UPSB v3

General Discussion / UPSB Podcast #4

Guest: kam

  1. Zombo
    Date: Tue, Dec 4 2007 01:41:49

    The UPSB Research Department is pleased to announce the UPSB Podcast #4, the first on UPSB!

    Date
    Saturday, January 19th 2008.

    Time
    2PM (Eastern Time GMT -5) = 11AM (Pacific Time GMT -8) = 19:00 (UK Time GMT 0) = 20:00 (European Time GMT +1) = 4AM (January 20th, Japan Time GMT +9) = 6AM (January 20th, Australian Time GMT +11)

    Hosts
    The hosts for this show are Sfsr and xshadowfire.

    Special guest
    kam!
    CrAsH will also be present in the podcast.

    Content
    This podcast will officially announce the start of the World Cup 2008.

    - Interview with kam
    - CrAsH will draw the World Cup groups live. We will split the teams into two (2) groups of five (5) during the podcast. The World Cup will officially begin as soon as the podcast is over.
    - Miscellaneous other news and more!

    How to listen
    Recording available:

    DOWNLOAD HERE (CLICK)
    TRANSCRIPT

    Podcast Archive

  2. DaThroat
    Date: Tue, Dec 4 2007 01:54:56

    too bad i won't be able to tune in live(3am in my time zone). sad.gif


    so the first round of the WC will start the day after? or the preparation for the first round starts the day after?

  3. Zombo
    Date: Tue, Dec 4 2007 01:57:00

    QUOTE (DaThroat @ Dec 3 2007, 08:54 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
    too bad i won't be able to tune in live(3am in my time zone). sad.gif


    so the first round of the WC will start the day after? or the preparation for the first round starts the day after?


    what do you mean by preparation?

    as soon as the podcast ends, the managers can start sending their lineups for the first round, they have one week to do so.

    we can't start the tournament if we don't know who's in what group...

  4. KinXiom
    Date: Tue, Dec 4 2007 01:58:03

    What time is it PST?

  5. Zombo
    Date: Tue, Dec 4 2007 01:59:56

    QUOTE (KinXiom @ Dec 3 2007, 08:58 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
    What time is it PST?


    can you read? it's written in the first post... *facepalm*

  6. Square
    Date: Tue, Dec 4 2007 02:02:38

    Sounds great, I'll make sure I remember and try to tune in.

  7. DaThroat
    Date: Tue, Dec 4 2007 02:03:15

    QUOTE (Zombo @ Dec 4 2007, 09:57 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
    as soon as the podcast ends, the managers can start sending their lineups for the first round, they have one week to do so.



    that's what i meant. laugh.gif

    thanks.

  8. cyber penguin
    Date: Tue, Dec 4 2007 02:06:50

    I heart podcasts. Can't wait. Hope I can tune live.

  9. Crasher(kura)
    Date: Tue, Dec 4 2007 02:07:16

    Very cool,I cant wait.

  10. KinXiom
    Date: Tue, Dec 4 2007 02:12:21

    QUOTE (Zombo @ Dec 3 2007, 05:59 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
    can you read? it's written in the first post... *facepalm*


    Damn i thought it said mountain

  11. TayYH89
    Date: Wed, Dec 5 2007 02:46:47

    QUOTE (DaThroat @ Dec 4 2007, 09:54 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
    too bad i won't be able to tune in live(3am in my time zone). sad.gif

    Same situation.

  12. UEDan
    Date: Wed, Dec 5 2007 05:11:01

    YAY! I WAKE UP AT 11AM ON SATURDAYS!

  13. Zombo
    Date: Wed, Dec 5 2007 06:03:33

    QUOTE (TayYH89 @ Dec 4 2007, 09:46 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
    Same situation.


    noobs,

    real men like Crasher stay up until 4am to listen to the podcast.

  14. UEDan
    Date: Wed, Dec 5 2007 06:15:46

    QUOTE (Zombo @ Dec 4 2007, 10:03 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
    noobs,

    real men like Crasher stay up until 4am to listen to the podcast.


    Thats just not dedication anymore, thats just insanity!!!!

  15. WhiteFang
    Date: Wed, Dec 5 2007 06:20:03

    why stay up so late?? why don't they just sleep real early like 5 PM and wake up on time for the podcast?

  16. Tim
    Date: Wed, Dec 5 2007 07:14:50

    QUOTE (TayYH89 @ Dec 5 2007, 10:46 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
    Same situation.


    Same situation.

    Looking forward to this though, hopefully it is put on putfile so we can listen to it without downloading unlike the last one sad.gif

  17. Novastrike
    Date: Wed, Dec 5 2007 11:57:21

    Lucky its not 4 or 5am.(My time)
    Normally I sleep at around 3.30am. =x

  18. Joshua
    Date: Wed, Dec 5 2007 13:13:57

    I'll be there.

  19. TayYH89
    Date: Thu, Dec 6 2007 02:06:59

    QUOTE (Novastrike @ Dec 5 2007, 07:57 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
    Lucky its not 4 or 5am.(My time)
    Normally I sleep at around 3.30am. =x

    The podcast usually last more than half an hour. Good luck staying awake.

    Anyway, I'm pretty much an early sleeper, but I can stay up late if I want to.

  20. nolan
    Date: Thu, Dec 6 2007 02:17:37

    im there.

  21. 11Thrasher11
    Date: Thu, Dec 6 2007 04:07:56

    Well I'll be listening but as for the chat room, I can never get in heh.

  22. ChauTran
    Date: Thu, Dec 6 2007 11:54:46

    OMG......2am 20th January.....

  23. Sfsr
    Date: Sat, Dec 8 2007 19:47:08

    Should this be announced on other boards as well or not?

  24. Zombo
    Date: Sat, Dec 8 2007 20:02:51

    yea sure, although its still early, so maybe u can wait if u dont want ppl to forget.

  25. Rekkuuzan
    Date: Mon, Dec 10 2007 07:54:55

    I'll be ready for this one this time around.

    Edit: God dammit, I forgot I have piano lessons that day. Looks like I'll be listening post-live again.

  26. Zombo
    Date: Mon, Dec 10 2007 15:18:44

    QUOTE (Rekkuuzan @ Dec 10 2007, 02:54 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
    I'll be ready for this one this time around.

