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ScroogieII

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Everything posted by ScroogieII

  1. Once again reinforcing the contention of my prior missive about a 2k minimum width and that "Waaaay TOO MANY is ALWAYS Waaaay Better than too few!!!" - Thanks Andreas AAAAAHHHH - a coupla things here: 1 - "triodetic", as best I can ascertain, is not yet a word in the English language. It appears to be, as yet, a marketing word, possibly a trademark word, a corporate word. Triodetic, the company, seems to be, among other things, simply expanding on the concept of the geodesic dome. I have yet to find further information on their methodology, though, so I'll not go on. ... ... Wait for it ... ... HOWEVER, after another click at "Triodec", the company, I come across the Ontario Place Cinesphere, quite apparently simply a geodesic dome. Others of their projects appear to employ other construction or design methods, not really setting themselves apart from other designers or builders of the world. 2 - Now I forget the other thing. dadgum that "age thing". CW - I do love your deep desire to continue to LEARN!!! Given our present societal and political condition, that is the one of the most laudable and admirable characteristics to be found in human kind. - Keith
  2. Well, speed isn't really what I was referring to. It just seems to me that things learned from a successful generative-fill on one object or subject wouldn't, in most cases, be useful or applicable to another, quite different object. How could AI infer any useful relationship between cobblestones and pilasters, for example? Keith
  3. Been thinking about this for a day now. OK, now that I'm a bit more up to speed with the flashy new incarnation of Photoshop, and assuming you are correct in your assumptions and beliefs, that does give rise to yet another question: In what way would Photoshop's learning to correctly render cobblestones around a fountain (which it appears not to have learned) help to improve its ability to correctly render pilasters on a Byzantine church (an example of which the one above is not, BTW )? Keith
  4. There is the Ovens and Kilns category, but I doubt this one is suited for it. OOOOHHHH - Obvious one - Dated Architectural Structures Multifarious.
  5. Well CW, my mind's a blank here. I suspect the CNHS has long since been done. What, though, is the actual building? That may yet provide us with a lead to a category. BTW, your hubby is neither completely correct NOR incorrect, as best I can tell. Keith
  6. WOW Papy!!! Thank you for providing the missing info. That's a few more than I would have guessed. Unfortunately, though, we didn't manage to snag a century's worth. Oh Well, 91 is certainly nothing to sneeze at! Keith
  7. As Bear and Ragged noted, the "if" is quite likely in our rearview mirror. I couldn't be certain about it, but I suspect that the version of Photoshop you're playing with right now is capable of changing the point of view of an image, especially that of a spatial, three dimensional object such as a building. AAMOF, I have been able to simulate minor changes in point of view with GIMP, manually, of course. If you review either of the "Then & Now" categories, you may have encountered an example and not noticed my handiwork. As for other capabilities of your version of Photoshop, I'd say it's pretty impressive, but still has a bit of improvement in store. Your description of Photoshop "learning" capabilities, seems just a bit "off" to me. Photoshop itself doesn't seem to me to be learning anything, just offering a random selection of renderings from which you choose the best, at which time it generates yet another random set of renderings. It's unclear to me whether each generation of renderings always becomes more acceptable than the previous generation. Does it? Keith
  8. Just thought it might be time to drag this back up to the top to allow Papy the opportunity to add the final word on the actual number of NEW CATEGORIES (the operative number here, after all) he had managed to snag. Hint! Hint - Papy............................
  9. Yup! Pretty much Always! I can testify to that's happening on many occasions. Example: on the trip Papy and I took to Alberta last year, the one item which held ALL our GPS information I managed to leave behind, on the kitchen table. < That's me, an hour down the road.
