Little outboard screen update

17 June 2007 — dan

When I reviewed the Pertelian X2040 external display doohickey, I mentioned that cheap Windows SideShow devices from big manufacturers would completely eat the lunch of little manufacturers like Pertelian.

It would appear (via) that SideShow devices with full colour 320-by-240-ish screens...

Ricavision SideShow electronics module

...based on electronics modules like this will indeed be available for as little as $US80.

Well, at least according to the Winbond propaganda that led me to the Ricavision site, where you can see their only-renders-as-yet examples of wireless Bluetooth external displays with and without keyboards, not to mention an e-book reader thing that'd presumably be less excitingly priced, since the display is most of the expense for e-books.

If these devices aren't pie in the sky, then Pertelian, and even Logitech, are definitely going to have to get with that program or be run over.

There's still some attraction to low-tech LCDs like the Pertelian, and not just because they don't make you upgrade to Vista in order to use the artificially-limited-to-Vista SideShow technology. I like that I can have the X2040's simple four-line display sitting there announcing what MP3's playing at the moment without its backlight on, so the glow doesn't distract me. You could probably do much the same thing with a colour Sideshow display, though - use a greenscreen colour scheme and wind the brightness down.

Posted in Nerdery, Windows. 1 Comment »

Minions! Attack!

13 June 2007 — dan

I don't know about you, but I like games in which you're the bad guy.

Games like Black And White in which you can choose to be bad (I know there are a bunch of excellent computer RPGs that're better examples) are decent, but games where your character is required to eviscerate at least eight toddlers in the process of preparing his breakfast are better.

The trap for this genre is just doing the Bizarro World thing, where there's nothing really mechanically different from a conventional you're-the-hero game, but everything has different wallpaper. Good is bad, clean is dirty, nice is nasty. You can tell a game's going to do this when it presents you with a gnarled little advisor who, unprompted, expresses his utter disgust for fuzzy puppies and clear babbling brooks.

That is exactly what happens at the start of the demo of Overlord. Your advisor's a cross between Yoda and the Brain Gremlin, and he has that standard Antimatter Mary Poppins attitude to the world.

This did not fill me with confidence, but the game itself actually looks pretty decent, from what I could tell from the none-too-long demo. Check the demo out, if you've got a reasonably current Windows PC and can stomach the one-gigabyte download.

Overlord seems to have a similar overall sense of humour to Fable and the Dungeon Keeper games (Dungeon Keeper is obviously a strong influence on Overlord's design). And Overlord's version of third-person action, in which you send your crowd of psychotic Minions to do most tasks, is appealing. See something nice, wave your gauntleted hand at it, watch it get Gremlined to death. Mmmmm.

(The camera went a bit wrong when I was trying to fight the big guy at the end of the demo, but, y'know, I suppose that's why they're not going to be selling Overlord until next month. And the game sort of wimps out on the truly-evil side of things, since your Quest is to kill the seven Great Heroes who have over the years themselves become corrupt. But I'm OK with that as long as I get to burn a lot of halflings to death on the way.)

Oh, and for the benefit of those of you in the cheap seats, or who just can't get enough of slapping chickens to death: You can download the original Dungeon Keeper for free.

[Update: I just downloaded Dungeon Keeper, for old times' sake... and discovered that the Home Of The Underdogs version of the game appears to be missing the sound files. Although it does still have the below-mentioned excellent level commentary. If you're not profoundly deaf, though, you might still want to get it from somewhere else.]

Posted in Games, Windows. 7 Comments »

Blog payola update!

11 June 2007 — dan

A reader, on seeing my post from the other day about the wretched hive of scum and villainy (and blatant payola) that is PayPerPost, wrote to observe that Text Link Ads appear, from his experience, to be eager to move in on the same area. Only more so.

Text Link Ads' usual stock in trade is straightforward, non-annoying ads of the type described in their name. But my correspondent, let's call him Harry, says they contacted him to try something a little bolder.

This new scheme apparently pays per undisclosed sponsored link. Include a link from a blog post to whatever dodgy dealer likes the idea of buying these kinds of ads, absolutely do not reveal to anybody in any way that you're getting paid for it... and get paid for it. Genius!

