thunderstorm
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Tiny house uses light to put you in the middle of a thunderstorm
Standing in a greenhouse and listening to the rain thunder against the roof can be strangely relaxing and therapeutic. Now, imagine if the same experience was recreated artificially. For the Triennale Der Photographie exhibition in Hamburg, designer Leigh Sachwitz has constructed a miniature house covered with semi-transparent projection screens. Once you step inside and turn off the hanging bulb, a series of projectors spring to life and batter you with heavy weather, including tornadoes and tropical thunderstorms. The dynamic sounds are recreated with speakers, but it's the projectors -- four on the inside, with another two cutting through a haze machine on the outside -- that really bring the installation to life. Circles quickly appear and disappear to recreate raindrops, while streaks of diagonal light imitate heavier downpours. It's not a particularly accurate art piece, but in terms of capturing atmosphere and mood, "INSIDE OUT" feels pretty spot on.
Heroes of the Storm: Falstad
Editor's Note: Heroes of the Storm is currently in a technical alpha phase. All information contained within is subject to change. My experience playing games in Heroes of the Storm's genre is limited. I've played a few rounds of League of Legends. That's it. When I opened Heroes for the first time, I relied on my knowledge that ranged classes tend to be a safer choice for the inexperienced. In the opening week of the Heroes alpha, the ranged options available for free were Raynor, Gazlowe, and Falstad. The tutorial gave me a taste for Raynor, so I gave Falstad a shot -- a choice I do not regret. I've since tried all of the free characters and Falstad remains my favorite. Falstad is labeled a Ranged Assassin. He isn't built to tank. He's built to get his licks in and keep moving.
Belkin's Thunderstorm case cranks your iPad to 11
In my office I tend to rock out to a 300-watt stereo system. When I go to wash dishes and have to use my iPad's native speaker, well, there's no comparison. Belkin's Thunderstorm case won't crank up to the level of a really large stereo, but it is loud enough to punch through very noisy environments with ease. At CES I tried one on the show floor where the sound level (according to my iPhone) was close to 100 decibels and the Thunderstorm was not only loud enough to hear, the audio actually sounded good. It's not perfect, however, as I'll explain below. It also retails for US$199, so this is not a budget case or speaker. Design Like any iPad case that surrounds the iPad, the Thunderstorm cradles your iPad in a large plastic shell and provides a cover somewhat like Apple's Smart Cover -- but with no magnetic actuation of the iPad itself, like the Smart Cover. The iPad slides into the case, and is secured by a 30-pin dock connection which clicks into place, and provides the power and audio output needed. Of course you simply can't get around physics, so the drivers for the Thunderbolt are heavy. The case is heavy. Your iPad inside will make all of this very heavy, but this is not a case for casual use if you tend to mostly read iBooks on your iPad. This case is designed to stand up and be loud. There's a shockingly small speaker port on the front, along with a small light under the grill to indicate when the charger (included) is plugged in. The case uses ports to enhance the sound, much as a full size speaker would, and they work very well. I had a little trouble with the charger at first, until I realized there's just a delay from when you plug it in to when the iPad begins to charge. Still, it is a wall wart and not the most convenient AC adapter to carry around. I wouldn't say it charges slowly, but it is not a fast charge by any means. A bigger problem in the cover flap. It's one of those origami-style flaps that pinches together to provide a "stand" for viewing the iPad mostly upright. You can roll up the case like Apple's cover, which provides a more upright angle, or fold the case into a bit of a triangle, putting the iPad at almost 45 degrees. That viewing angle is a bit odd, as I felt it leaned back a little far, and you cannot adjust it, but there's the other option, which I felt isn't as stable. The good news is the flap, when folded as a support, is very sturdy and I never really had it fall down. The bad news is it is loosely secured at the hinge, and if you're used to the relatively strong magnets on the Smart Cover, you will find these magnets aren't as strong. Often while closing the flap I would yank the cover off -- and I'm a wimp. There are pass-through (mechanical) buttons for power, rotation and volume, plus a large hole for headphones and even a speaker vent at the bottom where the iPad's speaker resides. Functionality It's loud. Really loud. Without exception, when I would demonstrate the volume on this thing their eyebrows would raise and they would say "wow." You won't believe so much sound can come from a small package -- unless you've used a Bose Smartwave, which is similar in a way. Loudness is the distinguishing feature here, however. This is not a protective case, and it's not designed to do much more than cradle your iPad and make it much louder. Luckily it does that job admirably. It's worth noting that audio quality does not suffer at the hands of volume, and even at the highest setting the highs were crystal clear while the bass punched through loud environments admirably. There's also a companion app which does boring stuff like handle registration and check firmware, but it also allows you to control the stereo separation. That's a neat trick, but unless you have the device pointed at your face, you lose the spread pretty quickly. Sound, again, is bound by the laws of physics. Conclusion If you need a very loud speaker for the iPad but don't want something huge like a dock or external stereo, and you want this speaker embedded in a case, the Thunderstorm is perfect. Belkin's Thunderstorm is the loudest iPad case I've ever heard, and the audio quality doesn't suffer as you crank up the volume. The price, at $199, may turn off some customers, but if you compare to large boombox docks (like JBL's OnStage) it's pretty reasonable. I feel that you're getting your money's worth if you frequently need your iPad to be heard in loud environments or you just want ear-blasting noise from your tablet.
