I picked up a PineTime watch a few months ago, and decided when my Fossil smartwatch kicked the bucket, I’d give it a go. I’ve been spending the last month with the PineTime, and here are my thoughts – unfortunately, they’re not great.
The not so good stuff
The lack of Apple integration other than the Infinitime app, is disappointing, though my understanding is this is just a matter of someone writing the code using the proper libraries. No notifications are really a problem.
The various ‘wakeup’ motions are incredibly inconsistent. “Shake to wake” means “if you move your wrist at all, it wakes up” – this kills the battery because unless you’re dead, the watch is basically on full time.
(UPDATE: So it appears there’s a very handy setting further down in the ‘Settings’ menu that adjusts the sensitivity of the motion sensor. After changing this setting, the ‘shake to wake’ function is much better, and my battery life has gone up to 4-5 days agin. WIN.)
“Lift to wake” is nigh on useless. It either triggers too often, or never triggers at all and you end up waving your hand around like a madman.
I’ve frequently looked down at my watch and noticed it was… running an app? Like Pingpong or the heart monitor? I don’t think there’s a reasonabe unlock mechanism that filters out unwanted motions or actions.
A dead battery reset the entire watch. When it powered up again, it had the wrong date and time – It’s possible infinitime on the iPhone reset it? Because it’s showing correct now, but it was incorrect on powerup.
There are a few positives.
It’s nice looking. Sleek, small, not problematic. I like it.
Battery life IF you don’t use any of the auto-wakeups is phenomenal. I get about a week out of it. Take that Apple Watch.
It’s cheap.
Conclusions
I don’t think I’ll stick with this, unless I’m missing something blatantly obvious regarding functionality. It barely works as a watch, and even then does it poorly. I dn’t see a compelling reason to keep going with it.
Update
3/22/2024: Well that didn’t take long. While I was able to figure out the calibration problem for ‘shake to wake’, it looks like the inertial sensor has stopped working, so now shake to wake doesn’t do anything, and the calibration function isn’t working. I’ve tried restarting and resyncing, but no dice. I think it’s time to move on.
Lately, the concept of “Cyberpunk” has come back into the general discourse. With the success of the Hackaday Cyberdeck Contest (and my modest contribution to it), not to mention a certain large social media company throwing around terms we’ve all heard for years like they were something new, there’s renewed interest in the entire cyberpunk genre.
To that end, I thought it might be a good idea to look at the books and movies that best exemplify the art form. To that end, I give you my recommendations of the best in Cyberpunk…
Movies
The Matrix – 1999 Not really a lot needs to be said here. This movie came out of nowhere and pretty much reset the whole nerd culture worldview.
absolutely jawdropping technology – being able to install a human being into an artificial ‘shell’, granting them what amounts to superpowers. The original anime was groundbreaking in it’s concepts, exploring the concept of self identity. The live action movie did a great job of expanding the visuals into a modern form, but I feel sacrificed story and depth for action.
Johnny Mnemonic – 1995 Sigh. So, for those who don’t know, this movie is based on a short story by William Gibson from Burning Chrome. The story is fantastic, but this movie adaptation… isn’t. I mean, if you’re into the most 90s SF movie you can get, this is it. But lets be frank. It’s not a good movie.
I was afraid to watch Blade Runner in the theater because I was afraid the movie would be better than what I myself had been able to imagine. In a way, I was right to be afraid, because even the first few minutes were better. Later, I noticed that it was a total box-office flop, in first theatrical release. That worried me, too. I thought, Uh-oh. He got it right and nobody cares! Over a few years, though, I started to see that in some weird way it was the most influential film of my lifetime, up to that point.
William Gibson
Pretty much no matter how you look at it, Blade runner is the best representation of Gibson’s Sprawl in movie-dom. While the movie was not a box office success when it came out, it has gained a cult status, and for good reason. The story of an overpopulated city and a damaged ecosystem (it always rains), coupled with technology and staggering wealth is unparalleled.
