Tad,
Out of extreme curiosity, do you have any idea what the make and model of the glider is I'm flying?
BTW...I have my 1st rating card from the USHGA somewhere & have been trying to find it.
Surprisingly, Kitty Hawk Kites kept excellent records and can readily access them from that time.
They were the ones who told me that my instructor's name was Tad.
I just put it all together after visiting this site and hearing you worked there at that time.
I originally came here because I was researching aero towing.
photos
-
Tad Eareckson
- Posts: 9149
- Joined: 2010/11/25 03:48:55 UTC
Re: photos
It's almost certainly a Sky Sports Eaglet 191 - Pagen design. If you were flying at girl or kid weight it could've been a 141 - but I really doubt that.
Not to sound like a sexist pig but I - and others - avoided the girl classes like the plague. They tended to have less in the sports background at the time and tended not to have strong launches. A few steps, jump into the air, little glider you're running under, cross spar in the head a good bit. And then they couldn't get the glider back up the slope so if you wanted to get the class finished today you ran all the way down to their landings and hauled the glider back up to launch yourself. Five students per class, five flights per student - and two classes a day. Plus a couple instructor demo hops. Gawd was that punishing.
Kids, both genders, were fun. Too stupid to be afraid of anything and biologically programmed to follow instructions from adults. Great results.
Fifteen year old boy was a dream student. Really stupid, scared of nothing, big and strong. You could just leave him with the glider and read a book.
That photo's REALLY touched off a lot of memories and emotions all over the map. (Be great if you could get it scanned sometime.) Wonder what I'd do if I could go back knowing what I do now (aside from eating lotsa broccoli and running to the nearest CT scanner).
- Yeah, Zack C's interest in researching and understanding aerotowing was what got Kite Strings founded. Too bad the sport's so dedicated to inventing something other than sailplane aerotowing's wheel.
Not to sound like a sexist pig but I - and others - avoided the girl classes like the plague. They tended to have less in the sports background at the time and tended not to have strong launches. A few steps, jump into the air, little glider you're running under, cross spar in the head a good bit. And then they couldn't get the glider back up the slope so if you wanted to get the class finished today you ran all the way down to their landings and hauled the glider back up to launch yourself. Five students per class, five flights per student - and two classes a day. Plus a couple instructor demo hops. Gawd was that punishing.
Kids, both genders, were fun. Too stupid to be afraid of anything and biologically programmed to follow instructions from adults. Great results.
Fifteen year old boy was a dream student. Really stupid, scared of nothing, big and strong. You could just leave him with the glider and read a book.
And yet there was an instructor soaring fatality, just before my time in the fall of 1980, that nobody's ever heard about. Only one in the history of Jockey's Ridge. (I'm assuming anyway.)Surprisingly, Kitty Hawk Kites kept excellent records and can readily access them from that time.
That photo's REALLY touched off a lot of memories and emotions all over the map. (Be great if you could get it scanned sometime.) Wonder what I'd do if I could go back knowing what I do now (aside from eating lotsa broccoli and running to the nearest CT scanner).
- What? The excellent book, Towing Aloft, by Dennis Pagen and Bill Bryden and Dr. Trisa Tilletti's Higher Education article series in the magazine weren't doing it fer ya?I originally came here because I was researching aero towing.
- Yeah, Zack C's interest in researching and understanding aerotowing was what got Kite Strings founded. Too bad the sport's so dedicated to inventing something other than sailplane aerotowing's wheel.
-
Steve Davy
- Posts: 1338
- Joined: 2011/07/18 10:37:38 UTC
Re: photos
Talk to the folks who engineered this masterpiece:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/razor61/VLAD07_002.jpg
and tell them about how it's impossible to design a mechanism that can release a towline with one hundred percent reliability.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/razor61/VLAD07_002.jpg
and tell them about how it's impossible to design a mechanism that can release a towline with one hundred percent reliability.
-
Tad Eareckson
- Posts: 9149
- Joined: 2010/11/25 03:48:55 UTC
Re: photos
That masterpiece obviously wouldn't be able to get and stay airborne for more than three or four seconds. It's a well known aeronautical engineering principle that failure rate increases in direct proportion to the number of components.
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=11497
Aerotow release options?
LMFP release dysfunction
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=11497
Aerotow release options?
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=22540Paul Hurless - 2009/05/01 16:35:30 UTC
Adding more parts like pulleys and internally routed components makes it that much more likely that a device will fail. Simple is best.
LMFP release dysfunction
Diev Hart - 2011/07/14 17:19:12 UTC
I have had issues with them releasing under load. So I don't try to release it under a lot of load now.
-
Tad Eareckson
- Posts: 9149
- Joined: 2010/11/25 03:48:55 UTC
Re: photos
Geek stuff. Read only if mildly or more interested.
