Another year goes by, and another birthday is witnessed.

A friend of mine said "People in their 20's think their 30's are far away. People in their 30's realize their 20's were ten minutes ago. 40 is 'never going to happen' to some millennials; but once they get into their late 30's they'll wish people in their 20's weren't so judgmental."

Some interesting notions. Perception of age can be really involved; our entire society is shaped by it. How old someone is, the 'half + seven' rule, age of consent, over the hill, retirement, age you can drive, age you can vote, age you can die for your country and age you can die for crime.

All of these, are based upon numbers.

A number, which is entirely dependent on the number of times the Earth has gone around the Sun.

Where did this start? Back when it was actually important to keep track of seasons and years, when farming and aggregation was most everyone's primary focus of living. But in those days, 'age' was never even remotely considered a factor if a person could or could not do a thing. Marry, fight, a leader or follower. Your competency, and ability was the deciding factor in if a thing was done or not. How old was Alexander the Great when he conquered most of the known world?

Now, because of heard laws and established systems of normality and conformity in the US and most of the world, 18 has been established to be the standard age before a person can be considered an adult. When not 200 years ago, it was entirely possible for 14-15 year olds to marry, and be working on their first child.

What I find so troubling with these preconceived estimations is this: What does a person's orbital count, (or anniversary, if you like) say at all about who they are? The number of times they have existed upon the earth as it revolved around the sun, is about as relevant to estimating who a person is as the number of times in a person's life they've received a haircut. While statistically relevant, it says nothing about who they've met, what influences they have been exposed to, places they've travelled, lessons they've learned. Sure there's the typical 'did you attend high school' and other legally mandated activities, but even then that's no guarantee.

Perhaps they dropped out, or were a child prodigy and graduated college at 16, maybe still they started their own business at 12 developing Iphone apps and became a millionaire overnight. Or, maybe they had to quit school and work on the farm because of a parental death, and haven't been 100 miles outside where they were raised. Or, were born into a military family and can count on all their fingers and toes how many homes they've lived in since they were born... except they're missing 5 because they lost a foot in a mortar attack.

But, because a persons managed to survive on the planet as it made it's slow elliptical orbit around the sun a set number of times, they will be buttonholed and grouped into stereotypical categories. it's unfortunate, it's unfair, and it's an eventuality we all have to face, regularly and often. And that sucks.

I bring this up because I've now firmly hit a red letter age. I'll not say specifically what number, but it's a definitive number that many stress about. The amusing part for me is that I still pass for far younger in any social setting. I can lap people in their early 20's, and I am only just now starting to develop chest fuzz. I have no wrinkles, yet my hair is starting to gray. I've traveled to 7 different countries, lived in 3 and have citizenship in 2. I've done military service, I've worked for myself and massive multi-billion dollar international corporations. I've married, divorced, and have had child scares, twice. I've had relationships both personal and professional end because of death, and alcohol. I've been in serious trouble, and almost got sent to federal prison, but was exonerated by the skin of my teeth. I've lived in places that could be considered veritable paradise by most, and spent months so poor that I could only afford to eat once every 3 days.

And that’s just a tiny slice of experiences while staying upright and breathing through my orbits. Further, what does that all-hallowed number say about the personality I've developed during my orbits? What does this it say about any of that?

I think we all know the answer.

So, as we all bump about on spaceship Earth, making it's lazy orbit around our central nuclear furnace, the reason for which we're all alive and wriggling; remember the number of times you orbit does not define who you are, what you've done, or what you're capable of doing.

Or anyone else for that matter.

So, I was recently reminded of an old 80's cartoon that I caught once or twice when I was younger. Called, 'SILVERHAWKS' I could only recall the vaguest images from what the show looked like, but having a browse through youtube, I was surprised to see animation that rivals some of what's put out today.

However, that doesn't hold a candle to this little gem:

"A bionic policeman called Commander Stargazer recruited the SilverHawks, heroes who are "partly metal, partly real," to fight the evil Mon*Star, an escaped alien mob boss who transforms into an enormous armor-plated creature with the help of Limbo’s Moonstar. Joining Mon*Star in his villainy is an intergalactic mob: the snakelike Yes-Man, the blade-armed Buzz-Saw, the "bull"-headed Mumbo-Jumbo, a weather controller called Windhammer, a shapeshifter known as Mo-Lec-U-Lar, a robotic card shark called Poker-Face, the weapons-heavy Hardware, and "the musical madness of" Melodia; this last uses a "keytar" that fires musical notes.

Quicksilver (formerly Jonathan Quick) leads the SilverHawks, with his metal bird companion TallyHawk at his side. Twins Emily and Will Hart became Steelheart and Steelwill, the SilverHawks’s technician and strongman respectively. Country-singing Colonel Bluegrass played a sonic guitar and piloted the team’s ship, the Miraj (pronounced "mirage" on the series, but given that spelling on the Kenner toy). Rounding out the group is a youngster “from the planet of the mimes,” named "The Copper Kidd" and usually called "Kidd" for short, a mathematical genius who spoke in whistles and computerized tones. Their bionic bodies are covered by a full-body close-fitting metal armor that only exposes the face and an arm, the armor is equipped with a retractile protective mask, retractile wings under-arm (except Bluegrass) thruster on elbows, and laser-weapons over the body. At the end of every episode, the Copper Kidd was quizzed (along with the home audience) on various space facts by Col. Bluegrass."

That ladies and gentlemen, is the entire 80's summed up in two glorious paragraphs.

You're welcome.

The year is 1991, and I’m handed a book.

I'm well into my freshman year in high school, and my mom knocks on my door and says ‘You should read this.’ That's all she says, that's all she needs to say.

When I was 10, I picked up a novel from her bookcase, and read it cover to cover in under 3 days. It was a 500 page behemoth called ‘Rama II’ by Arthur C Clark. I was a bit of a child prodigy in those days, able to digest a book like that in a short time with 100% comprehension, ‘College Reading Level’ they called it. My mother was heavy into Science Fiction stories, and so she had no trouble fostering my interest.

By the time I was 14, I had packed away over 1,000 books. I had honestly lost count by then and was easily reading 2-3 books at a time. However, this book was different. It was a white cover, with a silhouette of a dinosaur skeleton. How could dinosaurs be Science Fiction? The pause was only for a moment as I opened the book and dived right in.

12 hours later, I put it down, utterly bewildered. I’m quite sure it was 4-5am. Jurassic Park wasn't just Science Fiction, it was Science Plausible! I even went back to specific passages and read them over. Something I never did. Up to this point, most of the books that I had read were of the type that while quite interesting, were so far from the realm of possibility that a lot of ‘technological magic’ needed to happen for it to be a reality. But this, this wonderful book, every iota of it had a definite air of ‘this could really happen…’

I come from a long line of engineers, My grandfather was with Bell Labs for almost 45 years, my father has been with some massive engineering and computer firms his entire life. With that kind of legacy, it wasn't hard to see what kind of career I might take, but this book helped spearhead that interest even further. I wasn't so interested in the Dinosaurs, that was an ancillary effect, a result of the massive undertaking of science, technology, and engineering that allowed the story to take shape. That's what I wanted to be involved in, that’s what I wanted to do. Don’t get me wrong, the dinosaurs were fun as well, but they were icing on the cake.

Then, in 1993, the movie was announced. I was beside myself and I can say with authority that every single aspect was a treat to watch. While it's difficult to convert a book into a movie, in this case it was done with respect to the scope of the book, while being awe inspiriting and hugely entertaining.

So, it's with no surprise that I started fabricating my own props from the movie (Hey, I was 17, and living with a single mother. What else was I going to do?) Back in the days before readily accessible home computers or color printers I handmade ‘hero props.’ The kind of items that have to stand up to close camera scrutiny. ID badges, engineering blueprints, countless pages of notes and drawings detailing systems and infrastructure, even the little tags that hung from the rear view mirrors of the Explorer tour cars. I saved up to buy the soundtrack on CD, and listened to it constantly. That CD started my lifelong obsession with listening to orchestral scores. I was hooked. And for a good year I was heavily involved in digesting anything JP I could get my hands on.

Now, fast forward 22 years. A lot has happened in that time. I'm just as involved in engineering as I always envisioned I would be. And, it was with some delight that I learned the Jurassic Park would be revisited with a new movie.

For the record, despite reviews I thought the 2nd and 3rd movies were acceptable. Perhaps not with the same grandeur or flair that the first had, but still largely enjoyable.

So, with all that in mind, I wanted to give some thoughts about JURASSIC WORLD.

First, it's my policy now to never watch trailers if I can help it. This predilection for having things spoon fed to the masses, has really put me off. Most movie trailers pretty much give every plot point away, so people can be coddled and eased into it, because god forbid they're exposed to anything they might not like. Gotta make sure I'll like what I'm about to do, before I do it… Which of course removes any possibly of being genuinely surprised. Sure, you could be disappointed, But this is what life should be about, genuine discovery.

Ok, mini-gripe over. Point being I specifically refused to watch the trailer. I wanted to see this with fresh eyes.

I'm sad to say, this movie was a huge disappointment.

From the dinosaur angle, I'm ambivalent. Sure, they looked good and their role in the movie was acceptable, but that's not my avenue of expertise. I want to tackle this from the engineering/technology standpoint, of which I have a significant standing in now.

First, what was ringing in my ears the entire time I was watching was this: Did they learn nothing from the first time? They made all the same mistakes with a fresh new take.

To start: They liked to throw the phrase ‘Spared no Expense’ around as a nod to the first movie, which was great. Except they clearly did not do this. The staff was deplorable. Easily distracted, comedic knockoffs that wouldn’t know ‘professionalism’ if it hit them in the face. The control room should have had an air of NASA ground control, because like a space mission, if something goes catastrophically wrong, people start dying, and quickly. (I’m also looking at YOU orb ball ride handler kid…) Honestly, how could one even be allowed into that park and not be highly trained in not only your job, and emergency procedures, but actually old enough to take it seriously?

Then, along the ‘spared no expense’ route, only one helicopter… with one pilot? NO NO NO. A park that size, with that many people would have a FLEET of helicopters, 1 on hot standby and 1 on warm standby at all times, with 2 parked in a hanger. 6 or more pilots and crews on rotating shifts. Not the bloody check writer of the entire enterprise doing his 3rd, (or was it 4th?) flight ever with a GOD DAMN CREWED MINIGUN. Those things put out a significant amount of recoil, and only a highly experienced pilot would know how to counter for it.

Then, there's the level of technologies displayed throughout the movie.

What was so compelling about the original JP franchise was that the technology was on par with what we had at the time, reaching into the fringes, and taking it to its logical conclusion. Cray MXP's, gene sequencers, electric vehicles, ect, ect. We were wowed and marveled at what was possible.

Jurassic world on the other hand, had almost none of that.