    Edit: God dammit, I forgot I have piano lessons that day. Looks like I'll be listening post-live again.


    when is your lesson? run back home quickly you might catch a part of it!

  27. Rekkuuzan
    Date: Thu, Dec 13 2007 01:08:08

    QUOTE (Zombo @ Dec 10 2007, 07:18 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
    when is your lesson? run back home quickly you might catch a part of it!

    11:00 to 12:30. Think I can still catch some of it? :x

  28. Zombo
    Date: Thu, Dec 13 2007 01:36:24

    dang 1h30? well ok no then

  29. Zombo
    Date: Sat, Jan 5 2008 17:01:33

    Podcast is in 2 weeks!!!

    podcast in less than 16 hours!

    podcast in less than 5 hours.

  30. Zombo
    Date: Sat, Jan 12 2008 15:13:47

    Podcast is in 1 week, as indicated by the countdown (as long as your time zone settings in the board settings are correct, it displays the right time!)

  31. Arcturus
    Date: Sat, Jan 19 2008 21:13:31

    The podcast sounded pretty interesting, at least from the 15 minutes that I heard of it sad.gif
    Can't wait for the recording!

    -Arcturus

  32. Zombo
    Date: Sat, Jan 19 2008 21:14:26

    podcast is over, recording will be available shortly, feel free to use this thread to discuss.

  33. UEDan
    Date: Sat, Jan 19 2008 21:21:07

    http://rapidshare.de/files/38350438/podcast4.zip.html

    http://sharebee.com/1073f5f4
    http://www.upsb.info/Podcast-4.mp3

    Sorry I took so long, left the room and forgot a lil.

  34. 11Thrasher11
    Date: Sat, Jan 19 2008 22:17:41

    Thanks UED. I forgot about the podcast so I only got to catch the last 10 minutes of it.

  35. Zombo
    Date: Sat, Jan 19 2008 22:19:55

    Download the podcast!!!

    http://sharebee.com/1073f5f4
    http://www.upsb.info/Podcast-4.mp3

    (they're all mirrors).

    Thanks to the ~120 spinners who tuned and listened to the podcast live!!!

  36. Scott Shaputis
    Date: Sat, Jan 19 2008 23:01:39

    we pretty much have a group of death in group 2
    hahahahaha
    i love you
    that made me lol

  37. Zombo
    Date: Sun, Jan 20 2008 00:19:37

    BETTER QUALITY!!!!:
    http://sharebee.com/1073f5f4
    http://www.upsb.info/Podcast-4.mp3

  38. Arcturus
    Date: Sun, Jan 20 2008 04:28:28

    Zombo has given me permission to transcribe the podcast, so here it is:

    --

    UPSB Podcast #4

    Guest: kam

    Saturday, January 18th 2008 / 2:00 PM


    Sfsr: Hello?

    xshadowfire: Okay, welcome everyone; this is the first official UPSB podcast. I’m xshadowfire, one of your hosts, and also with us we have Sfsr who should introduce himself.

    Sfsr: Hello, this is Sfsr, welcome to the podcast. With us today is also kam, kam can you say hello?

    kam: Hello everyone, this is kam from Pentrix.

    Sfsr: We're going to ask you some questions... xshadowfire, do you want to start with some?

    xshadowfire: Sure. Alright kam, what did Santa bring you for Christmas?

    kam: Christmas? Hmm, that was a while ago, let me think... well for starters, I got an MX^2 from TEKKEN King, so thanks for that TEKKEN, if you're listening. I also got a camcorder charger and a new battery for my camcorder because I lost my old one and I haven't been able to record any videos since then. I also got some money which I’m still thinking of what to spend on... but that's about it for Christmas.

    xshadowfire: Alright, so, a little bit about you: when exactly did you start spinning?

    kam: Exactly? Like, up to the minute? I don't know that (laughs)... technically I started in 1993 when I was 13 years old, but that was only like doing basically one trick for a while, that was like when I was in Taiwan and I learned the charge by watching someone else doing it in class... but that was the only trick I knew for about two years. I consider myself really starting into penspinning about 1998, that's when I started getting more serious. I started doing combos, and trying to come up with tricks, so the total time of spinning is about 15 years? but more seriously I would say 10 years.

    xshadowfire: So why did you start?

    kam: Why did I start? Why does anyone start? I guess because it looks cool when someone else is doing it, and it seemed like a better idea than paying attention in class. I started because it was cool, but the more I spun, I realized how much penspinning was helping me be more confident, helping my hand-eye coordination... that sort of thing. So, I just kept doing it even though I got busier and busier... it just seemed like a good thing to do.

    Sfsr: Kam, do you think you affected people around you through your penspinning? You said that you started because you saw someone doing it, and thought it was cool. Do you think a lot of people see you, think it's cool, and just start spinning?

    kam: I’m sure people did, I’m not always aware of the people who start penspinning because of me, but on the forums I think I affected more people through my website than I do in real life because right now, I’ve already finished college. In middle school, there are a lot more people who are paying attention to your pen spinning but once you get to high school and college, people are more serious about their classes and they're not as open to asking you "oh, how did you do that trick?" and whatnot so I have a better effect on people through my websites, in fact I think that there was an e-mail I received one time that was pretty interesting. There was this guy, who I’m not going to say the name of or anything, who said that my website helped save his life which I found pretty funny at first... his story was that he broke up with his girlfriend and he was really depressed so he tried to commit suicide, and while in the hospital he saw his doctor spinning pens. So he went online and he found Pentrix and started spinning pens, and in a while he forgot about his girlfriend. I thought that was an interesting story of how penspinning affected the lives of some people; I never thought that pen spinning could help save a life.
    Sfsr: Okay, I have another question. Do you still spin pens casually wherever you are, like work, at all?
    kam: I bring a pen to work every day, but I can't spin all the time because I'm a programmer so I need two hands to type (until I learn to type with one)... but whenever I'm doing research, or taking a break, I try to spin my pen at work. All my co-workers know that I like spinning pens, and that I have a website so they're pretty cool with it as long as I get my work done. I also spin when I'm watching TV or whenever I can because nowadays I don't have that much free time so I have to spin whenever I can.

