More Burning Issues

Fighting the cold while cooking outdoors in the niches and nooks of Helsinki.

It's surprising in hindsight how poor gear and clothes were in use last winter. (Another post here, and one more.) Instead of an everyday winter jacket with a broken front zipper, there's now a parka-style proper outdoor clothing, thermal shoes with teeth, and additional layers of clothing.

The crab-style gloves have been adequate for warmth, but they are not ideal for handling pots and utensils. Having lighter gloves underneath didn't help all that much. Possibly something to improve in the future.

I initially had some doubts about the light-weight collapsible chair, but it has served me fine enough for a year.

Kuusiluoto

Last winter saw a number of interesting exercises with gas and spirit burners. I thought most problems and beginner mistakes would b°e in the past, but new gear brings new opportunities for making mistakes.

This time around the walking distances have been short, but the snow on ice made walking much heavier. Christmastime and the illnesses of late have confined me to the sofa, so I'm not especially fit for the part of a snowplough.

Trangia the trustworthy. The Winter gas canister was maybe excessive.

The first session at Kuusiluoto had no problems, the Trangia was used for a number of tried and tested ready-made meals. The temperature was well below -10°, but this gave no trouble as the sun was shining and the air was practically still. It was still nice to get moving in the end.

With the second session at Kivinokka, though the weather wasn't as cold, closer to -5° or -7°, spending more time in a slightly more windy weather did take its toll. It was silly to have lighter clothing after all.

Potatoes were boiled with a Jetboil 0.8L kit, vegetarian "meat balls" were fried on a pan, and even some thin spinach pancakes were warmed. These were both made with the Outzone spider burner. 

For boiling the water, the remains of a gas canister tried bravely but didn't really cut it in the sub-zero weather. A full newly opened Jetboil canister did more than enough work and the taters were soon a-boiling.

All gear out, a sign of trouble?

The Outzone burner behaved weirdly when the gas was running out, something that might not have happened in warmer seasons. Again, the full canister gave much better heat. I'd still say the Outzone is hardly optimal for winter. Much of the time the output didn't feel appropriate for a gas burner, but more like a candle flame. Question arises how much more gas does the Outzone waste in trying to produce the heat, compared to a Trangia or the Jetboil.

I've begun eyeing burners with gas regulators, it did not occur to me the more costly burners might be expensive for a reason...

Some happenstances: I managed to trip the loose Jetboil burner so the inlet caught a tiny amount of snow. This resulted in sputtering and coughing, but it was soon up and running in full speed.

Kivinokka

Again, all the experiences tend to highlight how well thought out the classic Trangia kit is. For snowy terrain, it's good to have that stable round stand and the wind shield. Sure, after working with tinier and lighter gear it might feel a little bulky, it also fits quite many things inside.

The winter season isn't closing quite yet, but soon the ice might not provide safe shortcuts to islands.

Killingholma, only a few degrees below zero.

Some customization is always in order. I mentioned the "thermal" shoes with built-in metal teeth. I have protective covers for the shoes when visiting shops or other inside space, but they tended to slip off.

Well, I shouldn't use the covers so much on the streets, but it would be uncomfortable to just put them on for few minutes.

For most of the time the studs are not all that useful really, but they do give good grip when going uphill or downhill on a packed-snow route.

Quick fix

I used carabiner clips and key rings to tie the heels more tightly to the shoes. Even then I've had one of the covers slip off after a longer walk. 

The loop on the shoe is likely a weak point, not intended to handle weight, so I'll figure out something else eventually.

The Shrimp

The Shrimp in its half glory

I've come across this fun-sized keyboard on occasions. The idea is at least partly sound: if you don't need all the keys for games, why pay for those extra keys? 

Well, I'm half-joking. A real use case might be playing games with mechanical keys on a laptop, but without taking along a full-sized keyboard. 

The problem was the Shrimp was quite expensive for what it seemed to deliver. But now I could have it for a reasonable price (20€) so I was more than tempted.

It's quite thick.

Yes, there are also other problems with the idea, such as that keys 1-5 might not be enough for weapon selection in some games. Redefining keys can help there.

The other problem might be that you can't use it for chat, but it doesn't matter as I don't use the chat. Pros will use headsets anyway?

Unboxing reveals a carry bag, a USB cable (USB-C shape at the Shrimp end), and a bulky wrist rest which is attached to the keyboard with a magnet.

Many keys have double functions built-in, using the fn key. I didn't even notice at first there's an Enter/Return key accessible with fn+ESC.