To detail: The VIP wrist bracelets, had no bio monitoring, no GPS tracking, no wearable computer... Nothing other than a tell to the ride handlers to ‘let me go first’ - Lame.

There were no UAV's or drones, at all, yet there were several instances where their inclusion would have been a massive asset. – Super Lame.

No 3D printing or construction of any kind, yet this is now a thing. They're 3D printing entire bridges, and organs. – Ultra Lame.

Now, how about a little conjecture as to what technologies should have been involved? Unlike the first JP, where there were no flying dinosaurs, this iteration boasted all kinds of ‘instadeath from above’ critters that totally warranted some kind of protection system. The Phalanx CIWS system has been around since the 80's. Why were a few independently powered and crewed systems not on the edges of the population centers? Out of sight, but ready to be called upon should something bad happen?

When you ‘spare no expense’ this kind of planning and infrastructure should be a given.

This brings to mind the entire Pteranodon/Dimorphodon attack.

Have you ever boarded an airplane and before the flight, heard the following: “In the event of anything going wrong, run around the cabin and scream at the top of your lungs.” No, you never have, and you never will. Because airlines and the people that crew them are highly professional, and there are established procedures in place to keep you safe should there be an emergency.

The same should have followed suit for Jurassic World. There would be LOTS of documentation, briefings and signs keeping the vacation-goers apprised of what to do in the event of an emergency, or other problem. In that scene, every single one of those people should have been inside their hotel rooms, which at a minimum would have kept them largely out of harms way. And if they weren't? The highly trained and knowledgeable staff should have helped them to a safe area. Even if the park was trying to downplay the emergency, leaving everyone to simply mill about outside was gross neglect edging on criminal.

Stupid tech:
I’ve heard from a few people ‘Oh man those gyrospheres! SO COOL.’ I’ve noticed this trend in movies and entertainment lately to simply do something because it looks cool, but to throw logic right out the window. If you were in a perfectly glass smooth sphere, and put a motive force in it, onboard motors and such, and tried to make it go up a hill, what do you think would happen?

You would not only spin in place, but quite likely would start to go down hill. Why? Because of this pesky thing called friction. Seems off road enthusiasts figured it out a long time back, that if you want to go trail blazing, you’re going to need traction. Which means having big knobby tires on your vehicle.

The same property that allows a person to see outside of these optically perfect spheres, would make them wholly unsuitable for any kind of off-road transportation. Unless it was a perfectly flat, grassy field, like… a golf course. But don't try to do any quick maneuvers, the sphere would simply slide along until enough friction took place to actually effect change.

Lastly, the Jeeps:
Yes, I really did smile and had that nostalgic moment when they stumbled upon the original visitors center… until one of the brothers turned on the NVG's. The best commercial technology at the time, would have been NI-CAD batteries, and those wouldn’t have lasted more than 6 months. (I'm discounting any kind of NASA tech here, because anything that would have lasted that long, would have been overly hazardous to any biologics, and therefore unsuitable for a pair of head worn NVG's)
Then, there was the jeeps themselves. Great to see them, but drivable, after 20+ years exposed to the jungle? No. This is the same problem with just about any movie where a character encounters a derelict vehicle. The tires are always sound, and inflated, and if there’s gas in the tank, it's still just as good as the day it was pumped from the station.

The truth is far worse I'm afraid. I could go into the details, but for simplicity's sake, I'll say that after about 6 months in a vehicles tank, gas gets progressively worse to the point it won't even start the vehicle. And tires loose pressure over time, no matter how good they are. They also experience dry rot, and interestingly enough, the wetter the environment, the worse this happens. Those jeeps would have been sitting on their rims, the seats almost gone (they were leather) with a fuel system completely full of sludge.

End of the day, was the movie entertaining? Yes, a little, but I say this with reservation. It was dumbed down, wizzbang, lowest common denominator entertainment where one didn't have to flex their gray matter at all. Just sit and keep your eyes open, and remember to breathe occasionally. To me, this movie was a hack, an insult to the original and yet another in a series of movies that are riding on the success of their predecessors but in a large print, easily digested, 5th grade reading level version so as to soak up as much money as possible from the largest demographic. (That’s right STAR TREK/JJ ABRAMS, I'M LOOKING AT YOU.)

So, that's my take. I felt compelled to write this up, because I was so invested in the JP world when I was younger. It was the very first thing I felt I was a ‘die hard fan’ over.

Now, with all that in mind, I would like to recommend you all read ‘The Martian’ by Andy Weir. It’s in that same category of Science Plausible, and was a fantastic read. It's been made into a movie and comes out later this year. Fingers crossed, they don’t screw this up. Some last advice: Don't watch the trailer, just go to the movie when it comes out and let it wash over you, good or bad, the first time. :}

Over the last 5 months, I’ve been trying an experiment with a newish diet. It’s not fad diet, nor is it endorsed by some celebrity. Simply put it’s a way of eating which takes into account more of what our bodies are evolved to eat, rather than what current food providers produce.

One of the drivers for my venture into this experiment was... sad to say, seeing a year go by which told me ‘perhaps you should more seriously look at what you’re eating.’ Plus the desire for a bit of change; eating for me has always been a hassle. I’m far more interested in doing other things rather than wasting time with shopping, prepping, cooking, cleaning, ect. More often than not I’ve found myself wishing I could just pop a pill, drink some water and keep going with whatever project I was previously working on. Funnily enough, what I found out isn’t that far from it.

Now, I could look up a whole bunch of facts/figures on all kinds of websites – and parrot them here, but I’m not going to do that (you’re all more than capable of doing this yourselves.) Instead, I’ll tell you about what’s stuck and made sense to me over this time.

History

It all starts with how long we’ve been generally upright, and eating what we’ve been. Before we had agriculture, Homo Sapiens were hunter/gatherer. This means we ate what we could while on the go. And it’s generally understood among researchers that this was for around 225,000-200,000 years. That’s a pretty significant amount of time in the evolutionary scale. Basic agriculture has been around for say 10,000 years, and that was largely by hand or beast of burden, with the modern/mechanized being only in the last 200. 200 years, compared to 200,000 – that’s a pretty big leap. And yet what we’re eating in the last 50 years alone is such a massive departure from what our bodies are evolved to be eating.

Today we look at people from 100 years ago and are aghast that they would eat from cans sealed with lead. /Of Course/ that’s bad for you, you would never want to do this! But... they didn’t know that then, they couldn’t. And I suspect today we’re reaching a point where we’re looking at how we eat/prepare food and coming to a similar realization about what we should/shouldn’t be eating.

The Basics

The way ‘Hunter/Gather’ works is like this: Food which takes little to no preparation to accumulate. Animals you can kill, fruits you can pick off a branch, vegetables which you can pick straight off the plant, or dig up, with a minimum amount of effort to gather a significant quantity.

Where this departs however is those plants which want animals to eat them, vs those plants that /don’t/ want animals to eat them. What I mean here is seeds which are designed to be spread by wind, or seeds which are designed to be spread by eating. (Yes, the poops.) From what I’ve read and been told – Any plants that seeds are designed to be spread by wind have chemicals in them which inhibit the animals digestive system, either, robbing a necessary vitamin, or mineral, or just outright making them sick over a period of time. Basically put, a plant that has evolved over time to spread its seed by scattering/wind/ect. – has a very vested interest in /not/ being eaten, and so has evolved to make it an unpleasant situation for the animal eating it.

But, there are plants which /do/ want to be eaten, surrounding the seeds with all kinds of tempting and juicy plant parts which entice one to eat it. This is so the animal will take the seeds far away and give that plant far more spread then it could get simply by the wind. Obviously there is a lot more complication to this, but this is a basic description of how these things work.


Let’s start with some basic Rules.

Rule number one: If the plants seeds are designed to be spread by wind, probably not good in the long run to eat it. (This pretty much involves any grain, and especially corn.)

Rule number two: the ‘What goes in, Must come out’ issue. If what you eat looks the same going in, as it does coming out, chances are your body just isn’t designed to process it. I’m pretty sure if you swallowed a plastic cube, it would come out looking like a plastic cube. The same goes for corn and peanuts, yet people go right on eating corn and peanuts without giving them a second thought. Why is this?

Rule Number three: If the ingredient list in what you’re eating is mostly chemicals, I’ll give you three guesses as to how good for you it is. Really, this is kind of a no brainer. Your body is a fantastic chemical factory capable of pumping out all that you need so long as you supply it the raw materials it needs. I can guarantee you that a large amount of that chemical soup in the ingredients of what your eating has NOTHING to do with your health, and a lot more to do with making sure what you’re about to eat has a absolutely perfect taste, and can stay fresh and tasting that way for months. So you’ll buy it over the other guys product. I don’t think I need to detail the inherent wrongness with this.

Rule Number four: If you feel really bad after what you ate, chances are what you ate wasn’t good for you from the start. This is a real no brainer here but I’m kind of shocked to hear the number of complaints/stories/anecdotes people share of having a large meal, only to feel really sick about an hour or so after. I can tell you all after being on the diet I’m on that I can absolutely gorge myself silly and yet I’ll feel absolutely fine afterward with no ill effects. Yet it seems to be the way it goes in many advanced cultures to expect the all hallowed ‘food baby’ after a big meal.

Rule Number five: If it takes longer than a minute to gather a handful, then chances are you’re not evolved to eat it. What this is mostly concerning is grains, and rice. I realize that a great percentage of the planet eats rice, but rice has only been a staple in Asian cultures for only 5,000 years or less, that’s doesn’t hold a candle to the 225,000 odd years of human evolution in hunter/gather mode.

Carbohydrates and you.

Here’s some basics of what I’ve learned over the months. There are two different kinds of basic energy sources you can eat. We’re talking the stuff that your body breaks down and uses for energy. Fat, and Carbohydrates. The body, generally speaking will /always/ take the easy way out, for two reasons, back in our hunter/gatherer days, we needed as much energy we could get and sometimes things needed to be processed as quickly as we could get them. Fats, eat up a lot of resources to be used as energy, but are really easy to store. So as a rule they’re considered the ‘long burn’ energy. Complex Carbohydrates on the other hand, bypass a lot of the steps necessary from mouth to muscle movement, and so our bodies like to prioritize them and will burn them before fats – storing the fat for later use when times are lean.

This is ok because for the longest time, carbohydrates were not a common commodity. We didn’t subsist on them and our metabolism was generally run on fat burning. The major benefit to relying on fat for energy, is the amount of byproducts that were made from the body converting them. You see, in the process for turning fat to energy, lots of vitamins and minerals are converted, used, created into things we need. Complex Carbohydrate conversion doesn’t have the same effect, and so the body misses out on all the needed processes. So now because today our diet mostly consists of carbohydrates, and ‘Low Fat’ everything else, is it any wonder that so many people need to take vitamin supplements to stay healthy?

