironforge and Chuck Tartosa, is trying to figure out why her wife, Bella Goth-Robards, science baby of Daryl Robards and Alexander Goth, doesn’t get along with Daryl. Bella may be the only Sim who doesn’t get along well with Daryl Robards.

Who is this Sim who moved in with Pat Ironforge?

Who is she, and what’s her relationship with Pat?

Two Videos About The 2 Line

After I got home from my joyride on the 2 Line on Friday, RMTransit, a channel I subscribe to, posted a video about the new light rail line on Nebula. The next day, he posted the same video on YouTube.

Later, on Saturday, Classy Whale, another channel I subscribe to, posted a video about the 2 Line on YouTube.

They both explain the 2 Line better than I did.

I went on my joyride without looking into the route – what’s at the stations, and why they’re there, and so on.

I learned a lot I didn’t know on Friday.

There are a lot more major tech companies near the stations than I was aware of.

I saw at least three large Coca-Cola trucks while I wandered around Spring District. Now I know why.

I learned that there is a coffee shop near Redmond Technology Station, as I’d heard. It just isn’t on the Microsoft campus. I’d misunderstood that. (It’s the same chain as I visited at Spring District.)

I’m still not clear about why East Main Station is there.

I wish I’d visited Overlake Village Station. It looks interesting. There’s nothing saying I can’t go back for another joyride.

Classy Whale says it sounds wrong that the 2 Line is not named Line 2. I posted a comment, disagreeing with that, along with my theory that when Central Link was planned to be renamed the Red Line, until someone realized the negative connotation, the Red Line became 1 Line. I also included my opinion that Bellevue Downtown Station does sound wrong, however.

I’m pleased that both RMTransit and Classy Whale point out that this will be the first rail line on a floating bridge. Yea!

I Read: Null States

Null States, by Malka Older, was published in 2017.

It’s the second book in the Centenal trilogy.

I downloaded it from the Sno-Isle Libraries. Then I downloaded it from the King County Library System. Then I downloaded it from the Seattle Public Library.

It was 723 ePages on my phone.

The story starts two years after the events of Infomocracy.

The third, and most controversial, global election is over. Information, the organization that oversees the elections, has lost some popularity, but, since they’re not a political party, they’re sure that they’ll recover.

Information has rebranded itself as a “global oversight and transparency agency.”

There is talk of changing the elections from every ten years to every five years. There is talk of scraping the micro-democracy system completely. But this is all informal speculation.

Roz (who was in the first book) is in an Information field office in Kas with the rest of her SVAT team for a briefing. (SVAT is Specialized Voter Action Tactics, a sort of aid team with weapons.)

The briefing is about a man commonly known as Al-Jalabi.

The region formerly named Darfur now contains 78 centenals of 100,000 people each. Thirty of those centenals have elected a government named DarFur, led by Al-Jalabi. Al-Jalabi wishes to expand into other centenals.

Even though DarFur means “house of the Fur,” Al-Jalabi strongly states that it is not a nationalist government. He points out that there are many DarFur citizens who are not members of the Fur tribal nation.

Some DarFur citizens have staged a rally in a neighboring centenal ruled by 888, a corporate government that originated in China. There has been some tension, but, so far, no open hostility.

Xenophobia is still a motivation for some political movements.

Roz and her team have scheduled a meeting with Al-Jalabi.

As Al-Jalabi is arriving for the meeting, the tsubame he’s flying in explodes, in view of the SVAT team.

(There are low-flying hovercraft known as crows. They’re used for public transport. There are also privately owned crows. In the first book, Mishima had a crow, supplied by Information, that she outfitted as a camper. She’d moor it to the roof of a building on work trips. A tsubame is a smaller version of a crow.)

Roz and her SVAT team begin an investigation, working alongside the local government. Roz’s first impression is that it was an assassination, but she’s going in with an open mind.

Roz soon learns that there has been open hostilities, some fighting, and even some casualties in the region. How was Information unaware of this? It wasn’t a coverup. It’s merely that Information doesn’t have many surveillance cameras in this part of the world. (What did DarFur do with the money Information provided for the surveillance equipment?)

“Null states” is a term referring to areas where Information has limited or no access to data.

Micro-democracy was supposed to eliminate wars, because it has eliminated centers of power. In a sense, it has. But skirmishes are still happening all over the globe.

This is one thing I’m loving about this series: It presents a world that’s neither a utopia nor a dystopia. It’s a complicated world that’s trying very hard to be a utopia, but it’s still new, so it hasn’t quite gotten everything right.

