—

The whole “this wasn’t the apocalypse that we were looking forward to” meme referring to zombie apocalypse and nuclear holocaust “fans” was sort of amusing.

Simply put, this is one of the few calamities that I have actually prepared for, albeit accidentally.

Much of my work and recreation doesn’t require getting out of the house, and I’ve learned to reduce my need for social interaction. My habit of getting premium equipment and backup alternatives also meant I don’t need to go out to buy things often.

I’ve even got random stuff that ended up being more useful in the situation. For example, that expensive mask I got for running – I switched out the filter for a carbon-filter one which I happened to buy and never got to use until the Taal Volcano eruption.

Another is the rechargeable beard clipper I got for my beard; it came with hair guards equivalent to No 5 and below. I was able to give myself the pandemic buzzcut that’s fashionable nowadays. /s

—

I can’t comment on the disease itself since I’m not an Epidemiologist. I am however, a software developer and I deal with large data sets all the time.

And pretty much all of the data shown on the news is useless from a data analysis standpoint.

Don’t get me wrong, death statistics have to be taken seriously, but the usual “Tested Positive, Recovered, Deaths” that’s been plastered all over the news is insufficient to make any informed decision from a data analysis perspective. Here’s just a small fraction of the problems with this “data”:

Tested Positive – most common flaw: the total number of tests performed is not mentioned, obscuring the infection rate. Another obvious flaw: calculating the percent of the country’s/municipalities’ total population infected/tested is left to the viewer. Other problems include not showing the breakdown of how many were tested via contact tracing (hints how the infection really spreads), and the test kit false positive/negative rate (hints the correct combination of test kits to use).

Recovered – the time of recovery (minimum, maximum, average) is never mentioned even though this can tell the public the actual severity of the infection. Also, the criteria for recovery is vague – what tests are done to categorize a patient as recovered.

Deaths – the criteria for counting a death is inconsistent among sources, basically there’s no strict rules whether to combine people who died from the disease and people who died with the disease. Patient privacy is important, but to make sense of the death statistics, we must know how these people died so agencies can make better treatment protocols, as well as decide which portion of the population to impose further quarantine measures on.

I could go on and on. And yes I’ve seen the EndCoV.ph site, but no it’s still not enough data.

You might say, “it’s ~500,000 tested and ~26,000 confirmed cases; there’s no way the public can handle that data, let alone a single software developer without a ‘data analyst’ title.”

To be frank, that amount of data is pretty small especially in this age of cloud computing. In fact, 26k data points is just a lazy Tuesday morning for me – finding the right terminology and tone for the report would actually take me far more time.

That’s just a software dev speaking. Think about what a real data scientist can do given full access to all of the data.

—

So why are these government institutions and news agencies disseminating such poor quality data?

I’m going to defer to Hanlon’s Razor here and assume at least 50% of it is due to plain incompetence, with the rest to further the narrative or agenda they wish to promote.

Except for US and US-aligned mainstream media.

That’s all definitely narrative pushing, seeing how quickly news about the pandemic plummeted due to the riots. And it’s going to be worse as we approach the November elections.

—

What will the near future hold for us?

I don’t know. I’m not an Epidemiologist.

Lobotomy Corporation: a humble Korean indie game that earned a place in my top 5 computer games of all time, beating the likes of StarCraft and Nier Automata. Also a very janky game that I cannot recommend to anyone other than the most passionate cosmic/metafiction horror fans (e.g. people who have fell into the SCP Foundation rabbit hole).

In honor of its sequel’s Early Access, I’ve decided to be a bit productive and take this opportunity to practice voice over work as well as proper non-linear editing; most of my previous video “editing” work was mainly just syncing and compositing multiple sources.

Biggest takeaways from this exercise:

• I’ve got a harsh lisp when I’m speaking English. Not much of a problem for Tagalog or even Japanese, but the amount of variations of TH/S/Z sibilant sounds in the former makes it too obvious. There are workarounds to this problem, but unfortunately I only found the better ones after I made the video.
• Unless you’re deep into a specific editing workflow (e.g. Adobe Premiere), it’s hard to suggest any editing software other than DaVinci Resolve. Sure it’s got some kinks here and there, but at the end of the day it’s a free editor with a ton of pro-level features.
• Video essays require gigs upon gigs of footage and b-roll, which means I have to edit directly on my NAS. As much DaVinci Resolve’s local caching helps speed up things, I’ll have to seriously consider upgrading to 10Gb networking if I’m going to do more of these in the future.

With the global pandemic keeping people in their homes for weeks, I got around to thinking what I, as a person who had experienced months/years long stretches of unemployment, would suggest people do to pass the time without going outside.

Some quick maths:

Let’s assume 8 hours of sleep as there’s no reason to skimp on that when you’re on lockdown. Then 2 hours minimum for daily rituals – eating, bathing, laundry (assuming the whole household shares the chores), etc. 

14 hours a day, multiplied it by 31 and we get 434 hours which could be rounded down to 400 hours.

So what can eat up 400 hours?

This leads us to why I had to add “unproductive” as a restriction: learning and practicing new skills can easily eat up all of those 400 hours as long as you have the passion and drive to work through the learning humps along the way. Similarly, time will quickly pass by if you use your own existing skills to create something you’ve always wanted but didn’t have the time before. Heck, mundane stuff like cleaning your room can take longer than you expect.