Description of how I pull stills from posted videos and put them up on Kite Strings:
http://www.kitestrings.org/post6393.html#p6393
I'm REALLY anal about the selection of frames (big surprise) and that accounts for the biggest time/labor expense in the process by far. Lately I've been experiencing a major headache issue that's sending the time/labor cost through the ceiling. Get through Stage One and find that the frames I've pulled are not the ones Final Cut was telling me I was pulling.
The frame that gets exported/saved will be one before or after the target, as few as one, as many as thirteen - my record to date. Then ya gotta identify what was actually exported to be able to offset your next effort accordingly. And the offset can vary with the progression of the video. One or two off near the beginning, double digits near the end. And if you want something from near an end the offset may be large enough to prevent you from getting it.
Easier to cope with example from my last effort:
http://www.kitestrings.org/post9411.html#p9411
1624 captures the next frame, 1625, so you shoot 1623 to get 1624.
But then things can get ugly. The Final Cut frame counters can be fucked up.
- An increment can be skipped: 12...13...15...16...
- A "thirty" can appear as the last two digits on a thirty frames per second video. Sequence should be:
...1427...1428...1429...1500...1501...1502...
Instead:
...1427...1428...1429...1430...1501...1502...
In my last effort the fucked up sequences prevented me from capturing frames I'd originally selected - my options would be one too early and one too late. Most of them didn't matter in the least 'cause they were bracketed by equally good ones. But one of them really pissed me off.
15-1123
http://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7230/26861366980_c893cd5c3a_o.png
Final Cut gives you a miserable little working box in the upper right - 463x310 pixels on my thirteen inch MacBook Pro display - for when you can't afford to go full screen. You can magnify what it's displaying - to one hundred percent / actual pixels (or three hundred if you want). So the above still is a whole bunch of screen shots from that box spliced together in Photoshop.
Tedious total bitch of a job - do make an effort to really enjoy it. Mostly just wanted to see if I could do it. I could, but I'd need a real good reason to do another one like it. If anyone knows how deal with these issues more elegantly...
Description of how I pull stills from posted videos and put them up on Kite Strings:
http://www.kitestrings.org/post6393.html#p6393
I'm REALLY anal about the selection of frames (big surprise) and that accounts for the biggest time/labor expense in the process by far. Lately I've been experiencing a major headache issue that's sending the time/labor cost through the ceiling. Get through Stage One and find that the frames I've pulled are not the ones Final Cut was telling me I was pulling.
The frame that gets exported/saved will be one before or after the target, as few as one, as many as thirteen - my record to date. Then ya gotta identify what was actually exported to be able to offset your next effort accordingly. And the offset can vary with the progression of the video. One or two off near the beginning, double digits near the end. And if you want something from near an end the offset may be large enough to prevent you from getting it.
Easier to cope with example from my last effort:
http://www.kitestrings.org/post9411.html#p9411
1624 captures the next frame, 1625, so you shoot 1623 to get 1624.
But then things can get ugly. The Final Cut frame counters can be fucked up.
- An increment can be skipped: 12...13...15...16...
- A "thirty" can appear as the last two digits on a thirty frames per second video. Sequence should be:
...1427...1428...1429...1500...1501...1502...
Instead:
...1427...1428...1429...1430...1501...1502...
In my last effort the fucked up sequences prevented me from capturing frames I'd originally selected - my options would be one too early and one too late. Most of them didn't matter in the least 'cause they were bracketed by equally good ones. But one of them really pissed me off.
15-1123
http://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7230/26861366980_c893cd5c3a_o.png
Final Cut gives you a miserable little working box in the upper right - 463x310 pixels on my thirteen inch MacBook Pro display - for when you can't afford to go full screen. You can magnify what it's displaying - to one hundred percent / actual pixels (or three hundred if you want). So the above still is a whole bunch of screen shots from that box spliced together in Photoshop.
Tedious total bitch of a job - do make an effort to really enjoy it. Mostly just wanted to see if I could do it. I could, but I'd need a real good reason to do another one like it. If anyone knows how deal with these issues more elegantly...
-
Tad Eareckson
- Posts: 9149
- Joined: 2010/11/25 03:48:55 UTC
Re: photos
(Maybe this should be in the "Video" topic, but...)
Almost two weeks since my last post... Had something of a meltdown in the course of dealing with the Tres Pinos / Nancy Tachibana fatality "response" and needed to do something else for a while. The state of my collection of stills pulled from glider videos came to mind.
When I started playing this game I was pretty baffled by the sliver of Final Cut I needed to do the job...
http://www.kitestrings.org/post6393.html#p6393
...and wasn't working with the full video such that frame counter was synced with the beginning. And thus there was little point in recording frame numbers.
And prior to 2014/05/18 I didn't trust fully compressed PNG images to be truly lossless and was too stupid to run the simple experiment needed to prove it to myself so I wasted a lot of bandwidth uploading huge uncompressed files.
