A Casual Saturday Afternoon Through Hell - A Retrospective on Seeing Disney's "The Black Hole"

I don’t know if it was a purely UK phenomenon, but back in the day some movies took time to make their way onto the broader release circuit. Disney had held their premiere for THE BLACK HOLE in London’s Leicester Square - their Christmas release for December 1979. It would be a full three months down the line to March 30th 1980 before it would escape to cinemas farther afield. It was a typical cool grey Saturday morning in mid April, a fact I can now call with certainty thanks to a press clipping which surfaced on the internet fairly recently. For reasons I cannot recall I was not staying at my grandparents that particular weekend, and without a clue as to what I was going to do I remember looking over my dad’s shoulder that morning, spotting the cinema listings as he read the newspaper. With it being mid to late April the Gaumont cinema would have been into their final screenings for the movie.. it may even have said so in the listings. Towards the end of 1979 I’d happened upon “Disney Time”, something of a routine nostalgia holiday show at the time, it would appear sporting clips from Disney movies to entertain kids for half an hour. I remember it was British magician Paul Daniels that was hosting it that year, and one of the last pieces he introduced gave audiences a sneak look at this sci-fi fantasy movie, a clip which absolutely mesmerised me. Robots, adventures and thrills.. it looked like something I’d love to catch. Up to this point my total cinema exploits had taken in a couple of viewings of the old Doug McClure fantasy adventure WARLORDS OF ATLANTIS, SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE and Bond movie MOONRAKER (which I would later find out was also scored by John Barry). I knew of STAR WARS from a Christmas present graphic annual and the plethora of media which covered everywhere at the time, but somehow I completely missed it on the big screen first time around. To this date I still don’t know how (though I would get to see it on the big screen the following year whilst on holiday in Scarborough, as part of a double bill with THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK). Maybe it was a combination of having missed STAR WARS and my interest in astronomy which made me a little more determined to try and grab a viewing of this flick. With little convincing my Dad agreed to take me to see it, and I had no idea at the time that this would become one of the most impactful film experiences in my life.

We parked up, and as expected there were few people now attending. As we queued up with the handful who had shown up, I stared at the poster - being the artistic type I loved to catch the poster work for films. The poster for SUPERMAN was a beautifully minimal creation. That film had wowed and even scared me a little so from that point on, far from being a mere advert, to me a film’s poster gifted further anticipation, becoming a part of the overall emotional package. This poster felt quite similar in promised spectacle but was somehow more disquieting. The tag line “A JOURNEY THAT BEGINS WHERE EVERYTHING ENDS..” stretched across the top. Beneath it, and rightfully taking up the lion’s share was a massive, scary looking vortex of blue and orange, dragging a damaged, glass and steel structured spacecraft along with a trail of matter and gas into oblivion. Off to one side, in big bold letters was the title THE BLACK HOLE, the letters crumbling as they got closer to the hole.. next to them a small “A” film rating.. different for Disney. Things were looking up. Below all that were thumbnail images of the cast and the usual crew listings. At the time the only actors I knew were Ernest Borgnine and Anthony Perkins. My love of films had brought the face of Norman Bates to my attention even at an early age, although I obviously hadn’t seen PSYCHO at that point so Alex Durant was just a familiar face. The other was Ernest Borgnine, a face from TV screenings of “THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE”. Due to that flick I knew him better than Anthony Perkins, and had sympathy for his character in that movie so he was slightly more familiar.

Whilst my dad bought our tickets I looked around to the poster again - I don’t know if there were any lobby cards or the movie production booklets/posters which were usually available, but I really wish in retrospect that I’d paid attention and grabbed anything there. We settled into the comfy seats and waited.

The Gaumont cinema was a pretty serious affair. A venue for live music in the 60’s, hosting legendary acts such as Eddie Cochran, Bobby Darin, Cliff Richard, The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, at this point it was a two screen cinema capable of seating 1,150 in the stalls and 737 (an odd number?) in the balcony. I imagine this was a pretty vast place for adults, but for an eight year old it was nothing short of a gargantuan experience. The ABC cinema, Sheffield's only other major screen at the time was a significant venue, but this was I think grander. A full 2.35:1 Cinemascope presentation on a huge curved screen set back across a deep stage, and one of eight showings in the UK featuring Dolby Stereo.. this was going to be good. The lights dimmed and the pre rating caption popped up.

