It's no secret to those who know me that I enjoy a good zombie shooter and survival games, so when you combine the two I'm usually in. A friend of mine asked me to join in on State of Decay 2 and I didn't hesitate.
In State of Decay 2 you are the "leader" of a group of survivors with the goals of keeping the survivors going in your base along with "helping" others in the area all the while dealing with the undead hordes. Normally I'd be overjoyed at the premise and have that itch to play as much as possible. Unfortunately, there are some issues with the way the game is constructed and played. The biggest issue has to do with multiplayer. I am fine surviving n my own, however, survival is much more enjoyable with friends. State of Decay 2 has that aspect, but it's a little weird so perhaps I should back up a little.
In single player mode you run around the map looking for supplies to strengthen your base and appease the people who live there. Weapons, modifications and rucksacks of base supplies are the bread and butter of existence. Finding this stuff and dragging it back to base will allow you to grow the community and expand your facilities. Players can choose which of the base inhabitants go on these hunting excursions and you will need to change up which character is active fairly often as they become tired and need to heal from wounds and disease. I actually love this mechanic, because it keeps things fresh with each character having their own strengths and development. Add to the mix the various help requests and the ability to add people you encounter to your ranks and there's a pretty solid survival aspect to this game. Multiplayer is the same-ish with some weird differences. The biggest differences in multiplayer are the storage system, base supply, crafting and healing.
The storage system is designed to avoid griefing, I think. How it works is that you have two storage systems, one for base supply and a personal stash. The base supply system is where you deposit rucksacks of elements to keep the base running and assist with crafting and any rucksacks deposited in multiplayer are deposited in the base of the game host, i.e. the person whose game you joined. It does seem reasonable until you have to craft or heal one of your characters, because you can only draw on the base supplies from your own game. This way, if you just start the game and join someone else to play you won't be able to do these things if you haven't built up your own supplies in single player. On one hand I can understand why this is, because you can open a multiplayer session to random people and they could bleed you dry of resources, BUT, and it's a big but, you can also lock the multiplayer session down to friends only. I think that friends only games should be able to share resources. This really annoys me. To me it's just lazy game design to not have a permission system where the host can allow friends to draw on their resources. The next thing that annoys me is the game distribution system.
The game is only developed for Windows and is distributed like an XBox application. To play it on a PC you have to sign up with a Windows account on the Win 10 XBox applet. This does piss me off since you have to now sign into your desktop using a Windows PIN or account logon. God! I hate Microsoft.
Finally, would I recommend this game? Well no I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who is thinking about it and doesn't want to have to set up a Microsoft account. If you are an XBox fan-person, then it's OK, but to anyone else I'd stay away and not bother. If you are on an operating system other than Windows 10 then it's a hard pass. Don't even try to get it running in Wine or PlayOnLinux.
Wednesday, April 24, 2019
Friday, April 12, 2019
The Black Hole Madness
Today I'd like to discuss the recent black hole image making the rounds on Media, because the supposed "news" sites and channels are, once again, butchering the truth. Yes, this is an astounding scientific achievement, but journalists are just not getting it right.
First, the picture is NOT of a black hole. Sorry to disappoint everyone, rather it is the shadow of a black hole and the light around the shadow is not a disk of light, but the light being warped by the warping of 3+1 dimensional spacetime. This light isn't visible light that you can see with your eyeballs, but invisible light in the radio end of the spectrum. I'll try and provide a better explanation.
So the black hole exerts such a powerful gravitational field that is literally curves space and time. I understand that it is a difficult thing to visualize and is typically shown as the black hole causing a bend in a rummer sheet. The analogy does, kind of, get the point across, however, it's still a two dimensional representation. Readers need to extend the idea to our three spatial dimensions. Length, width and height are all warped toward the black hole's event horizon.
The event horizon is the area near the black hole where nothing that crosses is can ever make it out. An observer outside the event horizon would probably see no light for a distance outside the horizon as all light would be heading toward the horizon and not outward toward the observer's eyes and instruments. Beyond that space some light would be flung away from the area outside the black hole.
Ok, got that? I hope so...