These and a few other issues really bugged me and I went into total obsessive/compulsive photo mode right after anyone last heard from me. Massive amount of work - 6343 photos reported in the Flickr master set at present.
- Replaced everything uncompressed with fully compressed.
The trade-off is that the more compressed a file is the longer it takes to open / load for viewing.
17-11422
http://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8546/29432805605_c0c2c710bb_o.png
What you're seeing is the 800 width JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) which usually pops open instantaneously. The associated URL is the original lossless/uncompromised full resolution fully compressed 1272x716 PNG (Portable Network Graphics) which will take forever to appear/upload but that's only an issue for someone who wants to see and/or download the full rez job.
Task involves compressing the file, replacing the original on Flickr, harvesting the revised full and 800 width image addresses, editing all relevant posts on Kite Strings. If the image has been used on another forum it's gone unless one's able to edit one's posts. Sorry 'bout that but it's probably served it's purpose already and all other glider forums are hopeless garbage anyway.
- Recorded and posted frame IDs. 11422 - one minute, fourteen seconds, frame 22 out of thirty frames per second. Often a major pain in the ass to go back and match to find out exactly what it was you shot - 'specially on low quality, low resolution stuff.
- Amended collections of stills for particular videos.
Tended to be really stingy in harvesting frames in early efforts. Tended to get more and more aggressive as time went on.
In the course of reviewing the earlier worked videos I discovered a lot of amazing smoking gun sequences I'd totally missed on the first pass. Will need to do some serious revisiting on future posts.
- Time stamping...
Not really relevant to forum members and visitors but virtually all saved and uploaded stills are time stamped sequentially in one second intervals. Use "A Better Finder Attributes" software for what's on the drive and Flickr's online tools for what's online.
The date will be the date of the flight/incident if available or as close as possible afterwards if not - no later, of course, than the date of the video posting or a known reference in a discussion.
The time default is the first second after noon - 12:00:01 for Frame 1. When two or more events fall on the same day designation conflicting sets will get bumped back or forward an hour. I've had to do this on a small number of occasions. Conflicts are pretty easy to spot - when looking at the images in time stamped order every other shot will be from another video sequence.
- Organizing...
Also not particularly relevant with respect to forum members and visitors... Video stills sets are organized as logically as possible on the hard drive and Flickr in accordance with the main themes corresponding to the main Kite Strings topics. And about as often as not a video will illustrate more than one theme - a Rooney stunt landing failure following a Rooney Link success for example. And I've lately discovered that a few videos are much better examples of an issue other than the one originally noted.
A few odd stand-alone stills are organized along with the video harvests on Flickr.
- Bugs...
-- In redoing and amending things I've found that harvested images from low resolution videos have different resolutions from the originals - sometimes a step better, sometimes a step crappier. Working from the same video file. Weird. Go figure. (I HATE old low resolution videos.)
-- Also have gotten different appearances.
-- Save the frame I'm looking at, get one a few frames before or after - as described in previous post.
General comments...
Videos themselves - with their motion and sound - certainly have their places. But in this game stills are almost always a minimum of twenty times more valuable in terms of seeing and understanding what's actually going on. And not infrequently what's actually going on is the polar opposite of what's being described as going on by the total douchebags on the mainstream forums.
And it's really nice to be able to really look at a fixed image for as long as one pleases and study and think. That was the key to the success of Ken Burns' "The Civil War". Lotsa Matthew Brady photos on the screen for a long time with slow panning from edge to edge.
And even when you're looking at a shot from a stupidly and dangerously fucked up flight like the one above or of an evil incompetent lying little shit like...
37-05121
http://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1676/25661585790_4ed1db6bd6_o.png
47-14318
http://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1703/25962154585_73bc19f718_o.png
54-15427
http://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1552/25867200361_2dcbe43041_o.png
...Ryan ya gotta admit that there's a lot of beauty in a lot of these images.
And for whatever it's worth... Kite Strings RULES the web in terms of images related to hang gliding problem areas. And, with the exceptions of aerobatics and racking up XC miles, hang gliding is ALL problem areas. Try a few Google image searches if you don't believe me. There's a massive amount time and effort involved with this and nobody else is gonna do it.
P.S. Thanks bigtime, Flickr. Very valuable tool we're getting for free.
Almost two weeks since my last post... Had something of a meltdown in the course of dealing with the Tres Pinos / Nancy Tachibana fatality "response" and needed to do something else for a while. The state of my collection of stills pulled from glider videos came to mind.
When I started playing this game I was pretty baffled by the sliver of Final Cut I needed to do the job...
http://www.kitestrings.org/post6393.html#p6393
...and wasn't working with the full video such that frame counter was synced with the beginning. And thus there was little point in recording frame numbers.
And prior to 2014/05/18 I didn't trust fully compressed PNG images to be truly lossless and was too stupid to run the simple experiment needed to prove it to myself so I wasted a lot of bandwidth uploading huge uncompressed files.
