PSU Scandal, 18th Century GPS and Custom Sound Holes
Since I tend to make dreadfully long entries with a particularly boring writing style, I have mercifully decided to
All this being said, I can now move one to something I can pretend to know something about:
Go ahead, ask me where I am! This is the sextant that I bought for my next sailing class: celestial navigation and ocean passage making and it's really cool. It is a Davis Instruments Mark 15. I was surprised how light it was though, being made of plastic (the aluminum and brass alloy models were well over $1,000 used) but I did a lot of homework and I haven't heard anything bad about it. Someone even said something about using it at the north pole but anyone can take a picture of themselves with snow in their beard. Unless they don't have a beard. The M25 had a "full field beam converger" which combines the index image of the sun or stars and the horizon image to which the user brings the celestial object down to read it's angle above it. Many reviews I have read didn't like this, however, and said that it makes noon sights easier, but everything else is more difficult since it blends the images together, even though they are in two different color channels and that the traditional half silvered horizon mirror was still the preferred method since the 1700s. I actually don't know how to calculate my position with it yet except for figuring my latitude using the north star. (However many degrees it is above the horizon is your approximate latitude.) I was thinking of waiting until after the holidays to start my homework. That way I forget too much of it by May.
You may remember I had two goals this winter: take the next sailing course and learn how to play a hammered dulcimer. The previous paragraph obviously deals with the first one and since I've already paid for the class, it may as well be completed- I can't screw it up. This next one is a bit more tricky, since I still have doubts about my musical ability. I was playing with my sister's ukulele the other day though, and that helped make instruments in general seem less baffling and mysterious. Dulcimers are the kind of insttrument that, if they are not cheaply manufactured in China, they are handmade by craftsmen which can get expensive. On the other hand, you know you will be getting something that a lot of care has gone into. I do not know of any Hammered Dulcimer makers around here without traveling several hour to Lancaster where the Amish live, I have to do my shopping online where it is difficult to really get an idea of what I'm looking for. After a day of research I have one man in particular that I really like. You can check his site out here. His prices seem the cheapest, all things considering, even though I do have to crunch the numbers. And he looks really cool. :P What are your suggestions?
I was going to add something about not feeling like drawing or something dumb like that too, but this journal is long enough.
I hope everyone is doing well. :3
All this being said, I can now move one to something I can pretend to know something about:
Go ahead, ask me where I am! This is the sextant that I bought for my next sailing class: celestial navigation and ocean passage making and it's really cool. It is a Davis Instruments Mark 15. I was surprised how light it was though, being made of plastic (the aluminum and brass alloy models were well over $1,000 used) but I did a lot of homework and I haven't heard anything bad about it. Someone even said something about using it at the north pole but anyone can take a picture of themselves with snow in their beard. Unless they don't have a beard. The M25 had a "full field beam converger" which combines the index image of the sun or stars and the horizon image to which the user brings the celestial object down to read it's angle above it. Many reviews I have read didn't like this, however, and said that it makes noon sights easier, but everything else is more difficult since it blends the images together, even though they are in two different color channels and that the traditional half silvered horizon mirror was still the preferred method since the 1700s. I actually don't know how to calculate my position with it yet except for figuring my latitude using the north star. (However many degrees it is above the horizon is your approximate latitude.) I was thinking of waiting until after the holidays to start my homework. That way I forget too much of it by May.
You may remember I had two goals this winter: take the next sailing course and learn how to play a hammered dulcimer. The previous paragraph obviously deals with the first one and since I've already paid for the class, it may as well be completed- I can't screw it up. This next one is a bit more tricky, since I still have doubts about my musical ability. I was playing with my sister's ukulele the other day though, and that helped make instruments in general seem less baffling and mysterious. Dulcimers are the kind of insttrument that, if they are not cheaply manufactured in China, they are handmade by craftsmen which can get expensive. On the other hand, you know you will be getting something that a lot of care has gone into. I do not know of any Hammered Dulcimer makers around here without traveling several hour to Lancaster where the Amish live, I have to do my shopping online where it is difficult to really get an idea of what I'm looking for. After a day of research I have one man in particular that I really like. You can check his site out here. His prices seem the cheapest, all things considering, even though I do have to crunch the numbers. And he looks really cool. :P What are your suggestions?
I was going to add something about not feeling like drawing or something dumb like that too, but this journal is long enough.
I hope everyone is doing well. :3