Sunday 11 November 2018

Another Mini Cycle Challenge

I've done a few rides to date but seldom posted them to this blog. Worse still, I haven't entered many challenges, so today to get back into things I joined this monthly challenge. I actually did 96.50km today which is probably why I'm showing high in the rankings.

It was perfect conditions to do a longish ride, cloudy not too hot, minimal wind and great company. We did have a few mechanical damages that needs urgent attention before using those cycles. A worn tire and a broken pedal.

Check out the Endomondo Challenges Page.

Tuesday 30 October 2018

Taupo Cycle Challenge






It's official, entry completed and paid for, can't wait to hit the tarmac :-)

Official Website:
https://cyclechallenge.com/the-event/categories/on-road/half-the-lake/

Thoughts:
The 160kms looks really good but I really haven't done any serious training for this distance, maybe next year I will attempt the 160km.

Sunday 2 September 2018

WS2812 Cycle Lights Using a Arduino Pro Mini


Really simple project.
Arduino Pro mini, with an 8 LED WS2812 stick, a touch switch, finished with 1x 18650 battery all mounted inside a 2x 18650 powerbank charging case. Sketch includes the FastLED library.

Tested duration in flash mode: 14hours

Time taken to complete project: just under 1hour
Time taken to edit video: 8+ hours LoL (not good at this really)

Camera: Sony HDR-CX405
PC: Optiplex 9010 i5 8GB Ram running Linux Mint 19

Notes
This came out much better than I had expected, especially using the powerbanks case to contain all the components. It is also possible to replace the Arduino Pro Mini with the sketch uploaded onto a ATtiny85 and yes I've tried it and it works just fine.


Ideally it would've been nice to use another touch switch as the Power ON/OFF switch but I have no idea (yet) how to power up any Arduino board using an electronic switch such as these ones.




Bridging both solder points A & B means, as soon as power is applied, the switch in ON, next time you touch the case, it goes off ie it toggles.


This is where you get your 5V and GND power source from.


And yes, don't forget this is still a Powerbank. I would definitelty use this when I create Timelapses on my Sony FDR-X3000 action camera.

Thoughts
The possibility of using this concept has opened many idea opportunities and in my mind I have already formed 4 new projects:-

- Garage minder: detect movement in garage inform household via radio signal
- Emergency House lighting with Solar Panel backup
- Fishing Underwater night LED lighting rig
- WS2812 Christmas tree lighting https://youtu.be/if178oluID4

It has been a while since I've deleted all my old projects, I'll attempt to recreate them again and repost.

Thursday 30 August 2018

Arduino, WS2812 Addressable LEDS, FastLED Library

 
video by Andrew Tuline

We all do it, try something new, have a little play with things then stand back to admire our most recent achievement. Then curiosity leads us to down the youtube path, to see how other people are doing in this field.

Arduino is no exception. I was so proud of myself after purchasing some small WS2812 Driver boards and with a little bit of coding I finally created my rear night flashing cycle lights! (project will be uploaded very soon)


To be honest here, this is pretty extreme for such a simple project, normal LEDs would have worked just as well, if not better. But !!!

I wanted to be different!!

Very proud of my self with my projects results, where part of the code required the FastLED library. So I decided to look up the creator and he gave some really good advice and there are some really great demo codes you can try.


Also visit his youtube channel:-


I feel I have found one of the pioneers in this field, and his demo codes are freely available, well commented with hints on how to change to suit ones purposes.

I want to make christmas tree lights just like in that video, but baby steps first!!

Sunday 26 August 2018

Simple Arduino Proyotyping Setup


Simple setup; an Arduino Uno R3, breadboard, component tester, power source all combined onto a single plastic case that makes this an extremely versatile project.

This is the 2nd one I've made, by adding the component tester it made sense. I have so many loose components lying around I got too lazy to search up there values, it was far easier to just grab new parts out of the labeled drawers, very wasteful.

