VMware Player doesn’t like Hyper-V

So I’m having this issue with VMWare Player.  This is a Virtual Machine software, a free app that lets you run virtual PCs (i.e. other Operating Systems) in your PC (yeah sounds meta). But also I have Hyper-V which is Microsoft’s own take on visualization software that comes free with Windows 8 Pro. If Hyper-V is already installed (it’s not by default) trying to install VMWare Player just gives this error:

The thing is that all the people I’ve heard from (both from VMWare and Microsoft/Windows support on Twitter) are amazed that there’s an issue. They have no idea why they cant co-exist, and they seem to assume it’s some kind of technical error or bug. However this isn’t just some random vague error message. This is VMWare’s own software (the installer) detecting the presence of Hyper-V and calling it out by NAME and not allowing me to use it. Further, the error says “This product may not be installed..” implying to me that it’s not a technical conflict, but a LICENCING issue, or some sort of legal BS.

Thing is that When I first tried to use Hyper-V on my old PC (i9200 Core 2 Quad) it would only install a client that connected to a virtual server, not the actual virtual machine software. VMware player is free and installs on my old i9200 and allows me to install any OS I want. The nice thing about VMWare player is many Linux distros come as VM packages that I can simply bootup with out having to go though an install process.

My old i9200 core 2 quad lacked some sort of function call that Hyper-V relys on to run, but VMWare doesn’t need it. So after a few months I was able to upgrade to an i7-3820 PC. I was then able to install Hyper-V and it runs fine. However, there are still things I need to do in VMWare Player, and it’s installer refused to install it on my PC with Hyper-V present. Even if I removed Hyper-V, then installed VMWare player (which works) and then later install Hyper-V again, and try to use VMWare Player; it launches, but it won’t let me run a VM.

So.. I blame this on VMware, not Microsoft. I guess if I paid for a full version of VMWare I wouldn’t have this conflict.. all about the money I bet. But if i really had the money to spend on something that’s already free for visualization software it’d probably use Parallels. Which is the only VM software I’m aware of that works on Mac. I’d LOVE to have VMWare player on my Mac also. so i can boot up those pre-packaged .VM packages on my Mac. VMware has ports for Linux… why not Mac?

 

Xbox One with no 360 backwards compadibility

With all the roumors and bad speculations about the new Xbox One, the fact that the new console will not be backward compadible with older 360 games is complete bullshit. Microsoft posted a FAQ recently and mentioned this:

Q:    Will Xbox One be backward compatible with my existing games?
A:    Xbox One hardware is not compatible with Xbox 360 games. We designed Xbox One to play an entirely new generation of games—games that are architected to take full advantage of state-of-the-art processors and the infinite power of the cloud. We care very much about the investment you have made in Xbox 360 and will continue to support it with a pipeline of new games and new apps well into the future.

It’s very uncharacteristic for Microsoft of orphan their user base like this. This is something more akin to what Apple does every time a new Mac PC or a new version of OS X is released. Microsoft is well known for legacy support, only just recently dropping support for Windows XP that’s been around for over 12 years, yet updates over the internet for windows 2000 and XP still work. Heck I think even windows 95 and 98 still update over the web via MS.

As for the compatibility issue, yes it makes sense.  The 360 is powered by a RISC based CPU (PowerPC I believe) so whatever is compiled for the 360 won’t work on anything else since it’s a different beast. Xbox One is basically a lot like the original Xbox with an i386 base CPU (AMD x64 & GPU) which is exactly what the PS4 has. So it has the same guts as a modern PC from 2006.

But with all the talk about how powerful it is, and how the “cloud” gives it even more power to play your games and enhance your “experience” (so SICK of that vague term) how hard would it be to slap a 360 VM in the Xbox One? Would it be so difficult to emulate it as a VM? It’s already running THREE separate “operating systems” in a virtual machine environment. Most gamers won’t bother with the TV crap running in the background anyway; we already have DVRs. So PLEASE give us a 360 VM instead!

They did keep legacy support with a limited number of classic Xbox games on the 360, however it WAS an emulator so you could still keep playing Halo and Halo 2 even on Xbox Live on your 360. It should be a no-brainer to get 360 support on the Xbox One.