Belkin introduces Thunderstorm Handheld Home Theater for iPad, we go hands-on (update)
While Belkin has long been at the forefront of Apple accessories, offering everything from keyboard cases to baby monitors, it somehow left the audio arena unexplored. That ends today with the introduction of the Belkin Thunderstorm Handheld Home Theater. Behind that mouthful of a product name is essentially a portable speaker dock for the iPad housed inside a protective case, which seems a lot more reasonable than Bang & Olufsen's pricey speaker "wedge." The Thunderstorm's front-facing speaker system boasts full-range drivers and integrated air channels for "immersive sound" and "deeper bass." All the internals are powered by Audifi, a mobile audio engineering outfit that Belkin specifically hired for the project. As for the cover, Belkin took a cue from Apple's own magnetic offering, but went a step further with the addition of multifold creases for different viewing angles. We spent a few days with the Thunderstorm and so far we're impressed with the volume and depth from such slim speakers. Though we didn't have a chance to test it, Belkin is also offering a free iOS app to accompany the product -- it essentially lets you fine-tune the audio with presets for music, movies and games. However the Thunderstorm is not without a few annoyances: the case adds an unsettling amount of bulk to the iPad and it's currently only available with the now-ancient 30-pin connector (we're told a Lightning-equipped version is due in Q2 2013). If you're happy with the ole universal dock though, you can pick this up in the coming weeks from Belkin's online store, Amazon.com or the Apple Store for $200 a pop. In the mean time, you can get a closer look at it with the galleries after the break. Follow all the latest CES 2013 news at our event hub.
NASA captures red sprite, puts it in a jar
Lightning doesn't always shoot downwards. Just occasionally, a thunderstorm will be accompanied by a red sprite: a huge, momentary electrical explosion that occurs around 50 miles high and fires thin tendrils many miles further up into the atmosphere. Sprites have been caught on camera before, but a fresh photo taken by arty astronauts on the ISS helps to show off their true scale. Captured accidentally during a timelapse recording, it reveals the bright lights of Myanmar and Malaysia down below, with a white flash of lightning inside a storm cloud and, directly above that, the six mile-wide crimson streak of the rare beast itself. Such a thing would never consent to being bottled up and examined, but somehow observers at the University of Alaska did manage to film one close-up at 1000 frames per second back in 1999 -- for now, their handiwork embedded after the break is as intimate as we can get.
20 observations from a leveling tank
My main is a druid tank and healer, but on occasion, I've returned to two low-level warrior alts and braved leveling in the Dungeon Finder. Most leveling groups are a bit like the proverbial little girl with pigtails: When they're good, they're very, very good ... and when they're bad, they're horrid. The following is a list of somewhat random observations I have collected after several expansions' worth of tanking for low-level groups. 1. Don't take shortcuts on trash packs. The time you save sneaking past one of them will be eliminated by the time you'll lose when someone blunders into them and dies. 2. Someone will almost always blunder into them and die. 3. Despite common complaints on the forums, the vast majority of players are actually really nice people who are perfectly willing to tolerate mistakes and the learning curve. The actual occurrence of true, unforgivable jackasses seems to be about one per five groups, although this depends on when you're queuing.
Totem Talk: Thunder! Thunder! Thunderstorm, ho!
Melee combat? Barbaric. Healing? How pedestrian. Let the elements do the talking. Totem Talk: Elemental. Brought to you by Mike Sacco. Elemental is one of those specs. The kind of spec whose 51-point talent is more of a fun, situational ability than one you stick in your regular rotation. The kind that you'll love and everyone in your party will hate. That's right. We're talkin' about Thunderstorm today. In terms of the normal WoW ability "kit," Thunderstorm is a pretty unique snowflake. What makes it so special? It's free. Unlike nearly every damaging spell in the game, all Thunderstorm costs you is a global cooldown. It gives you mana for nothing. Not mp5, not lowering the mana costs of spells -- this is a straight 8% mana return every 45 seconds if you so desire. It's got knockback. Twenty yards of it, in fact. Wrath added the knockback ability into the gestalt WoW experience, but it's still fairly unique, shared only with a few other spells like Typhoon and Blast Wave. And twenty yards is a long way to go. While one or two of these qualities might not be so strange to see together, all three of them makes it in a class of its own. Thunderstorm is incredibly appealing as an emergency mana reserve and as an "oh-shit" button, but the knockback tends to make fellow players really angry when used inappropriately (or even appropriately, depending). They say "glyph it!" Well, I disagree. I think Thunderstorm is one of the best spells in the game, and it's because of the knockback, not in spite of it. Today we're going to take a brief look into making Thunderstorm work for you.
