scubapro xTender ... something like a review

when fishing the net to buy a divecomputer, one of the things that i found it lacking was reviews for the scubapro xTender.

thus, i decided i'd write one, as soon as i had anything to write about.


so, here are some general impressions:

the package arrived in a black plastic case, that looked good but was a bit shaky. it was well protected inside thow ...

the thing has six main screens:
date/time
alarm
dual time (that's "displaying another time zone" for the uninitiated)
plan
log
and profile.
(or, since i received the manual in italian and i'm picky about it: modalità orologio, funzione sveglia, modalità secondo fuso orario, planificatore immersioni, modalità logbook and modalità profilo d'imersione).

also, a thing that you don't get when you see the pictures on the net: this computer is preety big! i mean, all pictures showed you the computer, but none of them showed it on the hand; here you go:

---

the alarms ... well ... i don't know much about them since i didn't do anything stupid with it ( like rush to the surface :) ), but the're definitely audible: i had set the alarm to signal every exact hour, and you can definitely hear it while uw.


also, the computer starts recording your profile only once you get under 1.5m depth;
while this stops it from turning every shower you get into a dive, it also records your dives as a bit shorter than they really are (like 44 minutes instead of the 51 a friend of mine had after one of the dives). but i don't feel this as being overly important;


one minor annoyance i had was that the wet-sensor is a bit ... sensitive?
i went snorkelling yesterday, with two results:

first, the computer remained blocked in dive mode untill i managed to clean it better. I figure it's the salt from sea-water drying on the sensor ... i figure this could have been prevented by having two separate sensors and correlating the results (althow i'm not an authority in this, so it's just a thought).

second, while i was snorkeling i kept going down 3 to five mettres to take some fishy pitures (so to speak); after that the xtender said i did two more dives during that time: one at 2.1 metres, and one at 3 ... something.

strange that!



I did two dives with it, both easy, above 7m;

the screen is very easy to read; during dives it gives you current depth, water temperature, dive time and all that.
they're plenty visible and the back-light makes everything more visible in lower lighting.


overall i'm very pleased with it, and the ultimate criteria used in buying anything was satisfied: it looks good! :o) (actually i'm lying: the ultimate criteria was having something reliable that would be easy to use and could pass as a watch to the uninitiated; that was satisfied too).


for any questions on it and it's performance, feel free to drop me a message.

Edit: I have added a short update to this review, with impressions of the computer after a year or so of use.

happy diving,
utnapistim

random update

i'm in office;

it was like this: i woke up at six ... something, started my computer ... and started reading harry potter and the half-blod prince;

that was till 8 or something like that.


then, i woke up, had a shower, and came in office.

it's been a long day (more or less) full of events, and at the moment i don't feel like doing anything (althow i'm a bit behind schedule and will have to come here on sunday), so i figured it's time for another random update post.


let's see:
today i got my mail order for a pack of five bracelets "i am part of the change" (i'm wearing one as i write this, and gave one to a friend)

i also received a Parker pen for my contribution to our project ... again :).

and, i also progressed with my code, but had an otherwise boring day.



tomorrow i'm going diving again; that's the plan anyway. i might not get a ride today, so that means abusing the bus again.

but i got the salary, so it's not a problem.

Hasta mañana

("see you tomorrow in Spanish)

and the answer is ... 42

i thought the ultimate answer was 42

thus, i have created an account on 43 Things. it's like 42 plus a spare methinks


have a safe and productive day
(half life, the computer voice)

on being versus doing

someone said at some point that

politics is spirituality demonstrated.

. maybe ...

but i feel that doing is spirituality, demonstrated; or, if you will, doing is being, expressed (when you do something, you are expressing what you are ... being).

and at the moment i'm tired; it's of my own making; i know that (yesterday i stayed till 3 o'clock in the morning, reading again).

but when i'm in this mood, i'm usually choosing a strive for simplicity for myself. maybe i'm just choosing what makes me confortable since i'm allready tired; that is ...

... simple food (i had rice and grilled salmon, no salad, simple water to dring and so on) ...

... and simple clothing (i'd wear simple, black or white, loose sshirts right now, if i had any with me) ...

... and nothing i don't really need ...


well ... anyway!
what i'm trying to say here is that while looking at the small, everyday choices it makes it easy to see where you are ... spiritually.

i can see where i'm coming from (if you will) with knowing i'll be tired the next day and still staying half the night to read;

... and with knowing i have to give money back and still borrowing some more so that i can get to buy what i'm craving for (like scuba equipment);

... and also with going to dive (almost) every weekend;

... and with reading net tutorials on taking better pictures;

... and with trying at some point to cook fried rice ... and succeeding (i'm stil proud of that accomplishment by the way).


looking around myself, i get this concept that i'm going for everything i want (well ... for some things faster than others), while spending more money than i sometimes have, and still making ends meet ... with no effort on my part; and while i know that my friends have cars and i don't, i also know that i said (from the beginning) that i didn't want to get one;


i'm living my choices ... and sometimes i'm living my dreams ... (maybe it's because i'm choosing my dreams to live up to ... who knows?)
... and it's a wonderfull state ... that of being successfull ...
... and a happy thought ... of knowing that ...

