A Hunting We Shall Go - Looking for stuff on the Internet

Looking For Artists - II

I found an image on my computer and I realized that it is one I would like to review on "Blended Realms" however it is an image that I found quite a while ago before I ever figured I might be interested in seeking its source. So I decided to seek that source out this afternoon.

I thought I might share that hunt with you as an example of how I hunt for stuff. I am normally fairly successful so I thought I'd share.

The image is a file on my hard drive called "CoolestPictureEver.jpg" (image to the left -- image from deviantArt) and you might think it would be difficult to find from that. But it is always worth starting with a simple search. I might have taken a different first step... but I will come back to that. The image did not have the link that I have conveniently included in this article... I found that after the process I am about to outline.

The first thing I did was go to my Firefox browser and type "Coolest Picture Ever" into the search window. Firefox has a search window right on the browser toolbar and it defaults to Google. I can set it to a number of search engines including directly going to "Google Image". I also have an Application added to my Firefox which lets me customize Google to my preference. You'll be able to do these searches from Internet Explorer, Safari, Opera, or others including Flock and other Mozilla derived browsers.

When I searched using Google Image I could immediately look at the results to find if I had found the image I was seeking. Google Image: coolest picture ever

I immediately recognized the thumbnail from the Incredimazing Site! I also recognized this as the site I first saw the image on. But they are just a "Social {PIC} Collective" which I take to mean are like a blog/image collection service and the person didn't really say much about where the image was from other than having a large image of it. But looking at the picture was where I realized the alternative way I could have searched! At the bottom on the "matting" of the image is some information on the image. The name, artist, and copyright notice. "Space Lane - By Dinyctis" "Copyright 2004 - All Rights Reserved".

Now, "Space Lane by Dinyctis" would probably give me very good results from Google if the artist existed at all on the Web! Indeed entering "Dinyctis" alone produced results. The first listed in my search was "dinyctis on deviantART" which is actually a heading with subheadings. The main result was good enough for what I wanted.

"Space Lane" was even the piece of artwork featured on Dinyctis' page so I could go directly to the page on the work rather than search through his gallery pages.

The tools I want to pass on are that you can type in file names into a search window on Google Image or Google to potentially find an image. I suggest not including the suffix like ".jpg" ".gif" or ."png". I suggest perhaps looking first at the image to see if there are any identifying marks on the image. That is a step I forgot to take -- there might have even been a Web address in the information at the bottom of the image. Of course if Google wouldn't have come up with anything... or if it came up with too much, I could have gone to a site like deviantART to search like I mentioned in the previous "A Hunting We Shall Go" article.

Later!
~ Darrell

115.

Is it Magic?

Is Reading Magic?

You might not know the sound of my voice, but you know what I am saying. You would be able to repeat my words to another even if you had never met me. If you are reading these words 200 years after I have passed on from this mortal realm, you would still be able to hear what I have said. You could paint them on canvas, carve them into wood, scratch them into stone, itch them into skin... and still the words could be passed on and heard by others so long as they know the "magic of reading".

...and of course understand English or something equivalent.

I would say it is something pretty magical. We could be sitting -- or standing -- here communicating, by me having recited this into a microphone and recording it as an mp3 file or podcast and you playing my spoken words, but that would require some sort of technology to duplicate. If you print this on paper you can carry it with you and anyone who can see and read English will be able to understand it simply by looking at it -- anyone who understands this magic.

It strikes home with me at times more strongly than others. I researched "runes" -- the primitive letter system used by cultures such as the Norse -- in local and university libraries and one of the articles referred to runic writing found in Kiev. This was the ancient city of Kiev from a time when it was inhabited in part by Norse Traders before 1000 AD. There were bits of writing found on scraps of bark which were found in odd places where they might have been lost or stuck. Places like where they might have gotten between floorboards in wood walkways or in cracks in walls. I am not talking about ancient scrolls here. What struck me was that some were notes saying such things as "pick up three eggs on the way home" or "meet me after class" or "I like Ivan. He is cute." -- things that you might find on notes in any school child's pocket today... or do they only "text" now? I can not remember the exact content of the few notes that they made example of as it was over 20 years ago, but could find it probably. What was said in the article in "Scientific American" (Probably from the 1980's) was that this showed the people used runic writing in their everyday lives.

