Sometimes You Can Get a PS5

My youngest son sent me a text message saying that PlayStation Direct sent him an e-mail with an exclusive code to get a PlayStation 5. It is because he is a PlayStation Plus member and opted in for the chance to buy one as soon as it became available. I told him he should get it the moment he could as PS5's are still very hard to get. He didn't think he would and so I told him I would buy it off him if he didn't want it as I have a large number of people that are trying to get one but can't. I told him I wouldn't make any money off the deal but would do it as a service for someone.

My son decided to go for it and buy it knowing he wouldn't lose any money. He got in the queue at exactly the time he needed and ended up only waiting 20 minutes before being able to purchase the PS5. Two days later it arrived at his front door. I then got another text from him saying that I could have it when I come to see him in two weeks if he couldn't sell his current PS4. With the backwards compatibility of the PS5 he doesn't really need the PS4 any more and that can help offset the cost of the new console.

Only 5 minutes after that text I got another one saying that he had already sold his PS4. I asked him how much he got for it and he told me. Now he didn't pay anything for his PS4 as I gave it to him as a gift and so he really had no idea how much I paid for it. He ended up selling it for $100 more than I paid. Now I get a significant discount for them because I work for PlayStation, but that amazed me. He said he could justify the premium as he threw in his second controller and a few games. I'm still amazed.

On Thursday I saw an article saying that because of shipping delays you will want to start your Christmas shopping early. Fortunately my son got a special invitation and now has some of that shopping done. He also proved to me that it is possible to get one of the latest video game consoles.

Video Game Review: Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart

Saturday morning I woke up early as I couldn't sleep. I got some breakfast and then headed into my office to finish up my latest video game: Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart. I knew I was close to the end as the game told me so. I got the message that once I started the next section of the game, I wouldn't be able to stop until I completed the game. With a whole Saturday before me, I started the final battle and finished the game in about 30 to 45 minutes. I actually expected it to take longer.

Unfortunately the latest Ratchet & Clank game is only available on the PlayStation 5 console and not everyone that wants one can get one. The only reason I have one is because I work for PlayStation and had the chance to get one on launch. I also received a copy of Rift Apart for free as it came from Insomniac which is part of my company. While I try not to let that influence my review, it probably does. My hope is that should some of you finally get your hands on a PS5 and look for games to play, you will be able to decide if the game is for you.

My two sons love the Ratchet & Clank games. They have ever since the PlayStation 2 days. Needless to say we have every Ratchet & Clank game. This is actually the first Ratchet & Clank game I have ever played all the way through. I have watched my sons play them but never really played more than a few hours. There was the one Christmas I played with my daughter but I never really completed any games. I have to say I enjoyed it a lot and am glad I finally played one of the titles to completion.

Ratchet & Clank games are fun for the whole family. Yes there is cartoon violence and so this game has an ESRB rating of E-10+, meaning it is for everyone but players should be at least 10 years old. Most of the violence is against robots and they are obviously bad guys. I would have no problem playing this with my 4-year-old grandson. In fact, my son did play it with him watching.

One of the things that used to confuse me watching my sons play the Ratchet & Clank games is the large number of weapons to choose from. By the end of Rift Apart, I had collected something like 20 different weapons. Each has their own strengths as well as stash of ammunition. The more you use a particular weapon, the more you can upgrade it. Ultimately it becomes an exercise in trying to find the merits of each weapon and use it appropriately. When you go to select a new weapon, all action stops. That allows you to take your time selecting the best tool for the job. It also allows you to let your pulse slow back to somewhat normal levels.

The story line for Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is a lot of fun. While there is a natural progression to things, you have the option of going back and finishing the task of finding collectibles in other parts of the story. I made sure to have everything collected and all parts of the story completed before beginning the final battle Saturday morning. I am also close to collecting every trophy from the game but am not yet sure if I will go back to try and platinum the game.

If you are looking for a fun game to play because you are a kid or want to play it with your kids, I highly recommend Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart. I consider myself to be a big kid which is why I enjoyed it so much. I can't really comment on the price of the game other than to say that I have a huge backlog of games to play and I prioritized it over a number of other great titles and am glad I did. If you can get your hands on a PS5, it is the favorite of all the PS5 games I have played so far.

Bad User Interface Design

I just got off a Microsoft Teams meeting with one of my co-workers where we saw a good example of bad user interface design. Fortunately only the two of us attended the meeting and I had seen the flaw before. Otherwise it could have been more embarrassing to my co-worker.