Where we now throw a monkey wrench into the works is simple carbohydrates. Sugars, basically. To the body this is instant energy, no need to pass go, no conversions or vitamins/minerals necessary – just go straight to the muscles to do the work needed, but there are no regulators or checks in this system. All the fats in the body are immediately stored, and the complex carbohydrates are clogging up the system. However, the problem with this is our bodies were never evolved to handle this kind of energy intake. It’s like throwing straight ether and NOS into a lawnmower engine and giving it full throttle. (hint: it’s going to do serious damage to the engine.) And yet what does the diet of most advanced countries comprise these days? Sugar. Here’s a hint folks. 50 years is not enough time to completely overhaul the human body’s base chemical processes to handle a diet shift like this. It doesn’t matter how fast industry or technological processes work. Unless people get a lot less squeamish over genetic engineering, we simply are not evolved to handle it.

To the human body, we’re still in Hunter Gather mode. And have suddenly come upon a massive field of wheat, surrounded by cane sugar. Now all we’re doing is eating burned grains, and sucking on sugar cane, all the while not moving around.

Everyone knows if you own a pet, wildly altering its diet is a really bad thing. Yet we’ve done it to ourselves as a species over the last few hundred years, and in fact do it on a daily basis.

What I’ve discovered

Let me ask you all this. Is it possible to overdose on alcohol? How about sugar? Now consider, ever hear of someone overdosing on vegetables? There are things which we know to obviously be bad for us in large quantities, and yet every day what we are feeding ourselves could be considered overdosing.

Let me walk you through what I generally eat in a days’ time.

Breakfast, starts out with three eggs, a small bit of full fat milk mixed in to fluff up the eggs, and a handful of frozen vegetables thrown straight in, along with some cubed ham, and a few spices. A cup of coffee sweetened with honey. Two hashbrowns, topped off with some non-sweetened, non flavored yogurt. (They call it Greek style here.)

Lunch/dinner is similar, except instead of eggs I use a meat, either ground beef, lamb, deer, typically a red meat. I’ve found that chicken and fish don’t have nearly enough fat to keep me going. (Tho it’s good to have these occasionally just to mix things up.) Once the meat is half cooked, I’ll throw in either a lot of frozen, or fresh vegetables in with it till all is fully cooked.

A hint about boiling/steaming vegetables: Don’t. Even steaming vegetables leeches some of the useful content from them. Best to just throw them in with the meal your preparing directly to retain 100% of what they are.

Once the meat and vegetables are cooked (all the water is boiled off), along with whatever spices I wanted, this all gets put into a bowl, fat and all, and then three heaping spoonfuls of Greek yogurt. I’ve also found all natural pasta sauce works nicely, or both together.

I usually cook about 600gm of meat and 350gm of vegetables, eating most of it right then. I’ll save say a third for later. I’ve got 5 juices in my fridge, all as naturally pressed with no additives. Apple, Orange, Cranberry, Tomato, and Pineapple. Along with milk and water, I don’t drink much else. I’ll snack on unflavored potato chips, or a piece of fruit throughout the day, but generally speaking I can go 12 hours without feeling much desire to eat.

The way I understand it, our ‘hunger sense’ comes from blood chemistry. Not from the fullness of our stomach. Because fat is the ‘long burn’ way of subsisting, a good fatty meal can carry you for quite a while. But one based mostly in carbohydrates burns quickly and leaves you feeling hungry again after a much shorter time. (How many of you have gone to Mackers and stuffed your face only to feel hungry again an hour after?)

Because I’m on the long burn, I have a much deeper energy reserve – I don’t get tired as quickly, or cold. Generally speaking my skin has cleared up amazingly, and as a benefit of no more sugar, fruits taste AMAZING.

And for all you weight loss people out there. Despite the fact that I’m going out of my way to eat the fattiest meats I can, I’ve /lost weight/ and have gained some serious muscle definition – to the point that people have been asking me ‘Are you working out?’ When in fact I’ve not seen a gym or much exercise really in the last few months.

Additionally, my weekly food bill is about $90 a week, and I’m eating till I’m absolutely stuffed, which is generally speaking about twice a day.


The shopping list.

These are the various vegetables I’ve been eating:

Broccoli
Butter beans
Carrots, Orange
Carrots, Yellow
Cauliflower
Edamame beans, Shelled
Garlic, Fresh and chopped
Green beans, Italian
Kumera, Red, Brown (Sweet Potatoes for you Yanks)
Onions
Peas
Peppers, Red, Yellow and Green
Potatoes
Romanesco broccoli
Shiitake mushrooms
Snow Peas
Spinach
Sugarsnap Peas
Zucchini

Meats and Protein: (All freerange if possible.)

Ground Beef
Boneless Chicken
Various Fish
Lamb (Lamb is fantastic, it has a lot of fat and is far cheaper because of the mistaken idea that fat is bad.)
Venison
Eggs
Pig, (A note about bacon: The nitrates put in bacon to preserve it, are really bad for you, unless you can get nitrate free bacon, give this a miss.)

Drinks, listed by order of priority:

Water, Water, WATER. (Let me clue you all into something here, water is fantastic for you, it makes /everything/ in your body do what it needs to do and what comes out of the tap – is perfectly fine – I think everyone now realizes that most bottled water is a complete scam and if you want to pay over a dollar per liter of water, good luck with that.)
Apple juice
Orange juice
Cranberry juice
Milk, full fat
Tomato juice
Pinapple juice

Various:

Freeze dried coffee
Herbal Teas
Honey
Natural Potato Chips
Various Fruits (Whatever looks appealing that day.)
Greek Styled Yogurt (large 1kg container.)
Varied spices


That pretty much compromises the buy list. The off-the-menu list is actually pretty easy

Sugars, of any kind.
If it contains sugar, then you can’t eat it. This includes any and all sodas, sports drinks, and even some canned soups I’ve seen sugar as the primary ingredient!

Anything containing any variant of Grains.
I could go through a huge list of all the various grains there are, but basically if it’s windblown, and doesn’t want to be eaten, it has something in it called ‘Lectin’ these are SUPER BAD for you and basically put are how the plants have evolved to make animals eating them overly sick. There are a host of websites out there explaining what these do to you so just Google ‘Why Grains are killing you.’

Anything containing any kind of Legumes.
If the whole Lectin thing wasn’t bad enough, Legumes (Pretty much any pea or bean.) contain both Lectin, and Phytates, which basically prevent you from absorbing Calcium, Magnesium, Iron and Zinc. You know – those basic things you need to live. (Some beans and peas I’ve listed previously contain the least amount of these toxins out of them all, which is why I still eat them, but I’m weaning myself off.)

Dairy, and how it varies.
I don’t give this a complete miss like the Paleo diet says you should. Mostly because I believe that this is one of the diet items humanity is most adapted to accepting, as we all drank ‘milk’ as babies from our mothers. It’s a smaller step in evolving to handle this later on in life. And it’s my estimation that humanity is in the process of evolving to handle more of this right now. So, I’ve cut down my dairy intake a good deal but not all together. This obviously fluctuates with other people so your results may vary.

Oils:
I don’t use much oil in the things I make, but from what I’ve found, there are some oils which you should absolutely avoid as while they might taste good, they really muck up the works later on.
-Corn oil
-Cottonseed oil
-Peanut oil
-Soybean oil (same as soy oil)
-Rice bran oil
-Wheat germ oil


The Verdict.

So, what has this all come down to? Yes, this has been a major departure in what I’ve been eating for the last 30 odd years, but in the end it’s made quite an improvement in my overall well being. I spend far less at the grocery store, I have ABSOLUTELY NO desire to eat fast food ever again. My general health and energy levels are way over what they used to be. It takes me less than 25 minutes at a time to prepare a meal. I don’t have the constant ‘hungry, eat, lethargic, hungry’ cycle any longer. Now I can go at least 12 hours between meals and feel perfectly fine. My skin has cleared up quite a lot, and I’ve lost weight without even trying, not to mention getting some enviable muscle definition with 0 effort. (I’m just imagining what would happen if I started working out.)

A warning however: Switching over to this diet is not easy, both physically and mentally. Food and our patterns can be pretty well ingrained, and I can guarantee switching from a carbohydrate, to fat burning metabolism will leave you feeling lethargic and foggy for 2-3 weeks while your body figures itself out. But, once you’re switched over, you’ll never want to look back.

I’m not saying this is for everyone, and there are those out there who would say the paleo diet can be too dull. But, here’s something to consider. Your body can only tolerate so much variation before problems arise. The mind is far more malleable and the imagination limitless. Better to entertain yourself with intellectual pursuits which can last a lifetime, rather than foods which will shorten it.

-Kalt The Dragon

While sorting through my overly bloated collection of music, (28,000 songs and still going!) I came across a old favorite that I had almost forgotten about. While not overly obscure, it is in my estimation one of the best hour sets I've ever heard. I've played this compilation at a few parties and it's always been met with good results.

GodsKitchen: Summer Trance, which came out in 02' The first CD of this 3 disk set is quite well done and to me really stands above so many other mixes I've got. (CD2 and 3 are okay, but not as good as 1)

It's also damn near impossible to get these days, hence why I'm putting it in a zip for you all.

Also included is a player which I think more people need to know about. Winamp, Itunes, VLC, whatever player you use, I can almost guarantee they're all bloatware and generally speaking are not nearly as system friendly as XMplay.

I've been using it for several years now, and have yet to be let down by it. The entire player is only 350kb in size. Yet does pretty much everything the 'big boys' do and often times better. My biggest gripe is when listening to a split up compilation, hearing a 'gap' in the playback when a player is switching tracks. XMplay doesn't do this. Also having a player take forever to load, or bogging down when I'm doing a CPU intensive render. Xmplay takes almost no resources to run and instantly fires up. It doesn't need to be installed, and runs from a single executable. There's a plugin for just about every file format there is, and can be skinned if you like.

Just as a test I loaded up 28 players, put a different song in each, and had them all playing at the same time - for only a 30% processor usage, I would love to see someone attempt this with Itunes or VLC
https://www.dropbox.com/s/inzzhp61x.....k3/example.jpg

So, I've also included a XMplay folder as well, with a few plugins already in there for the more popular formats other than mp3.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/mdf7twzka.....39/Musazkx.zip

xmplay's website: http://www.un4seen.com/

EDIT: Removed link due to 2gb file taking up a lot of room and needing space for other things. Note me if you would really like a copy.

For those of you out there whom like Progressive Trance, there's a DJ here on FA by the name of who does some rather outstanding mixes.

When I say outstanding, I listen to the likes of Tiesto, Armin Van Burren, Oakenfold, More artists then I can even list. His mixes are of exceptionally good quality and on par with these guys. (Similar to the In Search Of Sunrise series by Tiesto)

I've been listening to the mixes for years and still have yet to tire of them, so in a bit of support I put the entire lot, all 15 compilations (one hour each), track listings, and artwork in a single zip.

