Fortnite Part 2: How is a “Free” game making so much money? Should I buy stuff (asking for my kid....)? Is it Addictive?

Link To original source for pic. 

So in part one we went over the game of Fortnite. Here we are going to look at the business of Fortnite, how some of the game mechanics play into it, and of course the concern of addiction.  

First and foremost as I mentioned in the previous article, the game is absolutely free. However... here is the rest of the story.  Battle Royale (the 100 player fight to one player left) is absolutely totally free to play in its entirety. Save the world (single player/co-op) is currently a paid game mode, and you can buy your way to content that impacts game play. Save the world is a whole other game in my experience thus far and by all accounts I can find is not adding considerably to Epic’s bottom line. The cash cow is Battle Royale so that is what we will be talking about. 

So again... with feeling... buying stuff in Battle Royale does not get you any game play advantage. There are 3 things you can buy (well technically only 1 thing, but we will get to V-bucks in a bit). Skins, Emotes, and a Battle pass. Of the three in terms of game content only the Battle Pass provides you content. A Skin is a look for your avatar. Without a skin you are assigned a default male/female at random for each match. The default or “no skin” look is kind of a generic military casual that cycles between various skin tone and gender combinations. An Emote is actions you can make your avatar do... such as a dance, or spray painting a mark on walls, or making images appear in the air. Skin’s and Emotes are classed by rarity and can be purchased via the game store, or earned via game play. Some skins\emotes can only be earned via game play. Most have to be purchased. We will return to them in a bit. Let us talk about the Battle Pass.  This little gem is a study in gameplay behavior psychology. You see... the game is free and thus far has employed a ‘season’ format. IE changes are themed and cover a story arc across a 10 week season leading to a major shift to the next ‘season’. During a season you can earn player ‘levels’ and battle pass ‘tiers’. Levels and tiers are impacted by the Battle pass you possess. There is a free  pass and a paid pass ($10). The free pass assigns you 3 optional challenges per week and allows you to earn skins and emotes etc... The Paid pass allows you to earn more skins and other rewards. However, most importantly (from a business stand point) it enables more optional challenges which allows you to earn more battle stars which are what are needed to advance your battle pass. You need the same amount of battle stars to advance the battle pass for free or paid. So it is much easier and faster to advance your battle pass tier and earn rewards with the paid pass. This equates to more bang for your buck in terms of time spent playing the game. Also, you earn a bonus modifier to your end game score or experience which is what advances your season level. Again, its the same to advance for free or paid passes. So a paid pass can advance with less time played. Significantly less... at a guess from my time in it looks like 1-2 hours average a day with a battle pass means you will likely be able to get through level 100, and battle pass tier 100. On the free side... I need to confirm but I think it is roughly double and you earn less than half the amount of stuff. Lastly... the items you earn, if you bought equivalent content from the store would cost WAY more than the $10 you pay for an upgraded battle pass.  

This creates a powerful feedback loop. I like the game and by investing real money in it I can “advance” faster. The game ‘dings’ at a faster rate and you play even more for the ding. I got something. I advanced. I accomplished something hard in the game and I get things that let me show off that I did it (E-motes, skins, harvesting tools, banners). So in review... you are on the ride for free. You get to play the full game for free. But if you want to easily be able to show your level of advancement, or even get some of the content that shows that. You have to buy the battle pass. It makes sense to lots of game play/Reward seeking styles. Game play specific skins and unlocks are visible indicators of your level of accomplishment. If you play more than a little you quickly start recognizing the skin of your opponent is often an important consideration in how to approach them. It is a social marker much the same as the clothes you wear in real life. But the season skin can get old... seeing the same old look or just small modifications as you advance etc... Hey... that skin in the store looks really cool... its only ($5,$10,$15,$20)....  

Epic has done something interesting with the store and skins/emotes etc... They have made them falsely scarce. You cannot just scroll through all skins ever created. Epic has made these digital items “Rare”. At any given time you can by a couple of emotes, and maybe 4 skins and their various accessories (harvesting tool, glider). For folks that need complete sets this is catnip... gotta buy them all. It also allows others to pick up bits they like for less without the whole setup. A rare skin that is considered cool triggers the “its only available now and don’t know when/if it will be back...” thought processes. In short... they have established a viable fashion store for their free game. And they have so many people playing it that real world peer pressure to be “cool” and unique gets people to pull out their wallets. This completes the inversion from previous game business designs. Character modification in most games is “free” and is often one of the first things you do. IE create your character, male, female? Fat? Skinny? Tall? Short? Etc.. etc... etc... And then you go play the game. EPIC lets you in to play the game, but makes you earn or buy your character look. All in all... the human desire to appear unique, desirable, successful, or what have you is a far stronger desire than the one that drives us to play games. But... don’t dismiss that one either. Without a good game you wouldn’t have a lot of players, which means you don’t have an audience. These are symbiotic drivers in the success of Fortnite. The seemingly universal nature of ‘everyone’ playing it drives a lot of the desire to buy items to be unique, or to earn\display status with unlocked content. Positive feedback cycle, definition of. Herein lies the closest thing battle royals Fortnite has to “pay to play”. 

Lets back up a second and revisit what I was talking above about advancement of level and battle pass. These are effectively the same thing... advancement mechanisms. Just one is advanced through earning or finding “battle stars” the other is for completing a round of play. Exit early and you earn nothing. The biggest difference is that your ‘level’ can only be advanced through play. Your battle pass tier on the other hand can be purchased. For just 150 v-bucks per level all the way to level 100. So for 16000 V-bucks you can purchase a maxed out battle pass and all the goodies that come with it. Again... for no game play advantage. I am sure there are people that have done this though for the life of me I can’t understand why. I imagine this is mostly for folks that get close to a level with a desired reward where a few bucks will allow them some instant gratification. That said... if you map it out by the time it takes to earn the battle stars, vs the cost of the tiers... in that sense they are CHEAP. But games valuing your time very little is nothing new despite the fact your time is the absolute life blood of their existence. By this I mean.... earning a weeks battle stars by completing the daily challenges and weeks challenges will likely take you ~5 hours of game play. That is for one week. 10 weeks. 50 hours of play (work?) to earn all your battle stars. Or 16000 V-bucks. If you have more money than time and want the battle pass rewards I suppose you could make the case for it. 

Now... for those of you non Fortnite initiated. What exactly does that mean in terms of real money? Is 16000 V-bucks a lot? For easy math 100 V-bucks roughly equals $1. So that fully maxed battle pass costs $160. I say roughly... because you can buy bundles of V-bucks, or V-bucks and skins where the ratio changes to where 100 V-bucks may be more like $.75 or $.50. Then there is the fact you can earn some V-bucks through the season... just enough to buy another battle pass for the most part. V-bucks are the ONLY thing you buy with real world currency. Why go through this charade of establishing a false game currency and not just use actual values? Well... separating the real value of a purchase via an in game currency is a long standing tactic to keep people from really thinking about how much they are spending. You exchange your money for V-bucks and then you see things always priced in V-bucks... so you see a cool outfit for only 1500 v-bucks rather than the 2000 or 2500 one and you think, hey, that’s a bargain rather than really considering you are about to drop 15 bucks so your character looks like it is wearing a dinosaur costume. Also, since you have to buy in bulk and not specific amounts (IE 1000, 15000 at a time) it means you typically have left over V-bucks from any transactions you make meaning maybe you have 1000 left over... and you just need 500 to get that cool thing... but you have to buy at least 1000... wash rinse repeat. 

So I am talking about cycles, and feedback loops. Is it addictive? Yes and no. I wouldn’t worry about Fortnite like I would narcotics. And socially speaking... just going to put out there that if all (or a significant portion) of a peer group is using this medium to socially interact, withdrawing from it, not conforming, can have its penalties just as playing it to much can. I would class this game in with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc...  at this point It is a social touchstone for a huge swath of youth, and not so youth, due to its ubiquitous availability across lots of devices and free to play entry fee. They can do it with low risk (on a couch pushing buttons vs running up and down a creek bed) and regardless of the weather provided they have access to the internet. And it is a damn good and challenging game. If your kid (or anyone) is getting a healthy amount of sleep and exercise then odds are good Fortnite ‘addiction’ isn’t a concern. Drastic changes in social involvement (withdrawal from real activities), loss of sleep, no exercise etc... due to play would be a concern for ANY activity inducing such problems. As with most things, moderation is the key.   Beware younger kids and the option to buy large pots of V-bucks. 