But this catch phrase meme “the cloud” is so meaningless. For over 10 years we have been playing MMO type games which always suffer from lag lag lag mostly due to server congestion in the so-called “Cloud.” For the most part the “cloud” is just for remote storage, but Microsoft wants you to believe that they can offload CPU processes into the cloud for things that aren’t sensitive to lag. While this is evident in some cases like SETI@Home, or Folding@Home Project, but this is purely number crunching using a distributed network using idle CPU clock cycles.

I really do not see how Microsoft’s “cloud” will help power on my video games faster, stronger, and better. Improve my “experience” (ah that fucking word again) and make games FASTER, when we are held back by the bandwidth of my internet connection. Seriously if MS found a cure for lag, then please share it with the rest of the MMO community, we really need to know.

It WORKS!

Finally after months of dealing with retailers over the internet and waiting weeks for parts to ship back and forth, which added up taking months figuring out what it’s not working 100%. My new i7-3820 PC is finally working as it should. Yay!

So lets take a trip down the past few months. In January 2013 I started budgeting and pricing out hardware and began looking for cheap deals online. I planned on buying non-critical parts, which is anything other than the CPU, Mobo, or RAM. At Amazon I ordered a Corsair Enthusiast Series TX 750 power supply (PSU) and a super cheap-o ATX black computer case.

The PSU arrived with no issues, and works fine ablit it’s was probably overkill for my needs. It has way too many connectors than I needed. I have no plans to go SLI, yet this PSU has four video card power connectors, and two CPU power connectors, Whoa! But it was a good deal and it works fine, but the cables aren’t modular so i have to stuff all the extra cabled that are braded under the DVD drive it’s not neat inside this cramped PC case but it’s not blocking airflow.

The ATX case I got arrived completely broken. The condition of the box it came in was old and worn. The cardboard was soft as if it was out in the weather for months. It was likely old stock that was passed around from vendor to vendor which was probably why it became damaged. I don’t think it was damaged when it shipped to me. The case it self is cheap anyway. It’s extremely light, no folded metal, and extremely flimsy. Looks sexy as hell though.

This case was apparently dropped on it’s bezel as it was broken completely off the chassis. After sending a bad review on amazon about this, they sent me a replacement right away before I knew it for free. I had already went a head and got some krazy glue and repaired the case on my own, and then a new case (an exact duplicate) arrived free and undamaged. Even the box the second one came in was soft weathered cardboard. Which verified this was old inventory stock that was shipped and passed around a lot between shops.

I also ordered a few misc parts like a DVD-RW with litescribe SATA that I picked up for like $27. Which is a dead technology since everything is too large to fit on a DVD anymore but they are still useful.  In March I ordered heatsink fan (HSF) I ordered a Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO. A MASSIVE beast of a HSF it barely fit inside the cheap-ass case I ordered but it works!

Towards the end of march I ordered RAM PNY RAM from amazon, the i7-3820 CPU from Portatech.com, and an ASUS P9X79 motherboard from Ascendtech.com. This mobo wasn’t retail, it lacked everything including a manual, I/O back shield, drivers (like I need those). It did come with four SATA cables, the Q-connector (love this) and that’s it. The critical thing it didn’t have was the plastic cover over the LGA-2011 CPU socket. All motherboards come with a plastic cover to protect it from dust and getting the pins bent.

I was having issues with RAM on this motherboard. The PNY ram I got from Amazon I returned (painless process) and ordered G.Skill RAM from NewEgg. With that RAM I had the exact same issues. One slot of the motherboard would read the RAM as “abnormal” while the other three RAM SIMM worked fine. Rotating them to other slots showed the issue was with THAT SLOT. Returning the motherboard to Ascendtech they reported the motherboard was fine, and tried to tell me the ram I used was crap not just both PNY and G.Skill were bad quality. But I’m very familiar with G.Skill is I’ve used it on my old Core 2 Quad (8x2gb) for years with no issues. Then then offered to sell me RAM with the motherboard, even though I already have ram sitting here. So i didn’t wanna give them more money so, I requested a refund (and paying bullshit restockfees). So don’t deal with Asendtech.com

I ordered the same exact motherboard (retail this time) from Portatech. Portatech is also where I got my CPU from, so I figured I was doing okay now. But their web site is so lack-luster and basic that it didn’t even know they were out of stock of the motherboard. I found it going though searches on PriceWatch which linked me over to PortaTech which is also how i found my CPU. A week goes by and i get an email asking me to write a review on the product i ordered a week ago, even though i never GOT it. I posted a review i never got it, never got shipping info, nothing. So Portatech emailed me saying they were outta stock with no ETA on when they will restock yet the website took my money for something they didn’t have?  Hell even the most basic website TELLS YOU what is in stock and isn’t for FUCKS sake.  So people avoid Portatech.