About what an artist should be?

pretty much fits the bill, in /every capacity I can think of/

So you should by all means investigate this link.

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/11874983/

That’s what I'm going to call it anyhow. You're not going to find much in the way of websites or videos on this one because it’s so overly technical and very few people have put 2 and 2 together to make this conclusion.

I'm prompted to write this as I was watching a documentary about big oil, and subsequently was conversing with a friend.

I want to start off by explaining to you all what Valve Overlap is. Basically put, in the internal combustion engine where there is a piston, valves, spark plug, ect; there is a point in the cycle where both the intake, and exhaust valve are open at the same time. This period of time is only about 15 degrees of cam travel, but that’s quite significant when the higher RPMs are achieved. There are two reasons for this overlap, one major, the other minor. The first reason is that cold un-burnt fuel/air mixture is allowed to be sucked right out the exhaust to cool the valve. The second reason is to completely scavenge and remove any waste gasses from the combustion chamber after the exhaust stroke, by allowing the momentum of the exhaust gases shooting through the manifold to ‘pull’ anything remaining from the combustion chamber. However, at the top of the stroke there is so very little amount of space left, that any remaining burnt gasses would be very little.

Now, the cooling event is a valid reason, the second ‘scavenging’ is less so. There is a very simple solution to this problem that was arrived at back in the 1920’s that isn't really that well known. But anyone involved in Aviation is fully aware of.

Time for some history:
Back when engines, and more specifically aircraft engines, were being developed there was quite a lot of head scratching and more than a few boat anchors made in regards to the cooling systems required. Firstly, were liquid cooled engines. (The ones on the Wright Flyer were liquid cooled.) Liquid cooled engines have the advantage of being able to run at high combustion temperatures and compressions due to being able to wick the heat away and be diverted elsewhere. (Which still need to be dumped into the air further downstream.) The downside to this system is that they are heavy. Extra radiators, double walled cylinder construction, many gallons of water. And should there be one misplaced bullet in combat, within minutes your engine will be quickly overheating.

Air cooled engines on the other hand do not suffer from the issues of weight, or susceptibility to bullet ingress, entire cylinders could be shot out and the engine would still run without worry of overheating. (Initially anyway, oil loss is another matter.) But, the difficulties with air cooling are that a great deal of engineering trickery and forethought needs to go into how air will move throughout the engine, and scavenging the heat away from the combustion chamber as quickly as possible.

The worst part of this was the exhaust valve. In the first air cooled rotary aircraft engines, the exhaust valve, being the most highly stressed part of the engine, had a tendency to fragment, breakdown and generally speaking make a pain of itself for the rest of the engine. Usually destroying the engine in the process. The only solution to this was to change the valves, but the cycle time was an unreasonable amount so a solution had to be found.

Overlap was considered in these early days as a method of cooling the exhaust valve but when one is talking aircraft, fuel is more precious than life itself. It’s not an overly bright idea to design an engine that dumps a small measure overboard with every combustion cycle. So a better method needed to be found.

The idea was landed upon by a gentleman by the name of Sam Heron, who had noted the effect of sodium on metals when being used in heat treating operations. He realized that the way it ‘wetted’ against metals and melted at low temperatures. This would be an ideal material for carrying the heat away from the face of the exhaust valve, as sodium did so faster than the metal the valve was capable of radiating itself.

Thus is born ‘The Sodium Filled Valve’ For those of you where this is sounding familiar, yes, this is the exact same technology many of you have in your computers by way of ‘heat pipes’ which carry away heat from your CPU faster than simply having a large finned heat sink bolted to the surface of it. By using sodium filled valves, the heating problem was solved and overlap could be eliminated. Now the exhaust valves could be trusted upon to act reliably within a long enough time to make them usable.

In sodium filled valves, a portion of the valve head and stem are hollow and filled with powdered sodium. The stem is also thicker to allow for more of the element to do its job. Once the engine reaches operating temperature the sodium melts, flows and generally moves the heat away from the edges of the valve seat. (The most highly stressed part of the valve and what typically starts failing first.) Then back up into the stem so that it can be pulled away and into the block head. The number of fins machined into the casing and the blast of air does the rest of the work.

So, hopefully you've all been following along here. I've basically spelled out that in the 20’s they solved the problem of exhaust valves cooking themselves to death in /air cooled/ engines – which suffer from the problems not being able to run nearly as hot as liquid cooled engines because they rely on airflow and good engineering to draw the heat away.

Now, imagine what could be done if a conventional liquid cooled automotive engine was retrofitted with high efficiency sodium filled exhaust valves. It would be possible to /completely eliminate/ the valve overlap, thereby dumping all this excess fuel right out the exhaust. This would accomplish so many things. Greatly reduced smog, no more need for catalytic converters, oxygen sensors or constantly adjusting the fuel richness. And let’s not forget the biggest savings, fuel economy. If you're not dumping it out the tailpipe that means it’s now available for use.

Why wasn't this done? Well... Sodium filled valves are more expensive than normal valves. And throughout history big oil and automakers priorities in fuel economy were laughable. Simply put, one doesn’t make money by making sure you having a more expensive, and the most economical engine possible. Considering you're all chained to the fuel pump anyway, and you have to pay to use it – what’s wrong with a little fixing of the system to ensure you have to buy a little bit more each time.

:/

Yeah.

Anyway, just something to consider. To be completely honest I absolutely loathe the reciprocating engine (piston engines) as it’s a very, very badly designed device for creating rotational energy. It’s been surpassed many times over by other designs but the sad fact is that once something easy makes its way into the system, it’s very hard to get it out. But, I can guarantee you all that every recip engine on this planet, from your lawnmower engine to the car, to the motorcycle. If it’s a petrol engine, it has this overlap, and is /completely unnecessary./ If I was to take a shot in the dark, you could increase it’s efficiency by around 10-15% more by simply eliminating it.

-Kalte

First and formost, I'm not sure how far this might go, but depending on a lot of things, I will fund the necessary time/research/materials to make this happen, as well as licensing rights, percentages, patents and so forth.

Successful applicants will already be well versed in various forms of programing languages for microcontrollers, PCB design and implementation. As well as RC frequencies/formats and visual/auditory transmission over distance. With the programming, comes the ability to formulate or implement rudimentary AI for complex functions.

The project might take months of development without any return of any kind, but, if all goes well some very interesting and lucrative contracts could be seen because of the work.

What I bring to the table, is my expertise in Aviation/aerodynamics/mechanical construction, procedural implementation and manufacturing both mechanical and electronics on assembly line scale. As well as marketing and advertising expertise.

The idea: To create a 'following aerial vehicle' that can track/follow/hover over a target or person with the ability to return to a base station to recharge. Having a detailed and intimate understanding of it's surroundings, the distance it is from it's base station (So that it doesn't fly past it's PONR) The vehicle will have auditory sensors, being able to understand basic commands, and detect direction/distance. Motion tracking, and face recognition/following.

Some details/particulars
- A camera on it's underside that can swivel on a single axis gimbal, from 0° (down) to 90°.
- The ability to 'flip over' in flight in under 1 meter of vertical distance (Hover, rotate, pause to stop rotors, reverse thrust) So that the camera can now view directly upward, giving the craft a full 360° sphere of visual ability.
- A full sensor package allowing it to have direct and immediate feedback regarding it's position and orientation
- Infrared sensors for basic object avoidance.
- At least IP66 to allow for operation in light rains.
- 4 independant rotors to allow for the most stable flight while keeping battery consumption down.
- A minimum of a 10 minute flight time
- The possibility of a RFID tag on the 'person of interest' for the vehicle to more easily track it's target.

I would imagine that depending on distance and RF limitations, some of, not all the logic functions would have to be performed on board the craft (station keeping, orientation, direction of travel, ect) while the higher functions might be able to be performed at the base station where power and processing ability won't be hampered by weight/power. (Face/voice recognition, area mapping, ect.)

The reason I thought of all this was simply the fanciful idea of 'Wouldn't it be cool if there was a webcam that could follow me around the shop while I work...' this lead into other thoughts and finally I realized that with technology being what it is, the project might actually be possible. The number of applications for a device like this would be innumerable.

-Could it be possible to make it night vision?
-How much logic could we cram on board to make it as autonomous as possible without too much flight lag due to needing to talk to the base station (Reducing flight time in battery consumption.)
Just how light/small could it be made and still carry around a large enough camera?
-How noisy will the rotors be?
-Can we make it follow gestures and listen to commands? Pointing at a place to look for example, or "Hover 1 meter above me and watch what I'm doing."
-Could we make it follow someone and be smart enough to stay away should they try to grab/attack it?

These are some things I'm contemplating.
Anyone interested?

On April 26th at 0810, Burlington, Vermont, I was born.

That makes me older today. And as the years keep adding up, they get a little scarier. Not because 'I'm getting old' but much more that I have less time to get done what I feel needs to be done.

I've always had some pretty grand views of things I want to accomplish. Anyone out there who knows me knows what I'm talking about. I don't want to simply exist, I want to change the world. I've always taken the hard path, the route less traveled and to top it off I've almost always gone it alone.

I'm still heading in a direction I know not what will result in, but I have high hopes. The major issue is as the days pile on, my body ages and fights back with failure and exhaustion. So, it becomes a race against time. And unlike a book or movie, where you're pretty sure you know what the ending will be, I haven't the first clue what's coming, and that's Scary.

At any rate, onward and upward as they say, here's to some amazing discoveries and fantastic achievements.

I’ve been anchored to a pair of glasses for most of my adult life. I've got a fairly restrictive diopter which means I have to wear them anytime I’m awake. In that time I've exhausted quite a few pairs and found a some tips/tricks which pretty much culminated into one single observation/procedure which will help any of you out there extend the life of your lenses.

Simply put, don’t ever use your shirt, or cloth, to clean your glasses. Ever.

You would be amazed at how difficult it is to break this habit when you've been doing it for so long as I had been. All it takes is one single fine piece of particulate which is infinitesimally harder than the glass/plastic/coating of your lenses. The cloth takes this piece, and drags it along the surface in the same pattern you rub, and presto, you've got a scratch, whorl, gouge… for the rest of the life of those lenses. All it takes is one time.

So, to that end, how are you supposed to clean your glasses?

Simply put, I wash them in the shower with me.

Laugh all you want, but it works, and has been working with two new pairs of glasses I've owned for the last year. I’m an engineer; I do some pretty nasty/gritty work so yes my glasses do tend to get dirty if I’m not careful. So when I say this method does work pretty well, I've got the trial testing to back it up.

When you get into the shower at the end of the day, take your glasses in with you – put them on the soap tray/rack or hang them from wherever possible in the shower with you, don’t worry about getting them wet, you want them to. The materials glasses are made of are designed to withstand the salt and oils in your skin, which are /rather/ corrosive. A little splash of drinking quality water is going to do them no harm.