    Sfsr: And how much time do you think you spent on penspinning when you were most active, how many hours a day did you practice?

    kam: Well when I was just starting I could spend a whole afternoon, like 4-5 hours spinning until my hand would get tired but nowadays I'd say I'm lucky if I can spend like 30 minutes a day just for spinning. Casually though, I could probably spend an hour a day spinning without thinking, like working or watching TV or eating sometimes... so maybe like an hour of non-serious spinning and I try to squeeze in like half an hour hour before I go to sleep of serious spinning.

    Sfsr: Have you been working on any new penspinning tricks at all?

    kam: (laughs) I knew you guys would ask me that question. Yes, I'm always trying to create new tricks or combos and I usually don't like to release them until I know they're going to be good because then...

    Sfsr: They're more respected, more accepted.

    kam: ...Yeah like I tend to take pen spinning a lot more seriously so I like to make sure that whatever I'm trying to release is not just going to be another trick that's going to be forgotten but that's actually going to make a difference in penspinning. I think that just by holding off on a trick for a little longer you can accomplish that because you have more time to see what the flaws of the trick will be and you don't get too excited about something new that you think is going to be really cool but nobody else agrees. I actually do have a trick that I only showed one person so far and got a really good response but I'm still trying to perfect it. I'm calling it the "whip" for right now and it's a very simple trick; it's a combo actually, it's just two fundamentals, to be more detailed. Everybody knows those tricks, but the way that you do it just makes it look so much different than anything else that I've seen.

    Sfsr: Wait, kam, kam can you hang on? [Technical difficulties]

    kam: ...So that's what I'm trying to do; show people that it's not a matter of coming up with the longest sequence of tricks and putting them into a freestyle or combo, but... (stops) yeah, what was that?

    Sfsr: No, I think everything disappeared for a while, but it's back now so you can keep talking.

    kam: Okay, so we're good now?

    Sfsr: Yeah, I think so..okay, we're good to go. Okay, keep talking. [/Technical Difficulties]

    kam: So you were asking me about any new tricks, and I mentioned that I'm working on a combo called unofficially the "whip", because it kind of has a whipping type of resemblance. It's basically two very fundamental tricks and I just apply a different way of performing them that looks very different from most tricks. I'm trying to tell people that using very simple tricks, you can still create something new, just by using some creativity and breaking out of the conventional method of spinning. That it's not just trying to link more tricks into the shortest possible amount of time which will make you a better penspinner. Maybe that's just my style of spinning but we'll see, when I get that down I'll release a short video and we'll see how people react to it.
    Sfsr: Ah a video. That's just what blackmail from FPSB asked. He wants to know if you are releasing any new videos in the near future, and if you are going to appear in any other penspinning videos or not.
    kam: Well, I would like to, it's certainly something I would like to do: release another video with hopefully good material, and I have only really been able to get caught up on all the new tricks and whatnot but I certainly think that I have some new tricks or concepts that will be helpful to penspinners all over the world. I'd like to release a new video right now but it's not at the top of my priorities basically because there are so many people who are making videos and helping spread pen spinning to new people, and it would be nice if I could have time to release a new video, but since there are so many videos it's not at the top of my priorities right now.

    xshadowfire: Do you have any penspinning or manipulation projects going on right now?

    kam: The simple answer would be: yes. Unfortunately, the more I work on penspinning and other projects, the bigger they become and the more confidential and secretive they are too. I can't tell you too much about them right now; there are a couple big ones that I can't even say anything about them until I have the proper permission so I'm going to skip those, but I'm just going to say that they're likely to have a big impact on penspinning and I'm doing my best to make sure that it's going to be a good impact as opposed to a bad one. Obviously I can't control everything, so we'll see about those. There's one project that I'd like to mention and maybe give a quick description. We mentioned it at the California gathering and it's a secret project, it's not completely finalized yet so I'll just mention what it is without giving out all the details yet. Basically what it is is a card game for penspinning. We've basically assigned a family of tricks to a deck of cards, and then we use those cards to play different games that involve penspinning; for example I'm working on something similar to poker where you draw a hand of 5 cards and people will see those cards. Each card is going to be equivalent to a trick or a family of tricks and then the person has to do a combo based on that. I think pholord mentioned it's similar to a tag game but it's kind of randomized because you don't know what you're going to pull. We tried it at the gathering and basically we had two teams of people competing with each other testing the project and it wasn't perfect since I just started the project and I don't have many penspinners around me to test. We're working on finalizing the rules and point system, so we'll get that released to you guys sometime in the future.

    Sfsr: Okay, thanks kam. We also have a lot of questions about the MX. 'Spinofdoom' wants to know if anything can be done to make the MXs more durable, 'TONYMONTANAED' wants to know how you thought of creating the MX. Just the history of the MX.

    kam: I think a lot of people are unfortunately making the MX incorrectly, or a little incorrectly I'll say... I never officially released the MX tutorial so I don't blame anybody for that. The reason that the MX breaks to easily is that people tend to align the cap of the pen to the little back cap which is the little part that you unscrew to get the ink out. When you do that, what happens is that if you drop your pen on a solid surface like concrete, it tends to snap very easily. The way to fix that is to just make sure to push the cap thing a little bit more; a couple millimetres, or just a bit past that alignment so that the cap is actually overlapping a little bit with the clear body of the pen. That way, when you drop your MX (and I know this because I've tested it over 50 times on an MX that I made) onto solid concrete, it won't break as easily. That's how you can make it more durable. I think that's what he was referring to. As far as history, most people think that the MX was made before the Momentum MX (which is another mod that I had a prototype for) but actually what happened was that I first came up with the RSVP V1, err, hold on, that's not true... I first came up with RSVP V2, but then I wanted something very simple, something very easy to make without much cost so I came up with a V1, and then I just named those like V1 and V2. The MX actually came as the last pen that I made of the MX series which was after the MMX. I wanted to make the MMX first to get a very good pen for spinning but it was so much work to get the plastic barrel from the Pilot that I decided to go back a step and make a much more affordable pen. That's when I came up with the RSVP MX. Does that answer most MX questions, or was there something else?

    xshadowfire: I think that's good. We've also been hearing about one of your secret mods, the Irisgito, how's it coming with that?

    kam: That project has kind of been dropped. I'm not going to pursue it any further mainly because I don't think there is any solution to fix one of the flaws that the pen was all about. Right now, I think we've seen so many different mods that are probably better than the Irisgito right now. It was a big deal at the time that we came up with it, for example when me and nate were working on this project there weren't that many different mods; it was supposed to be a very big step in front of everyone else. With so many different mods right now, I don't think the Irisgito is going to make a very big difference on the penspinning community, and since it's so vulnerable the way it is right now we're just dropping the project. I don't think it's worth continuing.

