Turn-key Websites Now Infesting The World Paintball Of Paintball

This post is because of the horrible, and I repeat, horrible site, PbPixel.com (I’m not linking to their trash, and I would suggest that no one go to it, here’s a screenshot so you don’t have to go)

Anyways, here’s the deal. It’s a pixel selling website, you know, like that shiteous million dollar homepage crap, that makes absolutely no sense, but managed to get enough people to spam it so it got traffic (he’s also trying to do it again, but it’s a complete and utter failure). It has no use or adds any value to anything. It just exists, and it even does that poorly.

Want to make your own? Easy. Just download one of the many million dollar homepage clone scripts, add some crappy looking logo, and maybe a catch phrase, hopefully a more sensible one than ‘pixel your website’, and your done. Really, it takes at most 10 minutes. I would do a screencast of it, but I’m too lazy.

Another popularity, those thankfully it has died down now, was MySpace clones that focused on paintball, like Paintball Alliance, Mobzor, and tons of others. Pointless. But since I’m not seeing more of these, I’m not going to continue.

But another issue coming to fruition are splogs. Most are jsut taking either an RSS feed of Google News or Blog Search nad making those out to be posts. Some are actually taking content from providers (even some are using some of my posts). 68Caliber complained about people taking their content before, though they were going after members of forums doing it. Want to set one up? Just get a modified version of WordPress with an RSS catcher in it, add a couple of feeds, and you’re done. Oh, and don’t forget to put ads everywhere, that’s a must, or else it seems like you aren’t doing it for the money, but of course you are.

I really don’t care too much if people are using my content, since I’m all for free and open information sharing, which is why all these posts are licensed under a Creative Commons license. It allows you to copy and paste the whole article as long as you cite that you got it from here and don’t use it for commercial purposes, as in, don’t sell it.

Anyways, this post was just everywhere. I wrote parts of it at different places and times, so my mind was always somewhere else. I’ll try give you a better one tomorrow.

PSP Officially Changes ROF

sm-psp-new-logo.gifI thought it was official before, but not according to Keely.

The PSP has officially changed the ROF from 15 (technically 15.4) balls per second down to 13.33 BPS.

It’s actually one ball every 75 milliseconds, which does translate into 13 1/3 BPS (75 * 40 / 3 = 25 * 40 = 1000 ~ 1), but it’s actually too fast for 13.33 BPS (75 * 13.33 = 999.75 < 1000 therefore, it's too fast). But that assumes that all the shots are consistent, which there are often possibilities where that isn't the case. The PSP rules also state that only a maximum of 3 shots per trigger pull can be fired. Here's the time over 1 pull if the firing is consistent: pull = fire + 75 ms + fire + 75 ms + fire + 75 ms = 225 ms (assuming the time firing takes is consistent and negligible) Another case, let's say a ball takes a bit to load, say an extra 20 ms (don't argue, my loader is super fast, so that's not going to happen, whatever, shit happens): pull = fire + 75 ms + 20 ms (slow ball loading) + fire + 75 ms + fire + 75 ms = 245 ms (assuming the same as above) You just got jipped out of 20 ms. For that time period,you just shot ~12.24 BPS. Let's say the same thing happens, but the board software is able to compensate for those few milliseconds (it's totally feasible for the software to be able to do this): pull = fire + 75 ms + 20 ms (slow ball loading) + fire + 55 ms + fire + 75 ms = 225 ms (same assumptions) Now, you just shot 13 1/3 (about 13.33) BPS, which is what the general rules state, but you would actually receive a gross penalty for more than one shot in a 65 ms time span. So, the rules are actually, you may shoot 1 ball every 75 ms, not 13.33 BPS.

Also, in order to truly determine if the rate of fire is 13.33 or under (actually, 13 1/3) is to measure the gun over a 3 second time span (1/3 shots take some work to measure) and see if it shoots 40 shots or less over that time period with at least 14 (or 13) trigger pulls (13 1/3 pulls technically. If it the measurement didn’t start exactly when the first trigger pull occurred but after it but the first shot was counted as time 0, it could be done in 13 since the shot(s) from the previous trigger pull would run into the time period i.e. the 1 shot from the previous trigger pull plus the 39 from the subsequent 13 pulls). Now, of course, they aren’t going to measure it that way, since it’s a waste of paint and time, and probably seems a tad complicated. They’re going to measure it using a simplistic representation of it, as in, you need 75 ms between shots, because it’s easier and can represent 13.33 BPS (really, 13 1/3), but it’s not always true, as shown in the case above.

Am I saying their 75 ms between shots is bad? No, I’m just saying that saying it’s not 13.33 BPS (again, 13 1/3). It can be, but it’s not always. The rules should only state the 75 ms rule, not 13.33 BPS.

As a side note, I’m wondering how boards calculate their shots.

Does it use multi-threading, like a thread for each function (trigger monitoring, eye monitoring, rate of fire, etc.) or is it more of a when an event occurs, check the sensors then fire. I think I’m going to write a python script to demonstrate this.

Update:
Wrote previous mentioned python scripts, get them here, http://nothingoutoftheordinary.com/2008/01/10/paintball-board-software-types/

Tadao Signs Deal With The Devil

Err, Smart Parts.

Smart Parts was able to put another company in their pocket. This time it’s little ol’ board-maker Tadao.

Usually, they go after gun companies for all their fancy/bullshit patents they have on electronic paintball guns, like the fact that they have a switch. Going after just a board-maker was probably a fresh change for them.

It could be because of their patent on Ion boards. Yup, if you make a board that looks like that, not including all those holes, no matter what the use, you gonna get sued.

Or for their Ion eye board. Make a u-shaped board with LED’s on it, you’re screwed.

So I’m thinking it’s for their Raider Ion board.

Now, it could mean that their coming out with a gun in the near future, which would be freakin’ sweet, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

So to anyone looking to make a baord for the Ion, you might have some troubles with the big ol’ devil Smart Parts.

Brass Eagle Representin’ With The Ambush

This was supposed to be posted yesterday. Whoops.

Brass Eagle decides that since everyone loved the Blade, even after it blows up on you, they need to come out with a new super low end pump named the Ambush.

beambush.jpg

It can use two CO2 canisters, so you get double the explosion on your face

It also comes with it’s own paintballs, because, you know, every good paintball gun comes with it’s own paintballs.

It also has a cup with a tube sticking out of it that apparently is a low profile design to give you accuracy.

It even includes a barrel plug, which I didn’t even know still existed, let alone being used.

I’m calling it. Gun of the Year.

Counterfeiting Guerrilla Regs. According to ANS Gear, it’s the cool thing to do now-a-days!

It seems some people out there are out there counterfeiting little ol’ Guerrilla Air. Oh noes!

According to a thread on PbNation, then a couple more, followed by a hundred more, ANS Gear is selling a Guerrilla Air Myth tank regulator that isn’t a Guerrilla Air regulator at all.

So some people call up ANS Gear, and their all like, “Yo, this is a fake.” And ANS is all like, “No, you guys are crazy. It’s all good”. Then Guerrilla is all like, “WTF? These regs are bogus.” Then ANS is all like, “Oh no you didn’t, cosmetics don’t matter, it’s the same.” Then Guerrilla comes back and posts on their site that counterfeit regs are being sold and shows the differences. Then ANS is all like, “Oh, these aren’t Guerrilla, we got them from the same manufacturer though, so they’re basically the same.” Then everyone is all like, “You guys are idiots.”

So it seems the shady looking ansgear.com (.net and .org too) and ansxtreme.com are, in fact, shady. Who da thunk it? And to the people who bought it, when something is over half off for no good reason, there might be something up.