But keep in mind at the time the issue could have been the motherboard ram slots, the CPU socket, or the CPU it self since the memory controller is on the CPU. So i was contemplating returning the CPU back to Portatech after ordering the motherboard. But I’ve had the CPU for so long now at best I could only exchange it for another one. After the fiasco with the motherboard no longer in stock, I really didn’t wanna deal with them anymore.

So Portatech refunded my money the next day, and i went to Tigerdirect.com to buy the motherboard. Week later (why does everything take a week to ship?) and it WORKS.  so to sum it up.

Amazon – easy to shop and return stuff.

NewEgg – also easy to shop, faster deliveries, plus i have to pay tax.

Tigerdirect – Easy to shop but slow deliveries but no tax

Portatech – poor website, doesn’t keep track of what’s in stock, and it takes your money for products they don’t have. Will not shop there again.

Ascendtech – Nice tech support but they were probably trying to squeeze more money out of me, and I do believe they LIED to me that the motherboard I returned was fine when it didn’t work for me, since the retail one I bought now works flawlessly. Bottom line don’t get open-box or used stuff.  Plus I won’t shop there again.

So my new PC now consists of

Intel i7-3820 Quad Core CPU 3.6ghz, LGA 2011
Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO
Asus P9X97 motherboard
G.Skill 4x4GB DDR3 1600 RAM
Asus GTX 550 (from old PC)
Western Digital Veloceraptor 150gb HDD (from old PC)
Samsug 1TB HDD (from OLD PC)
Samsung DVDRW 22X with Litescribe
Corsiar TX750 Enthusiast PSU

Interest List is Sooo complicated.. how?

Have you noticed in the past few months how attachments vanish after you teleport, or objects and structures don’t rez in the area you’ve just teleported too? You have to right click on your attachments or where other objects are missing for them to appear. Many people think this is a bug with the new Firestorm 4.4.0 viewer, but it’s not. This is a SERVER SIDE issue that effects all viewers, including LL’s own viewer. This has been going on for some years now (about 4 years).

The problem lies with in the “Interest List” which is a set of code that is supposed to speed up and prioritize what appears first you you after a teleport. The reason why your attachments seem to vanish is because they actually DO detach the moment you teleport (not sure why, lag reasons?) and then reattach after you arrive, but the “interest list” for whatever reason doesn’t prioritize their appearance to you, and gets lost in the shuffle as to what “should” be rezzed, but they ARE attached.

LL and even the firestorm team claim this is a “complicated” system. But really? How is it that complicated to the point that the way it was BEFORE the “interest list” was implemented was BETTER than having it now?  The basic concept of the “interest list” makes logical sense by drawing objects near you and going outward. But only a committee of coders could fuck up a simple idea like this. HOW is prioritizing objects closest to your avatar to rez that complicated?  Yet every time I teleport I see objects way out in the distance appearing, yet the floor I’m standing on is invisible and my boobs are gone.

All you need to do is:

1) Highest priority to your avatars attachments to rez.

2) Rez objects with in 20m

3) rez object 40m away.. then

4) keep rezzing objects in 20m increments (or 10) until you reach the viewer draw distance.

For fucks sake this “stepping” procedure was used in SCRIPTS by increasing the draw distance over time. This was an old script trick used in EMERALD back in the day. Later it became a built-in function in Phoenix, and it’s STILL present in Firestorm but it’s off by default. You can find it under, Preferences - Firestorm – General – (near the bottom of the list) checkmark ”Enable progressive draw distance stepping..” but this won’t fix the bugs with the interest list.

The only thing I can see that makes this complicated is the simulator just sends you object information randomly in a list (probably not a complete list) when you teleport and only rezzes what it sees in this randomized list. Even then it’s distance from you (your avatar) to the object is known, otherwise it won’t know where to draw it in the first place. So what is so damn complicated about prioritizing what should be rezzed first? If it’s too far away, don’t rez it, wait for something else to be downloaded from the simulator that is nearer and rez it if it is. And if all else give avatar attachments PRIORITY!

Petition for what exactly?

