Optus and the Fail Whale...

As someone who likes to take the interwebs with him wherever he goes, i am forced into using mobile broadband. While the cost-to-gigabyte ratio is absolutely woefull on pre-paid (around $20 per GB), i tend to find that post-paid contracts can be alright, provided you get some included discounts and find the plan that best suits you. Used wisely, my current monthly allowance can be as much as 32Gb for about $50 a month, which is *much* better than pre-paid. However this only works if i do all my downloading during off-peak hours, if i download during peak hours, the allowance is half of that amount. Fixed line broadband is much better value, although the trouble with this is you can't take it with you and your laptop for a geek gaming session or to be used as a wifi-hotspot. While mobile phones and tablets have built in wifi hotspots these days (predominately android based systems), geeks who like to game are corralled into using mobile broadband to remain, well, mobile.

So why the Optus hate? Why the fail whale for Optus? After all, as a consumer i was quite happy to accept a limited amount of gigabytes for downloading, risk the instability of a mobile service. Granted it was primarily because i have access to an alternative fixed-line interweb with a more generous allowance (with a different telco), however, being mobile or fixed line should not have that much of an impact on the service. The fact of the matter is that it's an Optus service fault that has caused me to rage-quit a closed-beta for the night, simply because this is the third time i have had to reset the mobile broadband during this single gaming session. The fact that i am participating in a closed-beta has *nothing* to do any disconnects from the game, seeming the regular interwebs all flat-line at the same time as well. While i understand that mobile broadband can be a fickle beast, after all a technology that can be affected by external interference is a technology that will sometime "burp" or "fart" badly, hopefully  self-recovering itself promptly. It depends on how sensitive the games-server is to this sort of hiccup which deturmines whether or not you get booted from your game.

Still, i guess i shouldn't be surprised that my "alleged" HSDPA service (which struggles to get over 1.5Mbs d/load during network load) can "peak" at around 3Mbs in my city-centric location (when the network isnt congested or is off-peak). The fact that my mobile phone can cycle from HSDPA to 3G and then to G without me even moving the phone likely indicates more network problems than just disconnects and/or "burps", however,  i can counter that by saying that at on other occasions i can go hours and hours without a single interruption. In my opinion, i should only ever have to connect the mobile broadband once per session, any network collisions or errors should auto-correct and not disconnect. Perhaps it is time i consider a move - after all if the mobile broadband network is as congested and as unreliable as it is now - how bad is it going to be for a fixed line?

This sort of thing affects all types of broadband - even the fixed line interwebs with that other telco burps and disconnects randomly as well. although to be fair, nowhere near as much and when it does it manages to correct its error automatically. From the sounds of things, this happens no matter where you live, as friends have also report such experiences while gaming/interwebbing. However, it is the frequency of these disconnects, the fact that the mobile broadband doesn't "auto-correct" and requires a manual reset and the fact that i still have issues unresolved by customer support (a credit wasn't applied to my account) along with unresolved errors involving usage meters and "walled garden" false-positives (which still remains unanswered by the techies) - All of these issues have made me angry enough to post this long-winded rant. Still, i guess if i cannot find satisfactory answers from Optus soon, this post will make great evidence for the telco ombudsman when i "escalate" my own formal complaint :P

the original fail whale (HHGTTG) : and fyi - optus "burped" again during image u/load - although didn't need a reset that time :)

Mechanised Mech's

Greetings once again. Apologies for leaving it so long between posts, however, circumstances have conspired against me to keep me away from the blog for the past month. Despite having four weeks off from work and no interstate or overseas travel involved (as well as a limited amount of holiday funds), this site is usually the first to suffer when i run out of spare time. It has been a fairly hectic month, even with all the R&R i have had from my recent escape from the city... As the old saying goes, sometimes you need a holiday from your holiday (aka "didn't want to go back to work" ;P).