THE BRITISH BOARD OF FILM CLASSIFICATION

3 Soho Square London W1D 3HD

This is to certify

THE BLACK HOLE

Has been certified for exhibition - Adult guidance advised

A

A mystical, dark starfield filled my vision and the loud, adventurous strains of John Barry’s “Overture” track blasted out, raising the hairs on my arms. I’d never seen a film with an overture before (history would come to know that both this film and “STAR TREK THE MOTION PICTURE” would be the last to carry this tradition.), and it threw me at first since I was expecting the film credits.. it was however an extra layer of promise. Then came the opening strings of THAT theme music. I was hooked as the “camera” panned across a vast green spacetime grid and starfield (I was familiar with this representation from my astronomy books, so I guessed where it was going), swaying in concert with a disconcerting and even slightly scary waltz. From the corner of my eye a vast hole in the grid steered into view, the audience getting drawn inexorably into it, down into utter darkness.. wow. A small vessel appeared in the distance, some character narration rolled as our protagonists aboard the small vessel “Palomino” flew by, the thunderous roll of her engines filling the auditorium. This was the most powerful thing I’d heard and felt since Superman’s opening scenes on Krypton.

For the next ninety plus minutes I would be hooked, through the mystery, awe and suspense. The visuals were stunning, the black hole powerful and dangerous looking. The Cygnus was an incredible and beautiful spacecraft, with a very haunted feeling, but I wanted to be there. This place would fill my dreams for quite a few years after. To the child viewing the film, I became instant friends with the Palomino crew as I tagged along with their exploration, and as the youngest member of the crew Joseph Bottom’s character Charles Pizer became the closest embodiment of a good on screen friend and cocky, confident ally. All was well until we met Maximillian. I was very unsettled by him - this robot didn’t speak, except by eye and body language. It wasn’t Forbidden Planet’s Robbie, nor the same kind of unsettling as BLAKE’S 7’s faceless Zen.. this thing seemed like it was on a short leash, teetering on the edge and just waiting for the slightest provocation. Similarly Reinhardt, who seemed initially to be a very grandiose, genial host and somewhat grandfatherly figure started to become unsettling company as matters took a turn for the gothic. Holland’s exploration of the crews quarters and the funeral.. Booth’s botanical robot with the limp.. nothing felt right but the eight year old wasn’t into reasoning what was happening, simply content to let it all roll over him as he was utterly absorbed by the most incredible environment of steel and lights, shadows and and a sense of unsettled wonder. After some chat and light character building with Vincent and Bob the tension racked up a little, as the latter robot exposed the humanoids for what they were. Then there was the sharp shock of conflict with the sentries, the crew becoming split into two groups after Vincent’s call for Holland to see him back on the Palomino.. The hammer began to drop when Durant’s obsession with Reinhardt’s mission threatened to actually split the crew up.. I couldn’t believe he truly wanted to join his mission. McCrae explained the situation to Durant - he still didn’t seem to see it and I couldn’t believe that he wouldn’t hear her. Then the matter came to a head when he removed the humanoid’s mask.. something I really didn’t want him to do because I knew he would get caught. My heart leaped when he removed the mask and again when Reinhardt shouted “What are you doing!?”. As soon as they made a run for it I thought “about time!”, just as Max launched at Durant, in what was probably the most terrible death I’d ever seen on film up to that point. Bloodless, but that didn’t matter - the implication was clear. Then all hell let loose. McCrae’s rescue from a lobotomy, the fight to the Palomino, Booth taking the cowardly path even as friend ally Pizer went to rescue his/our comrades, the loss of the Palomino and the final half hour rollercoaster of adventure approaching genuine terror for the very impressionable artistic me, who still didn’t give a damn about the logic and soaked up every moment of desperation as things went from bad to worse, through visuals and close calls I’d never experienced. It was like reliving the destruction of Krypton all over again, but about twenty times over, and certainly unlike any Disney film I’d ever seen. This eight year old viewer was fraught as Maximillian cut the crew off in the last dash, shooting Bob down and battling Vincent in an enraged fury, to the death. We lost Bob at the last hurdle, nearly lost Pizer, and just when I was half expecting them to escape the black hole, it turns out that Max had managed to seal the probe ship’s fateful journey. Cue said journey, which by this time this little viewer really feared to take. A trippy, psychological dilation plunge into the black hole, the unnerving metaphysical ending as my mind raced to take in the events which were unfolding for the crew, the grandfather turned villain figure of Reinhardt condemned to the shell of monster he’d created, now trapped in some kind of hellish landscape with the damned, as the fragments of the Palomino crew were guided by what I presumed at the time to be Reinhardt’s redeemed id, towards some kind of questionable safety, drifting wordlessly off into a planetary sunrise back in normal space. Where were they? The ship was small and limited.. would they survive?