Sitting on SL today i saw this petition something about third party tier, and I had no idea what that meant. After reading the online petition wading though the horrible writing habits that gave me a headache; they are basically complaining about the ability to trade L$ to third parties. I have no idea why this person used the words “third party tier” when tier has nothing to do with it, he/she should have said “trading.” My main problem with this petition is LL won’t take it seriously. Even if it reaches their signature goal, or even if it gets a million signatures, it will be ignored because it’s so poorly written, as if a raging child wrote it.

This petition is so poorly written it barely made sense to me. It sounds like some teenage dropout raging about how bad the new Terms of Service (TOS) that LL updated this past week. It mostly sounds like the same whinny bullshit people have been complaining about for the past 10 years now. Issues like “we are gonna lose money.. LL doesn’t care about it’s users… We cant pay our bills… LL doesn’t listen to us.. This is gonna make LL shut down in a year..” bla bla bla.

Seriously people, this kind of rage has been going on for a DECADE, since BETA. This kina shit always happens with any MMO with a sizable community that makes even the smallest tiniest changes to any policy. Other MMOs don’t even have an exchange for their virtual currency. LL has been around for over 10 years and after all the stupid drama LL has pulled on us, they are still here and we are STILL playing it.

Now as for the issue of 3rd party L$ trading, I’ve been using LindeX since it came online. Hell everyone who buys L$ has used it. If you want a better deal then enable ADVANCED mode on the LindeX page, and do Limit Sells, or Limit Buys to squeeze more L for your buck (or vice versa).

Minecraft Xbox 360 edition Terrain Generation B0rked!

Since the last update of MCXE that introduced the End (which I’ve not seen yet) I’ve been having some serious problems with creating new worlds. Since old maps I’ve made in the past don’t have Strongholds, there is no way to reach to the END. So I I have to generate new maps and start from scratch.  Sure sounds like fun, no?

Not really. I end up getting maps with MASSIVE biomes that take up 80% of the map (and as you know XBox edition has rather small maps compared to the PC) no villages, and the other 20% is just some other biome that may or may not have trees. Twice I’ve had maps come up was nearly all mushroom biome, which is largely water, and NO TREES were on the fucking map!  Other times I get on maps that 80% snowland, and one small field of grassland.  Nearly all of these worlds generated NO structures on the surface, at least no villages. In versions past some maps would generate like 4-6 villages! Now I’m getting nothing.  And i can only assume that abandon mines and strongholds aren’t being created either.  But most of the time i can’t do anything due to the lack of wood.

Just recently i made a new map, using the seed “END” since I was gonna work on going to the END, and i ended up smack in the middle of a massive OCEAN that was about 75-80% of the entire fucking map! There were two large mountain mushroom bomes areas, one long desert island that resembled Japan, and the rest was all water with LITTLE TINY grass islands dotted around that had a single tree on them. and yet again NO villages even though i DO have structure generation enabled. Can strongholds and Abandon mine shafts exist on a world that mostly water?

I know on the PC version you have the choice of “large biomes” for world generation, but the XBox version obviously doesn’t since the maps are so small, but it SEEMS like it’s enabled which is why I’m getting such large 4:1 ratios of just two biomes. It really is making the game unplayable. And the fact they’ve added so much to this version with no new Achievements sure doesn’t give me much incentive to play anymore. Seems more fun to watch others play MC on Youtube, which is what got me into minecraft in the first place. Because of this problem, if i use any seeds i find online they just don’t work and end up creating a totally different worlds.

Linux Mint don’t like me

So while I’m still dealing with building my new i7 PC, I still have my old rig which now consists of:

• CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300 (2.5ghz)
• Mobo: Asus P5Q, LGA 775, P45
• RAM: G.Skill 8GB (2GB x 4) DDR2 1066
• Video: Asus GeForce GTS 520 (DDR3 1gb) (low profile, fanless)
• HDD: Western Digital 160GB SATA HDD
• PSU: Antec Basiq 500w

This is basically the same PC I’ve been using for the past 6 years, except I had “downgraded” the video card and HDD by replacing it with a smaller, and slower 160gb “green” WD drive.  I’m keeping the Geforce GTX 550 Ti, and my Velociraptor drive for my Sandy Bridge-E rig that I’m still trying to build for over a month now. I just shipped back the motherboard after using two different sets of ram with different brands, and different CAS settings this stupid mobo keeps seeing “abnormal” on any simm I place in slot D1, so it must be an issue with the motherboard.