Harry says he's now seeing... unusual... links popping up on a number of blogs that also run Text Link Ads. When a blog that's usually about WordPress plugins and such (plus, tellingly, tips on how to make money with your blog...) suddenly runs a post about this k00l new site y0 that totally letz you watch Spider-Man 3 for free d00d, I believe it is not excessively cynical to suspect that something is up.

(I note that the above-linked blog runs, as well as Text Link Ads, those god-awful Kontera ads. As I write this Kontera are upholding their golden reputation for ad relevance by linking the word "movie" from the fishy Spider-Man post to an ad that says "Find Leading Lease Resources for rent movie online Here." Excelsior!)

Posted in Ads, Scams, Shop talk. Leave a Comment »

Escher's office, 1935

9 June 2007 — dan

Escher panorama

Apropos my stitching up of Will Self's office, here is M.C. Escher's Hand With Reflecting Sphere, unwrapped into a Quicktime VR panorama.

(I originally wrote the artist's name as "MC Escher", then realised that looked as if he should have been performing with the Furious Five or something. "I'm MC Escher and I'm here to say, the stairs go up and down today! Get up! Get down! Get up! Get down!...")

Posted in Art, Nerdery. 1 Comment »

Oh noes! I am rejected!

9 June 2007 — dan

A reader noticed my lengthy and profitable career with ReviewMe (i.e. this one review), and suggested I check out PayPerPost instead.

Both are services that allow Web writers to sell their services to people who want someone to write about something. One big difference, though, is that ReviewMe take half of everything you're paid, while PayPerPost take a much smaller cut.

So that was interesting.

As soon as I looked at PayPerPost, though, I saw the other big difference. PayPerPost lets people list "opportunities" that have the condition that whatever you write has to be complimentary.

ReviewMe specifically forbid that requirement. And that is, of course, their downfall.

It turns out that the kinds of companies that have to pay for blog attention are, by and large, not deserving of positive attention. And so they vastly prefer more... ethically flexible... services like PayPerPost, over ReviewMe.

PayPerPost claim that "open-tone opps" (i.e. "opportunities" to write either positively or negatively about an advertiser) are "the majority", but this is obviously some strange usage of the word "majority" that I wasn't previously aware of.

PayPerPost is, in brief, full of hopeful corporate johns trolling for a blog-whore to write something complimentary. There's really almost nothing there but solicitations to journalistic prostitution, as far as I can see.

They pay lip service to journalistic integrity, saying that they "will not accept Opportunities that require our bloggers to be dishonest in any way". But the "Opportunity" list in reality is a long litany of companies that want bloggers to "promote" or "create buzz" or write in a "positive tone only" about their Web sites or products.

And oh, the products on offer.

Beachfront real estate in northwestern Mexico - about which I, here in Australia, am welcome to hold forth at great length, for pay, as long as I keep it complimentary!

When I'm finished with that, someone wants me to "Review our new free Thai dating site", a job which I'm sure will take no more than five minutes. Thailand's practically in my back yard! Why not?

Oh, and I mustn't forget the doctors offering "labia reduction surgery", "anal bleaching", and every other kind of genital-related plastic surgery that's ever made you say "eew". Positive tone only, guys!

And let's not forget all the representatives of the fine and upstanding payday loan industry, who're eager to get positive coverage for their super-competitive 500% APRs!

Needless to say, all this made me eager beyond words to sell myself out and become part of the burgeoning online payola scene.

Regrettably, though, PayPerPost rejected Dan's Data as a suitable place for their priceless Opportunities.

Fortunately, the PayPerPost rejecting-dude told me what the problem was:

While the content of your blog is fine, I would like to give some advice on your format. When advertisers create opportunities, they are expecting that the post in it's entirety will be shown on the blog. If the posts have the "...Read full post" or just one line with a link to the post, that is a major deterrence for the advertiser. If possible, please format your blog to show the full posts and re-submit."

No problem, man - I'll get right on that!

The fact that the average length of an article on Dan's Data is more than 3500 words, with an average page weight of, I dunno, 200 kilobytes at least, would in no way impede putting the last five articles on the front page in full!