The WASD highlighted

Connect the keyboard and it begins to flash in all colors of rainbow, as gaming keyboards tend to do these days. With the button on the top-left knob, I can turn the lights off or switch between configurations. The knob also seems to control the light level. My favorite is the fairly muted option with only WASD and ESC keys lit in blue.

Just trying it on a text editor or a terminal proves the keys work just as well as a normal keyboard would. It's just missing a bunch of keys.

As the manual says nothing about further customizing the key lights, I assume it can't be done with OpenRGB and such.

The other knob controls volume, albeit quite badly on my Linux Mint/Mate. I have to sort of click-click it with care in order to change the volume, rotating didn't work too well. The small "minus" key works as a mute button. Using the knob hidden button, Mint launched the control center window. Not sure what it would do in Windows.

The knobs come loose quite easily, which I guess is meant to support portability. Otherwise something nasty could happen to them in a bag.

Everspace 2 highlights the typical problem: weapon/item activation keys

I did try a few games quickly.

After a short session of Half Life 2, I thought the keyboard did okay. At first there's a strange phantom limb sensation, as if the right side of the keyboard were missing. This, even if the game mostly doesn't need the keys there. At this point I didn't have the full weapon set (1-6) or the Gravity Gun (G), which would have needed more keys than the Shrimp provides. The keys can be redefined, but HL2 keys are kind of an institution.

With Control, all the essential movement and combat keys are present, and it was quite pleasant to fight with the Shrimp. I've lost the touch for this game in a very short time, though. I had to redefine a key to get to the loadouts and missions, because they normally open from G, M or I.

Popping over to Everspace 2, the strafe, pitch, yaw, hover and thrust nicely fit in the cluster and actually give something of a "hey I'm controlling a space ship" feel. TAB brings the menu screen. The consumable/one-off items are activated using keys outside the number range. These could be mapped to the "function keys" (behind fn) but it's perhaps less than ideal. The ULT key default is G, again outside the Shrimp horizon.

With a ZX Spectrum emulator, so many games have redefinable keys that Shrimp kind of works, although this is quite nonsensical experiment.

I suppose the Shrimp would work 100% with Fortnite.

The cosy wrist rest

To be honest, I haven't much reflected on how I use my everyday keyboard, HyperX Alloy, when playing games. So, having a keyboard like this makes me more conscious of the hand and wrist placement, resulting in uncomfortable positions even if this might not be the device's fault. Time will tell.

A minor point against the wrist rest is that taken together, the two parts are going to occupy as much room as a small keyboard anyway.

Still I believe it's a good idea to use the wrist rest. Although the magnets are not super strong, combined with the rubber feet the keyboard and the rest stay put. Maybe it ought to be a little lower.

There are no tilt adjusters, which might be another tiny minus. Such an option could have complicated the magnet connection.

Separated

Well, does The Shrimp provide a smaller number of superior keys? It does, even if I don't see them as better than the HyperX Alloy keys.

The Shrimp can be considered a space saver, both in a bag and on the table, but as the full-sized keyboard is going to be here anyway, it's not going to help in decluttering the desk. One more curiosity to the collection.

Some ideas also loom in the horizon, such as using this keyboard for a custom-built software, but we'll see.

Quick Edit: I tried the Shrimp with an Android Galaxy phone, and it works. Game support for keyboards is quite limited, but just to test I downloaded Asphalt 8 Airborne. Not too bad, even if not my cup of tea of game. Oh and Sonic the Hedgehog Classic. So perhaps this is one more use case for the Shrimp.

Luban 043 plough plane

Facebook ads kept teasing me with a beautiful image of this plough plane, and without much research I purchased it. Hey, I could have an occasional need to create grooves! Well, despite the larger freedom of an electric router, it would be too noisy and dusty in an apartment. I have to admit I don't have a proper workbench, so my experiences are limited.

I only learned afterwards that although designed in the UK, the Luban is made in China. But I'll make it very clear this is not some kind of Temu disappointment story. It's not a cheap carbon copy of an existing design. (For example, I've seen a lot of cheap Woodpeckers look-a-likes.)

Apparently, it's a re-invention of an old British Record No. 43, a plane people still keep buying from second hand sellers. This can turn out to be an expensive process if you need 2-3 in order to get all the necessary parts! So why not offer something similar.