On the other end of the spectrum, I had to add the “” to exclude the most unproductive activities, namely spending all day on social networks and pollute your mind with fake news/outrage about the pandemic. Though after writing that down, I guess this would also include watching the mainstream news which has by now degraded to “all the clickbait about COVID-19 that you want to see”.

Anyway, back to the question at hand…

—

Computer gaming is an obvious answer. You can spend thousands of hours on your favorite game/genre, just ask any MOBA or Battle Royale player.

It’s 2020, though: video game developers have figured out that the limiting factor for most gamers isn’t money or hardware – it’s the fact that people only have less than 5 hours of free time a day. This limited nature can be exploited to enticing people to spend money rather than grind in-game for rewards.

But now you have people with a lot of free time on their hands and no reason to spend cash on non-essential things.

Long story short, you can take advantage of this exploitative trend and easily consume an entire day just by fulfilling the “daily” and “weekly quests” of 5 free-to-play/gacha/lootbox/microtransaction games.

Maybe you’re not keen on supporting money-grubbing game publishers that overuse these tricks. Or maybe you’re not confident that you’ll have stable internet for the next few months. What else can you play aside from online games and gacha?

• Crafting/exploring games like Minecraft and Terraria
• Simulation games that are not quite the same as the above eg. Cities Skylines, Stardew Valley, RimWorld, and Factorio
• High learning curve and janky games e.g. Dwarf Fortress, pretty much every game with a SsethTzeentach video
• Rogue-likes and other games built on replayability e.g. Darkest Dungeon, Slay the Spire, and Risk of Rain
• JRPGs average around 50 hours, with some taking up to 100 or more. Go dig up your PS2 and borrow Persona 3 FES and Persona 4 from a (hopefully uninfected) friend
• I know it’s a simulation game, but the Civilization series deserve special mention as the archetypal 4X “One more turn” game. Civ III and Civ IV are cheap, while Freeciv (open source game based on Civ I) is free for download. You can even play the latter on your browser.

—

Apart from gaming, the next obvious choice is streaming. Go clear your “To Watch” backlog then let the algorithm suggest new stuff for you.

If paying for a monthly subscription isn’t for you, there’s always YouTube. In fact, when I asked myself what can eat up 400 hours, the first thing that came to mind was Critical Role.

Critical Role is a weekly web show “where a bunch of nerdy-ass voice actors play Dungeons and Dragons”. Episodes average around 4 hours long and they just recently hit their 5 year mark. This gives you over 700 hours of content even if you skip the intros and breaks.

However, I didn’t mention Critical Role earlier due to a couple of reasons. First off, gaming is arguably more engaging for many people than simply watching something. 

More importantly, though, it’s a very niche recommendation.

If you’re familiar with tabletop role playing games, it has a good chance of hooking you as it shows what top-tier RPG gaming looks like, something that has always been described in books or articles but never been seen on video before. The cast being voice actors also add another layer to the show; they may not be A-list or even C-list celebrities, but you’ve probably heard some of them in your favorite video games, cartoons, or dubbed anime. Their acting chops also mean that they often stay in-character in critical moments, further enhancing the immersion.

That said, if you have no interest in TRPGs nor do you care about voice acting, Critical Role’s probably not for you.

Even not counting CR, your average YouTube content creator who has been constantly uploading content for over 5 years will have at least a hundred hours of content. Find a channel that talks about something that interests you, watch a few of their videos then binge the rest if they suit your palate.

Here’s a small sample of the channels I’ve binged in the past few years:

• RedLetterMedia – initially popular for the then-groundbreaking Plinkett reviews, they’ve followed it up by posting movie reviews and doing bad movie viewings. While pretty much every movie review channel does the same thing, they stand out by being professional (sort-of) filmmakers themselves giving them insights into movie making that the others don’t. They also prefer to be consistent rather than worry about trivial stuff like subscriber counts.
• Bon Appétit – formerly just an obligatory YouTube channel for a respected food magazine, a couple of hit “shows” with clever editing (It’s Alive with Brad, Gourmet Makes) transformed it into a “The Office“-like sitcom, with editors, writers, test kitchen staff, and production crew as the “cast”. It’s still a good cooking channel underneath, but everyone’s really after the meta-icing on the top.
• Forgotten Weapons – there are gun channels, those that examine guns, take them apart, and shoot them. And there are history channels. But there are only a few gun history channels, ones that talk about both guns and their role in the history of warfare. What’s great about this channel is that while Ian McCollum can be subjective in describing guns and how they feel when shooting, he’s very objective in their politics and history.
• Brady Haran’s educational video channels – other science channels present either bite-sized summarized content or very verbose discussions. Brady’s content tends to hover around the sweet spot – not too short that other points are glossed over, but not too long that it gets boring/repetitive.
• I used to watch Let’s Play channels like Game Grumps, but I can’t recommend them anymore as most of them have trouble with juggling being entertaining and actually playing the game. Nowadays, I’d rather watch highlight videos for entertainment (eg. TheRussianBadger) or speedruns/edited long plays for gameplay.

Before I move on to the last option, I have to mention that “sailing the high seas” is definitely an alternative to streaming series and movies, especially those not available in local streaming services. Sure, it can be legally ambiguous, but if your internet breaks down and there aren’t any available repair techs in your area due to the quarantine, you’d be glad to have gigabytes of locally stored media to stave off boredom.

—

“Written work” wraps up this list of obvious time eating options.

E-books are reasonably cheap and I won’t be surprised if Amazon and other e-book companies offer discounts in these trying times. You can also legally get free e-books in sites like Project Gutenberg.