Strange Days – 1995 This is a movie that snuck under a lot of peoples radar, but absolutely exemplifies the Cyberpunk mindset. Sensory link technology co-opted for nefarious purposes far beyond it’s original design. The movie isn’t as well known as it should be, but it absolutely should be required viewing for anyone interested in the cyberpunk genre
Books
It all started with books. Before Netflix, before Youtube, before the movie industry cottoned on to the fact there’s money to be made in hard SF, there were the books. Here’s the best examples…
Mirrorshades – The Cyberpunk Anthology Unfortunately out of print now (though there’s a free version hosted on Rudy Rucker’s site), Mirrorshades is a short story collection edited by Bruce Sterling. It has the honor of being the first collection to explicitely describe itself as Cyberpunk, and as such, has a place of honor in this list.
Snow Crash
Snow Crash – Neal Stephenson One of the best of the genre, IMHO. So many fantastic concepts, so brilliantly presented. The book hasn’t aged well, as many of the concepts really don’t make much sense anymore, but who can resist
this writing?
“The Deliverator’s car has enough potential energy packed into its batteries to fire a pound of bacon into the Asteroid Belt. Unlike a bimbo box or a Burb beater, the Deliverator’s car unloads that power through gaping, gleaming, polished sphincters… You want to talk contact patches? Your car’s tires have tiny contact patches, talk to the asphalt in four places the size of your tongue. The Deliverator’s car has big sticky tires with contact patches the size of a fat lady’s thighs. The Deliverator is in touch with the road, starts like a bad day, stops on a peseta.”
Diamond Age – Neal Stephenson Of Neal Stephenson’s work, this may be one of my favorites. Not strictly cyberpunk as it loosely ties in with Snow Crash but after nanotechnology has become the norm, but still gritty and enjoyable. The world building is outstanding.
Neuromancer Count Zero Mona Lisa Overdrive Burning Chrome – William Gibson Basically, where it all started. Gibson’s Sprawl Trilogy is the G.O.A.T. in the Cyberpunk realm. Gibson was the man to bring the term Cyberspace into full form in his stories, starting with Burning Chrome, and then into the the Sprawl trilogy. Arguably he was the man to define what Cyberpunk looks and feels like, and his influence drives everything
Altered Carbon – Richard Morgan A great book (and later TV show) that explores what happens when technology is integrated tightly into society, to the point where individuals are, in many ways, immortal. Lives are recorded and uploaded and can be placed into a new body. But as in so many things, this experience is primarily for the wealthy.
netwalking hackers evading deadly IC(E) (Intrustion Countermeasures (Electronic)) using implanted brain computer interfaces – but Scott’s characters in many ways are more human, more real, and definitely not cut from the mold the male-dominated circles have created.
Final Thoughts
I’ve grown quite attached to the concepts of high technology tightly coupled with humanity – and we’re slowly on the road to these sorts of things being the norm. Witness things like cochlear implants, and other types of brain computer interfaces. While what results will likely not resemble the imaginative geometry and immersion described in Snow Crash and Trouble and Her Friends, I feel the barrier between “human” and “computer” continues to thin, and what will happen when that interface is complete, only the SF writers can speculate.
When we got our 2016 Starcraft hybrid trailer, it felt like a great combination of small size, expandable living space, and conveniences. I mean, we have our own bathroom, shower, AC, heating, and kitchenette. Heaven!
One thing irked me right off the bat though. The internal lighting. The trailer came with round 12v ceiling lights that were blazingly bright. No dimmer, no adjustment, and it was direct lighting – ie, it shined directly on whatever you were illuminating, unlike, say, a table lamp, which uses a shade to diffuse the light.
They fit the aesthetic of the interior – flush mount, easy to attach
These panels are dimmable. You can use the slider to bring the intensity down to whatever you’re looking for
They have a ‘temperature’ setting that lets you go from ‘electric blue bright’ to ‘soft yellow’, depending on what you prefer.
Installation
Here’s what the old lights look like. They’re pretty basic, just an on/off switch. There’s about 4 in the interior (I’m not touching the ceiling lights, these are just for the sitting areas)
Uninstalling the light was pretty straightforward. Pop off the cover, unscrew the 4 mounting screws. Of course, that revealed this top notch installation job on the part of Starcraft. Looks like they just poked away at it with a small drill until they could smash a hole. Sigh.
