open phones

[Steve Davy]

I'll be looking forward to a detailed report on the South Texas bird tour.

[Tad Eareckson]

Screwed up and accidentally posted this one in "Swarovski ATX spotting scope system". Will try to put something useful in here when I get time. Sorry 'bout this.

2020/01/06 11:45:00 UTC - Expansion...

Prior to sometime last year I'd done all my composition, editing, proofreading for my posts in word processing and "POST REPLY" route - ignoring the "Save draft" function. I'd once long ago given the draft button a shot, got a bit confused as to how it worked, bailed. But after losing zillions of hours of POST REPLY work over the years to crashes and fumbled keyboard commands I gave the draft function another shot, figured it out, found out what a handy tool it was for doing what it was designed to, altered my strategy accordingly.

As I mentioned 2019/12/18 13:09:18 UTC I've developed I substantial problem with my left wrist and now realize that it was entirely precipitated with my experimentation and practice with the tripod setup and breakdown procedures - and I'm a bit crippled as I now type and prep for tomorrow's departure for Harlingen.

I'd modified procedures to eliminate major issues and gotten the problem substantially mitigated but I still wasn't out of the woods and realized I needed to get totally serious about torque issues no matter what the cost in speed and efficiency. So Saturday I was doing it, running the modifications in the driveway, revising the document accordingly.

After one cycle I came back in to revise, and the screen wouldn't light back up. The keyboard was lit but the laptop was hot and the fan was running hard. Had to crash it, pray it wasn't a hardware issue, reboot. My last draft save had been maybe an hour and a quarter prior and my intent was to pull it up, copy the text, paste it to replace the text in the current edition of the post - which was not much less current than the draft. Screwed up and was working on the draft cache rather than on the intended post, hit Submit, didn't realize until hours later that I'd replied with a massive mostly duplication of the original document. Crap.

The good news... In dealing with the last torque issue that was doing it to my wrist I knocked about nine seconds off of setup time - from an average of about 45. And my current record is 31. (A little better actually 'cause I'm also operating my own wristwatch stopwatch.) And I'd thought I was gonna hafta SACRIFICE more than what I'd saved.

I did the Annapolis Christmas Count yesterday - for the first time since 2015/01/03. Temperature in the forties but the wind and windchill were pretty brutal and the sun wasn't getting through much before mid afternoon. Had to really layer up.

Did a mostly practice setup on the scope in the afternoon down the powerlines cut from a vantage point from which I could see forever to the NNW. It went well and I blundered into a couple Black Vultures - which were a bit scarce for the Count and would've been tough to distinguish using binocular power.

Half a dozen Eagles, three Redtails, three Flickers, lotsa Bluebirds, tons of Robins, almost ran over a beautiful Pileated, scored a Phoebe (Eastern) which is a bit of a rarity for the Count and was a first ever for Yours Truly on his territory.

Gotta be REAL careful with the wrist for a while but I don't think I've done any permanent damage and it seems to be recovering at a reasonable pace.

2020/02/20 19:45:00 UTC

Came up with a safety against the problem which resulted in this post. Put:

DO NOT POST

at the beginning and end of the draft. I/You WILL see it at any critical moment 'cause one is ALWAYS gonna be looking "just prior to" a submission.

[Tad Eareckson]

http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/videos/we-believe-in-dinosaurs/
We Believe In Dinosaurs

Hey kids... Next time somebody tells you that Noah loaded a pair of three month old Tyrannosaurus rexes on his ark (to prevent them from going extinct a little sooner than they ended up doing), what do you say to them?

WERE YOU THERE?

At the twenty minute mark:

Ken Ham

Next time someone says millions of years ago, what do you say to them?"

Untold Scores of Brainwashed Grade School Aged Kids

WERE YOU THERE?

Ken Ham

Well, I think we thoroughly taught you.

Yeah, you sure did, Ken. Keep up the great work.

That was totally horrifying and depressing. At the end - 1:24:27:

40% OF AMERICANS HOLD THE CREATIONIST BELIEF THAT GOD CREATED HUMANS IN THEIR PRESENT FORM WITHIN THE PAST 10,000 YEARS.

- GALLUP, 2019

[Tad Eareckson]

OK Jan... Picking up from 2020/01/02 23:45:09 UTC - four "open phones" posts and the better part of two months back...