These and a few other issues really bugged me and I went into total obsessive/compulsive photo mode right after anyone last heard from me. Massive amount of work - 6343 photos reported in the Flickr master set at present.
- Replaced everything uncompressed with fully compressed.
The trade-off is that the more compressed a file is the longer it takes to open / load for viewing.
17-11422
http://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8546/29432805605_c0c2c710bb_o.png
What you're seeing is the 800 width JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) which usually pops open instantaneously. The associated URL is the original lossless/uncompromised full resolution fully compressed 1272x716 PNG (Portable Network Graphics) which will take forever to appear/upload but that's only an issue for someone who wants to see and/or download the full rez job.
Task involves compressing the file, replacing the original on Flickr, harvesting the revised full and 800 width image addresses, editing all relevant posts on Kite Strings. If the image has been used on another forum it's gone unless one's able to edit one's posts. Sorry 'bout that but it's probably served it's purpose already and all other glider forums are hopeless garbage anyway.
- Recorded and posted frame IDs. 11422 - one minute, fourteen seconds, frame 22 out of thirty frames per second. Often a major pain in the ass to go back and match to find out exactly what it was you shot - 'specially on low quality, low resolution stuff.
- Amended collections of stills for particular videos.
Tended to be really stingy in harvesting frames in early efforts. Tended to get more and more aggressive as time went on.
In the course of reviewing the earlier worked videos I discovered a lot of amazing smoking gun sequences I'd totally missed on the first pass. Will need to do some serious revisiting on future posts.
- Time stamping...
Not really relevant to forum members and visitors but virtually all saved and uploaded stills are time stamped sequentially in one second intervals. Use "A Better Finder Attributes" software for what's on the drive and Flickr's online tools for what's online.
The date will be the date of the flight/incident if available or as close as possible afterwards if not - no later, of course, than the date of the video posting or a known reference in a discussion.
The time default is the first second after noon - 12:00:01 for Frame 1. When two or more events fall on the same day designation conflicting sets will get bumped back or forward an hour. I've had to do this on a small number of occasions. Conflicts are pretty easy to spot - when looking at the images in time stamped order every other shot will be from another video sequence.
- Organizing...
Also not particularly relevant with respect to forum members and visitors... Video stills sets are organized as logically as possible on the hard drive and Flickr in accordance with the main themes corresponding to the main Kite Strings topics. And about as often as not a video will illustrate more than one theme - a Rooney stunt landing failure following a Rooney Link success for example. And I've lately discovered that a few videos are much better examples of an issue other than the one originally noted.
A few odd stand-alone stills are organized along with the video harvests on Flickr.
- Bugs...
-- In redoing and amending things I've found that harvested images from low resolution videos have different resolutions from the originals - sometimes a step better, sometimes a step crappier. Working from the same video file. Weird. Go figure. (I HATE old low resolution videos.)
-- Also have gotten different appearances.
-- Save the frame I'm looking at, get one a few frames before or after - as described in previous post.
General comments...
Videos themselves - with their motion and sound - certainly have their places. But in this game stills are almost always a minimum of twenty times more valuable in terms of seeing and understanding what's actually going on. And not infrequently what's actually going on is the polar opposite of what's being described as going on by the total douchebags on the mainstream forums.
And it's really nice to be able to really look at a fixed image for as long as one pleases and study and think. That was the key to the success of Ken Burns' "The Civil War". Lotsa Matthew Brady photos on the screen for a long time with slow panning from edge to edge.
And even when you're looking at a shot from a stupidly and dangerously fucked up flight like the one above or of an evil incompetent lying little shit like...
37-05121
http://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1676/25661585790_4ed1db6bd6_o.png
47-14318
http://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1703/25962154585_73bc19f718_o.png
54-15427
http://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1552/25867200361_2dcbe43041_o.png
...Ryan ya gotta admit that there's a lot of beauty in a lot of these images.
And for whatever it's worth... Kite Strings RULES the web in terms of images related to hang gliding problem areas. And, with the exceptions of aerobatics and racking up XC miles, hang gliding is ALL problem areas. Try a few Google image searches if you don't believe me. There's a massive amount time and effort involved with this and nobody else is gonna do it.
P.S. Thanks bigtime, Flickr. Very valuable tool we're getting for free.
-
Tad Eareckson
- Posts: 9149
- Joined: 2010/11/25 03:48:55 UTC
Re: photos
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=34685
Wanted "Winch Tow Release"
The exciting bits
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=29415
Holy Crap
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=32776
Can't release the tow line
Idiot.
Releases
952 posts, 59464 hits at the moment.
No wait. You said AVAILABLE. u$hPa and the Flight Park Mafia make sure that only total crap is AVAILABLE.