Then there’s web novels, self published work where writers upload chapters one at a time. While we’re at it, let’s include fanfiction which follow the same format.

Literary snobs may scoff at these two as they often lack proper editing and, to put it bluntly, most of them are shit. But I have to include them here because of their length.

The average person can leisurely read about 100,000 words a day, maybe 200,000 if totally focused on the text. With the average fantasy/sci-fi paperback running around 100,000 words, you can finish one novel in a day or two.

Web serials can run in the millions, easily matching their published book series counterparts. For example, Worm clocks at 1.68 million words. You can spend weeks bingeing on web serials and there will still be content to read.

Written media’s biggest advantage over the previous two is it’s size: you can fit more novels in the same space as TV series, movies, or (non-retro) games. Spotty internet won’t bother you as much as in the other options.

We can’t talk about written work without talking about comics. They sit between what’s generally accepted as written work/literature and movies/TV series. They don’t have the small data footprint of the former, but with proper compression techniques, a single TV episode can be equivalent to a dozen graphic novel volumes.

I won’t go into too much detail about them apart from pointing out that you can get comics and manga the same way as other written work: through online stores, free legal online readers, self-published web comics, legally gray sites and downright illegal means.

—

And that’s my list. In hindsight, all of these are too obvious, and you probably will be doing a combination of these three, hopefully with some “productive” stuff in between.

This series will be split into multiple parts: first, I’ll talk about my PC audio journey starting from my first PC. Then we’ll go into a buyer’s guide where I give part recommendations based on usage and price range. And finally, I’ll discuss my current audio setup.

—

My first PC was a 386-based clone with 2 disk drives and a monochrome CGA monitor. As with early micro-computers, its audio was limited to the internal “PC speaker“. While sufficient for machine beeps and simple game sound effects, it’s a far cry from even the lowest quality earphones bundled with mobile phones nowadays.

While obsolete as an audio device, it still helps to have a PC speaker in your toolbox as motherboards (at least the non-high-end ones) still use the speaker output for diagnostic beeps. This wasn’t a problem before as it was a standard part of PC cases, but case makers have decided in the recent decade to not include them anymore in their products.

In other words, if your PC fails to boot and you don’t have a fancy $200+ motherboard, you’re SOL trying to figure out what’s wrong. You won’t have this problem if you’ve got a $0.50 speaker on hand.

We eventually upgraded to the full 90’s multimedia experience with a Creative Sound Blaster CD-ROM, sound card and speakers bundle. The picture above is from an Ebay listing of a similar bundle – we got the same speakers and drive but not the whole educational kit. However, it did include a great EA games compilation CD – Strike Commander, Wing Commander II, Syndicate, and Ultima 8.

(Yes, I know 8 is a bad entry, but it was a passable tech demo.)

In hindsight, the leap from internal PC speakers to external ones was incremental rather than revolutionary. Developers had over a decade of playing around with PC sound while Sound Blaster audio was new technology. Compression also wasn’t that great so you either had to span multiple CDs for great game audio (and video) or you’d have to live with low quality audio.

Similarly, the decade that followed was also a series of incremental improvements to audio. MIDI vs WAV vs MP2 ended with widespread adoption of MP3, and bandwidth improved to the point that downloading songs in decent bit rates would only take a few hours. Sound chips have gone down in price enough that manufacturers have started including speaker-mic-line sockets in their new motherboards rather than relying on external sound cards.

As for me, I got into college and boarded with other students. While I got a room for myself, I still learned the value of using headphones: I can play games all night without bothering people in other rooms. I had to make do with cheap headphones, though, as there weren’t any mid-range or even low-mid-range stuff in the market at that time – only cheap consumer earbuds/headphones and high-end professional/audiophile gear.

In 4 years, I graduated and got a job. This meant I finally got money to splurge on gadgets, and on the top of that list is computer parts. In fact, my first salary went to a computer table.

I really didn’t have a lot of audio upgrade options in mid 00’s because the mid-range audio market still haven’t arrived yet. Upgrading from stereo to 5.1 surround was the only affordable thing to do at that time: motherboards still didn’t have the same 5.1/7.1 sockets that we have today (see picture above), but 5.1 PCI sound cards can be purchased for as low as ₱500. Entry level surround speaker sets under ₱3,000 were also available.

Sadly, moving from cheap speakers to a still cheap 5.1 system wasn’t a huge improvement to the listening experience. While the extended bass provided by the subwoofer was welcome, there weren’t a lot of surround sound media widely available at that time. In addition, only a few games had support for extra audio channels. To top it off, rear speaker wires often get stepped on or rolled on by chairs as they’re too short to be mounted along walls.

Because of this, I ditched the surround speaker system and decided to splurge on one of the first surround headsets available in the market, the Razer Barracuda HP-1.

This is the first time I’ve drastically improved the quality of my PC’s audio. It’s not the 5.1 surround sound in a headset; to be honest, that was more of a gimmick as the difference between surround and stereo wasn’t that noticeable. Instead, it could simply be boiled down to “better drivers = better audio”. Cheap-ass headphones and earbuds just couldn’t compare to any decent ~$100 pair of headphones.

The HP-1 became my daily driver (pun intended) for years and played countless hours of gaming on it. However, a problem eventually became apparent the longer I used the headphones: it’s bulky. In games where positional audio was important, enduring the weight and size during long game sessions was a necessary sacrifice for survival.

The turn of the decade also gave way to YouTube and I found myself needing high quality audio less and less. I even considered getting some cheap speakers again to give me a way to listen to sound without having to wear the bulky headphones. That is, until I realized I already have a pair of cheap speakers in my rig.

