Three Rivers Region

[girlfromverona]

Awesome photo, David! Glad to hear Heather is feeling better.

I am a consummate worrier.

Me too, Lora! I always assume the worst. Crazy, huh. 

[Korot]

Korot: Its a 500.000 VIEWS contest! 

Well, we could guess for that aswell, couldn't we? 500.000/20= 25.000, so with plenty of non-lurker days, it might not take longer that the Roman empire lasted.

Guess: Have got time, will do calculations after having read other topics here.

417950

Edit: Currently 418006, which means around 100 posts/hour or 2.400 posts a day. I'm currently gathering page views from Dedgren's post, I've started at the 19 July and am currently on the 18th of August.

Edit2:

My guess will come later today/tomorrow, pending on when I've got time.

Ergo, the 31 August, or 1 September. That didn't quite happen. I just finished gathering data, and now need to get the proper formula, which might take a while. And then I have an equation to solve, yeah, that sounds like fun [/sarcasm]

Edit3:Method was to complicated, as using the Lagrange Polynomial for 30+ points to get a formula, without a program is too much work. I tried reducing the number of posts, which yielded in a guess being the day after tomorrow... so instead I used another trick on my calculator and came up with the following guess:

10 November 2009 at 4.57 GMT, which is 9 November 2009 19.57 GMT-9.

Regards,
Korot

EDIT:  Oh, no!  Not the dread LaGrange Polynomial... -DE

[dedgren]

I'm still working on some things, so in the meantime I'll post a bit of Alaska eye-candy.

This is what we saw on the first day of last weekend's Denali camping trip.

#1


You catch your first glances of Mount McKinley along the Parks Highway more than 150 miles/240 kilometers from the park entrance.  This is from just south of Trapper Creek, still over 100 miles/160 kilometers away.

#2


There's several great waysides once you get north of Trapper Creek.  You are going east of the mountain here, which is never closer than 50 miles/80 kilometers to the highway.

#3


Plenty of other scenery to look at along this stretch of road.

#4


#5


Up at the summit of Broad Pass, about 60 miles/100 kilomters south of the entrance, the fall colors were just glorious.

#6


Some of the best views of McKinley, which is now to the southwest, are from here.

#7


The entrance is almost exactly 200 miles/325 kilometers north of our driveway.  With all the pictures we stopped to take, it was an all-day drive.

#8


The cottonwood, poplar, birch and willow trees inside the park were so yellow they were almost blinding.  We picked the perfect weekend for fall color.

#9


There are occasional views of the mountain from the park road near the entrance.  It is about 60 miles/100 kilometers away here to the southwest at this point.  The weather is such here that only 25% or so of the visitors to the park ever get a chance to see McKinley, which is obscured by clouds the rest of the time.  You can see how lucky we were with our choice of days.

#10


There's plenty of other stuff to see.  Those are full-size trees to the right of that rock outcrop.

#11


Twenty-nine miles/50 kilometers up the park road, we reach Teklanika Campground, where we stayed for the three nights of our trip.

#12


Walking through the campground was to see a riot of fall color- most yellow and gold.

#13


#14


The Teklanika River comes off a glacier about 15 miles/24 kilometers to the south.  It is a braided river, and its bed was close to half a mile wide where it flowed next to the campground.

#15


Interesting trees and plants were everywhere along the river.  By the end of September, they will all be covered under the snow.

#16


All great days come to an end.  It was in the 60s (F)/15-20 C during the day, but dropped to the low 30s (F)/~0 C at night.  Heather and I used to tent camp all the time, but we were glad for our little camper's heater this trip.

#17


The full moon was just icing on the cake.

* * *

Don't forget to check out the Name that Dave! contest here [linkie].  It will give you something to do while I continue to progress toward the first big post of the month here- I promise I'll make it worth the wait!

Later.


David

419643

[Andreas]

Thanks for sharing those pics, David, they are utterly amazing. Here, it's still late summer (around 20-25°C/70-75 F) during the day), and fall colors only appear very slighty, but we certainly don't have such a vast wilderness, completely untouched by humans, in Germany anymore.

