Almost addictive...

[firosiro]

Sweat beaded on Kanak Jha's forehead Thursday Day as He hunched forward, his chestnut eyes consumed by the white plastic ball, his right hand making delicate semi-circles with his ping pong paddle. He kept his left hand in the pocket of his shorts so he could pull out a different ball in the event of a mistake by him or his practice partner, so he'd never have to stop. Jha has spent most of his life completely focused and in a rush. He is an Olympian at 16, among the first United States representative created at the 2000s, the youngest member of this season's U.S. delegation and the youngest ping pong player in the case of history. He had an expert trainer at age 6. He transferred to Sweden a year ago to train and play professionally. He's the reigning U.S. champion.

=> Best Ping Pong Paddles & How To Choose Them

Every competition-addled man and boy in the United States has Descended into a cellar or trudged out to a garage into a tiny play pingpong. It's a sport everyone plays, and also the best player in the nation is a 16-year-old kid who likes going to the movies but can't drive himself there. In a sport dominated by Asian nations, especially China, Jha may be American's greatest hope to win its first medal in the sport, if not this Olympics than in an future Games. He needs to add strength to compete with the world's best players. Jha stands near the table to mitigate his dearth of power, and he favors his wicked forehand smash to his backhand. But when he plays with teens, those his era, from powerhouse countries, he often wins.

"He can change the game," stated Timothy Wang explained, Who's making his second Olympic appearance. "Definitely, he's got the capability to conquer them as long as he could continue working hard." Wang said he often forgets he is traveling or training using a 16-year-old. On the flight to Rio, Jha participated in an internet Monopoly game with Wang, USA Ping pong CEO Gordon Kaye and a computer-based participant. As the match progressed, Wang accumulated enough money and land that it became evident he'd win. Jha hatched a desperate, diabolical strategy - he exchanged all his resources into the computer to get nothing. "I lost to Tim, so I knew I couldn't let Tim triumph," Jha said. "I just gave everything I possessed to the computer, so the computer will win. And Tim got pretty angry."

The movement, Wang said, reflects Jha's playing style. Tenacity Is not a quality often associated with ping pong, but it has come to define Jha from the eyes of teammates. "He sort of bites on to your leg," Wang said. "Even if he is down, he is never out. It doesn't matter if he is down, 10-0. He won't just give up."

=> Way choose the best ping pong table: https://github.com/pingpongsport/bestpingpong/wiki/Best-Ping-Pong-Tables-&-How-To-Choose

Jha played his first match of ping pong at age 5, when he Tagged along with his sister, Prachi, and parents to a recreation centre in his hometown of San Jose. He kept playing and fell in love. He showed enough natural talent that he started entering tournaments at age 6. At one of those he met Stefan Feth, a local trainer who took him under his tutelage. The more Jha played ping pong, the more he loved it. From 2012, at age 12, Jha made the national under-15 team. He made the federal men's semifinals - in which he lost to Wang, who was then 21 - another year, at age 13.

"I never really noticed him earlier," Wang said. "In the quarterfinals, he beat a different competitor. I had been expecting to play another man. After he won, I had to totally change my game plan."

This past Year, Jha transferred to Sweden to live with his sister, who Was training in an attempt to make the Rio Games. (She finally fell short.) Every single day, he trained for 2 A' or three hours in the morning, took a rest, then drilled for the following two or three hours in the day.

"After a little while, it gets occasionally a little mentally Tiring, particularly in the event that you don't have any tournaments coming up for like three, four weeks," Jha said. "Sometimes, it simply gets exhausting ping pong practice robot."

The work paid off when Jha created the Olympic team. On his 16th birthday this past June, he threw out the first pitch in a New York Mets game. He walked off the plane to Rio with a smile plastered on his face. He Spotted Michael Phelps walking off the same elevator that he had been getting on in the Olympic Village. He found himself one place ahead of Rafael Nadal while ordering Lunch daily. Following a media conference Thursday afternoon, Jha posed on The dais while a teammate snapped a mobile phone picture. "Be sure you get The title tag," he explained. Every once in a while, Jha really does act his age.

