jfitzpat
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Posts posted by jfitzpat
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quote:
Originally posted by VentureForth:"Look. You broke the laws. There are consequenses. You will be caught. We'll let you go, but if you do something like this again in the next 5 to 10 years, you're going to get the book thrown at you for this and whatever got you here again. Got it?"
If I _knew_ I would get slapped with a $2000 fine and lose my license for a year and perhaps spend close, quality time with a brute named 'Bubba', I don't think I would ever commit that crime again.
First, I have zero sympathy for anything involving a spray can (long story), so I am probably less sympathetic than I would be normally. Each time a tagger falls and dies in LA, I can sense the average intelligence of the race increasing...
Second, a defendant's attitude in court can make a big difference. I'd have to look again, but it seems that this individual felt persecuted and was looking for a group of supporting peers to appear. Accepting responsibility, contrition, and remorse will generally get you a lighter sentance than defiance and rabble rousing.
Last, if a number of folks did show up in support, or if the judge was just aware of the effort to raise the support, it might have worked against the defendant. You said it yourself "If I knew..." Judges know that having the law on the books is one thing. Sending a message directly to a group is another. It bites to be the 'example', but setting examples does work, in the classroom, in the workplace, and in the courtroom...
-jjf
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Originally posted by georgeandmary:Summer/Winter has nothing to do with distance from the sun, it has to do with the angle at which the sun hits the earth. Earth's axis being tilted and all. And that change IS big.
george
Actually, the seasons relate to multiple factors, distance from the sun is most assuredly one of them. Angle of intersection is another (more atmospheric cross section). But the angle of energy impact has a much smaller effect than the duration of impact. Because of tilt and our elliptical orbit, winter days are shorter. That is, less total energy impacts a particular area each 24 hours.
Still, our atmosphere circulates and does a pretty good job of spreading the energy around (huge subject). But that, like our liquid center, is another subject.
But, on a cosmic scale, the difference is miniscule. Plot the temperature of every spot on earth on a graph that ranges from a bit above 'absolute zero' (an obsolete physics concept) and, say, the surface of the sun, and you would get a flat line.
My point was, and is, that a seemingly small change, such as a tiny increase in the amount of interstellar matter between us and the sun, can, theoretically account for mile high sheets of ice covering the US. Just as a few degrees change in temperature could make the Appalacian Trail cross a savanna instead of a forest (I wouldn't miss the bugs, but it would still be a big change).
If you are interested in the physics of the subject, I could probably scrounge up some good books for you. My own background is more at the quantum level, but it can be some interesting stuff.
-jjf
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FWIW, the basemaps in Garmin and Magellan units are largely based on the 'Tiger Line Data' from the US Census. Because the data was originally take from many printed sources, and because it is stored as geometric vectors (lines, etc.), it has an inherent margin for error.
You'll see the same thing if you take a MapQuest map, etc. (which is also based on the same data) and compare it to an aerial photo of the actual streets.
-jjf
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quote:
Originally posted by Alan2:OK I couldn't resist stirring the pot. What's wrong with global warming?
Alan
The question would probably be better phrased what is wrong with rapid climatic change?
When it occurs (and we know that it does occur, we can see the effects of glaciers from the last ice age) there is generally a huge reduction in biodiversity, and habital zones move.
It would only take a few degrees change in mean temperatures to elliminate Florida's or California's citrus industry. Presumably some other spot on the planet might settle into a citrus heaven, and Florida might still be able to cultivate something other than fungus, but the transition would be pretty painful in financial and human terms.
Similarly, a few degrees increase in mean temperature across the bread basket would reduce precipitation, and pretty much wipe out corn as a viable Iowa/Illinois crop, which, in turn, would effect lifestock, dairy, etc.
It takes suprisingly little change to trigger sweeping environmental changes. Look at summer vs. winter, or equator vs. temperate zones. In the great scheme of things, distance from the sun, etc., the differences are small, but the environmental impact on us is huge.
