Author Archives: Xinhai Dude 辛亥生

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About Xinhai Dude 辛亥生

The name Xinhai Dude 辛亥生 is a pun in Chinese, as it means both “he who was born in Xinhai” as well as “he who studies Xinhai”. I had an ambitious plan to write something about the great Xinhai Revolution of 1911, thus my blog https://xinhaidude.com. But after an initial flurry of activities the initiative petered out. One day I will still carry it through. But for now, this website has turned into a conglomerate of my work on various topics of interest to me, including travel pictures, RC model airplane flying, inline skating, ice skating, classical music composition, science fiction short stories, evolution and atheism.

Maloof Skatepark – public skateparks on Long Island

Posted on October 19, 2021 by Xinhai Dude 辛亥生

Maloof Skatepark is a 16,000 square-foot facility within Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens. It features street and transition elements on three levels. This article is a part of my Public Skateparks on Long Island series. Continue reading →

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Far Rockaway Skatepark – public skateparks on Long Island

Posted on October 19, 2021 by Xinhai Dude 辛亥生

Far Rockaway Skatepark in Queens is a 15,700 square feet facility featuring both street and transition elements. It is located at the east end of Rockaway Beach. Its sister Rockaway Skatepark is located at the west end of the same beach, 3.5 miles away. This article is a part of my Public Skateparks on Long Island series. Continue reading →

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Canarsie Skatepark – public skateparks on Long Island

Posted on October 19, 2021 by Xinhai Dude 辛亥生

Canarsie Skatepark located in Brooklyn stands out among other skateparks in Long Island, in that it features a perimeter trail around the main skate plaza. Various ramps and obstacles are scattered along this trail, making cruising this trail a unique experience for inline skaters. This article is a part of my Public Skateparks on Long Island series. Continue reading →

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Astoria Skatepark – public skateparks on Long Island

Posted on October 18, 2021 by Xinhai Dude 辛亥生

Astoria Skatepark is located right under the Triborough Bridge. It is a 21,500-square-foot installation with transitions on three levels of surfaces including concrete and bricks. For inline skaters, there are also paved trails around the Astoria Park, and an entire shoreline street closed to motor vehicles for bikes and skaters. Continue reading →

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Public Skateparks on Long Island

Posted on October 18, 2021 by Xinhai Dude 辛亥生

There are lots of “best skateparks on Long Island” articles online. Many are written by newspaper folks who didn’t skate. They probably gathered random bits and pieces of information elsewhere to hand in an assignment. Some are made by websites for the purpose of showing you ads after you click on their click bait titles. Some write about skateparks accessible only to local residents. A few are written by reputable thrasher sources. But none of them have extensive pictures showing what each publicly-accessible skatepark has to offer, with accompanying videos. I intend to fill in this gap. Continue reading →

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Learn the Two-foot Grapevine on Inline Skates

Posted on September 15, 2021 by Xinhai Dude 辛亥生

This is a follow-up to my previous article: Learn to Skate the Two-foot Grapevine Analytically from 2016. The first article talked about skating Grapevine on ice. This article discusses how to skate the same Grapevine on inline skates. Almost everything from the first article applies to this article. Thus this article will not repeat the same prerequisite skills and context information about Grapevine that I already covered in the first article. This article will focus on showing differences found when skating this move on pavement, compared to ice. Continue reading →

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Remodeling a garage

Posted on October 4, 2020 by Xinhai Dude 辛亥生

We’d been mulling over garage remodeling for a decade. The garage remained the same way we found it from the previous owners, for ten years. As cliché as this may sound, we decided to spend vacation money and time that we couldn’t spend this year due to Covid-19, on home-remodeling.

We pulled the trigger, and are very happy about the end result. Whereas tools and stuff were strewn about previously, now they are safely put away inside or behind cabinets. The garage floor is now coated with epoxy for ease of maintenance.

I agonized over a few decision points during this remodeling process. I have documented the entire effort, with pictures showing every step along the way. Hopefully this article will help the next person going through the same process. Continue reading →

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Geometric distortion in a triple-monitor setup for MSFS 2020, compared to XPlane 11

Posted on August 22, 2020 by Xinhai Dude 辛亥生

Microsoft released its new flight sim 2 days ago, on August 18th. This long-awaited launch got simmer really excited. I moved my flight sim equipment last month to a dedicated room in the basement, now with a triple-monitor setup, in anticipation of this launch. I set up XPlane 11 with these triple monitors, to make sure I got the hang of triple monitors. But all I wanted was the new Microsoft flight sim. I even took this week off from work, so I would not need to choose between work and enjoying the new simulator.

There is, however, one fatal issue, for someone who has gone through the trouble of setting up three 43″ monitors, for the express purpose of re-creating a 180° surround view around the pilot.

At this time, it is not worth sacrificing visual effects and frame rates for two extra side monitors that show greatly distorted views of world objects. Triple-monitor setups are no common. And it’s not clear to me when Asobo will care to fix this problem for a niche market. Until then, the public remains confused as to whether MSFS can be said to “work as is” for triple-monitor setups. There isn’t a source online that compares distorted views in MSFS 2020 against expected, clean views in, say, XP11. Thus this article.
Continue reading →

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Wesley-Anny Wedding: Making of a Photo Shoot

Posted on June 29, 2019 by Xinhai Dude 辛亥生

This page hosts pictures taken a few weeks prior to the wedding, documenting the photo shoot session Aaron ran. Most of these are my pictures. Some where I make an appearance are taken by Elisha. I suppose you could call those pictures “Making of the Making of a Photo Shoot”. Most of these pictures will be turned into slideshows for use on wedding day. See previous location recon pictures. Continue reading →

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Wesley-Anny Wedding: Recon

Posted on June 24, 2019 by Xinhai Dude 辛亥生

This page hosts pictures taken a few weeks prior to the wedding, as we checked out the place for lighting and layout. I haven’t used the Nikon D700 for 5 years now. I almost thought it stopped working. But as it turned out, the depth of field preview button was stuck in salt, rendering most buttons and the menu dial on the back unusable. After prying the button lose, I now have a functional camera again. I am surprised that the original lithium-ion batteries continue to hold their charges. I have never had a digital camera last for more than 8 years since I bought my first digital camera, the Sony DSC-F505, some twenty years ago. Every other digital camera I bought ultimately failed electronically. This one just keeps going, despite my soaking it in salt water in my 2009 trip.

I took pictures with the D700 as well as the Fujifilm X10, for comparison. Raw on the D700 and JPEG on the X10. I processed the raw files lightly in Lightroom. Maybe Aaron will bring remote flash on the D day. I think I’ll just go without flash. Some of these pictures will be turned into slideshows for use on wedding day.
Continue reading →

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