So to that last question I haven’t addressed. Should I buy stuff in Fortnite? If you like the game yes, if nobody buys anything the game dies. This is akin to street performers. If they are good enough to make you stop and listen, drop something in the cup. If you are playing a season, buy the battle pass. Should you buy stuff for your kid even though buying stuff in Fortnite provides no game play advantage? Yes, I think in general you should. Why? If you would buy your kid a (shirt|toy|etc...) they think is cool... buy them a skin they want. And treat it the same. IE maybe they have to do something to earn it. Maybe they have to spend their allowance. Treat it like any other life lesson in buying things you want vs need. The things you buy in the game don’t have intrinsic value to the game, but they do have value to those who play. However... I would highly recommend not spending money on save the world at this time, most especially the Llamas. Google loot boxes if you want to know why. The fact they stopped them from being Random is not a huge improvement. Where Battle Royale is setup to be fully enjoyable without buying content... Save the world is a different, uglier beast in my opinion. But I am not ready to dissect it yet. However, if you are familiar with freemium games on iOS and Android suffice it to say save the world aligns much more to that type of game play experience than Battle Royale. 

In Part 3 I plan to look at the the growing competitive scene for Fortnite, and video games in general. For starters, did you know there is a 30 million dollar prize pool Fortnite World Cup later this month? 

Thoughts: Fake News

If there is a catch phrase to sum up the appearance of Donald Trump on the national political stage, it has to be the phrase "Fake News".

It makes me cringe. Though perhaps not the way it does for most. I do not out of hand reject the assertion that there is such a thing as a biased media agenda that runs counter to the reality of the Trump administration. Nor do I accept it. When you get down to it I firmly believe The Washington Post or New York times, despite their easily shown slants,  are far better source on average for "truth" than Breitbart and Fox regardless of what side you are on. I will stick to that so long as they continue how they presently do business for their more serious journalistic endeavors. This is not to say they are perfect. Far from it. Nor is it to say there is no content of merit posted to Brietbart or Fox.... though that is a heck of a lot easier to show with Fox. I routinely peruse through all four these days. All must be read critically. All have faults... some more than others. Take the Brietbart Lead Story while I am writing this. Taking it at face value that story is basically flipping the whole Trump Collusion accusations around and pointing the finger at what it claims are equally culpable acts by other government agencies or democratic figures. What neither narratives seem to be able to contemplate is that perhaps elements of both sides view are true... and it ALL needs to be addressed.

They, along with ALL legacy media and news establishments are not what they once were in terms of founts of truth. The world of the internet and clicks is far different from the days of the newspaper, radio, or the evening broadcast news. The thing is... the world as we knew it prior to the internet wasn't great on a 'truth' front either. We just had a more widely held common delusion that there were better objective sources of truth to trust. This societal delusion has (had?) its uses... much like the one that upholds money. But it is most certainly a delusion. The phrase "Knowledge is power" didn't arise without reason... and control of media represents a control over an awful lot of public knowledge. Often times the truth is less important than belief. IE your story can be true whether or not people believe it. But stories that impact MUST be believed.... because it is that belief that drives the impact. Unfortunately, it is often far easier to tell someone something they want to believe than it is to inform them of an objective truth if that truth contradicts that persons world view. This makes for a devilish temptation to elicit the former rather than adhere to the latter when how many clicks you get impacts whether or not you have a job.

Truth is a difficult a thing to pin down as the exact location of an electron. Well.... perhaps I should state that a bit differently. I do hold there is unquestionably truth. But... being able to prove what is true is another story altogether. By far the most useful mechanism for provable truth has been the scientific method. But science has a serious problem when we enter the realm of subjective topics. The truth of right and wrong, of morality... is not fundamental. Or perhaps I should say... not provable. At its heart, morality is culturally subjective.

Star Wars allegory. "Ben... why didn't you tell me the truth?". "Luke, what I told you was the truth.... from a certain point of view".

I think many Journalists are doing the same as Obi Wan. Telling the truth from their point of view that best suites the circumstances. The problem is that more are saying what they need to draw viewers to a story or worse, to actively forward an agenda independent of, or consciously avoiding, the truth. Those doing the former are valuable. Those doing the latter are the "Fake News" problem. The really crappy thing is.... who is who often depends on your point of view. As a generic statement I think many would agree with the above statement regarding many journalists doing a good job but that they are being drowned out in a sea of unscrupulous hacks. However, once you start naming names and saying that one is "Trustworthy News" and that one is "Fake News" you quickly find a distinct lack of consensus. And that is the problem. I don't think there is a single publication without blame at this time. Some have great journalism going on... and at the side or the bottom of the page you find the click bait dreck tailored to draw whoever is reading deeper in. As this has become a systemic reality for almost all news publications in an attempt to survive the transition to the digital age it is causing a crisis. Not a crisis in the the daily lead headline use of the word. This is a slow moving, hard to see, very large shift in how information works in our society crisis. A Gutenberg press level event that we are in the midst of akin to the shifting of tectonic plates. They rumble for a long time until a critical level of pressure is built up... and then a huge chunk of California falls into the sea. Or in the case of Gutenberg, Monarchy turns into Democracy. Catholicism (universal) shatters and gives way to Protestant schisms. The internet age has put the reins of knowledge up for grabs... and the world has not figured out who is going to hold them.... and we don't know how it is going to end.

Fortnite Part 1: What is it? What is it like to play? What is needed to play? Is it really free?

Epic Games Fortnite Season 7

Fortnite. It is EVERYWHERE. What is the big deal about this game? I am interested both as a long time video game player and parent who has a kid just dying to be Fortnite obsessed if I would just let him play. I remember Epic announcing their concept building\shooter mashup at CES and saw stories pop up from time to time about it. The concept perked my ears up… but I can’t say I was super interested. Since the advent of online play, single player FPS games have gone very stale and the online FPS crowd has a well earned reputation for being…. shall we say a bit raw? However, The original Fortnite concept (now the save the world version) of a player building, co-op zombie shooter sounded new enough I was curious if it would be any good. Then it disappeared into development hell. Truth to tell… that version of the game is still in development hell. Suffice it to say that the original announced game Fortnite and the current cultural sensation sweeping the nation have almost nothing in common other than the name, and the fact you can build and shoot things. 

Somewhere along the way in the midst of the numerous delays of Epic games development hell for Fortnite someone had the bright idea to launch a beta multi-player mode aping the break out PUBG battle royale using the core combat and building mechanics that had been developed for Fortnite. The result is the 100 man battle to the finish version that has made such a splash. When it launched my take was… Right… another death match shooter… *Yawn*… then it passed pubG in user count…. so what? flavor of the month…. more time passed… who the hell is Ninja and why is he showing up on commercials like Aaron Rodgers? They made How much???? Epic announces 100million for E-sports competition purses for Fortnite in 2019. Ok, I can take a hint.... eventually.  Obviously this is more than a ‘flavor of the season’ situation. So… I decided to dip my toe in and see what all the fuss was about. 

First, a quick primer if somehow you have not yet encountered the basic concept of a battle royale game.

The basic idea is 100 players are dropped onto a map with nothing, they have to search around and find weapons and other resources and be the last one standing. If it sounds like “Hunger Games” that is because the Suzanne Collins stories are often credited with inspiring the concept. That said, the basic idea of last man standing FPS has been around since Doom\Quake death matches. The new element going on lately is the number of players, size of the map, random player selected distribution across the map and the shrinking zone mechanic. Fortnite’s discriminating feature is a goofy aesthetic and the ability to build with materials you collect with a pickax similar to Minecraft. In effect Epic took popular elements of Minecraft and PubG (and similar BR games), smashed them together and voila. Massive hit. Trust me… there is more to it than that and it is far harder to do something like this successfully than you might first suspect.  