We don't know why ice ages occur. One theory is that they occur when our sun's galactic orbit takes us through the 'thicker' arms of the galaxy. That is, an almost imperceptible increase in the amount of intersteller gas causes our planet to be covered with mile high sheets of ice.
All that said, human impact on climatic change is still largely theory. We do have statistical evidence that suggests a connection between certain types of changes and certain side effects of industrialization. But the sampling is small. We probably can make a much stronger case between say, pollution and increases in auto-immune and developmental disorders. Still, climatic change, in part because of human activity, is probably the best, current, scientific hypothesis.
Personally, my theory is that climatic change is the direct result of K2Dave and Hinge Thunder. I'm thinking of founding a cult around it...
-jjf
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Originally posted by k2dave:Chack out my sig. Pretty cool ay, that was one of my posts to another troll in kind of a simular situation. Not exact but close.
-------> Did you ever do any trail maintainence? - if so you will know that all but the most worn trails need continuous maintenance to prevent mother nature from reclaiming it. herd paths are quickly reclaimed - k2dave to a troll
If you have to point it out, it probably isn't as cutting and funny as you think.
Seriously, repeatedly calling someone a "Troll" just because you disagree with them, then placing the insult in your signature line does say volumes about you. Its like you come with your own nitwit warning label.
I'm still trying to figure out your handle though. From your postings, it is hard to picture you actually having what it takes to do K2. Perhaps the prefix is in homage to your emotional birthdate, or your K-2 education...
I'd say perhaps you are a K-9's #2, but I can't picture you being either that witty or self aware.
And yes, the above is rude, but does "Due onto others..." ring a bell?
-jjf
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With due respect to annecdotal evidence, Kerry is right. In controlled tests, averaging actually yields less accurate results now that SA is off.
-jjf
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Originally posted by RAD Dad:If you buy property that is zone Exclusive Farm use, you have no right to complain that you can't build a mini-mall on it. But if you buy up a bunch of land that is zoned commercial/industrial, and then once you get ready to build a mini-mall some activists come along and get the land re-zoned to exclusive farm use, then you have just been robbed by the government, and that is wrong. And it happens all to often...
but to essentially steal anothers investment through regulation is wrong and repugnant, and happens all to often in this nation.
So, who do you favor in Wyoming, the Ranchers, or the Miners? Which side is morally right, and why?
It is easy to spout principles, but things aren't always so clear cut when you try to put them to work in reality.
As for zoning laws, the rezoning is done using the same process and laws as the original zoning. And, the purpose is the same, to protect the public good. Commercial development, beyond the most trivial, always impacts tax payers to some extent. If you don't believe in re-zoning, is it safe to assume that you don't believe in zoning at all? Some people don't (I don't happen to be one of them).
-jjf
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quote:
Originally posted by VentureForth:Hillwilly was pretty much ramrodded through an emotionally charged, unforgiving, 'I'll make a lesson outta you!' legal system which was designed to prosecute criminals, not negligent citizens.
So, if I snuck onto your property, did a little spray painting, and stashed a box. Would I be 'criminal' or 'negligent'? If I picked a dangerous spot on your property, and encouraged other people to visit it (thus increasing *your* potential liability if someone is hurt or killed) which of us would you consider 'stupid', me, for doing it, or you for taking steps to elliminate the problem and indemnify yourself?
I'm all for enforcing laws, and I don't mind judges trying to teach people that some behavior is stupid. Taking a Drivers License seems like a nice creative alternate sentancing to me. Look at it from the judge's point of view:
The conduct was illegal, costly, mildly destructive, and foolishly endangered others. Financial renumeration for the services may not make an impact (depends upon the defendant's ability to pay). Sending a non-violant defendant to jail (possible under the statutes) will get give him a chance to learn about non-Biblical sex from thugs, but probably won't serve society or teach him anything.
A suspended license gives a daily reminder to the benefits of a 'think first, then do...' approach to life. In some states, it also serves another purpose. It ups the sentancing ante for certain minor property crimes, etc.
