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October 4, 2019October 4, 2019

Video games to play on Halloween for people who don’t enjoy survival horror

You know the feeling. Around the halloween season. When all your friends are talking about replaying Silent Hill 3. A dread takes hold of you. It’s not that you can’t stomach horror. You can handle it just fine. But sometimes these survival horror games can be so slow. It’s one thing to be scared out of your pants and quite another to snooze off on the sofa after there has been no action on the screen for 30 minutes.

Fear not. You are not alone. Survival horror is not for everyone. But we can understand that haloween does call for something special. Regular,run of the mill platformers won’t just do during this time. We are going for atmosphere instead.

Here’s our list of games for you to play on Halloween if you don’t like survival horror.

Castlevania — The essential halloween game. Dracula, werewolves, specters. It’s got it all. Pick up one of the oldies for 2D platforming or go with the Lords of the shadow for some 3D action. On Halloween you can’t go wrong with castlevania.
Ultimate ghost and goblins — Another classic. You are a knight starting off your quest to rescue the princess from the dragon, in a graveyard. But there’s a slight problem. You are in your underwear. But be brave! Fight the embarrassment and then defeat the spirits to acquire new armour. You are going to need it.
Prey (2006)- Step into the shoes of Tommy. You are abducted by aliens and have found yourself on sphere, the alien spaceship where all manner of horrible creatures and machinations reside. On the surface Prey is a first person shooter. But it has a depth of story and gameplay that is deep. It was released almost a decade ago but still feels fresh.
Resident Evil 4 — RE 4 came at a time when third person shooters were still struggling to find their foothold. Released on Gamecube it received critical reception from the fans and the journalists and was later on ported to almost all gaming platforms. In RE 4 you’ll not be fighting zombies. This time you’ll be pitted against an occult clan that goes by the name of Los Illuminados and has infected the entire village with Las Plagas,the virus.
Bioshock : An underwater metropolis. A famed industrialist. A dream. Now turned into a nightmare. Bioshock is an atmospheric story warning against ambition taken too far.
Metroid: Featuring Samus Aran, the famed bounty hunter from outer space. You fight bizarre alien life forms. Acquire new weapon upgrades. Solve puzzles. Do a lot of backtracking. Like castlevania, Metroid game is a must play on halloween. But the thing is, once you’ve started the game it’s not going to let you go until it’s done. Make sure you’re ready for it.
XCOM: Aliens have attacked. Now humanity has no choice but to work together to ward off the threat. But even with life threatening danger ,there is still a lot of cunning, behind the scenes politics going on. You have to manage finances. Recruit new soldiers. Promote R&D. Rescue key people. Investigate alien technology and lifeforms. Counter metaphysical attacks. Can you save the world?
Fallout 3/New Vegas : The worst has happened. A Nuclear Holocaust. The civilization has collapsed. You can’t stay locked up in your underground vault forever. As a new adventurer you have to venture out in wasteland. Find your way through the radioactive environments and somehow survive. And to top it off you’ve got 30’s swinging jazz playing in the background, that tries to make the world look a bit rosier but ends up turning the atmosphere more creepy. Can you survive?
Metal Gear Solid 2 : Another game with the shadow of nuclear warfare looking in the background. You play as Solid Snake. And your goal is to infiltrate an enemy vessel and collect evidence for Metal Gear Ray. But things don’t go according to the script. There’s an accident followed by a huge public scandal. Now your job is to clean up the mess. As quietly as possible.
The walking dead: A game that is all about zombies. They are everywhere. You have to run from them and live to fight another day. Unlike other zombie games though the walking dead is a text based adventure. But that doesn’t mean it’s short on suspense.

Special mention Breath of fire 3

With the onset of winters you crave for something that you can play by the fireside. Breath of fire 3 on the PSP was the one for me. Ancient dragons, a rich lore, nice leveling up system. Towns to explore, new party members to recruit. I started the game in October. Kept on playing till March. Little by little. One random encounter at a time.

