Off-road / Mountain cycling:
Well
- Mr. Bill has a 'new-thing' - when we were in Vancouver, back in February
(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...
So - I came home to Flat Florida (ever notice how they both start
with "F L") - anyway _ I bought (back in June of this year!) (see picture above) a Trek
"mountain" bike - but here in Florida because it's FLAT I call it
a 'trail' bike!
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!
This section of the web-page was published in May, this year (2015) - but I've left it in here, since a lot of people seem interested...
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...
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
this kiln was modeled with a Python (programming language) script
to create, in essence a 'series' of (mathematically /
geometrically) ellipses, and each of those purple lines you see on the
green 'surface' is an ellipse (with it's bottom-half cut-off at
the bottom of the kiln (green 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.
I suspect it'll take me another 6 to 18 months to perhaps as long as 36
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 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 1,000 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!)
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?)
(BIGGER
VERSION click here)
Mr. Panda-bear had his annual "bath" on 03 Sepetember, (2014) and here's
his web-page:
http://www.vikingasia.org/BeachWeb/PandaBear/PB.html