What I get out of this:-
- a "portable" arduino prototyping board
- a component tester
- an USB powerbank (charge your mobile phone)

Stored inside the case:
- arduino USB cable
- an ATtiny85 shield
- an TTL UART convertor
- microUSB cable
- arduino pro mini
- pocket multimeter

Thursday 23 August 2018

Linux Mint 19 Xfce Installed


This is something I should've done last month the moment it came out, I did not like the previous 18.3 KDE environment at all but did give it a good try.

Xfce works for me!

Re-installing all the programs  I cannot live without.

Sunday 5 August 2018

Basics to Transistor Selection


This is similar to how I select a transistor along with calculating the value of the Base Resistor required to place the transistor in saturation mode; ie a transistor in switching On/OFF mode. There is no point is creating my own video when this explains quite clearly the process.

A project is currently under way where I use this process, soon to be posted. Just a small heads up, the following small switching Transistor is my all time favorite, the S8050 NPN transistor :-)

Datasheet: S8050 Wing Shing Computer Components.


click here to go to ebay listing
So cheap .....

Wednesday 1 August 2018

Backup FireFox Bookmarks and Favorite Extensions

Yes this seems to be an obvious option to find, but for years I have been using an extension called FEBE with FireFox which now no longer exists. So I finally used DuckGo to find the solution and here it is :-) So now when I change my hardware everything can easily be moved to the new machine. It's a shame I cannot export FireFox passwords but I guess that is a good thing, I also use Keepass2 which works just as good.

These extensions I cannot live without, especially the NoScript which is my all time favorite.

Tuesday 24 July 2018

Todays Walk


It has been a while since I've done a walk, so my body wasn't feeling too comfortable half way through this loop but I'm sure it would get easier once I get back into some sort off  routine.

Monday 23 July 2018

Aotearoa Bike Challenge Update


Failed goal, oh wow. Well it's Monday so lets get this Challenge up and running once more! Good thing to know when logging in this morning I have gained a few more badges :-)


Nice to see the Champion badge 1,000km recorded on this site :-)


New goal added, let's see if I can achieve this one!

Endomondo: Entered A New Challenge.


It has been a while since I've used Endomondo, especially over this wet winter period. Still nothing like getting re-motivated by joining a small challenge. Yes there is only 2 people in this challenge, myself and the challenge creator but I'm about to embark in creating my own challenges, especially targeted at local riders here in Wellington New Zealand.


First activity added to this challenge, it was a really wet ride as well I got totally drenched but still enjoyed the ride.

Sunday 15 July 2018

TimeLapse: Petone Foreshore Wellington, NZ


Not sure how this would turn out, but from looking at the results it seems OK. Even though everyone is going 4K these days, my computer still struggles to play this quality but I will keep on creating these rendered this way. 1080p50fps works for me right now.

download/view 4k25fps here
download/view 1080p50fps here
download/view 720p50fps here

Camera: Sony FDR-X3000 5sec Intervals 600images.

Thursday 5 July 2018

TimeLapse: Wainuiomata Mary Crowther Park, LH, NZ


Really enjoying creating these, need a better way to manage my time while waiting the 48mins necessary to capture the 600 images. Leaving the camera unattended during capture is not an option.

Sunday 24 June 2018

TimeLapse: Wainuiomata Shopping Centre LH, NZ.


What happens outside our shopping centre at 9am on a Sunday morning in the middle of winter, not a lot.

Well on this mornings ride I had a small crash. I went up a driveway that had a triangular piece missing right in the middle of it. My front wheel lodged at this spot and instantly stopped the bike from progressing any further, which resulted in me flying over the handle bars. A quick check over the bike no visible damage and a test ride in the car park everything seemed good.

24kms later I wasn't feeling too good, so I stopped at this spot for a timelapse opportunity and check myself over. The graze on my legs I fixed up fine (I always carry a full 1st aid kit) but a few of my ribs was making it uncomfortable to ride, time go ride home.

With this timelapse I changed it up a little from 2sec intervals to 5sec intervals because I knew it was a boring place to capture LoL. The only problem with doing this it took 48mins to create this 24sec timelapse.


Tuesday 19 June 2018

Installing Arduino IDE on Linux Mint 18.3


I have always had a problem installing this piece of software, you can download the archived file from here https://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/Software


Once unarchived you need to run the ./install.sh in a terminal to create the desktop icon. Up to this point everything worked fine, until I plugged the USB cable from the computer to the Arduino board.

