UPD. We’re all so familiar with it, that we take the term UPD itself
for granted. But would you believe that it was first used only one
year ago? David Stone coined UPD in a post dated Nov 7, 2001.
To mark the occasion, I’ve made a little page
<www.xs4all.nl/~klaasbil/upd.htm> covering the usage trend in the
first year. Another silly statistics page by
Klaas Bil
All my posts are made with 100% recycled electrons.
Re: First anniversary of “UPD”
Klaas, it is truly a momentous day indeed. Thanks for marking it for us all.
Note to John Foss - Isn’t it time for an edition of “One Wheeled Words” (the last was in OOW, January 2002) to be included in On One Wheel? UPD must be shared with our non-Internet obsessed co-religionists.
Raphael Lasar
Matawan, NJ
Re: First anniversary of “UPD”
Way to go, Klaas. Now that was fun! By the way, any job openings where you work? I could use some extra time in my life. 
You should write a book, “The life and times of TLA’s”.
B
Re: First anniversary of “UPD”
On Thu, 7 Nov 2002 16:50:01 -0600, yoopers
<yoopers.drsmb@timelimit.unicyclist.com> wrote:
>By the way, any job openings where
>you work?
Work? I’m doing this in my free time, and yes there happens to be a
job opening, see <www.xs4all.nl/~klaasbil/vacature.htm> 
Klaas Bil
All my posts are made with 100% recycled electrons.
Re: Re: First anniversary of “UPD”
I play guitar, do I qualify?
Translated from the webpage:
Vacature for a gitarist (e)
Mista sits for quite some time urgent timidly to a skilful gitarist (e). If a jet ear is really necessary can we that mutually slightly takes care of - meerdere members of Mista play a beetje jet ear - but then miss we something differently.
The role of a gitarist in is be pricked the nation music frequently after to, at some well-known as “the pa of hoem”. Also but bits melody prevent regularly. Preferably we would find someone those also other tokkelinstrumenten to play on as tambura, bouzouki, balalaika or perhaps even saz.
A goeie zangstem is taken along always: all current Mista-leden sing. We repete on Sunday evening in The Hague (Bezuidenhout), but these are be perhaps adapted in consultation. On our repetities it goes always lively to and also with our actions (1 à 2 by month) we let us have much pleasure.
For or seems it knows to feel per someone those here something per yourself what, rested contact takes and comes once without engagement on a repetitie - and takes along what concerns us per instrument!
to paraphrase another post on another thread, klaas, i’m glad u r on our team
thanx, this is kewl!
Re: First anniversary of “UPD”
klaasbil_remove_the_spamkiller_@xs4all.nl writes:
>UPD. We’re all so familiar with it, that we take the term UPD itself
>for granted. But would you believe that it was first used only one
>year ago? David Stone coined UPD in a post dated Nov 7, 2001.
>
>To mark the occasion, I’ve made a little page
><www.xs4all.nl/~klaasbil/upd.htm> covering the usage trend in the
>first year. Another silly statistics page by
>
>Klaas Bil
It’s always a tad embarrassing to be reminded of how one was killing time
on some date long in the past. Sincerest thanks to Bil for not mentioning
the part about how I should have been working.
Interestingly, since my server crashed and ate all my saved e-mails, I
probably wouldn’t have had a copy of that original post. Thanks for your
wonderful (obsessional) archiving!
David
Re: First anniversary of “UPD”
klaasbil_remove_the_spamkiller_@xs4all.nl writes:
>
>Work? I’m doing this in my free time, and yes there happens to be a
>job opening, see <www.xs4all.nl/~klaasbil/vacature.htm>
>
>Klaas Bil
Bil, what’s the English word for ‘saz’? I hope there isn’t one so that the
world of Scrabble can one day be enriched by this one.
Nice instruments!