Mishima is in Saigon. She no longer works for Information. She’s a freelance consultant.

Ken is in Seville. He’s supposed to be taking life slowly as a local government official, but he’s traveling the world as a paid speaker.

Eventually, Roz hires Mishima as a consultant, and Mishima recruits Ken as an assistant.

The mystery of the death of Al-Jalabi deepens as Roz learns that six other government leaders have recently died in various types of accidents around the world. There’s nothing tying them together. The deaths are alarming, but not suspicious. Al-Jalabi’s death would have been seen as another accident, a crash of a tsubame, if Roz and her team hadn’t been there to witness it. Now, Information is re-evaluating those other deaths.

This is a story of public surveillance, told from the point of view of those doing the surveillance.

Al-Jalabi’s widow, who is bidding to take over her husband’s vacant post, accuses Information of killing her husband. Why would we kill him, responds Roz, Information had no interest in him. If you had no interest in him, counters the widow, then why are you recording everything we do?

Roz learns that one of her coworkers is a member of Privacy=Freedom, a Luddite government that controls two centenals – one in California, and the other in Thailand. They’re not strictly anti-technology, but they believe that technology shouldn’t be invasive. Roz wonders why a member of Privacy=Freedom is working for Information.

The situation gets more complicated when a bombing kills several members of a former supermajority government. The bomber escapes across a border into Switzerland. Switzerland has rejected the micro-democracy model, is still a country, and has made itself into a null state. Information has no jurisdiction there, and has no access to the country’s internal surveillance systems.

The world building in the book is awesome.

It’s a murder mystery and a thrilling tale of global espionage. There are exciting battle scenes. It’s thought-provoking science fiction. And it took me forever to get through this book. The story is thick with evidence, clues, suspects, and investigations. I wasn’t able to renew my initial library loan, and I was less than halfway through the book, so I had to borrow another copy from a different library. Then that second loan was almost over, I was about 77% of the way through the book, and I wasn’t able to renew it, so I borrowed it from a third library. (Maybe it could use a little less world building?)

I loved this little scene, which illustrates how much Information is a part of everyday life: Roz sees a sign written in a language she’s unfamiliar with. Her glasses translate it as: ZEINAB’S WORLD-FAMOUS COFFEE. There’s a footnote from Information, stating that there’s no recorded evidence of Zeinab’s coffee being known any farther away than Khartoum.

The mystery of the leaders’ deaths is only partly solved. The ending sets us up for the third and final book.

I enjoyed this book. It was worth spending two and a half library loans to get through it.

Joyriding The 2

I took today off from work, specifically to joyride on Link Light Rail’s new 2 Line. I invited Phillip to join me, but he wasn’t interested. It’s not his vibe.

The 2 Line opened last weekend, but I decided to avoid the crowds at the opening ceremonies.

The 2 Line doesn’t connect to Seattle yet, so I had to get over to Bellevue.

The Trip Planner app offered me just one solution, with a couple of variations: Head north to the U District (via the 49 bus or Link Line 1) and catch the Metro 271 bus across the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge to the Bellevue Transit Center.

The Transit app offered me that same solution, and another one: Head south to Downtown and catch the Sound Transit 550E bus across the I-90 Floating Bridge.

I got Phillip up and out the door this morning. Then I made some coffee. I had no schedule, but I figured that 8:00-ish would be a good time to head out.

Rosemary Sage Succeeds

Rosemary Sage, who had been created to fail, and who had been subjected to an experiment to see just how difficult it is to get expelled from Copperdale High School, graduated from Foxbury Institute with a degree in Psychology.

Rosemary worked hard. Classes took effort. She didn’t always get top grades, but she succeeded in graduating with a “GPA” of A+.

She took four Wednesday to Wednesday semesters to meet the graduation requirement. She took 3 classes, then 4 classes, then 3 classes, and then 2 classes. (I find that that works best for most Sims.)

The free food provided in the dorm bathroom got better. No longer just cakes and cookies, the dorm was given Monte Cristo sandwiches, roast chickens, omelets, and Lobster Thermador.

Whoever was providing this food seemed to enjoy hiding it in unexpected places. Rosemary developed the Squeamish trait during her stay at University.

Rosemary thought she hadn’t developed a close relationship with her housemates back in Evergreen Harbor. Her housemates seemed to think otherwise. Corina Page stopped by the dorm often.