After that, it was just a matter of wiring in the two leads, and screwing the new planel into place. I really like how it looks, and nighttimes are FAR FAR more comfortable now, as I can dim the lights down, put some quiet music on, and relax.
I really like being able to do basic changes to the trailer, upgrading bits and pieces, and slowly tweaking it to something I’m really comfortable in. One big project I’m hoping to figure out is how to make the sitting area more comfortable. Those bench seats around the table are uncomfortable as heck. A project for another time.
I’m in the middle of A Large Project (now online!), and as part of it, I laid out the money on my first actual mechanical keyboard. If you bring up ‘mechanical keyboards’ in any nerd setting, you’ll get some absolutely rabid folks going on about cherry switches, stroke type, PCB design, blah blah blah.
Me, I just wanted a mechanical keyboard that had a nice feel.
The RK61 fits the model of what I’m building, and it was a good ‘entry point’ into this concept.
The Deets
The Royal Kludge Rk61 is a 60% mechanical keyboard that has both USBC and Bluetooth connectivity. It has a full stroke set of ‘blue switch’ keys that have a good tactile feedback. It includes a decent sized battery, so when on full bluetooth mode, it’ll run for several weeks before needing to be plugged in.
Here’s the breakdown.
60% – This is a ‘60%’ keyboard. This is a loose definition that generally means there’s around 60 keys on it, as opposed to the standard 104 keyboard that most people know. The keys are normal sized, so don’t let the percentage throw you off
USBC connectivity – used for either HID connection or charging the keyboard’s battery.
Bluetooth connectivity – this is nice, in that the keyboard supports 3 bluetooth profiles, and switching between them is just a matter of Function-Q, W, or E. THat’s handy since I’ve been using this for both my gaming PC and my project.
Blue Switch keys. If you talk to any keyboard nerd, this will immediately classify this keyboard for them. The blue switch designation refers to the mechanical switch type used in the keys. In this case, the keys have a very distinctive ‘CLICK’ sound, and a good tactile feedback. This isn’t the best for gaming, but for rapid typing and good feedback, it works well.
Battery – the battery is good. While I don’t type on it full time, I’ve only had to recharge it about every 2-3 weeks, which is just a matter of plugging in the USBC cable.
Lighting – Yes, it has animated lighting. There’s all sorts of pretty patterns you can set the keys to. In my case, since I have a white keyboard, the backlighting is soft blue, and I have it simply set to light the key then fade out after I release the key. You can get as fancy as you like.
Some drawbacks
There are a few drawbacks. Probably the most noteable is with only 60 keys, some keys no longer have unique functions. There’s not a Function key row – those keys are shared with the numerics and puncuation. There’s no separate arrow keys, so those are shared with the right hand modifiers, but most irritatingly, also the ‘/’ and ‘?’ key. I found having the RK61 manual at hand (even in digital form) can be helpful, since there’s very little feedback from the keyboard itself when changing modes.
It’s loud. I mean, it’s a mechanical keyboard, so no duh. But if you’re looking for stealth computing on your project machine, this is probably not the right tool. There’s ways to ‘quiet’ these keyboards using rubber o-rings and the like, but I feel if you’re at that point, you probably have bought the wrong keyboard.
Conclusion
The RK61 is a solid, well built, and aside from some oddities in the keyboard layout, useable keyboard. In general, I’m enjoying it. It’s not cheap, running about $59 on Amazon but if you’re looking for a keyboard that doesn’t take up a lot of space, has a good feel, and you like full stroke mechanicals, it’s not a bad option.
I’ve been a staunch user of the Aldiko ebook reader on Android for many many years. It was stable, easy to use, featureful enough to be a comfortable reading experience, and handled local libraries pretty well.
Then in 2014, Aldiko was purchased by Feedbooks. Not that big a deal, the press releases were all glowy about how much they loved Aldiko, things should continue, we all expected some new features.
