watty

joined 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 6 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago)

I'm heavily into sport kites. These are controllable kites with 2 or 4 lines. It's an outdoor activity that can get fairly physical depending on what you are up to. There's a very small community, mostly focused in coastal areas, but it exists all over the world.

Once you get some basic skills, most people shift toward flying to music as a ballet individually or with a group as a team. If you get good enough, there are travel opportunities where kite festivals pay for all or part of your travel expenses to perform at festivals. I've been all over the US and to 11 countries across the world to fly kites in my 18 years in the community.

Past that, there's also kite making that is a nice extension of the hobby. I build my own sport kites, and build them for others on occasion. There are open source sport kite plans out there, I've got a few on my website (https://watty.us), but there are even more at https://kareloh.com.

A good starting place to get into the hobby might be https://sportkite.org, or some Facebook groups like Sport Kite Pilots Lounge.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 4 weeks ago

I will use PayPal when making purchases, mostly to keep from giving my payment information directly to yet another company that could handle it improperly.

Not to say that PayPal wouldn't misuse the information too, but it's one company that might misuse my information vs many companies, so I'll go with the one.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

JavaScript has nothing to do with Java. They are completely different languages and environments.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago

They used to not have the right to marry in the US, and many people advocate for that to return. In some places on this planet, they don't get the right to live.

There is no one even advocating to take rights away from straight people, let alone beheading them.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

It's still a side pursuit. I have a full time job as a software engineer. I do sell the kites I make on occasion, but I have no intention of making it a proper source of income.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Kite flyer, kite maker.

I've been flying multi-line, controllable sport kites for over half of my life. I attend kite festivals very frequently and occasionally travel throughout the US or internationally for kite festivals.

About 6 years ago, I started building my own sport kites. Now days, I have a workshop with 5 sewing machines, 2 3d printers, and other equipment, all of it revolving around kite making.

I can't really imagine my life without kites involved.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago

It's hard to make time for sex when you are learning how to fly a kite from its tail. The man is defying basic physics right there.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 9 months ago

Yes, you can blame Israelis. There is no excuse for genocide.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Define "engineer" in a way that accurately describes what you think is an "engineer" while simultaneously excluding software engineers.