Tower repeater fun continued…

BTW you are not limited to just producing boring square towers. Once you have the framework of the repeater working, you can use different types of adaptive component blocks to form the floor plate itself.

Here I have created a T shape unit, which can be flexed & adjusted as needed, you could easily consider creating other forms as well.

Summer Dreaming

Here's a summer photo for a wintry morning. I love this photo of my daughters, it captures their characters well (one in a pretty little dress while fishing, the other in practical camping clothes).

The kids, fishing on Echo Island, Amisk Lake, Saskatchewan.

Tower repeater fun

 

I was wondering whether there was any merit in using the new 2013 repeater functionality to create massing blocks, especially for towers or buildings when doing master planning.

Specifically you might want to show floor plates, but don’t want to go to the extent of using the mass floor functionality. Well I came up with this, it may have some use, if nothing else its a good demonstration of the repeater functionality in Revit 2013.

Best of Backmarker: California Dreamin'

Mother Nature has dumped two late-season blizzards on Kansas City in the last week. Wintery conditions here have coincided with emails from Mary, who spent the week in Big Sur, where it was 70 degrees. That reminded me of a story I wrote for Hugo Wilson, then the editor of Classic Bike five or six years ago...

I blame Hugo.

“All we want you to do is go and ride a few classic Southern California roads on your BMW, and tell us about it,” he wrote. “The weather’s still crap here, but you’re out in the warm sun. I’m calling your story ‘California Beemin’, but I’m sure between the two of us we’ll come up with a better title before it goes to press.”

Thanks to Hugo, that Mamas and the Papas’ song is stuck in my head, so it had better be the title of this story–if only to provide me with a little closure–or I’ll be humming it until summer.

The truth is, the BMW (like just about everything I own) may well have to be sold as part of my divorce settlement. I’ve been a little out of sorts over it, and needed a kick in the ass to get out riding anyway. I can’t go too far without hitting snow in the mountains, or torrential rain up the coast, but I can think of three or four roadhouses the /5 and I can hit for old times’ sake.

First stop: Mother’s Kitchen, Mount Palomar, San Diego County

From where I live, in Cardiff-by-the-Sea, I wind through orange and avocado groves, and past a couple of big Indian casinos. (We took their land and forced them onto reserves–almost always land white settlers imagined would never be of any use. Now, they’re ripping us off. Fair’s fair.)

There are two roads up to Palomar’s summit. The South Grade makes the 3,000-foot climb in seven miles of linked hairpins; the East Grade is longer, faster and bumpier. I used to road-test contemporary bikes up there on one of my old jobs; it was like having a target on my back. That’s one of the nice things about riding the BMW–I’m not compelled to have a death match with every 20 year-old on a ’blade.

All the leaves are brown gone/and the sky is grey trees are black

The recent wildfires burned right over the mountain, and subsequent heavy rains have left a few patches dirty. I roll slowly past two guys who are standing over a crashed Yamaha. They don’t need my help.

As I climb towards 5,000 feet, I feel the power soften, but I’m in the mood to flow anyway, not race between corners. I feel the limits of the old bike’s suspension, and wonder if I’ll ever get around to updating the shocks and revalving the fork. It sags and wallows, though there’s plenty of leverage in the wide handlebar to bring it back under control.

At the top, there’s a pretty good café, Mother’s Kitchen, though it’s vegetarian–how California is that? I park up beside a GSX-R1000 painted in U.S. flag colors. The rider’s about the size of a bantam rooster, but when he tells me he’s from Oceanside, I know he’s a Marine based down there at Camp Pendleton. It’s the home of the First Marine Expeditionary Force (1MEF), which has been doing most of the heavy lifting in Iraq. A second glance, and I can see that despite his size, he’s capable of pulling his weight.

Second stop: Cook’s Corners, Live Oak Canyon Road, Orange County

‘The OC’ used to be orchards and ranches, although since WWII it’s been malled, walled, and turned into Los Angeles’ sprawling bedroom. There are still a few good roads in the hills, though. Live Oak Canyon Road is one of them. When I get there, a squall has just passed over, and the overhanging trees and glistening pavement put me in the mind of Leyzare Parish, on the Isle of Man. That impression is reinforced when I find a roadside memorial to four or five bikers.

My next stop, the roadhouse at Cook’s Corners, puts me right back in the U.S. Thanks to the rain, there’s only one other bike in the parking lot when I pull in for lunch, but on a sunny Saturday, there’d be 200 or more Harleys out front.

Cook’s has been a roadhouse since the ’20s. Originally, the customers were local farmers, but it was gradually taken over by a pretty rough crowd. For a while, in fact, the air force squadron that leant its name to the Hells’ Angels was based an easy ride away, in Fontana. 