  10. BUT - wasn't analog zoom also available? If not, I would suggest that a new(er) phone/camera should be quite near the top of your wish list. (ScroogieII - AKA Keith)
  11. Interesting that you should address this topic, Andreas. Not having access to more advanced Image Editing software (IE, as opposed to AI ), I have for years been, whenever it appeared necessary in the interest of improving Waymark pix, doing essentially what you presented here. Removing a passing pedestrian (or motorist), extinguishing my shadow, extending roadways and sidewalks into trashy, weedy land, removing the weeds and grass from sidewalks, plazas and roadways, extending background into the sky, removing sky to provide more background, eliminating or mitigating glare and flares, relettering building signage from old pix to represent their current status, layering "then" & "now" pix to create "then-to-now" and "now-to-then" transitions for the eponymous categories - I've done them all, and more. I've removed hundreds & hundreds of power and communications lines from pix. All that I've done mostly manually. And, finally, I have always also enhanced my pix, improving lighting, contrast and/or saturation whenever I deemed it necessary. I review a LOT of waymarks lately and, it seems that cameras haven't improved much in the past decade or so with regard to their light capturing ability, or better stated, their ability to reproduce the light capturing ability of the human eye. Essentially ALL pix I review would be improved, sometimes markedly, with just a touch of enhancement. So, my take on this would be that anything which improves, or ameliorates, the aesthetics of a pic or removes, or mitigates, distractions from the subject is to be encouraged. But now, as usual, Andreas, you've given me something else to ponder: Just when does clever coding evolve into AI? In the case of Photoshop I think not, as AI involves reasoning, self learning and self teaching, which I doubt takes place within Photoshop. I imagine that it entails no more than a bit of "clever coding". Not being well up to speed on AI, that's about all I can say on the matter. But thanks for tickling a few brain cells! Just a second before we go! I again looked at your and Photoshop's side-by-side pix, this time more closely. I see that Photoshop was forced to make a couple assumptions in its expansion of your pic. In the foreground it added a few small clumps of flora in the cobblestone, which would have required an assumption on its part that said flora would not be out of place, given that flora was seen in your pic. However, it made a rather poor assumption with regard to the pattern of the cobblestone on the far right background, laying it in essentially straight lines, which appear nowhere else. This bespeaks clever coding, certainly not AI. Moreover, the boards on the near, long side of the fountain run full length in the original, whereas the boards on the left end of the Photoshoped version are continued to the end, making the boards on the far, long side of the fountain NOT full length. Again, an incorrect assumption, unless carpentry there employs an unusual aesthetic. Keith
  12. And Erik graphically tells me why. Thanks guys.
  13. Yeah, I've had my eye on that for some time but never managed to get there. Now it looks like I may well be leaving it for yourself, or whoever else may first happen upon it. Alas & Alak. Keith
  14. Wasn't paying attention Thierry - how did peer review end? Keith
  15. Apparently he has reviewed so few that he was either unaware of the rules and regulations for said category, or they had slipped his mind.
  16. Oh, don't get your knickers in a knot, Ivo. That first approval, now declined, was likely a MIS-approval, done by an officer not paying attention at the moment. However, I see that all the officers are Americans, three of which I know. I would suggest that you try contacting them in this order, YoSam, then iconions, then NW_history_buff, then the leader. I suspect that, within that group you may find officers amenable to expansion of the category, but don't count on it. If you tell them that Keith sent you it may help, but again, don't count on it. I should add that I am in favour of expansion of the category, given that we all know that wagon roads exist outside of North America AND that expansion would eliminate the necessity of the creation of a somewhat redundant category. At the moment, that's about all you can do, so for now, Ivo, I would suggest that you take heed of my post earlier today in This Thread, in particular the last line. Keith
  17. Approved later, so, it seems there's not yet cause for COMPLETE concern.
  18. Don't know you and never did, so why should I care?!?!?! SORRY, just kidding!!! Guess I'm just in a whimsical mood today. WELCOME BACK TO THE FOLD.! My initial advice to you is just this - Have Fun! After all, this is an Avocation, not a Vocation. Don't let anyone mire you down in feuds, personalities or opiniated discussions. They're few, after all! This WELCOME is, actually, somewhat ironic, coming from a Waymarker currently on hiatus. After creating something like 20,000 Waymarks and, at least in the latter years, giving them my all, I am just burnt out. I waymarked initially with my wife as BK-Hunters, which became T0SHEA, then later, for a very short time as ScroogieII. Today, as I walk or drive around my home town I see structures and objects I know never to have been Waymarked and, contrary to inclinations of former years to dig out the camera and the GPS, simply file them away in my (less reliable by the day) memory, in hopes that, one day soon I will again find the desire to Waymark them. So, for at least the nonce, between yourself and myself, we are managing to retain the number of active Waymarkers as it was yesterday. WELL DONE there Country_Wife. And now an aside about photos - - - - Don't reduce size below around 2k in width. I have always used sizes that