Practice Advice (for juggling)

Just some various pieces of advice.

Practice juggling in two ways. In sessions and in bursts. Sessions are blocks of time where you go "I will juggle for an hour". Think of sessions like practice of anything else. bursts are just grabbing balls (or clubs or rings, etc), and juggling for a bit during a commercial break or waiting for bread to toast or just walking around your house.

One three hour block of practice a week is good, but 30 minutes every day is better. Both is best. Practice more often, [probably] in smaller bursts.

Bursts are good for routine practice, by routine practice, I mean something you will stand in front of somebody else and do. You won't be dropping much. You got the tricks 'down'  but are getting them perfect. Also work on transitions, and just playing around with new things you have never done before. Try and invent a trick. I usually dont come up with tricks during sessions, only when I am just messing around.

Sessions are more rigged. Start with a warm up. Stretch if you need too. Treat it like a burst, mess around a bit, get used to the equipment in your hands. Have some fun. Then, look at your Juggle Book (I will get there), and pick a trick from it. Spend a Min of 5 minutes on the trick, after 5-10 minutes, if you are not feeling it, move on (try something else), but if you think you may be getting somewhere, keep going. If you have moved on from one trick for a long while, either keep trudging through it (knowing that your brain is slowly training your muscle memory and after a night of sleep you may just get it the next day), or move on to a similar trick, maybe breaking it back down into pieces or a certain type of throw from the trick. The goal is to work on things you are learning, not things you have mastered or things you simply cannot do. This is the main segment of my practice session.

After I move on from that, I find something I have never done before, and try it. I might watch a video of something, and just start trying it, making sure I understand how to do the trick mentally. From there its just training my hands. I write the name of the trick down in my JuggleBook.y

The JuggleBook is a list of tricks you want to learn. Mine is in 2 places, one: a simplenote and I keep it filled only with the things I want to learn how to do (understand, etc), and two a notebook filled with all tricks I can do/have come up with.

This all applies to how I learn how to juggle, and planning a routine is different, it involves getting tricks one has nailed and putting them together, practicing them together, remembering the order of the tricks, doing it to music, things like that.

 

Various bits:

• I listen to music when I juggle, I dont think it hurts. I often use songs as motivation: "I will juggle mills mess until this song is over". I have recently started listening to classical music. Don't hate.


• I use the same trick I use on essays to get motivated to practice. I tell myself I can do 10 minutes. Then I do 10 minutes. After, If I feel like I am not getting anywhere, or still dont want to, I quit - just not happening. But usually after 5 minutes I am in the zone and forgot about my self-promise, I am juggling now.


• Let people watch you juggle. (Practice like you perform!). Don't make excuses when you drop other than 'practicing'


• Try and move around with your bursts. Go ahead and have a certain area to practice for learning, but when just messing around, go all over your house, different lighting conditions, things like that


• Remember to watch your stance. Seriously, learn how to throw proper!


• Don't be afraid of the impossible.


• Understand it wont happen in a day. If you are failing, sleep on something, and come back. Your brain has been busy while you were asleep, and you have gotten better at the trick.


• Practicing is the art of doing what you cannot. You will drop. If you stop dropping, you are not practicing, you are refining. That has its place too (routines) but keep an eye on yourself. I like to always have at least one trick I just can't do lodged away in brain. At the time of typing its multiplex club throws.


• The internet is a great resource for jugglers, many more have talked about practice, and their advice is great, and this is not everything you need to know, just some stuff I would like to reiterate.


• there is no one correct way to do it. There are better and worse ways, but its all better than channel flipping pointlessly.

 

 

I am a Google Reader Monster

That's Right! I am a winner!  I would like to note that I first opened Google Reader in 2007, but did not start using it until early 2010 or late 2009.

Web Lockers VS. Streaming VS. Sync

There are some pretty new-age ways to get our music now a days. You might hear terms like 'cloud' and 'streaming' thrown around, but what does this all really mean, anyway?

First off, I need to define 'the cloud'. There are tons of clouds, all 'the cloud' refers too is non-local storage. Instead of reading off of your disk, the data is read through an internet connection off of some server bank somewhere. Ubuntu one, Amazon CloudDrive, Google Docs, iCloud, and many more services exist that take advantage of the non-local philosophy. Music services is one of them.

Here is a breakdown of the different service types.

