Traditional Sailorly Arts

While I’ve been studying at the AMC, I’ve had a little bit of free time to work on some of my own things. This bottle was one of them.

The top section is needle hitching with a waxed whipping twine. Then a section of some hitching running the other way (I don’t have all the books here and I forget the exact name). Then a turk’s head, a few tripled carrick bends and another turk’s head.

I’m a little disappointed that the lower turk’s head crowded out the carrick bends, but that’s okay. Something to keep in mind for next time.

Why build the mechanism if every policy sucks?

So. The new Simcity came out, with always-online DRM (digital restrictions that only allow you to play if you’re online). EA claimed that a constant Internet connection was necessary so clients could offload computations to EA’s servers. Except that it’s a total bald-faced lie.

AMC

Since I’ve nearly finished the Master 5 course, it’s probably about time I put up a few words about the AMC. Even though the course is technically run by UTAS, it’s such a different environment to my undergrad at ANU.

The course covers so many different topics, and they’re mostly orthogonal to each other but all of them are important. We’ve done fire-fighting, first aid, survival at sea, radio, ropework, navigation, rules of the road (so to speak), cargo lashing, lifting gear, refuelling, pollution prevention, work at heights, towing, tide calculations, legislation, light-range calculations, simulator training and damage control. Damage. Control. The highlight of the course.