After you’re nearing the end of your shower, the hot water/steam will have helped loosen any nasties that might have gotten onto the lenses. Also, your hands should be perfectly clean and the skin of your fingers soft. Take the glasses; hold them right under the water, as hot as you can stand it, on both sides of the lenses. You want to get off as much dirt/grime/oil as possible before you touch them. Then, soap up your hands and very gently rub the lenses – you want any particles to be suspended in the soapy water between your fingers and the lens. Rinse, then soap up your hands again and wash your entire glasses like you would something in the sink – also rub the nose pads, and the ear loops, get all the oil from the day off. Rinse again and put outside the shower on a shelf or someplace.

Shake your glasses once or twice to get the big drips off, but again, do not rub the lenses with any cloth - the water in your shower, plus the cleaning you gave them should have gotten rid of most impurities. The drips will dry off them in time and leave nothing behind. It works even faster if you put them on directly after; the heat from your face is enough to evaporate all the water off the lenses in about 10 minutes.

This is what I do to my glasses with my shower before bed every night, and I still have almost perfectly scratch free lenses after a year of very perilous use.

This is to every single artist in FA who chooses to 'leave the fandom' 'Leave FA' or just plain GTFO.

It happens with stark regularity. A journal pops up saying OMG I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE, I'M LEAVING FOREVAR. Sometimes reasons are listed, others not, but hint at implied drama or strife usually originating from an online source. The latest of which, the poster actually had the nerve to say that they weren't appreciated enough.

Their watch list was 4,700

Not. Appreciated.... Enough.

This last year, AC, the attendance was roughly 4,400. What this artist basically did was stand up in front of a entire group of people, larger then the attendance of AC, and tell everyone of them that they don't feel appreciated enough, despite the fact that each and every one of those people were there because they were interested in what the person had to say/show them in the first place. (Yes, I know, out of that 4.7k watchers, there might be a lot inactive, or just don't pay attention, but that's not the point.)

You know, suicide victims don't tell everyone that they're going to commit suicide, they just do it. And the same goes for every time an artist says they're going to quit, before they do. It's a cry for attention. It's a 'they'll be sorry' move, soaking up the anger and outrage and sadness at yet another talented person leaving.

But, along those lines, I would also like to point out a huge inconsistency in these ragequits that so many people undertake. If someone doesn't care any longer about the fandom, about their art, about anything, then WHY go through the effort to nuke all their submissions, and journals? All you're doing is further punishing your watchers/followers and those people that favorited your artwork in the first place by leaving a nice big 'submission deleted' behind that can't be removed.

You know, the last time I checked, FA doesn't cost a single penny and many if not all the artists I know out there love to be paid for their work... So from a business/advertisement standpoint, nuking an entire gallery of well done art for people to NEVER SEE AGAIN is just fucking retarded.

Whats say you don't nuke your gallery, and a year later, someone stumbles upon it and they email you (because you were thoughtful enough to leave some forwarding details on your main page) about doing a commission. You take it on, completely outside FA and the commissioner goes away happy. Two months later, that commissioner happens to post the work somewhere that a small production company sees it and they need artists to provide concept art for what they're doing. What you did just tickled their fancy, so a bit of emailing goes around and next thing you know, you're getting a nice decent pay check because of residual presence you left behind over a year ago.

Yeah, sure, that's a unlikely scenario, but IF YOU NUKE YOUR GALLERY I GUARANTEE IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN.

Anyway, exposure is the one thing that anyone hoping to make money or be recognised strives for, and here it's provided... for free, and yet people seem to think that it's a good idea to completely remove years worth of talent/presence/interaction. Go figure.

When an artist puts a journal out there stating they don't feel appreciated enough, to thousands of watchers, they need to seriously look at their own feelings of inadequacy.

tl;dr: DRAMMAWHORING AND ACCOUNT NUKING IS BAD FOR BUSINESS AND MAKES YOU LOOK LIKE A ATTENTION STARVED CRAZY PERSON.

Cross posted from the submission http://www.furaffinity.net/view/6019942

Back in 2002, I was working as a component analyst for DHL. This involved a ton of tracking/tracing components for the shipping fleet, and making sure the correct parts were put in the aircraft, so a good deal of pouring through old maintenance manuals. One such manual, a 1980 AirWork catalogue, I was very surprised to see this in the first page. Shocking to the point I almost got a little misty eyed. This is the kind of respect you don't see often, and I dare say gave me quite a few moments of quiet contemplation while I soaked in the words. (Interestingly enough, I was working in a disused tower at the airport, I came across this at night, the field all lit up and a freighter on final approach, I was the only one in the tower then and I have to say it was absolutely a moment I'll remember for the rest of my life.) I scanned the page and kept hold of it for several years.

After seeing Keto's submission http://www.furaffinity.net/view/5079538/ I was inspired to have another look at the image, doing a Google image search to see if it could be found. Not a single reference anywhere. Obviously, this must be fixed, and so I re-rendered the text, using the Keto image as an example.

What I'm asking out there, is if any artist would be interested in doing up a piece to complement. I don't have any money to commission anyone, and honestly I would rather someone take up the task who was passionate about it, rather then motivated by payment. This isn't for me, it's not for them, it's for every mechanic out there who has braved the elements and put their ability on the line to make sure people get home safe.

Obviously the layout can be altered/changed, as this would be more a collaboration between myself and the artist. So if you know of anyone who might be interested, please pass a link on and have them send me a note.

Lets start this off, by all of you imagining a road, a straight road that goes on indefinitely. On this road, is a vehicle, with an impossibly large cork board, so impossibly large that it's difficult to see it in entirety, it goes on forever.

Now, this vehicle is travelling at a speed just fast enough that you have to jog, almost run, to keep up with it, and there are a lot of people doing just that. Not only are they jogging along, they're posting stuff to this board. Pictures, text, audio, comments and all sorts of various states of interaction. It's an amazing thing to experience. However, you have to jog right behind to keep up with what's going on, as by design anything on this board which has been there for any length of time, falls off onto the road.

There are various spots on this board where there are huge groups of people, and some parts which are almost completely vacant, despite content being posted everywhere. The larger groups of people, well... you can quickly get swallowed up by them, and unless you're only there to contemplate the origional submission, there's almost no point in posting your own note about it because it will very quickly get covered over by so many others.

This to me, is largely what FA is. This 'event' which you have to consistently and continually keep up with. There will be people occasionally falling behind and now and again as something on the road will catch their eye, and they might even add a comment themselves, but it won't be seen by those who are all keeping up with the vehicle.

Even those posting media to the board will occasionally fall behind as well, catching up with something that's been left behind for them to read, but the real fact of the matter is you have got to stay with the board otherwise there is no hope of ever keeping up with it.

The eventuality is, the larger the board is the more impossible it becomes. Each new item only getting a tiny fraction of your attention before having to divert to the next, because of the sheer volume of content. If you want to really pay attention to a piece, you have to stop, while the vehicle leaves you behind, then sprint to catch up.

I'm not saying this is a bad thing, but what it has effectively done is lower the quality of experience for everyone involved. If a submission is over a few weeks old, it's almost pointless to comment on it because 1, no one will see it, and 2, everyone will be too busy with all the newer content being submitted. It feels as though after a specific number of watched creators, FA becomes a 24 hour a day job.

Case in point, I watch about 300 people. This could generally mean over 60 artwork/story/music submissions, and up to 45 journals. That's over 100 pages to look through, each of which could potentially take anywhere from 1 to 10 minutes of time. That's 1.6 to 16 hours! every single day!

Lets not forget that due to the notification system and comments, what you might have interacted on the previous day, might require your attention the next day... So that number just goes up even more.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is that I just can't keep up any longer, it takes far too long and There's much more to do in a single day then spend hours on FA trying to keep up. Worse still is those people I watch, who don't watch me back... well most of them won't know or care, simply because of the raw numbers of people that interact with them. For the 'big names' it really has become a very impersonal and business like atmosphere strictly dictated to by numbers.

Nothing for it really, that's just what I've noticed.

This, ladies and gentlemen... is how it's done.

To quote the person who made me aware of this video: "Welp. This thing here pretty much takes the cake. And the kitchen the cake was made in. And pretty much the entire country and cake-based economy surrounding the making of a single cake."



Be sure to see the completed image at http://goo.gl/Ffcdb

I reference you all to this: http://blogs.skype.com/en/2011/05/m.....ire_skype.html

For anyone that thinks this /might/ be a good thing, I would like to turn your attention to the entity known as hotmail.. (it was a play on HTML, HoTMaiL) Born in 1996 it was a very friendly, easily accessed webmail service that was completely free and had next to no restrictions on storage capacity, access points, numbers of emails sent, attachment size... on and on it goes.

...Then Microsoft got hold of it. Just do a Google search for "Problems with Hotmail" or "Hotmail before Microsoft" and you will be greeted with tens of thousands of pages of loss of functionality, lost emails, loss of features, having to now pay for something that was previously free... on and on it goes.

A very good quote I would like to repost: "The point here is that Google provides the maximum service to its users with the minimum of intrusive monetization of the relationship. Microsoft provides the minimum of service with the maximum of intrusive monetization. Which one would any rational person choose?"
(From http://blogs.computerworld.com/free_hotmail)

TL;DR: Microsoft fucks up EVERYTHING in favor of CHARGING YOU MONEY, Prepare for Skype to start loosing functionality.

[Edit] for those that will say 'but they have to charge something for what they do...' Mark this point now. Skype does what it does currently and still makes a pretty tidy profit, I GUARANTEE Microsoft will mysteriously start charging for those already paid for services because... they can. They do not know the end of greed. One company does not buy another for 8.5 billion and just expect it to keep coasting along, they /will/ fuck with everything, they /will/ charge you for /everything/ they can and you /will/ become very disillusioned with it over time. End of quarter statements are expected to go up, stockholders are not pleased unless their numbers are constantly increasing and the only way to do this is to cut corners and charge more.

In exactly 5 hours, it'll be my birthday. Pretty scary date. That's the downhill slide to middle age, and man, that's even scarier. I was pretty young when I first got involved in the whole online community, mostly starting out in the Dragon communities and then branching out to more.

12 years with all this crazyness, It's silly in a way when I contemplate the tens of thousands of hours I've spent with this community. And the laughable part? Well, knowing that I'm going to keep right on doing it.

But in an almost sad way, I'm now well and truly leaving the younger crowd and getting into the older one, no delaying or faking it any longer. Can't really keep up with all the meme's and trends, can't spend nearly as much time behind the keyboard, and have a bit tougher time relating to the newer crowds. That's the way things go I guess.

Anyway, I don't feel it, I don't look it and damn near everyone I associate with and am friends with are younger then me, so I must be doing something right :}

As a close, have an epic youtube vid 2gryphon showed me the other day, damn this is awesome and you all should see it.

