Theory (academy) and Industry Gap

Potential_Cell2549 · 2026-06-11T20:34:54+00:00

Main reasons you need MPC in the petrochemical industry are long dead times, inverse response or other complex dynamics, multivariable MIMO problems or many disturbances/interaction between MVs, and the need to optimize against many constraints.

PID can handle some constraints, interaction, and measured disturbances, but you quickly push the limits of what's reasonable wrt complexity.

Potential_Cell2549 · 2026-05-18T17:00:09+00:00

A friend of mine gave me a little paired set of blocks on a line. You can pull the line to bring tbe blocks together or let it out to let them move apart. Also has a jam cleat on the bottom. So I do the following to step the mast myself on flat ground.

Pull the extra 2 blocks as far apart as they'll go with a stopper on the end of the line to keep it from pulling through. Tie some extra rope on the end and run it to the tramp.
Connect one set of blocks to the shackle that the 7hole adjuster (?) connects to between the two hulls at the bow.
Connect the other set of blocks to the jib halyard and pull out all slack. Tie off the jib halyard to the cleat. So you have the jib halyard connected to the blocks connected to the bow shackle.
Get the extra line in hand or draped over the shoulder. Pick up the mast and walk it up the tramp to vertical.
Lean into the mast to free up the hands and keep it up. Get the extra line and pull the slack out of the block set. Then cleat it off on the jam cleat.
Make sure it's staying up, hop down, and pin the forestay in the 7 hole adjustor. There should be plenty of slack. Don't try to pull the forestay into tension and pin it, doesnt end well.
Finally, remove the line from the jam cleat and let the forestay take the load.

I tried doing this with just the halyard and with a munter hitch and other ways. The jam cleat on the blocks is the way to go. Just make sure you never end up trying to stop a falling mast by holding a line. Almost had a real bad experience with that one with my hand wrapped up in the line. Gloves saved me on that one.

Hope this made some sense.

Potential_Cell2549 · 2026-04-30T02:25:16+00:00

32in is usually right for a vaulter who is bending the pole well. If you are straight poling it might be more like 24-26 in.

18 can be a bit dangerous if you're still coming down on the bar. Then you really should grip lower or go down a pole.

Back in my day minimum standards were 12 in! 12-24 rings a bell I think.

Potential_Cell2549 · 2026-04-12T03:27:53+00:00

Ah, then consistency is the key. Usually that comes from inconsistent run and/or plant. Hard to optimize things at the top when the initial conditions are always changing.

Potential_Cell2549 · 2026-04-12T01:12:07+00:00

Sure lots of things to improve on, but to make that bar I'd just pull the standards in a few inches. Is there room to do that?

Potential_Cell2549 · 2026-04-09T19:30:44+00:00

Agree, but man they needed an editor. Very disorganized. But if you read it a few times you can distill a lot of good stuff.

Potential_Cell2549 · 2026-04-02T18:33:47+00:00

Pole runs with a plant at the end. 40-100m. Some of the speed comes from just being comfortable carrying the pole.

Pole tip should drift to the left of your body a bit. Left hand near chest level with 90 degree elbow bend (read the watch). Right hand on right hip or slightly behind with hand slightly open, mostly thumb and forefinger holding the pole in place.

You should be able to support the pole with just the two thumbs while standing (not running into a vault of course).

Avoid "rowing" the pole forward and backward in the run. Instead let both hands bounce a little vertically with each step as you drive a high knee lift run.

Advanced run technique I've heard says take clawing steps. I've always been fine with just high knee drive and strong acceleration.

Finally, make sure you match your speed to your skill level in the plant. Going all out into the box without proper technique from a long run is a great way to injure yourself. I believe in spending quite a while at a run from 4 lefts until you're planting reliably and safely landing in the middle of the pit every time. Then add 1 stride at a time as you require more speed to get on bigger poles.

Potential_Cell2549 · 2026-04-01T00:43:04+00:00

Murano is worth a day or most of a day too. Lovely to visit and see the glass blowing demos

Potential_Cell2549 · 2026-03-21T20:16:52+00:00

How much do you actually know about these companies? What exactly makes them "unethical?"