David
Re: First anniversary of “UPD”
On Fri, 08 Nov 2002 12:24:17 -0500, “David Stone” <dstone@packer.edu>
wrote:
>Bil, what’s the English word for ‘saz’? I hope there isn’t one so that the
>world of Scrabble can one day be enriched by this one.
It’s a Turkish word for this traditional Turkish instrument which is a
form of long-necked lute. I guess that in English it would be referred
to as a “saz” as well.
Re your not having a copy of the original post: I don’t know if the
unicyclist.com/forum keeps archives over a year, but Google Groups
still has it for sure.
Klaas Bil
All my posts are made with 100% recycled electrons.
Re: First anniversary of “UPD”
On Thu, 7 Nov 2002 23:26:00 -0600, yoopers
<yoopers.dsawn@timelimit.unicyclist.com> wrote:
>I play guitar, do I qualify?
Only if your guitar playing ability at least matches your translating
ability, which is jolly good indeed.
Klaas Bil
All my posts are made with 100% recycled electrons.
UPD Original Post
Found it:
http://www.unicycling.org/pipermail/rsu/2001-November/000392.html
Thread:
http://www.unicyclist.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=14809&perpage=15&pagenumber=2
Re: Re: First anniversary of “UPD”
Sorry, can’t take credit for it. Twas an internet webpage translator.
B
Re: First anniversary of “UPD”
On Fri, 8 Nov 2002 23:50:41 -0600, yoopers
<yoopers.du6qa@timelimit.unicyclist.com> wrote:
>Sorry, can’t take credit for it. Twas an internet webpage translator.
Don’t worry Bruce, I recognised the general style of automated
translators. On the only English-language web page of our music group
<www.xs4all.nl/~klaasbil/mistae.htm> there is a link to a preferred
(by me) internet translator, and even to an internet translation
portal.
Klaas Bil
All my posts are made with 100% recycled electrons.
Re: First anniversary of “UPD”
I may be mistaken but I think the term existed before November 7, 2001.
A quick search turned up a post on July 21, 2001 by Mikefule - Roland
Hope School of Unicycling (see below) which defined the term. But I seem
to remember the term used long before that, maybe as early as '98. I
also seem to remember hearing my sister-in-law using the term in horse
back riding long before that as well.
Of course I could be wrong.
John Hooten
From: Mikefule (Mikefule.85n2n@timelimit.unicyclist.com)
Subject: Exclusivity through TLAs
Newsgroups: rec.sport.unicycling
Date: 2002-07-21 11:58:07 PST
An engineering friend of mine often remarks, ‘What we need is a TLA.’
Sooner or later, someone asks, then he explains, ‘It’s a Three Letter
Acronym.’ (Of course, for pedants, TLA isn’t an acronym as it doesn’t
spell a word.)
All minority activities (brain surgery, nuclear physics, unicycling
etc.) rely on jargon and acronyms to maintain an air of mystique and
exclusivity. In unicycling, we have few. UPD is possibly the only one
which turns up regularly, and it’s obvious enough that if you drop it
casually into conversation with a non unicyclist, they often work it
out.
From our own point of view, UPD covers a very wide range of
circumstances, so perhaps we need more TLAs.
I suggest:
UPD = UnPlanned Dismount.
UFD = UnForced Dismount. (When you just fall off for no reason.)
OSD = Obstacle Specific Dismount. (When you feel that the UPD is
justifiable by the severity of the obstacle.)
NOD = Next Obstacle Dismount. (When you’re so busy looking ahead to the
next, and more difficult, obstacle, you trip over the smaller one in
front of you. I do this all the time.)
POD = Post Obstacle Dismount. (When you make it through, past or over a
really difficult bit, then UPD as soon as you get to the easy bit. I do
this all the time too.)
LRD = Lechery Related Dismount: when you’re looking at the curves and
bumps, but not the ones on the trail.
And perhaps the most serious of the lot:
NGI = Nose Ground Interface. A really unpleasant UPD.
