Name: violinist, Matt

Location: Colorado

Age: mid-20s

Current preoccupation: fitness - I'm losing weight, training for my 2nd ever half-marathon, and trying to rock climb better

Previous preoccupations: fountain pens, games (computer & board), playing violin, mathematics, cryptography

I'm currently reading "The Idea of America" by Gordon Wood - trying to lose myself in a book again, as too often I default to digital inputs, but I overall am happier when reading books is a part of my life.

I've done somewhere between 505 and 510 miles, depending on which source you believe (the sign at Cascade Locks says 507 miles to Canada, while the GPS track I used says it's 505 miles).

I actually strongly recommend staying in your head somewhat longer than is strictly comfortable. I found that my brain dredged up a number of things from the past for processing, which I think is pretty valuable. Time for the brain to work without external inputs is more and more rare in today's world, and backpacking is a rare opportunity to unplug. Really, for trips less than a week I probably would recommend even leaving behind podcasts and music, but just letting yourself disconnect.

I've thought about using Esbit or some other "minimalist stove" system like Alcohol or HEET. One downside to those systems specific to the PCT is that they are explicitly disallowed in firebans, which are quite common in all three states of the PCT. I have a BushBuddy wood burning stove which I considered bringing, but fire bans were a damper on that idea. I think I'm content with a canister stove for now, I can just get a lighter one than my JetBoil.

I've done quite a bit of hiking before, but this was my first backpacking trip over a week. I did a lot of hiking and camping in high school, and led a lot of trips as a leader in my college's outing club. So I've been pretty comfortable in the outdoors for a number of years. And yes, I try to hike a fair bit—every few weeks at least, preferably at least once a week during the summer.

Solitude is great, and for a weekend, I'm all in favor of just enjoying the solitude. But yeah, after a week it gets old.

The permit is not technically necessary. You can hike the trail by obtaining a permit from each of the wilderness areas and permit-required areas that the trail passes through. The free permit just makes it simpler by not having to apply for a separate permit for each jurisdiction.

Those are Beargrass, scientific name Xerophyllum tenax. I forgot to share, but I also made a Google Photos album of a not-quite-exhaustive collection of flowers I saw. https://goo.gl/photos/G2VifCyX9TZYErTd9

This is incredible. It is hard to know how to recommend it to people though, because knowing anything about it makes it less effective. I think I settled on just saying, “ you should read this, I won’t spoil anything for you.”

I started using Instapaper and/or Pocket to send #goodlongreads to my Kindle because I knew I didn't stand a hope's chance of reading them at my Desktop.

I had this set up at some point in the past, and I should set it up again. It was a pretty good system.

I bought a Kindle 3rd generation forever ago (the one with the keyboard). I got the 3G model, which had free internet all over the world through the experimental web browser, with no contract. I got some good use out of the kindle sometimes when it was the only internet I had. (This was before I had a smartphone.)

I broke it a few times. The first time I dropped a belt directly on the screen, cracking the screen. Amazon replaced it for free! A while later it was in my backpack and got the screen crushed amidst the heavy textbooks. This time they replaced it with a Kindle Paperwhite, which I’ve had ever since. I’m pretty sure their reasoning was to remove the 3G web browser.

I used to do quite a bit of reading on it, but I’ve found myself reading less and less on my Kindle. I think my attention to reading is less constant with a device with a screen than it is a physical book. It’s not nearly as bad as trying to read something long form on my computer or an iPad - that’s pretty much hopeless. I think it’s because my brain knows that there is so much other content immediately available, so I have a harder time concentrating deeply on what I’m reading.

I'm a bit late to the conversation it'd seem.

I still have plans to write up a trip report of my experience on the PCT Washington section (about 500 miles, hiked in just over 3 weeks). Being back in civilization has been weird—having regular and easy access to the internet has made time wasting a lot easier, plus I have a lot more productive things I want to be doing, which my brain isn't used to.

I bought a Nintendo 64 since getting back home. At the moment I just have 4 games for it: Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time; Super Mario 64; Super Smash Bros; and MarioKart. Having never played Ocarina of Time before, I can see why it's so highly regarded. I played Zelda Twilight Princess on the Wii a few years ago, and even though Ocarina of Time has vastly inferior graphics, I still like it better than Twilight Princess. I didn't have a Nintendo 64 growing up, but my cousins did and we'd play whenever we visited, so it is nonetheless a very nostalgic experience for me. I've been spending a fair amount of time playing Ocarina of Time. I plan to finish the game before starting Super Mario 64.

There's still some more adjusting to do to fully be back in "civilization mode". I haven't fully unpacked and cleaned my gear from my backpacking, so it's making my room fairly dirty. Hopefully tomorrow I'll get to a) finish cleaning and putting away my gear, b) categorize and make photo albums of my trip, and c) post a trip report to Hubski. I'll get there eventually—perhaps tomorrow is that eventuality.

Will do!

Good on you, that trip looks like both a lot of fun and pretty exhausting! A few questions- Hubski regulars may already know some of the answers, so forgive me if I ask things you’ve already answered somewhere else.

How many miles of “rucking” did you do most days? How big was the group? When you didn’t build a hooch, did you sleep in a bivy, in a sleeping bag, or just out in the open? How many in your group?

And a couple of general questions. What are you studying at Westpoint? Is it a general study track for becoming an officer, or something specific like pre-medic or engineering? Pardon my ignorance, I don’t really know how it works there.