Aldiko is now owned by DeMarque
In 2019 Feedbooks was aquired by DeMarque. Apparently Feedbooks was in serious trouble, and this acquisition was purely financial as part of a deal to settle up accounts with DeMarque:
What the press release doesn’t dwell on is that Feedbooks had been in receivership since June 2018 and the merger is the result of a Commercial Court settlement whereby De Marque paid 230,000 euros to acquire the assets of Feedbooks and its subsidiary Aldiko as part of a disposal plan.
Somewhere in 2021, DeMarque decided the Aldiko app needed a rewrite. Understandable. Old apps need refreshing and updates, sometimes an entire rewrite is in order.
So they published Aldiko Next – an extremely feature light, barely functional book reader (I won’t call it a ‘version of Aldiko’. It isn’t. It’s a rewrite). That’s fine, new versions are published all the time, and then the users are given time to try the new app, and iron out the bugs.
But DeMarque decided “Nope. We’re going to force the literal 20 million installs of Aldiko to the new version. Without notification. Without an Opt-out.”
“Hello, In addition to several new features, Aldiko 4 will offer all the ones that were already available, only improved. We’ve decided to deploy them incrementally. So it is normal that some features from previous versions are not yet available. They will be available as future versions are released. Please note that 4.3.6 has just been released.”
Note, the ‘will offer’. These features are NOT AVAILABLE. Yet they forced ALL the users to upgrade to the new version. When challenged on why this is a bad idea, Hadrian Gardeur, the founder of Feedbooks, doubled down with a basic “Ignore the reviews. We know what we’re doing”
Yes and reviews tell a different story than usage, so we look at both.
We'll continue to release features on a regular basis (now that we can) but have no intention of going back to fake wood backgrounds or Adobe DRM support, they're both things that we'll keep in the past.
I stopped responding after that message. There didn’t seem to be any point.
So what’s the alternative?
Moon+ Reader on Android
I encourage anyone who is frustrated with DeMarque / Feedbooks destroying a beloved app to simply… take your business elsewhere. I have switched completely to Moon+ Reader, which is an outstanding app, extremely featureful, offers a ‘free, with ads’ and a ‘pro’ version. I’ve simply moved all my books over to that, and things are running beautifully. Everything works as expected, and basic features that should always have been there… are still there, unlike Aldiko.
I understand the need for companies to make a profit, and do business. It takes money to develop, market, and support applications. But there’s also a responsibility to the userbase to not destroy the experience for them. This seems like a no brainer, but apparently, some people just don’t get it.
If you’re going to upgrade an app, then do so. Engage your users, make the migration an accepting and functional experience. Do not slam everyone into an incomplete codebase and then dismiss their complaints.
That is a textbook recipe for how to drive your users to your competitors platforms.
Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, I attended a very technical college to start getting my degree in Computer Science. Note, this wasn’t ‘programming’ ‘systems design’ ‘databases’ ‘AI’ or any of that, no, the industry was young enough that just HAVING a computer science degree was notable.
While the college experience didn’t work out well for me, I have a very strong memory of my first semester (back then the college called them trimesters I believe) walking into the computer science building and seeing a glassed in room with a bunch of racked equipment in it. On the front of one of the racks was a brightly colored panel, with a lot of purple and red switches, and many blinking lights. In the corner, it said PDP-11/70, and I thought it was the coolest thing I had ever seen.
Turns out this machine was used in the undergraduate program to teach students Unix. We had a classroom full of DEC GiGI terminals and students would plunk away at shell scripts, learning ‘vi’ and generally making a lot of beeping noises. There were about 16 terminals, which meant that machine, which was approximately 1/5000’th the speed of a modern Core i7 process (MWIPS 0.535 for the 11/70 vs 3124 for the i7) was supporting 16 concurrent users programming away on remote terminals.
Well, life moved on, and while I did build my own DEC minicomputers, I never actually owned an 11/70. They were temperamental, that were designed to be powered up and left running for years. Not exactly a hobbyist machine.
In the last year or two, some folks have been taking advantage of the SIMH project (a hardware simulation environment) to emulate these old machines, and run the original operating systems on them. When I saw that Oscar had put out a kit for the PiDP-11/70, a fully functional PDP-11/70 front panel that mirrors precisely the original machine, I had to have one.