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=49407
Can't release
---
Continued at:
http://www.kitestrings.org/post9681.html#p9681
Wanted "Winch Tow Release"
Yeah, one of those chest crusher jobs. I'll bet that's what Jeff Bohl was using. Bet he got his chest crushed when he piled in.FlyKC10 - 2016/09/04 19:07:55 UTC
Vacaville, California
Does anybody have or know where I could pick up a winch tow release (two stage release). I'd like to have my own set-up for my harness.
I like the Koch system... Would love to get my hands on one.
Don't mention it.Thanks...
Yeah, Steve only deals in the highest possible quality equipment. He's exceptionally knowledgeable. Hell, he's the one who signed off Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney's instructor certification.Garrett Speeter - 2016/09/05 01:22:03 UTC
try blue sky
Rcpilot - 2016/09/05 05:20:11 UTC
Have you considered purchasing some "state of the art" equipment from Pat Denevan over at Mission Soaring?
162-20727
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8576/16673571861_3962427127_o.png
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=27494Davis Straub - 2016/09/05 05:56:49 UTC
Where did you get that photo?
The exciting bits
Steve Davy - 2012/04/27 01:55:17 UTC
Why did you delete my post?
Davis Straub - 2012/04/27 02:42:02 UTC
Tad's name.
Indirectly.
Not to mention:Davis Straub - 2016/09/05 14:45:13 UTC
Thanks. I linked to that video previously...
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=29415
Holy Crap
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=32776
Can't release the tow line
Idiot.
And we're all "happy" with anything that makes you "happy", Davis. As usual....and am "happy" to be reminded of it.
Dave Gills - 2016/09/05 15:17:24 UTC
I like this setup...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1yBgSk9pOw
Yeah, they're not Industry Standard.FlyKC10 - 2016/09/05 16:38:34 UTC
Blue sky doesn't use these types of releases.
In other words, thanks for nuthin'.Thanks for the info...
Too bad Nancy didn't.Think I'll pass on Mission Soaring... lol
zamuro - 2016/09/05 17:30:28 UTC
New York
http://www.kitestrings.org/topic7.htmlStallpolicer - 2016/09/05 17:50:25 UTC
I've been thinking of starting a thread about types of towing releases available.
Releases
952 posts, 59464 hits at the moment.
No wait. You said AVAILABLE. u$hPa and the Flight Park Mafia make sure that only total crap is AVAILABLE.
Total non issue. The real problem is that hang gliders don't have adequate roll response for safe towing. But we'll have that problem fixed by the end of the month.RBT - 2016/09/06 04:08:16 UTC
Queensland
I am with Dave Gills on this one. Have just set up a Russian mouth release to use with scooter towing. I will also be using it when I do aerotowing.
It's hands free, meaning you never have to remove/move your hands from the basebar.
Just open your mouth and you are away.
Over twenty years ago ferchrisake.Steve Kinsley - 1996/05/09 15:50
Personal opinion. While I don't know the circumstances of Frank's death and I am not an awesome tow type dude, I think tow releases, all of them, stink on ice. Reason: You need two hands to drive a hang glider. You 'specially need two hands if it starts to turn on tow. If you let go to release, the glider can almost instantly assume a radical attitude. We need a release that is held in the mouth. A clothespin. Open your mouth and you're off.
Are the easily reachable? Is the pin adequately bent?You can buy them from Birukobu (Aleksey) on this forum and they are very good quality.
Two.They come with a 500mm cable that you would not need to alter if you are one....
Three....point towing as in the video above. If you do two...
Sounds pretty fuckin' Rube Goldberg to me. Keep It Simple Stupid....point it is no hassle to fit another longer cable. Any bike shop will sell the spiral wound housing with teflon inner by the metre. Just cut it to size with a grinder cut off disc (don't use hand cutters as you will deform the housing) and have it in the position that you will be using it.
Then insert the stainless wire cable. This comes in 2m lengths here with a brazed stop at one end and a grub screw at the other. You will need less than the 2m.
Tighten the grub screw end once you have it in the working position and it's done. Leave about 15mm of cable sticking out past the grub screw. I crimped an electrical quicklink onto this bit to tidy it up. You wont need a special crimping tool to do this - pliers will do. The whole thing took me less than an hour. Will post a video of it at some stage.
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=49407
Can't release
Toldyaso.Davis Straub - 2016/09/05 14:35:33 UTC
A bit cockeyed
http://vimeo.com/68791399
I linked to this video before but was recently reminded of it by:
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=34685
---
Continued at:
http://www.kitestrings.org/post9681.html#p9681
-
Dave Gills
- Posts: 45
- Joined: 2014/12/15 17:54:14 UTC
Re: photos
Pulpit ramp construction photos from 1997
http://www.chgpa.org/PhotoGallery/photogal.pramp.wp5.html
CHGPA Hang Gliding and Paragliding Photo Gallery : New Pulpit Ramp Construction : Work Party Five
http://www.chgpa.org/PhotoGallery/photogal.pramp.wp5.html
CHGPA Hang Gliding and Paragliding Photo Gallery : New Pulpit Ramp Construction : Work Party Five
-
Tad Eareckson
- Posts: 9149
- Joined: 2010/11/25 03:48:55 UTC
Re: photos
Kite Strings recently suffered its most major disaster since the Tapatalk attack late last October (though perhaps it was only Yours Truly who noticed). But after more hours of agony and tedium than I care to ever remember I think we're now pretty well fixed and then some.