Now about the light. It is light in the sense that we are seeing detected photons, but the wavelength is outside our visible range and into the radio part of the spectrum. Why not look at the visible light? Well there is material around the black hole being accelerated and ripped apart as it migrates toward the event horizon. As this material accelerates it heats up generating all sorts of light from many different wavelengths, visible light included. This material is transparent in the radio part of the spectrum, so radio waves can pass through some of it. If we looked in the visible part of the spectrum we would simply see a bright, amorphous blotch which wouldn't really tell us much. Looking in the radio part of the spectrum shows us a great deal.
Around the event horizon, material is heading in all directions. Some circles around, some passes in front and some spirals inward. We cannot see the radio light directly in front, because it is all heading toward the event horizon or spinning/spiraling around it. This means that the matter and generated photons are not heading toward us, hence the blackness at the center of the image. The doughnut of radio light we do see is coming from behind the region of the black hole.
Very massive objects all warp spacetime and light from behind that passes close enough can get kind of sling-shotted around these objects which is a phenomenon known as gravitational lensing. What we see in the image is pretty much just that. Light generated behind the black hole is lensed by a region of severely warped spacetime near the event horizon. Since the light comes from behind what we are seeing is a shadow of the area around the black hole. The area of blackness is about 3 times the diameter of the black hole. Ok, so big deal. Is that it? Actually there's more.
If you examine the image you may notice that it is dimmer near the top and brighter at the bottom. This difference in brightness is due to doppler effect where the stuff at the top is moving away from us and the stuff at the bottom is moving toward us. All this information fits very well with theory and contributes to confirming some of our understanding of how the universe works.
Finally, this image really does not convey the amount of effort involved in receiving this bit of confirmation. Sure, it's not enough to move from theory to fact in out understanding, but the sheer amount of effort needs to be acknowledged. It took a lot of very smart and dedicated people, something like 200-ish, and cooperation from 20 countries not to mention a lot of radio telescopes to get this data. I am personally amazed at this effort and look forward to what the data can tell us once fully analyzed and the experiment repeated. Exciting times!
First, the picture is NOT of a black hole. Sorry to disappoint everyone, rather it is the shadow of a black hole and the light around the shadow is not a disk of light, but the light being warped by the warping of 3+1 dimensional spacetime. This light isn't visible light that you can see with your eyeballs, but invisible light in the radio end of the spectrum. I'll try and provide a better explanation.
So the black hole exerts such a powerful gravitational field that is literally curves space and time. I understand that it is a difficult thing to visualize and is typically shown as the black hole causing a bend in a rummer sheet. The analogy does, kind of, get the point across, however, it's still a two dimensional representation. Readers need to extend the idea to our three spatial dimensions. Length, width and height are all warped toward the black hole's event horizon.
The event horizon is the area near the black hole where nothing that crosses is can ever make it out. An observer outside the event horizon would probably see no light for a distance outside the horizon as all light would be heading toward the horizon and not outward toward the observer's eyes and instruments. Beyond that space some light would be flung away from the area outside the black hole.
Ok, got that? I hope so...
Now about the light. It is light in the sense that we are seeing detected photons, but the wavelength is outside our visible range and into the radio part of the spectrum. Why not look at the visible light? Well there is material around the black hole being accelerated and ripped apart as it migrates toward the event horizon. As this material accelerates it heats up generating all sorts of light from many different wavelengths, visible light included. This material is transparent in the radio part of the spectrum, so radio waves can pass through some of it. If we looked in the visible part of the spectrum we would simply see a bright, amorphous blotch which wouldn't really tell us much. Looking in the radio part of the spectrum shows us a great deal.
Around the event horizon, material is heading in all directions. Some circles around, some passes in front and some spirals inward. We cannot see the radio light directly in front, because it is all heading toward the event horizon or spinning/spiraling around it. This means that the matter and generated photons are not heading toward us, hence the blackness at the center of the image. The doughnut of radio light we do see is coming from behind the region of the black hole.