The kit is powered by a Raspberry Pi-4 loaded with the SIMH package anda . bunch of disk images. The system happily runs any number of old DEC operating systems, as well as Unix 2.11BSD, and various other Unix versions. On bootup, you simply select which disk image you want to run, and after a few moments, you’re looking at an operational console happily booting RSX-11MPlus, RSTS, RT-11, BSD Unix, whatever you’d like.
Total build time was somewhere around 7-8 hours. Imaging and setting up the Pi took about 2 hours (mostly downloading packages), and the actual physical build of the front panel took another 6+ hours.
The experience of using the machine is somewhat surreal. In the past, I spent a lot of time learning Unix and then VMS. I also worked on DEC Pro/350’s for a while, which run a modified RSX-11MPlus, so it feel great to be back in that environment again, but I have so much to re-learn.
Having the delightful blinking lights nearby showing activities in realtime is a delightful way to have a visual representation of the inner workings of computers, something we don’t see a lot of in modern systems.
For a while I was very into an interesting niche of games. Generally referred to as ‘incremental games’, these games combine “Sit back and watch stuff happen” with “click a bunch of times to do some small task over and over again.” The games tend to lea a combination of watching things run, and ‘click something to move the game ahead’. Some examples are Cookie Clicker, the Paper Clip Game and the Kittens game.
Naturally this made me look at games like this for mobile, and after some digging around, I found Tap Titans 2.
Now, this game has a cute backstory – Titans (big monsters) are appearing around the world, and you lead a band of heroes to head them off when they appear before they wreak havoc.
The basic idea is pretty straightforward. Click on the screen, your hero makes an attack and does damage to a titan. Do enough damage, the titan is destroyed, and the next one appears. Each time you destroy a titan, you get a certain amount of gold. That gold can be used to summon and level up other heroes to help fight the Titans. Every 5 titans there’s a Boss, if you defeat the Boss, you move on to the next stage. At some point, the amount of gold you’re getting can’t level up your heroes enough to defeat the Boss, and you stop progressing. When this happens, you have the option to Prestige, which basically resets the game back to the start, but you get a ton of bonuses (skill points, artifacts, etc) that help your hero be stronger the next time through. In the beginning, getting to a point where you Prestige may take a day or two. In the upper levels, it gets down to a few hours, and then with certain artifacts and other bonuses, you can do it in 20 minutes.
So where’s the challenge and interest, and why have I been playing this game non stop for almost two months?
Well, first, the graphics are outstanding. It’s a beautiful game to watch and interact with. The developers have taken lots of time paying attention to the animation and color detail.. almost to a fault! With the game in full graphics mode, I’ll drain a battery faster than I can charge it!
The second reason is… well, it’s fun. I know it sounds odd to watch a game mostly run itself, but it’s the small changes, upgrades, tweaks to the damage boosts, figuring out when to pay for what when… it’s… fun. Anyone who plays incremental games I think has a hard time explaining why it’s relaxing and enjoyable… it just is.
Lastly, the developers did a lot to keep the game interesting. There’s tournaments every week that pit you against similarly-levelled players. There’s regular drops of upgrades, ‘fairy boxes’ (big gold bonuses), and a simplistic, but pleasant Clan system where you can team up with other people to gain bonuses. Being in a strong clan can be a huge boost to how far you get in the game.
Do I recommend it to everyone? Nah. Do I recommend it to people who like incrementals? Definitely. It’s free, and is definitely not a “pay to win” game. I played for a month without contributing, and decided in the end to buy some diamonds, not because I needed them to win (I haven’t even spent them yet), but because I felt the developers had done a great job, and this was my way of supporting them.
AR gaming is no longer just a concept. Thanks to Apple’s ARKit and Google’s ARCore – development platforms allowing mobile developers to create AR games with relative ease – this form of gaming is now available on some of the most popular smartphones on the market. Particularly where Apple is concerned, we’ve already seen a lot of interesting games released, and there are surely many more to come.