Loading up the example blink sketch, then sending it to the UNO resulted in an error message which unfortunately I cannot display because I have resolved the problem.

The problem was the UNO was not recognized on any port, so searching DuckGo I needed to find a BASH command that tells me what is connected to the usb ports. lsusb


which was actually pointless, all it told me was the UNO device
Bus 003 Device 006: ID 1a86:7523 QinHeng Electronics HL-340 USB-Serial adapter. I have no idea what to do with that information. So I played around with the Tools/Ports option in the IDE, choosing between /dev0/ttys4 try uploading, /dev/ttys0 try uploading again, same error. These were the only 2 options, until 5mins later, I looked again lo and behold a third option appeared,
/dev/ttyUSB. This has to be it, so tried uploading sketch again and bugger me a new error appeared LoL.



this time access denied. In fact this is something I remember from previous installations so back to DuckGo and find those BASH commands that allows me access.


sudo usermod -a -G dialout <your login name>

sudo chmod a+rw /dev/ttyUSB0


Not sure about the second line (didn't use it)  but all works perfectly now, so expect some Arduino Projects coming up very soon.

Wednesday 13 June 2018

Twitch Experience: I Gots Me A Webcam


After 2 weeks on Twitch it was time to hook up a Webcam. I'm not sure how I would feel about this so the obvious thing to do was to quickly get my hands on a cheap webcam. $1.00 from Trademe, even though it was only 480p, perfect for what I want to do for now and in 3 days was on my doorstep.

You would think a simple device like this would work perfectly the moment you inserted the USB plug. Well yes, kind of. I got no indication/alert telling me a new hardware device has become available. So now what. Linux Software Manager opened to find a webcam program which resulted in a program called Cheese. Installed, ran it, it didn't acknowledge the presence of the webcam. For the next hour I was singing a different version of "Oh happy days" until I decided to do a reboot. It works, hallelujah! I see me on screen and go, geez who's this ugly bugga.

So I closed down Cheese, set up my Twitching environment, added a source using the webcam option, and it did not find the webcam. Here we go, another chorus of "Oh happy days" starts. So once again, started up Cheese and yes, once again Cheese didn't acknowledge the webcam. Well the obvious conclusion was, if you wish to use the webcam that day, do not close webcam window because if you do, you have to reboot the computer!

Using Cheese was fine, but I wanted to use the webcam without this program, it has issues and every time it crashes it was reboot time, so it was BASH time:-

ls -ltr /dev/video*

Use this to find what port Linux recognises the webcam

mplayer tv:// -tv driver=v4l2:width=640:height=480:device=/dev/video0 -fps 60

This will bring up a window showing, well your face :-)
It is this window I use as the source for OBS


Yes the quality is awful, and I intend on getting a real webcam like a Logitech 920 after watching and talking to Jade from Twitch.

Monday 11 June 2018

TimeLapse: Wainuiomata Mall Playground, LH, NZ.


Another forgotten folder. I remember this moment. Had a flat tire so I put the Sony on the ground, started the timelapse. I need to work on my "what/where to record" to get that money shot.

TimeLapse: Wainuiomata Summit, LH, NZ


I did this a while back and totally forgot about this folder full of 600jpgs.

Sunday 10 June 2018

TimeLapse: Wainuiomata Reservoir Waterworks, LH, NZ


I really do cycle up here a lot, at least twice a week.

As per my YouTube description:-
Experimenting with 25, 30, 50 frame rates.

VLC Playback results on my OptiPlex 9010 i5 8GiB desktop
- 25fps: smooth
- 30fps: coping but minute signs of freezing
- 50fps: way too jerky, was not worth keeping.
This is my 1st 4K upload to YouTube.

Camera Sony FDR-X3000: TimeLapse Mode 2sec Intervals

Saturday 9 June 2018

TimeLapse: Kennedy Good Bridge Lower Hutt NZ


Experimental, wasn't sure how this would turn out with Sony FDR-X3000 mounted on a bridge with heavy vehicle traffic.



Friday 8 June 2018

Creating 12sec TimeLapse Videos.