    Sfsr: How about your pen collection, how many pens do you have? How big is your collection?

    kam: You guys are going to have to come to my house and count them because I have no idea. I probably have about two shoeboxes full of pens, so I don't know... a few hundred, thousands, no idea. I've never really bothered to count.

    Sfsr: What pens do you have in your collection? Any new mods, or mainly... say, MX and the Jeller-pen mods and all?

    kam: Well, a lot of the pens that I have are just 'stock' pens, like just what you would buy out of a store. I just collect them for research purposes, obviously I have a lot of RSVPs and HGGs laying around and I try to collect pens from the different manufacturers like Pentel, Pilot, BiC, Zebra, and so on... but they're mostly just unmodified for archival purposes. I have some mods, but there aren't that many. I have some Comssas that people gave me, different prototypes of MXs or other pens that I tried to make (and that were never good enough to be released), just a lot of pens that people give me over time.

    xshadowfire: So kam, where are you from?

    kam: That sounds like a simple question, but it's not that easy. I was born in Paraguay, in South America. Most people probably wouldn't imagine that, but I didn't really live there for too long. I went to Brazil, which is where I grew up, for most of my life. I went there when I was about a year old and I lived there for half of my life. I then moved to Taiwan to study for a few years; that's where I learned my first penspinning trick. Then, I moved back to Brazil and started to develop some more tricks, and eventually I moved to the US which is where I am right now.

    Sfsr: Can you speak Portuguese?

    kam: Yeah sure, if anybody is listening from Brazil, (random speaking in Portuguese)

    kam: Probably most people are like, "what the heck is he talking about?", I can speak a few different languages: I can speak some Mandarin, Taiwanese, and I can read some Korean but I can't make any sense of it.

    Sfsr: We have some other questions here from people in the chat, do you keep in touch with nate? That's a question from sketching.

    kam: Is he referring to nate that... there are a few nates, the nate that helped develop a lot of pen mods?

    Sfsr: Yeah, that's the nate we're talking about.

    kam: No, actually I haven't heard from him in a while, I used to just talk to him on UPSB and since he's from the penspinning community I haven't really heard from him. He certainly helped me with a lot of good ideas and whatnot, but I think he might be more active in the yo-yoing community which is where he comes from, maybe one of these days I'll check and see if he's still around.

    xshadowfire: Here's another question from the chat, from kar0lek1325: What are your favourite tricks?

    kam: Favourite tricks? Hmm, that's a good question... probably... too hard to answer. Well, one of them is obviously the BackAround, I think I've mentioned that several times. I like it because it's so different from anything else that came before it. I'm not talking about what you guys call nowadays the Korean Style BackAround, I'm talking about the one that David Weis does where he has the pen closer to the palm, and it's just so smooth that I use it whenever I can. That's one of my favourite tricks. I also like the fingerless tricks mainly because they seem to effortless and unconventional. I also like Infinity Release, aerial tricks... you know, anything that's unique and distinguishable. There are probably a lot more tricks that I like, but it's too hard to come up with a favourite right now.

    Sfsr: Have you ever mentored anyone PSing in real life? It's a question from Escapist in the IRC chat.

    kam: Yeah, I think so... I did help with someone whose name is Steven, he lives in San Diego. I don't really know where he is, he hasn't really kept in touch, but in gatherings sometimes, like in the first gathering there were people who were asking me about some tricks. It was probably like a collective effort, but I've also done it more like in my earlier years, a lot of people who wanted to learn the fundamentals and whatnot I did help, on a one-on-one basis. Nowadays, I just don't have that kind of time to do it anymore.

    xshadowfire: Most of us should know that you made the original UPSB, what do you think of the new UPSB, V3?

    kam: I think everyone likes it, and I'm the same... unfortunately I wasn't as involved as the original UPSB where I pretty much did everything by myself, but the new UPSB has some pretty cool features like we wouldn't be doing this podcast if we didn't have the UPSB radio. The original UPSB didn't have the chat room, either, so you know it's much more geared towards the community with a bunch of new features which I think everybody loves, and I'm the same. Unfortunately, I can't just spend my entire day on UPSB like I used to do, so I can't read all the topics and whatnot, but I see that there are some really interesting forums (the research department, and whatnot). I really like where it's going. I have to give a thank-you to Zombo and all the UPSB and UCPSB staff that helped us get UPSB V3 out the door.

    Sfsr: You say you don't keep track of much on the new forum, but do you keep track of any new members at all? Like any idea of how good people are, or not at all?

    kam: Well since I can't spend that much time it's hard for me to keep track of all the members but obviously I know some of the bigger names like Eriror or however you pronounce his name (laughs), and Bonkura and his videos, the Korean penspinners that were in the World Cup... I try to keep a tab on those who are making a difference in pen spinning, but if you were to ask me "oh I'm from UPSB, have you seen my videos before?", I probably wouldn't really know who you are unless you really distinguish yourself from the crowd. There's just too many penspinners to keep track on these days. I'm sure there are many good penspinners out there, like Pholord for example, he's a really good penspinner, there was people from the California gathering like Tenku, they all seem to be so much better than the people who used to be spinning a few years ago but I just can't keep track of anyone. I only know them maybe because I've met them personally... it's just too hard to keep track of everyone these days, so I'm sorry if you're really good and I haven't heard of you.

    xshadowfire: What does your family think of your penspinning?

    kam: My family? Well, I don't think they love it or hate it, I think they've just grown accustomed to what I do. I'm talking about my direct family like my sister, my parents... I'm sure that initially they thought it was annoying, but my mom told me one time that she didn't mind me spinning pens (she didn't try to encourage me or anything) but because I was using penspinning to build websites which is what I'm doing as my career right now, you know she thought it was a good idea to improve my web design skills with a hobby that I like. They didn't mind it so much as long as I'm not doing it at the dinner table. That's what annoys them the most.