Very massive objects all warp spacetime and light from behind that passes close enough can get kind of sling-shotted around these objects which is a phenomenon known as gravitational lensing. What we see in the image is pretty much just that. Light generated behind the black hole is lensed by a region of severely warped spacetime near the event horizon. Since the light comes from behind what we are seeing is a shadow of the area around the black hole. The area of blackness is about 3 times the diameter of the black hole. Ok, so big deal. Is that it? Actually there's more.
If you examine the image you may notice that it is dimmer near the top and brighter at the bottom. This difference in brightness is due to doppler effect where the stuff at the top is moving away from us and the stuff at the bottom is moving toward us. All this information fits very well with theory and contributes to confirming some of our understanding of how the universe works.
Finally, this image really does not convey the amount of effort involved in receiving this bit of confirmation. Sure, it's not enough to move from theory to fact in out understanding, but the sheer amount of effort needs to be acknowledged. It took a lot of very smart and dedicated people, something like 200-ish, and cooperation from 20 countries not to mention a lot of radio telescopes to get this data. I am personally amazed at this effort and look forward to what the data can tell us once fully analyzed and the experiment repeated. Exciting times!
Monday, April 8, 2019
Astrox Imperium
Another day, another early access game. Today I am going to post about Astrox Imperium which is a game I've been following for a while now.
Astrox imperium is a single player space game set in a unique universe developed by Jace Masula ( game home page found here). The game features open world exploration, mining, faction interactions, fighting, market play, missions and fleets. It is reminiscent if something like Eve online, but players can experience the feel without the headache of unwanted PVP action. Ive spent a few hours in the game to find myself pleasantly surprised with it.
First there's the developer who also goes by the handle "momoguru". The developer is extremely responsive to well thought out criticism. This does not mean that he will fulfill every request, rather it does mean that he will evaluate and fix, or tweak, things that need it. A responsive developer is something we don't experience often enough in the gaming industry. I have to tip my hat to Jace and the people helping on the forums as they are very responsive, active and positive. Kudos to you all. With that said we should look at some of the features of Astrox Imperium game play.
Getting started can be a wee bit daunting as the tutorial missions in the beginning are a bit weak, in my opinion. This should not be taken as a large negative though as it really isn't that big a problem if you are willing to just try things and in the worst case just start a new play through. I think this will be expanded upon since the developer is mainly concerned with bugs, play balance, and streamlining systems, which is good and will make the core mechanics much better although they are pretty good now. Starting ships and skills are quite capable and sufficient enough to get you going.
Different play styles are easily accommodated with the engine as it is. Personally, I like to try them all, so I am starting out as a miner in order to build up a cash reserve and transition to a bounty hunter. I will admit that I had a really hard time at first making any space bucks as a miner in the starting ship, because the quantity you mine and what the starter ore sells for was just too small. I was able to overcome this by purchasing the first fleet skill and hiring a mercenary miner who had a MUCH larger ship to mine for me. With a merc to mine I made bank in no time flat. My advice to beginners is buy the first level of fleet skill, hire a merc miner and hit the large asteroids for fast, early cash.
Modding is another important feature built into the game from the beginning. The developer has included all the modding tools they use into the game and accessible from the start menu. I feel that such things are extremely important in sandbox style games to enhance the experience and longevity of game play. The addition of the modding tools allows players to tailor their experience to their liking and flex their creative side which is a thing sorely lacking in AAA games. I could write a whole other article on the subject, but I'd I will stop myself there. Kudos again to momoguru for thinking of this.
Last, but certainly not least, is the price. Astrox Imperium is a steal at around $15 USD. There is so much content and potential in this game that I almost can't believe it is so inexpensive for the amount of effort put into bringing it into early access and the continuing effort now that players can grab a copy of the game. I sincerely hope that the developer has every success both financially and personally with this effort. May the release of the game be everything he hoped for and then some. Well done!
Astrox imperium is a single player space game set in a unique universe developed by Jace Masula ( game home page found here). The game features open world exploration, mining, faction interactions, fighting, market play, missions and fleets. It is reminiscent if something like Eve online, but players can experience the feel without the headache of unwanted PVP action. Ive spent a few hours in the game to find myself pleasantly surprised with it.
