Kiteboarding: the next step

8oct

So its not the gusts that make flying a kite difficult it’s the lack of wind. I’m yet to fly in too much wind and have gotten the hang of avoiding/compensating for gusts. Also I tried surfing (regular surfing) the challenging part is to jump onto the board the easy part is standing on it and maintaining balance. But I doubt I can drive a surfboard (that hasn’t any straps) and the kite at the same time. So I defiantly need to acquire one. I like the idea of the mini-surfboard things and racing with dad but everybody else seems to have a twin tip board and do jumps.


Following up on this I decided to buy a board, it turns out that the surfboards are not mini at all and I’m supposed to get a 6 foot board. Well that made the decision much easier. I went with this from kiteline. They were able to deliver last time and the board was on sale and fairly generic.


I’m going to set the goal of the 17th of November to be able to tack and jibe. By that weekend I should be ableto sail with Dad on Lake Callide.

Toplessness; a philosophy of loss and balance

Seems I have developed my own philosophy on life. I’m using “developed” in a very lose sense, developing may be more accurate. Or rather I’m different from all the phlisolophers I know. I just need to write it down in a way that I can understand. Communication is challenging.

Last weeks sermon was kind of about being a good follower. Pastor pointed out that we glorify good leaders and give them awards and things. But no reward is given to for example all the lab analysts who help a professor get a nobel prize. And while a lot of politicians get voted into parliament only two of them get their faces in the paper every week.

Speaking of politicians there was a story a year or two ago in the newspaper that mentioned the education minister was horrified that up to 50% of our school students were performing below average. I think I’m happy to join that polly and be one of the underperformers, somebody has to do it after all.

Still running from one though to the next. The ranking system is fundamentally flawed, I learn things in exams as well as when I’m studying. So every time I get tested I get a little smarter. VRBones has written a little something about this.

I created a clan in “Berzerk: the Cataclysm” despite the fact that I knew it would never succeed, I don’t care. I was still able to learn some stuff and have fun. Getting in first place is not necessary for that.

First the worst, second the best, third gets the golden chest. A proof of concept card game to determine if the fundamental mechanic in “Notorious” will be fun or not. You aim to make other players have a better score for you each round in the hopes that you will only ever be an average player and thus succeed in the long run. This is not a coffee break game, giving instant satisfaction. It’s a long drawn out strategy game that becomes more complex the longer you play. Also it rewards cautious behavior.

I’m not cautions at all, I’m a berserker, especially with respect to games. Just like Naruto in Shuppuuden I make some clones and sent them in yelling and screaming to their deaths, I learn from their mistakes and charge at the obstacle again. I like the idea of Anoiki’s Saints (post at games.on.net). Like a true topless berserker, charging in and wreaking havoc whilst having a ball of a time and dying with style, then relying on the game mechanics and my friends to rescue/save me so I can do it again. I’m always a meatshield.

Just like a minion, there to soak up some of the damage and maybe slow the hero down a little, allowing my boss a few extra moments to prepare a proper reception. I’ve been in ROTARACT since... I’m not sure, November 11 maybe? At any rate when people ask me what part I play I proudly claim I’m a minion. I never had any intention of being a leader. Slightly prior to this it was highlighted to me that when an organization has no participants it just wont work. There needs to be people who turn up, just as numbers without ever really doing anything.

If a group is made up of a president + secretary + treasurer and there are no Indians then it just becomes too much hard work and responsibility for all involves and rather than all being chiefs they give up. Minions are an essential part of any organization, they follow and are relied on to be present. Occasionally I’ve been one of 5 people helping to setup a tent whilst one person directs. I got to “stand here and hold this pole”, “fetch me another peg”, “where did I put the hammer”, But I rarely needed to actually do anything mostly I was there to hold things and bounce ideas off. But if all five of us minions left then it would have been a great struggle for the tent builder, getting poles mixed up and the tent moving whenever you try to peg it down.

Also with youth groups, I have rarely ever been an actual leader. Often a “helper leader” or just as a big minion I can still help things to run smoothly and all I really need to do is turn up on time, actually participate and then be prepared to hang back after everybody else has left.

By no means though do I advocate being a mindless zombie and a slave to protocol. One of the great evils of religion is the preconception bias. If you follow the religion of your parents/community purely out of obligation then it is nothing more than a means to teach morals. If you believe the world is flat because nobody has told you any different then you are unaware of your cage. If you get shown the stars through a telescope and fly to another country in a plane and ignore all the evidence to the contrary and maintain a blind faith in the world being flat then you are indeed a mindless zombie of a minion and can only be useful as grunt labor.

On the other hand minions who question and learn will find that they don’t get a sore back when they bend their knees to lift heavy things. Anything can be improved and optimized with more knowledge, but with less effort today things can happily remain the same in ignorance. If you never see beauty how then can you recognize ugly?

