Navigation???????

[bkilbour]

Okay, so I'm off of deployment and leave, and I had an intense compunction to relate to y'all some fun facts on nautical navigation... yeah.

Okay, so the American Practical Navigator (also known as Bowditch after its author) is the Big Book of Seafaring for those who want to learn everything from celestial to radar navigation, covers both the IALA A and B bouyage systems, and makes sure that the mariner has a good working knowledge of the lights and shapes one sees at night from other ships and bouys.
...but it's 475 pages long, and bigger in size than Akira. For a simpler version, I recommend Dutton's, which is something of a beginner's Bowditch.

Did you know that there is a traffic system for the high seas? DID YOU!?!??? It's called the Nautical Rules of the Road, put out by the Coast Guard, but accepted by the U.N. as the authoritative system for the open ocean and inland/river/lake travel. It contains all of the info one would ever want on fog signals, mandatory maneuvers, bells, whistles, and what exactly one should do when one notes a "power-driven vessel constrained by her draft." If you own a small boat, or hang around harbors, this is almost 100% necessary before you get your license.

There are three kinds of compasses one can use; Magnetic compasses (pointing to magnetic north), mechanical compasses, and gyro compasses. The Ohio, where I work, uses a mk27 gyro compass, which was originally intended for the Army's tanks, to gain info on heading, but that's a backup to our RLGN (Ring Laser Gyro Navigation) modules which act like a 3-D version of the Mk 27.

um,.....what else.... the essence of a good fix is the bearing to each Navigational Aid - a near-perfect fix being one which uses three aids at 120 degrees apart from one another. The same can be achieved through radar, but is less reliable is one lacks a good return on the radar.

Okay, so I'm using waaaayyyy too much jargon here. I guess the point was to say hi to all my friends and folks here on CAA, and see what was up.
What's up? What's new? Is there a good way to get back into the thick of things around this here site? Message me is there's something I can help ya with and with prayer requests, please!!!

wuv,
Blake

[MomentOfInertia]

Good to hear from you again.

That's neat, I'm tempted to see if I can find one of those books to read, not that I'd have much use for the info, but it could be an interesting read. And a new subject to nitpick TV and Hollywood on. XD

What's up with the picture? you didn't mention it.

[bkilbour]

Thanks!
The books can be found online in PDF I get most of it from copies we have in the office, but Google/Wikipedia have the same resources for your compy.

Oh, the pic? Just a random photo I found. We take a lot of historical pride in what subs did in WWII, and I was lucky enough to find some manga-pics that had the same boats in mecha-fashion.

[Dante]

//NAVIGATION! Who said NaViGatIOn?! O_o

try
{
[INDENT]Hashtable dataValueHashtable = new Hashtable();
XDocument problemData;
problemData.Load("problems.xml");

XPathNavigator xPathNav;
XpathNodeIterator xPathNodes;
string strExpr;

problemData.Save("temp.xml");
xPathDocument xPathDoc = new XPathDocument("temp.xml");
xPathNav = xPathDoc.CreateNavigator();

strExpr = "problems/problem[@ID='" + SolutionList.SelectedItem.ToString() + "']/description";
xPathNodeIter = xPathNav.Select(strExpr);
xPathNodeIter.MoveNext();
dataValueHashtable.Add("DESCRIPTION", xPathNodeIter.Current.Value.ToSting());[/INDENT]
}
catch(EpicFailException EF_ERR)
{
[INDENT]Messagebox.Show("It's the end of the world!!!");[/INDENT]
}

/*Sorry ^_^' I've just been going crazy with learning XML XPath, the DOM and various stuff from LINQ and navigating through XML documents has been one of the things driving me straight up a wall (several hours of debugging for one problem). Needless to say, craziness - I did not know that about the ocean though, that's really cool!*/

[bkilbour]

XML???? I'm barely able to enter stuff in my command prompt!
Makes going through the ocean look a lot more... fluid....pun intended.

is the programming learning for college?

[Lynna]

Ah! Navigation! I've always wanted to learn navigation the old way, with a sextant and the stars and stuff. Some of my family learned navigation before we went sailing on the ocean, but it always seems more complicated when you're not THERE. we also ended up using the GPS a lot. We have these plastic thingies that tell us the rules of sea-traffic, but they're not that hard. Especially because we're a wind-powered vessel, so motar boats have to give way to us.
Anyways, good to see you again!

[bkilbour]

GPS is good, but the satellites are unreliable, and it doesn't work submerged (unless at certain depths...).
Celestial navigation is the bomb - it may be broad, but the stars don't lie and don't change.

Where did y'all and y'all's family sail to?

[TheMewster]

Dude, who needs that kinda navigation? While it's nice, it's not a need. But there is one kind of Navigation... *breaks out into singing VBS songs*

The B-I-B-L-E!
Yes that's the book for me!
I'll read and study and obey
The B-I-B-L-E!

[Warrior 4 Jesus]

The Mewster, the Bible is great but I don't think it's going to help navigate at sea. You take some things much too seriously.

Blake, good to hear from you, mate! I don't understand much of what you posted but it sounds like you're working hard and doing a good job. Well done!

[Davidizer13]

GPS is good, but the satellites are unreliable, and it doesn't work submerged (unless at certain depths...).

Yep, geology camp taught me all about GPS. If a good cliff face or tree branches, or even a bad battery, can mess up your reception, I can't imagine what a couple thousand feet of water would do. And at least we had topographic maps to kind of know where we were from land features, and we were bound to the land surface instead of having to move around in 3 dimensions. Out in the open water, though...

Hey, wait a minute, how do you use celestial navigation underwater - do you have to be within a certain depth from the surface so you can use the periscope, or is there something else you're doing?

Anyway, glad to hear you're still doing all right! Thanks for serving in the military, especially in something like the Navy - Lord knows I couldn't handle life on a submarine.

[Rusty Claymore]

So if I join the Navy I can get her number? XP

[bkilbour]

@mewster- yes. The Bible is the most important. I concede that

@Warrior - DUDEIT'SGOODTOHEARFROMYOUPMMEWHENYACAN!!! What's new in your neck of the woods?

@davidzier - we use the periscope to take Azimuths (that is, angles and height above the horizon) of certain celestial bodies, namely Polaris, the sun, and the moon.
Also, we have a program that acts as an almanac should we ever need to use other constellations.

@rusty.... uh... whose number? I mean, I can give you my number, if you want, but um.... I don't think you'd appreciate it as much as a gal's....

[Rusty Claymore]

Haha, I was refering to the pic you attatched. XP My family line runs in the airforce though. XD

[MomentOfInertia]

So if I join the Navy I can get her number? XP

Made my day, this comment did. XD

[Dante]

XML???? I'm barely able to enter stuff in my command prompt!
Makes going through the ocean look a lot more... fluid....pun intended.

is the programming learning for college?

Nah - no more college for me. I can learn, but I'm doing it on my own. I'm picking this stuff up so I can get a job in programming. The more I learn, the better. The last couple of weeks have seen my programming abilities vastly increase.

[Lynna]

GPS is good, but the satellites are unreliable, and it doesn't work submerged (unless at certain depths...).
Celestial navigation is the bomb - it may be broad, but the stars don't lie and don't change.

Where did y'all and y'all's family sail to?

Well, I guess it's a good thing our sailboat didn't submerge XD
We sailed Around the San Juan Islands for three weeks. It was very fun, and the islands are very beautiful. It's kind of cramped to have 4 people in a 26 ft boat, though.

[bkilbour]

San Juan? I suppose I oughta know where that is... that near the carribean?