Rosemary’s close friend, Venus Vann Ironforge, was also a frequent guest. I can’t find any screenshots of that.

Rosemary continued to date Etsuko Hashimoto in an exclusive, but non-committed, romantic relationship.

Rosemary and Etsuko hung out together on weekends.

To celebrate Night on the Town, when all food is free, they went on a fancy date to that faux-Latin restaurant, El Banana Azul.

Etsuko spent occasional nights in Rosemary’s dorm room (which, you may recall, used to be Etsuko’s dorm room).

Etsuko Hashimoto was a homeless and unemployed NPC, so their more intimate romantic activities were usually in the dorm showers or other public locations.

Rosemary continued to earn a few simoleons selling stuff she’d collected.

(That Sim in the green swimsuit is Kris Ogawa-Moon, who had been expelled from Copperdale High School for no reason, which prompted Rosemary’s experiment. And there’s Corina Page by the fire.)

Mostly, though, Rosemary Sage made the most of her free time by simply being alone.

Venus Vann Ironforge, on behalf of the entire Goth Robards household, gave Rosemary 20,000 simoleons as a graduation gift.

Corina Page gave Rosemary a graduation gift as well. It was the portrait Rosemary took in the photo booth on The Pier but forgot to pack when she moved out.

(If that seems like a stingy gift, remember: Rosemary took almost all of the household funds with her when she moved out.)

Rosemary spent the 20,000 simoleon gift on a tiny house on an island in Windenburg.

(Phillip and I designed that house together a long time ago.)

She bought the house furnished, and plans to keep it pretty much the way it is.

Although she’d been expelled from Copperdale High, Rosemary’s University degree opened up every career choice.

She used her Psychology degree to jump-start a career in Education. She’s starting as a university professor.

She may get her High School degree online someday.

I Read: Mostly Harmless

Mostly Harmless, by Douglas Adams, was first published in 1992.

It’s the fifth book in the five-part trilogy.

I borrowed it from the Seattle Public Library.

It’s 218 pages long.

The book opens with:

“Anything that happens, happens.”

“Anything that, in happening, causes something else to happen, causes something else to happen.”

“Anything that, in happening, causes itself to happen again, happens again.”

“It doesn’t necessarily do it in chronological order, though.”

Tricia McMillan is a British TV anchor person. She’s come to New York to further her career by becoming an American TV anchor person. Tricia loves New York.

Ever since she’d missed that opportunity to travel into space with a two-headed alien, Tricia has learned that she should never go back to retrieve her bag.

Tricia fails her interview and returns to Britain. She learns that she should always go back to retrieve her bag.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has a lot of information about parallel universes, including the fact that they are neither parallel nor universes.

A neutrino stuck an atom on one of the many Earths and created an Earth where four-leaf clovers are common, and finding a three-leaf clover is lucky, and where Tricia McMillan never boarded a spaceship with Zaphod Beeblebrox. This Earth was never destroyed by a Vogon construction fleet in order to build an intergalactic bypass.

Outside of her home in Essex, Tricia McMillan is approached by a group of extraterrestrial aliens. They’ve lost their memories. All they know is that they’re supposed to bring Tricia to their home planet, Rupert, so that she can help recalibrate their horoscopes. Seeing an opportunity for a news story, Tricia agrees to go to Rupert with them.

Meanwhile, Ford Prefect discovers that his employer, the publisher of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, has been bought by InfiniDim Enterprises. InfiniDim has been making a fortune, not by selling billions of copies of The Hitchhiker’s Guide, but by selling the same copy to billions of parallel universes. Furthermore, Ford learns that he has been reassigned from field researcher to restaurant critic.

Meanwhile, Arthur Dent has arrived at the planet of NowWhat. It had been named after the first words the first settlers spoke upon landing there. It’s always cold and wet on NowWhat. It’s a miserable place.

Arthur looks at travel brochure and recognizes the planet’s landmasses. This was Earth. Or, rather, it was not Earth.

“Right planet, wrong universe,” Arthur sadly concludes.

The love of Arthur Dent’s life, Fenchurch, vanished in a hyperspace accident a year earlier. (That’s not a spoiler. It’s in the synopsis.) She vanished so completely that her name was no longer on the passenger list. The seat where she had been sitting before the hyperspace jump wasn’t even warm. Arthur realizes that he’s the only person in the entire galaxy who remembers that Fenchurch ever existed.