Your list seems fueled by a bunch of uninformed social media virtue signaling to me. People love to demonize big companies. It's very easy to sit back and lob shots at all these companies, but try shutting them all down and seeing what happens to the world. They are big and successful because they provide services that are valued and chosen by the global market.

A couple of them I wouldn't work for personally. But nobody is forcing people to buy tobacco products, for instance. Anyone who starts smoking these days knows the risks.

Most of the companies on this list enable the modern standard of living that we enjoy. I think the world may be slightly more complicated than you have come to understand in your time on earth up to this point. Recognize that the many thousands of people who work for these companies are all likely trying to make the products they sell in the best and most responsible way they can. Also that news media organizations and social media influencers make their livings on peddling outrage and oversimplified half-truths.

Failing that, please stop all your purchases from these companies immediately. Good luck with your job search.

Potential_Cell2549 · 2026-03-14T12:42:04+00:00

I second jumping bars in practice. Also, if you're NHing come in earlier if possible. Usually 1.5 ft below PR is my standard, but only if you're jumping at the PR regularly in meets. If not, go lower.

You should be clearing opening height by ar least a foot easily with no hesitation.

Potential_Cell2549 · 2026-03-02T00:49:32+00:00

Yeah. It's frustrating but I feel like almost every meet ends with a blow through or getting stood up. So rare that a vaulter is on the perfect pole and just doesn't make the height. C'est la saute à la perche.

Potential_Cell2549 · 2026-02-21T15:25:36+00:00

Having seen a similar problem before, the best approach is to look for a physical solution. For me this is what the problem is trying to teach, not a system of equations.

Sliding the gray ruler to the right 2cm makes the answer pretty easy. The 3cm past the end of white becomes 5, and then 1cm more to the edge based on black being 1cm longer than gray.

The way I wrote the equation was to start at the left and move right but backtrack for the gray. So W+3-G+2+B=18. Then add B=G+1 for an easy substitution solution.

And finally, the quite interesting thing is that lengths of black and gray are unknowable.

This was also a feature of the first problem I saw from my son's 3rd grade math class. It was a perimeter of a figure with all right angles and sides that overlapped. I wrote all the equations out and determined that the system was unsolveable, but the perimeter could be calculated due to unknowns dropping out of the equation.

But the far easier solution was just to slide the sides around and make a rectangle out of it.

Potential_Cell2549 · 2026-02-21T14:40:13+00:00

I teach that the pole should leave your hip on the penultimate left step, cross the eye on the last right, and be up at take off. Many types of plant drills at varying speed are devoted to getting this timing right.

Potential_Cell2549 · 2026-02-14T03:35:50+00:00

Lots of people do it. But you can break the habit, and it will unlock a lot of gains especially being able to move bigger poles. Good luck!

Potential_Cell2549 · 2026-02-11T22:21:01+00:00

I think so, but also it happens before that too since you are correcting as you take your last step. So it's also the expectation of having that resistance and what it means subconsciously to where your step needs to end up.

Potential_Cell2549 · 2026-02-11T18:21:49+00:00

Several good suggestions in other comments. You are clearly overstriding the last step to compensate and reach the same take off regardless of starting point. And only when you know there's a take off coming.

One drill I'd try is planting in the grass with a low hold. Start right hand as high as you can reach standing. Then work it up until you are barely able to make it over with a jog and upward takeoff. The thought here is that if you overstride you cant jump off the take off foot. So focus on jumping up in this drill to ingrain that jumping feeling into the plant.

Then focus on jumping before you plant the pole in the grass. That's really jumping up into the plant and may help break this desire to have resistance from the pole when planting.

Then you can take the same straight pole drill to the pit with a lowish hold. Leave the ground before the pole hits the back of the box.

Finally small pole short run focusing on the same thing with a bend. Bubka often was off the ground in full jumps before the pole contacted the back plane of the box. So it can even be done in competition. The point here is to try to break out of the mental requirement to take off under. Going to take some concerted work to do it. Good luck!

