Sunday, July 9, 2017

July 8, 2017

 Today was a VR day. When I woke up I put together the shower caddy poles that I got to hold the sensors. They are just leaning in the corners because the last pole made it too tall for the ceiling. But that works for me because it is even less permanent now. The frustration set in when I got it all set up and then found out the sensors needed a firmware update. That required taking them back down and plugging them into my computer, which sounds simple but it was a pain in the butt. And then I kept getting an error message. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling things, none of which seemed to help. I think the solution that actually worked was flipping the HDMI cable around going from the little control box into my computer. Apparently the direction of the cable mattered. After all of that, it was smooth sailing. Or at least as smooth as it can be with a laptop that doesn't meet all of the requirements to run VR.

I was glad to find out that I am not prone to VR sickness. I could see it a bit when my computer got overwhelmed and the screen got super jittery. And I wasn't playing anything with a lot of crazy movement because I didn't think my computer could take it. So I guess it is still a possibility in the future. Hopefully not.

I was a little disappointed with the visuals because when you see a recording of someone playing it, you get a regular, 1080p image. When using the actual headset, the view is much less clear. It is difficult to read small text, which can make menus a little annoying. So the resolution is a little disappointing because it does not live up to my expectations. But there is a sweet spot in the FOV where things look pretty good.

But, I still really like it. It's incredible. Being completely immersed in a virtual environment, being able to lean in closer to look at something, spinning around to see everything and getting surprised by something you didn't know was right behind you. I also really like that the inner foam pad has cutouts for my glasses so they aren't smooshed into my ears or face. The main selling point for the Vive over the Rift was everyone saying the Vive was much more friendly to people who wear glasses.

I spending the morning setting up and playing VR stuff and I eventually made it to my Mom's around two o'clock to do laundry. I thought I would read while waiting on my laundry but I ended up researching VR stuff because that is my new obsession. I also took a brief nap and started the sign-up process for a dating app. My friend really likes it so I looked into it. It apparently puts the ball in the woman's court, so when two people match, the woman has twenty-four hours to initiate contact if they are actually interested. This is good for the women because they don't have to worry about being inundated by messages, and it is good for men, like me, who don't initiate. That was the selling point for me. Also, there is a BFF mode, so you can just find people to be friends with, not necessarily start a relationship with, which sounds a lot less intimidating. The downside is that I don't have many pictures of myself and the ones I do have are low resolution. It's like I'm living in the early 2000s. Maybe I should wait and see if some of the wedding pictures come in because those will be the most recent. We'll see.

For dinner I grabbed Jimmy John's because that sounded good. And it would take less time than roasting vegetables and making rice. I also realized I forgot to get more black beans, which I was kind of looking forward to. I doubt I leave the house tomorrow to buy beans but I do plan on roasting some vegetables. And maybe making something bread-related. I started looking through the biscuit book and all of the biscuits so far are made with wheat flour. What's up with that? I'm going to need to get more flour. Maybe when I buy beans.

I spent the rest of the night playing VR stuff. The VR Lab is really fun. I also need to workout more because shooting my fake bow and arrow was tiring. Mainly the holding my arm out straight thing. My shoulder is finally starting to feel better after hurting it back in March, so maybe I should start exercising again. There are a lot of other free games I want to try and I want to keep playing but that is what tomorrow is for.


I have now been dragging this out forever so I am going to call it good and record my audio journal so I can go to bed.

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