Arthur Dent is miserable. He wants to have a life, and wants to find a planet to live his life on. For some unknown reason, his copy of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy isn’t working properly, and that’s making finding a suitable planet difficult.

This book is darker than the previous four.

Then Arthur is surprised to discover that he has a teenage daughter. Her name is Random Dent. (That’s also in the synopsis. I won’t spoil who Random’s mother is.)

Arthur Dent remembers the Earth being destroyed. Ford Prefect apparently remembers this, too. Random Dent has never been to Earth, but she has heard of it. For Tricia McMillan, the Earth exists, and has always been there. When Arthur finds Trillian, she mentions Zaphod Beeblebrox, so maybe this version of Tricia does remember the Earth being destroyed.

I liked the whole “parallel reality” bit in the previous book better, where it wasn’t clearly explained. In this book, I thought it was explained too much, and it felt heavy-handed.

Towards the end, when Tricia gets mistaken for Trillian, the “parallel reality” bit finally began to grow on me.

There’s a cameo by a famous person who’s never named, but their identity is obvious early on. And yet, the book keeps giving obvious hint after obvious hint. I thought that was especially heavy-handed.

I don’t like the way that Fenchurch was suddenly written out of the story. We don’t even get to experience the shock of her disappearance. We’re merely told that this character who took up most of the previous book, and became a major part of Arthur Dent’s life, is just gone.

This book is lacking a lot of Douglas Adams’ earlier wit and finesse. What happened here?

I was disappointed by this final book in the series.

Moving To Asia

On April 9, 2024, at 10:57 p.m., I gained an Achievement in my Transport Fever 2 game: “The Future is Now, Old Man.” In the game I was playing, it was April 9, 2024, at 10:57 p.m.

I played my successful European map into the 2030s.

The new vehicles stopped arriving in 2018. (That answers that question.)

My transport company was profitable. I was upgrading vehicles as they wore out. I was tweaking roads and rail as I saw a need for improvement. But I wasn’t growing much.

It was time to move on to an Asian theme.

In Transport Fever 2, there are three themes to choose from: Europe, USA, and Asia.

The highly customizable maps come in three biomes: Temperate, Dry, and Tropical.

The difference in the three themes is really the types of vehicles that you have available. The Asia theme, for instance, features vehicles from various Asian countries, including Russia.

The randomly generated towns are given names of cities from whichever theme you’ve chosen. But the towns all have that same look to them. (And since the names can be changed to whatever you want, the only real difference between the three themes is the vehicles. That’s a little disappointing.)

I tried a large Asian temperate map, and I failed. I was deeply in dept, unable to make a profit, and unable to afford to grow.

I tried a different Asian map, and failed. I tried again, and failed. I tried an American map, and failed. I tried another Asian map, and failed.

I learned from my failures: Start with a simple passenger rail line between two close cities. Go easy on the debt. Go easy on the expansions. Expand or pay off the loan only when it seems right to do so.

I started a new medium-sized Asian map. I kept regenerating the map until I found one with two cities close to each other.

I started in 1850.

I built a passenger route between Busan and Suzhou.

I built tolley lines in both cities, to bring people from their homes to jobs, shopping, and the train stations.

Then I resisted the temptation to expand too quickly.

There was a significant elevation change between Busan and Suzhou. The first train could barely handle it. Although it hit its top speed of 40 km/h at times, it also dropped to 12 km/h at times on the uphill climbs. But people still rode the slow train to get from one city to the other.

Eventually, my transport company made a profit. I upgraded the Busan-Suzhou train with more powerful locomotives when I could. I paid off parts of the $5,000,000 loan when I could. I built a cargo line to bring food to the restaurants of Busan.

Then I got the loan fully paid off and the money flowed in.

Around 1885, here’s how the factories in Chongqing got their fuel:

A train picked up crude oil from oil wells outside of Beijing.

The train delivered the crude oil to a refinery between Ho Chi Minh City and Hyderabad. It also picked up refined oil from the refinery.

The train shipped the refined oil across the countryside.

The train delivered the refined oil to a fuel refinery in Hyderabad. The fuel the refinery produced was loaded onto a dock.

A ship picked up the fuel.

The ship transported the fuel up the river.

The ship delivered the fuel to another dock.

A second train picked up the fuel.

The train carried the fuel across the countryside.

Finally, the train delivered the fuel to the factories of Chongqing.

It’s 1915 now.

Trolleys which had been drawn by horses, and had been replaced with steam-powered trolleys, are now switching to electric-powered.