EDIT:  Andreas, I lived for two wonderful years (in the mid-1970s) in Pirmasens on the west edge of the Pfälzerwald


Courtesy: Wikipedia  http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

and still recall it as one of the most beautiful places I have ever been, especially in the fall.  Plus, you have castles! -DE

[threestooges]

Amazing pictures David. Alaska provides some absolutely beautiful images. Thanks for sharing them. 5, 6, and 8 are especially impressive. 8 almost looks like a painting, the colors are so vivid, and 5 is right there with it. If you ever get tired of law, you could probably make a fine living as a photographer. Looking forward to seeing what you have planned, and glad to see you had a good, if slightly nippy, vacation.
-Matt

EDIT:  Matt, my photography efforts are complete proof of the saying that nobody, however many extra thumbs he or she might have on both hands, can take a bad picture in Alaska.  Thanks for the really kind compliment! -DE

[nerdly_dood]

Alaska really is a beautiful place... I visited in 2003, but there was a LOT of smoke from huge forest fires, so we couldn't see Mt McKinley when we were in Denali Nat'l Park... and we couldn't see much else of anything farther than about ten miles away until we were far south of there.

[ldvger]

David-

Re pics #4, #5:

Like, totally awesome terrain mod, dude!  Where can I download this?

Lora/LD

EDIT:  Lora, it's too bad Brian (c.p./cycledogg) is so caught up in RL stuff.  I'd bet he could create a tundra terrain mod that would blow folks' socks off. -DE

[metarvo]

It looks like fall is in full swing in Alaska.  Somehow, pic #14 reminds me of the PW/rapids construction I seem to recall seeing earlier in 3RR.  I can't wait to see the big update that you plan to post soon. 

[ecoba]

Great Picture of Alaska, David!

I wish I could go there now...

Ethan

PS: This is reply 8888, lol...

EDIT:  And that's a bunch of eights, my friend.  We'll have to do a 10K comments contest, probably early next year. -DE

[JBSimio]

Those are some amazing pictures, David!  #2 and #6 are some great shots with the mountain in the distance... the word "magestic" springs quickly to mind.  The colors in #8 are incredible.  While I love living in California now, I do occasionally miss the fall colors of the upper midwest.  And then...

Those are full-size trees to the right of that rock outcrop.

Huh?     I had to look twice at #10 when I read that!  And then I had to keep looking over and over again... and I still can't quite wrap my head around the sheer scale of what you describe.  That is just... um... 

I agree about the full moon... icing on the cake indeed.  Thanks for sharing these.  I really enjoyed them!

JB

[bakerton]

That beats anything and everything that I could think of. I do love camping and the fall colors, but that is here in southeast Wisconsin, not Alaska. David, you are one lucky person to live in Alaska. Awaiting that big post/update my good man. JKB

[dragonshardz]

Wow, it looks really beautiful up there. Oh, how I miss trees that don't have thorns...

[dedgren]

OK, back in for a minute or two.



I'm running this pic again because I am flabbergasted that nobody has correctly identified where it comes from yet.  I don't want to start another contest right now, but I'd really be interested in who recognizes what game the pic comes from.

* * *

Speaking of contests, here's the current chart of entrants.



First off, I think I've got all the entries so far accounted for.  If you've posted a guess and I've missed it, don't hesitate to post something scathing, and I'll get things caught up right away.

The entry deadline is Dave's Day, September 18th, at midnight (12:00 p.m. - I had no idea there was any controversy over this before looking here [linkie]- scroll down to the "Confusion at noon and midnight" subheading), so if your guess hasn't been made yet, you have through Friday of this week.

The last four columns on the right side of the chart tell you that, at the rate of page views per day to date in the month of September, our great friends Patrick (dragonshardz), just_a_guy, and Grif (bob56) are closest on track, having guessed various times on the 17^th of November.  The way to use the info in those columns is to look for the change in the daily or hourly views between 8/31 and 9/13 (or whatever day the chart will be updated in the future) associated with your guess.  The closer you are to no change at all (0), the more accurate your prediction is based on the actual data coming in.  If the change is larger than zero (i.e.: a positive number) and assuming the same rate of views, your entry will be a date that is too soon.  If it is less than zero (negative), it will be too late.  Of course, the rate is quite likely to change, whether up or down- who knows?^*

So, we'll see.  I plan to update the chart every day between now and next weekend, then every week or so after that.

* * *

Jon (JBSimio), heh!

Huh?     I had to look twice at #10 when I read that!  And then I had to keep looking over and over again... and I still can't quite wrap my head around the sheer scale of what you describe.  That is just... um... 

Our friend is referring, of course, to the giant rock outcrop that is seen in pic #10 of my post yesterday [linkie].  Well, I dug around in my pic files and, if the last one was a stunner, this ought to blow you completely away.