How it works is the chosen blade is set to a suitable take, the depth limiter is set, the fence is set and then, pressing the plane fence against the piece, start planing. The pushes are initially made towards and over the end of the piece. Then, working backwards the groove is completed when the depth limit has been reached for the whole length.

As usual, I get critical at first. The kerfing blade mounting piece came with incorrect size bolts. Which is just as well as I didn't get any kerfing saw blades. They were not promised in this set, so I can't complain in that sense. It could be that only when the planes are packaged in the UK, the blades are included. I'll eventually try to find the blades. 

Eyeballing the tool, it looks sturdy enough but the finish of some parts did raise questions. What in the images is a finely lacquered/oiled wood, isn't quite as pretty and the finish is uneven. Well, it could be replaced or improved by, you know, a woodworker.

It's a good idea to loosen the two screws that keep the sled rails in place. Adjusting and wiggling the rails to a better position made the sled slide smoother for me. Fine-tuning like this is to be expected, of course it's not perfectly adjusted out of the box. After fiddling with it I began to feel positive about the plane.

Luban 043 is a small plane with a sense of weight that gives it credibility. I find the overall ergonomics sound for my not so large hands. There are thoughtful details, like a rounded out space where you'd expect to put your finger to, and so on. The blade is really quick to readjust.

I've seen a commenter suggest the blades need sharpening out of the box, or that they should be changed altogether to Veritas blades. Then again there have been claims they are just fine as they are. Obviously, the more narrow the blade, the easier it is to work with. The first strokes are quite precarious as it is easy to make a mess of the groove.

It's too long since I have tried a plane, so I don't have a firm opinion on the quality or the condition of the blades, but they seemed to do their job. Planing always requires some skill, and the choice and use of material is an ability in itself. At times, what begins as working along the grain, may turn into working against the grain. Wood's like that sometimes. A special attitude and sharp, well-adjusted blade is needed.

2025

Uhh, 2025, the same as before? Just a short recap at the very end.

Trangia camp stove became a new hobby. This started with the alcohol stove gift of last Christmas. I hoped the spirit burning would become a thing, however, as many before me I had to accept gas is simply cleaner and faster.

I didn't give up entirely on the alcohol stove, but the practice would need more time than I really have. Gear acquisition threatened to escalate, but as I used them less than expected during the summer, I also refrained from buying too much.

And what's that again?

On the retro front, The Spectrum entertained me at the beginning of the year, but as usual, that's about it. There is a bunch of new gear, which I've not yet discussed much. Partly games devices, but also a Raspberry 5 which needs to be put through its paces.

The new "official" Commodore 64 sounds attractive but as the C64C model was not available, I chose not to buy it as of now. Sure, the board can be bought separately and I actually have an extra case I think. But it would be nice to have the whole shebang without having to hunt new parts, or combine new boards with old plastics.

Time will tell what the "new" Commodores will bring. Now it looks like many new users are having the feels of keeping up with the Commodore, but as happened with the Spectrum Next I suspect a healthy percentage of these new users may end up being quite passive.

Raspberry Pi 5

I was able to find time to play some bigger games. For instance, I replayed Control and it was worth it. Then I continued with Everspace 2 and Carrier Command: Gaea Mission. The last game I completed was Invincible. I did start with The Last of Us, but looks like it'll have to wait. Nowadays Linux has far too many games to choose from!

The last weeks of the year saw me coding a new game for Commodore 64. I even relived the geeky teenager experience of using most of the new year's eve for it.

Not to jinx it, I won't show anything. Ok there's the memory usage.

I'm usually not one to promote anything before it's fully complete, but it's safe to say this one will become finished. The game is basically there, it has the winning and losing conditions and it can be played through. The rest is more about adding visuals, sound and music. We'll see when it comes out.

Not much at TV and film front, apart from the weird project of watching A Different World in its entirety. Well, ok Star Wars: Andor season 2 delivered. As it leads to Rogue One, I can't shake the feeling it's still a story that really didn't need to be told. Anyone who felt the scene in the original Star Wars with the imperials bickering around a table needed expanded to a full series, must have been satisfied. It was entertaining.

One of the number of tools I could talk about.

The end of Stranger Things is upon us. The fifth season had to carry the burden of having to reignite the interest of those viewers who will not rewatch the previous seasons=most people probably. The three-year gap did not do good here. It looks like the stakes have been reinvented and basically the same story is told again: Kids are in danger. The 1980s leanings have been practically forgotten, unless we're talking 1980s style action.

I did get to see both Jarre and Kraftwerk at the same year.

