Installing Galacticraft

My child units have been asking me to install the Galacticraft Minecraft mod for many months. While we have lived in Minecraft for 3+ years, I had never installed any mods and had no idea how to. So I started reading.

The Galacticraft wiki and forums have a lot of info, but skip a few steps that are probably obvious to non-noobs.  So here is a step-by-step guide to installing both Galacticraft server and client for Minecraft mod noobs like myself.

First the server. We run multiple worlds (listening on different ports) on an iMac running OS X 10.10. All worlds use Minecraft 1.8.7.

  1. Start with a new world because an existing world will not have the necessary ores. Just make a new, empty directory.
  2. Download the latest Forge.
  3. Download Galacticraft for 1.7.10. 1.8.x fails to run because it cannot find the CPW package.
  4. Run the Forge installer. Select server. This downloads Minecraft 1.7.10.
  5. Make the mods directory and move all of the Galacticraft jars into it.
  6. Modify the startup script to call the Forge jar instead of the Minecraft jar.
  7. Edit server.properties. Change the MOTD. Optionally change gamemode to creative to make the game more playable for younger players.
  8. Run the startup script.

Then the client. The kids run Minecraft on Windows 8.1 machines.

  1. Make a backup of ${appdata}/.minecraft.
  2. Download Forge. Beware of deceptive ads on the download page.
  3. Download Galacticraft.
  4. Run the Forge installer. Select client.
  5. Make the mod directory and move all of the Galacticraft jars into it.
  6. Launch Minecraft and select the Forge profile.
  7. Select multiplayer. Add a new server with the correct IP:port.
  8. Open the Galaticraft wiki on a second device for easy reference.
  9. Join the world.

SheIn’s “Black Cross Halter Sexy Bikini” vs. Agent Provacateur’s “Shelby Bikini”.

SheIn sells the “Black Cross Halter Sexy Bikini” for $11.83 (reduced from $16.67):

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Agent Provacateur sells the “Shelby Bikini” for $140 (reduced from $270). They show the non-cropped version of the photos used by SheIn.

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Either they are actually the same bikini and Agent Provacateur has an incredible markup, or SheIn is a cheap knock off. Sadly, I cannot buy both to compare.

Dead Kindle Voyage, resolution

On Saturday, I finally asked Amazon customer service to call me, which they did about 10 seconds after I clicked ok. Pretty amazing. Unfortunately, tier 1 and tier 2 customer support were clearly following a script and would not skip any steps. Paraphrasing…

After a few minutes of What does it do? What is on the screen? etc. the real diagnosis begins. Please hold power button for 40 seconds. I already tried that, many times, without success. Ok, but please try it now, I will tell you when to release. Ok. Did it work? No, still stuck on the screensaver. Please charge the Kindle for 15-30 minutes, I will wait for you. I have already gone through several full charge/discharge cycles. Please charge the Kindle. Ok. 20 minutes later. Please press the power button now. Did it work? No.

After over 30 minutes on the phone, tier 2 finally declared my Kindle dead and they would send out another one. But wait, we’re not done yet. To confirm your identity, please tell me the last four digits of the credit card you used to purchase the Kindle. Uh, I use several cards but I soon found the correct card. I need to mail a return mailing label to your wife’s email address [to whom the Kindle is registered]. What is her email address? Oy, she has a long email address, success after 5 attempts. Please verify you received it. Hold on, I need to find a machine I can use to read my wife’s email. Confirmed.

The new Kindle arrived on Monday, already registered to my wife’s account. Again, very impressive. Now I just need to return the dead one.

Amazon’s reply to my dead Kindle Voyage email

Wow, can this really be Amazon’s boilerplate response email? First, I said “my Kindle Voyage does not boot” along with the order number in my email but that became my “Kindle Fire’s volume” in their reply.

And then there is the rest of the message. Current phish from Nigeria has better grammar and style than this. I cannot believe Amazon has not provided their customer service representatives with better content.

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Dead Kindle Voyage

Our latest Kindle, a Voyage, died after only 4 months. Amazingly, our 1st gen Kindle still works.

The Voyage will not boot and only displays one of the built-in screensaver images

IMG_5171

But the image is corrupted at the bottom, lines of non-refreshed pixels:

IMG_5171-crop

This is an odd way for such a simple device to die. I am guessing the images are stored in flash not ROM so maybe the memory is corrupted? If the display is broken, it should still boot but not refresh those rows. Going to ask Amazon for a warranty replacement.

EyeTV 3.6.8 removes support for Game Capture HD

Elgato silently removed support for their own Game Capture HD in the latest version of EyeTV, 3.6.8. This is not mentioned in their release notes so I found out the hard way after upgrading. Elgato, why did you remove support and remove it without warning!?

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But they were nice enough to provide a KB article about this with a link to download 3.6.7. I hope they change their minds in 3.6.9 otherwise I will be stuck at 3.6.7.

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CSI: Cyber – Crowd Sourced

CSI: Cyber is just blog fodder. There are so many things wrong in each episode that I do not have time to post them all. S01E05 – Crowd Sourced has a head-scratcher:

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Uh, what? Where did they find that definition?

Merriam-Webster has the commonly-accepted (and to the best of my knowledge, the only) definition:

the practice of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people and especially from the online community rather than from traditional employees or suppliers

Googling for their definition returns, surprise, no exact matches.

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