• Accessability: it’s fast to turn on and start using. Just press one button and you can start working on it.
• Noise: lack of it to be exact. It’s silent as my laptop isn’t. It’s a huge difference.
• Battery life: if I compare this to any laptop pc I know, the difference is like between a man and a zombie. One is living, another one is very dead.
• There’s one button that takes you to home screen. And there you see all your apps and can use them. It’s not like “you can setup that with -c dumb in console using params /s”. Oh, and now as you have 371 folders, you really should defragment them. Oh and indexing is good to turn off in the service. Oh… and seven billion other factors I’ve seen in Windows/Linux machines.
• Missus likes it: always a good sign.
• Weight: it’s very lightweight compared to laptops
• Screen: very nice screenie. And you can touch it. Ooh…

Things I hate about it:

• Name: seriously. iPad. It’s… gross.
• Virtual keyboard: well, I don’t hate it. It’s “somewhat decent”. Maybe my couple hours of usage was not enough to test this properly, but somehow I like the Nokia style when it comes to keyboard: physical ones beat virtual ones. It’s the contact & feedback you get when pressing buttons.
• Cannot upload images/files to web: I tried uploading an image. It said no can do. I have one 3 letter word to describe my feelings: “wtf”?
• Weight: while it’s very lightweight, it’s also too heavy to be used to read books. I couldn’t find a good position nor could read stuff. So, for now I just grab my Terry Pratchett in physical format thank you.
• Neck pains: the next morning I woke up, my neck was hurting. It’s because I have to rotate my neck more than when on a laptop. Maybe I just couldn’t find a good position or something, but anyway.
• Battery charging: I have no Mac. When I plugged on the “universal iphone to usb port” cord (“universal”… *sigh*…) and iPad kept saying “won’t recharge”. I tried with PC windows, PC unix… even with PS3. It required me to turn off iPad and then it would recharge (of course it would not *tell* me that battery was charging). When the thing is on synced iTunes account (or as I guess: Mac machine) it charges okay.
• “Apple standard”: why oh why you cannot have simple USB port. Why have “apple standard”. Oh wait. I know. Because you guys hate me. I wee on your tent to retaliate.
• Price: 500-800 eur is quite big price for this thing. The 500 price (16 GB, no 3G, wlan) is somewhat acceptable, but I wouldn’t pay 800 euros for this thing.

…but it will be a success. Big success.

The main reason that while there’s some things that are not so good (at least right now), but this machine is designed for human beings. It’s not for geeks. The usability is great. It’s simple to use. It has tons of software.

I can imagine iPad to be a really popular device, and when it comes to “surfing in web” or “reading some twitter stuff” or “checking emails”, I’m like tons of more interested in doing that using iPad compared to using Ubuntu powered laptop.

I was positively surprised. And this comes from the mouth of a alltime-Windows man who has tested Linux and hated Mac so much that I’ve never drunk apple cider in my life.

So, the device cannot be that bad.

Oh, and you can also make games to it…

Here’s some online resources:

• Generation 5 looks like a great resource. There’s tons of information about game AI, robotics, genetic algorithms, programming, artificial life, neural networks and so on. I have merely glimpsed some of the articles on their site and can warmly recommend checking out the site. Seemed good, and others have recommended it as well.
• AI junkie is a site with some articles on genes and neural networks. It also has book recommendations and links to other sites. Good place for starters.

Books on AI:
Please notice that I haven’t read these books, these represents the books I ended up with (based on reviews by other people), and just sharing my findings.

• Programming game AI by example – this book was recommended by many different sites and has got good amazon.com reviews. From what I’ve heard (and read using google reader) about the book, it starts with AI basics and builds from there, eventually helping reader to build a simple soccer AI.
• AI techniques for game programming is a book that talks about genetic algorithms and neural networks in somewhat understandable language (at least based on from what I’ve read).

There’s other books (please feel free to suggest addition to the lists), but these were the ones I found and put to my wish/buylist.

P.S. Those interested in perhaps-not-so-useful-for-gaming books on robotics, might be interested to check out Robot Builders Bonanza and Getting Started with Arduino. Again, I haven’t read nor ordered these (yet), but these were getting enough recommendations for me to place these into my future-buy list.

Book recommendations?
If you have some book or other recommendations on Artificial Intelligence, feel free to share your links.