The most interesting category that hasn’t quite exploded just yet, however, is that of mobile games being adapted to the AR format. These games have the advantage of familiarity and foundations of success, and could be some of the first major hits in augmented reality if and when they’re adapted. It’s a precedent that’s already been set by games like Stack AR and a few others, which are building on previous mobile titles. But if we were to bet on the kinds of AR titles people will be buzzing about in another six months or a year, these are some of the games we’d be keeping an eye on.
Angry Birds
It should just about go without saying that Angry Birds will always be at the forefront of mobile gaming. Through numerous versions, it has always been among the most popular titles in the app stores. What you may not know is that an Iranian company produced an AR version of Angry Birds back in 2012! It was said to make it appear as if the game were happening in 3D right in the room you’re standing in, which pretty much describes the point of AR as we now know it. We’re not suggesting this particular game will now make it big, but the fact that an AR Angry Birds has basically already been demo’d makes an ARKit or ARCore adaptation seem that much more likely. It’s a matter of time before this franchise moves into the new medium (and probably becomes the most popular AR game out there).
Monument Valley
AR is largely about visual intrigue, and in that regard no mobile game has ever stood above Monument Valley. Known for mesmerizing beauty, the game also happens to match the basic format and playing style of some of the early successes in augmented reality. That is to say, it’s effectively a puzzle game with a heavy emphasis on geometry and different angles and perspectives. You need only take a glance at some of the lists of the best early AR games to see that there are already a few titles imitating this style of gaming, and doing well with it. A Monument Valley adaptation could be the best of them all, and will probably emerge at some point.
Gonzo’s Quest
This could be a particularly interesting game because it’s already something of an innovator. Known as one of the best video slots available to online and mobile players, Gonzo’s Quest has been praised for its underlying story and video content (which take the game well beyond the slot reel). As one writer put it, the game creates a better sense of engagement by giving you something to focus on. We already know that a VR version of Gonzo’s Quest is being developed, and it could make the leap to AR as well – potentially establishing a new standard for casino arcade games in the process.
High Noon
High Noon is the least likely game on this list to see a direct adaptation, but the concept of this game still seems worthy of recognition in this discussion. This was a one-on-one duel shooter that made use of a sort of form of AR. Your job was to pull your phone from a “holster” position and use your screen to locate your enemy, tapping to fire. Duels were held in real-time, but players were represented by animated characters in a cartoonish old West. It’s fairly easy to imagine a newer version of a similar game in which players are represented by their own avatars, and opponents appear as if they’re in real physical space. Such a game probably won’t be attached to High Noon, but even under a different name it would redefine AR shooters.
The Room
The Room seems poised for success for the same reasons that Monument Valley is: it’s a beautiful puzzle game with a heavy focus on angles, which pretty much suits an early formula being developed for engaging AR games. We’re singling out The Room in particular though because its developer, Fireproof Games, has actually already produced mixed reality content. The company produced Omega Agent for HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, and Samsung Gear VR, stating that it wanted to stay true to the spellbinding nature of virtual reality in designing the experience. This doesn’t guarantee that The Room will get an adaptation, but it would seem to make it more likely.
Editors note: This article was a guest contribution.
I’m going to start sharing some of the things I’ve found on the net that are exceptional finds, buys, whatever. There’s so much crap out there, sometimes it’s hard to find the true gems.
A bit ago I started looking to replace my wired headphones. The requirements were pretty rough:
Inexpensive (< $50 would be best)
Durable
Comfortable
Good for long term wear (talking several hours here)
Excellent audio range.
Doesn’t look like ass
Simple, right? Uh huh.
After going through a couple el cheapo versions (which, I have to admit, told me how BAD headphones could be), and playing with some super-expensive ones (which… were good, but not as comfortable or durable as I had hoped), I started reading reviews for the Brainwavz Delta IEM Noise Isolating Headphones (say that 5 times fast!), and started to get interested.
Brainwavz Delta Red IEM Noise Cancelling Headphones
The price tag certainly is attractive. Brainwavz has ones with remote for $19, but could something that inexpensive really be any good?
