_Bill's _"BeachWeb"_ for April 2015_
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Recent Movies that might be of interest:


Paddington: - about the bear, mind you - VERY FAMILY, VERY GOOD, VERY Netflix (for us - your mileage may vary!)

Pioneer: - an EXCELLENT (Norwegian) movie (based on a true story) about the government and "BIG (oil) INDUSTRY" using deep-water-divers as test-subjects for people attempting to work at 300 meters below sea-level...  Ultimately a group of divers won a law-suit showing that their experiences and 'test' status had ruined their brains for life... - VERY INTERESTING delving into the health / physiology and trust issues revolving around deep-sea-diving...

Mandela: Long walk to freedom: - very much about Nelson Mandela and his rise to 'fame' before he went to prison and this his actions after he got out of prison. Some very very interesting parallels between what happened in South Africa, and what happened in the American SouthEast...




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In a local park (that has EXCELLENT 'Trails' (for the new bicycle-pictured-below))- we found this 'family', picnicking in the park... - if you get too close, those LARGE BIRDS with SHARP BEAKS will 'hiss (as a warning) and then 'attack' with SHARP BEAK! - but they are VERY CUTE!


Well - Mr. Bill has a 'new-thing' - when we were in Vancouver, recently (and found 'no-snow' (to snowboard-on for  five days) I borrowed Alex's Trek 'Mountain' bike and got 'hooked' on going up-hill VERY SLOWLY, and going downhill MUCH FASTER than I should have... - I had a couple of dis-agreements about my 'direction of travel' with a tree-or-two and a rock-or-two (and interestingly enough the Trees and the Rocks ALWAYS WON
that 'argument'! - luckily I did NOT break myself nor the bicycle...


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So - I came home to Flat Florida (ever notice how they both start with "F L") - anyway _ I bought (see picture above) a Trek "mountain" bike - but here in Florida because it's FLAT I call it a 'trail' bike!

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In one of the places I ride (Jonathan Dickinson State Park (you can put this in 'Google Earth' and see where it is))- they recently had a 'controlled-burn' - but - well - most 'controlled-burns' get 'un-controlled', says a friend, but they sure make it so you can SEE what's coming along the trail (in the above picture this is what is called the 'Hare' trail (which comes AFTER the 'Tortoise' trail)).

there is a LOT to LEARN about 'trail' riding - it is a LOT different than 'road' riding (which I've been doing for the better part of 7 years)...   (SOMETIMES when Trail-riding one falls - harumph - (but I only seem to fall to the left for some reason?) - and Frequently one has to test one's blood to see if it is still red (I might worry if it turns blue or green, huh?) - Anyway - I've test mine about once a week...

- The Bike is a LOT different, also - it is about 7" higher than the street/road bike and so it's a 'struggle' to fit-it-into the mini-van for transport.  - it almost doesn't fit, but we've found 'a way'?! and a 3D-puzzle to get it into the mini-van ...


SO - I have been riding the 'trails' and they are FUN... - more on this as i get more experienced!



For a LONG TIME (years, actually), Mr. Bill has been 'attempting' to 'model' (in CAD software)  some pottery-kilns...    I won't bore you with all the technical mumbo-jumbo about this effort, other than to say that I'm using a product called "_Rhino3D_" and it is an awesome software tool, that if I continue to use it until the day I die, I still won't know but 15% of it's capabilities...
kilnbuilt_BC_v1.jpg
this drawing / model was developed using a  'simplistic' approach - modeling what - basically, was '1/2' of the kiln, then using something called the 'mirror' command to duplicate what I'd modeled onto the other side.  This is the typically methodology used to design a boat-hull

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this kiln was modeled with a Python (programming language) script to create, in essense a 'series' of (mathematically / geometrically) ellipses, and each of those lines you see on the green 'surface' is an ellipse (with it's bottom-half cut-off at the ground-plane (orange surface)...  Note, also, the 'secondary' chamber in the back (far-right)... - another 'feature' of our 'design software' - auto-magically-inserted at a location programmed-into the Python software...

What is VERY INTERESTING about the two approaches is that they require the same amount of 'WORK' - (man-hours).   One, however, creates a better set of numbers for estimation of numbers (of (4-6 types of bricks, costs (of bricks and of shipping, weights, man-hours, etc. and one creates a better "Surface" to view / model / cogitate about...

HOW to 'meld the two' together - that's the next challenge...  - eventually I hope to get to 'Push-Button-Design' - but that is probably a long way off at this point...


Rhino3D has a companion software tool that is called (loosely) a "graphical algorithm editor" (_Grasshopper_ is it's name) - it allows me (the 'pilot' for lack of a better word) to do several things that are not inherently possible in Rhino3D...    Most everyone has heard of 'AutoCAD' (which is actually a 'suite' of products) and even in the (VERY EXPENSIVE) _AutoCAD_ world there is nothing to compare to Rhino3D and Grasshopper applications working together...

Just recently I've begun watching the on-line-training-videos for _Grasshopper_ , and I'm now blown-away (mentally) by what the two products can do, together, and furthermore what they might allow me to do, assuming I can "re-think" my mental approach to this task.


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I suspect it'll take me another 6 months to perhaps as long as 18 months to do what I want with these two products, but I've got a real start, here, and the people who wrote and support this software have taken an interest in what I'm attempting to do (from their viewpoint I'm a 'customer' but one who has a concept they might be able to produce and sell, and I don't see anything like it in the marketplace, at this point...

Above you will see one small picture of the two products working side-by-side, and the key (mathematical / geometric) 'gadget' I've discovered is something called 'biarc' - click on the link to view what Wikipedia has to say about it... ...



WE went BACK (on Friday, 23rd) to BC to FINISH what (some of us) started, back in October of last year... - there is / are a LOT of 'stories to tell' - but - in this case, one picture really is worth 1000 words.  - this is at the end of roughly 12 hours of work, and we still had to clean-up, eat dinner, pick-up the dog, and drive back to the intermediate step, and then drive-home from there  - bottom-line we hit the sack about midnite and that makes for a very very long day! - but it is DONE, now (at least our part, therein!)

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Here's May in front of the kiln that took us nearly 4 months - over 100 'man-hours' to finish.. (and someone still has to do the piping for the burners...) - The picture quality suffers, somewhat, because this was way after dark and the flash on the phone-camera doesn't work very well with back-lights (the two flourescents in the kiln-room... (if I were more skilled with "Gimp", maybe I could make this better?)

 bearboat.sm.gif(BIGGER VERSION click here)

Mr. Panda-bear had his annual "bath" on 03 Sepetember, and here's his web-page:    http://www.vikingasia.org/BeachWeb/PandaBear/PB.html



Archived BeachWeb monthly (and other) site(s):   Click here for a list of the archived months


updated:  20:31  p.m. (USA-EDT)  Saturday,  09 May, 2015;     by: Mr._Bill on the Apple Macintosh 'Mac Mini' (10.10.1) - revID:  1e _._