I'm going to start making 12sec TimeLapse video's. They are pretty easy to make/create and the results can be stunning if you get the timing right. As demonstrated in this clip, the moving clouds was ideal.

This is a re-upload that was taken down with a lot other videos when I decided to stop blogging. But I've had a change of heart and once again I've found blogging to be fun.

Creative Commons Licence
Attribution-ShareAlike
Basically as shown in the image

So yes you can download this and use it in your own projects, here's the link to get a better quality 12 sec 1080p50fps video instead of using YouTube.


Tuesday 5 June 2018

USO Whanau Ride, Round the Bays, Wellington.


I really enjoy these rides. With winter now here we get to ride in stunning scenery that only Wellington can produce on a good day! 1st time I rode using my motorcycles balaclava, so glad I did.

Whanau means family.

This time the Sony FDR-X3000 is mounted once again on the handle bars. I used the Sony HDR-CX405 to take shots from the car which produced poor results, but I doubt the FDR would fair any better. Action camera's don't do well in low light situations.

Solo Ride Wainuiomata


Now that Kdenlive has been restored, back to video editing. This is a few weeks old but still experimenting holding the Sony FDR-X3000.

Saturday 2 June 2018

Kdenlive: Restoring Default Settings For Linux Mint 18

It is unbelievable how easy it is to totally screw up your Kdenlive windows as you edit/create your video content.

Window views after a new install.

This is what it should look like if you have recently installed Kdenlive. After I accidentally shut down a few windows, Kdenlive became unusable. It kept crashing so I removed the application, rebooted the computer, reinstalled Kdenlive only to find the corrupt settings had returned (which means there must be a hidden config file somewhere on my HDD). Researching Youtube I came across this:-


So this tells me there is a hidden file called kdenliverc that needs to be deleted. Where he found his config file as shown in the video, was in a completed different location to mine.

Home/.config

Instead of deleting the file I renamed it to kdenliverc000 which results in Kdenlive thinking it is a new install and proceeds to create a new kdenliverc.

This did the trick, now I can get back into editing videos..

Kdenlive is not the easiest video editors to use but it is free, and works well on Linux. Without this I would not be able to create any video content I would be prod of.

Friday 1 June 2018

Linux Mint 18.3 Dual Monitor Problem

Should really add a third monitor, two doesn't cut it anymore.
This has bugged me for a few months now, not being able to use a second monitor that I have been accustomed to for many years is unacceptable. Recently I came across a work-around solution from the Linux Mint forums.

"dpm" support, must be selected at boot (via radeon.dpm=1) and is only supported on R6xx and newer asics.
Which then suggested the following modifications

To test this when the grub menu appears press e (for edit) then replace the nomodeset (if there) with radeon=dpm=1. Press f10 to boot this session with the change.
Of course to make the change stick you must edit, as root, /etc/default/grub and change the
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT= line to include radeon.dpm=1
eg GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="radeon.dpm=1 quiet splash"

Then run sudo update-grub.
Upon doing these changes followed by a reboot it didn't work. The funny thing was I remember a few years ago someone else had this exact same problem, who suggested after the reboot, save the session, log out, then log in.

It worked, both monitors fired up with Linux Mint logo shown on each. Going through the monitor settings each monitor was identified correctly.

Here's the problem:
It's not a permanent solution, if the computer reboots/shutsdown for any reason, you lose the dual monitor display once again, unless you log out, log in again. A minor inconvenience but knowing it's a temporary solution just doesn't sit right with me.


Now from that Forum post it referred to the Radeon website where he found the solution. This suggests to me that this particular Linux Mint distribution didn't compensate for this particular problem on its release for this grapics card. I really don't have a problem with this because with each release there is bound to be bugs/errors. Creating a Linux distribution is huge and involves a lot of time and people, it's just that waiting for the next upgrade can take months.

References:-

Post from the Linux Mint Forums

Mentioned Radeon Link

In the mean time, I'm looking at trying a different distribution called MX Linux, there has been some good reviews on YouTube about this. Check out their homepage: https://mxlinux.org/.