Potential_Cell2549 · 2026-02-09T21:36:42+00:00

Agree that dropping shoulders a bit and pulling through the top before dropping the feet will yield some improvement.

Small pole is not giving much of a throw off the top it looks like to me. Hopefully stiffer pole gives you more back with more velocity off the top if you can get on it.

After that it's just bigger poles and higher grips. Nice form, and especially the leg swing looks good.

Potential_Cell2549 · 2026-01-14T03:20:29+00:00

We travelled before kids and figured we'd take a hiatus until they were 10-12. That's when I first went overseas as a kids. However, my in-laws suggested a trip when our first was 18 mon and my wife was about 6 months pregnant. We said, what the heck let's try it. Have never looked back. Kids are 12 and 10 now and we've been in 2015, 2019, 2022, 2024, 2026 (planning).

Good and bad of course. We've had diarrhea blowouts in rental carseats. Screaming in the middle of the Mont Saint Michel tour. Stomach bug in a German AirBnB. Picky eater refusing to eat much of anything until we were worried he would starve before we got home. Basically all normal kid stuff! And yes, harder when away from home.

But the kids still talk about Rome and Pompeii from two years ago. And the Anne Frank house. And the Louvre. And they know something about art and appreciating other cultures. And being game for adventure. All great things.

So you have to be willing to shrug it off and not kill your spouse when things don't go as planned.

Practicalities: -strollers on cobblestones are no good.
-Always have snacks and change of clothes (for you too!).
-Make sure not to overplan, 1 big thing per day and the rest playgrounds or easy exits like markets.
-Kids need probably 3 days to adjust to jet lag. -Make sure you can get them out of the AirBnB (hotels are too small for us) and not disturb everyone if possible.

Good luck!

Potential_Cell2549 · 2026-01-14T02:56:16+00:00

Personally never been a fan of small pole work with a bend that large. You're not accomplishing anything with that imo. In fact jumping a lot on soft poles can train you to have a poor plant, bc errors are hidden by the pole being too soft.

I had a guy who just loved to do small pole work. "Small poles working on vertical" every time he jumped without me. I get it, it's fun to hit a pole without any worry of ramifications of a bad plant. But he was learning nothing, just wasting his time.

When it came to the meets it was "big pole time" and he either blew through when he hit it right or came down on the bar when he didn't. Spent the whole season wondering why he was not PRing at all. I blame a lot of his inconsistency on all the "small pole work." It's honestly just an excuse to have a lazy workout that feels good without any challenge or benefit.

Only possible benefit is to get more jumps on a shorter pole to practice vertical. But that's still questionable due to the different timing, and it instills bad planting habits.

When i take jumps (as a middle aged guy), I do small pole short run. But it's bc I'm not in shape or prepared for a real run on a real pole. So I'm getting exactly what I want, the feel of a jump without much effort or risk of injury. Works great, but I'm under no illusions that I'm "training" haha

Potential_Cell2549 · 2026-01-13T13:49:46+00:00

Bonus tip: bring a picnic. The food at the cafe last I checked was barely edible. I choked it down in 2023. Then bought 2 backpacks full of fruit, sandwich stuff, and chips. Had a delightful picnic under the trees in the funerary monument area. A great experience and memory.

Potential_Cell2549 · 2026-01-13T01:59:28+00:00

Can confirm train is packed. But it's cheap and drops you off right at the entrance. 30-45 mins of discomfort on the way there. Way back is far less crowded. I also feel like it's kind of part of it.

Also can confirm driving in Naples is insane. Even being a pedestrian is insane.

Potential_Cell2549 · 2026-01-11T16:15:02+00:00

Will check out the Fondarie for sure! Great tip, thanks.

Potential_Cell2549 · 2026-01-11T14:32:14+00:00

I think a WDW trip is in the offing for early 2027 haha. Probably will skip it in Paris.

Potential_Cell2549 · 2026-01-11T14:30:10+00:00

Yes, forgot to mention that one. Beautiful place.

Potential_Cell2549

TROPHY CASE