The food’s pretty good, especially if you’re a cardiologist. Despite the lack of hogs in the parking lot, just about all the customers have ZZ Top beards and order beer by the pitcher. I can’t tell whether the guys grumpily leaning on the pool table are still waking up, or already passing out. Then Jeff ‘Meatball’ Tulinius, a semi-legendary mechanic wanders in. He, at least, gives me someone to talk to. He tells me that he’s just been the subject of a documentary film, Brittown, about L.A.’s britbike culture, and invites me to the premiere in a couple of weeks. Cool.

Third stop: The Rock Store, Mulholland Highway, Los Angeles County

I’d be safe, and warm/If I was in L.A. 

Or, maybe not. My third roadhouse, Newcomb’s Ranch, is up on the Angeles Crest Highway, which is one of the best roads out of the Los Angeles basin. Unfortunately, the 7,000-foot San Gabriel Mountains that overshadow Pasadena are deep in snow for the first time in years. 

So I cut over to Highway 101, along the coast. In Santa Monica, I meet up with Paul and Becca Livingston, of Falkner-Livingston Racing. They’re two-up on Ducati Hypermotard. I let them choose a route to the Rock Store on Mulholland Highway. Of the classic SoCal roadhouses, it’s the closest to Hollywood, and one of the places stars go, when their publicists tell them it’d boost their image to seem like bikers.

Since the Livingstons are on a Hypermo’, they choose a particularly winding back route into the hills, up Latigo Canyon.  Malibu was recently burned over, too, and winter rains have washed a lot of mud over the road, again. Downshifting to first for the countless hairpins reminds me that matching revs is not just a matter of blipping the throttle for this big old twin. I need to take an extra moment to really let the engine get up to speed and even then it’s still a BMW tranny. I’m sure they can hear the clunk back there on their Ducati.

It’s funny; L.A. riders think they have winter, too. So the crowd’s much sparser than it would be. Still, there are vintage café racers, modern crotch rockets and supermotards, as well as the usual cruisers and choppers. Rock Store’s a sort of demilitarized zone, where they all get along. The Livingstons and I go into the café for burgers, and they tell me about their plans to run Malcolm Smith in the vintage class at Pikes Peak this summer.

The bikes in the parking lot all made the beemer seem pretty dowdy. Since splitting with my wife, I’ve been staying with a friend a few blocks from the beach, where the salt’s taken a toll. The ally’s growing white fur, the beautiful wide handlebar is shedding its chrome, and the seat’s developed a deep crack. As I ride back south, I wonder if I’ll ever get around to fixing any of that stuff, or just sell it and split the money, since there’s no way I can buy out her half.

Stopped into a church/I passed along the way. 

Well, I parked in front of one anyhow. I just needed a coffee. There’s an old mission in San Juan Capistrano that dates from the time when this was all Mexico. It occurs to me that the bike’s running fine, despite showing its age. So maybe I could just keep going south, and cross the border into Baja. Her lawyer would never find me there.

If I didn’t tell her/I could leave today
Oh California dreamin’/On such a winter’s day

UPDATE: I did, in the end, have to give the BMW to my ex-wife. She left it parked outside, a mile from the ocean, for several years before telling me that if I wanted it, she guessed I could take it. By that time I'd married the correct wife, but didn't have the resources to resurrect the bike. I traded it to my friend Jim Carns, who drove out to California from Kansas City to collect it. He's since restored the machine and Mary and I have since moved to Kansas City, so I suppose I have visiting rights to it.

Scarfing jig

Motorcycle Landing gear

Large motorcycles are often too heavy to comfortably/safely keep upright at very low speeds or while standing, so why not add a landing gear.

 Very interesting is leg-up which allows you driving with them down, which can be seen in this youtube movie.

An Ecology for Design: A call for integrated action in India

An Ecology for Design: A call for integrated action in India

I was invited to a panel discussion at MICA, Ahmedabad (MUDRA Institute of Communication) as part of the National Seminar on Ecology, Communication and Youth: An ICZMP initiative at MICA campus, Shela, Ahmedabad from February 25 – 27, 2013 organised in partnership with, Gujarat Ecology Commission (GEC). 
 The participants were NGO's and Field workers who are all youth from across the country, ecology and communication scientists and researchers and I was asked to speak in Hindi, which I did. The speakers at my session were scientists from ISRO, SAC and International expert in disaster management and the title of the session was Science and Arts for Managing Coastal Resources and as usual design was missing from the session title. My paper that I presented at the seminar is quoted below and the visual presentation can be downloaded from this link here as a pdf file. 
Download visual presentation here as a pdf file 3.8 mb
Text file of my lecture is here as a pdf file 65 kb size

I did not stick to the text submitted below but I did vent my thoughts on the disparity in funding and support from the Governemnt of India as well as the States for science and technology when compared to design although the premier Institute for design has now (finally) been accorded National recogntion by the Union Cabinet with the status of an Institute of National Importance. The scientists present at the seminar conferred with me and in response to my enquiery told me that the SAC gets about Rupees 600 crores a year and the parent organisation ISRO gets Rupees 6000 crores per year as their annual budget support for the year. Add to this the Rupees 5000 crores per year that is given to the CSIR and many hundreds of thousands more to defence and other sectors in the name of technology you will see that there is a complete absence of support for design in comparison. My stated position is that our country will not be able to solve its critical problems if this kind of disparity of funding continues in the future and I hope this message is heard and acted upon by the Finance Minister in his forthcoming budget or in a followup action when the matter of design as an activity of national importance is brought before the Indian Parliament, hopefully soon.