I've started overhauling the forum - currently closing in on twelve thousand posts - with respect to videos embedding. As we all know, when Zack C first set this up we could embed YouTube and Vimeo videos with the (video)(/video) coding. Then we got hit by the Tapatalk catastrophe and Zack got us to where we are now and the original coding capability went down the toilet. Zack established a patch (which I stumbled upon at some point) by which we could embed YouTube videos using the coding [youtube][/youtube] but we were - and remain - outta luck with Vimeo.

Also, as we all know, Jan had to cut ties with Vimeo so, on top of loss of embedding capability, we lost access to his videos even with using the links. But, good news, I try to keep my shit together enough to archive all material that's posted to Kite Strings and I have copies of all the videos he's posted here.

Below is a table of all of Jan's posts to date: time stamp, post number (lose the leading zero from all the four digit stuff before plugging in), and - where relevant - YouTube and Vimeo ID codes.

2015/09/19 16:54:58 UTC - 08417
2015/12/19 17:51:23 UTC - 08834
2015/12/19 19:40:07 UTC - 08837
2015/12/19 20:40:15 UTC - 08840
2016/06/29 14:42:04 UTC - 09490 - 172318941 - xx
2016/08/20 19:03:31 UTC - 09592
2016/10/06 18:32:07 UTC - 09685
2016/10/09 15:56:14 UTC - 09694
2016/10/10 03:31:30 UTC - 09697
2016/10/21 19:57:40 UTC - 09734 - 130790687 - ++
2016/10/21 21:19:12 UTC - 09736
2016/12/03 11:00:20 UTC - 09815
2016/12/16 15:40:15 UTC - 09848
2017/01/31 10:27:26 UTC - 09919
2017/02/06 13:41:03 UTC - 09927
2017/02/06 16:22:11 UTC - 09930
2017/02/27 18:26:26 UTC - 09943 - E4HGQCjYMIo - x*
2017/02/28 04:19:48 UTC - 09945
2017/03/05 08:09:53 UTC - 09963
2017/03/06 15:05:02 UTC - 09966
2017/03/25 20:46:10 UTC - 10013
2017/04/22 12:06:23 UTC - 10090 - 0psBzooOGGQ - ++
2017/05/29 16:19:44 UTC - 10208 - 219393561 - xx
2017/05/30 03:05:00 UTC - 10210
2017/06/08 18:15:23 UTC - 10227
2017/07/07 14:39:12 UTC - 10294
2017/07/22 21:32:11 UTC - 10327 - 226578935 - xx
2017/07/29 18:51:11 UTC - 10347 - 227551602 - xx
2017/07/31 13:03:40 UTC - 10352
2017/08/03 12:52:22 UTC - 10372
2017/08/26 17:12:40 UTC - 10453
2017/09/11 16:50:41 UTC - 10480 - 232159679 - xx
2017/09/11 16:50:41 UTC - 10480 - HIQXdgf6m28 - ++
2017/09/11 20:36:56 UTC - 10482 - _PNaTI4ZS0g - ++
2017/09/13 20:00:45 UTC - 10487
2017/10/03 14:11:00 UTC - 10518
2017/10/22 16:53:11 UTC - 10655 - iW4jPwijp64 - ++
2017/11/10 13:33:42 UTC - 10714 - 241930506 - ++
2017/11/10 19:21:24 UTC - 10718
2018/09/29 08:06:28 UTC - 11112 - 285611665 - xx
2018/09/29 08:06:28 UTC - 11112 - 01ofoSkJi24 - ++
2018/09/29 10:26:38 UTC - 11114 - 285611665 - xx
2018/09/29 10:26:38 UTC - 11114 - 01ofoSkJi24 - ++
2018/09/29 17:47:57 UTC - 11116
2018/09/29 18:11:29 UTC - 11117
2018/11/11 11:26:17 UTC - 11166
2018/11/30 16:04:50 UTC - 11220
2018/12/06 17:30:05 UTC - 11242 - 264482712 - ++
2019/02/09 20:42:34 UTC - 11328
2019/02/15 12:55:06 UTC - 11337 - wyqDGK3fFhY - ++
2019/03/30 18:55:05 UTC - 11408
2019/03/30 21:19:49 UTC - 11410 - 324722764 = aKkTvlqZDHM - ++
2019/07/16 17:16:29 UTC - 11613 - 348028765 = UanD1zHzH34 - ++
2019/07/16 18:31:19 UTC - 11615
2019/07/17 08:59:46 UTC - 11617
2019/07/27 16:10:25 UTC - 11633
2019/08/01 14:19:40 UTC - 11653
2019/08/02 02:34:20 UTC - 11656
2019/08/04 10:30:40 UTC - 11660 - 351869636 - ++
2019/08/04 15:18:39 UTC - 11661 - BsfjPeadcKA - ++
2019/08/04 15:37:19 UTC - 11662 - ufmGOL2rwXg - ++
2019/08/09 15:41:52 UTC - 11665 - GvpSemHlCUo - ++
2019/08/14 18:08:53 UTC - 11668
2019/08/15 15:44:55 UTC - 11670
2019/11/02 14:02:33 UTC - 11815 - OsBOWSjOLsE - ++
2019/12/21 07:49:27 UTC - 11847 - ziHf1yLJ4fM - ++
2020/01/02 18:12:38 UTC - 11858