I’m here to tell you – they are. Easily one of the top 5 headphones I’ve ever owned, they’re rock solid in their build, come with a tough zippered carrying case to hold the headphones and the spare silicon earpieces, and sound magnificent. They have excellent range – the highs and lows are crisp and strong across all volumes. The cord is long enough that even plugged into my laptop, it doesn’t get tangled. And they are COMFORTABLE. I can (and have) worn them for 3-4 hours at a stretch and I don’t get sore ear canals or other discomfort. Volume wise, they can keep up with me just fine… I don’t feel like at low levels I have to crank them to hear the full range of what I’m listening to, and when I really want to blast things out, they step up to the task just fine!
So, if you’re looking for affordable, top quality ear buds, I can say with some confidence the Brainwavz Delta IEM headphones will do well by you!
I’ve been interested in getting a dashcam for my car(s) for a while, and when Woot had a had an Armorall Dashcam up for $29, I decided to give it a try. The verdict? This thing is worth about as much as I paid for it. Yes, it records video and audio. Yes it datestamps it. Yes it turns on and off automatically when I start the car, and yes it loops data on the MicroSD card just fine. Other than that, I can’t find a lot to recommend it. The field of view is narrow, the interface is painfully obtuse, and the mirror mount is… weird. Works, but weird.
Anyway. What did happen though was while driving to work this morning, a trailer in front of me had a tire blowout. The sound was funny, a squeaky whoosh (as opposed to a bang), and I missed seeing it happen (it’s at 7:53:17 in the video). I only understood what was going on when I saw smoke and bits of tire flying off the trailer. I backed off and put my my 4-way flashers for folks behind me, and let the guy pull over to the side. The wheel was pretty wrecked, and the sparks and tire debris were pretty dramatic.
If this had actually damaged my car or something more serious had happened, having the recording to show my insurance company and/or police would have been a huge win. But that’s what dashcams are all about, right?
I’ve been on the lookout for a new game to put my new Moto X Pure Android through, a device that’s extremely high powered and seems perfect for games. Ever since I saw the tablet revolution taking over gaming, I’ve been hoping for a decent, realtime, immersive game that I could get behind. (Why WoW and Eve aren’t on tablets yet is beyond me).
My son Zach was a huge booster of MOBA games before they were cool. DOTA2, and later League of Legends were daily activities. I tried them off and on, but found the complexities and knowledge curve too much for casual gaming.
Many companies have claimed to make the MOBA experience enjoyable on a mobile device, but this is the first one that’s gotten me completely hooked. I’m still in casual play mode, but I’m finding it intensely enjoyable. The graphics are magnificent, the characters interesting and varied, and the gameplay is perfect. It’s a dead-on implementation of the MOBA ideals (and yes, it has last hits :).
I’ve put in a couple hours so far, getting a feel for 3 of the heroes. There’s so much more to learn – if you watch the videos on the Vainglory channel on Youtube, watch the detailed rundowns of how to play each hero. The technicalities are vast and deep, and it’s unlikely I’ll ever get to that point with more than 1-2 favorites, but I’m ecstatic that the company behind the game (awesomely named ‘SUPER EVIL MEGACORP‘), spared no expense in making the game easy to get into, but also having huge depth to it.
What a scam. Shame on you Techspot. Take a look at that “Kit”. It’s the baseline Raspberry Pi, at a slightly higher, but still “in the realm of normal” price. An case / kit – well, okay, that’s helpful, though pricier than what you can find on Amazon with 5 seconds of searching… and 4 ‘courses’, at $200 each. Yes kids, they’re valuing information anyone can get with 10 seconds of googling at $200 a pop.
In an effort to distract myself from Real Life, the past week or so has seen me doing a lot of “movie catchup”. Watching some flicks that have been in the queue for a while, but I just haven’t had the time…
Lucy – Scarlet Johansson plays a woman who, through a botched drug smuggling deal, gets an overdose of a drug that unlocks the ‘unused 90% of the human mind’. There were aspects of this movie that were a lot of fun, but my suspension of disbelief busted a gut trying to keep it’s head above water. The basic premise has been debunked for years… and while I understand Johansson’s continued detachment from humanity as she essentially went from happy go lucky girl to demigod, the ‘stony faced look’ got old pretty fast. But, hey, explosions, car chases, and gunfights. All is well, right?