And good for you being finished with the trip - sounds like it’s a relief to be back in the front country.

If you’re looking for a lightweight 1 person tent, I highly recommend the TarpTent Notch. I used it on my section hike of the PCT Washington section (traveling home from that right now), and it was fantastic. Full trip report to follow once I get home, sort through pictures, and have an actual computer keyboard to type on.

I’m not quite sure what you mean by “devoid of causality”, but I’m in agreement that this article is clickbait. I found it a helpful reminder though.

I can now see the post button. Thank you, that seems to have done the trick! I won’t get to it tonight, but I’ll write up the promised trip report once I get back home.

I’m a bit confused by how the new system with promotion affects submission ability. For instance, I’ve had my account for several years, and wanted to share something (my first post!) but can’t find a way to do so. I suppose this means I haven’t been promoted yet. I’ve been on the Pacific Crest Trail in Washington state for the last few weeks, and I’d like to make a trip report for Hubski. Or am I just missing the submit link somewhere?

I’ve been listening to Wintergatan. Their video of the Marble Machine went viral on YouTube several years ago, but their album is also excellent. I’d put it roughly in the genre of electronic folk. But have very little confidence in that classification.

To the contrary of many of the commenters who found this piece overly dramatic or crazy, I found that it largely matches my experience. I am a new college-graduate this year, so I’ve had ample opportunity to observe my peers and those slightly younger in their interactions with technology. I found that this piece rung true with my experience and observations.

Two points hit close to home for my personal experience as a human. First, the passage about constant attachment to the phone, using it until sleep at night and first thing in the morning, felt like it was describing me and most of my friends. Second, the passage about ignoring those who are physically present in favor of an electronic device describes almost perfectly the behavior of my younger sister (rising sophomore in college).

I disagree with the bulk of commenters here who dismissed the piece as mere clickbait. Yes, the style of the headline and article tone was that of clickbait. But it almost self-consciously pointed out that the point of generational analysis should not be to make value judgement, but rather to observe characteristics. And I think that at its core it did make a valuable observation about the current generation, and even if the piece itself ought not make value judgments about generational behavioral trends, its observation can act as a springboard for self reflection. At times I wonder if the trade off I’ve made by using a smartphone improves my life on balance. Avoiding the pitfalls of constant connectedness requires mindfulness, and I think pieces like this can inspire it.

I've enjoyed it a ton! I'm actually doing an internship this summer at a little startup, doing embedded Linux software to control a generator. It's been fun and has kinda made me wonder whether I want to do more electrical things, not just computer.

I'd definitely encourage you to get an internship in engineering one of these summers. I can't say that getting a job without any connections is especially easy, as I got my internship through networking, but it definitely is possible.

Like you mentioned in your top-level comment, I'm really excited for autumn to roll around so I can get back to classes.

I hope so. I agree that are heading that way, but don't think we're terribly close to reaching it.

I actually agree with you on a macro scale - I think humanity will adapt just fine to survive.

> Society isn't stupid

I don't agree. History is filled with examples of societies that failed to adapt to changing circumstances and died out. There are also examples of standards of living and education going down as conditions change. While I agree with you that humanity as a species will be just fine, global warming very well may cause some large changes to the social order.

What sort of engineering? I'm studying computer engineering myself, just entering my fourth (and last) year of undergrad.

The reason for this is that the 2.91 installer doesn't contain the malware (it's a clean version), but the 2.92 installer also contains a tool that removes the malware if it was already there.

Sort of. Google bought DeepMind, the British company which has since turned into a Google team which developed AlphaGo. However, I think the team is still run somewhat independently, at least to the extent that the founders of DeepMind seem to be heading the team. I'm not sure how the rearrangement of Google's holdings into separate holdings owned by the holding company Alphabet worked with DeepMind.

Go America! (But really, at this point, it's more like Team Human vs Team AI—if Lee Sedol loses all 5 games, it'll probably spell the beginning of the end of humans being able to play competitively against computers.

Beach House - Devotion.

Emancipator - Seven Seas.

TOPS - Picture you staring.

This is a sobering article. And there's not really an end in sight to the "war on terror", since it cannot actually be won. I fear for the nation, especially since it is a point of doctrine among the current majority party that the choice to engage in warfare in the middle east was the absolute correct decision.

Totally fine by me - I won't get to it till tonight at the earliest. Make sure you use the version from rezzeJ

You want to go first or me? You're string bass, right?

It has really open harmonization, which gives it a very distinctive sound—I'd almost call it ringy, but that isn't quite right. I'll see what I can do that adds a few layers without muddying up the clean harmonies.

I was wanting to not clutter the track too much — I have a tendency to just improvise throughout a song, but it turns out better if I just add lines where I hear a specific line.

In future I'll add more, since you've said it makes you want more.

I definitely agree that the speed they did it would be too much for me. However, if you hike similar amounts regularly, I think you could easily start with a 10-mile day. I probably would plan with starting at about 7 miles a day, then ramping up to a final pace of 15 or so miles per day.

So this took me a really long time to actually get to, but I added some violin parts. I also exported both the full version and a version with only the violin, in case someone else has made a version since I downloaded the song.

Sorry about the lousy recording quality—I'm just recording on the built-in mike from my MacBook Air.

Here's the full version:

And here's the violin only version:

thenewgreen guthrie ll_drool_j Formerly_Me balkansk OftenBen