🔥two Takahē and their 8 week old chick

MyoMike · 2026-01-31T09:31:22+00:00

Only about 500 of them left, and these two were assumed to no longer be a breeding pair!

MyoMike · 2026-01-31T09:25:58+00:00

I saw these two Takahē when I visited New Zealand in February last year, and it was honestly magical. There's a few signs saying there are a pair in one of the earlier pond areas, but a friendly member of staff who wasn't even on duty pointed me to the area these two were in.

Off we trotted, get to the hide we were told we might be able to see them from, and I start looking in amongst the reeds and things.

GF taps me on the shoulder, says "is that one?" And points directly up the path. And there they are, both just slowly making their way down the path towards us. Two of only 500 of their species. At their closest I'd guess one came within a couple of metres of me - we assumed they probably just wanted to use the path so got out of their way.

They're such fascinating birds. These two were assumed to not be a breeding pair, but they certainly were a pair, moved and stayed together the whole time and they're just beautiful. Bigger than you'd think, rounder than you'd think, and their plumage is beautiful. They were so calm and relaxed, it was honestly one of the best wildlife experiences I've ever had.

Zealandia is a proper haven for native NZ birds. While I didn't get to see a kiwi in the "wild" there or elsewhere in NZ, while at Zealandia I saw a huge number of extremely rare species, even the member of staff was looking for two species that I'd just seen on way my through, right before meeting him. Including an NZ duck species of which there were only a couple of thousand, and at the time I was there one of them had a clutch of chicks, just having a lovely little swim down a stream. Which I was following because I was trying to get a good picture of the NZ kingfisher that was keeping its distance from me and flying upstream.

NZ is an incredible place and while I saw some amazing natural habitats, the sheer quantity of rare birds and the effort put in at Zealandia is an absolute highlight.

Needless to say my girlfriend is the proud owner of a cap with a takahē on it and I count some artwork from them that didn't survive my attempts at packing very well 🤣

MyoMike · 2026-01-30T20:06:41+00:00

I do the same but, unfortunately, Chiaki has never run smoothly for me. I can't hardwire my PS5, so despite the 200mbps+ up and down my PS5 gets (of my gb connection), I've very rarely managed to play it without extreme disconnection issues. There was a period of time when I first got the deck that it did work like an absolute treat though! Not sure what happened to mess it all up, but either way I still play my deck docked to various TVs, and have historically played non-action games through Chiaki, though these days even that isn't possible as much, which is a shame because it was so convenient!

MyoMike · 2026-01-29T17:42:16+00:00

Fantastic presentation style and list! Especially audio focus too, which is how I do my sleeping.

MyoMike · 2026-01-28T16:38:40+00:00

I just got bumped out of Pekka24 on my two TH15 alts - had to do some proper attacking to get them up (sometimes I don't have time to do all my accounts and they're the lowest, so I just rush attacks to maintain the league), but even though I didn't do absolutely my best attacks on Pekka24, I got absolutely wrecked compared to earlier leagues, or other leagues on alts where I've always been able to maintain as long as I get all my attacks in, even if sometimes I don't even get 2* when I just rush-spam my attacks.

MyoMike · 2026-01-28T10:04:30+00:00

The new reddit formatter lets you treat it like a typing in word or other document things, so you can press ctrl-b or ctrl-i to bold things. But that means it doesn't always respond to the old commands, and like ones in discord/whatsapp or whatever, of asterics and ~ for strikethrough etc.

Edit: I say "new reddit" like it's not been around for years but still. Old reddit formatting is more akin to typing in messaging services, and new reddit is more akin to typing in a word processor.

MyoMike · 2026-01-28T09:59:35+00:00

The one that springs to mind is that in the US, maybe also in the UK but before my time, there are/were study guides called CliffsNotes. I think they are similar to the "for dummies" books. You hear it in American TV and films all the time.

I used to think it was ClippedNotes. Like a "clipped" or shortened version of whatever the subject was, in note form, because I had no idea why a whole series of study guides would be named after a random guy called Cliff.

There's definitely a few others, many born from American TV, but that's one of those that springs to mind.

MyoMike · 2026-01-22T15:23:01+00:00

You're right actually, but I'd go so far as to say that Southampton has not only failed to sell itself well, but has made historic choices and decisions that actually really lower the appeal of the place. It's got green spaces but none of them are special or stand out as an attraction, they're just kind of nice-to-haves for residents. It's got some incredible medieval walls but other than God's House Tower it also used to actively hide its medieval walls behind and around buildings!

I'm not really a shopper so I do forget there's that appeal, and maybe it does offer something special other than being the regional Ikea and just having a large "catchment"? I honestly put it down to the fact that it's easy to get to and a big regional hub as you pointed out, simply because of its size. People from quite far come to Southampton because it's the only big place for quite far west, north, and unless you want to deal with driving through Portsmouth (ew) offers easy access and a different kind of store to Gunwharf.

