Thu, 20 Sep 2012
Hanwag Boots
Afters about 10 years, my Hanwag Alaska boots have disintegrated while I've been walking in the forest during this year's Svíčky. I will need a new boots. Which boots do you recommend, my dear lazyweb?
I have been satisfied with Alaska, and I have chosen them because the big part of the boot is made from one piece with only one seam i the back. However, the middle part of the sole has completely disintegrated. The consipration theory follows: I wonder whether it could be intentional from the manufacturer, in order to not allow their customers to use the product for more than 10 years. In my opinion it should be possible to find a material which lasts almost indefinitely. That said, from my previous experience the sole was the weakest part of all my previous boots in terms of endurance. So maybe it is perfectly OK to expect the boots to last only 10 years. What do you think?
4 replies for this story:
Andrej Šmigala wrote:
I have very similar (maybe even exactly the same) boots, i've had them for five years (of what I'd call moderate to heavy use) and I'm going to have to buy a new pair for the next year. There are two problems with them: 1) the soles are almost flat 2) there's a hole where the leather meets the rubber lining near my right foot's toe (this probably has something to do with the way I walk, since most of my right shoes die much sooner than their left companions :-). So I too believe the sole is the Achilles' heel of the shoe, but I'd still say getting 10 years out of walking boots is quite enough.
b42 wrote:
I'd try to ask at Hudy (or wherever you bought them) if it's possible to replace the soles. From what I was told, some boots are made so that their soles can be replaced when they wear down. The cost will probably be significantlylower than that of new boots.
Bobby wrote:
I had precisely the same ones and I think they are the best. Makub bought them, too, few years ago. I had used my pair quite heavily for I think nine years, one (left one?) torn apart in Slovenia two years ago. I tested and compared many models and decided for Hanwag Alaska again.
Yenya wrote:
Thanks, everybody. As for repairing the boots - I have destroyed them by walking without the sole for several hours. But in case somebody needs it, I have heard good references to http://www.restday.cz/cs/oprava-treku - they do repairs and replacements of soles of trekking boots.
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Wed, 19 Sep 2012
Playing with Prezi
A while ago, I've came across Prezi presentation tool. It is completely different approach to presentation than slides with bullet-points. I didn't like the dependence on either the on-line access with Flash, or on the Windows executable (with embedded Flash, of course). Today, I did my first presentation using Prezi (together with Šimon).
We have been given 10 minutes to present our approach to two sub-tasks of the Plagiarism Detection task of PAN 2012. We used Prezi in order to be able to focus on explaining our approach without devoting too much time to explaining the structure of the talk to the audience. I think this is a great strength of Prezi, if used correctly.
So, my dear readers, do you think Prezi can be a useful tool, or do you instead agree with Peter (in Slovak), that it is just an over-glorified eye-candy? You can see our presentation here. Thanks to Yuri for the photo!
5 replies for this story:
Milan Zamazal wrote:
How can I view your presentation? The link displays a web page with some Flash and Gnash can't play the Flash thing in my browser.
Yenya wrote: Re: Milan Zamazal
Yes,this is Flash. If Gnash can't play this, I am sorry.
dan wrote:
Do you know reveal.js (https://github.com/hakimel/reveal.js)? I've seen a couple of presentations in it and it was quite nice - it has a nice design and even animated transitions, although not as fancy as Prezi. And all you need is a browser.
Yenya wrote: Re: reveal.js
Thanks for the link - I have looked at reveal.js, and while it is interesting to make presentations in HTML, I think reveal.js transitions are exactly the kind of unnecessary eye-candy. I would guess exact positioning of elements is impossible, as well as automatic size scaling to fit different aspect ratios (which is what Prezi does, as I have discovered).
Peter Kruty wrote: impress.js
I compeltely forgot to mention impress.js, which might help you to have Prezi-like presentation, but remove dependency on flesh. Still have the same problem as Prezi :). I can't find the visual effects helping, but rather disturbing the presentation. It might help the speaker as it reflects his mental image of the presented concept, but I believe it doesn't help to build the same image with the audience.