Trains are still being powered by steam, but I’ve been electrifying tracks. Electric trains are coming soon, it seems.

Life Changes

Rosemary Sage did alright in her first term at Foxbury. She took three classes. She was constantly in some combination of sleepy, hungry, or stinky, but she managed to keep up with her coursework.

She even found time to attend school events, as long as her Loner trait didn’t make her too uncomfortable.

Rosemary shared a dorm room with a Sim named Angel Gamez.

Rosemary and Angel got along well enough, but rarely socialized with each other.

Etsuko Hashimoto lived in the dorm room across the hall from Rosemary. Etsuko often invited Rosemary to hang out, play ping pong, go for walks, or just talk.

Etsuko was a Communications major. Rosemary found it easy to talk with her.

Rosemary and Etsuko were together so often that other Sims mistook them for a couple.

Rosemary had read social media posts about the fabulous food the University provides for its students living on campus. She’d read about roast chicken, omelets, and Lobster Thermador.

Apparently, Rosemary’s dorm wasn’t one of those. All they got was cakes and cookies, served in the bathroom.

(That’s not a hamburger. It’s a hamburger cake.)

Rosemary often went to the Foxbury Commons for free meals, or bought cheap food from the vending machines.

One evening, after classes, Rosemary invited Etsuko Hashimoto out to dinner in Newcrest, for some real food. It was the first time that Rosemary had initiated a get-together with Etsuko.

They had some fancy drinks. Etsuko had clam chowder. Rosemary had a peanut butter & jelly sandwich.

Dinner went well.

Dinner went very well.

Despite her Unflirty trait, Rosemary Sage made the first move.

The rumors ended. Although neither one had asked the other to be their girlfriend, they were definitely a couple, physically and romantically.

Rosemary and Etsuko both had a final exam at the same time. When the exams were over, they congratulated each other.

And then Rosemary’s first term was over. She earned a “GPA” of A+. She signed up for four classes for a second term. Her schedule will be perfect: Two classes are on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, in the same building, right after each other, and two are on Tuesday and Thursday, in the same building, right after each other.

At the start of her second term, Rosemary moved across the hall, into Etsuko’s room.

But where was Etsuko? No one was in the second bed, but it was still assigned to Etsuko Hashimoto. Rosemary called Etsuko, but she was sleeping.

“Oh dear. Didn’t I tell you that last term was my final term? I’ve graduated, Rosemary.”

The Sims 4 Is A Weird Game, Part 9

What did I learn from the experiment I subjected Rosemary Sage to?

I learned that it takes a lot of deliberate effort to get expelled from High School.

Which means that Kris Ogawa-Moon getting expelled for no reason, in less than a week, must have been a bug.

I maintain that it still doesn’t feel like a bug, but the evidence suggests otherwise.

Rosemary Sage, as a Teen High School failure, never got a job.

She earned some money selling stuff she’d dug up around the worlds.

Rosemary has the Loner trait, so selling to the public made her tense, but she hung in there and earned a few simoleons from her street sales.

She took a three-day vacation to Selvadorada and dug up a few artifacts.

Everything she excavated from the Selvadoradian ruins was stolen, and about half of it was counterfeit.

She sold most of it at night on the streets of San Myshuno.

She sold the rest of it in broad daylight on the beaches of Tartosa.

Rosemary Sage’s plan was to age up to a Young Adult, earn her High School diploma online, and then attend University.

With less than a week left in her Teen lifespan, Rosemary got impatient and applied to University. Consider that another experiment: What does a University rejection letter look like?

Rosemary had few friends, aside from the Goth-Robards household (where she’d been a stayover guest) and the Sims she’d given sales pitches to. She barely connected to the members of her household.

Rosemary Sage baked herself a birthday cake and aged up to a Young Adult alone. She made only slight changes to the overall look she’d had as a Teen.

Rosemary immediately began working toward her online High School degree.

Before she’d gotten very far, the results of her University application arrived in the mail.

Rosemary Sage had been accepted to University!

Did they realize that she’d been expelled from High School?

She made a sudden decision to sign up for courses at Foxbury Institute. Every degree was grayed-out as unavailable (I’m guessing) to a Sim lacking a High School degree – except Psychology.

The Sims 4 is a weird game.

Rosemary Sage took 20,000 of the 25,000 simoleons in the household funds, signed up for a Psychology degree at Foxbury, and moved out of the household and into a dorm.

Rosemary is studying for her degree.

After her classes, she’s continuing her street sales on campus.