An Ecology for Design: A call for integrated action in India

M P Ranjan
Professor – Design Chair, CEPT University
Ahmedabad

Presentation at National Seminar on Ecology, Communication and Youth at MICA, Ahmedabad on 26 February 2013

Preamble
Quote from her “A Note from the Author”
“As corporations, which play such a powerful determining role in our species’ behavior as a whole, understand and abide by the sustainable survival principles of living systems, their goals will come into harmony with our personal and community goals. We can then mature like other species from competition to cooperation and build a human society in which the goals of individual and community, of local and global economy, of economy and ecology are met. This will shift us out of crises and into the happier, healthier world of which we all dream. Let it be so!”
                                                     Elisabet Sahtouris, September, 1999

as quoted in Elisabet Sahtouris and James E Lovelock, Earthdance: Living Systems in Evolution, iUniverse, 2000 (ISBN-13: 978-0595130672) This excellent book can be downloaded from her website here. or from a direct link as a pdf file here Earthdance.pdf 800kb

Ecology and Design
For me the seminar at MICA that will focus on the ecology of coastal Gujarat is an occasion to reflect on the terms – “Ecology” as well as “Design” – since both of these for me are central for understanding the world as a system and not as a collection of parts that we most times tend to do in order to achieve administrative convenience. 

The word Ecology is perhaps well understood by this gathering as the overarching processes of nature that includes the scientific study of the relationships that living organisms have with each other and with their natural environment. It alludes to the manner in which the various parts of the natural environment relate with each other and contributes to the sustainable survival or demise of the whole system.

My definition of the word Design, however, may not be generally known nor accepted easily since we all carry so many versions for this particular word. So let me state it here in brief to explain my arguments further. 

Design is a cultural system just like literature, music, art and philosophy. Design is driven by human intentions and actions that shape our environment and over time it shapes us and the culture and values that we hold dear. It is not only informed by culture, but also helps create it and is one of the central contributors of both the tangible and intangible resources of any cultural entity through a constant process of evolution and assimilation that these living cultures tend to do. Design at a deep level deals with all aspects of human evolution and in the production of culture through the human use of local resources as well as the unfolding of human imagination and political action that brings change. Therefore this search is not just for truth that exists (which is what science does) but a search for what could be the imagined possibilities and options and these are preferably aligned with an existing trajectory of culture so that it is more acceptable to local inhabitants and the holders of that particular culture. Therefore, design imaginations offerings cannot be tested in a laboratory but can only be manifested in the world through its acceptance by the people who wish to own it and put it to use. They need to be prototyped and visualized at an early stage and then taken through many stages of refinement and testing before a wholesale adoption of the se offerings can be made practical and desirable. Design is also a profession and here our understanding of its knowledge, skills, sensibilities and its scope are all changing as we continue to gather insights from our practice and research here in India and today it is substantially different form when it was introduced as a modern discipline in India some fifty years ago

Design is a discipline that uses all the disciplines known to humanity in order to build a synthesis of new offerings –settlements, products, spaces, services, activities as well as organizations – for the betterment of our society and to meet their aspirations, needs and desires with the natural and cultural resources that are available and accessible at any given time and place. Over time, what we build tends to shape us and all that we think and do.

Design as a System
I have used the metaphor of fire to define design using a model that was developed with my students. When we look at fire we see that it has various components — Fire (Agni) is a process of transformation — a material is transformed by organic exchanges with the environment and an effect is the product of this exchange. The process is always situated in a particular context and this context is represented by the ground on which stands the fire, both time and place taken together form the context. The process of burning and the products of light, heat and smoke are all in close interplay with the environment and design too is an activity that can happen only with reference to its own context. This fire therefore represents the kind of complex transaction that I consider an adequate expression for the systems metaphor for design.

This means that we see design as a complex activity. There is not a single product that we can call a simple product. Take for example the simplest of products that you can think of and explore its possible effects. If you look at it only as a product of technology, that is, as some material transformed into a functional shape, then it would seem to be simple. However if you consider its entire life-cycle and its impact on society, it is quite another matter altogether. So it is becoming increasingly evident that design has to look beyond the object itself as a mere artifact, as produced by technology, to the effects that these objects have on a complex set of user-related parameters and finally the effects of these objects on the environment and culture at various stages of their life cycle need to be taken into consideration while we design them.