I think it was latish Sunday that I first noticed something amiss in the course of preparing and previewing a post (that's now/still on a back burner). And for an explanation/description of what happened (and bear with me for a while) let's use this publicly accessible Flickr photo:
Keel Release - Composite
http://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8216/8306258400_58342fe594_o.png
of mine for the example.
When one uploads a (hopefully) high resolution, full quality, lossless compressed PNG photo, Flickr saves the original and then breaks it down into a lot of decreasing resolution, compressed, low bandwidth JPEGS. Then when one wants to display a version of the photo in some other venue one goes to photo's page, clicks on "View all sizes", selects a resolution, control clicks on the image, selects "Copy Image Address", catalogs same for purpose of embedding. "Medium 800" works well for forums (such as Kite Strings) 'cause the resolution is decent and considerate enough not to overwhelm one's display and run off of it to the right. And this is the resolution that Flickr amended to its breakdown series precisely for this purpose.
Whenever I post an image of 800 width or any sub-full other resolution I want any member of the public to have access to full resolution to use as he pleases - within the confines of copyright issues - so I virtually always amend the image with the photo link if public and/or full resolution/quality original image address if private. Both appear in our example above. The photo page if public allows one the same access I have to all the resolutions but if private is totally useless to anyone who isn't me (or logged in as me). The max resolution original image address allows anyone access to max resolution original image and the ability to break it down into lower resolutions with Photoshop if he feels like it.
Flickr image addresses from the beginning of time, I believe, until some point in 2015 looked like:
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8216/8306258400_43251e5dcb_c.jpg
Then at that some point in 2015 they started looking like:
http://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8216/8306258400_43251e5dcb_c.jpg
Different prefixes prior to the first multi-digit code (8216 in this example) - which we'll designate "Farm" and "C" respectively. Doesn't matter if it were an ancient existing image in the collection with an address you'd harvested years before or new shot you'd uploaded two minutes ago - the Farm format is gone.
The old Farm format prefix still worked/works fine for accessing and/or embedding. And, very interestingly, you can swap any Farm prefix in for any C prefix and everything works fine. Ditto for vice versa. Maybe even more interestingly the single digit codings in the prefix make no difference whatsoever - almost. A zero in any entry kills things and the first entry in the C format prefix can't be a nine.
So anyway... When I preview what I'm constructing for my post I notice that SOME of my Flickr images...
http://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8216/8306258400_58342fe594_o.png
...aren't displaying. Check to make sure I haven't made any mistakes and find I haven't. Copy the URL and use it in a new browser window - opens/displays fine. Control click on the "?" problem icon - also opens/displays fine. WTF?
Then I notice that it's the C format URLs that are the problems and achieve success swapping in Farm prefixes. Oh well, probably some temporary glitch with some Flickr servers they should have sorted out shortly 'cause I certainly can't be the only one out there having and/or noticing this problem. But nothing happens and there's no relevant traffic on their Help Forum.
And at some point it sinks in that it's not just three or so images in this post I'm trying to prepare but over 13.4 THOUSAND images on Kite Strings that have gone black. No, I'm not seeing swapping in Farm prefixes as a terribly viable solution. So I start preparing a post for the Flickr Help Forum and keep checking and experimenting to make really sure I'm getting all my ducks in a row. And then, Tuesday morning...
I lied a little about harvesting the image addresses. Compare/Contrast:
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8216/8306258400_58342fe594_o.png
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8216/8306258400_43251e5dcb_c.jpg
http://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8216/8306258400_58342fe594_o.png
http://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8216/8306258400_43251e5dcb_c.jpg
to/with:
https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8216/8306258400_58342fe594_o.png
https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8216/8306258400_43251e5dcb_c.jpg
https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8216/8306258400_58342fe594_o.png
https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8216/8306258400_43251e5dcb_c.jpg
http / https
HyperText Transfer Protocol / HyperText Transfer Protocol SECURE
I always chop esses off barring good reasons not to - which I virtually never have. Saves bandwidth, reduces clutter, makes things look more uniform and less confusing/distracting. One more experiment before running to Flickr help and...
The "s" hasn't mattered since the beginning of time, STILL doesn't matter on anything with the Farm format... But with the C format.
Kite Strings... Prior to this one 10867 total posts. Start scanning - option down arrow - through the hundreds of pages of our history looking fors. When I find one, five, a hundred...
