Yeah - well, I'm back in Skellefteå, wouldn't you know it. Got a one way ticket Stockholm-Skellefteå in order to do some job related activites. It's been four weeks and to the best of my knowledge, no one knows how long I'm supposed to be "up here". I haven't raised the issue since I like it in Skellefteå so we'll just have to see where it goes from here [I've managed to negotiate (perhaps "asked for" is more accurate) a longer stay in Ske-å, perhaps - dare I say - "permanent"? If so I want my dive gear and my P7M8 up here]. Soo... Yeah. Music?
Disturbed - Indestructible (katanas, miniguns, fires - good stuff). Click watch in HQ (the audio quality will still suck, but less so).
[Updated - aparently it was Teliasonera who kept calling and the number can now be found on Eniro.]
Every now and then 092110214 calls my cellphone, waits one signal and then hangs up. Sometimes I even manage to answer before It hangs up, but there's no one on the other end. Probably a scam to get people to redial a number with an absurdly high toll charge, and some have tried - usually with meager result. No one seems to know who this 092110214 fuck-up is. A lot of people has complained on vemringde.se [WhoCalled] about this particular number.
Let me make a short statement... 092110214 - if I found you dying on the street I would forget several things; 1. Emergency First Response - all of it. 2. That I am not qualified to perform tracheotomy using a pocket knife and a dirty drinking straw found on the sidewalk. 4. That tracheotomy is not the best solution to any and all perceived medical complications. 5. That Automated External Defibrillator pads are not to be placed under the patients eyelids, even if you match the right pad to the correct side of the patients body.
Well 092110214 - welcome to Black list. Next time they call me, what will happen? (Unfortunately very little regarding point 2 above, at least as far as I know - but still) Absolutely nothing. Its call will not even be registered as a "missed call" - 092110214, your are now a non-existent entity, dead to the world and buried alive in the deepest depth of the security tome. All thanks to SmartBlock, a nifty Microsoft Mobile software by Efficasoft. Just add the fucker (that would be you, 092110214 - fucking wanker) to the Black list and don't forget to block messages too - you never know. Unfortunately SmartBlock does not answer and then directly hang up as a big fuck-you-and-I-hope-you-had-to-pay-for-this-call to the asshole that's calling (again, 092110214 - that is you, I know this may seem complicated to you but please try to keep up). I mainly use the software to mess with 092110214 but if you're aching for that extra bit of privacy, try the White list. Just import all your contacts and all other calls will be de-commissioned. SmartBlock also has some more advanced functions, including the ability to configure time slots when a number will be allowed to call you.
Wrapping up; SmartBlock, highly recommended. If you own a compatible phone, you should buy this software and add 092110214 to Black list.
While technically not a review (yet?), I suggest you bear with me (think of it as a "first impressions" piece or something). Earlier this week, I and eight other people got the chance to test dive semi-close circuit rebreathers (Dräger's Dolphin and Ray) in the local pool. Having deleted the big wall of text previously occupying this area, what with the probably all to technical description of dive physics and all, I will try to keep it brief. A rebreather is a scuba diving system that reuses the diver's expelled breath, scrubs away most of the carbon dioxide and adds an amount of oxygenated air. Unlike a open-circuit system which only works in a linear direction so to speak (from cylinder, through lungs and into the water), a rebreather has a "loop" system which recycles the exhaled breath and hence requires a mouthpiece with two hoses - one for air to the lungs and the other for air from lungs.
Closed Circuit Rebreathers (CCR) does not expel any bubbles from the breathing loop and requires two cylinders, one with a diluent gas (for volume control) and the other with 100% oxygen. Using a very advanced electronic system, a CCR calculates the oxygen content in the loop and adds oxygen mixed with the diluent gas for a mixture optimal to the current depth. Military CCR's may also be oxygen rebreathers (which operates only with 100% oxygen), but since oxygen gets potentially nasty at 1,4 bar and probably nasty at 1,6 bar the operational depth is only around 4 to 6 meters (susceptibility to o² poisoning varies depending on the individual, physical state, exertion and a whole bunch of other factors).