In Fortnite the game occurs on a single large map equivalent to a few square miles (8km by 8km is the rough estimate I have seen). It is presented as an Island. Each game consists of 100 players either all on their own, paired off, or in squads of 4 depending on which flavor of battle royale you choose. To reach the Fortnite island all the players jump out of a flying hot air ballon blue battle bus as it makes a random pass over the island and you sky dive\glide to where you want to go. You can reach anywhere on the map though depending on the path the bus takes it will take you more or less time to get there. Once you get there it is time to search out weapons and supplies that will help you survive to the coveted “Victory Royale”.  Don’t forget the storm, as it closes in you have to stay in front of it forcing you into ever closer quarters with the other players. This keeps happening until only one remains. So what is it like to actually play? Only one way to find out. 

The first time I jumped out of the bus I popped my glider immediately and watched all the other players streak for the ground. I decided perhaps I should go another way seeing as it was my first time. I glided all the way down enjoying the view. I landed in a distant interesting looking area on the island and I wondered around, swiped at some trees and boxes with my handy harvesting tool, picked up some goodies. Gunfire sounded in the distance and various beeps and horns and such sounded periodically the meanings of which I was unaware. And then a purple haze washed over me and my health started declining. Oh yeah.... the shrinking “storm”… ooops… There was a helpful line on my mini map that was indicating the most direct route to the safe circle. So I dutifully turn my avatar in that direction and start running. Hmmmmm.... the edge of the storm is receding faster than I can run. About a minute later a helpful drone looking thing scanned me out of the game once I ran out of health points and my loot scattered across the ground. A screen informed me I had earned some experience and that I survived more than 50 other players... all without ever even firing a weapon. Interesting. 

The second time I jumped out of the bus I dove with the crowd to see where they were all going. It seemed they were headed for a set of tall buildings towards the center of the Map. I land on the top of one with another player and they introduced me to their pick axe… hmm its a weapon too. Scanned out. Then I got informed I outlasted 5 other players. Welcome to Tilted Towers indeed. 

The Third time I jumped out of the bus I headed away from the crowds again and found the useful M key (for Map) once I noticed the line pop up on my mini map and saw the circle was quite a ways away from me. I began to understand the meaning of some of the sounds that give you audio cues about what is happening. An important one notes the safe zone has updated (moves to a smaller circle within the current safe zone) and starts a countdown to when the storm will start to shrink to that circle, another noise announces the storm is shrinking etc… Anyway, this time I immediately began moving towards the initial safe zone, taking time to look for loot along the way. As the circle got smaller I stayed towards the outskirts of the storm and took advantage of cover as I got closer and closer to gun fire. I crept in with my gun drawn looking for someone to aim it at. I soon enough had my chance. Someone came trotting up the other side of the hill I was on and I fired. They fired. We both missed. And next thing I knew, a 3-4 story building magically appeared in front of me in a flurry of plank assembling animations and as I looked up dumbfounded, I saw the player descending from above and heard a shotgun go off. Scanned out. The end game screen informed me I came in 8th and got a nice bonus for my survival placement. I knew you could build your own fort in the game.... but that was surprising. I’m talking 1 thousand 1, 1 thousand 2, maybe less and there was a player built fort in front of me. This requires placing each wall and floor. Jeebus. When you are eliminated you get to watch the stream of the player who eliminated you... so I watched this master builder go on to a Victory Royale... and was simply amazed to find out what I encountered was just the beginning of what a build fight entailed.  #goals.

My next few jumps entailed variations on these themes. Mostly whenever I encountered another player who was aware I was there... I died. I got a couple of lucky eliminations with my pick axe, and the occasional vulture elimination (put walls up when you heal after a battle... just sayin). I played around with building and became even more amazed at what I was seeing people do as I came to better understand the flurry of keystroke and mouse movements necessary to successfully build. Not to mention the decisions making that had to go into monitoring another builder coming at you and making decisions about when to switch to weapons. And THEN I learned about and watched editing (making windows to shoot through etc.). Holy. S#!7. #mindblown, #iWantToBeAbleToDoThat.

At this point I was able to reach the top 25 more than half the time and the top 10 more than 25% of the time. However, a few realities set in that were keeping me from having much chance of ever nabbing a Victory Royale. You see… getting to the end game is actually pretty easy. Surviving it not so much. If your method of getting there is avoiding confrontation, once you get there you find yourself inevitably facing those that survived the other 99 players you avoided. So I wasn’t building up skills that would let me vanquish the players I met in the end game. Also… I couldn’t control my character well enough to have much of a chance which was driving me to avoiding people in the first place. Thankfully that was not all down to my incompetence. Old for games like this I may be… but once upon a time in a former life I was someone you really didn’t want to be matched up with in a game like this. I just needed better tools, and I needed some practice to knock all the rust off. Queue the montage…. while that is going on lets talk PC FPS game controls. 

1) Modern FPS games have evolved to the point that your average computer mouse and desktop mouse cursor control settings are just not going to work in a highly competitive FPS game. Gaming mice are a thing… and it is not all marketing hype and glowing lights. Honestly, I couldn’t hit the proverbial broad side of a barn with my setup, much less an intelligent moving jumping foe on the island. My initial threat level to other players was quickly revealed to me as being “Harmless”. My mouse was not very sensitive/consistent, and I had no idea what was going on with the mouse settings in the game. To fix this I went for a well reviewed less flashy unit from Steel Series (Rival 310) and started researching mouse settings among professional gamers (that is also a thing now if you didn’t know, subject for another article down the road I think). I also picked up an aiming trainer game called “aim hero” from steam which recreates settings for various games and provided target ranges to practice mouse control with. Other than having a reasonably up to date optical/laser wired mouse the real key here are the settings. High resolution and large screens have led to cursors that have acceleration and typically not very fine control in order to be able to get the cursor to any point on the screen with very little effort. In a shooting game you need to have more motion of the mouse relative to the motion of the cursor to give you finer control. You also need to kill acceleration as you also want your cursor movement to be VERY consistent and repeatable. Basically you have to train a reflex skill that involves you unconsciously translating identification of a target to a snapping of your cursor onto it. If this isn’t a reflexive action (along with weapon selection) odds are you will not survive. This takes time and practice. But without a decent mouse… all the practice in the world will not help because the movements required will not be the same. Once past a certain point of quality, the real advantage of gaming mice are the more durable, and more numerous buttons for assigning various game actions to. 

2) Like mice, there is a lot of hype out there about gaming keyboards. I find the need for these much less convincing. That said… your bottom feeding wireless units with years of crumbs may cause some issues. All you really need is one you are comfortable with that can register keystrokes at the pace of the game (not all of them do this). I shifted to using a wired more mechanical feeling keyboard I got by default from Alienware when I bought my VR system. I may try something in line with the Mouse I got above at some point just to see if there is any real difference. But mostly the validity if any is about the feedback the keys give you. Clacky mechanical switch keys with a noticeable detent at the point the key is triggered helps you know when you have done actions faster than your typical budget/system freebie membrane system. In short... if you have no issues hitting the keys you want when you want, and the game is responding when you do it is unlikely a new keyboard is going to improve your game play.... no matter how many LED lights it has.  

3) Next up I could tell my game session itself wasn’t exactly smooth. My frame rates were all over the place using the default ‘optimize my settings’ option. I ended up doing more research and tweaking of video settings than I have had to do for a game since my DOS days wringing every last cycle of performance out of 486 systems. That got my frame rate up and more consistent at the expense of some of the eye candy. Most importantly it increased my in game view range. If you are shopping for a system to play this game, ignore the minimum requirements and get above the recommended which is not hard to do, and not terribly expensive as PC game systems go. It is more than a console though. 