Those of you who fall under the title "gamer buddy" will already know what this post is all about, seeming i was quite vocal about signing up for the closed beta. For those of you who aren't really gamers you may not know what i am on about here, anyways... HAWKEN 's second closed beta kicked off this weekend. Adhesive games is behind this "free-to-play" (F2P) first person shooter (FPS) and while it seems to thus-far avoid any "pay to win" problems, it definitely falls into the category of  freemium. Not sure that that means? Its a term referring to the fact that you can use real-money to buy in-game gear for the game. While i haven't loaded up all my screenshots here, there are four other MECH's to choose from (as of CB2) with your typical customizing optional extras and skill points and XP.

WoW, these crabs look familiar? ;P

you will die..alot <#include.c  RUS.t >

Rocketeer go BOOM :)

HAWKEN launcher (CB2)

While many standard inclusions in this FPS are smooth and refined, i am an old mech-warrior from back in the day, so it feels *fantastic* to be back in the cockpit of my favorite build. Stomping about and jumping around with boosters and such is great fun and shall be absolutely glorious as soon as my RIFT prototype from Oculus arrives in the post in December (and yes, HAWKEN will be a RIFT supported game). As for whether or not you feel like a soldier strapped into a mech will be entirely up to you. Whilst HAWKEN does not go into as much detail as the old mechwarrior titles of past (eg no damage on chasis or arm segments etc), as of closed beta 2 there was four different mech's with different play styles/customizations and about the same number of randomly selected maps. In my opinion, does this feel like a mech title? the short answer... yes. the long answer, mostly. fans of the original Mech warrior game will not be disappointed, however, keep in mind that this is definitely a shooter (at least at this stage).

First up, the graphical detail is excellent. As far as i know it's built using the Unreal3 engine with both shading and particles look fantastic - on max settings i was able to launch a missile into the air, detonate it into shrapnel and watch as it rained down from the sky (and possibly onto the mech crouching behind cover). Having a good pair of surround sound gear or capable headphones is paramount to sensing any distant combat locations as the map and radar only goes so far. On the default settings, i could play for extended periods without noticeable lag on the GPU's end. Trouble is, there is no escaping the fact that as an Aussie gamer, my lowest lag is 300ms as an average - no better than 250ms on a good day.

While that doesn't sound like much of a delay, in a FPS environment where the foundation of the game stems from frenetic action, its a competitive wall that some find far too frustrating to cope with. Of course, luck plays a part in any match, however - knowing that my target reticule is aimed at where a mech was half a second ago (and not that very second (or < 30ms like most US gamers) is enough to make it hard to keep up. Having said that, playing with ping times that are as excessive as these helps build skill while dialing the graphic fidelity way back to low helps a bit with any graphical lag. This can also help those who are either n00bs (new players) develop their twitch finger or give you plenty of practice if you are a bit rusty at the FPS genre like myself ;P

on the lowest graphics settings (and a different mech <assault> pictured)

The good news is that when you cause damage to another player and then someone else gets credit for your kill, you still get XP from the "assist". Unfortunately though, if you are playing from here in AUS, i doubt that i will ever see the lofty scale of high K:D (kill:death) ratio's as some of the pro's - nor do i think i have the time or commitment to become that good at it. I had intended on posting a print screen of a results screen  (screenshots or it didn't happen right?), however none of the result-screen's i tried to capture when i print-screened have worked. This, however may be a beta-bug or maybe i have been mashing my keyboard a little harder of late. Either way, this is shaping up to be an excellent shooter in an already crowded genre. It manages to bring smooth graphics and some top-notch mech game-play elements to it while serving it all up for free. Sure, you will eventually be able to buy in-game items with real world currency, however as it stands now its anything but pay-to-win.

Prototyping with pennies

One of the great things i admire with the whole open source thing is that all blueprints, software and all the information you would ever need to produce your very own item item is freely available on the Internet. Whilst anyone can learn to build an application or create a website, open source is where technology can bridge the gap between the real world and the virtual one or visa-versa (one of the reasons why i am looking forward to receiving my Rift Dev kit in December). However, another more readily available technology is changing the way we prototype stuff.

