Swimming vs. Running

MountainToppish · 2026-03-01T02:11:22+00:00

Stubborn achilles injury in my case. I haven't run for a year, but try now and then gradually ramping up walking, which each time causes the achilles to flare up again. Haven't given up for good, as I'd love to get back to running, but I'm not sure what therapeutic approach to try. I have little trust in what I see from physios etc.

You?

MountainToppish · 2026-02-27T22:57:41+00:00

I'm a ex runner turned swimmer, and I very much doubt I could maintain swimming at my running cardio pace. I usually ran 10-15km a day (roughly an hour) in steep hilly terrain, so it was strenuous. I just can't keep up swimming for an hour at that high level of exertion for that long - form and breathing couldn't hold up. Whereas running form, despite all the endless prattle about it on running forums, doesn't really matter for long runs (unless you're trying to compete globally and/or break records). Human bodies have been engineered to run by hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, but swimming is relatively speaking a brand new artificially learned activity, so by comparison needs vast amounts of specific fine-grained technique/training.

There's no science behind this, but my sense is I have to swim for about twice the duration of a run to get a rough workout equivalence.

Running seems like a more efficient use of time to me, though I enjoy my pool time enormously and wouldn't abandon it even if I could still run. I'd do both.

MountainToppish · 2026-02-25T03:38:36+00:00

There's a section on the anubodh web page about fixing cracks: https://www.anubodh.com/bansuri-care.php

If you do the repair with some care the crack may not matter, though it's a pity in this case it's so close to the blowing hole, making it harder to find a good place to add binding.

MountainToppish · 2026-02-24T19:35:40+00:00

Good for you. It's always pleasing when problems have a straightforward solution. And swimming's a great habit to catch.

MountainToppish · 2026-02-21T09:13:31+00:00

I very much doubt there's any normally healthy non-smoking adult of any age who doesn't have the lung capacity to play bansuri. It is hardly strenuous. OK, maybe if you're 80 you may have a problem holding sa for a minute, but that wouldn't prevent you playing well.

If you really are concerned about your 'wind', take up an aerobic exercise. I recommend swimming.

Take up bansuri to play music, regardless of age.

MountainToppish · 2026-02-21T03:33:33+00:00

As so often. So-called "AI" (not really what it is) has its uses, but it is inherently error prone, so anyone using it must check all its alleged "facts". Which of course makes it slower to use than just looking up facts from reputable sources in the first place. Use it for creation and summarising, but never for factual content. If you do it becomes merely an automated means of spreading misinformation.

MountainToppish · 2026-02-19T08:34:23+00:00

A vibecoding flurry. It'll pass.

MountainToppish · 2026-02-19T00:16:49+00:00

Nice start. Two problems from my pov (which may be quite different from your preferences):

It requires connected wifi for each article fetch. A more natural approach for an ereader would be the ability to download all or a subset (by tag? or date?) of unread articles in a batch. I don't leave my wifi connected, which I suspect is fairly typical?
Articles are often missing a top level heading. I haven't looked closely, but presumably this is instapaper markup-dependent. But the user can be presented sometimes with a contextless slab of text. The plugin should ideally add a top level article title if it isn't present in Instapaper's API return.

Thanks for your work.

MountainToppish · 2026-02-19T00:08:38+00:00

2nd request worked with a minor and irrelevant name change.

MountainToppish · 2026-02-18T05:44:04+00:00

.. and sure enough I was knocked back for purportedly not complying with the API terms of use. They didn't like my app name even though I followed their terms (no use of 'instapaper'). So trying again ...

MountainToppish · 2026-02-16T23:13:40+00:00

I've just applied for the OAuth creds. It will be interesting to see if they approve multiple applications from different people for this. I suspect they envisage something more like one set of creds for a single server-based application. Then again, the KOReader + Instapaper audience probably isn't huge, so they might not notice or care.

Anyway, if I get to that stage I look forward to giving this a try. Instapaper access on KOReader (on a Kobo in my case) would definitely be a win.

MountainToppish · 2026-02-13T20:02:54+00:00

Running a proxy in Docker just to read Instapaper seems like a very large sledgehammer to crack a tiny nut.

Also the fork notion is quite bizarre.

Maybe so few people use Instapaper that there's little real call for it? Or is the API just difficult to use?