My then-new Asus PB278Q 2K monitor had built-in speakers, and audio can be sent over through the same cable as the video source ie. DisplayPort or HDMI. It sounded shitty, but it was there, I didn’t have to wire additional cables, and switching between headphone output and monitor speakers was just a few clicks on the Windows 7 taskbar.

—

This dual-audio setup became my default for years until I got the next big upgrade. Since that leads to my current setup and that isn’t something I’d recommend to the average computer user, I’ll stop my story here and move on to the buyers’ guide. Feel free to skip to the last part for it, though.

To tell you the truth, 80% of what got me into shape was a change to a higher-protein diet. And if I only focused on getting more sleep, I’d be in a much better shape than I am right now.

But of course, tasteless chicken breasts and sleep is boring. You can’t copy it in the hopes of adding it to your Instagram. So let’s talk about the last 20%: my exercise regimen.

After doing a bit of research, I found that I couldn’t fit in gym with my schedule. I work early shift so early morning gym would mean going there at 3-4AM, and post-work gym would mean that once I finish working out at 5 or 6PM, I’d get stuck in traffic rather than have a relatively quick 45 minute one-way commute had I gone home at 3 or 4.

The traffic constraint lead me to my main exercise routine: Urban Hiking. It’s what I call going from BGC all the way to my house 7.5km away. I don’t want to call it “running”; while I typically run 4-5km of the route, the hills, varied running paths, and the cars make it very hard to run all the way, especially for a person like me who has no interest in being a runner.

The lessons I learned from being an urban hiker will be in another blog post. For now, let’s go with something more interesting: my workout gear.

After 2 years of half-assed training, I determined the best combination of equipment for me:

• Osprey Talon 11 v1 – The key to my afternoon hikes. Without this trail running pack, I’d be limited to just walking home. Sure, I can just leave my clothes in the office and run unencumbered like everybody else, but I’m too lazy to shuttle extra clothes on non-running day.
  Finding trail running bags can be hard, but thankfully R.O.X. sells Osprey bags and they’re just a couple of blocks away from my office.
• Halo Sport Visor – I sweat a lot. My initial attempts at running had me stopping multiple times to wipe my forehead and eyes clear of sweat. A headband would solve this problem, but this isn’t the 80’s so I went with a “visor” that’s actually more of a headband than a visor. At this point, the sweat channels have peeled off (the logo is peeling off too) but it’s still functional as a headband and a visor.
• Respro Ultralight Mask – it’s a running mask. I’ll be writing a more in-depth review on it in the future.
• Random cheap dri-fit – for a long time, I was content with just using whatever t-shirt I was wearing for work. Eventually, having a damp sticky back became too annoying and I decided to just get a couple of cheap dri-fit shirts at a nearby running goods store.
• Random dri-fit pants – same as shirt, but the pants came from multiple places e.g. Runnr, Under Armor, etc.
• Sunscreen – I’m already dark skinned and I’m not under the sun for that long so sunscreen’s a mixed bag: on one hand, it’s kinda annoying to apply and attracts dirt; on the other hand, less chance of getting skin cancer.
• Knee support – I rarely use this, but I have it ready for the moments that I feel anything funny on either of my knees. Better safe than sorry.
• Generic 500ml water bottle – initially, I thought I needed 1L of water because I was sweating too much. Turns out, that is too much and I can’t run with a lot of water in my stomach. 500ml is ok, and recently I’ve been adding a bit of salt and sugar in the water (because electrolytes).
• Running Shoes – no, these aren’t my running shoes. I didn’t show them here because I haven’t used them long enough to properly review them. But having running shoes is a given.
• Grip Power Pads – my “warm up” consists of me doing sets of pull-ups and chin-ups at Track 30th. While it doesn’t feel right to complain about a free public exercise area, I have to say that the pull-up bars are pretty bad: they’re uneven and thin making exercises more painful than usual.
  After a year and a half of tolerating the pain (and getting some cool callouses in the process), I finally gave up and bought some cheap pads while I shipped something from Amazon. With this I can finally do some straight bar dips.
• Osprey Hi-Visibility Raincover – one of the downsides of carrying a bag while running is that I can’t run when it’s raining; I have to get my umbrella out and walk the rest of the way. Osprey has rain covers but R.O.X. doesn’t sell them locally so I had to import this one via Amazon and Johnny Air Cargo.
  It works well, and I even got some personal bests running in the rain (apparently overheating is my main weakness even though I sweat a lot). Heavier rain will still seep into the bag, but it’s not a problem since the bag itself is water resistant.

Not pictured is my vivosmart HR fitness band. In my hikes, I mainly use the heart rate monitor to guide me to the (in)correct heart rate zone of 160-180 for anaerobic fun (the correct heart rate for running is 130-150). The step counter and sleep tracker are automatic so I don’t really use (i.e. activate) them, and they provide useful stats. Apart from that, I don’t treat this device as any more than a watch, though having an extra buzzer for early morning alarms and call notifications is also appreciated.

Here are some stuff that isn’t my gear anymore:

• Hand towel – for sweat. Didn’t have to use it as much once I got a headband/visor so I stopped bringing it.
• Shades – turned out too annoying to wear, not to mention that the pair I got somehow made things look weird or distorted like a pair of incorrect prescription glasses. Wearing a visor is more than enough to block out most of the sunlight anyway.
• Earphones – some people think running without music is too boring. Some people need tunes to pump them up and encourage them to go the extra mile.