EDIT - command G (Find Next "[img]http://c" - command V (Paste "[img]https://c"
Mac Dvorak layout keyboard...
Hold left command key down with my left thumb, rock back and forth between G and V with my extended right index and curled back ring fingers. About thirty hours between identification of the problem Tuesday morning and the wee hours of yesterday morning. Things would start to hurt and I'd start going blind and would need to take breaks to keep from melting down and imploding.
I'm sure Zack knows how to do this the smart way in two and a half minutes and that I've missed some stuff but... What the hell. It's good to review the whole site every once in a while and I caught and fixed a lot of other issues that the machine wouldn't have.
Note that...
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8216/8306258400_58342fe594_o.png
https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8216/8306258400_43251e5dcb_c.jpg
...I HAVEN'T amended the full/original resolution links with esses. Those links work just fine and they're never intended to be displayed 'cause they CAN'T BE to any imaginable benefit - as far as our purposes are concerned.
Issues...
- Please be on the lookout for broken images and PM me with the post number or an easily search-and-findable fragment of text.
- Better part of 7.9 thousand of our relevant embedded/displayed Flickr images are Farm format. And if Flickr can do this to us with C format stuff... Might be a good idea to do a preemptive overhaul. I think I probably will if/when I get bored enough. Little more than half of what the C format volume was and it will also serve a useful further proofreading function.
- Some very important images of ours have been posted by Kite Strings and other individuals on enemy forums. (All other glider forums are enemy.) Please edit what you can and/or alert authors, administrators of the issue. I know a lot of stuff is being used for dishonorable purposes - misrepresented, out of context - but undoctored photos don't lie and the truth won't ever hurt us.
Comment...
You do Google image searches for relevant Kite Strings issues and find that we dominate the fuck outta those necks of the hang gliding cybersphere forest. And you notice how totally the mainstreamers bend over backwards to pretend we don't exist and you have pretty solid evidence that we're the big fuckin' elephant in all of their Living Rooms. But we're heavily dependent on Flickr and its good graces and have zero control over it and thus much of our destiny.
---
2018/08/23 13:15:00 UTC
As noted in my 2018/08/23 00:26:54 UTC post on the next page of this topic the Flickr image display problem I documented here resolved itself at some point after I overhauled the forum to fix everything. And subsequent to that point in time this post made no sense. So in it I've substituted:
http://hikkaduwa.free.fr/images/M_images/activites/CABANAC/120211/cab3G.jpg
a longtime and permanently dead image address for:
http://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8216/8306258400_43251e5dcb_c.jpg
which didn't work at the time but does now.
So now this post again displays as it did originally and as intended and makes sense - as long as one doesn't go snooping around too much.
I think it was latish Sunday that I first noticed something amiss in the course of preparing and previewing a post (that's now/still on a back burner). And for an explanation/description of what happened (and bear with me for a while) let's use this publicly accessible Flickr photo:
Keel Release - Composite
http://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8216/8306258400_58342fe594_o.png
of mine for the example.
When one uploads a (hopefully) high resolution, full quality, lossless compressed PNG photo, Flickr saves the original and then breaks it down into a lot of decreasing resolution, compressed, low bandwidth JPEGS. Then when one wants to display a version of the photo in some other venue one goes to photo's page, clicks on "View all sizes", selects a resolution, control clicks on the image, selects "Copy Image Address", catalogs same for purpose of embedding. "Medium 800" works well for forums (such as Kite Strings) 'cause the resolution is decent and considerate enough not to overwhelm one's display and run off of it to the right. And this is the resolution that Flickr amended to its breakdown series precisely for this purpose.
Whenever I post an image of 800 width or any sub-full other resolution I want any member of the public to have access to full resolution to use as he pleases - within the confines of copyright issues - so I virtually always amend the image with the photo link if public and/or full resolution/quality original image address if private. Both appear in our example above. The photo page if public allows one the same access I have to all the resolutions but if private is totally useless to anyone who isn't me (or logged in as me). The max resolution original image address allows anyone access to max resolution original image and the ability to break it down into lower resolutions with Photoshop if he feels like it.
Flickr image addresses from the beginning of time, I believe, until some point in 2015 looked like:
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8216/8306258400_43251e5dcb_c.jpg
Then at that some point in 2015 they started looking like:
http://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8216/8306258400_43251e5dcb_c.jpg
Different prefixes prior to the first multi-digit code (8216 in this example) - which we'll designate "Farm" and "C" respectively. Doesn't matter if it were an ancient existing image in the collection with an address you'd harvested years before or new shot you'd uploaded two minutes ago - the Farm format is gone.
The old Farm format prefix still worked/works fine for accessing and/or embedding. And, very interestingly, you can swap any Farm prefix in for any C prefix and everything works fine. Ditto for vice versa. Maybe even more interestingly the single digit codings in the prefix make no difference whatsoever - almost. A zero in any entry kills things and the first entry in the C format prefix can't be a nine.