A Semi Closed-circuit Rebreather (SCR) on the other hand only has a single bottle of usually Nitrox (oxygen enriched air) - not counting the obligatory open circuit bail-out system, which technically is not a part of the rebreather. A SCR does expel some bubbles, but only from the back (which can be seen in the image below) and usually at a very slow rate. The valve is adjustable and very similar to the air exhaust valve on a dry suit. The SCR operates by constantly and slowly letting air from the cylinder into the breathing loop which then is bled out of the escape valve as the system gets pressurised. A pleasant side-effect of the scrubbing process is that the air gets a little bit warm and still retains its moisture. In contrast, breathing from a open-circuit system the compressed air is bone-dry and rather cold (a side effect of decompressing the air) which makes it unpleasant to breathe for extended periods.
Unlike a open-circuit system, which can be used directly after assembly, a rebreather requires a little bit of preparation. After assembling the rebreather, and assuming that you're ready to dive, you slowly open the cyliders k-valve and let the nitrox into the system. At this point the counter lung (a "breathing-bag" which is connected to the loop) should be filling. To fill the system with nitrox (and remove any ambient air from the loop) you open the mouthpiece valve and breathing in from the mouthpiece and exhale though your nose. Then the scrubber material must be warmed up, this is important since the material must be effective even at depth. This is just a matter of breathing though the loop for a few minutes (3, I think). At this time the rebreather should be ready for your dive. Turn on oximeter, dive computer, check the bail out system and fill the vest (or BCD part of the rebreather). When entering the water, the rebreather's mouthpiece valve should be closed, if not water pressure will compress the counter lung and air will escape though the mouthpiece. The diver will loose buoyancy, possibly even sink and if water enters into the scrubber a not so fancy drink called "caustic cocktail" will be brewing in the loop. To begin the dive, put the mouthpiece in your mouth (not closing your lips around the mouthpiece completely), open the mouthpiece valve, put the mouthpiece in your mouth and descend. Apart from using the BCD to reduce buoyancy, a diver can also exhale though the nose which allows air to escape the loop thereby reducing buoyancy.
The first thing you'll notice while diving with a rebreather is the strange sensation of breathing through a counter lung system. I'll say that it probably feels kind of like breathing air from a bag underwater, if that makes any sense. As I waited on the bottom of the pool for my dive buddy, I couldn't help to feel that the system delivered to much air - not that I needed to breathe it in, excess air is bled out through the aforementioned valve, but the pressure kind of felt unnecessary high - as if the water pressure was pushing on the counter lung. There was some problem with my dive Buddy's equipment so the instructor signaled that I could swim around for a while. As I moved from kneeling to swimming horizontally, the excess pressure I previously felt from the counter vanished. Breathing became much more natural as the pressure was now more evenly distributed on the counter lung and the mouthpiece was no longer the highest point. Soon my dive buddy was in the water and we could swim around at our leisure. Unlike a open-circuit regulator, there was no noisy on-demand valve, delivering cold and dry air while creating a torrent of bubbles around your mouth. Everything was quiet. Perhaps to quiet. Somehow I've gotten used to the noisy sound of air circulating, being able to listen for abnormalities, leaks and other warning sounds. Now, the only thing I heard was the occasional hiss of air being added to the counter lung if it was running low. The counter lung also pretty much throws the old principle of buoyancy control using lung volume out the window. Inhaling to ascend does not work anymore since the total amount of water dispersion is the same - inhale and air is taken from the counter lung, exhale and air enters the counter lung. Pretty much zero-sum all around.
We each had about 10-minutes in the pool. I dove with the Dräger Ray, pretty much for the simple reason that I warmed up the Ray's scrubber - might as well dive with it. The Ray is more compact then the Dolphin but also has a shallower maximum depth. It was too bad that we didn't have a chance to try both systems. I loved the Ray, but unfortunately (apart from being pretty damn expensive) it has a maximum depth rating of just deeper then 20 meters (depending on nitrox blend and modifications to the Ray) where as the Dolphin can go as deep as 40 meters (if my memory serves me correctly).