In case you know some good book about “machine learning / artificial intelligence (general) / artificial life” I’d be very pleased to hear about these.

(You?)

My baby girl is now 6 months. We had music television (or Voice – Finnish alternative) open every now and then and I started to pay attention what they show in the channel since our baby seemed to watch all the bright colors that TV displays – also in the music channel.

I’m thinking that there’s definitely stuff that’s not for kids. In fact… radio channels have got our votes nowadays.

I started wondering again, why there’s no ratings for music? You can play any music around the clock and there’s no guidelines for parents. It feels that I better turn off the channel rather than risk it.

I’m on safe waters what it comes to movies/cartoons and such. I’m also on very safe waters what it comes to games since I’m very familiar with those… but music channel – or just plain audio – is something I cannot control so easily. At least not here in Finland.

I wonder if this is the case in other parts of this planet – and I wonder why there’s really no clear age ratings or such for music.

But I’m curious to hear what you guys do.

This is quite new thing to me, since I’ve been a PC dude as far as I can remember.

I’m guessing there’s few reasons for this change:

• NHL ’10 exclusivity on PS3. I think it was NHL ’08 or ’07 which is available for PC, but newer NHL games are only available on consoles. Same goes for certain other games that I’d like to try. If I wanted to play these games, I needed to get console. Monopolies work.
• Ease of use. PS3 is simple to use. Launch the game and you are good. With PCs, I might need to do some mystical rituals to get games working. And after they work, I might need to change resolutions and settings and stuff to get decent framerate and visuals. With PS3 I don’t need to do that.
• Sofa playing. My PC is located downstairs, in a dark room, with spiders and snakes and such. My PS3 on the other hand is located in our livingroom, with proper lights, sofa and everything. Oh, and those wireless bluetooth controller devices. They are great. PS3 is convenient.
• Bigger screen (TV for PS3, 24″ monitor for PC)
• PS3 also nowadays offers online multiplayer which wasn’t available some time ago for consoles. I only play multiplayer games, and with PS3 I can go online so it’s not limited to only offline multiplayer. Which gets me to my next reason.
• Offline multiplayer is also nice. Sometimes it’s just cool to have people you play with in the same room. PS3 offers that.

But… if it wouldn’t have NHL ’10 online (and blu-ray) I might have not bought the console at all. It’s just later than I’ve found out how cool machines these things are.

This is quite lot said from a guy whose previous console experience was provided by NES (I wonder what happened to that machine) – and who has always held the PC flag very, very high.

I suppose things change.

1. Paypal is messing this thing up big time
2. See previous

I love using Paypal.

But I hate seeing stories like this.

I’d really like to get this resolved quickly. Not “within 2-3 weeks”.

Via @bytejacker

That is: use profanities for ***** sake.

Update: Hey, now it works!

Now, few years later, Sony brings Move for Playstation 3. Move is a odd looking stick with a light ball in the end. Bit like those yedi lightsabers, with a ball instead of blade in the end.

Today I watched some Move game trailers and it sort of hit me that these Wii & Move (and Kinect for Xbox) are helping change the whole nations. I think these things can really have impact on our health. I remember trying Wii at my bro’s house and after a few minutes of boxing I was sweating. It wasn’t “just a video game”, it was bloody exercise. With fun games coming out, I can imagine how these games can help get gamers in better shape.

I still think that nothing beats going out and getting some fresh air… but at least if our kids (and we) play a bit more of these games that get their asses off the sofa, we are heading to somewhere better place.

Here’s a video aobut a game called The Fight: Lights Out (reminded me about the Fight Club movie for some reason). I don’t know how much you can “cheat” nor how accurate the move stick – or two – are, but looks pretty slick to me.

I guess much depends how accurate the system really is.

I’m becoming more of a console man. (Yaiks.)

Can’t almost wait.

(Talking about the game stuff I’m working on)

Off I go, there’s coding to do!

Well, at least more than earlier.

I’m following and unfollowing people that I want, and twitter has become an easy way to find out what’s going on. When new games appear, somebody in Twitter is mentioning them. When new relevant game dev stuff occurs, somebody there I follow will tweet about it.

Yes, it’s still 90+% spam but hey, that’s how Internet works: most of the stuff in the Internet is spam anyway and at least you get to choose not to follow people who tweet about stuff like this.

