Sunway Pyramid Ice Skating

It has been a long time since I last blogged...

I stopped practicing cubing for quite some time...now I am trying to look for more information on computing courses... and also into xPKserver for the time being...


Thursday, 4th December 2008...my friends and I went to Sunway Pyramid to ice skate..
Ice skating works because the metal blade at the bottom of the ice skate shoe can glide with very little friction over the surface of the ice. However, slightly leaning the blade over and digging one of its edges into the ice ("rockover and bite") gives skaters the ability to increase friction and control their movement at will. In addition, by choosing to move along curved paths while leaning their bodies radially and flexing their knees, skaters can use gravity to control and increase their momentum. They can also create momentum by pushing the blade against the curved track which it cuts into the ice. Skillfully combining these two actions of leaning and pushing— a technique known as "drawing"— results in what looks like effortless and graceful curvilinear flow across the ice.

How the low-friction surface develops is not exactly known, but a large body of knowledge does exist. These are explained below.

Experiments show that ice has a minimum kinetic friction at −7°C (19°F), and many indoor skating rinks set their system to a similar temperature. The low amount of friction actually observed has been difficult for physicists to explain, especially at lower temperatures. On the surface of any body of ice at a temperature above about −20°C (−4°F), there is always a thin film of liquid water, ranging in thickness from only a few molecules to thousands of molecules. This is because an abrupt end to the crystalline structure is not the most entropically favorable possibility. The thickness of this liquid layer depends almost entirely on the temperature of the surface of the ice, with higher temperatures giving a thicker layer. However, skating is possible at temperatures much lower than −20°C, at which temperature there is no naturally occurring film of liquid.

When the blade of an ice skate passes over the ice, the ice undergoes two kinds of changes in its physical state: an increase in pressure, and a change in temperature due to kinetic friction and the heat of melting. Direct measurements show that the heating due to friction is greater than the cooling due to the heat of melting. Although high pressure can cause ice to melt, by lowering its melting point, the pressure required is far greater than that actually produced by ice skates. Frictional heating does lead to an increase in the thickness of the naturally occurring film of liquid, but measurements with an atomic force microscope have found the boundary layer to be too thin to supply the observed reduction in friction.

This machine is to resurface the ice of the skating rink so that the rink will be more dry and safe for skaters to skate...

After a while, many of my friends left and went for other activities in the shopping complex...I, too, left and went for my other activities..only a few more friends skated abit longer...

I went to "digital centre" to check whether my neighbour still works there or not - he worked there a few months ago... but I could not find him there...

So I went to search for twisty puzzles' shop - got the information from Malaysian cube forum..

http://www.malaysiancube.com/forum/index.php

I managed to find the shop...it is named "my puzzle house"(one of the stores inside asian avenue, it is located at the highest floor - same floor as digital centre)..it sells jigsaw puzzles, twisty puzzles and many other things... as stated from the forum... they said this place sells megaminx and pyraminx...so I asked if I could try the megaminx and pyraminx ...

With dissapointment...the megaminx and pyraminx suks...even their cubes...2x2x2, 3x3x3 and 4x4x4...all suks and the price is mad... expensive and low quality... but can't blame them...they do not know anything about twisty puzzles...

Well...too bad...guess I got to get the megaminx and pyraminx through internet..

I had my lunch at Friday's, Section 14, Petaling Jaya, Selangor... chicken chop and shrimps(which are prawns !)....

It is my first time trying Friday's... recommended by my schoolmates - Wendy's, Friday's and Shakey's... 3 shops have a similarity.. < 's > behind it.. I tried Wendy's a few weeks ago.. and Friday's - "today - passed many days before posting"... soon I will try Shakey's...

But I did not have a good impression on both shops - it is not my taste... well, too bad for me =(

At last, I went to digital mall - a mall in section 14 that sells most of the digital items (example : mobile phones, console games, computer games, computers, console players, movies and more)...

I went there to get some movies to watch during my holidays...

-The End-