First there's the developer who also goes by the handle "momoguru". The developer is extremely responsive to well thought out criticism. This does not mean that he will fulfill every request, rather it does mean that he will evaluate and fix, or tweak, things that need it. A responsive developer is something we don't experience often enough in the gaming industry. I have to tip my hat to Jace and the people helping on the forums as they are very responsive, active and positive. Kudos to you all. With that said we should look at some of the features of Astrox Imperium game play.
Getting started can be a wee bit daunting as the tutorial missions in the beginning are a bit weak, in my opinion. This should not be taken as a large negative though as it really isn't that big a problem if you are willing to just try things and in the worst case just start a new play through. I think this will be expanded upon since the developer is mainly concerned with bugs, play balance, and streamlining systems, which is good and will make the core mechanics much better although they are pretty good now. Starting ships and skills are quite capable and sufficient enough to get you going.
Different play styles are easily accommodated with the engine as it is. Personally, I like to try them all, so I am starting out as a miner in order to build up a cash reserve and transition to a bounty hunter. I will admit that I had a really hard time at first making any space bucks as a miner in the starting ship, because the quantity you mine and what the starter ore sells for was just too small. I was able to overcome this by purchasing the first fleet skill and hiring a mercenary miner who had a MUCH larger ship to mine for me. With a merc to mine I made bank in no time flat. My advice to beginners is buy the first level of fleet skill, hire a merc miner and hit the large asteroids for fast, early cash.
Modding is another important feature built into the game from the beginning. The developer has included all the modding tools they use into the game and accessible from the start menu. I feel that such things are extremely important in sandbox style games to enhance the experience and longevity of game play. The addition of the modding tools allows players to tailor their experience to their liking and flex their creative side which is a thing sorely lacking in AAA games. I could write a whole other article on the subject, but I'd I will stop myself there. Kudos again to momoguru for thinking of this.
Last, but certainly not least, is the price. Astrox Imperium is a steal at around $15 USD. There is so much content and potential in this game that I almost can't believe it is so inexpensive for the amount of effort put into bringing it into early access and the continuing effort now that players can grab a copy of the game. I sincerely hope that the developer has every success both financially and personally with this effort. May the release of the game be everything he hoped for and then some. Well done!
Sunday, April 7, 2019
The "computer" industry
I've literally grown up through the "computer revolution" and I am quite dismayed at the direction it is heading. I can remember waaay back before the average consumer could even think about having a computer in their home, yes, back to when having a transistor radio was on the cutting edge. In those days computers were the exclusive purview of government and universities and took up rooms, or buildings, worth of space. Along came the late 60's to early 70's and calculators. The miniaturization revolution had begun.
My first look at a computer came in the form of a rather expensive, for the time, calculator. My calculator was an old Texas Instruments jobbie and I can remember tinkering around with calculations in an attempt to get it to do something other than simple addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, essentially looking for boundary conditions that made the brain in it freak out. Fun and geeky times. Calculators became more powerful and started rocking those cool, new liquid crystal displays, memory and more functions just as the first hobby computers came out.
Fondly, I remember the first real computer I ever laid eye on. This computer was some variety of HeathKit with a 2 digit display that could do some hexadecimal math. It only had a very basic set of keys and just the 2 hex digits for display. In modern terms it was barely a computer, but to me it was cutting edge and I used it at every opportunity I could. The programs were small and you had to understand the architecture pretty well to get it to do much. To me this was just awesome and it is where I discovered my affinity for such things. Not long after my school came into the possession of an early Apple computer with an actual CRT display. My God, the power. Still programming in Hex and accessing the hardware directly this was a heady time. More systems were hitting the market and schools were picking them up, computer clubs were forming, and we students were really diving in and "hacking".
In those days the term "Hacking" did not mean anything evil. Hacking was the term for taking things apart and probing their innards to discover how they worked and what cool things you could accomplish with them. In short, we LEARNED a lot about computer architecture, programming and even pushed the boundaries of what these devices were meant by their manufacturers to do. We were proud to wear the label of Hacker and we had a passion for learning and discovery. These days the term Hacker has been co-opted in a negative light and most people equate it with criminal and that makes me rather sad. However, I am digressing, but I thought it worthwhile to understand where I come from to make my point about the current direction of the computer industry at large.