And so I travel, I watch listen and smell. I acknowledge that there are people that are different to me. I assume that I really don’t know what’s going on. I learn through trial and error. I’m curious and was taught to apply the scientific method of inquiry. I should be as objective as possible to avoid bias, and refer to everything in third person past tense. Nothing is ever true and definite; facts are fluid, forever in motion because we can only ever disprove the null hypothesis. Rarely can anything ever actually be proven to be correct. The cycle of experimentation is continuous; With new information new theories must be formulated to accommodate it and as accuracies are improved flaws are found in laws.

Scientific law: This is how it happens. Now you can predict it.

Scientific theory: This is why it happens. See, all the pieces fit.

Formulate a theory --> define Hypothesis --> Experiment --> theory is validated, for now

Or --> Theory is false --> Formulate a new theory

Maybe there is a universal truth that is always correct and easy to understand, but I find myself wrong and misinformed to ever believe that. Then again I have been wrong before. Aside from that I don’t ever want to have all the answers, learning is too much fun. If I were immortal there could be lots of things to study and understand. But I think that I’d lose all my motivation if I didn’t have a deadline approaching. Not that I leave things to the last minute but I must be doing something and goals/milestones are a good method of maintaining momentum.

Productive procrastination is important. The limited time that is available should always be used efficiently. For example when worn out from studying for an exam, don’t persist in trying to read while the words swim before your eyes, and don’t visit YouTube or surf the net on FB. Do something completely different and go to the beach for a swim and train your body or to the movies with friends and exercise your social skills.

To go back to the top, I know I’m going to die and all things should come to an end. That’s definitely a part of my philosophy on life. My happiness is founded in pessimism and positiveness. To be a pessimist means “pleasantly surprised when things go well and justified when then don’t” It’s pointless to be negative about this and spend all your time complaining. For me doors of opportunity are never shut, it’s just that better doors are opened and awaiting me to proceed through. Just the same with procrastination, never avoid work, just go and work on something else for a while, train a different aspect, physical/spiritual/intellectual/emotional.

Aspects, these are important. I don’t think that a distinction between soul and spirit is particularly useful. These words are too often used as synonyms for each other. Together though they are defiantly important. Just don’t call it magic. Nowadays magic = I don’t understand. As in “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”

Spirituality on the other hand deals with things that are understood to be impossible to understand. Things that require faith to believe, like that “I am” and “I am here for a reason” to say that I exist because of magic is very unfulfilling. To say that “I exist because an omnipresent all powerful authoritative figure decided that the world would be better of if I existed” is much more satisfying. Not scientifically justifiable, but then neither is the phrase “I think, therefore I am”.

Thinking about thinking indicates the next aspect of life should be mental. This should be exercised and used otherwise your intellect will wither and die. To be the smartest in everything is impossible, to be the smartest in one thing is impractical. Don’t strive for the top of the pile, take your shirt off and be Topless. A wise person does not live books computers and science. A smart person knows that the brain is the CPU of a human and it doesn’t function without calcium. And so you must eat well and get plenty of sunlight.

For without a physical body we could not exist. Balance must be achieved between all aspects and also within them. Don’t only eat healthy also sleep well, don’t only swim to train also train to run. Being fit also includes not hurting yourself, recuperation is required. Also acknowledge that you don’t totally understand your body and it will act on its own accord.

Like when you get emotionally involved with something/someone. You cannot force yourself to cry and laugh. You cannot exist without other people to acknowledge you. We are defined by our actions and our relationships with other people. Humans are social critters so talk, hug, play and fight with each other.

The word toplessness itself came into use because I started calling myself a topless gamer at our regular Sojourn’s, when we were starting to become more official and looking for a name to identify with. At home I am most comfortable wearing undies, board shorts and nothing else, pretty much regardless of the season. I’ll pit a shirt on for visitors but when I’m relaxed I’m usually topless. Also around that time I finished re-reading “Thud” by Terry Pratchet. In the book there is a line that goes something like

“being a deep dwarf, isn’t just living deep, it can be a state of mind” “I don’t need an axe because I’m always carrying it in my mind”

This releases people from physically doing a thing so long as they follow the initial intentions. To clarify it’s the difference between tradition and traditionalism. On the one hand you are doing something because that is the way it is always done, and you have no heart in it. On the other you understand why your ancestors set about a particular path/using a specific method and you hold the same goals as them.

Alternatively; I vote Labour because my family always has. Or I vote Labour because I’d prefer the government to focus on representing blue-collar workers of which I am one.