Sunday 27 May 2018

Fight Plastic Polllution

Too few people care about how much an environmental problem this has now become, or they acknowledge it's a problem but it is too late to do anything about it. I used to be in this latter category.

On social media, I follow a lot of small vloggers who's views on anything/everything has more impact on me than watching the latest big hit coming out of Hollywood/Netfix etc. Amberthest (YouTube) is one of them. Creating videos on close to a $0 budget shows how much passion they put into getting their idea's out, regardless if no-one actually watches it.


I've have always been aware of the problem about plastic bags from big chain supermarkets, living in one of the most windy capital cities on this planet I get to see these plastic bags in all sorts of places. Seeing them wave like the national flag on our tallest trees doesn't faze us, next big gust would get rid of it and blow it out to sea. Big sigh here!

So what can WE do about it ? I know what part I can play on fighting plastic pollution.

1) Avoid buying products/goods that use plastic excessively to contain the item/s.


Vegans/vegetarians I do apologize, this isn't meant to offend but I do like meat, and this is just a typical example of how much (way too much) plastic is used on their meat packages.

2) Take your own bags into the supermarket, don't use those thin plastic bags they provide. In some supermarkets they now actually make you pay a small surcharge if you request to use those bags, this isn't good enough in my opinion. Some supermarkets sell reusable bags (as shown in the image below) and this is the best way to go.


Yeah I know, not too pretty hahaha but it is all about looking after our environment. Then of course you can make your own. Shamelessly cue another Amberthest video:-


3) If you see plastic trash (well any trash really) pick it up and dispose of it. It is not embarrassing. In fact on my regular fitness walks I always carry a bag just for the purpose of removing plastics from the streets. Admittedly  I don't get them all on 1 walk because this problem is huge and can change daily.

Finally to end this post, another small time youtuber voicing their concerns, good for them :-)

Saturday 26 May 2018

Partitioning Hard Drives GPT or MBR

Apple Hards Drives : JK Hard Drives & 1 Apple.

So it is time to do a clean out from all the PC gear I've accumulated over many years. I have doubts any of these are reliable and even if some do read/write I probably would still throw them out. Hence when it comes to precious data you are going to feel a lot more secure buying new, and even with new you cannot guarantee they don't fail in a short period of time.

Routinely Back Up Everything Everywhere!

So now that I have a more recent Linux Mint OS, the moment I install a new HD and wish to get it ready, I always create new partition tables.


In keeping up with using the newest technology trends, from now on all partition tables are going to be created using the GTP format.

Here is an excellent website that explains the differences between the new GTP against the traditional MBR tables, check then out - How-To-Geek .

Friday 25 May 2018

Small Demo fo Burgulus Streamed on Twitch


The fourth day into streaming my Aardwolf game play via Twitch, it really is pretty easy to setup and so far, I've been enjoying myself. Notice how this isn't a YouTube video but a direct upload into blogger.

I am extremely impressed with blogger.com playback quality, I'm surprised I never tried uploading here before. Sharing this on Twitter using the Icon below only displays the URL and not a thumbnail of the Video, Pity.

Minds.Com & Creative Commons Attribution

This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work even for commercial purposes, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. This license is often compared to “copyleft” free and open source software licenses. All new works based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also allow commercial use. This is the license used by Wikipedia, and is recommended for materials that would benefit from incorporating content from Wikipedia and similarly licensed projects.

The Best CC License that suits my purpose and will apply to all the videos/music I create. Read the explanation here: tohatoha.org.nz/licences.

I'm still not convinced using BitChute to showcase my video's. The resulting 480p viewing experience while just passable on  mobile phones, is really disappointing on desktop/laptop monitors.

I've just noticed https://www.minds.com now allow media uploading including videos so a little experiment seems to be in order here. It's a shame blogger doesn't allow a player view of videos originating from minds.com.



Now the player on minds.com suggests it plays back at 720p, I'm not convinced on this either. Finding an alternative to YouTube who offers 4K uploads will probably never happen.

Tuesday 22 May 2018

Mssnowhite: An Amazing Twitch Stream


I used to post Youtube videos by other content creators and haven't got around to continuing the practice since I've restarted blogging, until now. And the best way to start, is with a happy, feel good, type video.