So back to my old PC; I tried installing Linux Mint Mate 14, so I created a boot USB drive using an ISO-USB type loader, booted it and the login screen comes saying that it will login the user “mint” in 10 seconds. 10 seconds pass, screen kina goes weird, login screen comes back. This repeats over and over. If I manually logging as “mint” with a blank password, same thing. If i keep doing this enough times i get a message that X server has failed too many times.

Apparently looking at the log files, the X server (which is the GUI shell linux uses) keeps crashing. I have no idea why. The video card I have in this PC works fine, windows has no problems at all with it. So whatever default drivers Mint comes with just crashes Mint’s X server so there is no way I know of on how to install it. I’m far too clueless to use the command line to install the OS and manually install a nvidia driver to bypass X crashing. When I do get to the command line, I type startx and it just crashes again anyway.

I just tried a Ubuntu on a boot USB drive and it worked perfectly fine. I even watched a YouTube video that played fine; no issues at all. So is it just a bad nvidia driver in this Linux Distro? This little GTS 520 video card is slow, but it isn’t faulty. I’m gonna try some more Linux distros and see how they fair on this humble PC.

Asus P9X79 motherboard

Something I did learn about the Asus P9X79 motherboard is that it’s really picky about USB flash drives that you use to store the ROM files when you wanna update your bios.

I made a USB boot drive with windows 8 pro ISO, so I can install windows 8 off the USB drive. You can also copy other files onto it as well like drivers and whatever else if you have the room. I figured I could also drop the ROM files for my bios, rename it and use the Flashback functionality on my mobo.  Nope. So to update my BIOS I ended up using some other USB drive formatted FAT-32 and I was able to update the BIOS. I never could get the Flashback function to work mostly due to newer Flash ROM files being incompatible with my older Bios version. So I had to download a special ROM file that updated the motherboard (almost like updating your OS) which then allowed me to use the most recent version.

Flashback is a very cool function where you can update/change the BIOS with only standby power connected. You just pop in a USB drive with the ROM file on it, press a button at the back and after a moment, bingo! You can even do it with out a CPU or RAM installed on the motherboard. Kind of mind boggling but it makes sense.

I once restored a corrupted BIOS by hot-swapping it into another motherboard already booted and forced a rom flash to get it working again. This was back over a decade ago, on an AMD Athlon XP motherboard, I had a bios update go BAD and the mobo was totally useless. I read on the web about this trick where you use another motherboard that has the same BIOS chip type that’s removable but it’s a completely different brand/make of mobo.  The trick is you boot up in DOS with the working mobo, yank out it’s BIOS chip while the machine is running (GASP!) snap in the BIOS chip that isn’t working into the mobo that’s already booted, running DOS.  Run the BIOS Flash utility with special command line switches that forces the ROM flash even though it’s not meant for that motherboard. Powered down, swapped the BIOS chips back, and it WORKED! I was totally shocked! So Flashback really isn’t that amazing when you consider this, but it’s still fucking cool.

So my P9X79 mobo’s bios is all kosher now, but I still can’t use the PNY Ram I recently bought for it. I paid only $92.99 for this PNY ram, but now when I look on amazon it’s $144! So I’m gonna return it back to Amazon, and order G-Skill F3-12800CL8Q-16GBZH from Newegg. While this ram is NOT listed in Asus’ compatibility list, G-skill’s website DOES list the P9X79 mobo as compatible. Plus there’s many other G-Skill models listed on Asus’ compatibility list, unlike PNY which no PNY model is listed at ALL for the P9X79. Also I’m using G-skill my old Core 2 Quad PC right now so I know it’s good. PNY I’ve never used before, it’s a brand name I’ve seen many times, but I will never use PNY again because of this experience.

Just goes to show if I spend the extra $40 you get what you pay for. Also always RTFM before you buy RAM for your mobo!

UPDATE:

Two weeks have past and my order for this ram has arrived, and I STILL have the EXACT same problem. Why are the PC gawds doing this to me? I don’t know if I should buy a third set of RAM or replace the motherboard. I’ve already emailed the folks where i bought my motherboard from so hopefully I can get some guidance.

New PC partial fail :(

Finally got all my parts delivered only to find out that the RAM I ordered isn’t compatible with my Asus P9X79 motherboard. The RAM I have is a  DDR3 16GB kit by PNY; a decent brand name. But looking up the ram compatibility list for this motherboard, not a single PNY module exists on the list.