    Sfsr: Okay, we have some more questions here: what's your favourite haircut?

    kam: My favourite haircut? Who the heck asked that question? (laughs)

    Sfsr: I think it was the admin of SweSpin, Ceedgee.

    kam: My favourite haircut... I'm not too sure how to answer that. I tend to like variations in haircut, I guess. Every couple months I try to do a different style, for myself. I'm not really in a position to say that I definitely love a particular hairstyle, but I'm more towards a short to medium haircut, if that's any help.

    Sfsr: it was Hamor who asked the question, not Ceedgee.

    xshadowfire: Okay, I think we're just about going to wrap this up... one last question. If any of you listeners are active in the spammers bin and off topic, you might have noticed there's a screenshot with kam playing World of Warcraft. Kam, do you play World of Warcraft?

    kam: Umm... no, unfortunately I don't. I don't know where that came from. I used to play Warcraft 1, 2 and 3, but I stopped playing it because it was taking too much of my time and it wasn't a healthy habit to spend so much time playing that. I'm sure WoW would have been just as addicting so I decided not to try it.

    Sfsr: Okay, we have a lot more questions but we don't really have time for them now, so we'll just move on to the World Cup, Zombo will be doing the drawing because CrAsH hasn't got a mic ready. Zombo?
    --

    After this, Zombo began the World Cup draw, which isn't included in this transcript.
    Please post any corrections/suggestions you have in this thread.

    -Arcturus

  39. Zombo
    Date: Sun, Jan 20 2008 04:42:14

    thx, the pen mod is called Irisgito.

    the guy was blackmail

    the other guy was kar0lek1325 i think.

    QUOTE
    something very easy to make without much cause


    cause = cost

    QUOTE
    to get the plastic barrel from the (?)


    Pilot

  40. NoRice4U
    Date: Sun, Jan 20 2008 04:45:23

    Zombo, your voice has changed! confusedsmilie.gif

  41. Arcturus
    Date: Sun, Jan 20 2008 04:50:10

    Thanks Zombo, fixed.

    -Arcturus

  42. Zombo
    Date: Sun, Jan 20 2008 04:53:35

    although the name heard was "tony" in the podcast, it refers to the user "TONYMONTANAED"

  43. TONYMONTANAED
    Date: Sun, Jan 20 2008 08:49:22

    correct wink.gif (tawneemontanaaide is hard to pronounce in english^^)

    Very good podcast. This wc is going to je great biggrin.gif

  44. xshadowfire
    Date: Sun, Jan 20 2008 10:54:02

    arcturus: you got sfsr and me mixed up a lot sad.gif

  45. Arcturus
    Date: Sun, Jan 20 2008 13:15:20

    QUOTE (xshadowfire @ Jan 20 2008, 05:54 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
    arcturus: you got sfsr and me mixed up a lot sad.gif


    I did? Crap, sorry... you sound pretty alike.
    If you can find some specific spots, I'll be able to fix it... but otherwise, it's going to be really hard for me to tell >.<

    -Arcturus

  46. Sfsr
    Date: Sun, Jan 20 2008 15:52:36

    Corrected names and minor things as far as I remember.


    Spoiler:
    CODE
    Sfsr:  Hello?

    xshadowfire:  Okay, welcome everyone; this is the first official UPSB podcast. I’m xshadowfire, one of your hosts, and also with us we have Sfsr who should (inaudible).

    Sfsr:  Hello, this is Sfsr, welcome to the podcast. With us today is also kam, kam can you say hello?

    kam: Hello everyone, this is kam from Pentrix.

    Sfsr:  We're going to ask you some questions...  xshadowfire, do you want to start with some?

    xshadowfire:  Sure. Alright kam, what did Santa bring you for Christmas?

    kam: Christmas? Hmm, that was a while ago, let me think... well for starters, I got an MX^2 from TEKKEN King, so thanks for that TEKKEN, if you're listening. I also got a camcorder charger and a new battery for my camcorder because I lost my old one and I haven't been able to record any videos since then. I also got some money which I’m still thinking of what to spend on... but that's about it for Christmas.

    xshadowfire:  Alright, so, a little bit about you: when exactly did you start spinning?

    kam: Exactly? Like, up to the minute? I don't know that (laughs)... technically I started in 1993 when I was 13 years old, but that was only like doing basically one trick for a while, that was like when I was in Taiwan and I learned the charge by watching someone else doing it in class... but that was the only trick I knew for about two years. I consider myself really starting into penspinning about 1998, that's when I started getting more serious. I started doing combos, and trying to come up with tricks, so the total time of spinning is about 15 years? but more seriously I would say 10 years.

    xshadowfire:  So why did you start?

    kam: Why did I start? Why does anyone start? I guess because it looks cool when someone else is doing it, and it seemed like a better idea than paying attention in class. I started because it was cool, but the more I spun, I realized how much penspinning was helping me be more confident, helping my hand-eye coordination... that sort of thing. So, I just kept doing it even though I got busier and busier... it just seemed like a good thing to do.

    Sfsr:  Kam, do you think you affected people around you through your penspinning? You said that you started because you saw someone doing it, and thought it was cool. Do you think a lot of people see you, think it's cool, and just start spinning?

    kam: I’m sure people did, I’m not always aware of the people who start penspinning because of me, but on the forums I think I affected more people through my website than I do in real life because right now, I’ve already finished college. In middle school, there are a lot more people who are paying attention to your pen spinning but once you get to high school and college, people are more serious about their classes and they're not as open to asking you "oh, how did you do that trick?" and whatnot so I have a better effect on people through my websites, in fact I think that there was an e-mail I received one time that was pretty interesting. There was this guy, who I’m not going to say the name of or anything, who said that my website helped save his life which I found pretty funny at first... his story was that he broke up with his girlfriend and he was really depressed so he tried to commit suicide, and while in the hospital he saw his doctor spinning pens. So he went online and he found Pentrix and started spinning pens, and in a while he forgot about his girlfriend. I thought that was an interesting story of how penspinning affected the lives of some people; I never thought that pen spinning could help save a life.
    Sfsr: Okay, I have another question. Do you still spin pens casually wherever you are, like work, at all?
    kam: I bring a pen to work every day, but I can't spin all the time because I'm a programmer so I need two hands to type (until I learn to type with one)... but whenever I'm doing research, or taking a break, I try to spin my pen at work. All my co-workers know that I like spinning pens, and that I have a website so they're pretty cool with it as long as I get my work done. I also spin when I'm watching TV or whenever I can because nowadays I don't have that much free time so I have to spin whenever I can.