Ok then. so I come from the early days of computing where everything about our systems and devices were open and discoverable, yet today it seems to me that the overall direction is now the opposite. Computers, and software are now subject to patent lawsuits, "ecosystems" are now a thing with many manufacturers, and the general push is towards disposable devices.
Take Apple for instance. Here you have a company that puts on a happy, public face of cool hipsters, user friendliness, and ease of use, yet they will tell you if your phone won't start you need a new one. They literally cannot fix much or even replace a battery and actively prevent customers from seeking out sources who can fix their gear. Just check out Louis Rossmann's YouTube channel for info on that subject. Apple isn't by any stretch the only company making disposable devices as the majority of smart phone manufacturers now glue everything in their phones making simple tasks like battery replacement impossible for customers. I fear that computers are heading in that direction.
Look at laptops which is a classification where I include notebooks, ultrabooks and the like. Contrast a laptop with a desktop, and I don't mean and "appliance" like the Intel NUC. I call the appliances, because to me they are just that and have much the same issues as laptops which I shall spew on about presently. Laptops are what I now term "disposable computers". I call them disposable for the following reasons:
1) You have very limited upgrade and repair options.
2) As software becomes more resource heavy, the laptop only has a few years of useful life for most.
Let's talk upgrades now. In a typical laptop you might be able to replace the main storage unit, or hard disk and upgrade the memory. That is about it. In a more traditional desktop, you can still replace all the guts from memory to CPU to graphics processor and over time keep the machine current. if you want to keep a laptop or appliance current, well you have to get a new one. Could laptops be made to be upgradeable? Certainly. That is an engineering issue, but it seems to me that corporate greed and consumer laziness spawned a business model that keeps us buying replacements and generating ever increasing mountains of toxic e-waste. As evidence, just go to your local electronics store that sells computers and look at the ratio of upgradable desktops to laptops they sell. You may be hard pressed to find a desktop in some stores these days. This is one trend that upsets me.
Another trend that really makes me want to pull out what hair I have left is that of licensing and proprietary systems and software. Back in the early days pretty much all information about those computers were made available. Circuit and logic diagrams, processor and chip functions, manufacturer generated technical specs and documents actually came with many systems. These days mainstream manufacturers tell you little to nothing and they sue each other over stupid things like rounded corners on phones. So if you want to "hack", in the original sense", you can be subject to prosecution if you publish your discoveries for spilling trade secrets. This extends to hardware and software, so you are expected to operate on the lack of information, or outright B.S. a manufacturer deigns to give you and be happy with that even if all you want to do is fix what you already paid for. Very sad times indeed which leaves me feeling rather down about banking my future on the tech industry in general.
That pretty much sums up my feelings regarding the computer industry and has played a fairly major part in my decision to retire from I.T. I am not someone who will take crap handed to me when I know full well that the barriers to achieving a successful outcome are purely artificial. Please note that there is some light, not much, but some. The Open Source movement is now not only concerned with software and is moving into hardware albeit slowly and with much resistance. I do hope it makes major inroads into the public consciousness and that we see a return to those wonderful times when computing was open, information was exchanged freely, and when we were excited and proud to be called Hackers.
My first look at a computer came in the form of a rather expensive, for the time, calculator. My calculator was an old Texas Instruments jobbie and I can remember tinkering around with calculations in an attempt to get it to do something other than simple addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, essentially looking for boundary conditions that made the brain in it freak out. Fun and geeky times. Calculators became more powerful and started rocking those cool, new liquid crystal displays, memory and more functions just as the first hobby computers came out.