Me, once I saw the aerial and read "spray paint", my sympathy evaporated. I think 'Taggers' deserve all the punishment that the law allows. I don't cry when they fall off freeway signs (or get hit by trains), but I do feel bad when their actions injure others.
-jjf
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FWIW, http://www.lostoutdoors.com will do some of what you want online.
You can take coordinates from your GPS and plot them on aerial or topo maps using the Map Maker, or make maps directly from waypoints using the Waypoint Exchange (assuming your Vista came with a serial cable).
Good Luck,
-jjf
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What I love about these conversations is that the views are so extreme. Tree huggers, leftist commies - or - earth destroying greedy eco-nomists...
Life must be much simpler when you see everything in black and white, but reality is generally painted in shades of gray.
Errosion is a legitimate concern in some park situations. Anyone who has done trail maintanence in a mountainous area can tell you that it does not take many folks cutting switchbacks and a little weather to give you a trail eating mud shoot. In terms of permanent damage to the landscape, the impact is neglible, but in terms of adversely effecting the experience of subsequent visitors, the impact is pretty big.
Likewise, anyone who has pulled field duty for a baseball diamond (little league, etc.) can tell you what happens when dust and dirt get kicked up on the grass line. It's not like grass will never grow there again, but it looks bad and takes more work than you think to repair. The same is true for high volume, unpaved trails in many parks. High traffic means more particles, which are easily tracked off trail - making fauna errosion more rapid.
Some areas are especially sensitive. Hueco Tanks in Texas comes to mind. The caves and walls contain fairly rare artifacts (ex. pictoglyphs) from proto Native American cultures. The ecosystem itself is fairly fragile. Water collects in small pools, and the pools, in turn, contain life. But the water volume is so small that just a few drops of suntan lotion, etc. can essentially erradicate the life in a single pool.
The reason I brought up Hueco Tanks, is that it breaks stereotype. Climbers, who generally like to present themselves as natural tree-huggers and good custodians of public land, despise the limited access situation in Hueco Tanks. Oily hands are terrible on prehistoric art, chalk is unsightly, and terrible for the life in the pools, but, heh - the bouldering problems are awesome! (They are).
Likewise, western ranchers are seldom seen as tree huggers, but many ranchers in Wyoming are looking to the EPA to help them fight BLM fast track approved mining development. The coal/gas extraction is great for the state coffers, but the deadly water is killing a way of life in parts of the state.
John Muir once said that all true outdoorsman eventually become environmentalists. I think that there is some definate truth to that. Many an ultra conservative has turned private lands into public wilderness later in life. Even Ronald R., a Republican demi-God.
If you like outdoors activity, and you pursue them most of your life, you generally can't avoid seeing change - change for the worse. The hunting and fishing holes of your youth are all gone, not to be shared with your grandkids, you can't take a refreshing drink from the spring anymore...
On the other hand, if the view never took your breath away, you won't ever miss it when its gone. If the outdoors is just a necesary evil that you endure in pursuit of your passion (ex. sport climbing, bird watching, geocaching...), then you may never notice the changes at all.
-jjf
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quote:
Originally posted by Atilla the Pun:quote:
_Originally posted by vagabond:_your right Attila about the antenna,,,,,,,
But why buy one if you don't need it
True, true.
AtP
I think Vagabond is confusing the patch ant. in the eTrex line with the V, which uses a QH ant. The external ant. connection is presumably useful for automotive use, etc.
-jjf
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quote:
Originally posted by Atilla the Pun:quote:
_Originally posted by vagabond:_your right Attila about the antenna,,,,,,,
But why buy one if you don't need it
True, true.
AtP
I think Vagabond is confusing the patch ant. in the eTrex line with the V, which uses a QH ant. The external ant. connection is presumably useful for automotive use, etc.
-jjf
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Originally posted by Us 5 Camp:Also, good source of (free) areial photos?
You can also grab aerial photos and topos on our website http://www.lostoutdoors.com
GlobalXplorer (provides aerials for some mapping sites) has some really new color Iconos imagery online as well. If you don't mind a bit watermark in the image, you can get that for free from their site as well.