---

after all that, i can say i was successfull last night in getting myself tired today :D


good luck with your choices,
utnapistim
(proudly living his choices since 1979)

the good old days ...

i've been on a roll today ... in the java debugger.

at the moment i'm in the process of writing tests for some business functionality module. and it's a tedious process: set up some inputs, run, see it doesn't work. then, spen another hour or two, finding out why.

after finding why it didn't work, decide: is it your fault, or a problem with the business logic? depending on what you find out, that means either contact the developer, or adjust the inputs and spend some more quality time with the eclipse debugging interface.


then, when you finish the whole cycle, rinse and repeat.


i've had enought of a break: i'm returning to the debugger.


may your code be clear and your nights bugs-free!
amen!

Guide to Lock Picking

Guide to Lock Picking

feeling of purpose

this post is about my complex, multifaceted personality.

no, really!

and ofcourse, something that makes a personality complex, is varied past experience (well ... except a bottle of chamapgne before and strawberries after - but that's a story for another time).

so ... one of the things i've been missing for years has been this i'm-doing-the-right-thing feeling.

i haven't felt it since ... well ... since i was attempting to learn/practice yoga (hence my varied experience comment :|)

it's a feeling of doing the right thing ... bot not in a moral way ... not righteousness per se (because i'm not a moral person ... ask any of my past relationships if you want a moutfull on the subject :D).

it's just deciding on a purpose and following through. it's a feeling of higher purpose if you will.
... and it's not centered on doing anything in particular (just a living day-to-day thing).


so, all i can say to this feeling is welcome back!


i'm going to take a shower.

Asta saamal
("until tomorrow", said in Yucatec Maya)

out of the shower

it's close to 11 and i just got out of the shower.

i went earlyer to the sea with some of the guys and had a bath.

the water was warm, there was no wind and it's a full moon. it was ... cool?

anyway!
there's something ... without dimension in floating under the night sky. you're not on earth, but on a surface of water ... and ... weightless ...

... and i have no idea what i'm trying to convey here (all i know is i'm babling and sounding stupid; that's a clear sign for me to stop)


cheerios!

elastic enthusiastic

well ... this is fun!

i have a google pagerank

hey, i'm using firefox, with google toolbar. today, the toolbar showed me i have a pagerank (for the first time).

well ... i told you:

i'm the best!
i'm popular!
i'm smart!
i'm good!

i'm known worldwide! (well ... more or less :) ).


and by the way, i'm still in need of therapy.

now, more than ever.


as crazy as ever ...

your faithfully ...
utnapistim (kong of kingo ... or was it the other way around?)

the ... thing (what is that creature anyway?)

this one cracked me up!

for real!


(hey everybody, i'm cracked!)

the marine monster himself

bored

so ...


it's sunday ...


and evening ...


and i'm reading again. (and as i have nothing better to do i decided on some blogging).

yesterday was a full day ...

as i started doing lately, i took some friends to agia napa for diving.

that was cool.

after that we went to pizza hut (and all i have to say about that is greek delight pizza is nice).

and after that, we went to cape greko as the guys wanted to see it.

at cape greko i just stayed in the car .. and slept. (did my beauty sleep but it didn't work much: i'm as ugly as ever).


here are some random pictures:


victims

pipefish

---

anyway!

after we got home i discovered our cooking gas is gone (we=ll have to get some more tomorrow) and the internet connection was out.

so, i just took a shower and read ... and finished watching the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy which was fun.

almost fun! (i'd rather have stayed on the net but well ... )


anyway,
until we meet again!

on illusion

in the inner world there is no distinction between illusion and reality.

let me expand on that:

first, there is no objectivity
the next time someone asks you

let's be objective about this

send him/her to hell.

there is no way to determine what is so, except accept what you belive or know or see as what is so.

that is, take what's in your inner world, and accept it as reality (and the world will follow that)

i'm amazed by this: there are lots of people out-there looking for the truth (usually looking for the objective truth) when all they should do is decide their truth instead.

from this point of view, the whole samaddhi experience seems to be the act of stopping the search.


second, the outer world, is a manifestation of the inner one.

that means that if the inner-world is a place of not-enoughness, that's what you'll see manifested outside;
i've seen people who have money, but keep it in a drawer, without ever spending it (i mean ... they don't even have plans for it).
thus, they don't have it ... in effect;

if it's a place of humour, you'll be laughing all day, every day (and i've seen people like that too).

so, what about a world of need?
or a world of trust?
of freindship?
of communion?

you think about it!



i've read somewhere that

what you resist persists, what you look at, dissapears;

that's ...
putting it mildly?
oversimplifying?

whatever!




as you direct your attention to an idea or illusion in your inner world, you give it more ... form (and energy); thus, in effect, making it bigger.