This leads us to re-evaluate the role of design and to anticipate the shape of the design activity in the years to come. We are beginning to understand the complex nature of design, which means that you also need a fairly complex method of dealing with it. Design methodologies need to be reevaluated and innovated to cope with this complexity. A lot of technological development in recent years has created negative results, some with catastrophic consequences. We are certain that the exploitation of technology without the use of design processes that take cognizance of the long term needs of users and environments will lead to disaster.

We can call this an ecological view of design when we are attempting to deal with the complexity of both natural systems as well as how they connect and are influenced by human interventions and activities.

Three Orders of Design
In a paper that I had presented in Istanbul in 2009 titled:” Hand-Head-Heart: Ethics in Design” I had proposed a new organization of our understanding of the design activity as the three orders of design. 

The “Ethical Design Vortex” that moves through these three orders in sweeping and overlapping stages includes various manifestations of design thoughts and actions along a growing spiral of influences and categories listed below:

• The First Order of Ethics in Design
Material – Craftsmanship – Function – Technique – Structure
This level of design is recognized by most people and is the commonly discussed attribute. Here material, structure and technology are the key drivers of the design offerings as these help shape the form that we eventually see and appreciate in the artifact. We can appreciate the offering as an honest expression of structure and material used and transformed to realize a particular form that is both unique as well as functional. It is here that skill and understanding of the craftsmen are both used to shape the artifact through an appropriate transformation with a deep understanding of its properties and an appreciation of its limitations.

• The Second Order of Ethics in Design
Economy – Society – Communication – Environment
This level is influenced by utility and feeling of a society and is largely determined by the marketplace as well as by the culture in which it is located. Here aesthetics and utility are informed by the culture and the economics of the land. We can sense and feel the need for the artifact and the trends are determined by the largely intangible attributes through which we assess the utility and price value that we are willing to accord to this particular offering, which is quite independent of its cost.

• The Third Order of Ethics in Design
Politics & Law – Culture – Systems – Spiritual
This level is shaped by the higher values in our society and by the philosophy, ethics and spirit that we bring to our products, events, systems and services. At this level value unfolds through the production of meaning in our lives and in providing us with our identities and these offerings become a medium of communication in themselves, all about ourselves. It is held in the politics and ethics of the society and is at the heart of the spirit in which the artifacts are produced and used in that society. There are deeply held meanings that are integral to the form, structure as well as some of the essential features which may in some cases be the defining aspects of the offering, making it recognizable as being from a particular tribe or community. These features define the ownership of the form, motif or character of the artifact and these are usually supported by the stories and legends about their origin and give meaning to the lives of the initiated.

Conclusion
I do not have much time to elaborate these positions and provide all the case studies that we have gathered over the years. These are described in my previous papers as well as on my blog – “Design for India” – and can be accessed from there. However this presentation will not be complete without stressing that we need to build a suitable ecology for design itself to flourish here in India since we seem to have adopted specialization as our preferred approach to dealing with problems as and when they crop up while relegating the organized integration of these special knowledge and tools to chance encounters of committees that we put together to manage these events as they come to our attention. On the other hand we speak of public private partnerships where we place these actions in the hands of some entrepreneur who is supposed to first create these new offerings by inventions and also “jugaad” without the benefit of a nurturing environment on which these activities can take place in a sustained and effective manner. India needs to reconsider its approach to design and to recognise design as an ecological offering that has many layers and relationships and also to set up processes and organisation that can use that language and tools of design to transform our society and the environment on which they live, work and play. We will also need to look at the manner in which design can be integrated into all our activities and not leave them as domains of specialist activity as they have been in the past. For this to happen we will need to look at how design is being taught in our schools and institutes and how these will change to accommodate the new understanding of design that we now have arrived at through our various journeys and from the crisis that some of our past actions have created at the level of the ecology, while looking at the health of the whole and not just the parts.

References
1. Elisabet Sahtouris and James E Lovelock, Earthdance: Living Systems in Evolution, iUniverse, 2000 (ISBN-13: 978-0595130672)
2. Harold Nelson and Eric Stolterman, The Design Way, (Second Edition)
Intentional Change in an Unpredictable World, MIT Press, 2012 (ISBN: 9780262018173)
3. M P Ranjan, blog “Design for India” www.designforindia.com

About the Author

M P Ranjan
Professor – Design Chair, CEPT University
Design Thinker & Author of blog www.designforindia.com,
Ahmedabad

Prof M P Ranjan is a design thinker with 40 years of experience in design education and practice in association with the National Institute of Design. He helped visualize and set up two new design schools in India, one for the crafts sector, the IICD Jaipur and the other for the bamboo sector, the BCDI Agartala. His book Handmade in India is a comprehensive resource on the hand crafts sector of India and was created as a platform for the building of a vibrant creative economy based on the crafts skills and resources identified therein.