-jjf
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quote:
Originally posted by Crusso:The program info says it can be used with or without a GPS receiver. If w/out, what exactly does it do? I read all the program info and still am a little confused on what exactly this program is good for. I have a prism & a Garmin V. Does this tie them together, do I need a map program in my Prism?...... ???
If you have a Garmin V, I'm not sure what you would use the program for at all. You already have a more effective trip meter and nav screen.
I'm not saying that the program is bad, just that higher end GPSr's already do pretty much everything the app seems to do, and more.
I think that the idea is to try to make add on GPSs for Palms more feature competetive with standalone GPSr's. Or, as RayDar mentions in their Palm Gear listing, "better".
But, most non base level standalone units now offer mapping. And, still offer better battery life, are waterproof, and are much more durable.
Frankly, I think that the last three are pretty big issues for the "outdoorsman" (and women
). But, of course, no software program is going to address them.-jjf
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quote:
Originally posted by Crusso:The program info says it can be used with or without a GPS receiver. If w/out, what exactly does it do? I read all the program info and still am a little confused on what exactly this program is good for. I have a prism & a Garmin V. Does this tie them together, do I need a map program in my Prism?...... ???
If you have a Garmin V, I'm not sure what you would use the program for at all. You already have a more effective trip meter and nav screen.
I'm not saying that the program is bad, just that higher end GPSr's already do pretty much everything the app seems to do, and more.
I think that the idea is to try to make add on GPSs for Palms more feature competetive with standalone GPSr's. Or, as RayDar mentions in their Palm Gear listing, "better".
But, most non base level standalone units now offer mapping. And, still offer better battery life, are waterproof, and are much more durable.
Frankly, I think that the last three are pretty big issues for the "outdoorsman" (and women
). But, of course, no software program is going to address them.-jjf
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I'd have to agree with Harrkev. Both seem to be good units, but have different strengths.
For size and durability, the eTrex line is hard to beat. For mountaineering, the Vista's barometric altimeter is quite a bit more useful than the Platinum's barometric sensor.
If you load lots of maps, SD cards (provided you buy a card reader for your PC!) are a lot friendlier than loading the Vista's memory via RS-232.
Although the Vista is much higher resolution, the physically larger display on the Magellen is more practical to watch while driving. The front panel buttons are also more one finger operation friendly - the norm when driving.
The one thing I'm not sure I agree on is Harrkev's compass comment. The Platinum 3D compass is certainly cooler, but specs wise, and in my (limited) experience, the Vista's compass is more accurate by several degrees.
But again, they are both nice units - take your pick.
-jjf
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Originally posted by Alan2:Wouldn't the detail be closer to the square of 4 or 16 times since we're talking about area? All I know is that my NG Topo for the Northeast uses 10 CD's. Allowing a few of those for 100000 and other scales, tha leaves a lot of storage for quads. Mapsource Topo uses only 3 CD's for all 50 states.
Alan
I don't have as much experience with the Magellan topos, but the MapSource CDs seem to contain more detail around some areas (IE, the elevation lines are not consistantly spaced). But, what I meant was that, at best, you have 1/4 the detail. In some spots, it seems much, much worse than even the old printed 1:100000 maps.
-jjf
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My Vista's biggest adventure was probably being chopped out of ice with an axe (I was *really* tired when we made camp
).I think that Hawk-Eye's Vista survived South American fungus, which is more than I can say for my feet...
-jjf
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My Vista's biggest adventure was probably being chopped out of ice with an axe (I was *really* tired when we made camp
).I think that Hawk-Eye's Vista survived South American fungus, which is more than I can say for my feet...
-jjf
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In climbing, 15-20 years ago, you used to gradually work your way up the grades. By the time you were leading moderate routes, say 5.6 - 5.8, you had already built many anchors and placed zillions of pieces. You also had learned down climbing, rope ascending, and basic self resue techniques.
Climbing gyms, sport crags, cross training, and better sports medicine mean that we now have many climbers who climb at, historically, expert levels (say 5.11 and above), who have never placed a single piece of passive protection. In general, I think that this is a good thing. It will be amazing when some of the latest generation of climbers start making their own marks high and wild.