Roll credits and that eerie soundtrack once again.. It ended and I was left feeling blown away.

It’s funny to see how people felt about this film after I’d seen it. I obviously didn’t think in quite the same terms back in the day, but the adult in me now would voice the child’s feelings as “who are these soulless b*****ds reviewing this film? Had they even seen the same film I saw?”. Clearly they hadn’t seen it the same way, and this was one of my first lessons in creative subjectivity. I collected annuals and story books, model kits, a Viewmaster 3D pack, jigsaw puzzles, the soundtrack album, magazines, almost all before I even had the film for the first time on video, which suffered terribly in “pan and scan” 4:3 format. It would be twenty three years before I would again get to see it in it’s correct widescreen. I’ve seen it many times over, even again at the cinema back in 2014.

I used the Cygnus as a template for practice in Blender 3D modelling..

I’ve even remastered the bluray as a personal project for video production practice.

Through the experience of adult eyes, which have seen many, many more films since, it’s flaws are obvious. Nevertheless if I watch it with real purpose and remember the eight year old who saw this in the cinema, it can be as haunting an experience for me now as it was over forty years ago.

Economic Life

After posing a question recently about Brexit and the dearth of actual facts supporting it, a friend did make a reasonable attempt to bolster the notion with something beyond the regular rants, which are usually along the lines of a democratic win (and we'll leave the arguments on that alone because it's a distraction from the point here). He pointed to the fact that the EU block had pushed too hard into politics, rather than sticking the base aspirations of trade and freedom of movement, rightly concerned that notions of globalisation could ruin cultures. Whilst I can all too well appreciate his sentiments, and agree that the expansion (particularly involving those states who don't seem prepared for handling any prerequisites) can be problematic, I don't think that matters of politics and economics are necessarily that easy to tease apart since each invariably impacts the other. As to aspirations, even if it's present state can be considered a precarious one, there is little if any true justification for either our withdrawal, nor its dismantling - in truth it's still a young project.

A more appropriate view and approach to the function of the EU should indeed be based in the tenets of cooperation and actions and deeds should also aspire to reach so much further. Yet great care should also be exacted to fully understand the implications and consequences, and in so doing walk in a benign way. There is in reality a much greater responsibility and remit with the sphere of economics than an end goal of happy book keepers; such minutiae can't be seen to be so important when it comes to running an ethical system; the natural state of money is by definition a perpetual imbalance, and the focus ought to be on meeting the real base needs rather than simply an end goal of feeding the fake happiness of the richest. The competitive self, the ego must be understood and trained - our issues are often because of a failure to do so. Priorities which speak to quality of life (food, comfort, security, community happiness) are aspects which all too frequently get the short end of the stick when decisions are made, and our systems are more threatened and damaged in the race for control over that by those who fear obsolescence. I've argued many times by metaphor that the worst way to run matters is by hoarding money to an obscene degree - it's the first way to inflict fractures and strain. The big game these days across many economies seems to be about juggling how much of that strain can be inflicted before it causes more trouble to the executor than it's worth - a hugely unethical way to act in times when as a race we have realistically never been in a position to have it so good. At worst such practices are being employed as a means of perception manipulation, recklessly abusing something into the dirt only to then open it up to more egregious methodologies, insultingly presented as the only viable solution to the problem - the NHS debacle in the UK is one great example of this. There's even enough history to suggest that there is a pattern of economic chaos used to crash markets into a state of liquidity, such that all can be bought up cheap and siphoned off to the 1%er's, building on their already immense capital and causing even greater disparity between the have's and have not's.That anyone is still left behind in the stakes of equity is a disrespect to life and any efforts toward progress. 