  Some people aren’t running in busy roads with stretches of non-existent sidewalk and the occasional counter-flow bikes coming in from behind.

And there’s my loadout. As mentioned above, had I focused on my sleep patterns last year, I might have lost more fat and gained a lot more muscle. However, I’m still very happy with my progress overall as my legs are a lot sleeker than they used to and that 5km walks are practically nothing to me right now.

Above is a video of me fixing my PS4’s DualShock controller. It’s 28 minutes long so here’s a write-up:

So I bought a second hand PS4 Slim last year just in time for Persona 5. Worked great in my first run through, but eventually the circle button of the controller stopped responding.

As with any DIYer out there, I applied the first aid for unresponsive electronics: opening the thing and liberally applying contact cleaner to everything. This would clean out the gunk and hopefully make the connections work again.

This worked, but only for a few days. The circle button stopped working even after multiple applications of contact cleaner. I spent about an hour tracing leads with my multi-tester before I found out that the connection for the button in membrane film was broken, probably corroded from a combination of heat and humidity.

After shelving it for a couple of months, I finally went to Ali Express and bought some spare parts: membrane film, and new ribbon cable to replace the cable I accidentally broke during the multiple teardowns. While I was at it, I also got other cheap doodads for my PS4.

Replacement was straightforward. The only reason it took me about half an hour was my narration and relative inexperience in tinkering with controllers.

End result: I fully repaired the controller for about $30. It’s probably cheaper if I got it repaired in some random repair stall, but the extra spare parts and the experience more than made up for it.

And yes, the controller is still working. So far I’ve played over 60 hours on it while working on a 100% playthrough of Persona 5.

Before we go into the review, a quick background on how I got to buy the device in the first place.

With the more stable income from my new job, I went on to upgrade the stuff I use everyday. Of course, upgrading my gaming rig was the first on the list, but a year on, there wasn’t really any new stuff I need to upgrade.

Then I saw this video, specifically the part on audio equipment.

My setup then wasn’t bad – I’ve still got a decent Samson Go Mic USB condenser mic that I used way back for voice overs and other recording stuff. But it was getting close to Christmas and I had to spend a part of my bonus on something that I would actually use rather than spend on some other, more impractical impulse buy.

Mic was no problem – Audiophile sells legit Shure SM58s. The problem was USB audio interfaces.

Dedicated audio interfaces like those from PreSonus were too unitask-y for me, not to mention their huge markups from local sellers. For a couple of months, I had resigned myself to getting an the only “cheap” device I could find locally online: okay-ish Behringer mixers with USB out which go for ₱5-₱12K.

Then I remembered Game Grumps once made a video about their setup and revealed they were using a Yamaha mixer/USB interface, specifically the Yamaha MG12XU. This got me looking into locally sold Yamaha mixers, and in the process found out that they were selling hobbyist versions of their mixers – the AG Series.

But that was shut down when I found out that the this line wasn’t even on the local distributor’s radar. International shipping would also push the cost to > ₱10K. So back to Behringer again…

That is, until a random morning when I was searching for similar options to the AG series when I found out about the special edition AG03-MIKU – a Hatsune Miku themed AG03 promoted for webcasting. The cross promotion makes sense as Yamaha built the Vocaloid software, and without Crypton Future Media‘s Miku, Vocaloid wouldn’t have been as popular as it had been in the past decade. This tie-up also gives opportunities for aspiring producers and singers to make more Vocaloid material, benefiting both.

At first I dismissed it – the first page of search results for AG03-MIKU back then showed only Japanese stores (which are hard to navigate and probably don’t ship internationally) and Ebay listings with huge markups.

Then I stumbled upon Amazon.co.jp.

Ok, so Amazon Japan sells AG03-MIKU. But surely it’s more expensive than the plain AG03, right?

Nope.

And they also offer international shipping. All in all, it only costs around ₱8K (₱6K for the item, ₱2K for the priority shipping), well under the ₱10K customs duty-free limit.

(Note: I still had to pay a deposit for the expected ~30% customs fee, but they refunded it later.)

And so I impulse bought yet another device that I may not use that often. I mean, it’s a well reviewed device (it’s essentially an AG03 with a Miku decal and a more vibrant Miku color scheme) and it ups my geek cred (Vocaloid is popular, but not quite poser-geek mainstream yet), but it’s got a limited use case i.e. to replace my old microphone with a setup that is 5 times more expensive in situations that only happen at most once a month.

Was it worth it?

Hell yeah.

Let’s start this review with the features that I bought it for: the mic input and the USB interface.

Unfortunately, there isn’t much to say about them. The mic input accepts both XLR and 1/4″ phone connectors in a combo socket, and supports phantom power for condenser mics in case I would like to upgrade/switch to AT2020. Without boring you about technical details, all the other knobs (like the gain/level) and buttons (like the PAD, COMP/EQ, EFFECT) all allow you to adjust the mic input to make you sound better, and they do their job fairly well.

The USB audio interface is just another (albeit very high quality) audio interface. Install the drivers and plug it in and it works. I can now use an XLR mic for Skype calls, game stream voice over, and karaoke sessions alone in my room.

An expensive, occasionally used setup. A perfect example of a self-Christmas gift.

At least until I noticed this thing:

When you plug in the mixer and install the drivers, your computer can also treat it as playback device. That audio interface goes both ways, and this knob controls the volume of the sound input from your computer, and output it to the monitor headphones and/or speakers.