4) Sound. Oh my god does Fortnite create a good and effective sound map. Perhaps one of the biggest single changes was when I went to using some ear buds vs speakers. Just putting in buds with stereo helps a great deal knowing which side someone is approaching from. But as most encounters are not inside the subtlety of direction needs to be far better than simple left or right. You really need forward/rear, left/right and up/down information. Without that I was still getting blindsided by folks I often couldn’t find even after they started shooting. I’d hear footsteps and turn 90 degrees to find…. nothing, and die. Older games and more traditional maps avoid open areas like the plague which means encounters tend to be about corners in close quarters. Fortnite happens in much more open spaces. After a bit more research I groked that the digital sorcery they have come up with to drive surround sound through headphones with only two drivers is more than a gimmick. Amazon kindly agreed to ship me a 7.1 capable headset with a discreet retractable mic. Well, at least the shipping was “free”. 

*Side Note* You don’t HAVE to have a PC. The game is available on Android/IOS phones/tablets tablets, the Nintendo switch, PS 4 and Xbox. A PC, or console system supporting keyboard and mouse support are recommended for any kind of ‘serious’ competitive play. But there are plenty of top flight Fortnite players on PS4 and X box using standard controllers. The mobile phone/tablet are definitely more for casual play though. 

So what was the result of all these upgrades and several hours of training? It didn’t exactly turn me into the terminator. That said, the combination of getting a functional frame rate, consistent accurate mouse control, and the ability to determine more accurately where an opponent was approaching from  enabled me to generally deal damage when opportunities arose. This means I could win an occasional straight up 1:1 fight. The mouse, settings for the mouse, and improved frame rates helped with the targeting. Sound helped me stop getting blindsided which is critical to survival. Total cost (not counting the decent gaming rig I already had for VR) was about $180 with most of the cost being the headset. I could have gotten one for about $50 that was wired but I splurged for a decent wireless rig (also steelseries, 2019 acrtics 7 if interested). 

The verdict? I went from being “Harmless” to “Mostly Harmless”. The remaining problem is I still can’t build worth a damn and if I encounter a somewhat competent builder the odds swiftly tilt in their favor. Why? Some things never change. Ever since Quake introduced elevation to their game maps the result was that a hight advantage gives you an attack angle that dramatically increases your chance of landing a damage bonus headshot, it also simultaneously reduces the chance your opponent can do one to you. Add close range and the spread of a shotgun… and yeah, you are unlikely to come out victorious when someone knows how to press a height advantage. 

In Fortnite you can create your height advantage just about anywhere rather than being reliant on understanding the map and relying on terrain/obstacles etc… to provide it.  The speed at which building is possible once you understand it is I think something Epic didn’t really anticipate. Early streams of people playing the game show the game you might expect from a casual understanding of how the game works. Players built little forts and peeked out to snipe at players in other forts. The storm would flush them out and it was a rush to see who could huddle up the fastest or pick someone off that was struggling or out of materials. Current streams show you something entirely different. Somewhere along the way players started to work with the fact that building actions had zero cool down time when laying ‘mats’.  This means there is no time delay before you utilize building elements (or are able to drop the next one) while they build (meaning you can jump on panels you place while they are building. So with practiced key stroke timing, jumps and mouse looking you can drop mats into builds at a ridiculous pace limited only by the speed at which you can hit the right combinations. Then there came the emergence of the aggressive attack oriented building tactic of a ramp rush (followed by shotgun to the head from above) which seems to have been perfected by Ninja (Tyler Blevins). Thus building in Fortnite went from a boring defensive and camping fest, to an aggressive “build fight” climax that is hard to do, and fun to watch. Previously in an FPS shooter two players encountering each other in open terrain meant whoever could click while their mouse cursor was over the other character fastest with the right weapon selected won. In Fornite two capable builders encountering each other immediately build cover and advance at the same time while trying to gain a height advantage. Once the builds meet it turns into a fast paced move and counter move to gain an advantage in which to get off a shot or maneuver your opponent into a trap. Thus what used to be perhaps the single most boring type of encounter in traditional FPS games is often one of the most complex and exciting encounters in Fortnite. Add more interesting locations and things just get more exciting. Add anti building weapons/items and (more controversial) vehicles and its like going from rock, paper, scissors to Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock, Shotgun and then some. 

The combination of all these elements makes for a very fun game to play which is challenging to master on many levels. In summary, you have to choose where to start and how fast to get there. You then have to prioritize between finding weapons\items and collecting materials for building. Spend too much time collecting materials and you have no fire power, maybe no defensive boost (shields) or health healing items. Spend all your time looting and you have no materials to build with. Land in a populated area and you have to juggle these needs with defending/attacking players around you. You have to keep track of the Map and where the safe zone is moving to. How long to get there? Where are other players likely migrating from based on the bus path and current challenges? Do I need to Move? Loot? Or Collect? When spotting someone in the distance do you engage, stalk or avoid? By the time you get to the 3rd or 4th circle the game is down to under 20 players and now you have to decide how to expend all the resources you have been scavenging. Build defensively, proactively? Wait for someone to engage and build aggressively towards them? Try and snipe others in battle? Hide in a bush? Risk giving away your location grabbing a few more materials? From the time you drop off the bus to the time you are eliminated there are rarely more than a few seconds to consider any of this. At first it is overwhelming. Then you master elements and find more nuances awaiting you. Should you waste any time gathering sturdier materials or just wood? What items allow you to collect materials fastest? You only have 5 slots to carry weapons, healing and mobility items. What do you keep? You want that green shotgun or that purple hand cannon? Grenades? Suppressed sniper or heavy assault rifle? Mini quarter shields, half pots, chug jug, slurp juice, Bandages, med kit, Rift to go, Balloons? And remember... the location of and contents of the chests or other items is randomized. You never know what you will be getting and you have to be ready to use weapons and items you are not familiar with, or the best at utilizing. It keeps you engaged and constantly managing multiple elements... and then you hear footsteps approaching which throws your strategy right out the window as you have to make immediate decisions about how to counter the approaching foe. 

Keep in mind all of this is the free stuff. Nothing you can do above makes Epic any money. Just go download the game and dive in. The gameplay on offer is truly free. Further more, paying Epic Games money for the content they sell for Battle Royale will not get you ANY advantage in game play versus other users. It will not unlock any additional game content. Stop and think about that for a minute. This is content that has been pay content in one form or another for years and good FPS shooter games have made companies lots of money through the years. Epic has put together a fantastic multiplayer shooter here with an all new mechanic that breaths new life into the genre. And they are giving it away for free. Yet, somehow, they made 3 billion (Billion with a ‘B’) last year from a Free game. How? If you are interested just pop the red pill and follow me on down the rabbit hole in part 2. 

Review: Jack Ryan... sort of

Amazon's take on Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan, now with Michale Bay.

Short take. If you have read my takes on the rebooted Star Trek movies you can probably stop right now. The conclusion for this show is almost a copy paste with any specific Star Trek Reference with Jack Ryan. The show is good... possibly great. Very entertaining. But it is far more Bay action, than Clancy thriller on display here. On a bonus note... at least they didn't ruin any actual Clancy stories in this manner.

Standard warning on spoilers. I talk about the whole series if that is a problem, turn back now.

The Good:

While they shed the "just an Analyst" front way to fast... they did at least pay serious homage to the roots of the Character and the essence of Clancy stories. At a rough estimation I'd say they inverted the "Analyst to Man of Action" ratio of the Clancy books. In Red October you go almost the entire book with no guns involved. Patriot Games begins and Ends with Ryan wielding arms. Clear and Present Danger goes almost the entire book without Ryan taking direct action. Cardinal of the Kremlin is entirely gun free for Ryan if I recall correctly, as are Sum of All fears (probably the closest in relation to this story arc) and Executive orders. Considering this was a Bay production I find it commendable our Hero doesn't shed his unpretentious exterior for the the first 50 minutes of the first episode. They are never again as restrained. I don't particularly like the take here... but it was done well and Krasinski pulls off the Boy Scout heart of the character well. The same can be said of Wendell Pierce for his rendition James Greer. Suliman as Suleiman is a fantastic antagonist for the story and the arc is solid. Together, these three carry the series on their backs. Shame they killed off Suleiman. They could have played him off as a puppet master they couldn't get to for multiple seasons.