I suggested recently on the issue of globalisation, that as has happened with the internet becoming a tool adopted by capitalism, so too the unity of politics and commerce is forcing both into a crucible of inevitable self-conflict. On the one hand, dictated by the insatiable appetite of capitalism, corporations want and need globalisation (on their terms of course) as a function of their growth. Yet to do so is to simultaneously connect the dots between cultures which could scupper their efforts to retain power and control (again you can delve into the arguments against the real existence of such control, but for here we'll remain cognisant of the 1%'er's angst arising from their hedonistic fear of loss). For a successful effort at globalisation you would need to force some much needed change into the political and corporate arena. I've talked before about the idea that we could see a return to the village/community approach for life, with the added functional and social bonus of the internet for convenience, adaptability, and probably most importantly to summon the qualities of self-respect and responsibility in those comprising those communities. For my own take on our problems a good start might be a shift in the raison d'etre for corporations; rather than wishing their obsolescence I would scale them sideways to make the most of their proficiencies, as logistical operators of established trade routes, leaving the creation and trading of actual goods at either end of the equation to the local communities and cooperatives as a means of ensuring that the wealth maintains a half decent measure of distribution. Maybe a given area could even sustain a number of people earning a living within any one proficiency, which in the case of commerce would see opposition to the one corporate store hogging the potential and employing an ever shrinking base of staff, thanks to automation which only arises because of that unregulated greed mechanism which demands more for less cost. The needs and dictates of the community could establish some equilibrium and see a potential return to something which might actually approach social happiness, but with the internet - a better foundation for connecting people, adapting to circumstances and furthering ideals. You don't even have to succumb to Communism to provide a counter to Capitalism, as so many capitalists seem to scream when you suggest balance. As far as I can presently tell you could (simply) apply Socialist/Buddhist principles and real education as tools of moderation. Often Socialism and Capitalism are pitched as irreconcilable enemies - if there's ever to be an attempt to reconcile that one then I'd argue that Socialism should be seen and employed as Capitalism's safety release valve - to inform the ethic of limit, a tap on the shoulder to remind you of the difference between a want and a need. It may be a little idealistic to imagine it but if people were truly granted a non-cynical chance in life self correcting mechanisms from how people feel to how they connect and how they are connected to the whole could support the spirit of capitalist invention, whose major core problem seems to be that in its naked state it exists entirely without any true capacity for self-regulation, save for those wise enough to understand and behave appropriately.

I would see us embrace our differences, where there is a great deal of irrationality and hypocrisy in the tensions arising from such matters. As the world becomes smaller people are wasting so much time fearing for their loss of identity - in principle it's a lack of understanding which is causing it, and the vast majority from any one side of an argument aren't truly a threat to one another. Again it seems to be those greedy, power thirsty ones among the communities who are causing the friction. If people who do express such misgivings and cravings spent as much energy being truly inquisitive and appreciative as they did mindlessly fearing and panicking in their ego, half the tension would be gone pretty swiftly. At whatever level you wish to look, global, national or personal, there is individuality and a range of perspectives and possibilities in the way people see, experience and respond to the world around them. This should be debated, respected and harnessed as finer qualities of our species. Of course that is also where arguments begin, but this is why we need to demand and implement real open-minded education, so that people can be better informed and granted true critical thinking skills, with the self respect and confidence to act with right-mindedness. We all know such qualities, but are so often forced to compromise on them for comfort and survival (note that some compromises are actually right-minded, but they usually only arise because of a wrong-minded action). To improve all this requires us to put away old toys and raise the bar. For too long we've been taught to be content with what we know, either directly or subconsciously, between each one of us and so many seem resigned to accepting the falsehood that nothing will or can change. In the final analysis that is such bullshit (a.k.a a wrong-minded compromise), and we know it. The only reason it hasn't yet been shed from our daily lives is likely because we're overwhelmed by the scale and trapped in our cycles of compromise. This is where the internet can make (and is making) inroads, as we can so easily share our cross-cultural thoughts if we try. I've been doing this for a while now and I can tell you with every confidence that we are far more alike than dissimilar where it matters most. The irony is all those same people compromising matters would be a part of the same, more healthy way of living. This is why in the effort it's imperative that we keep to our truths, and never feel that it's not important to speak them. Times such as these demand that we begin to take more responsibility. If we keep one another's heads above water we can begin to take the conventional "wisdom" that it's impossible, and turn things around. For those of us so fortunate, there shouldn't have to be too much compromise in comfort and survival in order to help raise others - this would at both build trust and promote calm. As facile and first world a problem by example, many of us have made efforts in our habits already by adapting to recycling, so why not continue to pursue other ethical matters? We're adept at developing technologies and solutions to problems, but (as I implied above) we should be mindful enough to accept, however begrudgingly, that there are practical limits of resources to attend to which capitalism has let us sleepwalk into forgetting. Also there are matters of judicial principle - just because we can do a thing doesn't necessarily mean that we must do a thing. As an exercise look to what you have and what you aspire to, and give yourself a reality check. I'm not saying throw everything away and disappear up a mountain, but rather look honestly at the difference between needs and wants, and see where you are honestly better off drawing a line. As with any social gathering lots of small acts, from compassion to frugality, can produce a tsunami of change and make all the difference. Indeed it's those small, seemingly insignificant acts which I believe are keeping us afloat today. All these are qualities which will serve us so much better than being consumed by rhetoric and allowing ourselves to be manipulated by cynical, divisive politics. We are still on a learning curve, but in no other time in our history do we truly have such potential and less justification for our misdeeds.

