swim related stuff
so i went to bed at about 3am last night, waking up in the middle of the night (ok. probably about 4 or 5am, so early morning) sweating like a dog in the heat of summer. and no, the air-conditioner was not spoilt. i think i must still have that fever or something.anyway, i got woken up just before 7am again, this time, courtesy of my beloved dog, Finn. he wanted attention. and then Belle joined him (will not go into details), and i lost. 2 against one, no chance at all. woke with this fucking headache to match the weather outside. (thunder, thunder, thunder!)
to the real point of this post - i was shopping for NAB's present and came across this watch. i guess it would be nice to have one to track my swimming progress. yesterday's 20 laps was slowish. must have been at least 28mins. but see, if i have this watch, (ah-ha!) i can then be certain of the time taken!
but hang on a minute, wouldn't any watch be able to do that?! doh! but this one tracks total strokes and average stroke per lap. and it has a calorie counter. ok. i have not figured out how knowing the total number of strokes is going to be beneficial to me, but i guess its all about the efficiency (is there a better word??) of each stroke and minimising wasted movement, wasted energy of each stroke. getting the best out of your strokes. (hell, this is sounding less and less like swimming and more like ahem! you know what lah. i wonder what happens if someone uses this watch whilst ahem! - damn. some things should not be thought aloud.)
Aaanyway, there is also this cool MP3 player that "uses bone conduction - the direct transfer of sound vibrations from the cheek bone to the inner ear - to provide the swimmer with exceptional sound clarity". Wonderful!!! except that it kinda looks stupid being attached to the back of the head like that.
and this "treadmill" pool. nice idea, but i might possibly be as bored as using the treadmill or cycling machine at the gym. to make this really work, use the SwiMP3 whilst swimming in it!
posted by 儒 @ 00:56
4 Comments:
Treadmill pool!?! Cannot lah, swim forever and never touch the edge of the pool!?! That's just about what keeps me going - counting laps. 18, 19, 20...done! time to go sit in the sun instead.
j and i have always wondered why swimming pools cannot pipe in some music underwater...(some physics thing?) but of course, i'm sure we'll hate it if they actually start doing so. i remember every monday evening there'll be "water aerobics" classes at this public pool, and the teacher would blast Belinda Carlisle & Mariah Carey (aargh!) from her portable player. Imagine having to swim with that. lucky, i have ear plugs.
One reason that underwater sound may not be so feasible - in a pool or indeed the sea - is that sound travels faster in water than air (1.435 km/s as opposed to approx 285 m/s). The nature of the medium means that the sound signal becomes delayed, distorted and weakened, reflecting on the boundaries of the water's underside surface, bottom and shores, bubbles, and suspended particles (including your fellow swimmers). All in all this creates a sub-optimal environment in which music becomes noise dominated by low frequency bass sounds (which are longer waves and thus travel further/maintain better fidelity) rather than high frequency trebles.
Hence the lack of piped music.
a comment in typical NAB fashion. :-)
So music with heavy bass would work best underwater? Hmm, sounds like disco for dolphins.
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