His book on bamboo opened up new frontiers for design exploration in India. He has explored bamboo as a designer material for social transformation. Bamboo has been positioned as a sustainable material of the future through his work spread over three decades. His work in design education covered many subjects including Design Thinking, Data Visualisation, Interaction Design and Systems Design

His blog “Design for India” has become a major platform for Indian design discourse.

He is on the Governing Council of the IICD, Jaipur and advises other design schools in India and abroad. He lives and works from Ahmedabad in India. He has been acknowledged by peers as one of the international thought leaders in Design Thinking today

~

Cafe in the Botanical Gardens by Kollgata Arkitektur � CONTEMPORIST

Cafe in the Botanical Gardens by Kollgata Arkitektur � CONTEMPORIST

Eternity Hole with Proto #4 of the LL Composite Playboat

Yonton trickin' it up.

Its been a bit since I put my butt in a playboat sunny skies and upper 50s temps had Yonton Mehler and I jumping into a car with Kerry Porche headed for Eternity hole on the Tuckasegee River.  Yonton started jumping back in a playboat a couple months ago and is starting to show signs of his skills that took him to the World Championships.  I however am way off the back end.  It was definitely a case of the old dog trying to learn new tricks.  Fortunately I don't think anyone was taking pictures while I was paddling but I did get a few of Yonton looking good in Big Orange!  The session was enough to get me stoked to get back in the shaping room with the playboat model.  A little more time and I may be able to hit that Phonix Monkey.  Proto #5 in time for team trials maybe!
Shane

The New P&H Hammer

My thoughts after 2 days in the Hammer 
by Bill Vonnegut

This boat is not on the market yet, but I had a chance to take out the pre production model.

                                                                                                                                                             

P&H's Hammer comes across as an effort to blend the best of the P&H Delphin and Pyranha Fusion and I think they did a wonderful job. 

I will start by saying that I own and have been using both these boats for the past couple of years and am an avid lover of both. The Delphin, in my opinion, is the best all-around sea kayak on the market. And I have been having lots of fun paddling the Fusion as my go to rock garden boat for the last couple years.

Hammer and Delphin

Last week I picked up the Hammer from California Canoe & Kayak, where it is living right now, if you want to see it live. And had the opportunity to paddle it over two days, logging over 10 hours in the three categories that I wanted to try this boat in:
1) Surfing and ocean wave play
2) Rock Gardening
3) Tide rip play


So here is my take on what I thought about this boat...


The short version:
1) Caught waves nicely and very maneuverable
2) While surfing, once speed is introduced the boat starts planing, takes off and is easy to control by putting it on edge
3) It will effortlessly punch over about any wave you dare try, and you don't get the body slam that you would feel with other boats
4) It will do a 180 flat spin with just two strokes (1 forward 1 reverse), I put it on edge and its about the same but seemed to spin better flat
5) It's not fast, but will get you where you want to go
6) Tracks straight-with some skeg
7) Super stable, even when getting tossed around in chaotic white water
8) Edge turns on a dime, similar to the Delphin if you lean back slightly put a little extra weight on the rear outer corner it turns much sharper
9) Good primary, secondary and a bonus stability point where it locks in on its side, I have never seen a boat with such a solid feeling on its side.


The long version:
Surfing:
I met my friend Mark Boyd out at Bolinas last Fri for a day of surfing. This is a great place to catch long rides on days when the swell is large, as it was that kind of day. It faces south so the large north swell tends to wrap around nicely.

We started the day playing around in some small nicely formed surf, about 2-3 ft. The waves were clean and slow. The Hammer caught the waves nicely and maneuvered quite well.


After a while in this spot we decided to head to the outer reef and wait for the tide to drop, Bolinas really needs low tide for the kayak surfing to be good. 

Photo by Mark Boyd

We paddled out to see mostly reformed waves from the 10 footers that had plunged on the outside reef. This is where I had my "ah ha" moment for this boat. I was able to catch a fairly large and steep wave and found the Hammer loves to go fast! The boat has a sweet spot where it starts planing and turns into a different animal. I would have to describe it as just a light feeling. It just flies down or across waves and turns more into a surf kayak rather than a sea kayak. The boat just goes wherever you decide to edge it.

Punching through surf:
Did I say this boat surfed well? Wait until you have to punch out through a big set. I found myself paddling through very large piles of foam that I regularly do with my Delphin. Where I would normally build speed, jam the paddle in the back of the wave, and take the hit as I pull myself over. So it took a while to get used to just gliding over waves that I normally have to be very aggressive with. This boat just rode over anything I hit with it. It was so effortless that I would just paddle and try coasting over some decent size waves just to see if I would make it. I made it every time I tried this. 