When "One For the Price of Two" is Both Good and Desirable!

Irrespective of your era, it never generally makes good economic sense to get two of anything, only use one and call it valuable and worthwhile.. unless you're talking about a niche matter in computing. Okay, so the headline is a bit of a con really. One for the price of two isn't good value, but where this pays back is in redundancy. Yes my friends, we're talking about RAID.

What's RAID?

Depending upon who you ask, and for no discernible reason, RAID is an acronym - Redundant Array of Independent Disks or Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks. How there came to be two definitions is lost to the mists of time but I'm happy with either. For those who don't know anything of this it is a principle of sharing your data across two or more hard drives in order to either increase performance, provide more hard drive space or provide some level of protection against the scourge of reality - broken parts and wear and tear. In other words our nonsensical "value" is redundancy. This latter reason is why I've done this.

RAID is not.. I'll repeat that.. RAID IS NOT a get out of jail free card for those who choose not to perform data backups. It is not a substitute so don't be fooled.. keep doing those backups. If you value your data but don't do backups then shame on you, and people more cruel than I would say you deserve everything potentially coming to you.

There are different practical implementations of RAID, from RAID 0, 1, 5, 10.. We won't go into too much detail here but I've elected for RAID 1, which essentially means that I have two hard drives of equal capacity set up to function as a mirror or clone. Both drives contain exactly the same data, thus enabling a scenario whereby if one drive were to (re. will inevitably) suffer hardware failure no data is actually lost and I the user can continue happily, suffering only the anguish of knowing that the failed drive needs replacing ASAP as opposed to crying into his coffee over his lost data, particularly if he hasn't been doing backups. Once replaced the system will copy its data from the good drive to the new one and you're back to business as usual!

One caveat to my plan is that I'm running a 2Tb system but only have a 1Tb backup drive.. I trust you see the problem with this. To that end my next goal is to increase the size of the backup drive and that can only be done in this case by a new purchase.. alas no technological development that I know of allows you to simply nail or glue extra space onto a hard disk. This too however is a part of my near future rationale. It occurs to me that in times of fiscal strife the best way I could proceed is to replace my 1Tb external backup drive with a 4Tb drive - given that a 4Tb drive is "only" £20 or so more than a 2Tb drive makes justification quite simple.

Why 4Tb?