Fondly, I remember the first real computer I ever laid eye on. This computer was some variety of HeathKit with a 2 digit display that could do some hexadecimal math. It only had a very basic set of keys and just the 2 hex digits for display. In modern terms it was barely a computer, but to me it was cutting edge and I used it at every opportunity I could. The programs were small and you had to understand the architecture pretty well to get it to do much. To me this was just awesome and it is where I discovered my affinity for such things. Not long after my school came into the possession of an early Apple computer with an actual CRT display. My God, the power. Still programming in Hex and accessing the hardware directly this was a heady time. More systems were hitting the market and schools were picking them up, computer clubs were forming, and we students were really diving in and "hacking".
In those days the term "Hacking" did not mean anything evil. Hacking was the term for taking things apart and probing their innards to discover how they worked and what cool things you could accomplish with them. In short, we LEARNED a lot about computer architecture, programming and even pushed the boundaries of what these devices were meant by their manufacturers to do. We were proud to wear the label of Hacker and we had a passion for learning and discovery. These days the term Hacker has been co-opted in a negative light and most people equate it with criminal and that makes me rather sad. However, I am digressing, but I thought it worthwhile to understand where I come from to make my point about the current direction of the computer industry at large.
Ok then. so I come from the early days of computing where everything about our systems and devices were open and discoverable, yet today it seems to me that the overall direction is now the opposite. Computers, and software are now subject to patent lawsuits, "ecosystems" are now a thing with many manufacturers, and the general push is towards disposable devices.
Take Apple for instance. Here you have a company that puts on a happy, public face of cool hipsters, user friendliness, and ease of use, yet they will tell you if your phone won't start you need a new one. They literally cannot fix much or even replace a battery and actively prevent customers from seeking out sources who can fix their gear. Just check out Louis Rossmann's YouTube channel for info on that subject. Apple isn't by any stretch the only company making disposable devices as the majority of smart phone manufacturers now glue everything in their phones making simple tasks like battery replacement impossible for customers. I fear that computers are heading in that direction.
Look at laptops which is a classification where I include notebooks, ultrabooks and the like. Contrast a laptop with a desktop, and I don't mean and "appliance" like the Intel NUC. I call the appliances, because to me they are just that and have much the same issues as laptops which I shall spew on about presently. Laptops are what I now term "disposable computers". I call them disposable for the following reasons:
1) You have very limited upgrade and repair options.
2) As software becomes more resource heavy, the laptop only has a few years of useful life for most.
Let's talk upgrades now. In a typical laptop you might be able to replace the main storage unit, or hard disk and upgrade the memory. That is about it. In a more traditional desktop, you can still replace all the guts from memory to CPU to graphics processor and over time keep the machine current. if you want to keep a laptop or appliance current, well you have to get a new one. Could laptops be made to be upgradeable? Certainly. That is an engineering issue, but it seems to me that corporate greed and consumer laziness spawned a business model that keeps us buying replacements and generating ever increasing mountains of toxic e-waste. As evidence, just go to your local electronics store that sells computers and look at the ratio of upgradable desktops to laptops they sell. You may be hard pressed to find a desktop in some stores these days. This is one trend that upsets me.
Another trend that really makes me want to pull out what hair I have left is that of licensing and proprietary systems and software. Back in the early days pretty much all information about those computers were made available. Circuit and logic diagrams, processor and chip functions, manufacturer generated technical specs and documents actually came with many systems. These days mainstream manufacturers tell you little to nothing and they sue each other over stupid things like rounded corners on phones. So if you want to "hack", in the original sense", you can be subject to prosecution if you publish your discoveries for spilling trade secrets. This extends to hardware and software, so you are expected to operate on the lack of information, or outright B.S. a manufacturer deigns to give you and be happy with that even if all you want to do is fix what you already paid for. Very sad times indeed which leaves me feeling rather down about banking my future on the tech industry in general.
That pretty much sums up my feelings regarding the computer industry and has played a fairly major part in my decision to retire from I.T. I am not someone who will take crap handed to me when I know full well that the barriers to achieving a successful outcome are purely artificial. Please note that there is some light, not much, but some. The Open Source movement is now not only concerned with software and is moving into hardware albeit slowly and with much resistance. I do hope it makes major inroads into the public consciousness and that we see a return to those wonderful times when computing was open, information was exchanged freely, and when we were excited and proud to be called Hackers.
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