Photo by Mark Boyd

Rock gardening:
Saturday Steve Lidia and I had a Tide Rip class to teach for California Canoe & Kayak. I needed to be there by 9 then I was going to pass off the boat to Steve after the class. I really wanted to get this thing in the rocks before I let go of it. So that morning, I arrived at Horseshoe cove at 6:30 am, geared up and did a sunrise paddle out the Golden Gate.


I found this boat super stable and tracked great while running some pour overs.


I also did some playing on a couple of ledges, one where the water flows up then back into a deep hole, and the other where it slammed against a wall and bounced back creating a large reflecting wave. I found myself driving deeper into these spots and getting tossed around more than I normally would on a solo trip. The boat was so stable and easy to control that I could not stop pushing it harder and harder and it was hard to find a limit.


One of my favorite things to do in my Fusion is ride up on a ledge spin 180 and paddle off. The Hammer does that with ease. It spins just as fast as the Fusion but at the same time, does not get thrown around as much. It really goes where you want to be and it does not let the ocean push you around.

Photo by Mark Boyd

Tide rip:
Later that morning we headed out into Yellow Bluff, our local tide rip that resembles a large washing machine where random surfable waves roll through whenever they feel like it. I found the boat to be as I expected, super stable and I was able to catch some waves and turn from one chaotic wave to the next, working my way up the rip. I did find as I was lightly paddling forward the waves coming up behind me would turn the boat 90 deg as they hit. But this boat turns so easy, a quick stoke and I was back on track. I did not have any problems when I was paddling harder and working my way up the rip.




I really can't think of anything negative to say about this boat. And the only small advantage I can see to the Fusion over the Hammer is it's shorter, so may be friendlier in tight spots and small caves. But if you have a good reverse stroke this wont be a problem.


Recently my Fusion was stolen and I need to replace it. There is a good size cost difference between the two boats but I am thinking, it's Hammer time!


P.S.
I am still a big fan of short boat play for rock gardening and I consider the Hammer more of a short Sea Kayak. Now that I will have something to travel distance and play hard, like the Fusion. In addition to the Hammer I am going smaller to my true white water boat for short boat play in the rocks. Watching Jeff Laxier up in Mendocino flow through the rocks in his Jive makes using a true WW boat very appealing.

UPDATE:
I just spent 3 more days in the boat and still like it very much. Here is a little more on it.

 As I stated above that the boat tended to turn sideways when hit from behind by a wave in Yellow Bluff.
I have also found this happens as a wave comes up from behind while running a higher volume pour over. But as in the tide rip, this can be easily compensated for by paddling a little aggressively.
Next time out I am going to try stowing my gear in the front hatch instead of the day hatch. I would like to experiment with a little more weight in the front of the boat. It may help resolve this issue. Also I wish it was a little lighter as to make it respond faster. But at the same time I do like the strong lay up.

I would have to say overall the boat maneuvers very well through out the rock gardens and is allot of fun.
I should also add that I did not mention the outfitting, because it will be different in the production model.

Now how about some video of the hammer:

06/13/2013
We just headed up to Mendocino for my first big trip since I picked up my new Hammer. This boat is fantastic. I have a new video shot from the Hammer, it only shows the bow, as I filmed it. But really shows what this boat can handle.

Model Chair

hom nay ranh roi lam 1 bai tut ...Hi vong moi nguoi se lam dep hon nhe
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B10

FINAL

Things Nascar doesn't want said out loud

Nascar got underway for real this weekend. Not coincidentally, it also released a new TV ad, created by the venerable Ogilvy ad agency in New York, which is a thinly-veiled attempt to convince new or casual viewers to think of it as more than a bunch of cars that circulate in a tight bunch between wrecks,  surrounded by grandstands full of drunken rednecks who pretend they're there for the racing part.

"For every good ole boy, there's a good ole girl?" I guess Ogilvy's copywriter failed math. There's one girl, and Nascar was probably glad Danica Patrick got the pole. Unlike Ogilvy's creative department, Nascar does have people who passed math on staff, and they know that roundy-round's audience of southern white males -- like the Republican voting base --  is shrinking with age. But will Danica actually bring a larger female audience?

It's way to early to say, "It's over for Nascar"but the sports juggernaut has certainly slowed. Billboards promoting the first race of the year here in Kansas City tout the facts that parking is free and coolers are welcome -- they're trying to reduce barriers to entry for less-than-hardcore fans.

All of which highlights the attention paid to Travis Pastrana in Nascar's Nationwide series. He got off to a decent start, and it's pretty obvious that Nascar has high hopes that he can attract a younger X-Games-style audience to stock car racing.

Honestly, I think the fact that Nascar cares about Travis Pastrana at all is evidence that it's running scared. Nascar's going after the X-Games crowd? Not so long ago, that would have been like the NFL encouraging some hapless team to hire an aging soccer player to kick field goals, in hopes of attracting more soccer fans.

Pastrana has pretty much openly admitted that he's taking heat from long-time fans who resent his left turn into the mainstream. Will his presence boost a future audience for Nascar's top series? Not measurably.