The least advisable and yet strangely popular RAID scheme is RAID 0, which combines your drives into one. In my case that would double the capacity of my drive space from 2Tb to 4Tb, but also compromise physical integrity in a very inadvisable direction. With RAID 0 your data is alternately written to both drives which means that you have your expected capacity increase and you gain an increase in read performance for your data. However since you're spreading your data over two drives you also double your chances of suffering mechanical failure since you now have two drives to worry about. Worse still if one goes t*ts up then you only have half of your data, and since that data is only every other bit then what remains intact is less use than a dolls head. This is why RAID 0 is pretty bad.. you don't get something for nothing. That said, if I was running out of space, absolutely needed the data space and had absolutely no chance of affording an upgrade for my hard drives then I could opt for a RAID 0 configuration to increase my working space to 4Tb and manage with regular backups to protect my data, until such time as I could afford to expand things.. hence a 4Tb external drive would cover me in this instance. Another route would be to use the 4Tb drive to store the excess work - at least that would only represent a single drive failure problem!?

Anyway at the end of the day it's all about protecting your data, assuming it matters to you. If it doesn't then forget everything I just described. As an aside, as I type the PC has already performed 21% of the task of synchronising the drive contents - yes it's doing it in the background as I write this.

Another advantage I experienced this morning going through the hassles of installing another hard drive is that it gave me another opportunity/excuse to indulge in cable management. I managed a slight but noticeable increase in quality.

Alas I have no before and after shots worthy for comparison so you'll have to take my word for it, but I think it looks quite tidy now - something to be revered in a system which relies on airflow to keep the volume of space within the chassis within a good operating temperature.

A Little More Room

Lately I've been putting myself through a gradual learning curve with DaVinci Resolve. I first encountered video editing using Shotcut, blissfully unaware that the world's leading colour grading company had released what is arguably the best free (with caveats) video editing workflow out there. No leaping in and out of Premiere Pro, between After Effects, Audition, etc.. for me. Here you have a complete, uninterrupted and active flow (meaning that you can work sequentially or jump from say tweaking the sound to extending a clip or importing something more - your project remains up to date and editable throughout) . Importing your work, cutting it, adding effects, colour grading (or course), sound mastering and exporting. In fact I dodged Adobe's bullet altogether, along with the increasingly loathsome subscription model. Between DaVinci, the Affinity suite and Artrage I'm doing quite well, if I say so myself. 

I said there was a caveat to the "free" status because not all the features are there to use.. Some are locked behind the paid version, and as you learn more you discover where those limitations lie. What is good is that there is nothing stopping you from using this package to achieve fabulous basic results and learn more than anyone's fair share of basic/intermediary level techniques and tricks. The price? £299 at time of writing.. Walking a line between products it's more expensive than the ridiculous value of Affinity but not as expensive as Adobe. Judging by its capability I'd say it's a fair price, and in context that's what it's all about. So far I'm loving it. It isn't without its capacity to fall over once in a while, but it certainly seems to be more stable than its competitor, if the anecdotal evidence from other users is to be believed.

What I did discover is that video editing is quite a hungry beast, and although where computer memory is concerned there is a real world law of diminishing returns on capacities above 16Gb I was tempted into buying myself a bit more space - enter two 16Gb sticks of Kingston Hyper X Fury RGB (RGB because reasons..). So Lain now has a bit more room to play and I have to say that 32Gb has quickly established itself as the new normal size for the playground. Affinity and Artrage have also benefitted from this. 

Homura Akemi and Madoka Kaname are optional, and aside from keeping the artist company have no technical impact upon the system performance whatsoever.

Comfort is Important!

Okay it's not to be overstated but you can't go wrong with a little proper support when you're spending time drawing, writing, etc.. these things should also never be underestimated.

Not so long ago it was quite easy to pick a chair - popping to Office World granted a wealth of seating to try out. Alas I missed my window and along with the pens, printers and other consumables, it all disappeared into a capitalist black hole, in other words the local store shut down. So I was left with a few ideas but nothing specific to park the butt on for that practical experience. Left with little choice I opted for the path of reviews and a general consensus on what seemed to be most likely to be un-crap. I'd looked at Argos and decided upon an option from three choices which fit the price bracket, but then dropped upon this one..

I had a choice from black, brown, cream, grey, green and red, finished in pleather or velvet. Why green you ask? Well it felt like it'd be a change of aesthetic from the standard black, something to be commended in the back of my mind since it's existing in a creative spot. I also opted for velvet, again a change from the sterile office fashion, and I think all things considered a snugglier option. Buying from Amazon also assured delivery, since Argos couldn't deliver their option, for reasons unknown.