Currently I’m writing this on the plane back to NZ, 10,600 meters in the air, at 900kph. We’ve been in the air some 3 hours already and still have 7,000km to go. It’s very humbling dealing with numbers like this. The data so readily displayed in wondrous pixilated low resolution in the seat screen in front of me, almost cheapens the information, like it’s trivial. How comfortable we’ve become with such fantastic data presented to us which we’re currently undergoing. Anyway…

The custom is to type out some kind of report after attending a con, telling everyone what you’ve done and how you did it. I figured that because this is my first ‘major’ convention, I should attempt the same, if at the very least to spell out all the interesting things which I got to partake in.

Firstly, very early in the planning stages, between me and Kyma, it was found that if we stayed in the US for 29 days, the flight would cost $600 less than if we only flew in to attend FC. As I can imagine, you all came to the same conclusion we both did. For myself, I’ve not been back to the US in almost 8 years. Kyma had never been to a major convention or really spent any time in the US. So the month long tickets were booked.

First up was securing a place to stay for our extended time there. Kyreeth was happy to put us up, as we’ve been friends for nearly a decade. Many of you might know him as the ‘Fursuit photographer’ for almost every major con there is in the US. Many fursuiters owe him thanks for the serious amount of professional talent and equipment he puts forth, for /free/ to all the suiters who attend cons. So if you’ve not thanked him for this effort, you should.

So, myself, Kyma, Rarakie and Slosiris packed our bags and headed to the airport. The flight started on December 29th, 2010 at Roughly 7pm at night from Auckland. Besides a good deal of turbulence, it was mostly uneventful and restful. What gets me, is we /arrived/ in San Francisco at 2pm, on the 29th. Yes, you got that right, we arrived 5 hours before we departed :} Crossing the international date line can really mess with your head.

For the next two weeks, Kyma and I stayed with Kyreeth, Warphammer and Archai at their house in Los Altos, relaxing, enjoying some of the restaurants in the area and a bit of sightseeing. A few road trips were taken and we met up with Rarakie and Slosiris for dinner and such. Both Slosiris and Rarakie were staying with crocuta and his mate. We even got a chance to tour google headquarters thanks to Keovi and her mate, which I have to say was amazingly awesome.

Apparently San Francisco has one of the largest furry populations anywhere, not just in numbers, but in density. Because of this they have meetups regularly. One for almost every day of the week. I was able to attend one of these called ’Chicken.’

Chicken is a regular meeting at a restaurant which serves mostly chicken. That’s all there is to it really, what struck me as so interesting about the ordeal was my unfamiliarity with anyone who attended, or even who might have been a fur, or who wasn’t. (This was a public establishment, so lots of regular folks about.) But even more to the point, despite being told who was who, how much most everyone stuck to their perspective groups. It made it difficult to talk to anyone new, especially for someone like myself who barely knew anyone there. In NZ, any strange fur is very quickly pulled into the fold, and so everyone knows everyone, or has at least heard of them from someone. This is just not possible with the sheer quantity of people in San Fran, and I found it a little troubling.

One thing I wanted to accomplish while I was in the states was to get those unique items which just can’t be found in the country you reside in, for some people it’s snacks, other’s it’s restaurants, but for me it was tools and hardware. I stopped into a Tru-Value hardware store (they don’t exist in NZ) and asked the counter lady for a set of sawhorse hinges. I didn’t expect her to know what I was talking about but she surprised me by saying ‘Oh sure, Isle 7, on the bottom left side.” A little dumbfounded I walked to the isle and found exactly what I was looking for. See, when I was growing up, my dad had a set of these to make up sawhorses, they’re very easy to use, and can be quickly setup/taken down and variable lengths made. It was my plan to take these back to NZ and see about more commercial production.

So, as I’m headed up to the counter, I give the cashier lady my credit card, and she also asks for my ID. I hand her my NZ drivers license and she immediately comments “Don’t they have these in NZ?” To which I shake my head no, “Well hell, these have been around for forever, I remember my dad having them. When you get back to NZ you should produce more and make a fortune.” I blinked and had to spur myself to take my cards back. What the fuck just happened there? Did she actually just parrot back to me the VERY same things I was thinking about not minutes before? Almost word for word she did and while this might perturb some people, this actually happens to me on a very regular basis.

Coincidences happen to me with such regularity, it’s troubling to /not/ find them constantly occurring around me. Anyway, on with the tale.

Due to my engineering background, I made sure to contact Tugrik and visit his media shop. I was very pleased to be invited to come by and see what he does, Tugrik does a bit of work with Acrylic and laser engraving, so I had also brought along some samples of what I do with Acrylic and LED’s. We bounced some ideas off each other and I was able to see his laser engraving in action as some customers were in and out of the shop.

One such customer was having some laser engraved trophies done for the fursuit competition for the upcoming convention. While the artwork and the laser engraving were especially nice, the customer wasn’t pleased with how the machine cut the plastic from the main sheet, it was very rough. So, right then Tug stated ‘You need to talk to that guy over there, he’s the acrylic expert.’ Indicating at me. Naturally I was flattered and a more than a little hesitant about offering advice, but it did turn out that I knew exactly how to condition the edges to a smooth clear edge without too much hassle. So, after advising them on how to do this, the customer then pulled out a image he had done at another shop, showing Tugrik the work and I peered over to notice the name ‘Krahnos’ on the corner. I blinked, then blinked again “Wait, are you Krahnos??” It turned out that this person was in fact an artist that I had been collecting the art from for over a decade, and yet didn’t even realize I was talking to them. I immediately shook his hand and thanked him for his efforts. I only ‘fanned out’ for a brief moment before I went back into the particulars about polishing acrylic, but the encounter taught me something about interacting with furry artists who you might have an interest in. They’re regular people too, and you can be just as interesting to them as they are to you. I most definitively learned that if you want to talk to a furry artist, approach them as a regular Joe (or Jill) on the street. Gushing brings in such awkwardness that they tend to not want to talk to you any longer.

The next day, I was able to return to Tugrik’s shop just in time for the materials I had recommended to be procured, and they were about to start. So instead of talking them through the process, now I demonstrated it till they felt confident they were able to do it themselves. So if you’ve seen the fursuit achievement trophies, I had a small hand in their production.

During this relaxing period before the convention, the laptop that I had brought with me had promptly decided to literally blow a component off its board. After a bit of a discussion, and some ideas into sourcing, Kyreeth and Warphammer saved the day again and was able to provide me with a only slightly used Lenovo X60. This was more computer then I was ever used to. Especially something as flash and sexy as an ultraportable. Much respect and thanks to them for this.

The con for us started on the Tuesday proceeding, we were staying with reccasenli, arcanasigal, Phorphaux, linkxchewyx: and a few others who names are escaping me at the moment. It was very surreal walking the ornate halls of the hotel at 3am, the proverbial calm before the storm. Despite not having been to an official furcon, I am head staff of the New Zealand annual furcon, and while obviously not as large, it’s only miniaturized. I could envision what was coming and the anticipation was almost euphoric.

As more and more people began to trickle in, the citizenry of hotel began its gradual shift from business casual to extraordinarily fringe. The amusing part was, just like chicken, it was difficult to tell who was, and who wasn’t – though for some it was plainly obvious.

I did a lot of wandering, not really knowing anyone. There were times that I would just wander into a group and try to start up a conversation. And while this is an exceptional talent which I sometimes excel at, this time was far more difficult. It’s been my observation that FC can be very clique’ish. If you have no outwardly obviously commonality, it’s hard for people to warm up to you (Fursuiters have some pretty obviously outward commonality, this is why they can walk into /any/ furry group and are frequently accepted.)

The very first thing these groups do is look for a badge, trying to find out who you are. When they read your name and learn that you’re either not someone they know, or not a well known fur in the community, they look at you with some kind of questionable contempt. In fact, this badge surveying seemed to happen frequently while walking through the halls. Everyone scanning those they pass, hoping to find a name they recognize. Perhaps I missed the point, I thought a convention was to see those you read/hear about AND meet new people. I mean, it can’t be that hard, we’re all at a furcon, EVERYONE has at least that common thread to pull from.

So, the con started on Tuesday. From there it was a cyclone of event and people. There was a bit of waiting in line for the registration to open up and personally I found that the most troubling of anything that occurred. Later that night, as I was walking the halls, KaniS, A person I’ve known for almost 10 years now, stopped me in the hall while I was blissfully walking by. Interestingly enough, he only noticed me because of my badge. So perhaps there IS something to be said for badge watching. KaniS for those who don’t know, is the creator of Draconic.com which was started in 1998 and considered to be even today the definitive hangout for most otherkin dragons. He is still very active with the website and forums.

I helped him and his wife murrahnithahn-i-ia setup her table in the dealers room and then our trio headed out into the dangers of the night to acquire food. After a bit of wandering around, and a quick chat with a bicycle/rickshaw driver, we managed to find our way into a Carl’s Jr. Burger joint.

Now, this is where a bit of a story starts. You see as we walked into the restaurant we didn’t take much notice of who was in the store, our eyes focused on the menu board as we made our way to the register. But, as I began to place my order, this warbled, slurred, shouting comes from the dining area. I quickly look back, and I see a woman sitting near the wall, seemingly talking to herself. I return to the manager who was about to take my order and his eyes speak volumes. He’s apologetic, he’s embarrassed, and he’s REALLY wanting this woman out of his store. The words that follow later only confirm this “Sorry, this happens occasionally.”

I place my order, KaniS and his wife do as well, and we sit at a table a few meters away from our babbling companion. I have a clear look at her and she’s definitely a women of some repute, money, likely a office/managerial/marketing position. It dawns on me at this point that she’s not crazy and talking to herself, she’s drunk and talking on a cell phone, with a single cord to her ear. About the time I realize that she likely got exceptionally plastered and managed to find her way in this restaurant, I overhear her say “There’s people dressed in animal costumes, and they’re at the Fairmont!”

All three of us hear this, and instantly I look to KaniS. You see, when I left the convention, I put my badges and such under my shirt. KaniS however was wearing no less than three rather large and artful badges from his neck. His back is to her but his hand went to them in an involuntary reaction of ‘oh my, what have I gotten myself into.’ “See?” I started, “This is why I keep my badges under my shirt when I go out.” I finish, smiling at his evident distress at potentially aggravating a comical situation. Murra on the other hand is loving this, and spurs the lady on with a half hearted shout to her… what she said I cannot recall, but it didn’t matter anyway as our entertainment for the night wasn’t really that coherent anyway.

The manager at this point is hovering around the women, cleaning already cleaned tables, shuffling chairs, desperate to get her out. Working up the nerve to approach her and helpfully suggest that perhaps she goes elsewhere. The rest of the patrons in the eatery are mostly quiet, but you can still hear a chuckle here and there at the expense of the drunken woman.
This doesn’t go on for long, I’m just about finishing my burger and the manager looks like he’s built up enough gumption to talk to her when she suddenly stands up, and heads for the door. As she reaches for the door handle to leave, she says “I have to go now, you’re turning me on.”