Hell, let's make it the last twenty articles! I could have the biggest page on the Web! Take that, Gene!

The nature of the rejection, of course, is something of a giveaway. PayPerPost don't want real writers to apply. Hell, they don't even require your site to have an archive; all they ask is that your paid-for posts remain "active" for 30 days. Then I suppose you can delete them and swear up and down that you never said a word about how that Psychic Development Course was the best thing ever.

I'm not making that up, by the way. "Promote Psychic Development Course" is one of the current Opportunities, along with another bunch of courses and tutorials from the same people, all of which I'll go out on a limb and say are just as bogus. And the quacks and shysters just keep on coming.

PayPerPost also say that "Nobody wants to hear how much you got paid for your sponsored post."

Actually, y'know, I think I really rather would like to know whether someone's getting a five buck tip or a $500 windfall in return for his post about how he sincerely believes some dudes have found the cure for dyslexia.

Be aware that people with a Google PageRank as high as mine can make three hundred US dollars, bang, just by answering the call to "Introduce free Spyware Terminator to your readers!"

Oh, and there are lots of YouTube videos about PayPerPost, too. Because PayPerPost listed their own "Opportunity" a while ago, asking for video testimonials. Awesome!

All of this is pretty much the outside scoop in the blogging community, where PayPerPost has been making friends since the middle of last year. But since I don't hang out with the dudes whose benchmark is wringing a dollar out of every one of their RSS subscribers every month, and since I also missed the Slashdot story, it was all new to me.

Fortunately, it looks as if the network is (to coin a phrase) routing around this crap. Payola isn't new, and it's not going away, but it's not making any great impact I can see, either. There's a pretty sharp line between the sell-sell-sell scumbags with exactly one value who "monetize" their readers and the people like me who have, I dunno, maybe 2500 RSS subscribers specifically because I don't keep trying to screw cash out of you all.

I'm sure there are readers out there who can't tell the difference, but I don't think blog payola's going to make those readers any worse off than they already are. Everyone else ought to be able to detect the subtle signs of PayPerPost-ish bulldust.

All this isn't to say I won't put text ads or something in the Dan's Data RSS feed (update: I've done it now!) at some point. The damn thing's getting more than six hundred thousand pageloads a month all by itself. If y'all want to download it that many freakin' times, I do not feel it's unfair to ask you to occasionally punch a monkey or something in return.

Unfortunately, I haven't yet found a reputable feed ad agency - or a disreputable one, for that matter - that can handle my incredibly obscure "text file I upload via FTP" RSS creation technology. They all want to hook into blogging systems that I don't use for good old flat-file Dan's Data.

So my feed remains pristine. Dammit.

Posted in Ads, Scams, Shop talk. 5 Comments »

More sterling technology journalism

9 June 2007 — dan

Regarding the widely reported "new discovery" of "WiTricity", wireless electricity transmission, as mentioned in Austenite's comment the other day:

Bollocks.

The people at MIT who came up with this "new invention" would be the first to tell you that the basic technology involved in it isn't new at all. It's just an electrical transformer with a large air gap between the primary and secondary coils. This, inescapably, means its efficiency gets worse the further away the receiving device moves, and it wastes energy heating up conductive things in the area.

I'm sure that the MIT research is doing clever things with the control and detection systems; it may even result in real useful products some time quite soon. It's quite possible that at some point in the future we will indeed have charging pads we can put various devices on to be inductively recharged. The same goes for the bigger versions envisaged by the WiTricity idea, where a laptop will work without a power connection anywhere in a room; to make that work, you'll probably have to build your primary coils into the very walls of the room.

It's not even out of the question that such an arrangement could be used to power transportation systems, though we'd need to start making our cars out of plastic before it'd be workable.

The reason for this is tied to the main problem with these sorts of systems, which are proposed about twice a year by some crank who thinks he's the one who can do what Tesla didn't. The problem is that if you put a conductive loop in the field, like a wristwatch with a metal band, it'll eat most of the power output and get hotter and hotter. It's that problem which I presume the MIT researchers are working on, though it's hard to figure that out from the press coverage.