I was expecting it on the Saturday and so you can imagine my surprise when my DPD app alerted me to its delivery on the Wednesday, a full three days earlier than predicted.

It was easy to assemble - just short of 20 mins..

..conforms pleasantly to the photo as advertised and fits in very nicely!

Having typed this blog whilst sat in it I can confirm it is indeed comfy, sturdy and snuggly. It raises, lowers and reclines with the best of them, and all for a full £40 less than the Argos derivative. Job done. Always look after your back!

A Change of Heart for Lain

Sooo the last time I blogged about LainDark  I was reflecting upon her performance some two years down the line, and as was stated she continues to perform admirably. Now it's Xmas and with the season for giving upon us once more I elected, after some deliberation, to treat Lain to a new CPU cooler.

Having soldiered on masterfully since birth with the stock AMD cooler (in fairness it's no slouch for a stock unit) I decided that I would be nice to have a modest upgrade. Like anything which has a bit of a natural Venn diagram overlap between practical and fun (bikes and cars are other examples which spring to mind) a home built PC entices you to think along similar lines - many of you reading this will understand. Aside from the more obvious aesthetics it was always going to be an upgrade which would afford an improvement in one of two ways - more overclocking headroom and/or better temperatures. Whilst I like the idea of water cooling I am also mindful of both the upkeep and the introduction of a potentially volatile point of failure in return of more extreme cooling performance - to that end I ultimately find such justification unwarranted. It seems that my pragmatic/lazy side is winning such battles these days (probably a good thing) and so I decided to stick with an air cooler. Since day one the system performance has been sufficient for my needs and that remains the case. Perhaps this upgrade is probably best thought of as a well earned item of comfort.

So to satisfy performance and aesthetics was to narrow our options down to something which would work well and follow/enhance the dark appearance which dominated the original PC design. I've always thought that it could do with a little illumination in the middle zone of the PC, perhaps the only thing the stock Ryzen 1600 cooler was lacking - to choose RGB was a no brainer. This would narrow us down to the likes of BeQuiet, Coolermaster, Enermax and Noctua (the latter grey/black design models). The ultimate winner based on price to performance became Coolermaster, and so I present the new heart cooling system for Lain, the Coolermaster Hyper 212 RGB Black Edition.

As seems to be customary nothing ever goes as smoothly as you hope, and it's usually your own fault. It caught my attention that a couple of soundproofing grommets from an earlier mod to the rear case fan has unknowingly split, and so I decided to replace these. For reasons of cause and effect too silly to go into this resulted in me having to remove the PSU housing and reattach the fiddly front panel switches. A note to Corsair.. PLEASE try and make the panels fit a bit more flush and not allow a gap just the right size to allow a grommet to disappear into the power supply housing.. It's a bugger to get anything small enough to fall through back out.

Anyway..

The cooler fitting itself basically went as planned, consulting the old trusty mainboard manual and a very clear and concise video from You Tube (shout out to Gear Seekers for that!). I bought some Arctic thermal paste (still en route as we type) without believing even for one moment that Coolermaster would have been kind enough to provide some of their own, so kudos to them for putting a little tube in there. I still have my Arctic compound en route and it'll server me sometime down the line I'm sure. I don't think there will be enough variance to justify reapplying the Arctic stuff over the Coolermaster generic, but curiosity and OCD may yet get the better of me.

I was pleased and relieved to see that my reassembly wasn't in vain. Everything was OK from first bootup! Review-wise it seems as though it's going to be pretty awesome in performance. If the HW Monitor software is to be believed then the base CPU temperatures have indeed altered quite dramatically, coming down from a keen but still acceptable 38-40°C to a very balmy 26°C and holding. In fact the only thing I might give Coolermaster a little stick for is a "void if removed" warranty sticker which they elected to wrap around the fan cabling. It was a bit of a pain hiding that in the build, but you know first world problems and all that - it's not that important.

All that was left was to key in a suitable colour (apparently it's red by default) and this will change ad infinitum with my tinkering. In that respect performance was once again fine out of the stable, working flawlessly with the Aura RGB software which up to now has only had to handle the mainboard lighting. Overall I'm very happy with this cooler and even though it's early doors I'd recommend it in a heartbeat to anyone looking for such an upgrade. It was easy to work with and a modest £40 or so, which may be a little on the upper side of things Hyper 212 style. I suppose the aesthetics come with a little premium but that's okay for me because I'm not one for upgrading things at the drop of a hat.