But, the downside is that we have seen an unfortunate increase in certain types of accidents. Wicked strong fingers do not give one the experience to deal with stuck lines, bad weather, or even an unexpected leader fall, 7 pitches up a long traditional route.
To a lesser degree, I've seen the same thing occuring in hiking and backpacking. I'm happy that the activities have seen a surge in participants, but I do think that we will see a few more people seriously hurt when they themselves cold, lost, and hungry - staring at a GPSr loaded with dead batteries, and without the '10 essentials' in their pack...
Map and compass skills, along with basic first aid and CPR, are, I think, essential skills for anyone venturing beyond their neighborhood park.
-jjf
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Originally posted by Ranger Roger:K2dave-Tell me that your a troll or just an ignorant person.
Rules and regulations...
[snip]
Ranger Roger, I admit that K2Dave's reasoning leaves much to be desired. That he took his feeble attempt at wry wit and made it a signature line, complete with a rude and uncalled for characterization, shows he has the emotional maturity of a pre-pubescent boy. Pimply faced boys who don't date much, you may recall, take inordinate glee in their own bodily functions.
However, you, presumably, are past the point in life where flattulance plays a central role. Responding in kind simply reinforces the original behavior and inflated sense of self importance.
My suggestion is that you simply respond with a factual correction, perhaps indulging in one wry remark of your own (ex. "don't worry, you'll get to soil errosion in the 4th grade..."), and turn the other cheek.
I'm not sure how long you were a ranger, but if you've spent any time in the great outdoors, you know that, in time, Mother Nature generally gives dim bulbs who venture outside their proper due.
-jjf
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A USGS 'quad' is generally 1:24000. The Garmin and Magellan downloadable maps are generally 1:100000 (less than 1/4 the detail).
The detail is pretty disappointing. That said, a USGS quad can still leave you in a lurch. 30' cliffs are sometimes invisible with 40' elevation lines...
-jjf
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A USGS 'quad' is generally 1:24000. The Garmin and Magellan downloadable maps are generally 1:100000 (less than 1/4 the detail).
The detail is pretty disappointing. That said, a USGS quad can still leave you in a lurch. 30' cliffs are sometimes invisible with 40' elevation lines...
-jjf
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USAPhotoMaps, from http://www.jdmcox.com will lay tracks over aerial maps. It's free.
I thought about adding a track plotter to http://www.lostoutdoors.com but I didn't know if there would be that much demand.
-jjf
Erosion and you?
in General geocaching topics
Posted
Let's back up a step. You started by overstretching my my original statement. I gave several, issues (season, temperate, zone) and one factor (distance), and indicated that there are others. I was trying to make a general point.
If you are indicating that I disagree that seasons are principally driven by the 23.5 degree (approx) tilt between the earth's axis of rotation and the plane of the ecliptic, you are incorrect.
I *am* saying that *climate* is impacted by effects other than basic tilt. For example, weather severity is effected by everything from solar storms to axial procession.
I am *also* saying that distance to the sun, like anything else the effects energy transfer has *some* effect on climate. If you disagree, move to Neptune...
Regarding my 'length of day' statement, I was trying to convey that the issue is total energy transferred, not nec. the angle it is delivered at. The distinction is important when examining the poles. Unless you factor in things like denser air over cold ice, lower absorbtion rate of light colored ice packs, etc., the poles defy simple math (they actually still defy current models, but that is another story).
I picked a simple explanation to make the point, because 1, this is a forum and not everyone has the same background in certain subjects and 2, I don't explain these types of physics well.
My explanation and offer were not a flaunt, but face value. I can get you great information on a fairly complex subject, and this isn't my area.
The offer was made with the idea that you were actually interested in the physics of the situation. However, in re-reading the posts, I suspect that your motives are a little different. I'm not sure how much of the geom/trig you quoted you know, and how much you quoted from another source, but clearly I am the last person you would want to get nitpicking from.
-jjf