While I think in some respects it was poorly integrated, the side story about the drone pilots was powerful and one I think deserving of more time in future series. This was also another good homage to the source inspiration material. Clancy novels often have side plots like this that are often largely tangental to the main story that are used to show different perspectives.

They did not mangle an actual Clancy story with the bumped up action. Much thanks they did not juice up something like Red October, or Executive orders.

Jim Greer's problems with his career in the Agency do not appear to stem from the fact he is African American but instead rises from the actions/decisions he has made and the politics of 'field operations' vs 'headquarters'. A common theme in Clancy's books. However, a racial element is at least inadvertently if not explicitly implied in the division lead being White offering a promotion to a clearly less deserving Ryan. But that is subtle as these things go. More about that below...

The So So:

While the main 3 are solid characters, the rest of the cast is pretty thin... and even our main three are very much arch types who start and end pretty much the same. Ryan I suppose moves the most... but the rapidity with which they thrust him into action makes it hard to buy the "just an Analyst" husk he sheds was anything more than a speed bump on the way to what they really wanted to do with the character. Once Ali walks through the interrogation room door with the solider Ryan flips the switch... and it stays switched. They could have upped the gut wrenching nature of the decisions Ryan has to make in what to accept in order to do good. They could have done more to show the radicalization of Suleiman and perhaps have him struggle more with the idea that to accomplish his goals he would have to do horrible things. Do more to highlight the atrocities that drive his desire to strike. The story hints as these elements but does not embrace them... the strongest effort seems to be in the Drone pilot side story.

Not super germane but one of the analysts Ryan is working with says something about knowing someone from having been at the farm at the same time. The Farm is the CIA school for field operations. Perhaps I have it wrong but it would be odd to find a Farm graduate in that level of role working with Ryan. I suspect this was done just to get as much "Clancy" in there as possible as references to the Farm are very common in his books. This one does not seem done by someone that really understood what it was about or what the implications were for this character to say that.

The Random sex scenes. Yes its a prime original and its adult. Not complaining to much though. Biggest issue is the just "Now sex is happening" nature of 2 of the 3. The scene with Cathy and Jack is probably the closest to being actually relevant especially if you know where that is likely to be headed from reading the books. Even so... you do not have to have characters get it on to get they are seriously into each other. The scene with Suleiman and his wife comes off as creepy at best, was totally unnecessary if not out of line. The showy oddball "Vegas" sex scene with the drone pilot is pure titillation and has zero relevance. Yeah yeah yeah... I know, I am missing the point. Sex and Explosions is the order of the day for this series. Frankly, in that case... I'd rather have had far more random salacious sex and fewer explosions\gun fights.

The Bad:

Ryan's character set in the middle east disputes of the present do not ring as true to me as the Cold Warrior of Clancy. As I said above they danced with the notion of nuance but never really embraced it. At best there is conflict in the show over HOW we should be involved in monitoring and intervening in the Middle east... there is no question regarding if we should be involved at all. For USSR and WARSAW pact vs USA and NATO that kind of certainty worked. For the current situation, not so much. There is legitimate room to debate whether or not being there and doing the things we do is the right way to go. To have truly embraced the gamut of the situation there should have included a serious discussion regarding whether or not we should be involved at all... in particular I think a strong thread should have been about whether or not our involvement is self defeating if our goal is to reduce terrorist action against us. That someone who has reached the point Suleiman is at needs to be stopped is not up for debate. But the idea that our actions in stopping or preventing such a person are in fact creating more just like them is a seriously dark rabbit hole just crying out to be elevated here.

Having the CIA running around the streets of the US with guns drawn. No.... No... and NO. In general the focus on guns drawn and explosions action involving CIA operations. I mean seriously... the whole Clancy 'thing' was going away from the James Bond misconception of intelligence work. Elevating the painstaking high stakes behind the scenes work that goes on to make for successful intelligence operations. Once you get past the first episode or two, this rest of this series pretty much tosses all that into a trash can, douses it in gasoline and gleefully tosses a Micheal Bay inspired match on it.

The smarmy awkward thing with another department Given lead on the Suleiman task force, then offering a lead of that task force to obviously under qualified Ryan. Ryan is 4 years in, isn't even the lead of the financial team he is own before Greer arrives. These were probably intended to induce tension and drama but for me they were just awkward and unnecessary. They also opened the door on racial issues but pointedly didn't address them. Without these two scenes Greer is just on the outs politically and Ryan is only offered advancement when Greer goes to Moscow leaving his former post open. Less drama... also less distracting from the case. Less problematic. I mean... if they wanted to tackle racial discrimination in the work place fine, plenty there to discuss.  But I don't see that here. I just see a very insensitive blind eye/ignorance towards what is being depicted. If done intentionally I expect there there would have been explicit dialog elevating it as such.

Conclusion:

Action heavy schlock for the most part... but as far as Action Schlock goes it is damned entertaining and the plot and character motivations are for all their flaws a good bit more complex than the typical red white and blue kill the bad guy stuff. That said there are plenty of tired jingoistic tropes for a "Team America" type send up here as well. The Jack Ryan here is somewhat related to the original Clancy character but almost all else is pretty much the antithesis of a Clancy story which is frustrating if you are a fan of the Clancy books as I am. I am by no means saying they should have no action. In the end Jack Ryan is a ridiculously over done perfect at everything studly do-right.

What would make it better in my opinion?

If they really wanted to do Clancy, they should have played more to the "Analyst side" and the slow burn of intelligence gathering, uncertainty etc... Ryan working the details, Case officers making contacts etc... and slowly unraveling the story of Suleiman in a way that paints a story that is inevitable in its conclusion of how and why he became what he is.  Highlighting the grim cycle of creating terrorist through how we hunt them. The role of systemic inequality. Yes he needs to be stopped. I do not think that should be questioned in the least. I am not looking for a Stockholm syndrome story approach where we are asking the readers to sympathize and think his actions are justified. More... there obviously are those in the world that DO sympathize, that do think his actions are justified.  If we don't understand that, and how it happens... how the hell are we ever going to stop the cycle? And most of all.... I would have taken the ratio of Ryans action in the first episode and put it across the whole season. That is to say he wouldn't have been in action until the very end. The opening episode could have had Suleiman released "just a body guard" and Ryan could have had something niggling in their interaction that gave him what he needed to dig through more on him and uncover the truth that they had the guy... and let him walk. The Paris subplot can be done entirely without him physically involved. Same with trying to track down Suleiman's wife. Having him and Greer go rouge on American soil in the final chapter in order to "save the world" I am good with... more or less as is. Would it be as popular? I doubt it. But I think it would be a far more powerful story... and one that could help educate a wider audience about the nuances involved in our current Middle East involvement.

Kavanaugh Vote: Constitutional crisis live?

Sitting here this morning listening on and off again to the speeches from the floor of the Senate leading up to and including the vote I am left thinking a few things.

1. The only thing I am certain of Bret Kavanaugh is that he is neither the perfectly vile puppet of the white house he is made out to be by the Democrats nor is he the shinning saint of judicial officialdom he is made out to be by the Republicans. Seriously, each side could have stepped up and just said "what they said" for the previous speaker from their party. The speaking points were almost universally the same on either side. It is like they were talking about two different people.

2. I do not believe the Republicans would be voting in party lock step if there was clear irrefutable evidence of Ford, Ramirez, or Swetnick's accusations. There is no court case. There is no video. There is no smoking gun. Simply put there is no legal standing of the accusations. There are old memories, lots of hearsay and innuendo. Could it have happened? Yes. Did it happen? It. Is. Not. Clear. There was enough doubt to cause a hiccup with Flake's balk and the deal he required to clear his conscious in letting the vote get out of committee and to the floor of the Senate. Could more investigation possibly have helped? Yes. But how much is enough? There were supposedly 7 FBI background checks of Kavanaugh. If you don't think they are doing their job, what is an 8th going to prove? Or a 9th?