One last thought before I take your leave. Halloween is a season to celebrate the outlandish. And what can be more outlandish than playing a video game you love without caring if it matches well with the theme of the season?

Doesn’t have to be horror. Doesn’t have to be suspense. Don’t have to have the undead. What kind of games do you like to play on Halloween? Let me know in the comments.

Workrock Entertainment

WRE

workrockin@gmail.com

October 3, 2019

Why do research on EM waves?

“There’s a lot we can learn from EM waves that can help us in future for energy conservation, generation as well as transmission. This is an area of research that should be picked by universities.”

https://www.reddit.com/user/workrockin/comments/dajisx/where_does_the_energy_go_when_two_em_waves/f2956ha?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

October 1, 2019October 2, 2019

Thor in Avengers A Day

Although Thor has been frequently used in video games, most recently in God of war in which he’s referenced throughout the story and teased in a mysterious cutscene at the end, he is best recognized as Thor Odinson in Marvel universe.

With a string of movies in which he plays the lead character and his appearances in The Avengers, Thor’s popularity is at an all time high. In the Endgame he’s the only character who can stand up to the tyranny of Thanos. If not for the infinity stones he would have been the most likely character to defeat him.

[And perhaps even with the infinity stones, if only he had aimed for the head]

While Thor is an Asgardian God, the movies have tried to humanize him. And they have done it quite well. He cracks jokes, plays video games and like to beat baddies with some Led Zeppelin playing in the background. How cool is that?

People like Thor. But it’s one thing to be a good character in comics and films and quite another to be a good character to play. Thankfully Thor has not disappointed in this respect. If we go by the three Marvel Ultimate Alliance games that have featured him, he has lived up to the expectations of being one of the most powerful characters that you can have in your party.

In Marvel Ultimate Alliance, he’s adept at both Melee and magic attacks. Using his Mjølnir to charge at and smash his enemies. Or using it as a hose to spray (yes literally spray!) thunder on his opponents.

He can use summons to cast lightning or conjure up whirlwinds. Besides dealing offensive damage, Thor is also a decent support character with abilities that can restore the health of the entire party while at the same time electrocuting all the enemies on the screen. Despite being a God, Thor is a team player through and through. At least in Ultimate alliance games. Here’s a good demonstration of Thor’s abilities on the battlefield

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhC77fDDvXE

Still the ultimate alliance games are a hack and slash adventure. His depiction is more realistic. But Thor has also managed to make a good impression in the Lego Marvel superheros game too. The focus in these games is not so much as combat as it the funny dialog, platforming and quest for collectibles.

Like Marvel ultimate alliance games ,Thor can fly at will, but in Lego games the world is more suited for exploration. An environment that makes full use of his flight abilities. It is a joy to scale buildings and cruise over volcanoes and riversides. If you ever get tired doing that, it’s also fun crashing into enemies from the sky.

Here’s a free Roam gameplay of Lego Marvel superheros showcasing Thor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYU9lJZLwcc

Now as compared to comics some of the abilities and scenes don’t really translate that well in video games. For sure Thor has Superhuman strength , speed,agility and control over elemental forces of thunder. But since all of that is so fun his alter ego Dr Blake is usually given the boot.

While in comics Thor can travel faster than light and go back in time I don’t really think that these powers would make it to a video game.

Marvel’s avengers :A day promises to be a different kind of superhero action game. Its taking the RPG and hack and slash elements from Ultimate Alliance games while adding the free roam theme from the Lego games, and yet it feels like a proper action game. The moveset of the characters, from what I’ve seen may have been from a God of War or Devil May Cry. I guess the best comparison that can be made is with saints Row 4. WIth a more serious tone that is.

Thor with his ability to fly, would make for an excellent character to explore the universe of A day. I can’t wait to play as him. When I’m done with hulk that is.

With such a relatively small amount of transcontinental internet cables, how can billions of users interact simultaneously and almost immediately across the globe?

First let’s talk about capacity provisioning.

Transcontinental lines don’t connect individual users directly. Instead it’s through a series of gateways.