That big problem, plus the crippling loss of efficiency as your secondary coil(s) get further away from the primary, is why inductive/magnetic "wireless electricity" for powering normal appliances, streetlights and most other straightforward everyday things still seems to be a complete non-starter.

(As usually happens when a subject that's covered in first-year Electrical Engineering comes to the attention of the masses, there's a decent Slashdot thread about all this. I've also written about inductive chargers before, here and here.)

I'm looking forward to some really dumb mutations of this idea over the next few weeks. Given the well-established inability of the "electrosensitive" crowd to tell the difference between milliwatt radio waves and ionising radiation, the notion of "electricity beams" popping up all over the place should make them go absolutely spare.

If we can't make these idiots see sense, we should at least attempt to gain as much amusement from them as we can.

Posted in Electricity, Science. 5 Comments »

ThinkQuack

8 June 2007 — dan

ThinkGeek, pricey but slick purveyors of gadgets, T-shirts and caffeinated candy to the nerdly masses, are now selling the Dreamate Sleep Inducer.

Said Inducer is alleged to use acupressure principles to make you sleep better. It does this by massaging three points on the inside of your left wrist.

So far as I can determine, there is not the slightest reason to suppose that this will do any good at all.

Acupuncture and acupressure "points" have no physical reality - they cannot be told from other nearby locations on the skin in any way. Many equally-successful practitioners have completely different ideas about what points should be needled, pressed, heated or lit up with laser pointers (seriously!) to achieve the numerous amazing outcomes they allege are common, but strangely cannot demonstrate in controlled circumstances.

As far as wrist stimulation to achieve some beneficial goal goes, there's weak evidence that wrist zappers or buzzers can help some people sometimes with some kinds of nausea. See this study, for instance; it concluded that some wristband gadgets were of some use against seasickness, sometimes. But there are also plenty like this study, which concluded such gadgets were no use at all for nausea after cardiac surgery.

(I explored the plausibility of the actual commercial "nausea-fighting" electrical wristbands back in this letters column.)

I don't know where the claims about better sleep came from, though. Those claims have been around for a while, as part of a fuzzy constellation that includes other claims about how wrist acupressure also prevents snoring. And there are, of course, tons of people selling wristbands to treat all sorts of conditions, not that that means anything.

As far as evidence goes, though, there is amazingly little.

If you do a PubMed search of the vast Medline database for any crazy thing, you're pretty much guaranteed to get a few lousy studies from crooked journals, and a scattering of letters-to-the-editor from cranks. As I write this, "astrology" gets 245 Medline hits.

Search for "wrist acupressure sleep", though, and you get nothing.

There are only twelve hits for "acupressure sleep", and the ones that actually talk about acupressure treatment for sleep are unanimous in concluding that you need to rub (or puncture) the patient's ears, not their wrists, to get any effect.

So congratulations, ThinkGeek. You're selling something so ridiculous that even the loonies don't think it works.

Posted in Scams, Science. 8 Comments »

And now, irresponsible mayhem

31 May 2007 — dan

[UPDATE: That video's dead now. I found some more, though; they're here!]

If they didn't want you to do this, they wouldn't put those handy connectors on the batteries, would they?

(I think the experimenter bought his Science Spatula from the same place where I got my Science Nails.)

I count a total of 125 9V batteries there, for 1,125 nominal volts. And yes, as I've mentioned before, you certainly can kill yourself stone dead by doing this.

(Incidentally, people today use clicked-together 9V batteries to replace the no-longer-available B batteries for vintage valve radios.)

A while ago, I had a harebrained scheme to use 9V batteries to make a 110V-ish DC source (in this 230VAC country) to get that elusive green oxide coating on some titanium.

Grody batteries

Unfortunately, the super-cheap eBay dealer I chose sent me the nastiest batch of nine volters I've ever witnessed (and, yes, he then refunded my money), so that plan to kill myself fell by the wayside.

Now, though, I've got a Variac and a bridge rectifier. What could possibly go wrong?

Posted in Electricity, Hacks, Nerdery, Science. 8 Comments »
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