Bodysurfing And Data

I’ve been using Dawn Patrol (Dawnpatrol.cloud) during my bodysurfing sessions for about a year now. I don’t use it the way most of its users use it. I tag my posts with dawnpatrol.app when I am able to use the app to get interesting ride data or when it helps me find videos of my rides in Surfline.

Most users use a surf watch, or Apple Watch, plus a stand-up surfboard.

I use my actual phone with the Dawn Patrol app to track my bodysurfing.

Handplane, iPhone SE, hard clear case for the iPhone, underwater case attached to a floating wrist strap.

Warning: This is not surfing advice. It is risky to use your phone like this. My phone has been okay, but there’s a risk of damage and loss to both ones equipment and ones person. There is always risk in a physically demanding activity like bodysurfing in the ocean, which is the wilderness.


After a session, I can see the waves that were captured by the app. This morning I went to OB here in San Diego, produce an export that looks like this.

15 WAVES, 1346FT WAVE DISTANCE, 23.7 MPH TOP SPEED. Ocean Beach. Dawn Patrol App. Soul Surfer Edition.

That’s a map of rides that were captured. There are settings in the app that determine what movement data constitutes “a ride.” Most of our phones these days detect movement, they detect direction of movement. Dawn Patrol turns that recorded data into rides.

Yesterday I added a subscription to “Soul Surfer“–a paid upgrade to Dawn Patrol that lets me send the recorded data to Strava. I signed up for Strava just yesterday. I’m not sure what I can do with that data yet, but I’m fascinated to see how people track their runs, workouts, hikes, and bike rides in it.

Here’s the first session, from this morning, I am able to share from Strava:

That visualization doesn’t look like wave riding. It might be like swimming. My use case is unusual. I’m not quite a swimmer, but I do swim during my sessions. I paddle out and fight the oncoming waves. I reckon with rip currents and drift. I’m not quite a surfer, but I ride individual waves. My rides are not as long as those of a surfer on a surfboard (or a bodyboarder, or a surfer riding an inflatable mat). But in my mind the session is s set of rides, not a single extended path.

The Dawn Patrol export looks more to me like how the session felt. When I see long curved lines, that represents longer, better rides. I was able to follow the breaking wave. Shorter rides more perpendicular to the beach less desirable but also fun.

Here at IndieWeb Camp San Diego yesterday we discussed locative and motion data. I think the Strava and Dawn Patrol data might also work as Activity Streams (https://activitystrea.ms). Activity Streams are an open data format–a JSON based data format–to share activity information. This data was collected by these services, but in a very real sense it feels to me like data that belongs to me. At the moment though, it doesn’t feel like those data are portable. “I’ve got to get my steps in” people understand. And it would seem crazy for measurements of my steps would only be owned by some company. I like to think that more people will feel the same way surf data.

I find myself drawn to doing more programming, visualizations, and about this kind of data, and I’m hopeful I’ll get the chance.

Thanks for reading, and if you feel so inclined, feel free to leave me a comment or suggestion about this.

Me in the surf today
Me this morning at OB in the water.

Logo-i-zer. I love making little websites. This one creates a new ARTLUNG logo based on colors. (You can make websites too! What website would YOU make?)

Good afternoon.

Kelly took this one of me bodysurfing today at Scripps. Thank you @hellokellykuhl! #stoke

Low tide, drive by dolphins.

Crystal Pier’s Christmas tree is up. And I found a 5 inch tall turban shell. I through it back when I realized it was a live. Thanksgiving with Kelly with family and family dogs. And killer veggies.

Thread of the Day

From Derek Powazek, from over on Bluesky:

If you want to own your name and everything you post under it in a way nobody can take away from you, register a domain and start uploading html.
If you post to someone else’s social media thing, you are playing on someone else’s server, and they always hold the keys.
Yes, even here

Amen.

Design is a verb I verb.

Today I went through the code I wrote to put my comics collection online in 2000. In 2004 I posted to my blog, using Blogger, that they were for sale. Here’s the post. The PHP code was about as good as one could imagine it might be by a person whose primary skillset was implementing in HTML fancy designs.

I have added that page to my archive. It’s got old designs, links to the Internet Archive, various ephemeral experiments, splash pages, and the like. The page tells the story of my whole site over the decades. Moving things there has me considering ways to have it be even more dynamic and visual.

It’s very much a work in progress.

This screenshot probably will be obsolete in a few days.

I feel very pleased to be experimenting with design. It’s another of the positive outgrowths of Front End Study Hall. I think during the last one I started a sentence with “As designers we are obliged to think about…”

I have not thought of myself as a web designer in a long time, but out came that thought from my mouth.

It might be catching because James gave FrESH a great compliment in his post Confidence when he said:

I felt the same way about front-end web development, too. Earlier this year, I knew the basics of HTML and CSS, but I had no understanding of many of the modern technologies I could use. I knew grid existed, but I had no experience with its use. Then came Front End Study Hall, in which I learned about many technologies and how to think about them.


Refactoring PHP code and programming things invisible to users has been lucrative, but I’ve always been conscious about how my work works and looks and what impressions I give. So why not be a designer or call myself one?

Whether I call myself a designer, I design.

Design is also verb.

And so, I’ll verb design.

“spite swimming | sanity swimming” (one-sheet)

COVID LOCKDOWN ... WORK WORK WORK, ANT INVASION, DEPRESSING NEWS, WORK WORK WORK EBAY TOY ROBOTS WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK ... EVERYTHING SHUT DOWN ... MY GYM SHUT DOWN. ... AND PAUSED PAYMENTS. FOR AWHILE ... THEN THEY UNPAUSED. ... -$54.00 ... -$54.00 ... -$54.00 ... MONTHS WENT BY ... I DIDN'T GO TO THE GYM. ... STREAMING YOGA SUCKED. ... THE GYM MADE SWIM LANE RESERVATIONS AVAILABLE. ... I GOT A LANE EVERY DAY I COULD. ... I TOOK ANY LANE. ... ANYTIME. ... AND I SWAM. ... OUT OF SPITE! ... 6 A.M. SANTEE. ... BEFORE SUNRISE, SPRING VALLEY ... TOOK EVERY CHANCE. ... 6AM POINT LOMA. ... LAPS TURNED TO SNORKLING AND BODYSURFING. ... SPITE REVERSED. ... I SWIM. I LOVE SWIMMING. ... -- ARTLUNG

First shown at The Apartment Art Show curated by Raquelle Jac in July 2022 in Downtown San Diego, California.

Alternate multipanel version

closing time