Sync - This is what we are all used to. Essentially, its file management. This is having one computer/drive which acts as the hub. This hub is where new music is added, say - ripped from a CD. You synchronize this hub with your external devices, such as your phone or MP3 player (IPod). This can be a hassle when DRM, or filetypes get in your way of having your music in all the places you want it. Itunes locks your music in DRM, and you can only play it on authorized Apple devices. This has caused a lot of pain all around, and I feel DRM should be gotten rid of, but this is a post for another time. Sync is no internet, just moving files around to all of your devices.

Lockers - This is the most similar to Syncing you music, because all of the music you listen still is all of the music in your library, the stuff you own. The locker is a place on the web where you upload your library of songs, and then you can, later, listen to it anywhere that it streams to (other computers, smartphones, etc). The Locker is another device you sync to, in a way, but it replaces everything else. My android phone can only store so much on it, but with an online locker I can bring my entire collection with me anywhere there is an internet connection. The two most popular services are Amazon Cloud Player and Google Music (beta). I am using both, and I plan to write up a comparison in the future. These services are free for a certain amount of space, and you pay for more. They act as good backups too.

Streaming - This is Spotify, and (kinda) Grooveshark. Essentially, you pay these services to give you access to their locker. Their online library of music which, through deals with record companies, they are allowed to serve to you. It is like an online locker, except you don't own the music. There are going to be a lot more songs available (a whole lot), but there will always be gaps. artists you enjoy that just wont let you stream them. Like the Beatles. The payments also will be recurring, which means you lose your music if you stop paying. Unlike lockers, you can't download the music wherever you want for offline listening.

Internet Radio - This is Pandora, and last.fm (although last.fm is more than just radio) Really this is more about music discovery, artists let services like pandora play their music in the hopes that it will let users discover them, and buy them down the road. If pandora is the only service you use, you are probably like a lot of artists, but have heard very little of their full albums. I personally don't like pandora, this is because I listen to music by the album, not the song. Also worth mentioning is that SiriusXM offers an streaming service, bringing XM radio to any computer and smartphone. I use SiriusXM for internet radio-ing, but for most it is probably too expensive.


What I use:
I still find a need to purchase all of my music, DRM free, and own/backup all of my copies. I have all of my music in one place on my RAID 1 drives, on my backup internal drive, on a music external backup drive. This is the file management part of my music, which I RIP Losslessly from CD's or buy from Amazon MP3. I have my entire library uploaded in both google music and amazon mp3, although i use Google Music (beta) because it supports my lossless file type (WMA, not FLAC, but i really should use FLAC) (ok, it converts them, but still). Amazon cloudplayer I like better because it works right with amazon mp3 store, music immediately saved in the cloud. If I buy music on the road on my phone, I can listen to it instantly. I also currently trying out spotify, but I doubt I will keep paying for it, It's useful for listening to music before I buy an album. SiriusXM is usually playing over my house speakers, or while I am doing some work/practicing juggling. The fact that is it a true radio (read: lack of choice over music) keeps me from getting distracted while I work (need to change the song!).
But that is just me.

Switching Away from GoDaddy

Finally! I have been stuffing up with GoDaddy's poor customer service, and especially awful control panel for far too long. My logic has always been on the lines of 'but it's cheap!' and not much else. I was pointed out to, by a friend, that 1&1 will not only be cheaper, but also not GoDaddy. That was enough for me. If a few of my websites go down, it is only temporary, and part of the hiccups of transferring everything over. I probably just forgot to transfer a MySQL table or 5.

It feels good to be free!

Sandwich making guide

My step by step sandwich making guide for people who can't make sandwiches and don't care about flavor and are very hungry and just want to be not hungry (possibly because they forgot to eat), and possibly are wandering into the kitchen in the middle of the night looking for some food. In other words: people like me

1. Find bread. The less shit all peppered in the bread, the better. Rye bread bad, wonder bread good.
2. Put in toaster. Set the toaster to a middle-ish setting. Just don't burn it.
3. Take everything in meat/cheese lockers of the fridge out, and place them on the counter.
4. Take out white colored spreadable such as Mayo, Ranch, marshmillow fluff, etc). When I say 'spreadable' I mean food that comes in a bottle or jar.
5. Find other color spreadable (ketchup, mustard, dressing, peanut butter, hot sauce. Actually, just go for the hot sauce)
6. Browse pantry for something to eat on the side, like chips or pop tarts. You are not going to find anything, but it doesn't matter, you are just wasting your time until the toaster finishes toasting.
7. Pick three meats and three cheese's. It doesn't matter what ones. don't be afraid of shredded cheese, or things you can't pronounce. It doesnt matter. find up to three of each. If you don't have three of something, it doesnt matter. Just use more of whatever looks more processed.
8. Spread the spreadables, one on each piece of bread. If you have a question on this step, the answer is "whatever, it doesn't matter".
9. Layer the meat and cheese, alternating meat and cheese. If you have sliced meat, fold it over.
10. Put other piece of bread on top. Spread side down.
11. Do not cut in half. Just Fucking eat it. Whatever.