Now if you'll forgive a Machiavellian turn...

YouTube disabled the embed code for this fan video of Saturday's Nationwide race, last-lap clusterfuck. But for now, if you click the photo, you can watch the video

The story for this Nascar curtain-raiser is that, during Saturday's Nationwide race, a last-lap crash sent debris flying into the stands, injuring dozens, some seriously. The audio on this fan video clip betrays the delight in the crowd at the prospect of another crash. "Alright! Here we go..." one fan cries out delightedly, and surrounding fans shriek with glee as the crash develops down the track. And note, the Nationwide fans are the serious ones. I suppose that Nascar counts itself lucky the crash didn't happen on Sunday, when the stands would have been full and the casualties higher.

That said, if Nascar's seriously after Pastrana's old fan base, that crash was the best thing they could have hoped for. After all, the fans that are angry at Pastrana for selling out are selling out because they think of stock car racing as a pussy sport. Pastrana has had more orthopedic surgeries than the rest of the field put together. But now, maybe some of those disillusioned Pastrana fans will reconsider.

"Shit, are you kidding me? You can get killed just sitting in the stands? Maybe Nascar is an extreme sport after all."

UPDATE: I thought that was a last word on this, but then someone alerted my to the web site Jalopnik's link to this hilarious-at-one-level-deadly-serious-at-another animated editorial from Japan's Next Media Animation company...

 

Monday Morning Crew Chief: The next best thing to 'BeIn' there

So as we got to the last minute before the start of the 2013 World SBK season without a North American broadcast deal, it seemed as if there would be essentially no way for motorcycle racing fans to watch what has been -- at least arguably -- the most compelling road racing world championship.

Then, we were told that a subsidiary of Al Jazeera -- a network whose name previously only cropped up when some jihadi nutcase wanted to release cell-phone video of a terrorist beheading -- would carry carry it on 'BeIn', a cable sports channel available in approximately 17 households.

I'm not sure whose coverage BeIn picked up, but it was too good to be true. 

Then, we were told that BeIn's stream would be available only to the 49 people who were already customers of a cable company that carried BeIn.

With that in mind, I went out to a birthday party Saturday evening (Sunday morning at Philip Island). When I got in later, I checked my FB page and saw rather rapturous accounts of how great it had been watching the BeIn feed online. My friends noted, "A full hour of race coverage without a single commercial!" and one helpfully posted a URL, that appeared to be hosted on a Spanish server, where anyone could watch it.

I clicked the link and watched a few minutes of soccer news, and then it cut to SBK Race 2.

Indeed, the race coverage was brilliant, and even on my sketchy and bandwidth-challenged connection it was a hell of a lot better than anything Speed ever put up. The only thing that bothered me was, it was an hour of uninterrupted coverage without a single commercial.

You see, if something seems to good to be true, it usually is.

I watched for an hour, without seeing so much as a banner ad. I wish there had been some advertising, so that I could at least hope BeIn has a business plan that will allow them to continue paying the bill at the server farm. I can, unfortunately, guarantee you that that great feed won't be available for too long if is to go completely unmonetized.

Still, as long as it's available, it's the next best thing to being there.

Keith Flint, of the band Prodigy, is a genuine motorcycle nut, and not just a  'celebrity' whose PR advisors have told should be seen associating with bad-boy sports like motorcycle racing. That said, he was a guest of Crescent Suzuki on the grid.

In an accidentally revealing moment, the grid-walk cam focused on Flint -- a guy who (me being me) I didn't recognize from Adam (Ant). All I saw, at a glance, was an idiot in a sideways flat-billed cap, with lots of chunky bling, who, when he realized that a camera was pointed at him, mugged for it and flashed pretend gang signs. (Note to all white guys, even motorcycle racers: The pretend gang thing is pathetic; especially so when you're dressed all ghetto to boot.)

What was noticeable, too, was that although the riders were less than two minutes from the sighting lap, Flint was NATTERING on to Leon Camier. Dude: unlike you, he's a professional motorcycle racer. Unlike being an idiot rock star, Camier's job requires concentration. SHUT THE FUCK UP.

While I'm on this rant, let me add that if I could wave a magic wand and make one thing disappear, it would be the way celebrity wannabes are invited onto the grid at all. For fuck's sake, you're on the starting grid at Philip Island. The celebrities here are on the bikes.

"Motorcycle racing must be cool, right? Because look at these cool people who want to be with us..." It just makes our sport look desperate. 

C# ~ parse JSON to dynamic object

這範例是抓取youtube影片的資訊

透過youtube api提供的json來解析取得想要的data

這邊是直接把json轉成dynamic

個人比較喜歡這樣....因為我真的搞不懂.net的Dictionary還是甚麼List的0rz

dynamic寫法就很像php

反正你知道他的json長甚麼樣子再下去寫就好

也不用為此創一個物件去弄些543麻煩要命

所以我討厭寫.net.......php這邊只要json_decode($xxx)就可以把他轉成陣列

真的不用幾秒的時間....

c#這邊則是要透過一堆物件做些奇奇怪怪的事才完成

雖然人家物件導向比較屌.....