What I want to say with this is that when we read this -- or could if we were runic readers and understood the language of the Kievian Norse traders -- we are reading the words of a parent or child from over 2000 years ago! ...not some priestly incantation on a pyramid or other monument, but from the scraps of bark from a child's pocket.

We might do a lot with computers like here on the Internet -- I really love using my notebook computer, for instance -- and I would like to get an eBook reader of some sort and perhaps an even more portable way to take notes and write* -- but I can take a book anywhere and read it so long as there is light for my eyes and the environment wouldn't harm the paper. (Reading in swimming pools can be hard on books.) But I don't need a "reader" to read a book once it has been printed.

Reading and writing are very important arts and to someone who does not know how to read, must be a bit like magic. I think to a primitive culture that isn't literate, reading and writing would indeed be "Magic" as much as anything else could be. It is a magic that can be learned and taught of course.

It is also a magic that can open whole worlds!

Later!
~ Darrell

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* Notepads and pencils are wonderful and portable and while I do use them, I have problems with handwriting due to learning disorders and so I tend to rely on typing and other methods of writing that take handwriting out of the equation. I would rather use a trusty notepad when out and about.

Gnomestead Stump: Coming of Age

Have We Come of Age? -- First Spammer in Comments

I wonder if "The Gnomestead Stump" has come of age? We had our first Spammer come and Spam us with an unsolicited advertisement in our comments section for one of our articles! Now I could like a good adman make you search for the article with the comment in it -- that way you would have to look over more of the articles -- but instead I shall provide you with a link to the article which will open up on its own page. That way it will show you the comments section right away too as a bonus. It is in the "Tickets Please - Fair Transit Fares" article from July 13, 2008.

I was tempted to immediately delete the ad and perhaps in future I shall do so. I did add a comment of my own afterwards. I am leaving it in place for a couple of reasons. The first is that I planned on writing this article I am posting here, and it is an example of what I am writing about. It is also fairly innocuous other than wasting bandwidth for you and blog-space for me. The Spam also wastes server space for Blogger/Google and resources for the whole Internet community.

The advertisers are obviously not paying for the advertising space and while Blogger does offer free space, the purpose of it is not for third parties to make use of -- unasked for -- for advertising their wares. If I chose to I can have advertising on "The Gnomestead Stump" which actually would pay "Me" money when people followed the links advertised.

Someone I am sure is getting some sort of remuneration for the ad -- possibly based on each click on the links in the comment unless you have a script blocker in place. I actually do cruise the net with a script blocker in place. To allow for safer surfing I use the "NoScript" Application for Firefox, even though it means I have to activate scripts when I determine I trust a site.

If I could, I might disable the links in the comment so that nobody would be tricked to follow them to the travel site they link to. If someone did want to use their services... I can not say that they are bad... they could follow the links. I don't recommend it personally. I can say that if this is the sort of advertising technique they use, I would not want to do business with them.

On-the-other-hand there are people who pretend to be someone else just to discredit them. Someone might be pretending to be them. I have gotten sever emails purporting to be from MSN lately saying they are about some news reader service or some such... But I know the email does not originate from MSN. It is just another one of those Viral emails that say they are one thing when they are another. They even use return addresses that are not their own. I think in a way they are spoofing and phishing for information or trying to hurt MSN's reputation?

If someone has decided to try to Spam this column, I guess that means we have "made it". Now of course I also have seen them Spamming Forums with only a dozen members... If they send out 1,000,000 pieces of bait and get one nibble, those responses have paid for themselves many times over -- for they pay next to nothing to go fishing.

But, does that mean "The Gnomestead Stump" has passed a right of passage?

Later!
~ Darrell

113.

Here's the Caboose!

What's a Caboose?