Twitter is also one of the top traffic senders to this site, so that’s another reason why I’m liking it.

There’s 2 gloomy things that are in my mind about twitter. First is potential spam. I haven’t seen pretty close to any bot-generated spam in my account, but there’s already huge amount of fake accounts and spambots tweeting rubbish (which I don’t see, since I don’t follow those bots). My fear is that these spammers somehow manage to make things messed up. Don’t know how, but still think it might happen one day.

The second perhaps bigger issue is that there’s no revenue model for Twitter. I wouldn’t be surprised if one day they’d shut down the whole service. Maybe Twitter has grown beyond that point, but it’s still totally free and is sucking money as we speak. Facebook figured out how to make donuts. Twitter hasn’t. As much as I like “free stuff”, there’s the problem with free that somebody needs to pay it. I’m not saying I’d pay anything for Twitter (I think) but if they don’t figure out a way to earn donuts, they cannot continue this thing forever.

Meanwhile, Twitter is proving to be a pretty slick tool for game developers in quite many ways and I feel it is something developers shouldn’t ignore. You can ask and get help. You can network. You can throw quick messages without stealing other people’s precious time (as you gotta keep it short you know).

I’m no Twitter fan, but growing to like it a bit more.

It’s bit like a virtual pub where you can bring the folks you like.

And that’s perhaps why I sometimes look forward to checking Twitter instead of my email inbox.

Don’t have a window?

When we bought this apartment, my office moved to downstairs. The space is bit like a bunker with a tiny window that doesn’t let much light come in… and I sort of dislike this. Okay, after I start working, it takes like 2 minutes and I’m totally concentrating on work… and from that on I don’t even know if there’s lights or not in the room.

But on times like for example now when I’m upstairs and typing this thing using laptop I remember how dark basement type of office I have.

I don’t know how the view might affect one’s motivation to work, but I’ve been looking the that living room corner (there’s a spot for extra computer here you know) in similar manner as that one creature from Middle Earth who kept saying “my precious”.

But… I dunno. It would mean extra caveman work you know.

Enough of my view.

How’s the view outside your office? Looking good? Do you think the view somehow affects your motivation?

Presumably showing these things in my blog has some effect, since friend of mine wanted to hire me for some pixel art stuff. (Talk about not having multiple projects…)

Feel free to throw a comment to specify your reply a bit if you want.

I suppose I like doing this, and I guess some of you like reading this stuff (since you keep coming back).

Do you have a blog? Are you blogging actively? Why? Why not?

For this, I’ve prepared a test to determine how indie you are, and this is the version 1. You guys need to help me get version 2 online. The test consists of several statements. Answer either “yes” or “no” and count how many “yes” answers you get. This determines your score.

Version 1: How indie are you test
Notice: if you cannot see the test, please visit gameproducer.net to take the test.

1. I do the gameplay design for my game
2. I write the story for my game
3. I do the game art by myself
4. I do the game sounds by myself
5. I do the music for my game
6. I program my game code alone
7. I’m in charge of my project
8. I fund my game development by myself without external investors/publishers/3rd parties (spouse does not count as 3rd party)
9. My game generates income mainly through my own website (not from 3rd party portal/distributor)

Your result:

In the test results, the programming is weighted 2 times more important than others, and if you have comments on this, feel free to mention. I’ve always felt that programming is the biggest task there is in completing the game. I’ve also left out any “project management” type of things, but kept the “I’m in charge/leading the project”. When working solo, you are in charge of the project. Maybe we have that in version 2, but now left this out.

I’m also thinking if purchasing art/music/sounds from common libraries should be okay. Now I’ve made it so that you need to do all that stuff on your own.

I also deliberately left “I’ve made my own engine” since I really believe indie game developers and (solo) engine developers are two totally different things. (Some game engine creation is most likely needed in any project, but I don’t think indies should think about creating their own rendering engines or that sort of stuff). Feel free to disagree with me.

If you have some things that should be added, please feel free to tell ‘em.

Bring any suggestions… and of course let us know your score.

It was a painful thing, but at least this did the trick for me.

Well, there was some things: my own estimate was 1 day for the gate and fence and all, but eventually the project day count rises to 3… so in that way the project schedule was similar to any game project estimate. This was mainly due needing to wait for the paint to dry in separate days, and of course the usual “it’s almost finished, just one more thing that I need to do” things that occurred. It’s worth adding that when you have a baby to take care in the house “things don’t always go as planned”.