3. If the claims of Ford were whole cloth fabrications by the Democrats the story would have been tighter. This was not a story to hang their hat on. It was a story that drove them, not the other way around. That said, the timing of the break of the vs other opportunities to request investigations into the allegation does stink. If Senate Democrats request that investigation into the incident in closed deliberations and it turns up un-definitive hearsay it likely doesn't reach the public.  It likely also does not create the environment in which the follow on accusations from Ramirez and Swetnick emerged. It certainly doesn't cause the highly public extra FBI investigation into the accusations. 

4. The fact there were follow on accusations concerns me. More than concerns me. One person being manipulated (or choosing) to upend their life for a character assassination attempt is one thing. 3 accusers, From different sources, and clearly not coordinated? Again... do you think an orchestrated attempt by the Democrats includes Avenatti? The guy does not come across as positive for either side as far as I can tell. He is a walking meme for why people hate Lawyers. In court Kavanaugh faces almost no risk based on the facts of the cases. In the court of public opinion... that is a different matter. As for whichever side you fall on in the public court verdict... which court do you want to decide your fate should something happen to you? Which standard do you want the Senate to work based on? No... that doesn't make it easier. The process of government is hard. For me? There is enough doubt in what was presented that I find myself rather amazed the Republican's did not simply run down to the next candidate on the list. Conservative judges are not a rare commodity. That they did not concerns me far more than the appointment of Kavanaugh. The Trump campaign changed the game of what ends a campaign and it has now officially bled over into other areas. What previously was enough to sink someone in the political arena is no longer assured it will do so in the future. The DC game is changing, not for the better, and that should be of great concern.

5. Any Republican staunchly holding to the professional credentials argument that there is no reason to oppose this nomination needs to look hard in the mirror over the Merrick Garland fiasco. You can chase back a series of events on this one that land pretty hard on both sides of the isle. Obama was a part of a Democrat failed effort to Fillibuster a Bush nominee (Alito) which can be seen as a clear precursor to McConnell's scorched earth policy with Garland and nuclear option by which they removed the filibuster as an option for opposing a Supreme Court Nomination. But don't think this started there.

6. Guilty until proven innocent does not mean the accuser is a lying sack of shit until proven otherwise. It also doesn't mean the accused is a saint unless proven otherwise. Sexual harassment is a particularly vexing legal quandary in this nation. It is overwhelmingly perpetrated against women. The victim is always in the uphill role as the accuser in our system. A large portion of such cases revolve on hearsay and thus often have little or no chance in the legal system. Prosecuting a current case (even with DNA evidence) can be hard in cases where there may have been consent and or impaired judgement, much less a 30+ year old case that was never reported and is past the statute of limitations. Men have disproportionately held all the positions of authority in which cases of accusations of sexual harassment are judged and thus have set the precedents which are so hard for the accuser to meet. This is not some femi-nazi screed statement. This is simple fact. Doctors, Lawyers, Police, Judges are historically male positions and are still dominated by men today. What is the solution? Hell if I know... mandatory constantly cloud synced body cameras for everyone?

7. For those suddenly 'worried for their sons'.... The worst (WORST) case false accusation rate for sexual harassment I could find is around 1 in 10. That is for those who most strongly want to call out the problem of false accusations the best they can pick their studies is that the valid accusation rate is at LEAST 90% and the false accusation rate at MOST 10%. I'd say you have far more to worry about for your Daughters. It is estimated in 1000 cases of sexual assault, only 10% will be reported. Of those 100 cases, only 10 will go to trial. That 10% worst case scenario means 10 men at worst in that 100 cases where an accusation was made got falsely accused. 80 legitimately accused didn't even have to go to trial. Somewhere between 800 and 900 (depending on how many were false accusations of the full 1000...) faced no consequences at all. And of the 10 that go to trail more left without being found guilty than did. So for 1000 incidents of sexual harassment less than 10 perpetrators will face legal consequences.  900-990 victims, yet less than 10 perpetrators pay any kind of legal penalty of at least having to face a trial, fewer still face a sentence. I know as a nation we are bad at math... but sheesh.

8. Questions about his past behavior aside. His professional stance regarding presidential indictment is worrying. However, to be clear, he is not saying a president cannot be held accountable for their crimes. He is saying that to do so they must first be removed from office. That while in office anything short of impeachable offenses must wait until they are out of office. This is not just because of the Mueller investigation. This view basically says that if a president (ANY president) has the backing of congress they can do anything that will not lose them that backing as congress in this view is the only body that can remove the president from office. This is an area where the founders fell short in the creation of the Constitution. They did not foresee what was going to happen with party politics.  Party politics effectively links the Congress and President in a way not considered in the original system of checks and balances. This was as much of a problem when Obama led with a Democrat majority in both houses as it is now with Trump and a Republican congress. Of a secondary concerns is that whether or not the hearings should have gone there or not... he lied under oath to the US Senate. He could have refused to answer. He could have chosen raw honesty. Instead he chose to deceive with explanations of flatulence and drinking games for terms that were easily proven to be about sex. It is almost certain he at best omitted the truth in answer to questions regarding his drinking habits at the time.  People who lie about their drinking problems in the past tend to have problems in the present. Even if he doesn't. A high court official lying under oath to the US Senate (WHATEVER THE DAMN REASON)  is NOT a good sign for what is to come on the highest court. The irony is he himself made this argument as a member of the Ken Star investigation of Clinton over the Lewinsky affair. Instead of following his own belief as stated during that investigation, he instead emulated the man they were investigating. And in this case I sincerely doubt there ever be an apology for having done it.

9. Life appointment with no limits on Supreme Court Justices needs to end. The massive increase in life span since the founders times and refusal of justices to yield the bench as they move past their prime in almost all cases means it is time to set limits. A decade max. Social Security retirement age as mandatory time to step down. And I would be in favor of that for any government position. That is approximately half a generation time max for any one person to preside over the highest court of the Land. Or hell... lets go 12 years max. And while we are at it limit House Representatives, Senators, AND Presidents to the same. This would allow a third term for presidents which would be an increase. But it would severely curtail the decades long tenure of congress critters that has become more the norm than the exception.

10. Jeff Flake said the single most frightening thing I have heard in a long time. Perhaps it was the most frightening thing I have ever heard in my lifetime. "Would you have done this if you were running for re-election?". Flake in response " No. There is no currency in working across the isle ". A US Senator clearly stating there is no value to working across the isle as a general rule if you hope to get re-elected is an extremely frightening state of affairs. Congress has to work as a whole in the interest of the Nation as a WHOLE. That is how it was designed.