Edited December 26, 2017 by firosiro

[Mako]

Congratulations on your successful build, @firosiro. It is indeed a really rewarding experience when your vehicle design and/or mission execution finally succeeds after all the work and time you put into it.

Now, take that shuttle somewhere fun, and may your landings be as successful as your lift-offs!

[White Owl]

When your own ideas and efforts pay off with something new and beautiful — living, flying beauty from your own imagination — there is nothing better in all of simming/gaming.

[NSEP]

Congratulations! When i made my first working manned spacecraft in RO, i could not stop launching and flying it from IVA with Rasterpropmonitor and that ALCOR mod. Its alot of fun when you have something beautiful finished.

[invision]

today i flew a brick with wings #spaceshuttles

congrats its always a good feeling when something finally works

[Leopard]

The game is indeed very nearly addictive.

Right up until I launch something, on a pretty routine flight, and the game locks up, won't save progress and forces a reboot

 

When/If they finally get the console version working then maybe it will be actually addictive as opposed to something I start, play for a few minutes, then remember why I've thought about it but not played it for a couple of weeks

[GarrisonChisholm]

When you wake up on a Saturday morning, grateful you don't have to launch off to work immediately, and then have that slow warm glow thinking; "I'm running a space program...", and then its off to grab the morning coffee, saying hello to the Kerbs in the cafeteria, then sauntering over to mission control and taking stock of what the day's activities will need to be, what kind of skills will need to be employed- "Oh, a manned mission to Mun, that will be fun..."

You sit down in the sunlight, sip the joe while your front row loads the first mission up, and think "what a time to be alive..."

 

...hmm, sorry.  Addictive?...

Edited September 27, 2017 by GarrisonChisholm

[Just Jim]

I just spent the last 5 weeks working on my newest chapter... 5 weeks! Including a hurricane, and a post hurricane cold from hell... re-wrote it 3 times... and finally, finally got it done this afternoon.... 

And I just found myself sitting, watching TV, and thinking....

"Now remember, tomorrow morning you have to take the rover out before sunrise if you're going to make it 500 kilometers by evening.... head south by south west...."

Addiction... nope, no addiction here... 

[adsii1970]

I keep counting down the mid-terms I have left to grade before I can play... Only 43 more to go.

[ZooNamedGames]

You're telling me. It's so addicting I made a series out of what I could do with my Saturn Shuttle. Should get back to that one day.

[G'th]

I've been playing around with my own Shuttle (which is more a direct replica of the real Shuttle) and I only JUST worked out the full reentry procedures bringing the entire stack to flight ready status, after starting this almost a week ago now. And it feels amazing. Still have some test flights to do to verify the procedures are going to work, but we should be good to go.

Suffice to say though, I'm glad I gave up trying to emulate the actual reentry profile the Orbiter performed. I don't think I could ever have gotten that to work lol.

[pandaman]

Whaddya mean 'ALMOST addictive' ?

Ok, it's not as bad for me at the moment as it has been, but I don't go for long without either playing or thinking about playing.  KSP had got into my head the same as golf has.

[obi_juan]

Addictive? No, I don't think so...

I bought a copy of the game in August of 2013, and I still playing...

I think that  I surpass the 3000 hour of game this year... and I did't complete all the things that I want to do on the game. 

[Cpt Kerbalkrunch]

I hear there's a study in Switzerland in which heroin addicts are given a laptop and a copy of KSP. Results look promising.

[[insert_name_here]]

Almost addictive?

 

I think there's just one thing wrong with that phrase.

[qzgy]

Almost addictive.

KSP is really the only game I can consistently want to come back to.

[Julian.]

I First Got KSP During Its Beta Stage, If Not Its Alpha Stage. Im Talking About White And Red Things As The Buildings.

[Mr. Peabody]

Almost addictive? Nope. Very addictive!

[Geonovast]

There's nothing "almost" about my addiction to this game.