The Invincible

This game is based on Stanislaw Lem's The Invincible, although it uses different characters and a different scenario.

Proton again offers this experience for Linux players. Surprise of surprises, it becomes choppy and slow at times, evident when I first time entered a camp. There have been claims that switching to Proton Experimental could improve things, but I saw no real difference. I downgraded a few graphics settings, which I shouldn't really need to do, but the effect mostly persisted and I just persisted with it.

What about the game? The Unreal engine visuals are nice, replete with retrofuturistic old-timey equipment, trackers, telescopes, scanners. As a member of an impromptu expedition to the planet Regis III, the player has to reconnect with the other crew and begin unraveling the mystery of what has happened.

It's immediately clear you are not a free explorer of a planetary environment. Often items tend to work only for the "event" at hand. For example, the beginning where the backpack condition and contents are meticulously inspected, suggests the backpack could be an integral part of the gameplay, but it isn't. Finding your bearings is a contained task, not something you figure through the geometry and the maps on your own.

Using the tracker

Although the tracker, scanner and telescope can be used nearly all the time, the points where they can meaningfully forward the plot, are automatically activated or otherwise made very clear.

It's of course possible there are many secret locations and easter eggs that require more creative uses of the tools, but I'll reserve this for some later time.

The Invincible is best seen as a walking simulator, a game genre which generally conflates a rigid narrative with travel. One could almost say the player character is the playhead of a narrative, but these games tend to obfuscate and produce enough choice so the player feels there's perhaps more agency than there really is.

Exploration continues...

As in Firewatch, much of the play is about moving from one place to another, while communicating with one person through radio. Similarly, you can choose what to say on occasions, but it is always uncertain whether this affects the overall narrative much.

Typical to this genre, there really aren't any complicated puzzles, so it's not like a point'n'click adventure in first person. Occasionally things and locations need to be figured out, and some tools and interfaces might prove to be tricky, but that's it. Anyway, difficult puzzles might break the story flow and trivialize the more important themes.

A vehicle is on offer too

Having read the book a few times, the secret of Regis III wasn't much of a mystery to me, but the story could still throw a few surprises. It is also interesting to see the way the game meshes with the book. Some of the story elements are almost inevitably the same as in the book, and although I didn't explore every nook and cranny, I feel some topics were also left untouched so it won't "spoil" the book.

Kung Fu Flash

Kung Fu Flash

I got the Kung Fu Flash cartridge for the Commodore 64, even if I already have the 1541Ultimate II and a couple of other solutions. (SD2IEC, IRQHack64)

Kung Fu Flash has been already around for many years, but I'm not familiar with it. It can run PRGs directly, mount and load disk images and cartridge images from a microSD card.

It's nice that whatever is run, is also booted after resetting or after shutting down the computer. (Except files loaded from inside mounted disk images). So either you can really focus on that one game, or use the C64 in a "kiosk" capacity, easily re-starting the intended software. Sure, other carts can be rigged to do these things but here it is very simple and effective.

Sorry, my setup wasn't the best possible

A minor inconvenience is that if you again want to reset to BASIC, this needs an additional step. A few "d'oh, I forgot it boots to that game!" moments are to be expected.

Cart images like the massive 500K Prince of Persia can be flashed with this system, any old 8K or 16K cartridge ought to work too. The cart has no REU memory expansion, so REU-reliant projects like the Sonic the Hedgehog conversion won't be possible.

Mounting D64 disk images has limited uses as anything containing non-standard files probably won't run (scene demos). The cart doesn't connect to the IEC as the Ultimate does, so I suppose it relies on its own driver. Anything that does load, loads extremely fast.

Size comparison with the Ultimate II

The cart is tiny, smaller than the most common cart size back in the day. This came in a 3D printed case but it looks ok and feels sturdy enough. The size can be considered as a plus.

The file list is navigated almost the same way as in Ultimate. In fact I tried the card from my Ultimate and it's all fine, including the folders. A minus point for not sorting the files alphabetically, at least I couldn't see any related setting. This isn't a huge problem, and the search function is pretty good.

There's a C64-PC connection, but it doesn't sound it would work the way I want, so trying that will have to wait.

Can't deny the Ultimate is still the most comprehensive cart, but Kung Fu Flash looks like it does enough and for some the simplicity might even be a bonus. It's cheaper of the two by far.

https://github.com/KimJorgensen/KungFuFlash

Kraftwerk at Finlandia Hall, 20.11.2025

Home Computer

Late night show. I approached the Alvar Aalto building from the street direction, so I missed the grand light projection at the other side. Grumble.