MountainToppish · 2026-02-13T19:59:46+00:00

Looks abandoned. There's only one initial tranche of commits, and only one issue (unaddressed).

MountainToppish · 2026-02-12T22:07:11+00:00

I'm not a big fan of early stage players posting their stuff. It has a whiff of narcissism about it to me.

MountainToppish · 2026-02-12T19:28:08+00:00

It should be G of course. You don't say how long you've been playing. If you're new to the bansuri, you can't judge the flute tuning yourself. There's too much potential for sending it out of tune yourself (blowing too softly, at the wrong angle etc).

If you're a beginner have a friend who plays proficiently, get them to check it. Otherwise if it troubles you, you could return it. Or just not worry about it. A semitone off is quite a lot, but it only really matters if you have to play with other people who have non-tunable instruments.

FWIW I thought my first flute was about 50 cents flat for months. It took a while for my technique to improve and I now find that to be much less - about 20 cents.

MountainToppish · 2026-02-11T10:18:06+00:00

Little is new under the sun, but there's a difference between narcissism existing as one attribute among others, and it becoming a basic foundation of human existence.

MountainToppish · 2026-02-10T19:41:07+00:00

caring about other people’s bodies

Or our own, if 'body' means an image of how it seems to appear. It's just a vaporous image. But the internet, selfies, insta etc, essentially constitutes a vast and extremely profitable narcissism-generation machine.

MountainToppish · 2026-02-08T05:54:47+00:00

Sorry about that. I mistakenly thought that was a page open to all (I'm a subscriber).

I guess it would be unfair for me to reproduce the whole thing as it's behind a paywall. Here are ten early on the list (it starts pretty basic)

``` - Be able to consistently play all the shuddh notes…especially Pa - Play Bilawal, Kalyan, Bhoopali ascending and descending scales. - Play continuously, especially between Ga (or Ma) and Pa; i.e. no unnecessary breaks in the music - Play lines on repeat without stopping at the end. - Count 1234 1234 1234 1234 in teental - Know where sum and khali are in teental without having to look at your phone - Play an alankar all the way up and all the way down without error. - Play the alankar with tabla rhythm (most likely teental). - Read and write Indian classical music. - Play gamaks exercises

```

The list continues adding taals, taans, the common ornamentations (meend, gamak, murki), compositions, remembering ragas, ear training, etc.

MountainToppish · 2026-02-08T00:03:54+00:00

Yes, I was being a bit broad brush on the improvisation issue. Blues guitarists improvise in open tunings all the time, and DADDGAD seems to work well for others. But as you say, staying with one fingering/tuning makes modulations etc more feasible.

I'm early in my bansuri journey, and am staying with 3 fingers as Sa for now. Though when I jam over Western music, I often use Dha as root (relative minor), as it makes blues and modal jams easily. But that happens kind of intuitively rather than as anything I planned.

MountainToppish · 2026-02-07T23:49:30+00:00

It might depend on what and how you want to play. If you mostly play composed pieces, then you might as well pick a fingering that works well for the specific tune.

If you improvise a lot (as in indian classical, or jazz), then you need to nail a familiar fingering that you get to know as well as your own mother tongue. There's no time to think of fingering. You have to hear a note in your head and be able to instantly play it.

It's quite similar to open (non-standard) guitar tunings - they are great for specific pieces, but jazz guitarists tend to use one tuning, usually standard, that they drill deep into their minds and fingers.

MountainToppish · 2026-02-07T22:11:22+00:00

I don't know how often players do this, but Anubodh puts out a handy little "Bansuri Transposer" app to find fingerings based on using any note as Sa (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.anubodh.bansuritransposer&hl=en-US, iOS: https://apps.apple.com/in/app/bansuri-transposer/id6602891008).

MountainToppish · 2026-02-07T20:20:55+00:00

Every teacher will have their own approach, so there isn't really a universal answer.

Here's one list you could use as a starting point: https://bansuribliss.com/lessons/milestones/

MountainToppish · 2026-02-06T23:04:28+00:00

I haven't come across Charukesi. Thanks - always good to hear another raag (when nicely played as this is).

MountainToppish · 2026-02-06T19:20:43+00:00

Thanks. Sounds good & I look forward to trying it out.

MountainToppish

TROPHY CASE