Spotify

I am currently tryout Google Music, Which I will for another week or so before writing a comparison of it and Amazon Cloud Player, which I have been using for some time. I am also trying Spotify. Look up what it is at that link, here are my opinions of what needs to change:

• No webapp, so Grooveshark beats it there. I use a chromebook, so I need a webapp!
• No mobile without paying $10 a month, a bit pricey IMHO
• One can argue its cheaper than buying music, but that is only true if all of your music is inside of spotify, and you don't own the music, you just rent the ability to listen to it. I will keep purchasing music I like with Amazon MP3, or (oh shit) buying CD's.
• The interface seriously looks like it is trying to be Itunes. Sure, people are used to the itunes UI, but c'mon, a little discression?
• Please stop trying to shove facebook connect down my throught. Attention everyone: I should not have to have a facebook account to get the full features out of your software.
• The largest gripe is that not everything is available on it. This will always be the problem with any service similar to this one.
• For a service that is streaming music, I would like some place where I can view the internet connection it is using, as well as the quality of music being streamed
• I wish the player was more customization. I may be skewed coming from foobar2000, But this doesn't have a mini mode, and the menu's are sparse.

What is nice:

• http://open.spotify.com/track/7fhgNyacoy4Vr4xGgW3ZQG Quick links to share music
• quality seems pretty top notch for streaming, but i doubt it can match my lossless files.
• I am listening to music I do not otherwise own
• It does a great job doing what it is supposed to do - find and stream music

What I cannot comment on:

• The free (commercials included) plan
• The android app

Conclusion:

It does a great job doing what it is trying to do, but I have too many devices to restrict myself to the one computer I own that can use it. My chromebook and Android phone can not play music through it, and they can through Google Music or Amazon Cloud Player (which I am testing out currently). It is not right for me, I feel like I would like to own my music, but if I ever strike it rich, I would easily consider paying for the premium service, and getting the android app. It is pretty great. Not what I need right now, but pretty damn easy to use.

The Books

If you have not checked out the artist The Books, I highly recommend you find them and give them a listen! They are fantastic. (link to amazon page). The Lemon Of Pink is their best album, in my opinion, but the best way to listen to them is chronologically.

Hot Sauce

I just had some of Dave's Gourmet Ultimate Insanity Sauce. Before actually putting it on my firehouse steak and cheese, I tried to smell some. I couldn't really smell anything, as my nose is disfunctional. I ended up getting a small hitler-mustache of the stuff on my upper lip without realizing it. I could not smell it, but I felt it burning my skin a few minutes later. The actual taste was pretty good, I had one largish drop (cm wide) on the sandwich, and it was, for lack of a better word, spicty. Very spicy. Burning the insides of my mouth spicy. But before that kicked in, It actually tasted pretty good I give the sauce a painfully delicious thumbs up, and I will be trying it again.

Also, I have to remember not to rub my eyes.

Simplenote is awesome

Go check out simplenoteapp.com and check it out. I carry notebooks with me at all times, but they are specialized: One notebook for sketch comedy ideas, another notebook for general all-capture. The general all-capture one is good for remembering songs i want to listen too, writing down phone numbers, ideas i have had. But it is not good for planning things. I can't write out an idea for a webapp on paper, because it is a computer-related idea. Simplenote stores my todo list, my projects list, and detailed information about specific projects. (as well as TV to watch, and date ideas, it is primary a reference point for projects (which could be webapp, a book, an article, redesign of the hdyar.com website, etc) My notebook is fore ideas and notes, and capture when I am away from keyboard or away from phone.

In other words, I have fallen in love with simplenote and i urge you to check it out. Creating a list of all of my projects is the greatest idea I have had all summer.

http://www.simplenoteapp.com

Its a plan

Reggie Watts by Friends - Thingiverse

The first thing I will print with 3D printer.

Dibs!

I called dibs on the legs of chicken from KFC. IT was brought up, 'what does that word mean, anyway?'. I did some serious internet searching (wikipedia, mostly), and found out there is no one source of the word. Humanity has a disagreement. Read more here:

http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2005/12/no_one_seems_to.html

5 things you could be doing instead of reading this

5 things you could be doing instead of reading this

• Rolling a hula hoop then jumping through it
• Learning how to juggle
• Eating a really good Grilled Cheese, with bacon and tomato.
• Doing some pushup's or jumping jacks or something
• Hanging out with people of the opposite sex (Or of the same sex. you know, whatever)

Things I will name that book I will eventually write

Kinda working on two books right now. One the humor one, the other a secret project. That got me thinking

Possible Book Titles:

• "The next great american novel" Yeah mom. I wrote that.