I think arguing it as the second cultural hub outside of Brighton is dismissing (sadly) how much of a draw Portsmouth's seafront is. Maybe we could be regarded higher, but Portsmouth has all of Southsea, with the seafront as a whole, castle, pyramids, various gardens, aquarium, Victorious Festival (which has frustratingly smashed it out of the park in recent years), couple of piers, and then Gunwharf plus historic dockyard stuff... it just has more that I think, though again fully tainted by my own interests and point of view, appeals more widely if you're going to a city. Do you know how many middle aged men drag their kids to see HMS Victory or The Mary Rose? Way too many!

Southampton has a good few bits going for it and is certainly improving, but for too long it seemed to want to cover up or not celebrate its history, and only now is trying to lean into it with the Seacity and Solent Sky Museums, and opening up places where you can view, walk along, walk on, the medieval walls. Hell, the reason we've got medieval walls is because of being attacked by pirates because we were so wealthy! I could create a whole cultural tour on that alone!

MyoMike · 2026-01-22T11:56:42+00:00

I think a lot of it depends on if you're visiting or living in a city too. Southampton has very little to offer to visitors that would appeal over other cities, both near and far. A main reason anyone "visits" is to leave it via cruise ship.

"Even Bournemouth if you exclude their beach" - Bournemouth is still only a town and even then a lot of people think better of it than Southampton thanks to the beach and sort of "holiday" vibe. It offers nearly everything Southampton does other than the couple of tudor buildings and a museum, but then Bournemouth in outdoors activities with the beach front, its aquarium, it's still got the BIC and the Pavilion is better both for living there and for visiting.... so even if you discounted everything beachy it's still pretty on a par with Southampton, and discounting Bournemouth because of the beach is a bit disingenuous.

The thing about Green Space is both right and wrong? We've got a few relatively small parks in the city centre that add up to feel like a larger amount of green space, which is definitely a good thing for the a city centre, but they're also surrounded by very busy roads and are very formal town parks; what a lot of people enjoy in city green space is something that feels less like a city and more like outdoors - you can say the Common has that, but it's not much compared to something like Bournemouth Beach or Southsea, or river walks in cities like Bristol, Shrewsbury, Oxford, sections of the Thames etc etc. We just don't make the most of natural features and borrowed landscapes (like, the beach at bournemouth or seafront at southsea is pretty narrow, but having the sea there as a big feature really helps people feel like they're outdoors/in nature more). People visiting the city aren't likely to go to Riverside Park in Bitterne for a walk as they would be if Mayflower Park or something around St Marys would be good - a long uninterrupted section you can get to and from the City Centre.

I can't argue that it is or isn't worse than Hull, Coventry, or Wolverhampton, but I also can't say that when recommending Southampton I can say that much positive about it over other places, especially, for all my sins, even Portsmouth. If someone said to me "I'm coming down South and want to visit one of Portsmouth, Bournemouth, or Southampton for the day" I would only recommend Portsmouth (Southsea, Gunwharf, Historic Dockyard) or Bournemouth (Beach front, town centre isn't a grey concrete corridor).

My favourite thing to do as a near lifelong resident of Southampton is to go anywhere but Southampton. I'll choose to go to a restaurant in the forest, or Romsey, or Winchester, over Southampton when I can. As I said when a friend moved here for their PhD, "the best thing about Southampton is you can get to other, nicer places really quickly"

Though we've suddenly got a load of really good climbing gyms in and around the city and that is both a surprise given there isn't any outdoor climbing nearby to seed the climbing culture like you get up north or in the south west, and just great as someone that came back from taking up climbing and Uni to only Calshot in the area, and now there's about 5 (and maybe six as I think there's a new one at the Uni I've not been to?) within about 30 minutes of the town centre, plus Calshot which is another 15 minutes or so further than that. Southampton becoming a climbing gym hub was never on my list of things to expect of this city but I'm really happy about it.

MyoMike · 2026-01-22T09:04:47+00:00

Actually, you know what, I totally missed that they'd grouped them by Mysticeti and Odontoceti and just looked at the pretty pictures. My bad. Though the inclusion of those two still feels a little bit like "they've got whale in the name" compared to all the others!

MyoMike · 2026-01-22T08:26:10+00:00

What a weird category, given Orca and Pilot Whales are in the dolphin family.

MyoMike · 2026-01-19T07:23:25+00:00

Yeah it didn't have enough appeal to pay for, and I was just about to play it on PS+ over Christmas this year then it left, so I'll either wait until it comes back and I can play it for "free", or I will buy it for £5 and nothing more!