In other words, I accidentally bought a DAC, something that was also on my wish list. And trying it with my other Christmas self-gift an HD 600, the headphone output is powerful enough to drive the mid-to-high range headphones. So it’s also an amp, giving me a budget DAC/Amp for free!

Headphones also lead us to the feature I use the most: the monitor knobs.

With these, I can adjust the volume of my speakers and my headphones independently. Having an analog knob for quick volume fine tuning is already a big thing, but that’s not the biggest use for me: it’s switching between speakers and headphones on the fly.

I have wide soft ears and I can’t wear headphones all the time. Even the lightweight HD 600 can become annoying after a while. So my default is lower quality speakers (I haven’t upgraded yet to studio monitors) when I’m just watching Youtube videos or quick games, and I used to switch to headphones when I’m listening to music or gaming seriously via the Windows audio settings. It’s a lot easier in Windows 10, but it doesn’t beat two quick flicks of knobs.

And finally, the last feature that I got to use extensively: the other 2 input channels.

Normally, a producer would use those two channels for musical instruments. I don’t know any instruments, but I found a good use for them: external audio input.

With 1/4″ to RCA adapters, I can connect the mixer to one of my karaoke machines. And with a 3.5mm TRS to RCA adapter, I can connect my PS4 (via the controller), my 3DS, and basically any device with audio to the mixer. Once connected, I can also adjust their volumes with the knob, saving myself the hassle of having to go to their respective volume settings and adjusting them.

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Before we move on to the other features, let’s talk about the back connectors.

The USB type-B plug on the right is the main connector. It’s just USB 2.0 connection, but it’s more than enough to transfer audio at it’s maximum sample rate while at the same time powering the device.

A quick check shows the mixer draws 1.5W while playing music and picking up audio, lower the max draw in the specs (2.5W).

Thanks to its low power draw, you have a portable mixing setup by powering it using a power bank and a micro-USB cable connected to the socket on the left.

(I actually did this in a Christmas party where they had a “bring your musical instrument for the jamming session”. As a vocalist, a mic with a preamp + mixer is my “instrument”. The end result was much better than I expected.)

With the correct cable and software, you can also use the type-B socket to plug in your iPad and record a jamming session. But I don’t have the proper cable and I’d rather use a laptop for it anyway.

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Now on to the features I don’t use.

This toggles how the device mixes the audio. The Dry sends the audio from the channels dry (ie. not mixed and not affected by the volume level setting), Input Mix sends the mixed audio that you hear in the monitors sans the computer sound, while Loopback also mixes in the computer sound (everything you hear in the monitors is looped back so it’s more accurate, but may cause feedback in some software/setups). I generally just leave this in Input Mix or Loopback.

You can use the first 2 sockets you have a headset with mic that have split connectors, and you can use the last socket for input from any audio device. I don’t use these sockets because the other sockets can do the same and are better – the headset sockets are inferior to XLR in and monitor outputs, and the you have no knob to control the AUX volume and it is just line level.

I also don’t use the bundled and downloadable software. Sure there’s the Cubase AI audio software license and the 39 day license (a Miku pun for the uninitiated) for Vocaloid and Miku, but my audio software is enough for my needs right now. Then there’s the software to setup COMP/EQ and sound effects which I just set to presets (COMP/EQ for male vocalists, hall echo effect).

The only software I had to tweak was the USB driver to lower the sample rate (192kHz is overkill) which also reduces the latency (it’s impossible to sing when latency is too high, but that’s for another article).

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Final verdict:

It is what it is, a webcasting starter kit. Pair it with decent mics, instruments, and musical talent and you’re now ready for YouTube / NND. Pair it with OBS and a console or gaming rig, and you’re set to be a Twitch streamer. And if you don’t have a DAC yet and want clean sound, it can easily fill in for one.

That said, it’s a jack of all trades, and it carries the usual drawbacks. For example, if you’re just in it for voice over work, it would be better to find a cheap audio interface or a decent second-hand interface. You can also get mixers with > 6 channels for far less than ₱8K if you just want a mixer. And if you want really good DAC/Amps, you can get much better ones for a few thousand Pesos more.

Overall, I’d recommend this product. Just go with the plain AG06 if you don’t want to look like a weeaboo.

Play it now here.

Also ported it to Android using Intel XDK and Cordova.

Algorithm/Programming Competitions: the other type of “Hackathon”.

When you see the word “hackathon” nowadays, it refers to the one where a bunch of people are gathered into a single venue and form groups to work for a couple of days on ideas that they pitched at the beginning and end with a final pitch to see how good their prototype and idea is. Best pitch wins.

On the opposite end there’s the original OpenBSD type of hackathon. People are still gathered in a single venue, but there is no pitching – just coding. It can be a directed coding venture, like in the first hackathon where they worked on some parts of the OS. It can also be a creative, free-form one, like Global Game Jam where game developers make any game for 48 hours as long as it’s somehow related to the theme.

There can also be prizes in the latter, but it’s mostly a fun exercise for developers. And there’s no business stuff and pitching to worry about.

Programming Competitions have nothing to do with these two. It’s only because hackathons have become somewhat famous spectacles recently that people think that “get programmers in a single venue and make them code” automatically makes it a “hackathon”.

A programming competition is a race. First team to make programs that can solve the contest problems wins – it’s as simple as that. No pitching. Strict rules. And a lot shorter than most hackathons.

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I believe that Programming Competitions have the most potential out of these three programming events…

Programming competitions are an objective test of programming skill. If your program doesn’t solve the given problem, you won’t get a point for it.