In Microsoft Teams, the button to share or stop sharing your screen is located directly next to the button to leave the meeting. My co-worker was sharing his screen and then went to click the "un-share" button. Instead he clicked the "Leave Meeting" button. When I found myself as the only one in the meeting, I knew what had happened because I have done it as well. I patiently waited for my co-worker to rejoin and then we finished up the meeting.

 Many years ago I worked on creating training for a phone user interface. Basically the service would call you and have you respond to questions using the dial-pad on the phone. When you had a question with "yes" or "no" answers we recommended that you use the number 1 to indicate a "yes" response and the number 9 to indicate "no." The idea is that you didn't want someone to mash the wrong number because the buttons were too close together. Microsoft should have placed the "Leave Meeting" button far away from all other buttons. If both my co-worker and I had the same problem, I wonder how many other users have made the same mistake? Let me know if you have too.

Now For Something Completely Different

Saturday I did something I have never done before: I went to a shooting range and shot 150 rounds through 3 different handguns. I have spent some time shooting riffles at Scout camp but two days ago was the first time I ever shot a handgun. I share this experience with you not to make a political statement. Instead I want to share what it felt like to be a total beginner at something when I felt everyone expected me to be an expert.

My youngest son has a brother-in-law that has gotten him into guns. My son has real natural talent when it comes to shooting. It is something we noticed at scout camp when he could hit incredibly small targets with a .22 riffle. As my son is now trying to develop that talent, I thought I would educate myself on the subject. I found myself alone on Saturday as my wife was in Idaho helping her parents move and so I headed to one of the local gun ranges.

I made sure to visit the website before I left the house so I knew what services they offered and that they would rent me a gun as I do not own one. I walked into the range and quickly filled out an online waiver. Then I met with one of the sales associates. I explained that I had shot a riffle but was there to test out handguns and had never shot one before.

The first thing he needed to do was make sure I was not some crazy guy trying to do something tragic in their gun range. He made me call someone that I had seen within the last 24 hours so he could ask a few questions. My first thought was to turn around and walk out. Then I found it very comforting to know that gun ranges take mental health issues very seriously. I called my daughter whom I had spent the morning rock climbing with down in Maple Canyon. He asked her a few questions and then could proceed with getting me set up.

This is where everything started to run together. I knew the basic rules of handling a firearm such as always assume it is loaded, keep it pointed in a safe direction, etc. Specifics about each gun sort of ran together though. I started with a .22 semi-automatic and the same 9mm that my son just purchased. The associate gave me a basic tutorial about both guns. I tried to remember it all but forgot a lot. Then I headed off to my own semi-private lane wearing eye and ear protection.

I got to my enclosed booth and put my target up and sent it out to 8 meters. It seemed really close but I wanted to start easy. Next I pulled out the .22. I then tried to remember how to correctly load the magazine clip. I did okay and quickly got over my fear that I would do something wrong. I put the clip in the gun and then pulled the slide back to chamber the round. Then I tried to remember what I was told about how to correctly hold the gun, how to aim, and to remember to bend my arms. Then I fired my first shot. It went down and to the left of where I aimed. I emptied the magazine (10 shots) and discovered I am a horrible shooter.

I play a lot of shooter video games and am a pretty good shot in them. Discovering that video games don't translate to real life should not come as a big surprise but it did. After the first 10 shots I wondered how much I would improve over the next 140. Spoiler alert, not much. Part of that is because I didn't have anyone helping me. I had read a few articles online and had an understanding of the basics, but I could have done with a coach there by my side helping me shoot. I shot a few more magazine clips of the .22 and then loaded up the 9mm.

I learned something new with the 9mm handgun: all those movies that make it look easy to load a magazine clip are wrong. It is actually very difficult at first. The spring is very strong and it is tough to push down the bullets into their enclosure. While the magazine held something like 10 bullets, the most I could ever get in was 9. I shot the first round and found I am much worse with the 9mm than the .22.

One of my biggest fears was that the gun would jam and I would have to figure out how to extract a dangerous bullet from a nastily jammed position. Well it didn't take that long for it to happen. All the information I got from the lecture before I headed into the range was immediately forgotten. I had to figure it out on my own. Fortunately I got it unjammed. When the pistol kept jamming, I made sure it was empty and then traded it for a different and bigger 9mm gun.

Towards the end of my time at the range I decided shooting handguns was not as much fun as I thought it would be. Part of that came from the fact that I really am a lousy shot, or so I thought. I finished shooting all 150 rounds, returned the rented guns, and paid my bill. Then I made sure to call my son and share my experience with him. The first thing he said is that the target was too far away for a handgun. To qualify for the concealed-carry permit, the target only needs to be at 5 meters. That would have been great information before I started. I might have felt better about myself and my abilities.