With the closing of the door, and her parting words, the entire restaurant was dead silent for about one second. Then, EVERYONE burst into laughter. The manager is looking dumbfounded and everyone in the establishment is looking towards each other in communal agreement that; yes, that was completely hilarious and did you /hear/ what she just said? The manager quickly quips up to the entire store “I hope she wasn’t talking to me!” laughter ensues again. Then the manager turns to a patron who was sitting two tables down from the troubled women, asking a older black man if perhaps… He responds in a very thick accent “man… I KNOW she wasn’t talkin to me!” The whole restaurant bursts into laughter again.

The next day, the con began in full swing. It would be difficult to describe exactly what happened and when because I was so amazed by the amount of things to do and people to see. First of all, I am absolutely a fan of the artistic side of the fandom and I did make it a point to personally thank those artists whom I was fortunate enough to talk to. However, what made this more interesting than normal, is my connection with a program called ArtRage. I personally know the lead developer, who also happens to be a fur. In an effort to get his program better known, I offered to help him by giving out some licenses of the software to decent artists. He gave me 10 full licenses and from there, I talked to almost ever y reputable artist in the room asking if they wanted one.

I talked to Sidian, ShinigamiGirl, Necrodrone13, Razr, Narse, Blotch, Rukis, Nambroth , Likeshine , Leomagna, Skadjer, DarkNatasha, ECmajor, Rainedog, Egyptnurash, Krahnos,
Gideon and more about ArtRage and how much better/different it was compared to SAI and Photoshop. Some of them were very jazzed about it and took copies of the program. It was nice to be able to talk to all these very talented people outside of ‘Hi, I like your art.’

As I was talking to Narse about ArtRage, I also mentioned to Varka and Sarmanikan (who were at the table at the time,) to pass on a hello from a friend of mine whom I know from way back. This prompted Sarmanikan to ask how I knew them, and a conversation sprung up from there. It seems that Sarmanikan and Athus, both Bad Dragon affiliates, were old users on draconic.net and recognized my name.

So, the first night, Myself, Varka, and Sarmanikan head to the dance on the upper floor, we demonstrated to each other quite effectively how bad we are at dancing, but that didn’t detract at all from the fun that was had. The next day, I was afforded the opportunity to hang out with Narse and attend ‘bad movie night’ the movie I remember most, was ‘Poultrygiest’ it’s absolutely horrible… but the actors and director know this and so they run with it, quite comically. There was a second movie which I can’t recall the name of, but there was this one scene which Narse will swear up and down is one of the best suspenseful pieces ever, and I’m forced to agree.
It’s simple, a hole in the floor, a sharpened pole, and two dumb teenagers who keep looking through the hole in the floor to see who poked them . I’m sure you can figure out the rest. XD

Later that night I was invited to speak with Varka and Sarmanikan about new projects BD will be taking on. Hush Hush however, NDA and all so I can’t talk about it. But the end result now is I’m a technical consultant for Bad Dragon.

Naturally as you can all assume, I’m very excited about this. Some of you know that I run an engineering company, and the ability to extend that talent into the furry world is pretty neat in my book.

It simply amazed me the sheer quantity of people that you could randomly run into, For example, during the ADP, I got there early and sat in an empty row. The person that sat next to me, I didn’t realize until halfway through the showing was Pathia, someone who’s had art done of their character for years and years, long before things like FA even existed.

I was also afforded the opportunity to speak with both Baxil, and Jibba, both people who are well known in their fields. Baxil, for his exceptionally prolific and thought provoking writings, and Jibba for co-hosting the 2sence show. Baxil and I have had some discussions in the past and he was pretty jazzed to hang out and discuss politics and other such interesting topics, and Jibba, well to quote “You! You’re that guy! The one that’s going to visit!” As I knew I would be flying through LA, I messaged 2 to inquire about stopping in for a day to hang out. Apparently Jibba was also made aware of this and caught me out on it.

I should also note for those who don’t know, Baxil Is the Dragon directly responsible for the ‘Draconity FAQ’ which has been quite famous throughout the years, and ‘tommorowlands.org’ which many will reference for the excellent writings Baxil has shared with us over the past decade.

The con at this point for me was winding down, there were a lot more people I conversed with and hung around, but to name them all would be difficult and perhaps even a little rude, as some do enjoy their privacy. The room parties were very memorable and I met many more people there, some I didn’t think I would have like Dari, ArcNova and Tsukaza. But all in all, the con wound down and I traveled onto my next destination. Indianapolis.

During the preliminary planning for this trip, and being in the US for a month, saw the opportunity to visit my folks back in Indianapolis. I’ll not go into too much detail over this as most of you reading won’t find it that interesting. But there were a few events that are universally comical for anyone reading.
The first of which, was ‘The Worst Flight I Have Ever Been On.’ To set the stage, you all must understand that years prior I used to be an employee with United Airlines, one that was furloughed after 9/11 but still retained my flight benefits for years afterwards. So to say I’ve had hundreds if not thousands of flights under my belt would be an understatement, and to say that this particular flight, was the worst, well, that should set your scale of understanding.

The flight in question was a 5 hour flight from LAX to ORD, on SouthWest. Now, it’s been several years since I’ve experienced the joy of US domestic flights and the quirks they’ve developed, like SouthWest’s policy of no more seat assignments. Where, when you print your ticket off, either at home or in the terminal, you receive a boarding priority. What I didn’t know was the sooner you get your ticket, the better this priority is. So, as I’m sure you can all guess, my priority was the very last possible. Even better was the announcement over the address system that this would be in fact a fully booked flight, and to try to make use of all the space possible.

So, as I got on the flight, I noticed straight away there was only one seat available, between these two ladies. I could only see from shoulder height at this point and so I wasn’t too concerned. My level of alarm however raised significantly as I neared the empty seat, as it became overly obvious /why/ this seat was the only one left.

The lady sitting next to the window… was /spilling over/ into the middle seat. No folks, I’m not kidding when I say both under and over the arm rest. It was enveloped.

The middle seat had only about 60% of its space available and I had to take it, otherwise get off the flight and wait for another. This wasn’t an option as the quick calculation in my head said if I didn’t get on this flight, I would miss my connecting flight into Indianapolis and so I stored my carryon, and somehow managed to climb over the lady in the isle seat, and … well how do I put this. Insert myself into the middle seat.

I’m a fairly large person. 192cm, 80kg’s and somewhat built. Airline seats are not that wide, so not only did I take up that 60%, but I was firmly pressed up against this lady sitting next to me. From ass to shoulder, we were bound together for this flight.

I don’t know about you all, but when it comes to personal space, I have some pretty big issues about being pressed up against a total stranger, especially having their ASS pressed against MINE for 5 solid hours, not to mention the sensation of every time they shift, well… it’s equally transmitted to me, THROUGH THEIR ASS. To make matters worse, she had even brought her own snacks on the flight… some kind of baked thing that looked exceptionally fat laden and unhealthy. Yet despite having these, I could feel her eyes practically eating through me while I snacked on those horrible little bag of peanuts that you’re given mid flight.

Now, I suspect you’re thinking that this was pretty bad. It honestly gets worse.

The rather gargantuan woman to my left was bad, no question, but the woman to my right was almost equally as bad, but in her own special way. She was thin as a rail, and outwardly looked like a nice lady sure. But, once the flight took off, and we got to altitude… it became very clear that she had some kind of respiratory problem, because the smoker’s hacking cough emerged. And oh MAN did it come forth.

It’s difficult to fully make you the reader understand without actually hearing it, how toe curlingly bad a nice smokers hack can sound, there’s the rolling gurgle of lead up, the wheezing, strained attempt to forcefully remove hardened flem from the lungs, the long drawn out gasp of lasting attempt… Suffice to say, it’s not pleasant to witness, and it’s even less so to experience.

But… to share the joy of such an event, as I’m forcefully pressed so close to this women in clear respiratory distress, is beyond words. Put simply, IT WAS LIKE SHE WAS HACKING UP HER LUNGS IN MY EAR, MAN!

Crying babies, turbulence, kids kicking the back of my seat, sure… I can handle these things with stride, but this horrible sound of respiratory distress. It was so horrifyingly cringeworthy, on top of my forced connection with the person seated to the other side of me. I came very close to outright screaming.

I don’t know if it was because of sheer con exhaustion, or a hidden level of self preservation, but somehow I managed to SLEEP through most of this ordeal and so fortunately I only had to endure an hour of this torture.

Getting off the flight, was such a liberating experience. I am not kidding when I say there was a definitive spring in my step. I was /elated/ to be off that plane, certain I would never fly SouthWest ever again, but as it turned out, the very next short hop from ORD to IND was on Southwest, and was very close to one of the best flights I’ve ever been on. I wrote this during it:
“_Content at 15,000 feet_: I’m curled up in my chair, chin nested on my knee while I’m handed a cup of hot chocolate. The plane is barely a 10th full, and I’m in a row all by myself, staring out the window. The sky is dark, the moon is bright, and below everything is covered in a perfect blanket of flat fluffy white. I take a sip and it’s pleasantly thick, chocolaty and hot, the savage rumbling of the engine outside with the absolute silence inside is very comforting to me. I’m looking over the wing as it’s cutting through the sky. I miss this.”

As the steward walked through the mostly empty cabin taking orders for drinks, he saw me curled up against the window, looking outside to the perfectly clear starry sky and stated “You need some hot chocolate.” And turned to the next isle, not even giving me the chance to protest or make another request. Amusingly enough, I was more than happy to go with their recommendation. And it did make for one of the more iconic moments of my trip, and a definite improvement over the previous flight.

Once I arrived back home, well, it was standard fare really for someone’s folks that have not seen their son in almost 8 years. There was catching up, showing photos, seeing old places and driving to haunts to see what’s changed and what hasn’t.

There was a very odd bit of coincidence which happened yet again the first day I arrived. My mother showed me some shirts that she had gotten for me while she was down in Tennessee. Nice dress shirts, work shirts, ect. You know, the kind of things mothers get. In the pile, she pulled out a blue shirt with pockets on the sleeves and so forth. This particular shirt is very noteworthy as it is the /exact same/ shirt that I had brought with me to NZ 8 years ago. And what makes it even more noteworthy is that it was indeed my favorite shirt and I had brought that very same shirt back home, to give as a gift and as a remembrance to my good friend Rainwing. This is someone whom I’ve kept in contact with throughout the years despite the distance and it is indeed a friendship which transcends almost all barriers and obstacles. So obviously someone like this you want to give them something which will mean the most to them, what better then a favored shirt?