So anyway... When I preview what I'm constructing for my post I notice that SOME of my Flickr images...
http://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8216/8306258400_58342fe594_o.png
...aren't displaying. Check to make sure I haven't made any mistakes and find I haven't. Copy the URL and use it in a new browser window - opens/displays fine. Control click on the "?" problem icon - also opens/displays fine. WTF?
Then I notice that it's the C format URLs that are the problems and achieve success swapping in Farm prefixes. Oh well, probably some temporary glitch with some Flickr servers they should have sorted out shortly 'cause I certainly can't be the only one out there having and/or noticing this problem. But nothing happens and there's no relevant traffic on their Help Forum.
And at some point it sinks in that it's not just three or so images in this post I'm trying to prepare but over 13.4 THOUSAND images on Kite Strings that have gone black. No, I'm not seeing swapping in Farm prefixes as a terribly viable solution. So I start preparing a post for the Flickr Help Forum and keep checking and experimenting to make really sure I'm getting all my ducks in a row. And then, Tuesday morning...
I lied a little about harvesting the image addresses. Compare/Contrast:
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8216/8306258400_58342fe594_o.png
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8216/8306258400_43251e5dcb_c.jpg
http://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8216/8306258400_58342fe594_o.png
http://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8216/8306258400_43251e5dcb_c.jpg
to/with:
https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8216/8306258400_58342fe594_o.png
https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8216/8306258400_43251e5dcb_c.jpg
https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8216/8306258400_58342fe594_o.png
https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8216/8306258400_43251e5dcb_c.jpg
http / https
HyperText Transfer Protocol / HyperText Transfer Protocol SECURE
I always chop esses off barring good reasons not to - which I virtually never have. Saves bandwidth, reduces clutter, makes things look more uniform and less confusing/distracting. One more experiment before running to Flickr help and...
Oh.
The "s" hasn't mattered since the beginning of time, STILL doesn't matter on anything with the Farm format... But with the C format.
Kite Strings... Prior to this one 10867 total posts. Start scanning - option down arrow - through the hundreds of pages of our history looking for
s. When I find one, five, a hundred...EDIT - command G (Find Next "[img]http://c" - command V (Paste "[img]https://c"
Mac Dvorak layout keyboard...
Hold left command key down with my left thumb, rock back and forth between G and V with my extended right index and curled back ring fingers. About thirty hours between identification of the problem Tuesday morning and the wee hours of yesterday morning. Things would start to hurt and I'd start going blind and would need to take breaks to keep from melting down and imploding.
I'm sure Zack knows how to do this the smart way in two and a half minutes and that I've missed some stuff but... What the hell. It's good to review the whole site every once in a while and I caught and fixed a lot of other issues that the machine wouldn't have.
Note that...
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8216/8306258400_58342fe594_o.png
https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8216/8306258400_43251e5dcb_c.jpg
...I HAVEN'T amended the full/original resolution links with esses. Those links work just fine and they're never intended to be displayed 'cause they CAN'T BE to any imaginable benefit - as far as our purposes are concerned.
Issues...
- Please be on the lookout for broken images and PM me with the post number or an easily search-and-findable fragment of text.
- Better part of 7.9 thousand of our relevant embedded/displayed Flickr images are Farm format. And if Flickr can do this to us with C format stuff... Might be a good idea to do a preemptive overhaul. I think I probably will if/when I get bored enough. Little more than half of what the C format volume was and it will also serve a useful further proofreading function.
- Some very important images of ours have been posted by Kite Strings and other individuals on enemy forums. (All other glider forums are enemy.) Please edit what you can and/or alert authors, administrators of the issue. I know a lot of stuff is being used for dishonorable purposes - misrepresented, out of context - but undoctored photos don't lie and the truth won't ever hurt us.
Comment...
You do Google image searches for relevant Kite Strings issues and find that we dominate the fuck outta those necks of the hang gliding cybersphere forest. And you notice how totally the mainstreamers bend over backwards to pretend we don't exist and you have pretty solid evidence that we're the big fuckin' elephant in all of their Living Rooms. But we're heavily dependent on Flickr and its good graces and have zero control over it and thus much of our destiny.
---
2018/08/23 13:15:00 UTC
As noted in my 2018/08/23 00:26:54 UTC post on the next page of this topic the Flickr image display problem I documented here resolved itself at some point after I overhauled the forum to fix everything. And subsequent to that point in time this post made no sense. So in it I've substituted:
http://hikkaduwa.free.fr/images/M_images/activites/CABANAC/120211/cab3G.jpg
a longtime and permanently dead image address for:
http://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8216/8306258400_43251e5dcb_c.jpg
which didn't work at the time but does now.
So now this post again displays as it did originally and as intended and makes sense - as long as one doesn't go snooping around too much.