11. The Media and by extension "We The People" need to get our collective shit together. Fox and Sinclair are clearly aligned Republican. Many major national outlets are clearly aligned Democrat. Facebook and the rest of the internet first newcomers are whatever the hell you want them to be because they reflect and confirm your biases as function of their design to hook you and draw you deeper and deeper into their systems. As a result,  there is no one clear voice looking to hold ALL to account. Elon Musk is in the midst of going full Howard Hughes (Eccentric genius Billionaires should never go "Full Howard Hughes") ... but one of his nuttso rants about founding a media outlet dedicated to verification of truth resonates with me. Its nuts... pretty much no realistic way to do it. But damn it would be nice if there was a nice easy one stop shop where you, and your worst enemy, could both rest assured and agree you were getting a clear unbiased scoop on a given issue.  Social media is not the cause of this problem. It is simply a new lens that gives us a new perspective on news. Broadcast news of the past wasn't any better... take the rose tinted glasses off already on that... they were just less questioned. And a bit more centrist... at least to the majority culture in power. The days of Edward R Murrow and Walter Cronkite had plenty of problems too.... we just were not as "Woke" to them. In many ways we have it better today. The problem is we suffer from to much of a good thing. Pick a side, any side... and a few quick google searches will lead you to like minded folks. This is insanely bad because it means almost zero chance of ever having your assumptions and world view challenged in any meaningful way. This is potentially catastrophic. The bubble phenomenon is something I largely think is leading to an ever increasing calcification of our political views that drive elections and thus party politics and that has led to the present situation where a Senator says there is no currency in working across the isle. It has broken the process by which the party system has worked despite itself to make our democratic institutions of government function... and that in turn stands a chance to break our government itself. We are not there yet. But we continue making progress in that direction. It will get easier and easier to continue in this direction... and harder and harder to course correct. Congress is not a failing of the parties. It is a reflection of us. The Media is not some conspiracy corporate menace manipulating us. It again is a reflection of us... and attempt to give us what we want, or at least what we respond to in the way necessary to make them money. If we as a society figure out how to shift our views on this... these institutions will follow suit. But it is obviously easier said than done. Whether the tail wags the dog, or the other way around, you still have to make the change. And the party and media are both mechanisms through which we inform ourselves and through which our desires are reflected. But they exhibit inertia just like physical things. Change of this nature is not easy.  But it isn't all bad. That ability to join like minded people also means it is FAR easier to make people aware of your point of view exists even at the same time it is ever easier for folks to tune you out. Creating these communities affirms that your view exists outside of just you. It affirms that there are others like you. In the case of Neo Nazi's that is bad. In the case of sexual harassment/assault survivors it can be a beautiful, life saving thing.

12. A prediction. Should a Democratic candidate take the White House in 2020 with a Democratic Congress there will be talk about expanding the Supreme court in order to appoint more liberal Justices to counter balance the overly Conservative makeup we are now about to have. The number of Justices has changed before. They can change again. Congress has the power to change the number. It will take a willing president as even if a Veto is over ruled, the nominations must come from the Executive Branch. The last time it was attempted was by FDR as a part of trying to secure support for the New Deal.

3D Printing: Rapid Prototyping

One thing leads to another... and suddenly....

As I may have mentioned before I often get asked.... so what is a 3d printer actually good for? Well if you look at this picture and follow along with me I may be able to walk you through one thing they are just fantastic for. Rapid Prototyping. 

Over on the left you will see a pale green bulbous plastic thingamabob with a hole in it. This is half of a doggie poop bag dispenser sort of shaped like a bone that is missing its other half. What happened to it? Don't know. Fell off during a walk we think. Anyway... doggie poop back dispenser with only one half isn't much use now is it. If I were a normal person I would have gotten on Amazon or headed to Petsmart and just gotten a new one. But....... 3D PRINTER. #I_CAN_DO_IT #MakeItYourOwn etc... etc.... etc....  

Right, much scrambling in fusion 360 later produces the missing half. You won't find it on here because.... shocker... it fell off too. Ok... Fusion has a nice feature that auto does threads... so I just make a whole new doggie poop bag holder. Move to the right from patient zero we can follow the home brewed epidemic as it spreads. The White, Blue and White, green and blue and first all blue.... errr.... creations. Are indeed functional 3d printed doggie poop bag dispensing thingamabobs... and they work just fine and dandy.... 4 iterations into it. First one was the half that didn't work. Then I made the other half... the one that actually dispenses. Oval hole, roughly size of the example. Check, handle.... hmmmm this will work. Nope.... to skinny to fit a Carabiner... kinda flimsy to. This will work... Nope... big enough but Carabiner doesn't move well in it... making it bigger gets awkward so make it round. This will work... success. Well work on the supports a little. Different material? Ok... this works. There are several of these steps not pictured. Gift to Mom, first fully functional one is sitting in my window at work etc... but you get the idea. Towards the middle of the table the original plan has been executed and a fully working prototype has been made and refined. Let us not really think about the cost comparison when it comes to filament vs the 5$ish cost likely to replace it... if that. This was fun. 

However... that is only half the story. We are only at the middle of the table when things get really fun. My Wife was in the midst of making one of her diaper changing stations with nice fleece, storage and it all folds up nicely. So... she asked if I would make one of these for diaper bag duty in her latest baby shower offering. Sure. 

Hmmmmmmm...... Baby's. How about I add a baby powder holder on the bottom of the bag holder? Two in one. Does it make sense? Who cares? Because...... yep.... you guessed it.... 3D PRINTER!!!! Now my simple two sided tube with a hole in it and a ring on it gets a bit more complicated. The simple end now needs to connect to the new piece so it gets re-designed. Then I need a reservoir to hold some powder. And the powder needs a way to get dispensed so I need  a cap. That has open and closed states. Preferably without requiring lots of hands in the midst of the joyous rigamarole that is changing a poopy diaper with a squirmy little 'un. No need to over think it, Johnson's has had this licked for ages. Twisty cap that aligns closed one way, open the other. Easy peasy. Or not. 

The connector is easy enough, just have to get the dimensions right and do the threading tool right... the second time. Why get it right the first time? To easy that way, no fun. Ok, reservoir. Now I learn the revolve tool to make a rounded contour on the lower bit for the cap to go over. How big to make the holes? How many holes? Here is where the rapid part of rapid prototyping comes in. Of course... I can't test the holes because I can't get the tolerances right for a cap made out of PLA or PETG to snap over the end of the reservoir without snapping bits off. Ack. In the midst of trying to do this I have enough success to realize that eyeballing it to figure out if the holes are aligned isn't going to cut it so the bottom reservoir and cap grow some bumps. The bump on the cap stays between the bumps on the reservoir (if you don't get to spin happy at least). At one end opened, at the other closed. Also figured out I need larger holes, and a better alignment for closed/open. Square pattern(easy) gives way to round (easy now that I know how to do it). But... won't do any good if you can't get the cap on the gosh darned thing without breaking it in the process. 

There is this stuff called TPU. Flexible filament. Those who know 3d printing are now cringing. It is darned useful stuff. But.... its primary attribute of flexibility is present when trying to get it to feed through your printer as well. Yeah.... let us just say it is a wet noodle when you want something a bit more stiff. I have avoided it. But now I have an actual problem that it can solve. I learned something. I was right about staying away from it. It can and does lead to some painful jams. I had one that was so goofed up in the midst of this the filament was both pulling in and pushing out at the same time on one side of the gear. Tell me how the hell that happens? Cause I still can't figure it out. Thankfully I got it all out of there somehow and finished the job. And this stuff is addictive. In the midst of this I designed an 'extruded' shock absorber to go on 20x20 extrusion to keep my baby CNC router from walking around on the work bench when it was doing its poor imitation of CNC wood cutting. But that is a story for another time. 

Much easier idea... some squares, concentric circles and a single extrude, made a second that was a bit squishier for options... even printed on the first attempt. 

Now we are getting to the far right of the table and we see some taller 3d printed thingamabobs that dispense both poop bags and baby powder with a functioning sealed cap.... ish. Johnson's baby powder containers are not exactly perfect seals either. Mine is not as quite as good... but it is 100% better at dispensing poop bags so take that Johnson and Johnson's! 

Now we are all the way to the right and you see some silverish with blue bottomed "production" units of the "Diaper Bag Buddy". Now we are done. 

All the bits and bobs. Flexible Cap to the far left. Powder Reservoir next, Connector, and finally, the Poop Bag dispenser

All assembled and ready to go

Open

Closed

Right????

Ummmm..... "How about one that dispenses dog treats instead of the baby powder?" Yes dear... coming right up, because......  3D PRINTER!

The silly nature of this particular venture aside, you have to sit back in amazement if you have any real appreciation of what exactly it takes to iterate a real design. Prior to having something like FDM printers (now more likely SLA, or SLM) available could make the above represent quite a chunk of change to walk through some variations and ideas to get to a finished product. Until the patents ran out and the RepRap crowed launched the whole home cooked 3d printer world even what I did here could have cost thousands, tens of thousands if you counted the cost of the machine itself.  That I can do this in my home now for a few hundred bucks is simply astounding.

If you want to make your own, you can download the files at MyMiniFactory. 