A telecommunication network can broadly be divided into three parts

The backbone
The backhaul
The edge

Normal users like you and me interact with the edge. The edge bandwidth is responsible for serving the users within its range.

For example the wifi router in your home is an edge that is responsible for providing connectivity to all the people within its range. Hence the edge device must be able to accommodate the traffic of it’s users.

So is the telecommunication tower that provides 4G / 5G network.

Going one step up we have backhaul networks. These are set up by the ISPs who lease internet bandwidth from the backbone. Backhauls are gateways for the edge to the global internet lines.

Backhauls are adsl cables, fiber optic in cities, or even wireless networks that talk with base stations.

[The backbone is only responsible for talking with backhauls. It is the responsibility of the backhaul to distribute the internet. ]

There are two implications of this architecture.

The burden of individual connectivity/the last mile connection as it is called, is entirely upon the local ISP. The backbone is done with its job at the termination point (which is usually a coast, which is also why you’ll often notice the coastal cities to have much larger bandwidth than mainlands or on the other extreme no connectivity at all)
If services from a single backbone strand is not able to meet the demands of ISP customers,more lines may be acquired. This happens all the time. People are continuously increasing backbones and at present we have 300-400(difficult to tell the exact number) of these cables.

Finally we come to backbone. The fiber optic cables that provide internet to ISP. These cables are extremely efficient. Each strand is capable of carrying gigabits of data and the cable is composed of multiple strands. The capacity of fiber optic is way more than what we can consume or create.

[And by the way to increase the speed further you don’t even need to replace the cable, a change in modulation scheme will work just as well, so fiber optic cables as carriers of light are future proof,unless a completely new and better technology comes along]

The Internet is decentralized. Thus any part of the network that we discussed can be upgraded whenever limitations arise. From the edge to the backbone without affecting the network as a whole.

Now with the architecture in place the answer to your question about speed is that users are able to interact with each other instantaneously(technically there is always a lag) because communication is performed at the speed of light.

The bottleneck is not the technology but use case. As long as use cases are centered around data consumption it’ll be difficult for the industry to grow.

References

How fiber optics work https://sites.google.com/site/bit4554fiberoptics/how-it-works

How fast can fiber optic be?

https://www.pilotfiber.com/blog/how-fast-can-fiber-optic-internet-be

Where does the energy go when two EM waves interfere?

In radio engineering it’s well known that interference reduces the strength of the signal.

With respect to interference we talk about things like constructive and destructive interference. In constructive interference signals are in phase and reinforce each other.

In destructive interference signals are out of phase and cancel each other.

But when we talk in terms of energy, when we consider electromagnetic waves as propagating energy sources a different question arises

How does interference affect the energy of the wave,if it does at all?

Now it’s quite obvious that unlike signals that can lose information energy can’t be “lost”. However energy can be transformed as well as transferred. In that case does the transfer of energy happens within the wave or between the interfering waves.

Or to put it another way does the wave that carry energy lose it to another in case of destructive interference and gain it from another in case of constructive interference?

This understanding is of great importance in wireless energy transmission systems.

An electromagnetic wave consists of electric and magnetic components. The transformation of energy happens within these components

As shown in this paper by Kirk T MacDonald of Princeton University

http://www.physics.princeton.edu/~mcdonald/examples/destructive.pdf

A destructive interference in EM waves doubles the electric energy but destroys the magnetic energy of the wave.
A constructive interference doubles the magnetic energy but destroys the electric energy of the wave.

In both cases the total energy of the wave remains constant or conserved.

Effect of transformation on signal

We know that information is encoded in electric field by a modulating current at the transmitter. At the receivers end this electric field produces a current that is demodulated.

Now if we apply these observations to signal theory in radio engineering we find that since in destructive interference the electric component is modified so is the information.

But the loss of Information does not mean loss of energy. As noted, the wave energy is conserved in magnetic/electric fields.

The electrical nature of EM wave

In EM waves there is no electric charge. Just like you can’t get shocked by sunlight you also can’t get shocked by a radio wave.

