texascavers Digest 6 Oct 2009 17:02:16 -0000 Issue 865 Topics (messages 12252 through 12267):
first aid for caver's
12252 by: David
UT Grotto meeting  Oct 7, 2009
12253 by: Gary Franklin
Re: new Texas laws
12254 by: Diana Tomchick
12257 by: caverarch.aol.com
Re: Reducing Bat Deaths at Wind Turbines
12255 by: Mark Minton
Endless Restoration will soon be here
12256 by: Karen Perry
Diamonds from Tequila and other Research
12258 by: Mark Minton
Re: photography related - cameras in the news
12259 by: Don Cooper
12262 by: Michael Pugliese
book review: 50 Years under the Sinkhole Plain
12260 by: Mixon Bill
New Laws and old fun
12261 by: caverarch.aol.com
protect your cell phone
12263 by: Karen Perry
12264 by: Michael Pugliese
12265 by: Carl Kunath
Scary underground tunnels....
12266 by: John P. Brooks
Pre-Halloween Party Oct. 24
12267 by: Denise P
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--- Begin Message ---Here is a first aid product that might come in handy if you are going to be in a remote area for a while: http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/tim//2009/09/24/ArmyGauze_540x368.jpg The gauze is impregnated with Kaolin, which is supposed to help the blood form a clot. I don't know if you can buy that "gauze" version, but they do sell a consumer "sponge" version: http://www.quikclot.com/finditem/25 I presume some of you paramedic/EMS folks out there can add something to this. Ref: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3TUKKx0cus http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mE-jtDrY6G4&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXGEd0mFEx8 David Locklear
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--- Begin Message ---Underground Texas Grotto meeting Oct 7, 2009 www.utgrotto.org The meeting is on Wednesday from 7:45 P.M. - 9:00 P.M. University of Texas Campus in 2.48 Painter Hall http://www.utexas.edu/maps/main/buildings/pai.html Oscar Berrones and Alex Benavente will present the Program for the evening as Caving in the San Luis Potosi area. They will be talking about their recent caving trip in Mexico to their hometown area for adventures to some of the regions incredible caves. Come out for a soggy time in Austin to support some of the members that work to maintain projects and relations south of the border. Please see the web site for information on all UT Grotto activities. All of our information is available including officer contact info, trip reports, new caver training, and an event calendar that lists upcoming caving trips, beginner trips, vertical rope training, or other cool social event activities. After the Official Grotto meeting, we migrate to Posse East www.posseeast.com for beer & burgers, recruit for upcoming trips, and share tall tale caving stories. We hope to see you there. The UT Grotto needs you, the caver with photos and a story to share about your adventures, scientific research, or something else really cool. Contact Gary [email protected] to schedule you into our Program series.
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--- Begin Message --- I am reminded of my mother's purchase of a Dodge passenger van in 1965. She had 6 children and needed a vehicle large enough for all 8 people plus it needed to do double duty hauling sacks of feed and farm equipment. Back then seat belts were standard equipment only for the front two seats. The guys at the dealership complained mightily when she insisted that he install seat belts for ALL the seats in the van, as they had never been required to do this by a customer. My mother told them that by forcing us to wear the seat belts, it limited the amount of fighting we could do with each other (we could only reach our nearest neighbors), and thereby limited the amount of distractions she had while driving.The real reason was that she subscribed to Consumer Reports and was aware of the dangers of not wearing safety restraints in an accident, but she knew that if she mentioned that they would have laughed at her.Every time I watch the TV show "Mad Men" I am reminded of how much our attitudes have changed about smoking, drinking, drinking and driving, etc., and I do not long for the "good old days" at all.Diana On Oct 2, 2009, at 2:35 PM, [email protected] wrote:I bought an old cargo van from my cousin years ago, and I didn't like the fact that it only had two captain's seats. I found another seat with seatbelts at a junkyard, and had it installed for not much money.Roger Moore -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Sent: Fri, Oct 2, 2009 12:25 pm Subject: Re: [Texascavers] new Texas lawsI think all the occupants on the Powerwagon Bus have to be strapped in. ( Unless there are 16 cavers on board ). Feel free to correct me on that.Unless you remove the seatbelts behind the front seats. :-7The law is specific in that it is only an offense "Provided the vehicle is equiped with a safety belt".And per Section 547.601 which outlines what "equiped with a seatbelt" means:§ 547.601. SAFETY BELTS REQUIRED. A motor vehicle required by Chapter 548 to be inspected shall be equipped with front safety belts if safety belt anchorages were part of the manufacturer's original equipment on the vehicle. There is* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Diana R. Tomchick Associate Professor University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center Department of Biochemistry 5323 Harry Hines Blvd. Rm. ND10.214B Dallas, TX 75390-8816, U.S.A. Email: [email protected] 214-645-6383 (phone) 214-645-6353 (fax)
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--- Begin Message ---Diana, I am in general agreement with you about the destructive practices society indulged in early in my lifetime. ?I had the benefit of riding in a car with seatbelts several years earlier than most children because my father was a civilian employee of the Air Force, and it instituted (and installed) an all-seatbelts rule in the early 1960s, with the consequence that our car had aircraft lap belts! ? But here is a troubling reflection of over-protection from today's Sigma Xi Science News: School Lab Health and Safety Rules 'Could Stop Future Scientists' from the?Times?