Maleficent – I went into this hoping it would be a nice alternate take on Sleeping Beauty ala Wicked, a new perspective on an old story. It gave me new perspective alright. I’ll cut right to the chase. This movie was awful. There wasn’t anything even remotely believable about the story line, the actors, or the horrific overuse of plot devices. The visuals were “good”, in that it was vaguely pleasant to look at, but after 45 minutes of trying to be supportive to my partner (who loves the genre and this story), even SHE couldn’t hold it in any longer. Angelina Jolie tried really hard to be true to the original Sleeping Beauty character, but then tried to twist it to fit the new story arc – and in the end, it was a complete mess. There wasn’t a single character I could relate to. Not the king, the queen, Malefic
Maximus shows what he thinks of you.
ent, young Aurora (played by Elle Fanning), nada. Bleah.
Tangled – Moar Disney, I know. This one has been sitting on the back burner for a while, but finally got to watch it. It’s fun! They toss out anything approaching seriousness and just run with good clean goofiness. Rapunzel’s character presentation was brilliant, as were all the characters. The animation was EXCELLENT (the producers even said that even though this was a 3D CGI movie, they worked extremely hard to make it look hand drawn, and succeeded quite well, IMHO). Unsurprisingly, I thought Maximus as the Horse Who Thought He Was A Dog was delightful, if a little forced. “Yes, we get it, he’s a dog. But he’s a horse. Lets move on.”
Shooter – In general, I like Mark Wahlberg. This flick was pretty much dead on predictable from the outset. Sniper gets snubbed in the line of duty by the military, gets set up later for a ‘special job’ after he’s in “retirement”, blah blah. Having said all that, it was enjoyable, even in it’s predictability. I found the ending absurd, to the point of “ARE YOU KIDDING ME?” being voiced in the living room, so be warned. You’ll see it coming a mile away.
There’s a bunch of others on the queue as well, but it felt nice catching up on things “everyone else has seen”. This list is, alas, ever growing… hope I can keep up.
It’s no secret that today the iPhone is considered one of the top gaming platforms out there. Certainly overshadowing standard console games in sheer numbers of games, and, without any hard evidence to support it, I’d hazard a guess it has the most games of any platform short of PC’s.
Having those tens of thousands of titles to choose from, how do you pick out the ones worthwhile? Well, I’m here to continue my ongoing series on iPhone games, with two more recommendations.
If you’re looking to preserve some of that spare time you have gobs of, perhaps it would be best to skip this post. Because I’m going to talk about two of the most addicting games I’ve come across for the iPhone. The first is just fun, the other is… well, you’ll see.
**Medieval**
This game from Brisk Mobile follows a well know simple ‘castle’ game, as implemented by a thousand flash games on the net. What makes it interesting is the variety of weapons available, the smooth animation, and the delightful artwork. I’ve been playing it pretty much dead on steady for the last 2 months, and have gotten up to level 143 – and it’s *still* challenging. Not sure how they’ve managed it, but they do.
**Warfare Incorporated**
This one has done me in. It’s hard to describe it without using the obvious connection, but… it’s Starcraft for the iPhone.
The game is a recreation of the normal ‘real time strategy’ genre, scaled down and modified to run on the iPhone. You have group unit selects, goals, manufacturing, buildings, and vehicle types. You have upgrades to units and to buildings. But unlike some of the other (rather lame) attempts on the iPhone, Warfare Incorporated has managed to make a decent plotline that, while not particularly riveting, at least keeps the game flow going. With 3 levels of difficulty and about 30 levels for the full game, the single player scenarios are quite engrossing.
To add to the wonder, [Warfare Incorporated](http://www.warfareincorporated.com) allows a form of downloadable content – you can play maps that other players have generated, as well as play against other players in realtime over the net. I personally haven’t explored those options yet, but I look forward to doing my own ZERG RUSH! against other players.
Both Warfare Incorporated and Medieval are available in the iPhone app store.