So my first though was to update the BIOS in hopes some compatibility was added.  The BIOS download page did mention that more RAM compatibility was added, but I had no luck getting my PNY ram to work fully.

The BIOS version on this motherboard was very old, so old that the new format of the ROM files were incompatible with the BIOS I have. So I first had to flash the BIOS with a special update that actually rebooted and ran some sort of updater which reminded me of Windows update, with warnings about not turning off or resetting the PC. After it rebooted it let me update the bios again with the newest version that was released last month.

I’m actually using this incompatible RAM to type this post, but it’s not fully working. The ram is running at 1333mhz, single channel and with all four ram modules installed but the one module in D1 slot appears “abnormal” to the BIOS. So I’m only running 14gb instead of the full 16gb.

I’ve tried swapping the ram modules around into diffident slots, but which ever module I put into D1 always came up abnormal. This slot D1 is apparently the “master” slot you need to use if only had one ram module; which oddly is the 6th RAM slot out of all eight. So if I only put in one stick of ram into D1, it won’t post. RAM in any other slot just won’t be seen by the motherboard, as if it was empty.

So it seems all four ram modules are fine, just not kosher with my Asus P9X79 motherboard. So I’m gonna return them and order some ram that IS on the compatibility list. Perhaps some Corsiar Vengeance? Or G-skill Ripjaws? I’m not exactly looking for high end performance, just something that fully fucking works!

Fortunately the new i7-3820 works fine, and I also got a Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO HSF which is a friggin MONSTER! It barely fits in the cheap-ass case I bought a couple months ago. It looks exactly like the Hyper 101 I have for my old Core 2 Quad rig, but at least 2.5x bigger. Then again the 3820 is a GIANT CPU with a double latching deal on the LGA 2011 socket and built-in screw hole mounts for your HSF so there’s no need to mess with a backplate since it already has one stock.

It did take me a while to figure out how to mount the Hyper 212 Evo, and it did come with the extra parts needed for a LGA 2011, so I’m happy with that. I just need fully compatible RAM.

Minecraft Madness!

So I finally dove into the PC side of Minecraft and bought the game. I can now join multiplayer servers rather than playing single player on the Xbox, since there are no dedicated servers to play on XBL and none of my friends are playing it anymore since it didn’t take long to get all of it’s achievements. Also Minecraft Pocket Ed is a joke and has ZERO internet multiplayer.

Skyblock is a mod in Minecraft I’ve been rather fond of. Rather than playing strait “vanilla” you’re giving a tiny tiny little sky-island “block” mostly made of dirt, a few sand blocks, a chest with limited supplies, and one grown tree on the edge. The trick is to expand your little “island” around, create a cobble stone generator so you can expand it, build a farm, and whatever else.  Since there is no proper “overworld” there is no coal to mine, no iron, gold, diamond, redstone, none of that.

Depending on the server you play on, monsters will still spawn at night however monster spawning isn’t an issue much until you start expanding so there are areas that are far enough away from you for them to spawn (something like 25-30 blocks away).

One trick i learned is to place water on the edges for emergency purposes. If you fall off the edge, you are still able to “move” while falling, so all you need to do is get over towards your waterfall and you’ll be able to swim back up.  When you fall into the void, you’re dead and you can’t recover what you dropped. You mainly need to use a waterfall so you can swim under the island and build a platform under it. This will catch anything that falls down there like sand blocks, apples, and saplings from trees as the leaves decay.

Dirt blocks are in limited supply, and grass dirt blocks is even more rare. If you dig out all your grass blocks then any more dirt you place down will remain dirt. If you don’t have a proper grass field (say 3×3) you can’t use bonemeal to grow tall grass which in turn gives you seed so you can grow wheat.

There’s also one block of bedrock that basically marks your /home spawn point. I like to use that as part of my cobble stone generator as a backing so that the cobble i break down doesn’t get lost falling out into the void, and whatever pickaxe I’m using won’t break it away accidentally. This way i can just keep my left mouse button down as i harvest more cobble. But that isn’t really an option to do that when you first start out.

Infinite water is easy to make, and once you have that made you can make a trough of water (about 2×12) that you can use to go fishing in. Oh and by the way you’re only given one bucket, which has lava in it when you first get it. The water you get is usually given to you as 2 block of ice you have to place and then break (with your fists or it shaders and you get nothing) to have flowing water.