have come off the camera when set to, in my case, about 2272 or 2048 in width, with the appropriate aspect ratio - sometimes 16X9, sometimes 4X3 or 3X2, depending upon the subject. JPEG Compression to 70% is perfectly acceptable for Web pix, as there's no appreciable, or noticeable, difference between 70% and 90% compression, when viewed on the Web, and it saves space, both for you AND Waymarking. Retaining at least 2k in width allows reviewers more detail than does a smaller size, should they need to view your pics full size to better understand a Waymark. This from a reviewer who's many times been presented with tiny photos accompanying a somewhat confusing Waymark!!! EDIT: Just can't leave this without also addressing image quality. If you're really interested in producing top-of-the-line Waymarks, image post processing must become part of the process. In spite of what you may feel, the images that come off your camera/smart phone could almost always be improved, especially with regard to contrast and saturation. I have used a quality camera or a smart phone whose cameras have received rave reviews for their quality for all of my Waymarking life, yet found that precious few pix they produced weren't improved with a bit of post processing. As I review Waymarks I encounter a great many photos (in truth, almost all) which are washed out, and lacking in both colour and clarity. In the past I have, on many occasions, encouraged Waymarkers to obtain an image processing app, of which there are many. At the risk of having all hereabouts coming to believe that I am somehow associated with it, I shall, once again, recommend that, should you not already be using one, you download and put into use a free app entitled Faststone. I have been using it for years and find it to do essentially everything I wish to do to a pic, save for morphs and similar advanced operations. It is just the most intelligently designed bit of photo processing software I have ever come across, period! And YES, always take more pix than you feel you'll need. They're FREE, after all, and provide you the ability/opportunity to pick and choose later when creating your Waymark. Waaaay TOO MANY is ALWAYS Waaaay Better than too few!!! You are ABSOLUTELY correct in that recollection! Now get out there and Have a Ball! Keith
  19. With regard to that, I just now re-reviewed and declined a WM that I had approved. Following a few moment's thought I decided that I shouldn't have let that one slide, re-reviewed it and declined it. I'll admit that one is quite likely outside the collection of WMs to which you appear to refer, but it serves to point out the fact that there certainly ARE times in which a WM is deserving of reappraisal. As for this, Thierry, I hope I don't understand your true meaning here. We have created several categories in recent years which, in the requirements, are spelled out in detail what is expected in order for approval to transpire. As a result I/we have had to decline many WMs which fell short of the requirements, in order to IMPROVE THEM. I doubt that is exactly what to which you refer, but that's certainly not clear in your quoted sentence above. As a humorous aside, Thierry, I have actually managed to Waymark a Stop Sign And here I agree with Adam. Thierry is just one more officer who constantly strives to do his best when reviewing Waymarks! My only comment here would be to settle down and dial it back a bit (both Ariberna AND others). Any animosity which takes place here I am willing to attribute to the current political and cultural climate, which, in my observation, has deteriorated substantially in the past decade (or more). My advice would be to adhere to your long time learnings and beliefs regarding the treatment of others and, above all, to observe THE GOLDEN RULE! That's just not that hard to accomplish!!! I've been in the game for over 11 years now, first as BK-Hunters, then T0SHEA, then ScroogieII (long story as to why - some of which some of you know, all of which a few of you know) and I've never really had any issues of note with any Waymarkers (though I've declined a piss pot full of Waymarks in my time [two just today, AAMOF]) or with Category Officers, nor, for that matter, our Wayfroggie. Though I'm forced to admit that our Wayfroggie once gave me a warning for my conduct on this very forum (I assume three strikes and you're OUT), the Wayfroggie and I have always had an amicable relationship, which remains to this day. So, please try to remember that what happens to you today vis a vis Waymarking is, in the entire context of your brief time on this planet, not terribly important, hence not worth blowing a gasket over. Keith
  20. Oh - OK, a group, but never a category, and now unlikely to ever shepherd one in the future.
  21. As you might expect, I completely agree with you, Papy. I'm about the only one who reviews in a few fairly busy legacy categories and get almost nothing but copy and paste Waymarks with drive-by photos. I just continue to hold my nose and closely check each one for proper coordinates, correct URLs, etc and hit the approve button. Periodically I'll get a REAL Waymark, which elevates my spirits and keeps me going. I wish I had some enlightening and hopeful words of wisdom for you, Papy, but the simple fact appears to be that the great majority of Waymarkers are basically uninterested in creating a Waymark they would be proud to show to their children, or their parents, their spouse, or even the neighbour over the fence, for that matter. Such is the state of Waymarking, and neither Papy nor Scroogie (nor Thierry [see below]) are likely to change that anytime soon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Well said, Thierry!!! Thank You for being honest and forthright here. Keith
  22. First - what is the category? Second - time to contact our friendly l'il Wayfroggie and offer your services. Keith
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