Why Toplessness? For a while this was the name of my E-Sports group, which has been slowly getting more official. We never went with the name toplessness or topless gamers because it may exclude females and encourage gay jokes, neither of which we wanted to do. Belly dancing berserker was another phrase bandied about. Note that originally a berserker was a Norse warrior the went around bear shirt (without a top) to scare their opponents, it rains a lot in Norway. Belly used alliteration and I’d been enjoying dancing. We also trialed “Sir-LANs-A-Lot” “Psizomaijitsu” and “LANdownunder”. I still like the “less”ness of the word and have decided that it will fit for my life philosophy.

I probably should re-read all the above before I post itonto my blog. But I’ve come to the realization that this philosophy will change over time and even though I feel like I may be half way through explaining it I have a lot of words, yeah I think there are too many there for me to actually proofread it. I tried to have each paragraph contain a single theme or concept and yet let all of them directly flow from one thought to the next with a bumpless transfer. Usually when talking to people I skip 2-3 thought processes and people think I’m changing the topic.

Icon3

 Below my icon is my POV ray code, Took me a long time to finish this. To begin with I measured how big my belly buttons and nipples are. then worked outwards, roughly in centimeters. Then I shifted things around so they fit better. I tried a circular boarder but I think that would require more golden rectangle calculations. Considered cyan for a while but went with magenta ins the end as a more obvious color. I had to lighten it up with grey light, the top is red and the bottom blue, well a slight tint anyway.

#include "colors.inc"
#include "finish.inc"

//Output_File_Name=c:\My Documents\povrayimages\


//probably end up with a magenta/black color scheme
//global_settings { ambient_light rgb<1, 1, 1> }

//background
plane
{
    z,+.1
    pigment {rgb <1,0,1>}
}
//area of interest is
//    -11 < x < 11
//    0.0 < y < 21
//    0.0 < z < 0.1
// bit this needs to be slightly expanded for a neat boarder

//eye
camera
{
    location <0,10.5,-30>
    look_at <0,10.5,0>
}
light_source { <-11,0,-25> <0,0,1> shadowless}
light_source { <11,21,-25> <1,0,0> shadowless}
light_source { <0,10.5,-25> <0.5,0.5,0.5>}
//light_source { <0,10.5,-25> <1,1,1>}


//Boarder
#declare border =
torus
{
    20, 6
    pigment { Black}
    rotate x*-90
    translate <0,11,-0.1>
}
//border

//hairs
#declare hair =
cone
{
    <0,0,0>, 1.1
    <0,-3,0>, 0
}
#declare Count = 0;
#declare hairs =
union
{
    #while (Count < 100)
    object {hair rotate z*Count }
    #declare Count=Count +15;
    #end
}

#declare LHairs =
union
{
    hairs
    rotate z*-90
        translate <-5,14,0>
}
#declare RHairs =
union
{
    hairs   
    translate <5,14,0>
}

       

//left side =
difference {
        triangle
        {
        <-5, -1, 0>, <-11,14,0>,<-5,14,0>
    pigment { Black}
        }
           LHairs //translate <-5,14,0>
        pigment {rgb <1,0,1>}

        }
      

//Right side =
difference {
        triangle
        {
        <5, -1, 0>, <11,14,0>,<5,14,0>
    pigment { Black}
        }
        RHairs
        pigment {rgb <1,0,1>}
}

//left top =
triangle
{
    <-2.5, 18, 0>, <-11,18,0>,<-2.5,21,0>
    pigment { Black}
}
//Right top =
triangle
{
    <2.5, 18, 0>, <11,18,0>,<2.5,21,0>
    pigment { Black}
}      
//Nipples
disc
{
    <0,0,0>,z, 0.6, 0.2
    pigment { Black}
    translate <-3,10,0>
}
disc
{
    <0,0,0>,z, 0.6, 0.2
    pigment { Black}
    translate <3,10,0>
}
//sphere at origen
sphere
{
    <0,0,0>, 0.4
    pigment { Black }
}

Thanks for Thursday

If you know who you are then I don’t need to tell you.
Just like waterglass I need a lot of motivation, otherwise I’m very stable stationary, I’ll do exactly what I did last week and it wont take any effort at all. That’s an example of Newton’s first Law right there.

So thanks for the motivation;

Thanks for the steak and salad

Thanks for the friendship and fire

Thanks for the anime and alcohol

Thanks for the marshmallows.

Leveling up the least fun ability

Seems to me that in GW2 my roleplay will be determined by howmuch I dislike the other abilities rather than by how cool a particular tequnique is. First of I rolled a thief so that I could play Hyperdimensional Frog, the athletic Sheila. But I find I never use the F1, its out of the way and not terribly usefull and I feel like I’m supposed to know what I am steeling and how to use it. Then there is the dodge, normally Frog really likes dodging, but its also normally an innate. Double tap is hard to do. Maybe I’ll have another go at this later but for the time being a necromancer will be my main.