But just as you can get burned by intense sunlight you can also get burned by radio waves,if the intensity is high enough.

https://physics.stackexchange.com/a/19633

A question arises then ,if there is no electricity in EM waves then what is the E component in EM.

Relationship between electric field and electric charge

That E in EM refers to an electric field. We know that a static Electric field a force. A moving electric field,such as the one in a propagating wave is energy.

More explanation…

It is common knowledge that electric charges create fields. Static charges create static field and moving charges create moving field. This is a well understood principle.

But electric charges are not the only things that create and electric field. A changing magnetic field can also create an electric field. This electric field will affect electric charge but they are not composed of it.

In other words electric field is not the cause of electric charge but the effect. An electric charge has an electric field. A moving magnetic field also has an electric field but without electric charge.

This is the fundamental principle of EM wave propagation where electric and magnetic fields feed off each other.

EM waves are pure energy that can be converted into other forms of energy like heat,or wind or electricity. We’re already familiar with the conversion process as in converting sunlight to electricity, or sunlight to heat etc.

Since energy cannot be destroyed all interference does is change one form of EM energy into another.

From the point of view of wireless transmission of energy the presence of other EM waves will not destroy the energy of the transmitting wave.

workrockin@gmail.com

September 27, 2019

What’s your experience with yoga?

I’ve been doing yoga for 2 years,15 min a day. My experience has been positive. It’s hard to explain why, but I just feel good after doing it. So I keep doing it.

workrockin@gmail.com

#yoga #meditation

September 26, 2019

Mobile games

Way back in 2004 Nintendo launched the first portable console to feature 2 gaming screens, the lower one being a touch screen. And while I never had a chance to play on the DS, I was always fascinated with the quality of the games it offered and the response it received from the fans.

On paper DS was weaker to PSP (the immediate competitor) but it terms of games that were fun to play it was second to none. DS offered gaming experiences that could match or even surpass any handheld or console device on the market.

DS launched with the intention of creating games that anyone could play. Even if you were not a gamer. Things like brain age and nintendogs appealed to a lot of people outside the gaming circle. And this was one of the big reasons for its massive success. Comparatively speaking neither the Vita, nor the 3DS did as well as their predecessors.In Fact mobiles slowly became handheld gaming device of choice.

Mobile phones have taken this concept of casual gaming to a new level. Online distribution. Free to play games. Being a device that everyone carries with them, mobiles have fully realized the vision of the Nintendo DS, with games that everyone plays.

Mobiles are not without their own faults. As radical as DS was it did not try to get rid of tradition altogether. It still had buttons. Similarly, while Wii was experimenting with motion sensing to make games more appealing to non gamers , the wiimote could also work as a traditional joystick. Nintendo switch, the latest gaming platform from nintendo can transform between the home console and a handheld but it’s still a proper gaming system.

Mobile phones on the other hand, well they can play video games all right. But they are not designed for it, for purists at least. It’s fun touching and poking on the screen for a while but serious gamers miss the physical buttons. A racer doesn’t feel as responsive on a touch screen. Nor does a fighter. Moreover touching on a screen impedes the gameplay. On a portable device screen space is limited. And if that is being obstructed by the finger it can take you out of the experience.

But there is one category of games that stand out on mobiles and have found a natural home.

RPGs, both western and japanese flavors. The games that focus on the atmosphere and story as opposed to the action. The gameplay is slower and more strategic. You won’t die if you are a bit slow to react. You can take your time in between turns. You can pause the game and come back when you’re ready to play. Turn based RPGs are seeing a resurgence on mobile.

While on consoles these games are passed on in favor of big budget titles on the mobile they are appealing. For one you can play them in short bursts. Rather than sitting through a 50 hour RPG you play it 15 minutes at a time. In the subway. Between meals. Before going to bed.

And here you’ll find so many great mobile games. From old school classics like Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy to steven universe attack the light. Even when it comes to action there are certain games that translate really well.