Still Flying in the Fast Lane

It's hard to believe that it's coming up on two years now since I built LainDark, my first proper computer - that passed quickly.

A 1st generation Ryzen system sporting a 1st generation Pascal nVidia graphics card, we're now well into the 3rd generation Ryzen and a few incremental products from nVidia, but it's good to know that my initial system design continues to perform well and handle all I want to throw at it. The design choices I made were twofold - a PC which would last me for a good while whilst also providing a good upgrade path, though I suspect I'll still be lauding basically the same beast in another two years. Surpassing my old PC (a Core 2 Duo.. yep THAT old) by a mile, I've been enjoying some modest gaming, DVD transcoding, along with artwork and video editing experiments thrown in for good measure. All water off a ducks back, in stark contrast to the performance of its predecessor, which made quite a meal of such tasks, frequently choking on them.

I haven't had the need to upgrade anything essential, save for a few tweaks as it fell out of its boxes on testing day.. the monitor stand, the speakers and the Corsair keyboard/mouse combo. The keyboard was to have been a K63 with basic red illumination - perfect to raise its profile in the dark yet not excessive enough for it to become an "RGB vomit" peripheral. The price difference between that and the keyboard I did end up with was significant, but a silver lining from the misfortune which consumed the high street electronics store Maplin was me landing the K65 (RGB vomit) model, owing to a lack of K63's in lieu of it's more expensive brother on display at only £10 more (as opposed to £60 RRP). Overall I'm glad I got it, even if it has been broadly set to that same red colour (by way of the iCUE/wallpaper engine setup in this case, which interestingly takes advantage of the RGB keys to physically mirror the wallpaper). The mouse only got replaced because I got heartily sick of a motion glitch, but the replacement is also a lot more comfortable to use. It made sense to go for a Corsair, in keeping with the ecosystem.

The speakers too had an upgrade, from an old 2.0 Creative set which I'd had for over twenty years and which still work to this day (albeit in the budget sphere of performance), I elected to explore my options, descended upon Currys/PC World (pretty much the only store of its kind left now) and took a peek at Logitech before (ironically) landing again upon Creative. They were however a more significant investment than my original pair, and you can hear it.

Software-wise, aside from the old usual suspects, I've thrown Affinity Photo and Designer at it.. no problems. It laughs in the face of DOOM and scoffs at the likes of Rocket League and Final Fantasy. So confident is it in its multi-core hyperthreaded-ness that it juggles Wallpaper Engine across two monitors in the palm of one hand whilst enjoying breathing space to rule the rest of the galaxy. Benchmark software - Cinebench, Heaven, Valley.. loves them! The old beast used to have a coronary just looking at them.

I may have done some future casting about upgrades in a blog here before now but somewhere on the horizon there will almost certainly be a change of CPU cooler - it's managed wonderfully with the stock unit (which is measurably superior to the stock Intel equivalent - well done AMD), but I think it would be nice to either squeeze a little more performance out of it or embrace efficiency and lower temps. I'm not overclocking the CPU (which is ironic almost to the point of insult since all the AMD CPU's are unlocked) but honestly I haven't felt the need to. Neither am I at this point too keen on getting giddy for water cooling. I love the aesthetic of AIO coolers, particularly NZXT, but much prefer the simple reliability and (let's be honest) absent mindedness of air cooling. I suspect I'll be looking at an external USB Bluray drive to compliment the DVD drive I already have. In my experience it still pays to have hard copies of your entertainment. Other than that the only thing I can imagine adding in the short term would perhaps be an SSD scratch disk? That might smooth out any video editing, or cover any such situations where data access at a faster rate than a mechanical HDD might be preferable. Beyond the internals and base peripherals however is the bigger goal which I had in the back of my mind as an end to the means  - VR. This system is almost certainly geared up to that task but which company path to take with that is the real question at this point and I'm not even sure I have the space for room scale, but Elite Dangerous is just calling out to me.. one day.

A lot of this is just playing really though.. It continues to be a wonderful, solid system.