Anoiki has the same issues though. There isn’t enough different tactics options for me to struggle to choose between them. This is partially because in ADOM I could have a hoard of zombies and skeletons following me. So for a choice of three minions I figure “why bother even summoning them?”

What Generation am I?

Curiously I had a look, according to Wikipedia Generation Y covers 1983-2010 very roughly. Some things accurately describe me and some do not at all. For example I'm less likely to practice organized religion, False. and also skeptical of religion, True.

Apparently we learnt from the mistakes of our parents and are setting about to trial lots of jobs to find the right one, so that we are happy in our chosen career. And same same but different we are specifically avoiding the possibility of divorce, having known kids whose parents went through all that turmoil.

Also there was a restructuring of the “coming of age” ceremonies with the advent of teenagers, a new age bracket with spending money that advertisers have newly acquired in this generation. For me I still enjoy being a “youth” at youth groups and things, for example ~5years ago we were visiting my grandparents church and they said

“can the children come forward for the children’s chat” I couldn’t see anybody else without grey hair so I supposed that hey meant me. It turned out that there was two families with tiny tots sitting in the back pew and they came forward as well. For me I think I stopped being a boy when a random stranger in the supermarket told her daughter to move out of the way and referred to me as a man.

My generation apparently prefers to live at home, for economic stability and therefore has a strong relationship with their parents. Well I’ve done that and seen that and the reason I’m alone at home now is that my parents left town. Personally though I have never had any issued in getting a job to do. Which is good because I cant stomach having nothing to do when I get up in the morning. There must be some challenge for me to face.

Some people refer to this as the “Trophy Generation” because we like to compete in things and get graded on whatever we do. But the main thing is to participate in these events. After all only one person can win a tournament. It’s a bit sad when you came second in a marathon and then have to tell people that there were only three entrants.




I’m actually surprised at how accurate some of what I found out is, the more I researched this the more interesting it became. I defiantly go against the flow in some areas but in others that is the normal thing to expect. Also the Strauss-Howe theory of a four generation cycle sounds very much like the repetitions of a community development theory. It goes like this:

1 High: expand & stabilize the organized community

2 Awakening: understand and rebel

3 Unraveling: We are all individuals, join us

4 Crises: establish and define new community

So I was born and grew up in an unraveling cycle, will be one of the leaders of the organization and in my old age will criticize all the rebels. Sounds like I was destined to be a Rotarian. I’m also given the title Hero in this theory, I like that.


Overall though this is just a label by which marketing executives can pigeonhole people and the media can form stereotypes. Just like that being Australian means that I wear boardies, own a Drizabone, and hang out with my mates at the local drinking schooners.

Foamy sea

Recently we had a lot of foam in out cooling water towers at work. So I decided to have a look at what sea foam was. It seems to be a breakdown of algee and microbes and stuff. The strings of lipids (from the breakdown of cellular barriers for example) react with the abundance of salt in the presence of acid (carbon dioxide) forming a multitude of varied soaps. Then with a bit of extra agitation they foam up.

then again I could be wrong, its happened before.

Kiteboarding: Journey begins

14th
Kite arrived, went with a new Fuse 12m from Kiteline. Because then I knew it would arrive and even if I do bust it the first time I use it the lines should last for ages. I’ve also got the green North harness which is probably the right size.





15th
Went to Elliot heads, the tide was out and coming in and the wind was ~5knotts so nobody else was there. Cameron asked me what everything was for, whilst I was asking myself the same question. This day with the help of Tony I figured out how to unpack the bag and activate the safety catch. Flying was rather unsuccessful, due to the light winds. So this was a great opportunity to setup and pack up without chaos.


16th
After church had another bash, this time the unicorns were in the ocean so ~12knots of wind. Pumped up the kite a bit more and actually flew it in a controlled manner, didn’t crash at all this day.


22nd
Back at the Bowes beach, this time I launched the kite and had took the lay of the lines while Tony started off. He was a lot more confidant from practicing with his stint kites and almost immediately got a bit of air time. The larger jump would have been ~2m above the surf and ~15 in length. On the other hand I wanted to try kiting upwind with my arm out. I think I did Ok but moving along the beach it was a bit hard to tell. It started to get a bit gusty and I crashed the kite into the water a few times.


Re-launching was a doosey I moved rather fast downwind on my belly and the sand took a few layers of skin off the last knuckle of my long toe on my left foot. All in all a successful day. Also I can now get the kite into the bag on the first go.



30th September
Back to the Bowes beach near Crawford Park, I didnt know that is what it is called, still doesdnt fit right either. Pretty confident in setting up and packing up mow. Also met a bloke that knew what he was doing and decided to try surfing with one of Tony's old surfboards next time. I'd also decided to buy a board to help hold the kite down whilst packing it up.


See Also:
Finally a Decision