THE MORE YOU DO THAT THE BIGGER IT GETS.


if you stay centered in your illusion, you are just that:

centered in it

that is, at the center of it, meaning you bring it all arround you ... and on big steps towards your outer reality, where it becomes manifested.


whatever your illusion is. whatever your ... vision is, it will become manifest.


the more you see something as unsormountable, the more you move towards the impossible.


it's not that if something seems hard to do you should convince yourself that it's easy!

by trying to convince yourself, you acknowledge at some level that there's something that you need convincing about - thus maintaining the very thing you're fighting to overcome.

it's that if something seems unsourmountable, you can just not belive in that; just direct your energy towards something else (like what's behind it ... for example) ... and the outer world will follow.

when something seems unsourmountable, the keyword there is seems.

A più tardi

some pictures from the weekend

here are three pictures from this weekend (from Agia Napa):

sunset


sea-caves


scorpion fish

where are you coming from?

one of the most important details on every human experience is this:

where are you coming from?

i'm not talking here about a physical location ... but there's that too;
and i'm not talking about past experience ... althow there's a lot of that too!

for the purpose of me being able to express where i'm coming from with this, let's call where someone's coming from, a place.


wether it's a place of compromises or a place of fear or intergity or trust or humor, we'll still call it a place.



it's like this:
sometimes, you're as prepaired as everybody else for something ... say ... professionally. you went through all that training, experience, courses, practice or ... whatever else!

and you know how to do something, and you do it well (along with everybody else who's doing it well). and that is not enough to tell you of your current experience.

because (for example) in my last working place i was earning half as much as my brother did.

yes, working in the same field.

now, one could argue that we were working at different companies, and it's true;

but that's not it

because if i'd have gone to an interview at his company, i'd have been offered a smaller salary than his; and i have more experience.

that is something depending on where we were both coming from - at an interview. and that's what i'm talking about.


it's easy: he was coming from a place of self-confidence while i was coming from a place of

can you hire me and give me money, because i don't know how good i am

that's all there is to it


let's take anther shoot at this:
one of the relatively new hypes on the net is that of virtual communities. you have lots of them.

and were you to create one more, it might just be one more; you get 10 users in it, who see nothing's ever happening there, and abandon the comunity. or, you make it work, (by ... i don't know ... magik?) and make it the next big thing;

like google did.


and it all depends on where you're coming from!


so,

where are you coming from?

in office on a sunday evening

i'm in office;

and nobody asked me to come; i did because i wanted to finish something.


boy! was i naive!


i mean, i'm half asleep, after i came here on my bike through the fourty degrees outside. and i cannot concentrate, i cannot think properly, and i'm too much asleep to leave.


well ... nobody made me come here, so i'm leaving ....


(finishing anything ... be damned!)

optical illusions and mind tricks

here's a website of nice optical illusions and well ... oufcourse! mind tricks!


enjoy!

something's going on

i mean ... in my life ... something's going on ... (allways).

for example, today i found out how a bowling ball with two eyes would look.

and the process was simple: raise your eyes, and stare at the mirror.


i'm talking about getting my head shaved by a friend this afternoon (thanks L, those were the most fun two hours since the dive this saturday!)


and, in another order of events, someone told me last week that my ... negative parts are not visible at the moment (well ... not in those words, but anyway!)


so, i thought about it and decided that the only thing that's keeping one from allways choosing the highest expression of self is ...


... suspence ...

well ...


nothing!


there's nothing keeping you from your best. i mean ofcourse, the "bad" is still there ... the ugly, the incomplete, the needy, the desperate ...

but so is the choice not to express that; and to express inspiration instead; and warmth; and completeness; and joy, and calm, and fullness.

may you allways walk with angels!
i allready am!
(the bald guy)

dive at the Vera K

this happened on saturday (but i was too busy - read lazy - to post this earlyer).


i got to paphos in a big hurry (i called taxi-service and they told me

be ready for the car in 10 minutes

and ofcourse that meant i got out in 12 minutes and waited another twenty in front of the building)

you've got to love cypriot organizing capabilities (but i'm not much better so i should just shut up :))


we were 12 divers, two of whom were just getting their OW certifficates.


and it was a cool, easy dive;

there was this stone arch that we went through



and something fishy going on:



here are some of the guys




and here are some pics of the wreck's cabin (the only intact part - if one can call that intact):







dive (more or less) technical data:
wreck of the Vera K
max depth: 11m
bottom time: will have to make a phone call to find out
safety stop: 3 minutes at 5 meters
water temperature: 26 Celsius
visibility: 25m +

i'm a lazy bloke

so ... what's utnapistim doing on a saturday morning?

nothing


i have a dive in paphos at 2 PM, and i shound start getting there around 12. but i haven't even taken a shower yet.


i have to pack, to fix my camera, to arrange for transport, to finish my watermellon (actually i'll do that in a sec :)).


and i just don't feel like it!


i'm a lazy bloke!
(and no, there's nothing wrong with it :))

i'm back in business

hey, i finally feel i'm back in business.

i mean ... last weekend i didn't go anywhere. and i kinda' felt i was low on money.

well ... not anymore!.



tomorrow i'm going to paphos to wet my new fins in cyprus' waters ;); it sounds like another trip to the vera k.

and on sunday i'm going to the waterpark. i haven't seen the waterpark in limassol, so i'm kind of happy about it.


may you all have as rich a weekend as i will!


utnapistim
-high on excitement