Anyways, if there's one thing you should take with you from this, what ever it is, it is this; If you get the chance to test-dive a rebreather - take it. Just make sure that you do so in confined water under instructor supervision.
Sony PlayStation Portable (Slim) alternative review
Sony PlayStationPortable (PSP) Slim & Lite (2000-series) with 5.00 M33-3 custom firmware.
The Sony PSP has been around a few years and there are many in-depth reviews focusing on the PSP's hardware and the available games for the system. Hence, I've decided to review the PSP in a different light, or shade of grey if you prefer, the use of homebrew software. Homebrew software (user created software) enable the PSP to perform tasks that it was not originally intended for, this ranges from playing certain formats of music or movies to playing pirated software or emulators (Note; homebrew REQUIRES Custom Firmware, more on CF later).
Seeing as PSP games are kind of cheap, I do own a number of original games but the ability to play downloaded, pirated games can be quite handy. PSP games are delivered on Universal Media Disc (UMD) which are basically a small CD inside a plastic casing. The UMD;s are quite small, but if you own a game and don't have the UMD with you, you can't play it. Also the discs do make some whining noises when they spin and it goes to logic that using a motor to spin a disk and write it's content to memory consumes more battery then just reading directly from memory. Use a tool like UMD dump you could work around this problem by creating an image (.iso) of your UMD game on the memory stick. The .iso file can then be read from the memory stick, and the game can be played without the UMD. Very handy, but Sony does not like the idea that users can copy and download games for it's consoles so the firmware supplied with the PSP Slim cannot launch any homebrew software (at least to my knowledge). So, in order to install a custom firmware, the PSP must be forced into service mode. This is usually performed with a so called Pandora battery and Magic memory. In short, a Pandora battery (PB) enables the user to install any suitable firmware stored on the memory stick - a word of caution though, if you don't follow the instruction and make damn sure that you have exactly the right hardware, you may accidentally brick (see, "future uses: brick or paperweight?") your PSP. You could hard mod some (not all) original batteries to create a PB, but there are ready made PB's and "tool" batteries which work just as well - and you don't risk destroying your battery.
As for me, I read a number of guides regarding the subject of installing Custom Firmware (CF) and ordered a tool battery from a retailer on the Internet. Unfortunately the battery was put on back order, so after a week or two I decided to visit psXcare in Stockholm instead (I can recommend psXcare for all your modding needs by the way, be it PSP, Wii or other). My intention was to buy a PB and flash the PSP myself, but they offered to do it for me on the spot for a nominal fee so I went with that instead. The Slim, even with CF, is somewhat fuzzy about which games to run. With a UMD loader it did play any game that was in .iso or .cfo format but some games (and many emulators) just would not start, it looked just like before the CF ("The game could not be started."). This was also the fact with most SNES emulators (Super Nintendo Entertainment System) , except for snes9xTYL0.4.2me_fw3x. Using this emulator I can play SNES games on my PSP, in full speed with music and sound effects. Since the PSP's screen is rather wide, a emulated SNES game will not fill the entire screen but that is not something that bothers me. To use more of the screen the image can be enlarged and softened but I prefer the 1:1 format.
The emulation is nearly perfect, but I did notice some small clicks or jitter (crackling/popping) in the "Legend of Zelda" music, but sound effects worked perfectly. Mostly I use the older snes9xTYL-0[1].3 since the sound emulation is better, but using the standard configuration the frame rate will be a bit low so it will require some tweeking (I prefer to play in 1:1 screen mode, if you want to use zoom of soften the emulation may be slow). And don't put to many roms in a single folder or the emulator will crash, by the way. There can be some issues with the save state function, mainly audio problems but on the whole this emulator is excellent. Snes9xTYL is probably the best SNES emulator for the PSP slim.
As for other games, you can actually play a flawless rendition of GL Quake on the PSP. The controls work surprisingly well and can be extensively configured. I used PSP_Quake_Easy_Installer.exe. Note that you will need the .pak files from the full version if you want to play all levels. There are also emulated versions of Duke Nukem 3D, Doom and Heretic - although I could only get Doom to run on my PSP and didn't bother trying different emulators for the others.