Also: there’s always bugs that you cannot get rid of no matter what.

It’s strange how things change. When I first started this whole twitter thing, I was like thinking “whadda hell is wrong in the world – people follow other people talking about useless shite”. In some extent it’s still worth thinking that (whenever you see tweets like “going to take a shower”, “took a shover”, “gotta eat something”, “ate something” and so on).

Here’s how I use Twitter:

• I use Tweetdeck client. It (or some other client) is a must. Otherwise Twitter makes no sense. You absolutely definitely most positively need to have a client. Get one.
• I do my best to think of the followers: When I do a tweet, I try (and usually do) think if the tweet is worth to do. Right now I feel that Twitter makes it almost too easy to spam people, so I’m thinking that’s it a good thing to try reduce the noise. Of course people have different interests, so naturally we cannot please everybody all the time. Anyways, I try post quality stuff there.
• I announce new blog posts: whenever I write new stuff in my blog, an automatic tweet is sent. I use a wordpress plugin called Twitter Tools, which is simply excellent.
• I also retweet some stuff I find interesting: Not so much, but something. Something I feel it’s worth re-sharing.
• I tweet some fun/cool/interesting/crazy stuff that’s too little for blogging: I don’t do this so much, but if I see some fun pic or hear some cool stuff (or simply have an interesting dilemma), I just might create a tweet about it.
• I follow bunch of industry people: I keep my follow list less than 100. I get all the news I need and will stay in touch with indie gaming scene.
• I keep in touch with people: Twitter is easy thing to use for sending messages to people around the globe. It’s easy to create that tiny message and approach people. It’s good for networking.

Those are my main reasons for having a my Twitter account. You have some other “best practices” to add to this list? How you use Twitter?

And if you are not using Twitter, care to share why not?

I feel I’m somehow supporting the whole gaming (and any related) industry by putting some donuts to work.

So, when was the last time you donated something to people (who are in this gaming industry doing good stuff)?

I’ve been asking for network backup drive, which potentially could help in this issue, but thought to ask anyway in case you guys already have good solutions on this.

I’d also want more light, since currently this room is 70% underground and has only tiny window (which happens to have the sort of glass that somehow manages to keep the light outside), but at summertime it feels bit silly to even consider keeping the lights on. I did research for “self glowing paint” but the green alien colored paint looks too sci-fi for my taste.

Anyway, with orange wall paint, some paintings on the wall (note to self: I gotta do some game art and print that stuff in the wall too!) and things should look more fun.

Do you care about your coding environment? Are you doing something to ensure it’s inspiring and fun place? Or does it matter at all?

I took pretty much the whole day (except little bbq and child caring in the middle ;) to clean my computer. I removed programs that I don’t use, I deleted useless downloads from the harddrive, I disabled certain services (according to these tips), and run the defragment analyzing (“no need to defragment”), and then got rid of some startup programs.

After this, the boot took over 4 minutes (maybe even more than 5 minutes, but I don’t know since I threw away the watch around that 4 minute mark). After second boot, it was 2-3 minutes, so bit faster.

Yes. Cleaning my Windows actually increased the load time. I didn’t mess anything. That’s a promise. (Maybe next boot will go faster – who knows what kind of post-setup-defragment-hidden-install-something the Windows did).

For this, I considered different options on how to handle this:

• Clean registry (that’s something I prefer not to mess with).
• Install linux, Ubuntu boots so fast (I would, but Blide isn’t working on Linux so I’m stuck on Windows)
• Get SSD drive (they are fast… but bit on the expensive side, for example a 64GB SSD thing costs 200ish EUR)
• Buy & Install Windows 7: costs either 160 EUR (oem) or 270 EUR. This kind of sucks since (1) I already have Vista business version that I’d like to upgrade and (2) Windows 8 is scheduled for year 2011 if I remember correctly.
• Consider getting more memory: I have 32 bit Vista, but this probably wouldn’t do much since there’s already quite a bit of free memory (I got 3 Gigs in use).
• Hibernate more often. The computer. It’s supposed to help with this.

I’m sort of slightly not satisfied with my Vista purchase. I mean… I get this superfancy fast computer. I get Vista. End result is: Vista eventually gets slow. I want to upgrade and they say to me “sorry, you gotta buy this new Windows 7″.