Compare this with college. As weird as it may sound, you can graduate with an IT-related degree without knowing how to program, whether through deception or through plain incompetence of the school. And this happens more than we’d like in the industry.

Let’s imagine programming competitions somehow become famous throughout the country in a few years time. Not basketball-level fame, but maybe soccer-level. Say there’s a persistent online Philippines-only HackerRank-like competition where anyone from the top-tier universities down to the remote colleges can test their skills. Assume that the anti-cheating and user-verification measures are good enough that graduates can put their “programmer level” on their resumes and that employers will honor it.

Imagine what would happen if students are confident of their programming skills that some of them even show them off. Imagine its impact in the industry and the academe.

It’s going to be a crazy world, won’t it?

Certainly a bigger impact than what the other hackathons can do.

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…but given what we have right now, there’s very little chance that potential will be reached.

The opportunity is there, but there are hurdles that may be too much for anyone interested in taking it.

First problem: no one cares.

Just a quick background: I’m not a competitive programmer. I solved programming problems (Project Euler, topcoder archives) back in college just for fun. I never practiced for or competed in any live event other than the odd Google Code Jam where I never intended to pass multiple rounds.

But I understand the importance of testing students for their programming skill. After the DevCon Code Challenge Cup, I decided to code a quick online judge in Rails and in mid-2013 started to hold mini-programming competitions in various schools around the country. You can try out a demo here.

And after 2 years of doing this, I’ve had a couple of striking revelations.

One of those was how little people cared about programming. Sure, the people who invited us were really grateful to have the opportunity to test the programming skills of their students, but very few of the organizers were curious about the problems given to the contestants. I would understand the hands-off approach if they were school administrators, but many of those who invited us were IT students and teachers.

None of them reviewed the problems before I gave them to the contestants, checking if the problems were too easy or too hard or simply out of scope of their curriculum. Only a couple of them asked me about the problems after the contest even though that would have been the best time to ask for advice to improve their programming skills.

And there you go, the reason why we’re churning out weak IT graduates: the people in position don’t care about things that they should be passionate about.

The previous problem is compounded by the problem at the other end: a lack of understanding of the relative skill levels of programmers.

Programming isn’t a sport, it’s a skill and a craft. It’s not easy to gauge programmers and we are left to use vague terms like “beginner”, “skilled”, and “expert”.

And anyone who conducts a programming competition to non-competitive programmers will see that “beginner” is not adequate for describing college students. They’re all beginners, but the difference between their skill levels can be great.

Yes, that’s a euphemism for “college students suck at programming”.

Go to the demo link above and read the problems (if it’s still in Practice mode, wait until the Contest mode starts). Even though the problems can be answered by anyone who has just taken CS classes on Java programming and algorithms, in our experience only students from the big 3 universities were able to consistently answer more than 7 questions within the time frame. The next tier of universities can answer around 5, while the rest even struggle with 3.

If aren’t a programmer and don’t know how easy it is to answer just 3 in that list of problems, let’s just say anyone taking a good Programming 101 class should be able to do that in 4-5 lab sessions.

So yeah, most college programming classes are horrible. If you’re going to hold an open (non-invite only, non-ACM-ICPC) programming competition today, you ought to lower the difficulty of the questions. Otherwise, many of your contestants will get very low scores.

You don’t want that to happen. Put yourself in the shoes of someone who either was just curious or was pressured to join the contest. What will they think when they leave the event getting only one or two correct? Will they look forward to the next competition? Will they help promote future events?

Maybe, but probably not.

Even now, I still occasionally get cases where contestants get depressingly low scores (especially if I’m not familiar with the school). We’re lucky that the contests are confined within the schools so we don’t need to worry about negative publicity, but this brings up another point: unless you’re like me who can conduct more than one contest a month, most programming competition organizers do not have the experience of holding contests on a regular basis to learn from their mistakes.

Combine all these three points and you’ll have an idea what will happen when someone conducts an open programming competition in the same manner as the other hackathons.

Venue, logistics, sponsorships… no problem. Then they’ll find people who had past programming competition experience to be the judges and write the problems for them. But since it’s the first time for all of them, the judges will write difficult problems and the organizers will not look at the problems.

Fast-forward to the end of the event. Many teams joined, but only a few of them were competitive programmers. One of the latter won, and the rest were left with a score of 1 or 0.

There won’t be any negative PR (it’s not like it was a bait-and-switch), but there won’t be enough positive buzz either to make a bigger and better follow-up event. Instead of spreading the word and encouraging more people to join in the future, many will just go home and say “eh, at least I tried” and leave it at that.

On to the final point.

When you’re in my shoes as someone who has programmed over half of my life (a good chunk of that professionally) and as someone who recently has conducted programming competitions, you’ll come to hate programming competition-level problems.

I hold programming competitions in schools to show students that they need to understand their programming skill level and work on improving that to the point that they are comfortable with it even under pressure. This is the skill that I want to cultivate into students, and it will do well for them as they enter work.

But there comes a point where the problems are just too tricky that it’s no longer a test of programming skill, but a test of knowing trivia from Computer Science and Math that you will almost never get to use in the industry.

Simply put, high level programming competition skill does not equate to high level software development skill.

High level programming competition also relies on quick hacks – computationally efficient, but ultimately ugly kludges. Good Software Engineering requires you to avoid these hacks lest they become technical debt that will cripple your system and your team in the long run.

Another thing, the deeper you are into complicated problem solving, the more prone you are to The Complicator’s Gloves.