One of the problem with homebrew and CF is that there are many combinations of hardware and software that does not work well together. The general trend is that the newer the PSP, the harder or more restrictive it is going to be with CF and homebrew games. This is the result of Sony's attempts to limit PSP owners to the software they produce and the games that are sold for the PSP system. The 2000-series successor, 3000-series, were reportedly rather hard to crack and although it has been done, you should probably read up on the exact model of PSP you're going to buy if you intend on running custom firmware.
Aside from SNES, there are a large number of different emulators - here's a list from pspslimhack.com and don't miss Top 10 Game System Emulators for PSP. The Gameboy Advance emulator worked really well, although I haven't played it for very long. For NES I like NesterJ, it has worked perfectly so far.
With the right firmware you can also play PS (that's "PS1" or "PSX") games, but you'll need Popstation or something similar to convert the .bin to EBOOT (or get a hold of a ready made EBOOT file). For more information, see this guide. Note that PSX games will look basically the same on a PSP, but there may be a kind of moiré effect on the visuals in some games, like Silent Hill (kind of a bad example what with the SH graphics and all, but it does appear in other games too). The PSX version of Chrono Trigger, on the other hand, looks perfect - although the fullscreen mode does blur the image a bit so I play in the smaller, original, screen size. As for the moiré effect, I'll go out on a limb and guess that 3D enivonments are more likely to suffer from this problem even though there probably are a number of exceptions.
And how about this - a Nintendo 64 emulator for PSP, that actually works. Called DaedalusX64, the Beta 2 will see a release in the near future. There are still some issues, hence the Beta, but it is definitively proof of concept.
As an aside on the PSP, it is pretty cool to stream wireless video to the PSP, via the PS3, from the PC which converts any movie to a format which the PS3/PSP can play. This does however require a PC with TVersity software and maybe some tweaking. Also God of War - Chains of Olympus looks pretty damn nice on the PSP. And yes, I do own the original game but I play a pirated version - maybe Valve is right; Pirates Are Just Underserved Customers.
Final words. NES emulators are common these days and can fairly easily be installed on most cellphones. Personally I use PocketNester which works perfectly - I've played through a number of games without a single problem, the emulation is just that good. Even so the tiny screen and awkward button configuration makes most cellphones less then ideal for gaming. Emulating SNES games require a bit more power then just NES games and even so, if not properly coded the games will be plagued by glitchy graphics and low frame rates. As for a NES/SNES/GBC/GBA emulator the PSP has it all as far as I'm concerned; a good and comparatively large screen, excellent button configuration and smooth frame rates. Considering the low cost of a PSP and it's potential for a portable emulator, it's definitely a winner. With the snes9xTYL0.4.2me the games work beautifully and due to the small size of SNES roms you can fit all your favorite games on even the smallest memory sticks. Size of the games varies though, for instance The Legend of Zelda is 1mb and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 is 4mb.
Before you start tweaking your PSP there are a few things you should consider though;
You must have custom firmware on your PSP to play homebrew/pirated games. Install it yourself or have someone do it for you. You must also have a memory stick to store games on and to use for flashing the PSP. Reportedly some memory sticks does not work for use as magic memory - read CF's documentation, in general (but not always) any Sony Memorystick DUO should work.
Depending on the model of PSP you have, some software may not work. Certain homebrew software only works with a specific version of Custom Firmware.
Emulation of certain platforms may be slow depending on CF and homebrew software.
Expect to be tinkering, tweaking and testing different emulators to find which version works best with your PSP/CF.
Try not to brick your PSP.
If you want to play it safe, hire someone to install the custom firmware for you. If you live in Stockholm, I recommend psXcare, for 300kr (price may have changed) they'll install cf on your PSP and you don't have to worry about PB or CF.
I swear to God, you can actually hear the gears grinding... Unfortunately the endless rows of headstones lined up in his wake makes for a rather sombre mood.