• "Guilty" Judged by its cover


• "If I see you reading this book I will give you a high five"


• "Hunter Dyar" by "book title". Wait I messed that up.


• "Magniloquent The Book." It stops at the title


• "Who The F*** Wrote This?" By Hunter Dyar. Oh hey, there's the author name right below the title.


• "Look out behind you! No, Seriously!"


• "This book can not be used as a flotation device"


• "Please Don't Steal This" Also my album name


• "Go Read This In Public"


• "Give whoever is reading this a high five"


• "This Book will make you a better person. No seriously, I swear"


• "READ THIS OR DONT" Taking a stand here.

Practice is easy

Really easy. And it's crazy how much time people spend practicing wrong. Not all practice is made the same. For acquiring skills, the goal is to do what you can't. Because drop the juggling ball enough, and eventually you wont. But if I keep juggling the same pattern, will I get that down? I'll get it down solid! and I will be a master of that pattern, but it will take me much longer, I will be wasting my time!

Practice is doing what you can't do.

Anti-aliasing

What does it mean?

Well, first off I am referring to anti-aliasing as it pertains to image rendering on computers, particularly with fonts and video games. If you want more information on aliasing in general, this link should suffice.

So what is Anti-Aliasing anyway? Its easier to explain with images than in text. Aliasing happens when converting from analog to digital signals. "What?" you say. Don't worry, I am going somewhere. An analog source is of perfect quality. The file does not have a format, it is merely the same as the source. It is analogous to the source. For example, when recording audio, the variances in electrical signal would be the same as variances in air pressure from the sound itself. Digital files can not do this. There is currently no such thing as a vector (math) audio file. (There should be!). It is easier to think of digital files with video. It is not continuous, but rather sequential frames. The same for audio, an audio file is not collections of waves, but rather point samples of the wave. Just as videos are cut up into frames, audio is cut up into frames. Well, not 'frames'. I believe we (techies) call them samples. The more of these samples one takes per second, the higher quality audio file (well, one aspect of audio files). Aliasing is what happens when not enough of these samples are being taken, and the analog wave can not be constructed. It is a type of distortion in audio files.

(image source)

Look into more: Nyquist rate, Digital Audio Files, Vector Graphics (all Wikipedia links)

When we switch from talking about audio to talking about actual pixels, or images, the problem we see is pixelation. It doesn't necessarily occur from not enough sampling, but rather from the fact that pixels are big and are square. Big? Yeah big. Scientists, computer geeks, and image professionals are making them as small as possible, because of one reason: You cant draw a circle with a square. Or rather, with a bunch of squares. Go draw a circle (or any curved line) in MSPaint. Now zoom in a lot. You see pixels!

(image source)

This is aliasing distortion in images. But as you can see above, there is a solution. The solution is called (you guessed it) anti-aliasing. It works by tricking our eyes. The human eye does not see as precisely as you think. What our mind does a lot of filtering, editing, and converting of what are two eyes send us to what it thinks it is seeing. Most optical illusions work by messing with out sense of perception of distance. (Creating a false perspective that changes the sizes of things in our mind: Closer thing is bigger thing. But I am not here to talk about optical illusions). Anti-aliasing blurs the curve (jagged edge) by coloring in the image a bit. That bit is generally who much of the curve would cut through the pixel. (if the line would go through 40% of the pixel, it will become 40% darker (40% more the color of the curve)). Generally. Different Anti-aliasing algorithms work in different ways, but that is the technique used. Shade nearby pixels (creating a blur) that our mind puts together as a sharp, clean, curve. Some Anti-Aliasing algorithms, such as Microsoft's ClearType (which is making this text look better right now! Probably!) actually adds color into the b/w mix. The reason that works is more complicated. A tad too complicated for me to get into or bother researching to a level of understanding high enough that I could present it succinctly.

Anti-aliasing is the process of making pixelated and jagged images look smooth and crisp.

Generally, digital designers like anti-aliasing because it makes images look better, and un-jagged, while print designers don't because nobody wants to print a blurry image.

If you stumbled onto this article because you are curious about your video game settings, just remember that the lower the resolution, the higher the need for anti-aliasing. And pixelation/aliasing is not the game developers fault, it's the way computers work.

Here is my research, it's worth reading into more, in my opinion.