This pitfall of forgetting the original goal of having open programming competitions can be avoided as long as your organizers and judges are developers from the industry whose years of experience have removed any romantic feelings for CS trivia in favor of more pragmatic approaches to software engineering. But then again, there are far fewer CS/SE hybrids (i.e. well versed in both) in the local scene than Developer/Designer “unicorns” so good luck finding them.

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Long story short, Programming Competitions are one of those things that look great on paper, but immediately reveals why no one does it the moment you try to do it on your own. (see also: local Developer Bootcamps)

Can anything be done to address the problems above and push these contests forward and take Philippine IT students’ skills to the next level?

Of course. But it’s going to take a much more dedicated and passionate group of people than what we have right now.

As far as I know, I’m the only amateur videographer in the local tech/developer scene. All other videos of events are either taken by camera phones or are done by paid professionals. Compare this with photography: there are still camera phone pictures, but many events have amateur photographers with decent gear. Why is this so?

It’s not because videography is expensive. Yes, if we look at the equivalent video cameras for DSLRs, you’ll get into the P50k+ range. But you can get somewhat decent cameras for much less like the point-and-shoot equivalent that I use. Overall, my current gear is cheaper than a typical hobbyist photographer’s gear; even the “pro-level” device, the RØDE VideoMic Pro, just hovers around the price of typical lenses.

If amateur videography isn’t expensive, why aren’t we seeing more people taking videos of events?

It’s simply not fashionable.

No, this isn’t a dig at camera owners who use their devices as status symbols. It’s just the blunt truth: videography takes way too much effort compared to photography.

Let’s look at what happens when you cover a meetup talk – the most basic thing a tech event videographer will record.

First you’ll need to deal with the hassle of having to bring a tripod to the venue as the crappy ones that fit in your bag won’t be stable enough for taking videos.

Then you’ll have to sit in a corner for the entire talk… if only that was that easy. You can’t just sit there playing with your phone or move away and chat with the people in the back. You have to focus the whole time, sometimes you’ll have to pan towards the speaker, other times you’ll have to zoom to the projected code. The worst part is that you can’t even speak or comment or heckle because it’s going to be obvious in the audio (watch the RubyConf lightning talks for some examples where I stopped caring about it).

Speaking of audio, it’s a whole different beast compared to videos/images. You can’t fix it in post production, and if you don’t have external microphones like my shotgun mic, you’ll have to place your camera much closer to the speaker to lessen background noise.

Then there’s the post production. Fortunately for talks, it’s just trimming off excess video and possibly re-encoding to get a smaller sized video for a faster upload.

Finally the upload. Hope you’ve got good broadband like mine. If not, you may have to do what I did before PLDT fixed the line in my area and shove the videos into a netbook (to save electricity) and let it upload all day.

And that’s just a user group meetup talk. What about more complicated events like a developer conference?

First you’ll need more cameras: one for the projector, and another for the speaker. Panning between the two isn’t good enough. You might even need a third camera taking a wide shot for backup purposes.

The audio is also slightly more complicated here. Having a shotgun mic really improved the quality of the audio in my usual videos but it alone isn’t enough to get good audio – I ended up not using the shotgun mic audio in the RubyConf videos and instead used the backup camera audio because the latter was in a better position to pick up the speaker and audience audio.

RubyConf PH’s video post-production was much more complicated, though. I got over 150GB of video which, over the course of 3 months, I converted and stitched together to make 21GB of 720p video. I don’t have plans to purchase professional video editing software so I had to make do with Blender VSE, which unfortunately is single-threaded when rendering the final video. Hence the 3 month delay.

tl;dr:

Hand over a camera to a random person and ask them to take pictures of an event and many will be happy to do that for you.
Hand over a video camera and tell them to cover an entire talk (not just random B-rolls) and they’ll give up less than 5 minutes in.

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In case you’re wondering what a professional setup looks like, here’s what Confreaks uses when it records conferences:

• 1 – Manned HD camera (used for primary speaker(s) coverage)
• 1 – Wide shot HD camera (used for backup and synchronization with slides)
• 1 – Backup slide camera
• 1 – Hi-res slide recorder that goes in between the presenter’s laptop and the projector (records hi-resolution output of exactly what is seen during the presentation, including slides, videos, live coding, etc.)
• 1 – Audio recorder that takes an auxiliary out from the house sound system to provide a crisp, clean audio track

This brings up another requirement for video coverage: manpower. Not only does a professional setup require expensive equipment, it also needs at least 2 operators to work properly.

I’m still surprised that I was able to pull off RubyConf PH on my own with what little gear I had with only minimal problems.

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This article’s already a bit long but I still haven’t covered one common comment I hear in the local tech scene regarding videos:

“I hope someone streams this event.”

To which I just shut up instead of explaining why this makes me ಠ_ಠ internally.

First off, you need at least 2Mbps for good quality streaming. Most venues do not have those speeds.

Then there’s the camera. If you want decent video for your event, you’ll need a $200+ video capture device that you would connect to your video camera. Don’t have one? You’ll have to settle with webcams then.

Even if you skip both, being ok with crappy webcam video and occasional lag, you still have the real main problem:

Nobody is watching.

Try to watch streams of events and you’ll see that even the biggest local tech (i.e. non-mainstream) events get less than 50 viewers. Once you realize this, you shouldn’t be surprised that I don’t bother with all the effort to stream events.

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So to sum it up, videography is hard; everyone says they want video coverage, but in the end no one really watches videos.