Abilities I usually wish didn't exist in 5-mans
Most tanks are control freaks. As a matter of fact, you should hope that your tank is a control freak, because the ones who shrug off a mob running around loose are the ones you probably don't want tanking your run anyway. With that in mind, there are several player abilities that, while great for soloing or PvP, don't make the transition to a 5-man very well. Either they make life a real nuisance for your group members due to inherent design, or they tend to do so in the hands of a player who doesn't deploy them in a particularly helpful fashion. Not all tanks will have the same degree of irritation with all of the following skills (for example, I play a druid, and because bears don't have a ranged silence, a knockback on a caster mob is much more likely to annoy me than, say, a death knight tank), but I promise you that they've all been mentioned by my tanking colleagues as abilities with a high chance of blowing a pull.
Patch 3.2.2 PTR Druid changes
There really aren't a ton of Druid changes on the 3.2.2 PTR as yet, but two of them are rather intriguing means of handling current PvP concerns for the weaker PvP specs (Balance and Feral). Anyway, I wanted to get our commenters' take on them because PvP is definitely not my area of expertise.MOONKIN FORM: This form now also reduces the damage the druid takes while stunned by 15%. Ghostcrawler mentioned recently that the main concern for Balance PvP isn't damage or CC -- it's just survivability, pure and simple. This is a very welcome change in that vein, although I'm surprised that it went to us over other casters, who are arguably more vulnerable to melee stuns. Well...maybe not. Shadow Priests have Dispersion, Warlocks have Demonic Circle, Mages have Ice Block and Blink, and so on. All of these are instant-cast, which might be part of why they're more effective "Oh s^$t!" buttons than Roots and Cyclone, both of which can be interrupted and silenced. Travel Form leaves you more vulnerable than you are in Moonkin, Bear Form has limited options given that most moonkin PvP builds I see still don't put any points in Feral despite the change to Survival Instincts, and Nature's Grasp -- well, you have to get hit for that to trigger that anyway. We'll see if this helps, although if the root of Balance arena issues lies in the vulnerability of caster form (which was one of the factors driving the "tankiness" of Trees in Season 6), this change just nudges the Druid to stay in moonkin more than they already are. Still, I'm curious to see what effect this will have.
WoW Patch 3.1 PTR: Shaman glyph and undocumented changes
So in the cold light of day we have yet more changes than the PTR notes indicated for our beloved shamans. Both glyphs and general changes need to be discussed, and so I drag my exhausted hinder forth to dig through the vast and sprawling PTR hoopla to determine what is up for the totem dropping set. What's good, what's bad, what's head scratchingly confusing? We talked about shaman class changes in the PTR notes early this morning, so we'll start there, because it's short. Fire Nova Totem's mana cost has been reduced. Everything else was covered in the original patch notes, so... yeah. Fire Noval Totem costs less. It's still a fire totem, so elemental shamans will have to decide between it and Totem of Wrath. But at least the decision to drop one and lose the benefits of Totem of Wrath will cost you less mana.Luckily, we have quite a few glyphs to discuss as well. Let's talk about those.
The Queue: Cooking, gardening, and Riptides
Welcome to the second edition of The Queue, our new daily Q&A column where we, the WoW Insider team, try to answer your questions about the World of Warcraft. We won't delay getting into things much today, but please note that I'm saving the lore-related questions you've all asked for Ask a Lore Nerd, which will be coming just later today (every Sunday). With that said, let's start with Gristor's question...One comment about the size of Northrend... Finally, please, an answer: Is Northrend bigger than Outland? How much bigger/smaller?It's definitely bigger, but I can't say for sure just how much bigger. The starter zones almost feel twice as large as Hellfire Peninsula was, but I can't say 100% confidently that Howling Fjord is twice as large as Hellfire Peninsula. It's just bigger, and it feels much, much bigger. Northrend feels absolutely massive.
Shaman changes in patch 3.0.3
The elders spoke of a day when great, sweeping changes would come to us Shamans. A day when our command of the elements would become unsurpassed and we would harness power like never seen on Azeroth (kind of like Retadins). Today, my friends, is not that day. In fact, today may well be any other day for Shamans because Patch 3.0.3 is about as underwhelming as it gets with regards to changes to the class.Let's see... we have a Lava Burst damage increase, which means jack to us because we only train for the spell at Level 75. Speaking of which, Storm Reach was renamed to Elemental Reach because it now affects... Lava Burst. Also in the Elemental tree, Improved Fire Nova totem was reworked to increase the damage done by Fire Nova Totem by 20% instead of a quicker detonation and now stuns opponents caught in the blast for 2 seconds instead of ensnaring them.