    Sfsr: And how much time do you think you spent on penspinning when you were most active, how many hours a day did you practice?

    kam: Well when I was just starting I could spend a whole afternoon, like 4-5 hours spinning until my hand would get tired but nowadays I'd say I'm lucky if I can spend like 30 minutes a day just for spinning. Casually though, I could probably spend an hour a day spinning without thinking, like working or watching TV or eating sometimes... so maybe like an hour of non-serious spinning and I try to squeeze in like an hour before I go to sleep of serious spinning.

    Sfsr: Have you been working on any new penspinning tricks at all?

    kam: (laughs) I knew you guys would ask me that question. Yes, I'm always trying to create new tricks or combos and I usually don't like to release them until I know they're going to be good because then...

    Sfsr: (inaudible, mixed with kam talking)

    kam: ...Yeah like I tend to take pen spinning a lot more seriously so I like to make sure that whatever I'm trying to release is not just going to be another trick that's going to be forgotten but that's actually going to make a difference in penspinning. I think that just by holding off on a trick for a little longer you can accomplish that because you have more time to see what the flaws of the trick will be and you don't get too excited about something new that you think is going to be really cool but nobody else agrees. I actually do have a trick that I only showed one person so far and got a really good response but I'm still trying to perfect it. I'm calling it the "whip" for right now and it's a very simple trick; it's a combo actually, it's just two fundamentals, to be more detailed. Everybody knows those tricks, but the way that you do it just makes it look so much different than anything else that I've seen.

    Sfsr: Wait, kam, kam can you hang on? [Technical difficulties]

    kam: ...So that's what I'm trying to do; show people that it's not a matter of coming up with the longest sequence of tricks and putting them into a freestyle or combo, but... (stops) yeah, what was that?

    Sfsr: No, I think everything disappeared for a while, but it's back now so you can keep talking.

    kam: Okay, so we're good now?

    Sfsr: Yeah, I think so..okay, we're good to go. Okay, keep talking. [/Technical Difficulties]

    kam: So you were asking me about any new tricks, and I mentioned that I'm working on a combo called unofficially the "whip", because it kind of has a whipping type of resemblance. It's basically two very fundamental tricks and I just apply a different way of performing them that looks very different from most tricks. I'm trying to tell people that using very simple tricks, you can still create something new, just by using some creativity and breaking out of the conventional method of spinning. That it's not just trying to link more tricks into the shortest possible amount of time which will make you a better penspinner. Maybe that's just my style of spinning but we'll see, when I get that down I'll release a short video and we'll see how people react to it.
    Sfsr: Ah a video. That's just what blackmail from FPSB asked. He wants to know if you are releasing any new videos in the near future, and if you are going to appear in any other penspinning videos or not.
    kam: Well, I would like to, it's certainly something I would like to do: release another video with hopefully good material, and I have only really been able to get caught up on all the new tricks and whatnot but I certainly think that I have some new tricks or concepts that will be helpful to penspinners all over the world. I'd like to release a new video right now but it's not at the top of my priorities basically because there are so many people who are making videos and helping spread pen spinning to new people, and it would be nice if I could have time to release a new video, but since there are so many videos it's not at the top of my priorities right now.

    xshadowfire: Do you have any penspinning or manipulation projects going on right now?

    kam: The simple answer would be: yes. Unfortunately, the more I work on penspinning and other projects, the bigger they become and the more confidential and secretive they are too. I can't tell you too much about them right now; there are a couple big ones that I can't even say anything about them until I have the proper permission so I'm going to skip those, but I'm just going to say that they're likely to have a big impact on penspinning and I'm doing my best to make sure that it's going to be a good impact as opposed to a bad one. Obviously I can't control everything, so we'll see about those. There's one project that I'd like to mention and maybe give a quick description. We mentioned it at the California gathering and it's a secret project, it's not completely finalized yet so I'll just mention what it is without giving out all the details yet. Basically what it is is a card game for penspinning. We've basically assigned a family of tricks to a deck of cards, and then we use those cards to play different games that involve penspinning; for example I'm working on something similar to poker  where you draw a hand of 5 cards and people will see those cards. Each card is going to be equivalent to a trick or a family of tricks and then the person has to do a combo based on that. I think pholord mentioned it's similar to a tag game because you don't know what you're going to pull. We tried it at the gathering and basically we had two teams of people competing with each other testing the project and it wasn't perfect since I just started the project and I don't have many penspinners around me to test. We're working on finalizing the rules and point system, so we'll get that released to you guys sometime in the future.

    Sfsr: Okay, thanks kam. We also have a lot of questions about the MX. 'Spinofdoom' wants to know if anything can be done to make the MXs more durable, 'TONYMONTANAED' wants to know how you thought of creating the MX. Just the history of the MX.

    kam: I think a lot of people are unfortunately making the MX incorrectly, or a little incorrectly I'll say... I never officially released the MX tutorial so I don't blame anybody for that. The reason that the MX breaks to easily is that people tend to align the cap of the pen to the little back cap which is the little part that you unscrew to get the ink out. When you do that, what happens is that if you drop your pen on a solid surface like concrete, it tends to snap very easily. The way to fix that is to just make sure to push the cap thing a little bit more; a couple millimetres, or just a bit past that alignment so that the cap is actually overlapping a little bit with the clear body of the pen. That way, when you drop your MX (and I know this because I've tested it over 50 times on an MX that I made) onto solid concrete, it won't break as easily. That's how you can make it more durable. I think that's what he was referring to. As far as history, most people think that the MX was made before the Momentum MX (which is another mod that I had a prototype for) but actually what happened was that I first came up with the RSVP V1, err, hold on, that's not true... I first came up with RSVP V2, but then I wanted something very simple, something very easy to make without much cost so I came up with a V1, and then I just named those like V1 and V2. The MX actually came as the last pen that I made of the MX series which was after the MMX. I wanted to make the MMX first to get a very good pen for spinning but it was so much work to get the plastic barrel from the Pilot that I decided to go back a step and make a much more affordable pen. That's when I came up with the RSVP MX. Does that answer most MX questions, or was there something else?