Check out the bluish blobs of color in the SE quadrant of the green circle, then click here [linkie]

That. Is. Not. PhotoShopped.

indeed!

* * *

I'll go back through during my breaks this afternoon and comment in a few of the posts that have been left since the first of the month.  I see a question or two in there, so you might check if you asked one.

Later.


David

^*  I should note that, if you haven't guessed yet, the first 13 days of this month have been, for me, the longest stretch with the fewest of my posts in the three and a half years that 3RR has run.  All of the major RL bugaboos have had me pretty tied up.  So, as there does seem to be a positive correlation between the frequency of my posts and the number of page views, you might want to think for a minute about whether the rate of views over the last two weeks might be a little bit low.  In any event- we'll see!

420689

[metarvo]

Yes, I recognize where the pic comes from.  This is SimCity 3000, isn't it?  Seeing this here takes me back.  Of course, 3000 was the game that I played before 4.  I pretty much played the 4 SimCities in order, starting with Classic.  2000 came next, and I remember that it was the game I first tried to build realistic cities in, since Classic was more of a matter of battling the land value pattern.  However, 3000 was the first SimCity in which I tried my hardest to build a realistic city, at times using RL maps to plan the construction.  Of course, this was before I could easily obtain Google maps, so I used good old city maps to plan where roads and zones would go.  I still go back and play 3000 once in a while, although I play SC4 much more often now.  In those days, I remember that the three zone densities for each type of zone seemed amazing at the time.  Although SC2K featured tilesets that could be exchanged with custom ones, SC3K included the first SimCity tool to be called the BAT.  SC3K Unlimited added scenario challenges and two new building sets.  Good times, indeed.  That pic brings back many pleasant memories.     Of course, I'm happy to say that I'm making many new memories with SC4, and the good work I see in 3RR is one of the many reasons.

EDIT:  Absolutely correct, my friend, in all respects.  SC3K it is- and it's easy to forget that, before there was SC4, it was a great city builder in its own right.  Thanks, too, for the kind words about 3RR. -DE

[JBSimio]

So I got home from work just a bit ago and was getting ready to work on some things for the University of Clayhurst.  I stopped by the site first to check my list of things to do (because I can't quite seem to keep anything straight in my own head these days!) and while here, I noticed that David had responded in 3RR!  Naturally, I had to stop by and see what the latest was... and to my surprise, he not only posted something here but responded directly to my earlier post!     I looked at the new picture and then did what I was told... clicking the (alas) uncopywrited linkie.  Unfortunately, I won't be getting anything more done today because now my brain has exploded... thanks a lot, David! 

(Seriously... thank you again for all of these recent pictures!)

JB

[nerdly_dood]

Thats amazing how little those people look in comparison to that rock...

As for the next milestone, I'll guess 11/11 at 7AM.

[mayorfabz]

  Jeeze I didn't remember SC3K looked like that, with flashy colours and square coastlines. In spite of all the critics we make about SC4, we've come a looooooooooooong way, baby...

Fabien

[Andreas]

EDIT:  Andreas, I lived for two wonderful years (in the mid-1970s) in Pirmasens on the west edge of the Pfälzerwald

and still recall it as one of the most beautiful places I have ever been, especially in the fall.  Plus, you have castles! -DE

Heh, I live only about an hour north of Kaiserslautern, and I agree that the Pfälzerwald is a beautiful landscape (as well as our local Nahe river valley), but still, there's rarely a spot where you can drive more than a few minutes without seeing a sign of civilisation. The castles are a plus indeed, though.

[threestooges]

Recognized the SC3k bridge right off. The trees helped place it. That was a fine game in its own right, though I'm still trying to figure out where you're going with this... certainly interested whatever it is. Also, I hadn't realized the size of that rock. I thought it was a nice outcropping until I saw the blue dot you mentioned. That's almost on the url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half_Dome]Half Dome[/url] level when you think that that is just one chunk of stone sticking out of the ground. As for being able to take good pictures, as easy as you say it is, I still thank you for sharing them with us.
-Matt

[Battlecat]

That's a stunning set of examples of fall colors in Alaska!  Great shots! 

I really had to look at that one shot of the outcrop several times as well.  The scale of it is just incredible.  Without those people down there, there really isn't any reference point to give a sense of scale.  Those trees could just as easily be a small bush!