All of these can be prefixed with ‘ballistic’ where appropriate.
So you get home bruised and bloodied. Your explanation: I did a
ballistic LRD and NGI’d. This is bound to impress and gain sympathy,
whereas, ‘I was ogling these two birds and fell off in the mud,’ will
only cause merriment among those you love.
(US: ‘Birds’ = ‘chicks’?)
Mikefule’s Profile: http://www.unicyclist.com/profile/879
View this thread: http://www.unicyclist.com/thread/19456
Klaas Bil wrote:
> UPD. We’re all so familiar with it, that we take the term UPD itself
> for granted. But would you believe that it was first used only one
> year ago? David Stone coined UPD in a post dated Nov 7, 2001.
>
> To mark the occasion, I’ve made a little page
> <www.xs4all.nl/~klaasbil/upd.htm> covering the usage trend in the
> first year. Another silly statistics page by
>
> Klaas Bil
>
> All my posts are made with 100% recycled electrons.
Re: Re: First anniversary of “UPD”
Erm…
Phil, just me
Re: First anniversary of “UPD”
On Mon, 11 Nov 2002 22:48:29 -0800, John Hooten <jhooten@rcsis.com>
wrote:
>I may be mistaken but I think the term existed before November 7, 2001.
>A quick search turned up a post on July 21, 2001 by Mikefule - Roland
>Hope School of Unicycling (see below) which defined the term.
Phil correctly pointed out that you misread the year.
>But I seem
>to remember the term used long before that, maybe as early as '98.
That may be so. The first day of use was assessed based on the
newsgroup and www only. But honestly I doubt that it was used much
earlier. If it were used outside the newsgroup since '98 or so, I
would find it strange that it never appeared in rsu until late 2001.
Having said that, I too would have guessed that I’ve known the term
for much longer than a year.
>I
>also seem to remember hearing my sister-in-law using the term in horse
>back riding long before that as well.
There you are right. In my research I indeed found numerous references
to UPD (also meaning unplanned dismount) from the hippique world. I
reckoned that these did not count, in a way.
Re: First anniversary of “UPD”
klaasbil writes (to John Hooten’s post):
"
>I
>also seem to remember hearing my sister-in-law using the term in horse
>back riding long before that as well.
"
>
>There you are right. In my research I indeed found numerous references
>to UPD (also meaning unplanned dismount) from the hippique world. I
>reckoned that these did not count, in a way.
Initially I thought that John Hooten was kidding. It seemed too
coincidental that two people would come up with the same term, esp in
different ‘walks’ of life. But I can certainly see how it makes sense.
In my case, I never encountered the term before inventing it for myself
and friends (and people in my Uni club); I had simply been tired of the
over-used term ‘fall’ to describe times when I didn’t actually fall. UPD
makes so much sense that it was adopted fast by many writers, which is no
surprise, and that probably explains why it feels a bit older – much the
way that Cokers sometimes feel like they’ve been around forever until you
realize that no one had one a few years ago (and when exactly DID they
come onto the scene?).
David Stone
PS: What do you call someone having a UPD? Answer: a UFO (Unicyclist
Falling Off).
Re: First anniversary of “UPD”
Oops, I stand corrected. I misread the date on the post from Mikefule as
2001-07-21 instead of the correct date 2002-07-21. My apologies to one and
all, especially David, for doubting the origin of UPD. I made a post that
included to term “unintended dismount” (see below) in 1999 which is
probably what I was thinking about. I knew I had used some such term
frequently for several years. I must have unknowingly switched to UPD last
year without noticing and assumed I had been using it all along.
Once again my apologies.
John Hooten
From: John Hooten (jhooten@softcom.net)
Subject: Re: Unicycling and Balance (and Flying)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.unicycling
Date: 1999/06/29
James Short wrote:
> How do you keep your balance on a unicycle? Is it through sight or visual
> reference, inner ear sense, feel, combination, or what?