Tags used above:
++ - Jan's video is currenty online (and I have a copy)
xx - Jan's Vimeo video is dead (but I have a copy)
x* - A video of someone else's linked to by Jan is dead (but I have a copy)

285611665 - 01ofoSkJi24 - Latter is a YouTube copy of the Vimeo former.

Hope I have everything right. Lemme know otherwise.

[TheFjordflier]

Thanks for your effort, both here and in the "BIRDS" section
The 2017/07/22, and 2017/07/29 seems to be working with the original Vimeo links.
Most of the others that are dead have been replaced with something similar from Youtube, as recent as today. Hope that's OK.
I also replaced some of the original Vimeo versions with lower quality versions to stay within the 5GB limit.

You also face the same problem on Flickr, (and as for me, that's why I deleted all pictures above the 1000 mark). If you for some reason couldn't or wouldn't pay anymore for your subscription they will delete everything above your free limit, starting with the oldest content.
There is no control from our perspective to chose which content should be removed or not.
So we either have to be lifelong customers, and let someone else pay for the subscriptions after we die. Or keep the control and limit the content to the most relevent/interesting.

Have you any thoughts on the subject?

Just got back yesterday from almost a month of holiday in Thailand. Back to the never ending rain. So I still feel like a zombie after the long flight.

[Tad Eareckson]

Thanks for your effort, both here and in the "BIRDS" section

Thanks for the thanks. And gawd it's a lot of effort sometimes but it's good to have things functioning properly and one often picks up insights when putting, reviewing, revising things in print.

The 2017/07/22, and 2017/07/29 seems to be working with the original Vimeo links.

Yeah, that surprised and confused me. Still confused as to why the Vimeo links remain functional.

Most of the others that are dead have been replaced with something similar from Youtube...

We can still have both.

... as recent as today. Hope that's OK.

Sure. However... I maintain and heavily depend upon a word processing (Pages) archive of everything posted on the forum. So maybe just a PM to me like:

Edited: 11878

From that I'll be able to find and record the change.

I also replaced some of the original Vimeo versions with lower quality versions to stay within the 5GB limit.

Pity - even though that's a pretty big file. 720 works well enough for viewing most of the time but sometimes you want 1080 to really see and illustrate what's going on - 'specially with incident flights. With good resolution we can identify an AT weak link as 130 pound Greenspot and show how it didn't defuse the lockout any better than Paul Tjaden's Tad-O-Link did.

You also face the same problem on Flickr, (and as for me, that's why I deleted all pictures above the 1000 mark). If you for some reason couldn't or wouldn't pay anymore for your subscription they will delete everything above your free limit, starting with the oldest content.

Yeah, tell me about it. This forum is very heavily dependent upon my Flickr account. If we lose it and can't do a Plan B then Kite Strings becomes a shell of what it is now.

Do a Google image search for:
"hang gliding" Harrison Moorhead
and see what happens.

There is no control from our perspective to chose which content should be removed or not.

Well... You can pull Albums up into Batch Organize and alter dates - not that tha's a great solution to the fundamental problem.