Anyway, what completely blew my mind, (tho I should be getting used to this by now) was my mother basically bought me the very same shirt she had bought me 8 years previous, in a different state, yet it was an absolute duplicate, down to the color/size/manufacture/pocket location, everything, simply for the reasoning, “Because I thought you would like it.” And at the very same time, I’m about to give my favored shirt away to my best friend because I want her to have it, while there’s a small tinge of regret, because… well it /is/ my favorite shirt. It just baffles the mind, doesn’t it?

Another event of baffling coincidence to chalk up to something unknowable. What was so very notable about my visit to Indianapolis, wasn’t actually visiting my folks, or seeing old places I had not seen in so long, but Rainwing again. Despite the time away our friendship hadn’t done anything else but strengthen and we connected even further than before.

Do you have any friends you know beyond doubt that no matter what you do, where you are, or whom you’re with in life, that you’re always going to keep in touch with that other person? Whom you can talk to about /absolutely anything/ and they will give you not only a valuable opinion, but one you know has your best interests at heart? For me that’s Rainy. An absolutely kindred spirit whom I’m very fortunate to know.

During my visit, we had time to correct a mistake that was made many years previous. Rainy illustrated her intent of that day, spelled out in a piece of artwork she presented to me a few years ago, titled ‘the bridge’. This was a regret that she carried for some time and towards the end of my visit, we made a special trip to the very same spot illustrated, except this time we sat in that same spot in complete silence, contemplating the surroundings. Blanketed by crisp cold and utter stillness, everything sharply contrasted in black and white, a frozen lake below, and completely gray skies above, without a single sound save for our own condensing breath. As the cliché goes, words cannot describe it, yet in this case, I can easily say that it was for a single period in my life a ‘perfect moment.’ But even more so then that, because I know without even asking, that it was the same way for Rainwing as well.

I’ve lived in a very warm climate now for almost a solid decade, I’ve not seen snow in some time. I was born/raised in Vermont, and so I’m no stranger to the arctic climates, and temperatures staying in the negative numbers… but it’s been so very long since I’ve had the joy of waking up to a fresh snow covered landscape. I wrote this one morning:
“I’m lying in bed, freshly woken from a nights sleep by the phone, it’s my very best friend calling to ask if she can come over. A short conversation ensues and I hang up with a contented sigh rolling over and nosing back into my pillow. With a single cracked eye I look out the window and notice that everything is completely covered in white. A grin slowly creeps over my face while I burrow deeper into the covers, very warm and contented. This is a very thing I’ve missed being in the far northern hemisphere. “

Granted, central heat set to a nice level, well built houses with plenty of insulation, and triple paned glass windows filled with argon, do make the difference between a nice wakeful morning, and one where you despise getting up because you know you’ll freeze.

So, on the very last leg of the trip, I decided to be clever and have a 24 hour stopover in Los Angles. Where, with the help of a Disney shuttle, a pretty nice cab driver and a short walk, spent some time with 2 Gryphon I’m really not sure how much I can regale about this leg of my trip because there’s nothing anecdotal about it. We hung out in the studio, talked about all sorts from ongoing projects, to politics. I got a chance to yak with Toast Rabbit and also meet some other people that share the flat, but else wise, I think it was the more relaxed and chill part of the vacation. Again a tip for you all, when you want to interact with people whom you only know from media, well, you have to remember that they are people too. What they could be considered famous for, is also what they consider their job. Would /you/ want to relax with people you barely know and all they want they want to do is talk about your job?

The rest of the trip, well, it was about a day and a half of whirlwind activity to get everything packed up and ready for the return flight to Auckland. I was in the US for a solid month, after 8 years of being away and I could wrap this up with all my observations of what the US was like after so many years of being away, but I think this journal has gone on long enough and I should reward you all by finishing here :}

For everyone else that went to FC, hope you had as brilliant a time as I did.

There was a pretty big quake in NZ today, in Christchurch. I'm in Auckland, So that's like the differance between San Diego, and San Fransisco so far as how far away they are. In case any are wondering, I'm fine, but seems this was a pretty bad one, more then a few people have died.

The last quake was a 8, but at 30km under the surface.

This one, was a 6, but only 5km down, so much much more damage.

Thoughts and condolances and all that.

Someone had boiled down the latest con meme deal, and I liked it so I thought, why not.

1) When do you arrive?
Long before the con starts, in fact I'm already in town now.

2) When do you leave?
Long after, this is a month long vacation for me, FC happens in the middle, so I'll be in Sanfran till the 28th

3) Who are you rooming with?
Recca, Arcanasigal, and Kyma. I'm told there's going to be at least one epic room party, take note :}

4) Who will you be hanging out with?
I haven't a clue, I'm here to be social and meet new furs. I know very few people in person in this country so it's my plan to see what a American con is like.

5) What events will you be attending?
Any and all, all depends on what's going on and what I'm doing at the time. My plan is to have no plan and take things as they come.

6) What do you look like?
Pretty tall, like just shy of 2 meters, Athletic, (former Marine) and dressed in standard fare, no namebrands or lables, I tend to blend. I might have a single badge on me but not much else which is defining. Short brown hair and glasses.

7) Extra notes:
- I'm not sure personal space is an issue, because I'm tall and scary and such, I'm much more likely to shake your hand then request a hug, and if you're someone I've admired expect at the very least a handshake and a thank you :}
- PLEASE SHOWER.
- I like to talk to and meet new people, so chances are if there's a group, I might wander in and listen.

8) ARE YOU GONNA HAVE FUN?
FUCKIN AYE

I realize that the admins will likely never see this, but this is an issue I've been noticing more and more over the last months.

I watch a few artists now, and I do enjoy reading from time to time what they're up to. However, about 90% of the journals seem to be revolving around KPI's (Key Performance Indicators) In other words "HAY GUIS! I R COMMISSION NAU" or some variation thereof about how they're ahead, behind, delayed, tired, unable to continue due to a computer malfunction, school, relationship, computer games, atomic fallout... It's gotten to the point where I don't read /ANY/ journals now because it's mostly commericals. This is why I gave up on TV, it's not content anylonger, it's advertising.

What the journal system in FA has become, isn't very appealing to read anylonger. If someone has anything meaningful to say it's completely buried in advertisement. I don't even bother reading journals anylonger, I just 'nuke all.'

So, I realize the staff are tirelessly stabbing away at the site code to get things running more smoothly, however the 'commissions' tab seems like a pretty high priority.

Additionally, considering how universally used such things like 'who's online' are now; found on so many membership oriented websites, I suggest the following:

A page similar to the 'watched list' which has two pips next to the name. The first pip indicates if the artist is streaming online. Clicking this pip will take the user directly to the streaming site URL that the artist designates. The second pip will be if the artist has comissions open, and if clicked, will take the user to that artists commission details page.

This list will be organized by streaming first, comissions second, and alphabatized throughout. If neither is applicable, their name will appear as normal.

For the artist, two simple selections at the top of their FA page. 'Are you streaming?' and 'Are your commissions up?' Which they can toggle on and off. Additionally the possiblity of 'how long?' with the streaming selection, so if they forget to turn it off, it'll time out after a predetermined time.

I belive changes like this will not only unclog the Journal system of advertisements, but also make FA a much nicer place for fans to enjoy the artists which make this place great.

There you go, just a thought.

I've read enough journals and seen arguments from both sides of the fence, that I had enough and wanted to spell out some very clear observations here.

First of all, As isolated as places like furaffinity like to consider themselves, they do have to work with the real world, with real world business and with people in positions of authority and power who don't know the first thing about furry, nor care to. What they're concerend with the the bottom line and public image.

Over the past months, FA has been trying to go through a cleaning/purging cycle, for what I can only surmize to be a site that's more business friendly, so that they can interact and interface with other online services. For example, online financial interests.

Reacently it seems that inkbunny lost their main payment provider, basically because of the mass exodious of cubporn artists from FA to IB. Some people out there still can't fathom why this happened.

So, for all the furries out there who NEED A CLUE, here's a real life suituation. I run an engineering company, I deal with customers, I deal with suppliers, advertizing, all sorts of things. A challenge for you all. Try to connect the Kaltezar on the net with the company I run. The short answer? You wont. I keep furry and my real life buisness dealings compleately isolated from the other simply because to the rest of the world, furry is strange, and gives people second thoughts. Second thoughts are bad mkay? There are times when you only have a split second to make a sale or impress a customer and ANYTHING which causes them to second guess you, means death to your business. Here's a hint: FURRY IS NOT NORMAL. And when it comes to 95% of buisness, NORMAL is what reigns.

So, how does this relate to the whole cub porn issue? Well, amongst furs, cub porn is considered risque and dodgy, how the hell do you think this might be viewed by people outside of the furry fandom? That's one level below the other. So, it's like WTF, to OMG.

So, now you've got a website that deals with a multinational corperation, which covers lots of money, transactions, doing business in the REAL WORLD, what the hell do you think the're going to do when it comes to such things like cub porn? Completely dissasociate themseles as fast as they can, leaving their laywers holding shotguns slowly backing out.

So, TL;DR CUB PORN IS BAD FOR BUSINESS

Over the last 10 years, I've told many artists whom I've personally known that they've been far undercharging for what they do. All that time ago, it was common for a furry artist to spend upwards of 8-14 hours on a single picture, and then only charge $20. At the time I was incredulous, stating 'how on earth can you only charge that much!? You're worth SO MUCH MORE!'

Now, fast forward to today, I'm very pleased to see that prices for artists have finally risen to amounts which equate to the level of talent they expend.

Yet, almost EVERY TIME I see or read an artist posting their prices here in FA, without fail there is always a poster stating: 'Awww, your prices are far too high.'

There's some problems with this. Lets get the 'showing everyone how much of a tightwad you are' out of the way for starters, because this is plainly obvious.

Telling someone that their prices are too high, does not persuade them to lower them /just for you./ What it does is make them far less likely to have anything to do with you because you're instantly marked as a whiner and by association, someone who doesn't value the artists skills.

Let me give you all a little schooling in economics. If someone produces a product, or service, and they charge too much, then they will have no customers. Thereby forcing them to either lower their prices, or go out of business. There is absolutely no need to tell this person that their prices are too high. Additionally, in the free market system, it's the goal of the seller to sell as high as they possibly can. If they sell too low, then they’re likely to run into the problem of their incomings falling short of their outgoings, for the amount of hours in the day they spend working.

I run a business myself, and it's taken more than a few years to nut out what my prices should be for various services. I can tell you all beyond a doubt that anyone that told me I was charging too much for something, 99 times out of 100 they had NO CLUE what processes, time or materials were involved to come up with the end result. Labor costs folks, and even at $150 for a commission from some of these artists that work up to 10-20 hours on a single commission, that's a steal for the dollar per hour rate at which you're getting some pretty damn good quality art. They sketch, they revise, they do what they can to make sure that you as the commissioner are happy with what they provide to you, and yet there are still some out there who have the gall to say they charge too much?

Next time you or someone you know thinks of telling an artist they charge too much, think a little more about the sheer volume of time and effort that goes into what they offer you all.