Take lego games for example. Whether it’s lego batman, or marvel’s super heroes or for that matter star wars, lego games are mighty fun to play on mobile. Its their focus on light action, tight platforming and plenty of collectibles that make their translation on a portable device seamless. Even when there are no physical buttons.

PUBG and Fortnite have proved that a mobile can be used to play competitive multiplayer games online. Pokemon go shattered records when it was released a few years back.

It’s no surprise really, a mobile still has all the advantages of a handheld console. It may not have buttons, but it’s got better built in social features. Facebook, youtube, twitter all on the same device. You can play and let your friends know about your experience.

Or you can look up on guides if you’re stuck. Or you can simply put your phone on sleep if your tired. The game starts off from where you left. You don’t have to commit to a play time. Its liberating in a way only a handheld can be.

And yet despite all it’s advantages it feels incomplete. Something seems missing. You don’t really get to see the same amount of dedication among the fans for mobile as there was for handhelds in the past. Why is that I wonder?

workrockin@gmail.com

September 25, 2019

Is coding in classrooms necessary?

Programming Is a good skill to learn. Since computers have become indispensable tools in every industry it is better if people know how to program and learn how computers actually work. But teaching programming should not be motivated by the allure of high paying jobs. Those are there in every industry. If you’re at the top of your craft you can expect to be paid well.

Schools often tend to market subjects based on industry trends. But industry trends are fickle. You should not rely on them to make a decision regarding something as important as your career.

Knowing how to program and understanding how computers work is different from having programming as a job. Computers are tools that are meant to be used to perform actual work. An accountant may use a computer to keep financial accounts of their company. A marketing professional may use a computer to promote their organization on social media. A doctor may use a computer to keep records of their patients.

In each case the computer itself is not doing anything but making the life of people doing work easier. In fact a computer is pretty much useless on its own. It can’t create anything of value unless it is used effectively.

A programmer builds applications for people who do the work,but even programmers work on different levels. There are embedded systems engineers that work on the hardware level to create infrastructure which other programmers can use. There are programmers who work on operating systems to provide a common interface for application developers. There are programmers who build web applications that can be accessed from any browser. There are programmers who write apis that can be used by other application developers.

There are database engineers, network engineers , data scientists. All these people work on a different layer of application. Without being concerned about how other layers work.These are highly specialized subjects that are impossible to teach in the classroom unless you devote all your energy specifically teaching computer science.

Having said that elementary computer education is still useful. Even required, because technology plays such a big part in our life. And it’s better to be comfortable around technology than not. Common concepts and behind the scenes look into the technology that you use daily is more than enough.

Computers represent the user interface for a complex set of processes working together. Understanding that gives a person the ability to make sense of changes that happen and how do they fit in the stack.

Not everyone has to be a programmer but everyone should understand how computers do what they do. So that you can work more efficiently with them.

If you’re not a programmer, you should look to minimize the amount of time you spend on programming and focus on the things that you do. Even if you can program. If you want to become a programmer and use your domain knowledge to create applications for people in your industry, then focus all your effort on programming.

Don’t be indecisive as many people who learn different subjects tend to become. Education should bring in clarity of mind and confidence that even if you are not comfortable with a subject you can pick it up if the situation calls for it.

workrockin@gmail.com

September 24, 2019September 24, 2019

Superhero Teams

The problem with many superhero franchises is that they have created too many heroes. Its next to impossible for all of them to have their share of the limelight when they are together. Old heroes like spider man, Iron Man and Hulk continue to be fan favorites.

It’s important to add new characters and plot lines to keep things fresh, especially in long running series like those by marvel and dc. But having everyone save the world is not going to feel that impactful. Ant man is trying to do the same thing as the Thor. Wolverine is not all that different from Captain America.

In large part the appeal of superheroes lies not in their motivation ( to save the world etc) but in their personality. The energy of Flash is in stark contrast with the reserve of Batman.

Each superhero has a unique world that shapes their persona. The upbeat college life of Peter Parker is different from the quiet life of reporter Clark Kent. And separately each hero has their fans.