All started with a channel raid by this guy, TimTheTatman!


The Walt Disney Motivational Video!

These last 2 videos were shown in the stream and deserve a mention on there own. The 4 hour 30min video was very entertaining for me, just amazing.

A Twitch Success Story

Monday 21 May 2018

Steepshot & Steemit



As you can see I have become active on:-
- Steepshot, this is an alternative to Instagram.
- Steemit is a Blogging platform that I have already been with but never used.

These 2 work together, ie in order to use steepshot you must already be signed up to steemit.

If you upload an image file to SteepShot, on Steemit adds this image and any comments you make onto the Steemit Blog. Which is super handy.

Does hot linking from SteepShot work ?
- if I put the steepshot link into another app/program with it display image

WhatsApp: NO
- just displays the URL

Twitter: YES

Discord: NO

Blogger.com: NO

- shame

Thoughts:

The big question that now comes to mind, do I need another Blogging Platform ? Should I stay with blogger.com and move completely over to Steemit. My future plans is to use neither, I'm in the process on running a Wordpress blog on a paid webhost server.

As for SteepShot, I'll keep using it for a while. I have no idea what CryptoCurrency is and that really doesn't bother me at all.

Friday 18 May 2018

Cutting and Merging 2 Clips in Bash

Lets say you have a prank compilation and you only want to keep 2 specific cuts.

1 Cutting Clip
ffmpeg -ss <start time> -i original.mp4 -to <duration in seconds> cut.mp4
example: ffmpeg -ss 00:03:02 -i original.mp4 -to 0:33 cut.mp4

2 Merge
mencoder file1.mp4 file2.mp4 -ovc copy -oac pcm  -o merged.mp4


Both cuts need to be taken from the same original video

Opochtli is Now Being Streamed Live on Twitch


I wasn't to sure if this would work being a text only game, when streamed as a 720p video until I actually found a great font that works well. I think having a 60fps upload makes the text a lot more clearer.

Learning how to use OBS Studio and creating a Twitch Overlay with Gimp was a great creative learning experience.

If you ever see me on Aardwolf, it's also streamed live to Twitch

I doubt I'll get any followers as Aardwolf is not an exciting game to watch.

Thoughts:

Looking through what people stream on Twitch, there are some streamers that do IRL streams which really brings up some very important ideas I have planned for the future.

Wednesday 16 May 2018

Discord & Twitch, What Are These & Can I Use Them ?


Twitch:
So yesterday I installed Twitch, why ? well not really sure but my grandson said he streams on Twitch. And now that it's installed he won't give me his Stream name, which is probably a good thing, I'd hate to see him play because I don't want to see my angelic wonderful grandson turn into a demon right on my monitor.


In the mean time I get to learn what Twitch is, how to buy BITS (not sure what this does but I can cheer streamers with it) example - cheer10 hello. For the curious it costs $2.50NZ for 100 bits.


Thoughts:
I think I can use this platform, not to stream games but to stream me constructing various stages of electronic projects. It may be possible to complete a whole project, I've seen some streamers go well over 5 hours in 1 session. To make this work it would have to be done on a strict schedule; ie 1 stream a week.

Discord:
This one I am really excited about. Long before the WWW era, I lived my life online in the age of IRC, and this Discord claims to be similar. I was extremely pleased this works with Linux Mint and if you've ever had a IRC server with a Channel BOT, you can see how similar discord is.


This image shows the main program running on Linux Mint, briefly create your own channels, user roles etc etc. I've even added a free BOT from



I'm still fine tuning this and fast track learning how to use the setup and so far, I'm impressed. As you can see I've added the Discord widget onto my blog, which displays who's currently online on my Discord Server.

Just in case you haven't noticed, my handle on these platforms is JustABlokeNZ

Thoughts:
Really excited about this!

Saturday 12 May 2018

USO Fresh Ride, Destination Pukerua Bay, Didn't Make it.




One of our worst group rides to date, 1 dropped chain, 2 tube replacements, 2 tire wall failures (1 was mine as seen in attached photo) and with the possibility of heavy rain, there was only 5 of us on this ride. In fact it turned to be a nice ride, cloudy, very little wind and no rain.