So we either have to be lifelong customers, and let someone else pay for the subscriptions after we die.

I've let my (younger) brother know that if my Flickr site goes down a lot of my life's work gets vaporized.

Or keep the control and limit the content to the most relevant/interesting.

Impossible for me. The apples and oranges issue is just one facet of the can of worms. This:

44-05216
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8842/18582058876_ec9f5ee42b_o.png


imagery wasn't all that important the day it went up on Facebook. The day after it arguably became the most critically important in the global history of the sport. Shows why Kelly Harrison was unable to communicate with his driver a minute or so prior to killing himself and his "student" - and setting a new FAI world record for youngest kid fatally splattered.

Have you any thoughts on the subject?

Tons - near constantly.

- The Industry wants the history of the sport - save for the history they can control and modify and/or destroy as circumstances dictate - destroyed. Legitimate pilots want it preserved and globally accessible.

- A few seconds of video or a single still can be worth untold tens of thousands of words.

- The digital revolution has given Joe Individual power to access and disseminate information no one could begin to imagine at the current midpoint of the sport's evolution. But by the same token - it's a lot easier to click delete than it is to organize books bonfires.

- Back in the film days putting camera on or having on in the vicinity of a glider was the equivalent of playing Russian roulette with three bullets. You were gonna die 'cause you unhooked to adjust the angle or cut your safety margin to zilch performing for a cool shot. Now everyone and his dog flies with a minimum of two GoPros mounted on his glider and a dozen iPhones aimed at him during launch and landing and no camera is EVER the slightest issue in a crash.

- After a crash the Industry puts getting the card swallowed on top priority 'cause the understanding of crashes is total poison to the sport.

- With the advent of imagery on everything available to everyone and his dog everywhere a lot of the standard lies started disappearing down the toilet. This shot:

17-1821
http://c1.staticflickr.com/1/962/40373978690_9aef9ff7ca_o.png


very clearly illustrates that:

-- the Standard Aerotow Weak Link:

--- will most assuredly NOT keep you from getting into too much trouble (as the asshole who launched him still to this day insists it will)

--- functioning to increase the safety of the towing operation in this situation will inconvenience the glider into a fatal cartwheel

-- one better pray that one doesn't have a driver who will fix whatever's going on back there by giving one the rope

- Pursuit of visual beauty is at the core of the reason we fly these things. And cameras are really good at capturing that beauty and helping to preserve memories and portray what we do to the public.

Just got back yesterday from almost a month of holiday in Thailand. Back to the never ending rain. So I still feel like a zombie after the long flight.

The stresses of travel usually leave me trashed for days. Things are (fortunately) a lot worse after completion 'cause at the beginning you're just dealing with prep and at the other end everything's just finished happening to you.

[TheFjordflier]

Sure. However... I maintain and heavily depend upon a word processing (Pages) archive of everything posted on the forum. So maybe just a PM to me like:

Edited: 11878

Not sure what the 11878 number is. Where do I see it?
And the lower quality videos are some of those few remaining on Vimeo, not those on Youtube. They have the highest quality I can render.
I did remove a lot of videos on Youtube, but that was for copyright issues.(music).

[Tad Eareckson]

11878 was gonna be (and, since no one else got in before me (big surprise), was) the ID code number for that post after I clicked Submit. As in:
http://www.kitestrings.org/post11878.html#p11878

(On a Mac in Safari with "Show Status Bar" on you can see it in the bottom left corner.)

A thought on the Vimeo videos we can no longer embed...

The only significant advantage of having a video embedded is that one can identify it...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfwsTtAZOrw


...at a glance to massively help determining if it's anything worthy of investigating or reviewing. It's zilch of a BFD to click on the link or open it in a new window. So take a 640 width image of either the uploader's title still or some other representative shot:


http://vimeo.com/351869636
SOME LANDINGS

add the title, and you're pretty much golden.

I don't know how many Vimeo videos we have referenced here one or more times but I already have stills collections for a lot of the most mission critical ones and doing an overhaul for those - both current and dead - wouldn't require a lot of effort.
---
P.S. Log back in - if you haven't - and check your PMs.

[<BS>]

Do what you can to slow the transmission of Convid-19.

[Steve Davy]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/73/Pale_Blue_Dot.png