X4 Foundations (Egosoft)

Couldn’t pass on this offer. It’s a 2nd hand Perseus Sentinel. Engines purrs like a kitten.

Perseus Sentinel with decent paintjob

I can see me using this ship for a good while from now. It’s fast and responsive. I’ve trouble keeping it under control on occasion. Wonder how it would do in a Kessel Run 😛

Today I learned about IMA, EVM and TPM on Linux and I feel like Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole.

[ 0.784022] ima: No TPM chip found, activating TPM-bypass!

dmesg | grep TPM

Last time I read about this is ~15 years ago and I simply disabled TPM so far since I only remember the concerns from back then about privacy and the impact it may have on free software related to DRM. TrueCrypt also fuelled this believe.

Turns out that TPM is completely passive and can do a lot for me, especially in combination with UEFI and IMA (Integrity Measurement Architecture) or, in fact, with securing personal credentials and even TOTP.

Yes, I read about the ROCA vulnerability, too!

I wonder for a suited format for a series of log entries for my X4 adventures. Mayhap I should simply edit and append as the story [of my sandbox] unfolds.

Spent most of the day hunting pirates that seem to develop a taste for my ships. The salvaged Cerberus Vanguard is a huge help with this and whenever a pirate surrenders my own support fleet of Minotaur grows. Did I mention that I just love the design of this ship? It’s such a great all-round asset that can even haul some cargo on occasion or act as small carrier.

I also stumbled over another really tiny vault. Took some time to unlock all it’s secrets but I’m starting to get the hang of it.

Raiding a tiny vault

Talking about raiding I had some notable encounters as well. A Raider tried to steal from the current head quarter. That was a mighty stupid idea and the Raider was toast before I even got close to it.

Scale Plate Pact Raider going down in a blaze

And another had the nerve to attack my medium freighters during their duty of making profit. When I finally had enough I called in the fleet and together we started a boarding operation. That was a long and ugly fight mostly because due to a bunch of Xen fighters trashing our party. Lost one small heavy fighter and 45 marines but in the end the ship was ours. Good thing the Cerberus brought a repair drone along to fix the busted engines, by the way.

I also identified a choking point in Napileos’ Fortune VI where a lot of the pirate traffic seems to originate. It’s an empty and unclaimed sector so I started building an Administrative Center here hoping to get this pest under control.

Claiming Napileos’ Fortune VI

I wonder if it makes sense to start more stations here, because a lot of other huge stations are within 4 sectors of this – the typical maximum distance for auto traders to go – and a lot of traffic is passing through this already.

Oh yeah – and I finally got all the parts to assemble the SINZA device. It’s IMHO not really obvious that it simply activated with Shift+4 because I tried to install it as modification or ship drive first.

Monthly News – May 2020 by Clem (blog.linuxmint.com)
Before we start the monthly news, I’d like to thank you for your donations and the support you’re giving us. I’d like to thank our partners and sponsors also and everyone who contributes to Linux Mint. Colors Last month we gave a preview of some of the new colors in the Mint-Y theme. We though...
Keep it Together by crystalcrystal (chicky.blog)
Shawshank leaves tonight, or so he thinks. He called this morning, as planned. His care package, ordered late last night, was delivered a day early. His birth certificate finally arrived, and they told him he’d probably leave “sometime within 48 hours”. Unfortunately, they couldn’t tell him ...

What a reference to write on the wall of a cell on your last night in it: "So long and thanks for all the fish"👍

You got it all. Drama, adventure, love (holding back on that Twilight joke now 😀).

I so hope for your Happy Ending 😉