Evanston: new instrument; small hurt; maps; style points
Evanston: new instrument; small hurt; maps; style points
Despite writing recently about the simple life, I’ve just bought a new instrument for GANNET, a Shaka wind meter.
I don’t recall where I first came across this, but a few weeks ago I received an email saying that they were shipping from Estonia. Some of you may recall that I had repeated failures with the masthead wind unit of the TackTick instrument system on THE HAWKE OF TUONELA; so for $70, I thought, why not?
It works with recent generation iPhones, iTouchs and iPads, plugging into the earphone outlet. A free app must be downloaded.
I think the biggest problem with the tiny Shaka may be losing it.
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I didn’t workout during this last period on GANNET, partially because it was inconvenient with the work being done on the little sloop, partially because life aboard in which I do dozens of squats a day just getting in and out of the Great Cabin, walk and bike, kept me in good condition.
I resumed Monday, after a break of almost eight weeks, my longest in years. I was able to do the full 151 push-ups and crunches in sets of 71-40-40 and the other exercises, and it didn’t even hurt as much as I expected--until the second time yesterday, which distressed some muscles in my chest and abdomen. Usually by the third work-out I come right.
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I am indebted to Larry for a link to “40 Maps That Will Help You Make Sense of the World”. I’ve looked at them a couple of times. Almost all are interesting, many illuminating, some surprising.
The one showing population by latitude demonstrates why I prefer the Southern Hemisphere: few people, lots of ocean.
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If I participated in an organized sport, I would do so in one that in which results are quantified, not judged. The hundred meter swim, for example, not diving. Judging, even if those doing so are trying to be fair, is too subjective.
An article at Ars Techina summarizing a recent study proves this even more troublingly than I expected. What matters in music competitions is not sound, but sight. Careers and lives are made by such competitions, yet, “It is unsettling to find—and for musicians not to know—that they themselves relegate the sound of music to the role of noise.”
What is true of music is, I expect, true of all judged events.
Run against the clock or sail around a cape, not for a panel assigning style points, or a herd voting.
Thursday, August 22, 2013