When I grew up any child -- at least in Canada and the USA knew what a Caboose was. I figure most folk who spoke English natively might know that. The "caboose" was the special train car that came at the end of a train. In fact it confused me that passenger trains didn't have them!

Now they no longer put cabooses at the end of freight trains, they have been replaced by electronic boxes of some sort they put at the back of the last car in the train. The function of the caboose as a car for the train crew no longer exists and the entire crew is -- I imagine either in the engine or in the various railroad offices.

Perhaps cabooses have become "extinct" on today's railroads, but what does this mean for the caboose in the English language? I don't imagine that many will miss it and people will simply think that those who talk about getting a "swift kick in the caboose" are a bit eccentric. They might wonder at some of the children's books that talk about trains and mention cabooses. (image of CPR caboose to right -- image from "Railway Photography by Chris vanderHeide") Of course "caboose" might not be the only word that gets you weird looks. What do you think kids today make of "Choo choo train"? Other than special tour trains and museums and in movies and on TV they might not see a steam engine or even if so not equate it with "Choo choo trains".

It is something that has happened again and again with changes in society and technology. When was the last time you talked about a "Hi Fi"? "Gramophone" "Victrola". I wonder how long before "record player" disappears from our normal vocabulary and is relegated to Scrabble games or Crossword puzzles?

I hope that doesn't happen with something like "polar bear".

Later!
~ Darrell

112.

A Hunting We Shall Go - Looking for stuff on the Internet

Looking For Artists

Often when I find pictures on the World Wide Web there is very little information on who created the image or where it was originally found. I'm very curious and would like to know who is due the credit for the artwork and if they have done other pieces of work. If I might want to use the piece of artwork I would like to know who to ask for permission or if that permission might even be granted already. Some pieces of artwork have had that permission granted for use under certain circumstance - for instance under non-commercial circumstance.

I've started doing reviews of artwork with a friend of mine, Mags Alden on another Blog, "Blended Realms" and while using some material for reviews is acceptable "fair use" a person really needs to have an artist to review when reviewing the art. So I have had to play detective when seeking the name of the artist and if they have a site or where their art might be found. I have learned a few tricks.

The trick I will share here is a site called "deviantART".

"deviantArt" is a web site where artists in all sorts of genres whether electronic, text or traditional can come together to share their work with each other and the world that is connected by the Internet. I have found that often I can find pages for artists I might not find elsewhere on the web. Sometimes all I have is a name or a signature along with a description of the work and the media of the work whether oil, watercolour, photograph, manipulated photograph, sculpture, story, poem, prose, or mixed media or...

A recent piece of artwork I was looking for was an image of the moon sitting in a field*. (image to left -- image from deviantART) I actually could find a number of representations of that image on the internet, but none with any clue on the artist. My good friend Mags came to the rescue and suggested "why don't you try deviantArt?".

It never really crossed my mind as I am used to researching and looking for other things using a number of other techniques and resources and they have allowed me to dig up a great many artists of various works I have found uncredited on the Web.

So I went to deviantART's front page. Knowing it was a matter of computer photo manipulation I chose to look under Digital Art though I considered Photography. Under that there was a subsection for Photomanipulation. There were further subcategories and I might have chosen Fantasy or Landscapes & Scenery, but I thought I might try my search in just the Photomanipulation category. So I decided to simply enter the two keywords "moon" and "field".

The results of that search were 421 poplular "deviations" submitted in all of time in Photomanipulation for "moon field". (Of course the results of this search probably will change over time, but this gives an example of the results.) The first page had 24 of the 421 images -- perhaps the most popular? In any case the image of interest was on that first page and actually categorized in "Surreal". It is called "World of Sleepers" by ~Karezoid Sep 28, 2007 and there is a link there for it. "World Of Sleepers". Anyway, it was that simple for me to find the artist and image when all I did have was an anonymous picture on the Web.

There are other ways to search for sure and other tools I can use and do use. But this is one I wanted to share. It is true that I might have gone through all 421 of those images and not found it. Then I would have tried something else. Or I might have tried other key words. I might have tried landscape. I might have tried moon and whatever that greenish colour is or maybe landed moon? I did have luck in other searches with "moon in field" though, but only finding other copies of the image.