    xshadowfire: I think that's good. We've also been hearing about one of your secret mods, the Irisgito, how's it coming with that?

    kam: That project has kind of been dropped. I'm not going to pursue it any further mainly because I don't think there is any solution to fix one of the flaws that the pen was all about. Right now, I think we've seen so many different mods that are probably better than the Irisgito right now. It was a big deal at the time that we came up with it, for example when me and nate were working on this project there weren't that many different mods; it was supposed to be a very big step in front of everyone else. With so many different mods right now, I don't think the Irisgito is going to make a very big difference on the penspinning community, and since it's so vulnerable the way it is right now we're just dropping the project. I don't think it's worth continuing.

    Sfsr: How about your pen collection, how many pens do you have? How big is your collection?

    kam: You guys are going to have to come to my house and count them because I have no idea. I probably have about two shoeboxes full of pens, so I don't know... a few hundred, thousands, no idea. I've never really bothered to count.

    Sfsr:  What pens do you have in your collection? Any new mods, or mainly... say, MX and the Jeller-pen mods and all?

    kam: Well, a lot of the pens that I have are just 'stock' pens, like just what you would buy out of a store. I just collect them for research purposes, obviously I have a lot of RSVPs and HGGs laying around and I try to collect pens from the different manufacturers like Pentel, Pilot, BiC, Zebra, and so on... but they're mostly just modified for archival purposes. I have so mods, but there aren't that many. I have some Comssas that people gave me, different prototypes of MXs that I tried to make (and that were never good enough to be released), just a lot of pens that people give me over time.

    xshadowfire: So kam, where are you from?

    kam: That sounds like a simple question, but it's not that easy. I was born in Paraguay, in South America. Most people probably wouldn't imagine that, but I didn't really live there for too long. I went to Brazil, which is where I grew up, for most of my life. I went there when I was about a year old and I lived there for half of my life. I then moved to Taiwan to study for a few years; that's where I learned my first penspinning trick. Then, I moved back to Brazil and started to develop some more tricks, and eventually I moved to the US which is where I am right now.

    Sfsr: Can you speak Portuguese?

    kam: Yeah sure, if anybody is listening from Brazil, (random speaking in Portuguese)

    kam: Probably most people are like, "what the heck is he talking about?", I can speak a few different languages: I can speak some Mandarin, Taiwanese, and I can read some Korean but I can't make any sense of it.

    Sfsr: We have some other questions here from people in the chat, do you keep in touch with nate? That's a question from sketching.

    kam: Is he referring to nate that... there are a few nates, the nate that helped develop a lot of pen mods?

    Sfsr: Yeah, that's the nate we're talking about.

    kam: No, actually I haven't heard from him in a while, I used to just talk to him on UPSB and since he's from the penspinning community I haven't really heard from him. He certainly helped me with a lot of good ideas and whatnot, but I think he might be more active in the yo-yoing community, maybe one of these days I'll check and see if he's still around.

    xshadowfire: Here's another question from the chat, from kar0lek1325: What are your favourite tricks?

    kam: Favourite tricks? Hmm, that's a good question... probably... too hard to answer. Well, one of them is obviously the BackAround, I think I've mentioned that several times. I like it because it's so different from anything else that came before it. I'm not talking about what you guys call nowadays the Korean Style BackAround, I'm talking about the one that David Weis does where he has the pen closer to the palm, and it's just so smooth that I use it whenever I can. That's one of my favourite tricks. I also like the fingerless tricks mainly because they seem to effortless and unconventional. I also like Infinity Release, aerial tricks... you know, anything that's unique and distinguishable. There are probably a lot more tricks that I like, but it's too hard to come up with them right now.

    Sfsr: Have you ever mentored anyone PSing in real life?

    kam: Yeah, I think so... I did help with someone whose name is Steven, he lives in San Diego. I don't really know where he is, he hasn't really kept in touch, but in gatherings sometimes, like in the first gathering there were people who were asking me about some tricks. It was probably like a collective effort, but I've also done it more like in my earlier years, a lot of people who wanted to learn the fundamentals and whatnot I did help, on a one-on-one basis. Nowadays, I just don't have that kind of time to do it anymore.

    xshadowfire: Most of us should know that you made the original UPSB, what do you think of the new UPSB, V3?

    kam: I think everyone likes it, and I'm the same... unfortunately I wasn't as involved as the original UPSB where I pretty much did everything by myself, but the new UPSB has some pretty cool features like we wouldn't be doing this podcast if we didn't have the UPSB radio. The original UPSB didn't have the chat room, either, so you know it's much more geared towards the community with a bunch of new features which I think everybody loves, and I'm the same. Unfortunately, I can't just spend my entire day on UPSB like I used to do, so I can't read all the topics and whatnot, but I see that there are some really interesting forums (the research department, and whatnot). I really like where it's going. I have to give a thank-you to Zombo and all the UPSB and UCPSB staff that helped us get UPSB V3 out the door.

    Sfsr: You say you don't keep track of much on the new forum, but do you keep track of any new members at all? Like any idea of how good people are, or not at all?

    kam: Well since I can't spend that much time it's hard for me to keep track of all the members but obviously I know some of the bigger names  like Eriror or however you pronounce his name (laughs), and Bonkura and his videos, the Korean penspinners that were in the World Cup... I try to keep a tab on those who are making a difference in pen spinning, but if you were to ask me "oh I'm from UPSB, have you seen my videos before?", I probably wouldn't really know who you are unless you really distinguish yourself from the crowd. There's just too many penspinners to keep track on these days. I'm sure there are many good penspinners out there, like Pholord for example, he's a really good penspinner, there was people from the California gathering like Tenku, they all seem to be so much better than the people who used to be spinning a few years ago but I just can't keep track of anyone. I only know Dan maybe because I've met him personally... it's just too hard to keep track of everyone these days, so I'm sorry if you're really good and I haven't heard of you.

    xshadowfire: What does your family think of your penspinning?

    kam: My family? Well, I don't think they love it or hate it, I think they've just grown accustomed to what I do. I'm talking about my direct family like my sister, my parents... I'm sure that initially they thought it was annoying, but my mom told me one time that she didn't mind me spinning pens (she didn't try to encourage me or anything) but because I was using penspinning to build websites which is what I'm doing as my career right now, you know she thought it was a good idea to improve my web design skills with a hobby that I like. They didn't mind it so much as long as I'm not doing it at the dinner table.