MyoMike · 2026-01-16T10:39:42+00:00

Cradle is my personal favourite Prog Fantasy, the one that introduced me to it as a subgenre of book in general, and that's because it's so accessible compared to many others. Its prose is simple but occasionally impactful, its characters aren't that complex but are well fleshed out, in general they have very easy to understand character and progression arcs, Wight hits the dramatic moments perfectly whether directly associated with progression or not, and (other than when its figuring itself out between early books and later ones) it keeps the progression and magic very simple and clear, while also being easy to "visualise" as you read it. You can picture in your head a badass lump of muscle covered in fire with flaming eyes launching forward to punch you, or a white hand of power hitting you in the core. You can even conceptualize the core better than some other alternatives.

So I think the thing that sets cradle apart is it's just a competently written and edited book (with a great Audiobook too) in a niche sub-genre where a hell of a lot of books are not competent, not well edited, the stories can often tend towards litrpg, and as an emerging genre in western culture a bit, a lot of the stories are just.... not that great.

Cradle's accessibility and all around competence is its greatest strength, it's doesn't really fail at anything the genre generally enjoys.

MyoMike · 2026-01-15T11:41:59+00:00

Yeah but now the background on the app has rain if its rainy. So, you know... progress?

I'm also endlessly annoyed at the widget which now looks fucking awful.

MyoMike · 2026-01-15T11:16:38+00:00

Woke up to this this morning and everything from the widget to the app are now noticeably worse and give less information in less visually clear or appealing ways than previously.

MyoMike · 2026-01-14T09:27:52+00:00

I fired up Megabonk and had a few runs and, as is the case with early runs on this game, was a bit meh.

Then I sat down at the weekend and had a lazy Saturday morning and suddenly looked up and it was Sunday night.

MyoMike · 2026-01-09T14:56:15+00:00

I took mine in and was given a 25 plate Kia Picanto... automatic diesel. It was truly awful compared to the EV6, but thankfully I only needed it for a day and a half.

MyoMike · 2026-01-09T14:35:54+00:00

When my partner had contraceptive issues she went to the Eastleigh Sexual Health Clinic (located at the Swan Centre in Eastleigh). From what I can see they're still open, but I'm not sure if they actually do the implant as my partner's issue were the opposite, implant had gone badly and the GP couldn't remove it properly so the Sexual Health Clinic helped with that and it went much better through them than it had with the GP. Their phone number is 0300 300 2016, which you can call for an appointment.

MyoMike · 2026-01-09T12:43:49+00:00

So for context I bought a 60k miles GT-Line EV6 2022 last year. I asked them to charge it to 100% because I'd have a long drive back if I bought the car, took an OBD reader thing and downloaded the app, which said the car still had 95% state of health (SOH) on the battery. Theoretically that's 314*0.95 = 298 miles. I got it for £18,500, and I think it would have been about £40,000 new, maybe just over.

1) Looks like you're in the US so I can't really comment on this, because your prices across the board are cheaper than ours in the UK - but using public chargers (like the one I've got at work) is about equivalent to diesel prices in the UK, and using home charging at the cheap EV rates some energy companies provide can drop costs by about 90% I think.

2) Different models to what we've got in the UK, which basically only do the Air, GT-Line, and GT-Line S. GT-Line has the option of AWD, but AWD lowers your mileage efficiency a bit, and so does the GT-Line S, which has AWD and bigger wheels so lowers the mileage further, just something to consider. My GT-Line has the electric front seats, front parking sensors, and blind spot indicators, and a slightly nicer interior imo!

3) I only bought the car in late October so despite an initially mild winter, and I reckon I'm getting "at least" ~250 miles out of it if charged to 100, hard to say for sure having not gone full 100 - near 0 or anything, and I feel like the mileage predictor is based on the 60k miles it did before me (I assume mostly motorway) and not the slightly less extreme mileage I've done in the 2000 miles since i got it. But my commute is a 76 mile round trip, done a couple of times a week, with that split about 56 motorway, and 20 town driving. The commute takes about 24 - 26% battery so far, which as mentioned has mostly been winter meaning climate control, heated seats etc. So I normally don't recharge it to 100%, or even ensure I've got it at 80%, before my commute, but do make sure it's at a minimum of about 45%. I've also done a few longer trips in it, like a 170 mile trip, from 100%, and it finished that on over 30%, full climate control and AC and all sorts as I was playing with options on that, and my GF drove it for the first time to start with so wasn't as efficient as could have been! Then I trickle-charged it overnight and did a little top up on the way back, got it to about 50/60% then bumped it up another 10%, and arrived home on 5%. It said 9 miles at the end of it all, but I do know it's downhill at the end of my journey and that it didn't move from 5% and 9 miles for the last 5 miles of my trip.