但我就是懶....還是prefer用php簡單coding就可達成所要的結果

---------------------------------------------------
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.IO;
using System.Linq;
using System.Net;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.Script.Serialization;
using System.Web.UI;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls;
using System.Web.Script.Serialization;

public partial class _Default : System.Web.UI.Page
{
protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
string url = "http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/videos/UlNO5CpVbhk?v=2&alt=json";
var webRequest = WebRequest.Create(url);
using (var response = webRequest.GetResponse())
using (var content = response.GetResponseStream())
using (var reader = new StreamReader(content))
{
var strContent = reader.ReadToEnd();
JavaScriptSerializer jss = new JavaScriptSerializer();
dynamic d = jss.Deserialize<dynamic>(strContent);
Label1.Text = d["entry"]["yt$statistics"]["viewCount"].ToString();
}
}
}

---------------------------------------------------------

Five questions for: Filmmaker Justine Curgenven

Justine Curgenven in her North Shore Atlantic LV.

Adventure filmmaker Justine Curgenven launched the genre of sea kayaking films in 2004 with her This is the Sea series, which features profiles of top paddlers, footage of expeditions in a wide range of remarkable places, and lots of paddling excitement. She's coming back to Canoecopia in March, where she'll launch the World Tour of This is the Sea 5 and preview sections of her new, three-hour DVD at at charity fundraiser party on Saturday, March 9.

One of the sections of the DVD, about her adventures and midadventures in Tierra del Fuego with Barry Shaw, has already won Best Sea Kayaking Film in the 2013 Reel Paddling Film Festival. "I guess lots of things went wrong, and people seem to like stories where lots of things go wrong. But it’s a beautiful place as well. It’s a good adventure," she says. We caught up with Justine over Skype just as she finished editing her new DVD.



HKWT: You’re about to begin the North American Tour of This is the Sea 5. Didn’t you intend to stop at 4? What changed?

JC: I was done at four. But I was also done after two and three. It’s quite draining. It’s quite hard work. After the fourth one, I certainly needed a break and needed to do something different and not feel like I was just churning another one out. I think maybe the canoeing DVD and the instructional DVD provided the break that I needed. But people started asking, “When are you doing another This is Sea?” And it just felt right. I think now is a good time for it.

HKWT: What kinds of expeditions do you prefer these days?

JC: I like wild, remote places where there are not many people, though when you meet people who live in remote, wild places, they tend to be rather interesting. I love wildlife. I like to be challenged, too. I quite like paddling around things; I think I have an addiction to that, partly because you go back to the same place so there are fewer logistics to work out. But I also quite like the completeness of going all the way around something.

HKWT: What are you paddling now?

JC: I’m paddling an Atlantic LV just around here. On a trip I’ve tried a few different things. I had a Nordkapp in Tierra del Fuego, and an Etain from Russia to japan with Sarah, and I think I might be going to try an Ocean – which the new North Shore expedition boat – around Ireland.

HKWT: You spend time on other adventure sports. Why do you keep returning to kayaking, personally and for your films?

JC: Kayaking is my favorite, and I guess its what I’m best at as well. I’ve got all the kit, I’ve got a lot of friends that kayak, but I can also go by myself. I can do it at a reasonable standard. I think kayaking’s got so many different things going for it. There’s the fact that you get to spend time in some really cool places, feel the wind through your hair, you can just have a nice relaxing chill-out going along the cliffs, you can get close to wildlife, and you can have as much adrenaline as you want by going out into the surf or the tidal races. And you get to use your brain and think about things when you go on a trip: you’ve got the weather to worry about and how far you go, when you’re going to land and what your options are if this or that other variable changes.  Probably a lot of people who haven’t done a lot of trip paddling don’t know how much goes into it that you do need to consider and think about. I really enjoy the mental side of it as well.

HKWT: What’s next?

JC: I’ll be going around Ireland in May and June for six weeks--we’re not going for a record or anything--with Barry and a friend of ours, Roger Chandler. And I’m making a second rolling DVD with Cheri and Turner. I’ve also been talking about doing an expedition DVD that gives people tips on going on a trip, everything from what kit to take to where to go to a bit about navigation and tide. It’s a huge, huge topic, but I’d like to do a video that has a lot of examples in it because I’ve got so much footage from my various trips that I’d like to use—examples of different situations and how you could deal with it. I’m not sure when I’ll do that; maybe next year. I’m also thinking about doing something with the Hurricane Riders, which I’m quite excited about. They’re really nice people and they’re just pushing it all the time, and I could just see a film about them: The Hurricane Riders: The Movie. I think that could be quite cool.