    Sfsr: Okay, we have some more questions here: what's your favourite haircut?

    kam: My favourite haircut? Who the heck asked that question? (laughs)

    Sfsr: I think it was the admin of SweSpin, Ceedgee.

    kam: My favourite haircut... I'm not too sure how to answer that. I tend to like variations in haircut, I guess. Every couple months I try to do a different style, for myself. I'm not really in a position to say that I definitely love a particular hairstyle, but I'm more towards a short to medium haircut, if that's any help.

    Sfsr: it was Hamor who asked the question, not Ceedgee.

    xshadowfire: Okay, I think we're just about going to wrap this up... one last question. If any of you listeners are active in the spammers bin and off topic, you might have noticed there's a screenshot with kam playing World of Warcraft. Kam, do you play World of Warcraft?

    kam: Umm... no, unfortunately I don't. I don't know where that came from. I used to play Warcraft 1, 2 and 3, but I stopped playing it because it was taking too much of my time and it wasn't a healthy habit to spend so much time playing that. I'm sure WoW would have been just as addicting so I decided not to try it.

    Sfsr: Okay, we have a lot more questions but we don't really have time for them now, so we'll just move on to the World Cup, Zombo will be doing the drawing because CrAsH hasn't got a mic ready. Zombo?

  47. pholord
    Date: Sun, Jan 20 2008 21:44:36

    QUOTE
    There's just too many penspinners to keep track on these days. I'm sure there are many good penspinners out there, like Pholord for example, he's a really good penspinner


    that really made my day biggrin.gif

  48. Tialys
    Date: Sun, Jan 20 2008 21:53:30


    Spoiler:
    xshadowfire: Okay, welcome everyone; this is the first official UPSB podcast. I’m xshadowfire, one of your hosts, and also with us we have Sfsr who should (inaudible) [introduce himself.]


    kam: Well when I was just starting I could spend a whole afternoon, like 4-5 hours spinning until my hand would get tired but nowadays I'd say I'm lucky if I can spend like 30 minutes a day just for spinning. Casually though, I could probably spend an hour a day spinning without thinking, like working or watching TV or eating sometimes... so maybe like an hour of non-serious spinning and I try to squeeze in like [a half] an hour before I go to sleep of serious spinning.


    Sfsr: (inaudible, mixed with kam talking) [They're more respected, more accepted.]


    kam: We've basically assigned a family of tricks to a deck of cards, and then we use those cards to play different games that involve penspinning; for example I'm working on something similar to poker where you draw a hand of 5 cards and people will see those cards. Each card is going to be equivalent to a trick or a family of tricks and then the person has to do a combo based on that. I think pholord mentioned it's similar to a tag game [but it's kind of randomized] because you don't know what you're going to pull. We tried it at the gathering and basically we had two teams of people competing with each other testing the project and it wasn't perfect since I just started the project and I don't have many penspinners around me to test. We're working on finalizing the rules and point system, so we'll get that released to you guys sometime in the future.


    kam: Well, a lot of the pens that I have are just 'stock' pens, like just what you would buy out of a store. I just collect them for research purposes, obviously I have a lot of RSVPs and HGGs laying around and I try to collect pens from the different manufacturers like Pentel, Pilot, BiC, Zebra, and so on... but they're mostly just [unmodified] for archival purposes. I have [some] mods, but there aren't that many. I have some Comssas that people gave me, different prototypes of MXs [or other pens] that I tried to make (and that were never good enough to be released), just a lot of pens that people give me over time.


    kam: No, actually I haven't heard from him in a while, I used to just talk to him on UPSB and since he's from the penspinning community I haven't really heard from him. He certainly helped me with a lot of good ideas and whatnot, but I think he might be more active in the yo-yoing community [which is where he comes from], maybe one of these days I'll check and see if he's still around.


    kam: That's one of my favourite tricks. I also like the fingerless tricks mainly because they seem to effortless and unconventional. I also like Infinity Release, aerial tricks... you know, anything that's unique and distinguishable. There are probably a lot more tricks that I like, but it's too hard to come up with [a (favourite)] right now.


    Sfsr: Have you ever mentored anyone PSing in real life? [It's a question from (?) in the IRC chat.]


    kam: I probably wouldn't really know who you are unless you really distinguish yourself from the crowd. There's just too many penspinners to keep track on these days. I'm sure there are many good penspinners out there, like Pholord for example, he's a really good penspinner, there was people from the California gathering like Tenku, they all seem to be so much better than the people who used to be spinning a few years ago but I just can't keep track of anyone. I only know [them] maybe because I've met [them] personally... it's just too hard to keep track of everyone these days, so I'm sorry if you're really good and I haven't heard of you.


    kam: My family? Well, I don't think they love it or hate it, I think they've just grown accustomed to what I do. I'm talking about my direct family like my sister[s], my parents... I'm sure that initially they thought it was annoying, but my mom told me one time that she didn't mind me spinning pens (she didn't try to encourage me or anything) but because I was using penspinning to build websites which is what I'm doing as my career right now, you know she thought it was a good idea to improve my web design skills with a hobby that I like. They didn't mind it so much as long as I'm not doing it at the dinner table. [I think that's what annoys them the most.]

    That was a long podcast. But well done, I enjoyed it. smile.gif

  49. Arcturus
    Date: Sun, Jan 20 2008 22:08:04

    Thanks everybody, I've made all the changes suggested.

    -Arcturus

  50. Zombo
    Date: Sun, Jan 20 2008 23:25:37

    QUOTE
    It's a question from (?) in the IRC chat.


    (?) = Escapist, but his username is Escapist1