I feel bit stupid to even consider spending additional 160 euros (not to mention 270 euros) to get my bloody OS to boot in such time that I don’t need to order pizzas while waiting.

Let me know if this thing still works, thanks.

I just coded the coolest map editor ever. In simplicity, it’s “map.dat” file with “1000100100002000000000100001″ stuff inside. After all, this update took only about 7 minutes…

My computer speakers have 2 buttonthings: “power/volume” and “tone”. The first button let’s you adjust the volume, and if you turn it to zero then the power goes off. The second button does something that I never use.

Now, whenever I try play something, I need to always turn the volume to the proper level. There’s no much visual feedback on this Creative speaker, so I just need to listen to it every time I launch a game for example, and adjust the volume carefully. (This is due the fact that every time I shut down computer, I also turn the volume button to minimum, in order to power off the speakers).

I know it’s a cheapskate issue, and I admit I was acting stupid buying these speakers. A much better user interface would be “power” and “volume”. Who needs some “tone” anyway? What I care is the volume.

Okay, the speakers cost like 40 eur.. But still. One could argue that equally good way to set buttons would be to make it so that “when Tone goes to minimum value, the power is turned off”. (That makes no sense either, but at least adjusting it back to middle default value would be handy.)

As it does not make sense to have it on volume button. It’s the button people use most, why ruin it by adding 2 most important functionality into one button, when they definitely should be separate.

Okay, enough of ranting. I just go and buy a speakers that have a power button. But I know I’m right. Aren’t I?

I’m no gadget person, and need to think a bit before I can say if I’ve got any cool gadgets for myself. Laptop probably raises quite high. Not perhaps so über cool, but at least useful. PS3 sixaxis controller uses bluetooth which is pretty cool (works much better than tv remote controller which need to be aimed to the boxes), pretty useless though. USB memory stick was cool at some point and has some use every now and then – but not really a cool cool thing anymore since everybody has those.

Damn. I think I don’t have cool gadgets lying around here. Mainly only boring useful stuff.

What about you?

Okay, the game package itself was around 50 euros. But then Playstation (Slim edition, cables, extra sixaxis etc. ectc.) throw in 400-500 eur. And then of course I need a bigger screen (those players are so tiny when watched here “far away” from sofa), so I’m looking into purchasing 40″+ LED television (after summer). Throw in another 1000-1500 euros or so.

So… purchasing NHL ‘10 ends up costing me couple of thousand of euros.

Can somebody please explain me the rationale behind this? I don’t understand how my brain justifies this, but apparently it does.

Perhaps it makes some sense to be there: this is one of those “don’t judge things before experimenting them, judge them afterwards” experiment I’m conducting. We’ll see if Facebook is of any use.

With that said and done… Anybody want to be my friend?

P.S. I’ve yet to use the vanity url picking since evil Adrian Crook picked up *my* nick before I had the chance to rightfully claim it (damn you Adrian, damn you!!!) .

So, what will it be:

Note to self: playing board games all night long is no long-term solution to anything, no matter how fun it might be.

Well, after 1 year of owning a twitter account I think exactly the same.

People still tell me what color pants they wear and what songs they sang in shower, but I also find it useful: (1) website traffic and (2) good place to get help and beer. (like for example this thing about Great Escape remake got instant reply via Twitter… before the guy even knew that I would give a beer to somebody for helping me out. Well, that guy is one Guinness pint happier now all thanks to Twitter.)

But really… nothing has changed. Twitter is still filled with crap, but it’s also an easy way to communicate with other devs. I recommend testing it.

I already have some items in my list, such as Oz. It was a great series about prison life, and I might continue watching it now. Prison Break – first season – was pretty nice (rest of the seasons felt pretty clued on top of everything). I have 2 prison movies in my dvd collection (don’t remember names now) which I will check out too.

Escape from Alcatraz was another great movie which I gotta get. (In fact, I took a break and ordered the movie right away).

Any other good prison/escape movies I should consider checking out? (Anime is fine too)

I don’t own xbox console and cannot play the game, but I have been watching development news about Alan Wake for years now. Good luck Remedy. Rumours tell me, that this has been the biggest entertainment title ever created by a Finnish company.

I hope it plays as well as it looks (spoiler warning: don’t watch the video if you don’t want to know anything about the game events).