So if you are seeking an artist, you might like me try looking through deviantART.

BTW, can you find me there?

Later!
~ Darrell

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* "World of Sleepers" by Michal Karcz (Karezoid) Review of this picture is on "Blended Dreams".

Where's the Caboose?

Road Trains!

You might think that reducing fuel costs is a new thing which has been spurred on only in recent times by talk of the environment and increased oil prices -- but any freight company owner or manager who has any idea of keeping their business profitable has been interested in this all along. I can imagine that even in the days of the original teamsters -- the ones who drove and took care of teams of horses and possibly oxen -- kept their eyes on how many coins it cost to haul oats.

One of the ways that were used in bygone days -- probably before the days I remember of my Dad's trucking in the 60's and 70's -- was to pull more than one trailer with a tractor. When I say tractor, you would possibly say "truck" or perhaps "articulated lorry". "Tractor" being a term for the truck that pulls a "semi trailer truck unit". That basically means that the "trailer" doesn't have front wheels of its own, but instead rests its weight on the back axles of the "tractor". That is done through a pivoting plate called a "fifth wheel".

Here is a shot of a "Semi" or "semi trailer truck" from the same company my Dad drove for many years ago in the 1970's. (image to right -- image from Ken Goudy's Collection)* I think most you are familiar with those sorts of rigs on the highways nearly anywhere in the world.

Something that some might be less familiar with are multiple trailer or semitrailer units which are called different things in different places. In some places they are called "Road Trains" in others: "Truck Trains" "Doubles" "Triples" "Rocky Mountain Doubles" "Turnpike Doubles" "Turnpike Triples" "Queen City Triples". Those are some of the Canadian names for them, I guess legally they tend to be called Longer Combination Vehicles (LCVs), Extended Length Vehicles (ELVs), or Energy Efficient Motor Vehicles (EEMVs).

In Canada and the US you get A, B, and C-train variants which can be two and more rarely three trailer units. The three designations refer to how the trailers are attached to each other. Some places in Canada and the US allow them and some do not and there are differing restrictions as to just where and when they can travel; who can operate them; and how big they can get.

In the first half of the 1970's and perhaps later '60's my Father drove A-train doubles through the Rocky Mountains between Calgary, AB and Vancouver, BC as well as A-train triples between Calgary and Edmonton, AB. He was driving for B-Line Express at the time though with a bit more modern equipment than in this picture of single axle tractor with twin pups. (image to left -- image from Ken Goudy's Collection)* Dad always drove a tandem tractor and often both trailers had tandem axles too -- although the converter had only the single axle if I recall correctly.

Dad mostly hauled hanging beef from Calgary to Vancouver. That meant a load of beef hanging in refrigerated trailers from the roof of the trailer on hooks. You have to keep in mind that the entire load hung from the ceiling of the truck and could swing. Dad just called them "A-trains" or "Doubles" at the time, but I think today they would call them "Rocky Mountain Doubles" like the one to the right. (image to right -- image from Rigs, part of Bear's Trucking Glossary)** The "Triples" might have looked something like this to the left. (image to left -- image from Rigs, part of Bear's Trucking Glossary)** I wasn't sure if the "pups" were single or tandem axle trailers.

That was back in the 60's and 70's though and it was done because it was more efficient from the viewpoint of wages, equipment, and fuel. Perhaps you might recall there was an "energy crisis" back then too...

But that is history. Still history really isn't something to forget and really we are no different from people back then. (Some of us are people from back then.) Some of use were already environmentally conscious back then as well.

These "Truck Trains" or "Road Trains" are nothing compared with what they do in places like Australia. I don't mean everywhere in Australia. Their cities are no different than cities in Western nations anywhere else, they'd be too congested for even the shortest "trains". (There have been shown to be benefits to using short tractor-trailer units in cities rather than larger body-trucks/lorries though.)