While open source itself has been around for decades, the popularity of Android and the advent of Arduino and other similar low power, more compact single board systems, home computing has returned to the hobbyist realm once again. Many of today's computers started life out by being built in people's sheds and homes, while some of the best emerging tech these days comes from regular people using current technology in its component form and re-purposing it. While automation using computers has been an old trick that i have experimented with in the past (I've even been paid to animate Christmas displays and basic automation tasks), what's new today is this renewed interest in the hacker/maker market. The popularity of the  Hacker/Maker spaces over in the US and other countries (like the Makers-Faire) are now seeing new communities and local experiences popping up all over the world.

Personally i think it can be a ton of fun and the best way to enjoy it is to spend some time experimenting with these low cost systems. I mentioned the raspberry pi in an earlier post - i have seen examples of children using it to program their own games, others use it to create a silent custom made HTPC, Some want an open source robot or low-cost solution to a problem they have got. Its a process that is fun and easy to learn and helps develop skills that can be applied to future technology development. Programming is a good building block these days, because once you master the basics, prototyping then becomes a whole lot easier when applying it in a practical way (ie the real world). For me, the best way to learn is by actually building it. If you get stuck, the forums and resources are available online and an active developer community are always available 24/7.

So, having picked the project(s) you want to make, done your homework and have selected the items you think that will need to get you started, then what? Trouble is, you may have never seen a circuit diagram before or you don't even own a soldering iron, let alone have thousands of dollars to spend on parts. This is where today's low-cost-tech really shines. It doesn't have to be a robot, it could be a lightweight flashing EL panel belt thats worn by cyclists for visibility at night or it could be a RFID tag that alerts the owner they had left a possession behind (eg. forgotten their phone and wallet ;P).

Basic Prototyping Kit (bought online)

If the idea of making your own open source project sounds tempting, it is, at least for me. Trouble is, i don't always have alot of money left to spend on experimenting with electronics as most of my spare cash gets eaten up by gaming, geeking or the whole general mish mash ;). This was recently highlighted when i was able to acquire a raspberry pi, USB cable, HDMI cable, SD card, keyboard and mouse all online for under $70 (shipped to my door). After a quick trip to the local electronics retailer, where the basic breadboard was going to cost almost as much as the raspberry pi itself, i headed online to ebay for some electronic prototyping bargains. I am glad i did. Not only was i able to get a breadboard that was almost the exact same dimensions as a bare bones pi, it came with a bunch of components (LED's, resistors, capacitors etc etc) that would get me started. Included with the pack was a small booklet that helped identify components, perfect for those like myself (who were a bit rusty on their knowledge of electronics) or for any beginners out there.


The basic prototyping kit (pictured above) cost me about $20 to have shipped from the UK and it arrived in my letterbox inside a working week. Personally, i will still need some additional components to complete some of my particular project(s), however, all told the costs thus far are <$100.  Not sure that making your own technology is all that interesting? hold no interest for building robots or devices that interact with the real world? what about clothing that can charge your mobile devices or smart phones using the heat of your body? or a hoodie that has a built in MP3 player with conductive cloth providing built in and washable controls. while alot of this wearable technology is available now, some of it is still in development. my point is, its actually quite easy to prototype with pennies :)

Another example of the potential of this technology comes from other sources, such as the instructables website. Predating arduinos relatively new community (arduino started around 2005), the instructables website (along with many others of similar vein) lists a large number of inspiring projects. An example of a  more practical project is an open source pill dispenser that dispenses a course of seven days worth of medication at allocated times. Even sounding an alarm when pills are ready to be taken, making it ideal for elderly or the disabled. What about sonic sensors attached to embedded tech that increase in pressure, the closer it comes to an object. For example, the blind could wear purpose made gloves or wrist straps that squeezed gently to indicate their proximity to objects. This could be adapted to make clothing that could "see objects" around a person and apply a sensation light enough as to be completely painless and of no harm for long term use. Of course, these are all serious real-world projects and while you may find inspiration in robotics or wearable tech or wherever, the initial costs for these projects is low and the initial learning curve is quite moderate.


Some Handy Links and Resources.

Arduino Community
 
Make projects

SparkFun



Quick Start Guides
 
Top 10 Arduino projects for pro (w/click-thrus)


Learn Arduino from n00b to ninja video series