First, I bought a better antenna to replace the basic router antenna. This was a pretty cheap upgrade (30 eur) and made the signal somewhat better, but I wanted more. I bought a wireless airstation which I connected to the adsl modem. This made the signal bit better again, but I was still not happy.

I knew that the store would have one more upgrade available, but then I got a better idea.

I went and bought 20 meter RJ-45 cable, some “make the cord stay nicely on the walls” nails and a hammer.

100 hammer hits later I got a cord coming from downstairs to upstairs. I threw away the airstation and just decided to use PS3 with a cord.

Cave man era style, but works bloody well.

I also have spare routers, adsl modem (or modems), printer, motherboard, old gpu etc. etc. et cetera.

Do you guys get rid of the old stuff when you replace your gear with newer one? Mine seems to stay floating here.

(Anyone fancy buy some stuff from me?)

I remember when I was like 15 or so (and had been coding a tool that would predict ice hockey results) I got this sore wrist. I think I had to support the wrist with other hand (heh) in order to being able to code.

Over a decade later, I’m giving in.

I’ll simply stop using the mouse for the evening. Tomorrow it’ll be better. Less jinxed. Good.

Well, later I figured out that it was an april fools prank.

Any cool april fool pranks you’ve seen/experienced/heard?

Oh, and this year I have a pretty good reason why I’m not attending. My project release date is any day now.

Out of curiosity, I started to check out what ice hockey games there are available, and came to conclusion that for PC – there’s hardly any. NHL ‘09 PC got horrible ratings from players. There really didn’t seem to be alternatives for these 2 series.

There were several flash games that mostly resembled (1) air hockey or (2) some sort of shoot out (couple of pretty interesting though). Couple of other hockey games there, but there isn’t many ice hockey flash games though.

Then I tried checking indie/shareware, and there was hardly any. Some downloadable air hockey game, and several hockey manager games – but that’s pretty much it.

Are there any ice hockey games for PC? Games that somewhat model playing as an ice hockey player (not as a manager). 3D? 2D?

Please notice that I also post any updates to my Twitter page in case you want to use that as an alternative way to receive updates.

The change was very easy to do (search & export Aweber contacts, then create groups and import contacts to YMLP).

So far nothing to complain.

You like it?

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With Amazon, I don’t know the end price after I’ve (1) logged in, (2) went to checkout, (3) inserted my credit card information, (4) and then reviewing the order.

Compared to “seeing the product and that this is the price” it’s not so usable.

(Amazon still has the best way to look inside products, get product recommendations & reviews so I’m not totally forgotten their site…)

Luckily I know myself well enough not to trust those thoughts.

Anyways.

Xbox has better price, you can get it black as well, can watch movies (but not bluray) and play several fun games. On the other hand, PS3 has that bluray thing (not that I’d have any use for that but at least it could get me bragging rights) and there’s also neat games for PS3.

On the very other hand… there’s PlayStation 2. Which has tons of games. Good games. Games that don’t rely on graphics. Enjoyable games like Tenchu (the new versions for Xbox 360 got bad grades).

So… what you vote?

I’m not getting one quite soon, but thought to ask what you guys think.

Friend of mine had been using a basic tower PC for quite a while. Then he switched to Mac laptop (not sure what happened to PC). He also has Xbox. And Wii. And assumingly a some sort of smart phone. And quite likely iPod Touch as well.

Does he need all those? I dunno. But when I start think of the amount of computers… for a “normal person” this might sound quite lot. Having 3 pretty powerful computers for 2 person home (soon to be 3…) might sound too much.

And this is not even much for average Joe engineer. I’m sure there’s geeks out there with iPhones, laptops, home computers and consoles - and plans to get more.

How many computers & consoles do we really must have in our places?

How many do you own? You use them all?

(Hmm, I could sure use PlayStation 3. For watching DVDs…)

The main reasons why the forums got closed are:
- Required time compared to activity of the forums
- Tons of spam bots & moderation (see above)
- There are already public forums such as the great Indiegamer forums (where I warmly recommend anyone to join)
- Discussion can happen through this game producer blog nevertheless

It was nice to run the forums, but now it’s time to close them. The resources still appear via Google (so the forums are there in the background) but no new threads can be started in other forums except the “ask about the Insiders membership”.

Strangely I’m going back to where I started.