wk9/2021

Some more links from week 9 of 2021. Another nice space related video this week, the latest test launch from SpaceX's Starship prototype line - this time vehicle SN10 performed a 10km flight, with a horizontal free-fall before transitioning back to vertical for landing, the footage is unreal.

• How I cut GTA Online loading times by 70% (neev.ly) - reverse engineering GTA Online to discover what causes the ridiculous loading times when trying to play
• The Last Message Sent on AIM (justaman.org) - I still find it suprising how the big messenger clients of the 2000s died off to be replaced by even more wildly popular messaging clients from Facebook. It seems like MSN Messenger, AIM etc. should've been able to capitalise on their numbers to remain the big players instead of just disappearing. Anyway, after the closure of AIM was announced this user attempted to send the last message before the AIM servers shut down
• a new chapter (ghuntley.com) - switching to living and working in a van, in Australia

Also discovered a couple of amazing looking bike packing routes through a former colleague of mine who's now living in Australia; The Hunt 1000 is ~1000km gravel/bikepacking route between Canberra and Melbourne. Also the Victoria Divide 550, ~550km of gravel and adventure in the state of Victoria through the Great Dividing Range. Both appear to be run as events that can be entered, or the routes can be accessed their respective websites and attemped at any time (assuming weather dependant)