Due to the mechanical faults we cut our ride short.



Thursday 3 May 2018

Aardwolf: Back into the fray!



It's been a while and I'm still amazed how well I can complete quests! There are some new areas and a new feature which suits me really well OPK (open player kill). With my current build I doubt anyone would be silly enough to attack me.

Todays blessing gave me a bonus instinct in knife fighting, useful for my character.


 Instinct Notes:

* In almost all cases, the over 100% bonus is not a direct percentage. 
  It is also on a curve with diminishing returns. 
  (For example, 100 points of instinct might add a 20% bonus damage,
  while 200 points adds 30% total.)

* Instinct is remembered across tiers and remorts; you only ever have to
  buy it once.

* Instinct is only useful in an ability that you can actually use.
  It is not a way to have access to skills usually unavailable.  If you
  lose access to a skill because you tiered or changed class, your
  instinct amount is still remembered and will become active whenever
  you have that skill available again.

* Instinct is not used on spells cast from objects- only when cast
  naturally or when equipment grants an effect (like Haste effect from
  Aardwolf Boots).

* Instinct can provide a bonus for either spells or equipment that
  give a certain effect. For example, both the Aardwolf Boots of
  Speed and the Accelerate spell provide the haste effect, and both
  benefit equally from instinct in Haste. In the case of the Boots of
  Speed, a player is treated as if they have 100% skill level in Haste
  while the boots are equipped, and instinct gives bonuses accordingly.

  The same applies to sanctuary, dual wield, and protection good/evil.

* The max instinct you can gain in a single ability is 200.

* Only trains gained since your last rebuild may be used on instinct
  (see 'help instinct-trains').

* You can 'rebuild' instinct in either a single skill or all at once.
  There is a rebuild cost of 2% of the gold/trains put into instinct, with
  a max cost of 5000 trains / 50m gold when using the "all" option. The
  gold and trains returned from an instinct rebuilding are considered
  deposited and can only be used on instinct.

Saturday 28 April 2018

USO Fresh Ride Eastbourne

Another enjoyable ride, I'm well used to going down this route. There are some places where the road doesn't allow a car and a cycle to be side by side, luckily most drivers are patient and give us preference until they can pass safely.

As you will see in the video, my nick name has been determined - Tarantino. I'm just grateful it wasn't Dumbledore or Gandalf.

Wednesday 25 April 2018

Snow in Wainuiomata ?

Clearing out some hard drive space I came across this small video. I have no idea what I used to create this, most likely a mobile phone so the quality is poor. Still it's proof that strange things can happen and I thought I'd upload it anyway :-)

Sunday Ride Whitemans Valley

All night it rained and Sunday morning it was a hit and miss whether to go out on a Cycle Ynui so we canceled it. Typically as the day progressed, the clouds disappear, the wind drops, so mid-day Iha and myself decided to ride into Wellington city. Invited a few people to come along at short notice so when we parked at the Woburn Railway Station we realized it was only going to be the 2 of us.

It was at this point I decided we should try Whitemans Valley, Upper Hutt. Neither of us have ever cycled over there and it is a favorite training route of my brother (who rides the Taupo Challenge). So we rode up to his place in Trentham and he gave us advice on which starting route to start out with.

Up and over Walliceville Hill, turn right at the intersection, straight on until we hit Blue Mountains Rd on the right, over the hill then into Pinehaven, Silverstream.


Really enjoyed this ride, somehow I need to work this into a regular routine, maybe do it once a month. Going up Walliceville Hill was a brilliant hill climb workout, not too steep but a good manageable distance I reckon USO Fresh could handle (possibly). Going down Blue Mountains Rd is a different matter LoL steep, long and windy. Feathering the breaks is a must and I doubt I would even attempt this if there was any sign of moisture on the road. Interesting enough, we saw a lot of cyclists going up this way, I know I'm not quite ready for that yet. Chances are the USO elite ride up here on a weekly basis.

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USO Fresh Ride Eastbourne

Another enjoyable ride, I'm well used to going down this route. There are some places where the road doesn't allow a car and a cyc...