State of AR: Magic Leap has leapt

So Magic leap has finally gotten out of the shadows and is starting to ship a dev kit. The Verge had an interesting take on it you can read here. If you haven't read it and are not familiar with the Microsoft Hololens then the rest of this article will not make much sense.

As someone who has spent a bit of effort professionally trying to figure out what to do with this technology I take some exception to the overall take here. Yes, Magic Leap oversold their capability. Yes, they are behind in some ways compared to Microsoft. But... based on what I am reading here and in other takes, they are ahead in a few crucial ways.

1) A 45% increase in field of vision is huge. Is it still to small for what the dream is? Most certainly, but gains in resolution require monumental gains in processing power and this is a new realm and its form factor is working on smart phone type hardware budgets with top end desktop graphic card needs. If you really need the field of view Meta is waiting for you with open arms and a tethered headset. But being free to roam with a significant increase in field of view is a (pardon me) "leap forward". Despite its limited field of view the capability of the Hololens is still immense, and for properly focused applications you quickly forget the "window". The problem is a lot of AR is trying to do VR, or AR on the scale of VR and it just isn't what it is good at.... and yet all the obvious use cases seem to point you in that direction. You can work around it... but there is nothing obvious about finding what those keys and tricks are. The further away that field of view gets from your focal area the less it will matter in true AR applications as your periphery is able to distinguish fewer and fewer details. 

2) Getting weight off the head. The biggest single draw back to the Hololens in my opinion is the learning curve in getting it on and off. Even after more than a year of getting to do this it is not a simple thing to get it on 'right'. It is easier, and it is quicker, but it isn't simple. Worse. Even at its best, the weight is problematic. I have worn the thing hundreds of times, and gotten to put it on first time users heads a similar amount. It is an 'interesting' solution to the problem... but it isn't fantastic. Steam punk aesthetic aside, the fact the magic leap looks as easy to put on as a pair of goggles and has all the weight of the battery and computing hardware not on your head is a huge deal in the ergonomics front. I haven't gotten to use it yet but it is possible this could be enough to get it from "impressive but not quite there" form factor of Hololens, to "marginally acceptable". Things are only going to get better so long as development on this class of hardware continues.

3) Inside out Self contained 6DOF tracking of your head and a hand controller??? Did I really read that right? If that is correct and you can reach around in space with a controller with confidence approaching the Oculus Rift/HTC Vive hand controllers.... then you have consistent input via the controller (buttons, pad, combinations) and you are in a whole other world from the gaze, bloom, pinch and "idiot talking to idiot software" interface of Hololens. If you can use two controllers at once this thing could be the killer combination AR needs. 6DOF freedom of movement in a mobile package with inside out 6DOF hand tracking and consistent varied interface input capability is simply put, a MASSIVE "leap" past Hololens. Hololens starts off on the wrong foot with the ergonomics and the disappointing field of view. But the dagger in the heart is the frustrating lack of efficient user interface abilities. You are just way to limited and the interface interaction success rate needs to be 99.9% instead of 90ish in ideal circumstances, and trending much worse in less ideal environments. Even so it still has massive potential due to the lack of anything else readily available with its capabilities.

That said there is a general take the author had in this article that I agree whole heartedly with. It is concerning they don't have the mind blowing app/experience to show off. Now is the time to knock people's socks off if you have something and suffice it to say that is not the reaction of the tech world at this point.

However... This stuff is new... and no matter how big their team, they are isolated and in a bubble and have been acting in a lot of secrecy which seriously impedes the ability to find the right match. A LOT of folks are looking for a way to leverage this tech, and where there is money in it few are wanting to talk with each other about it because there is a sense of at some point this is going to take off on an exponential curve and anyone who is on the ground floor stands to reap HUGE rewards.

In this fractured environment the newness of the interface is extremely daunting. There are no established best practices. There is no magic bullet. Many existing design tropes simple do not translate. So what is happening is you are seeing the birth of a new machine/human interface paradigm in real time. Keyboard, Mouse and GUI was not an overnight thing, it took decades. AR is starting to climb the curve. It is a pity Magic leap didn't 'leap' first on the scene. From what I am reading there is a decent chance if they could have launched this at the same time as Microsofts effort it may have had enough steam with the boost in attention to AR to reach a critical mass event to launch the field into the mainstream. Granted.... not at these prices... and not without a fully realized interface and killer application.

Nostradumus: Tesla Predictions

Not a typo... NostraDUMUS as in dummy. Future predictions are always fraught.

Next week sees the start of Q3 of the calendar year which means the Q2 results for Tesla. If you have been keeping track that means an important question is going to get answered. Have they reached 5k per week or not? This is the goal set by Musk that is needed to reach profitability over the course of Q3 and Q4.

Today Tesla opened up the option for all current reservation holders to confirm their orders and make their build selections.

As tea leave signs go, I'd say this one augers well for the news at the Q2 call. Here is why...

There are ~300k + reservation holders. Those wishing to commit need to drop down another $2500 and select their build options among what is currently available (35k base model is not available yet). This goes 1 of 3 ways. Very few bite. Most bite. or Some bite. 1 in 3 biting would be 100k committed orders and at 5k a week production would represent roughly 6 months of production which neatly matches up with predicting numbers for Q3 and 4 so lets go there.

100k committed orders at $2500 nets a cool 250 million to Tesla. Not a bad take for 3 days. The current order options have been generating something around a $50k average sale cost. So somewhere north of 250 million in down payments leading to something around 5 billion (corrected earlier goof with 125 billion...) in sales across the next two quarters assuming they can manage a 5k average weekly production throughout the 2 quarters.

And if that all goes to plan then Elon Musk gets a lot of soiled underpants from those shorting Tesla for a Xmas present when Q4 results show Tesla in the Black. Probably gets some for Xmas in July if they are at or exceeding 5k a week and are above expectations on cash burn for Q2.

So the above is what I think more or less will be how things go barring some major new surprise. For example the tent production line blows/burns down literally or metaphorically (atrocious production quality issues perhaps?).

How could things go better? Higher take rate on higher optioned cars... but I doubt it. The notice sent out says 2-4 months to fulfill the orders. That seems to indicate they think less than 100k folks will commit with the current more expensive build options. Unless they have supireme confidence they can hit well above 5k a week production levels in the next 4 months. 100k+ takers ensures a longer period of $50k average sale price which drives profitability higher faster. But takes longer to clear the backlog before they can get to the lower spec builds.

How could things go worse? Very light commitment from the remaining pool and a mass exodus of reservation holders pulling their deposit back. I think that combination is what could cause Tesla to bleed out if they can't get from where they are to the lower build spec that is the foundation of the 3 concept.

Taking Musk's claim at face value that 5k a week production level means Tesla reaches profitability but thinking the rate to make the 35k build not eat them alive will have to be higher. I think the path forward for them is to bootstrap profitability at lower production rates with higher per vehicle sales then continue to ramp production to the point the base model sales and resulting lower avg sale price won't sink them. That said, one thing that is almost certain is that Tesla is not going to see 30% margins on their sales long term. That was based on early ideas of hitting 10k a week with a higher level of automation keeping cost of production per car down. Some of that is definitely gone with the removal of automation and increase in manual line work. But 30% margin leaves a lot of room to fall down from predictions and still make a decent profit.

Hard Predictions:

• Weekly production numbers a little shy of 5k a week... say 4750 +-100
• 50-60k commitments from the current window so 125-150 million in deposits
• Insignificant drop/no change in overall reservation churn (IE no large block exodus of reservation holders)
• ~4-5 billion in sales over the second half of the year
• Announcement of base model availability date at the end of the year leading to a significant net increase in reservations
• Massive furor will ensue over the fact the federal rebate will be at least half of what it is now by the time the baseline models begin delivery because the two quarters after the 200k delivery will be taken up delivering higher order commitments being made right now. IE no one will get a sub 30k model 3 after rebates. 
• Assuming the tent production line doesn't fall on its face... Tesla is close in Q3 and makes it into the black for Q4.  

Note to self... set alarm for January to come back and check on these...