Getting them all together in a story is quite difficult, however. Not only because the world in which they operate,the familiar environment is no longer present but also their personalities are muted in a group.

For this reason I believe that there should be a few superheroes that are backed by a big and colorful supporting cast. Everyone should have their roles. A place where they can fit.

Moreover a superhero story should begin as a group and then branch off into sub series and individual plotlines. So that the audience first gets a quick look at all the people that make the team and then get to know more about them at their own pace.

This is one of the areas I felt that the Avengers lacked. Even after creating a plot that spanned the entire universe, some characters felt totally out of place. Guardians of the Galaxy team was overshadowed.It wouldn’t have made any difference they were not in the movie.

The challenge that story tellers face is how to keep things fresh with the same set of characters. It’s not impossible. Tom and jerry never get old. Neither does Street Fighter. Or bugs bunny. Or mickey mouse.

It’s true that Final Fantasy can go on forever because it changes the cast in every game. But so can Mario. It’s the same jumping plumber delivering hit after hit for 30 years.

With changing characters you need to create an impact fast. Save the world, diffuse the bomb ,sacrifice your life etc etc. The stakes have to be higher because there is so little time to make the audience care.

With the same characters the story evolves slowly. People become familiar with them. And even boring things like the protagonists enjoying a cone of ice cream can appear charming.

workrockin@gmail.com

September 20, 2019September 22, 2019

Significance of beam width in antennas

Antennas exist to serve as the interface for radio waves. In a transmitter the antenna is the interface that broadcasts the signal. In a receiver the antenna is the interface that receives the signal.

As an interface, the efficiency of the antenna depends upon well it can transmit and receive signals.

To be fair since it is a component of a wireless system it gains no benefits of wired communication channel and has to deal with all sorts of disturbances that it has no control over.

Interference from signals, reflection and absorption from objects and so on.

But still an antenna can only be useful if its able to successfully transmit a signal on one end and receive it on the other end.When we talk about antenna transmission, no one antenna can possibly manage to serve all the devices in every direction.

Each one has its own capacity and can work in a certain range. As we learned previously that depending upon its radiation pattern an antenna may be classified as isotropic, omni directional or directional [1].

The question is how do we plan how much area can an antenna cover? And for this we take help of a parameter known as beam width. And there are two terms we need to be aware of

The first null beam width: – This is the width of the beam measured between the points of the main lobe where the radiation of the antenna is null. This is the total width of the beam from end to end. At any point within the beam the receiver will catch the signal
The half power beam width: This is the width of the beam measured between the points of the main lobe where the radiated power is half of the maximum radiated power of the antenna.

Additionally, it’s important to keep in mind that all antennas are omni directional. That is they radiate in all directions. However for an antenna to create a beam (a focussed source of signal) we suppress radiation in other directions to increase the intensity in a particular direction.

This is most easily done with the help of reflectors. A parabolic antenna for example focuses the signals on to a point, converging them to a beam before radiating it.

This suppression of Omnidirectional radiation into a beam is called antenna gain. The degree of its directivity.

As expected antenna beams have much more intensity than Omnidirectional signals. As such they can be used for point to point communication links as well as for wireless power transfers.

This is explained well in “Beam Efficiency of Wireless Power Transmission via Radio Waves from Short Range to Long Range by Naoki Shinohara”

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/367a/43e4cb196f9ca459392ccb8d4005a38b23e0.pdf

Some Notes

Although the term beam width may be used to measure any one of the multitude of beams in an antenna it is only significant for the main lobe in case of directional antenna.
Antenna beam is not a single line. It’s a field and forms what is called a beam angle at the source. Which means that as the distance from the source increases the beam widens and the receiver can be placed at any point within the field to capture the signal.
Effect of power on range of transmission https://youtu.be/MigTBIsk6IA
Effect of gain on range https://youtu.be/Bx7gMUw1MGw

References

[1]https://www.reddit.com/user/workrockin/comments/cp9mmn/how_can_we_classify_antennas_based_on_their/

workrockin@gmail.com