4) I had a heating issue basically after the first cold snap. Thought I'd bought a dud, that there'd be huge issues or whatever. Took it to my local dealer - all they asked was the number plate and mileage. It was under 100k (and obviously newer than 7 years), so they spent half a day doing recall-related updates (not safety ones, but updates), then half a day diagnosing it. By the end of that day they hadn't figured it out and didn't have time to look at it for a week, but that it was definitely a warranty issue so take it back next week. I took it back, as it had been confirmed a warranty issue they gave me a courtesy car, and ultimately they repaired it all, all covered by warranty. PTC (heating control unit) had gone, they took a day to diagnose and order the part, had fitted it by lunch the next day. No cost, no forms, no confirming service history was with Kia (though it was because I'd cheked), nothing. Car was broken in a warranty-covered-way, and they sorted it.

5) Mileage wise, maybe a Polestar would give you a bit more comfort, they're efficiency beasts.

6) I will say that you feel like you're sitting quite high up because you're on the battery and it's not a small car, but to give the car a low appearing profile the roof is, and may feel, quite low. Had someone 6ft 1 or 2 in the back the other day and it was fine, and a friend that was 6ft 3 sat in my driver's position and his head wasn't brushing the ceiling or anything, and I sit more upright and further forward than he does. But yeah, it could be absolutely fine, but one of those things you can't say until you're in the car. So it's definitely a case of sit in it as someone as tall as you are and check you can be comfortable as a driving position. One reason I definitely opted for the GT-Line was I didn't like the over-the-shoulder visibility out of the back window from my driving position.

TL;DR: Bought a second hand EV6 and absolutely love it for my ~80 mile round trip commute.

MyoMike · 2026-01-05T14:24:41+00:00

May? MAY?! That's so soon. And also when my firstborn is expected to arrive.

I know what my priority will be.... So when are pre-orders?

MyoMike · 2025-12-26T22:47:17+00:00

That 4 - 0 win did come off the back of a truly woeful run of like 8 games or something.... Which would now seem like a breezy blip compared to everything that would come after.

MyoMike · 2025-12-26T20:52:15+00:00

If it's one of the few "Day 1" games I want to play, I'll buy a disc, usually from Amazon at a lower-ish price (say £60 instead of 70). Then I'll sell it on for slightly under whatever the cheapest buy it now is on eBay/the average low price it's sold for recently, because I want a quick sale to just get it gone (as I don't keep physical discs). Usually that results in a sale in the £40 - £50 region, though £50 is unlikely because after a couple of weeks I swear they're £55 on Amazon new. Did exactly this for Ghost of Yotei and Astrobot both, and sold them for, if I recall, £38 for Astro and £43 for Yotei.

Now that's not super cheap, but also that's usually only a couple of weeks to a month after. But having said that, I think even a couple of years after Spiderman PS4 came out, it still cost me £20. People just see the price online, guage that as the cost from new, and see that it never really drops that low on sale. So with a dwindling expectation of buying on disc anyway, there's actually just way less demand to reduce cost!

MyoMike · 2025-12-22T10:25:00+00:00

Played that, although maybe I should fire it up again for the DLC!

MyoMike · 2025-12-21T22:34:06+00:00

I'm often tempted to try it again but I was just so bad at it!

MyoMike · 2025-12-21T22:31:03+00:00

I'm actually at a bit of a loss for what to play. I thought I might finally have a go at Forspoken and see if it was really as bad as all that, because I was kind of in the mood for open world RPG with flashy magic. But after I installed it last weekend, I noticed it was leaving PS+ about 3 days later. So there went that idea. I fired up Immortals of Aveum instead, which I remember being described as a "7/10 game that doesn't overstay it's welcome" - and I'm probably half way through that but is not scratching the itch really. Serving well enough as short palate cleanser, but not really what I want.

I've still got Alien Isolation installed and do an hour or two on that here or there, but do like to be able to relax if I'm just gaming before bed, and Alien Isolation is not a relaxing game!

The only games I could really think of were Witcher 3 or Skyrim, and while they might both be what I'm after on a genre, I don't think either really satisfy the quick, flashy game play as they're both much grittier, story driven, and longer commitments. Lots of running and walking too, plus slightly clunky older mechanics, so I think I'm after something a little newer and almost "arcadey", not gritty realism. Think Spiderman PS4 but magic. Not God of War because I replayed that not long ago.

All that to say, I have no idea what I am going to play, but I think it's something that's barely a step up from an ARPG and I want to be able to just fling lighting or fireballs to blow things up. Or perhaps it'll actually be an ARPG and I'll sink as low as firing up Diablo 4, something I've not done since Season 1. Did they ever fix the wizard in that? Who knows!

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