I didn't understand how late the show would start, so I was idling for one hour before I could even get to the seats. I entered the long merchandise queue and got a t-shirt and some pins.

One thing out of the way. I often see the complaint about "only one original member on stage", but there are technically only two founding members of Kraftwerk, Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider (1947–2020)

Robots

I understand people mean that the most loved and iconic Kraftwerk songs are from the era when Ralf, Florian, Karl and Wolfgang were present. The show is almost entirely built from this material, so perhaps minor gripes can be justified.

From left to right, it's now Ralf Hütter, Henning Schmitz, Falk Grieffenhagen and Georg Bongartz. Henning is actually quite an old hand with Kraftwerk. Fritz Hilpert was beginning to feel like a staple, but now has been replaced with Bongartz, who is bit of an unknown. Stefan Pfaffe was replaced with Falk, with no huge fanfare either. His role is probably more to do with the visuals, as was with Pfaffe.

Well, one has to forget any ideas about Kraftwerk as a traditional band anyway, and concentrate on the multimedia show they have brought on stage.

The show started, as it often does, with Numbers and Computerworld. The stage had become a blended entity, the projection, the podiums, the stage riser and even the suits had "screen" elements in them. This was most evident, and most effective in Home Computer, and I felt the show had reached new heights. It really felt more three dimensional than their attempts with 3-D glasses.

Neon Lights

With Computer Love, the riser and the projection combined to create an abstract impression of a computer terminal or a laptop, with the band jamming on top of the "keyboard". This is a good example of the kind of humour Kraftwerk plays with.

In contrast, some of the material were remnants of the 3-D show, such as the backdrop for Autobahn or Spacelab, and in turn these felt more dated. Of course I've seen the show already quite a few times, and I don't know how these could have been made differently. Some choices are timeless, such as the vintage film material for The Model. This day and age, the song felt more sinister.

The Airwaves and Tango are something I've never heard live. Airwaves/Ätherwellen is basically a song from the album Radio Activity. Tango is not found on any album, it is something Kraftwerk experimented with during their 1990s live shows, but it slipped into obscurity and to the realm of bootlegs. Previously, judging from some audience videos on Youtube, I wasn't super excited about this Tango. In the live environment the thumping sound compensated for any misgivings, and there were some quite subtle things going on. It's possibly a site for minor improvisations.

Computerworld

Seeing as these two songs only had an "oscilloscope" waveform as a backdrop, I'm not sure they trust the songs to stay long on the setlist. But in the overall visual barrage of the show it's also good to have some really minimal visuals.

Talking of improvisation or live playing, I've never been this close to the stage. I had a sense that Ralf and Henning at least had a very active role in adjusting the sound as it happened. Ralf certainly plays a keyboard, and I felt he made a point of turning the filter knob in a very ostentatious manner at the end of one song – I forgot which. 

It would have been possible to get a balcony ticket, and see it all from above. Well, it doesn't matter. The center position was extremely good for appreciating the audiovisuals.

As part of this tour, there's this unique thing. Ralf actually gave a little speech about his friendship with the late Ryūichi Sakamoto, of film music and Yellow Magic Orchestra fame. Ralf told how Sakamoto supplied them with new Japanese lyrics for Radioactivity after the Fukushima incident. Then Kraftwerk played a short version of Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (the instrumental of Forbidden Colours), very earnestly, including piano sounds and all. After this, Radioactivity.

Ralf

After a fast version of Pocket Calculator/Dentaku, they had basically played everything from the Computer World album. As usual, the finale was Boing Boom Tschak/Techno Pop/Musique Non Stop. The solo parts felt unique, but I haven't checked if they are exactly the same during this tour. At least it appears the setlist is exactly the same, no variations. (Edit: Scratch that, they play different songs.)

In past concerts, the encore spot usually preceded the long finale, but now they made it more conventional, after Musique Non Stop. The encore was of course Robots, going into Robotronik territory.

The empty stage

If there's something I'd drop out, it is Planet of Visions, which has its origins in the Expo 2000 EP from the end of the millennium. Strangely, it's one of those songs they could legitimately change quite a lot, given that it's based on remixes of the song anyway. But they have chosen not to. The Expo living logo seemed more interesting visual than the wireframes.

All in all, Kraftwerk doesn't disappoint, even though I could have hoped the setlist had changed more from since I last saw them in the same environment in 2018.