My experience at the gun range taught me a lot about what it feels like to be a beginner. I really should not have gone there without someone who knew what they were doing. Having a coach would have made for a much more pleasurable experience. Remember that as you go to try something new with technology. See if you can't get someone who knows what they are doing to help you along. Don't let them do it for you or you won't learn anything but see if you can get them to help you learn. You will be so much better for it in the end.

Engineering for Fun

One of the first things I learned in engineering school is that there is always more than one way to solve a problem. In school we always looked for the most efficient way as that is generally considered the best solution. Yesterday I saw a comic strip that showed a young boy skipping stones across a pond. You could also see his idea of how he could use a playground slide to skip himself across several wading pools. That is a fun engineering solution. Sure it may not work, but it looked like a very fun idea and brought a smile to my face. Now I am wondering if I missed something in my engineering classes and instead of looking for the efficient solution, I should have been looking for the fun one.

There is a video on YouTube that shows the fun way to remove a tree stump. It takes forever as you effectively burn it out of your yard and that takes several days, if not weeks. The creator of the video is right though, it is the fun way to remove a tree stump.

Perhaps the idea of engineering for fun is where Rube Goldberg got his ideas for elaborate devices he drew in his comic strips. There are now competitions around the world to see who can create the most fun contraption in his honor. Who says engineers are boring nerds that don't know how to have fun?

For most of the projects at work, I will need to continue to find the most efficient way of solving the problem, however, I also want to start thinking about fun solutions. My guess is that a chuckle or two will be the only benefit of this new way of thinking. My hope is that one or two "fun" solutions make it into production. If that is the case, I'll be sure to post about it.

Don't Forget Your Laptop Charger

My oldest son is visiting my youngest son in Ohio for the remainder of the week. I got a text from him this morning that he forgot to bring his laptop charger for his MacBook Pro. He has one of the latest models that still uses an Intel chip. That means he has pretty good battery life but not as good as the recent models that use the M1 chips. It also means that his laptop uses a USB-C connection to charge the battery.

I am not a fan of Apple constantly changing how to charge their devices. It doesn't matter if it is an iPhone, iPad, or a laptop; the charger used today will be changed on newer releases of the hardware. I did like the change to USB-C for their laptops though as it does offer alternatives to using Apple-specific chargers. Hopefully they stick with it for awhile.

When my son mentioned that he left his laptop charger at home, I suggested he try connecting his phone charger to his computer to see if that will work for the week. I know that USB chargers have some intelligence. They will start charging at the lowest specified power and then negotiate to charge at the highest power possible. The Apple-brand charger for their laptops are rated at 96 watts where a phone charger is rated to only a few watts. My son tried that and an hour later after not using the laptop at all, his battery power increased from 16% to 17%. That wasn't going to work.

Ultimately my son had to run into town and get a charger from Walmart. They had one for $40 instead of the usual Apple price of $70 so he could save himself some money. Having left my laptop charger at home on more than one occasion, I could feel my son's pain. Fortunately he came up with a relatively inexpensive solution.

Done with my Latest Hackathon Project

This week I have had the pleasure of participating in a Hackathon for work. Unfortunately I can't describe my project as we have been asked to keep them secret until after the judging has completed. Six months ago, I didn't worry about sharing my project as it did not relate to my job at Sony PlayStation at all. This project is actually a good idea that would benefit the company as a new product idea as well as being a good corporate citizen. Perhaps in the future I can point to an actual product or service and say that started as my simple project.

As with the Hackathon 6 months ago, this one ended up being completely virtual. That means I spent a large amount of time getting video of myself building the project. When you have to plan everything you do around a video camera, it really slows down the work. I also had to take time to create the 4-minute video that will be used to judge my project. I started this morning at around 11am and the video still isn't complete. Fortunately I am rendering the video and just waiting for iMovie to spit out the file that I will upload to the judges tomorrow morning. It has been rendering for the past hour and I hope it completes shortly.

Creating a 4-minute video is incredibly difficult if you want to do it correctly. For starters, there is so much to say about the project that it is tough to keep it under 4 minutes. I had to leave a lot of the details out. Some of those details are what makes the project spectacular and so you want to include certain things and then leave others out. Assuming you have all the footage from creating the project, you then have to narrate the process you followed. It took me about an hour to get all of my audio recorded. Then I had to sync the audio with the video and still images.

I have to confess that I prefer still images over video. If you need an extra second or two, it is easy to add with a photograph. If you have important steps you are showing in a video, you have to make sure the narration matches exactly. There are tricks you can use but it is not as simple as using pictures.

Ultimately I am glad I participated in the Hackathon as I learned a lot. I also had a significant amount of fun and think I did something worthwhile. I hope the judges agree.