The Thunderstorm of Thunder Bluff
We've been hating on knockbacks a little bit, but after seeing the video above (from Hellfire-EU if I'm not mistaken) I have to admit they can cause some hilarious situations. This video has certainly been making the rounds- quite a few people wrote in about it, and it appeared in the comments section of our Breakfast Topic the other day.There's plenty of cries of "nerf please!" when people see what happens here, but how often are you going to run across a situation like this? Fifty Alliance tightly packed in a little elevator unable to see what's above them? I think there are three locations like this in all of WoW. Assaulting Thunder Bluff may suck when the Horde knows you're there, but it's not that big of a deal overall. Hilarious when it happens, but it won't happen often. In smaller scale situations like a one on one or a one on two... well, don't get between the Shaman/Mage and the cliff, and you'll be fine, eh?
Breakfast Topic: A knock on knockbacks
The game-changing Echoes of Doom patch brought in a slew of new abilities and some of them included this nifty little feature called 'knockback', which effectively knocks back enemy players and NPCs. It's a whole lot of fun, particularly if you're knocking them off the bridge in Dun Baldar. I've been on the nasty receiving end of a knockback that sent me to my death in Eye of the Storm. I think it's a lot of fun, and it really does create some interesting conundrums in Arenas. Of course, not everyone is thrilled by them. Our very own Allison Robert, bear tank extraordinaire, has torn out about half her hair (poor Allie!) in frustration from knockbacks messing with tanking. She implores you to use these abilities with restraint for the sake of her sanity. It's a level-headed request that Blizzard hears. They've recently hinted at new Glyphs that will remove the knockback effect from certain spells such as Blast Wave, Typhoon, and Thunderstorm. How's your experience with knockback effects? Have you used it to kill enemies in Battlegrounds? Used it to escape some pesky Rogue slicing and dicing your butt? Maybe you've even used it in *gasp* an instance and rearranged the mobs that the tank so painstakingly positioned through the pull. How have you been (ab)using knockbacks? What's your take on the new mechanic? Yay? Nay? Art-fay?
A plea on behalf of frustrated tanks everywhere
Several classes and specs have gotten "knockback" abilities as part of patch 3.02 and the game's transition to Wrath of the Lich King, and I've had fun watching these skills be deployed in battlegrounds to extensive and quite possibly evil use. It's pretty funny watching an elemental Shaman defend AB's lumber mill now, and the AV bridge? Even funnier. And yet...as I laughed, I started to cry inside, because I knew that these skills would also be deployed in 5-man groups and raids to much less amusing effect. And man, it's a real burden being right so often.
Skill Mastery: Thunderstorm
Upon dipping into the Wrath beta for the first time about a month ago, I quickly realized being a Resto Shammy wasn't going to cut it for leveling from 70-80 (don't worry too much, though, dedicated Restos, as that says more about my lack of patience for the spec than the actual strength of the spec itself). I switched Elemental the first time I got in there, and haven't looked back since. And while I'm finding all kinds of fun little strengths in the Elemental tree (my spell crit is much higher than it ever was, obviously, and Lighting Overload, even though it's not new in Wrath, is a lot of fun), the real standout is the 51-point talent, Thunderstorm.Here's a spell that does its darndest to focus on two issues caster Shamans have had in the past: running out of mana and getting caught in melee. The name could probably use a tweak (it's more of a Lightningstrike than a Thunderstorm), but the spell effect is great, and while it's gone through a few tuning iterations in the beta so far, odds seem good that it'll come out being one of the best-used tools in the Elemental Shammy's arsenal.
Ask a Beta Tester: Storms of the Divine and Thunder varieties
Preamble is for sissies. Sallix asked...Looking at the new Divine Shield (reduces damage by 50%) will it still drop aggro or work like a shield wall-like ability? Also will Hand of Protection (reworked blessing of protection) still drop it's target's threat?Divine Shield still drops aggro. It works the same way it always has. However, Divine Protection is now a Paladin's Shield wall. Divine Protection is the Protection Paladin's 'oh crap' button now, and coupled with the new Lay on Hands, they're pretty set. Protadins are going to be in a really, really good place come Wrath. As for Hand of Protection, it works exactly like Blessing of Protection did. It doesn't "drop threat" but it does make the mob/boss stop attacking the Protected person for the duration of the buff. They mob will, as always, go back to that person if they're still on top of the threat list 10 seconds later.dave asked...Do level 70 toons start off with the max amount of rest XP when we install wrath? Or will rest XP start after the game is installed?