In the "Outback" just like in Canada's North long straight stretches beg for interesting transportation solutions. This is where "Road Trains" come into their own and where they really were invented... (image to right from 009's Car Blog) Though this is even just small compared to some of the record setting ones in Australia that I have read about in another blog: Youngistan - Incredible Road Trains!!!

While more typical road trains might top out at 200 tonnes with the majority being between 80 and 120 tonnes - 80 - 120 being similar to Canadian and US sizes.

Monster trains in the outback in Guinness Book of Records in 1999 was for 45 trailers and 603t (601m long) in 2003 87 trailers (1,235m long) (no weight given) in 2006 112 trailers (1,474m long).

It all started out with someone buying a very powerful army surplus tractor and a bunch of army surplus "Bren-gun carriers" and wanting to carry more bulls across the outback.

Wikipedia - Road Train, History***

Australian Kurt Johansson is recognised as the inventor of the road-train. After transporting stud bulls 200 miles (320 km) to an outback property, Johansson was challenged to build a truck to carry 100 head of cattle instead of the original load of 20. Provided with financing of a couple thousand pounds to develop the vehicle, two years later his first road train was running.

Something different are the "Trackless Train" used in parking lots or fairgrounds for pedestrians or similar to the luggage trains in airports. There are also bus systems which actually put buses on track-like systems and articulated bus systems. But I will talk of them elsewhere.

It is a way to reduce the amount of fuel used in transporting goods on the highways, though it does take a bit of planning so that these long rigs can mix with other traffic.

Later!
~ Darrell

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* "Ken Goudy's Collection", Ken Goudy's Canadian Trucking Pictures -- Canadian Carrier Collection; "Hank's Web Site".

** "Bear's Trucking Glossary"

*** "Road Train" Wikipedia

What Happened to the Creamy Filling?

What Happens When the Filling Disappears?

Will Cities Become Shells?

Did you know that houses have a lifespan?

There is a lifespan for buildings. They are built to last a given number of years on average. Perhaps it is 75 years, perhaps 50, perhaps 100, but they do have a lifespan. I am not sure about the lifespan of current residential construction, but I suspect many residences built since the Second World War were built with a 75 year lifespan. I am not sure what happens when a building exceeds this lifespan.

I know that there are buildings aging with grace and good upkeep that have become heritage buildings. But I know others don't and have been torn down or rebuilt. However, since WWII there have been huge residential districts where the whole district has been built over a period of perhaps 5 years. What happens to those districts when nearly all the houses reach the end of their functional lifespan at the same time?

I don't have any solutions of course and haven't heard too much of it being a problem. Perhaps it isn't one and something that takes care of itself?

I just remember hearing how houses had a lifespan and was surprised -- thinking they were immortal for some reason. I guess it might be because of all the heritage homes I have seen. The only "falling down" sorts of houses I have seen were abandoned ones.

I do imagine if you own a house you might come upon walls with studs that need replacement because they have rotted, or plumbing that needs to be redone. You might renovate and replace whole walls already and know what is within. Foundations might need to be re-poured. I think that buildings once lasted longer and districts were not built up all at once. Neighbourhoods maybe grew a bit at a time?

We do see apartment blocks come down in groups, but that is because it is time to replace them with newer construction -- the old ones are no longer viable. That works with rental buildings, but what of the more modern idea of strata-condo buildings where each owner might have to be bought out before a building comes down?

So you have a city growing outwards and the core is gradually a cluster of uninhabitable buildings destined for destruction, and whole neighbourhoods might be ready for wrecking ball... what will replace them? I have seen some whole blocks replaced with "monster houses" -- houses that are outsized to the lots -- built to the maximum outmoded bylaws might allow -- which don't suite the character of the neighbourhood at all.

I know that cities that do plan, are working on actual bylaws that fight things like those "monster houses". At the same time they work to solve problems of increased population, transportation, and other pressures by intelligently increasing population density while keeping neighbourhood character.

I don't think that some neighbourhoods will end up like a hollow left if you squeezed the filling out of a doughnut when the houses have reached retirement ages. Land is far too valuable... still the transition will be... is interesting.

Later!
~ Darrell

109.