>
I have been able to ride on a smooth, predictable surface (a tennis court
or an
asphalt parking lot) with my eyes closed without any great difficulty.
However,
for me the visual input is extremely important while riding on trails. I am
constantly reading the trail 2 to 5 meters ahead and subconsciously making
countless adjustments to the position of the wheel relative to the center
of
mass, speed and size of the obstacle to be cleared. The most frequent
reason
for me experiencing an unintended dismount (fall) is a bump or obstacle
that I
hadn’t noticed and so didn’t make the adjustments needed to clear the
object.
The bump can often be very small, something I would have easily cleared if
I
had been aware of it. If I am going slowly I might have enough time to
adjust,
but usually I am riding fast enough that and once I have felt the bump it
is
too late to make adjustments. Areas where mixed shadows and unblocked light
under trees make irregularities in the trail hard to see are especially
difficult for me.
John Hooten
Klaas Bil wrote:
> On Mon, 11 Nov 2002 22:48:29 -0800, John Hooten <jhooten@rcsis.com>
> wrote:
>
> >I may be mistaken but I think the term existed before November 7, 2001.
> >A quick search turned up a post on July 21, 2001 by Mikefule - Roland
> >Hope School of Unicycling (see below) which defined the term.
> Phil correctly pointed out that you misread the year.
>
> >But I seem
> >to remember the term used long before that, maybe as early as '98.
> That may be so. The first day of use was assessed based on the
> newsgroup and www only. But honestly I doubt that it was used much
> earlier. If it were used outside the newsgroup since '98 or so, I
> would find it strange that it never appeared in rsu until late 2001.
> Having said that, I too would have guessed that I’ve known the term
> for much longer than a year.
>
> >I
> >also seem to remember hearing my sister-in-law using the term in horse
> >back riding long before that as well.
> There you are right. In my research I indeed found numerous references
> to UPD (also meaning unplanned dismount) from the hippique world. I
> reckoned that these did not count, in a way.
Re: First anniversary of “UPD”
jhooten@rcsis.com writes:
>Oops, I stand corrected. I misread the date on the post from Mikefule as
>2001-07-21 instead of the correct date 2002-07-21. My apologies to one and
>all, especially David, for doubting the origin of UPD. I made a post that
>included to term “unintended dismount” (see below) in 1999 which is
>probably what I was thinking about. I knew I had used some such term
>frequently for several years. I must have unknowingly switched to UPD last
>year without noticing and assumed I had been using it all along.
>
>Once again my apologies.
>
>John Hooten
No problem, John. I just hope this helps resolve the other issue, namely
how my great great grandfather coined the term ‘unicycle.’ Very few people
remember his epistle of late July, 1879, when he hypothesized that a
skilled rider of a penny farthing (which he humorously called a ‘p-fart’)
could one day master the skills required to ride just the farthing part of
this large velocipede. He offered:
“Mayhaps I could hone my skills as an adept at the forward-riding
velocipeder to the point where, rather than riding a p-fart,’ as it were,
I would forsooth be riding just the ‘fart’ part, which I call a
‘unicycle.’ I put forth this term in hopes of pleasing our Grecophilc
friends who will surely applaud the use of uni (one) and cycle (wheel).
‘Monocycle’ appealed to me for some time until the former term won out.”
Well, I hope this clears things up.
David Stone
Re: First anniversary of “UPD”
On Tue, 12 Nov 2002 20:57:07 -0500, “David Stone” <dstone@packer.edu>
wrote:
>I had simply been tired of the
>over-used term ‘fall’ to describe times when I didn’t actually fall. UPD
>makes so much sense
>PS: What do you call someone having a UPD? Answer: a UFO (Unicyclist
>Falling Off).
So what is it David? Is a UPD a fall or not?
"There are more than one thousand chemicals in a cup of coffee. Of these, only 26 have been tested, and have caused cancer in rats. "