(London) It is a scientific fact, tested and proven by generations of pupils, that experiments in school laboratories win young people to the cause of science. White coats, goggles and the chance to set fire to things foster a passion for chemistry that even years of examinations do not extinguish. But government advisers and eminent scientists are warning of a disturbing development that could endanger generations of future scientists: pupils are no longer allowed to experiment. Health and safety concerns are preventing students--including those taking A levels--from performing vital and exciting investigations into what happens when one sets fire to magnesium ribbon, or drops a small glob of sodium into a dish of water. http://snipr.com/sc4xr Roger Moore Greater Houston Grotto -----Original Message----- From: Diana Tomchick <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Cc: [email protected] Sent: Mon, Oct 5, 2009 10:15 am Subject: Re: [Texascavers] new Texas laws I am reminded of my mother's purchase of a Dodge passenger van in 1965. She had 6 children and needed a vehicle large enough for all 8 people plus it needed to do double duty hauling sacks of feed and farm equipment. Back then seat belts were standard equipment only for the front two seats. The guys at the dealership complained mightily when she insisted that he install seat belts for ALL the seats in the van, as they had never been required to do this by a customer. My mother told them that by forcing us to wear the seat belts, it limited the amount of fighting we could do with each other (we could only reach our nearest neighbors), and thereby limited the amount of distractions she had while driving.? ? The real reason was that she subscribed to Consumer Reports and was aware of the dangers of not wearing safety restraints in an accident, but she knew that if she mentioned that they would have laughed at her.? ? Every time I watch the TV show "Mad Men" I am reminded of how much our attitudes have changed about smoking, drinking, drinking and driving, etc., and I do not long for the "good old days" at all.? ? Diana? ? On Oct 2, 2009, at 2:35 PM, [email protected] wrote:? ? > I bought an old cargo van from my cousin years ago, and I didn't > like the > fact that it only had two captain's seats. I found another > seat with > seatbelts at a junkyard, and had it installed for not much > money.? >? > Roger Moore? >? >?
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--- Begin Message --- It might seem like a no-brainer, but that research about turning off wind turbines when bats are flying in low wind has gotten a lot of press. It was featured last week on NPR's Science Friday. You can download the story here: <http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/200910022>.Mark Minton You may reply to [email protected] Permanent email address is [email protected]
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--- Begin Message ---Soon the bats will have left for regions south and the first weekend for the Endless Cave Restoration Project will be here. October 24 & 25Th are the dates for the first permit. Sign up now and help get this wonderful cave back to being open for visitation............ I still have room for 3 to 4 people. There are other dates, but in order to satisfy the wishes of the BLM, we need to have ALL permits full. Your manpower is needed to complete the work! And it's not all work and no play...... We will have other caving available when requested. Lodging available for out of towners if you wish to not camp at McKittrick Hill. Contact me via email: [email protected] or call me 575 - 887 - 9783 (H) 575 - 885 - 7727 (W) Later, Karen
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--- Begin Message --- The 2009 Ig Nobel Award for Chemistry went to the following paper from researchers in Mexico: Growth of Diamond Films from Tequila <http://arxiv.org/abs/0806.1485>. Better living through chemistry!Other interesting prizes include Physics, which went to a group including a UT Austin professor for figuring out why pregnant women don't tip over, Public Health to an Illinois group who designed a brassiere that can be converted into a pair of face masks, and the Peace prize, which went to a Swiss group for determining whether full or empty beer bottles constitute the greater hazard in bar fights. (It turns out empty beer bottles are sturdier than full ones for cracking skulls.) The full list is available from <http://improbable.com/ig/>.Mark Minton You may reply to [email protected] Permanent email address is [email protected]
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--- Begin Message ---I noticed this when I got my first "multi-megapixel" camera... It actually seemed to have better picture quality at LOWER resolutions... -WaV On Thu, Oct 1, 2009 at 2:18 AM, Michael Pugliese <[email protected]> wrote: > 12 Megapixels means nothing if you're using a 3mm Bayer CMOS with a > terrible signal to noise ratio. The photos will still look like really > nasty. > > When will this stupid megapixel myth die? > > -- > _____________________ > Michael Pugliese > Director of Photography > www.MPCINE.com > 570.898.3011 > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > Visit our website: http://texascavers.com > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] > For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected] >
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--- Begin Message --- Resolution is a direct engineering trade off with dynamic-range in most sensor designs, many cameras employ "pixel-binning" when used at lower resolutions which increases real quality of the images by allowing multiple photo sites to contribute to the tonal data of a single real pixel._____________________ Michael Pugliese Director of Photography www.MPCINE.com 570.898.3011 Don Cooper wrote:I noticed this when I got my first "multi-megapixel" camera... It actually seemed to have better picture quality at LOWER resolutions...-WaVOn Thu, Oct 1, 2009 at 2:18 AM, Michael Pugliese <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:12 Megapixels means nothing if you're using a 3mm Bayer CMOS with a terrible signal to noise ratio. The photos will still look like really nasty. When will this stupid megapixel myth die?-- _____________________Michael Pugliese Director of Photography www.MPCINE.com <http://www.MPCINE.com> 570.898.3011 --------------------------------------------------------------------- Visit our website: http://texascavers.com To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>--<<attachment: mike.vcf>>
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--- Begin Message --- Fifty Years under the Sinkhole Plain: The Story of Binkleys Cave and the Indiana Speleological Survey. Gary Roberson. Published by the author; 2009. 8.5 by 11 inches, 402 pages, softbound. About $25 from cave-book dealers.A small and somewhat insular group of cavers calling itself the Indiana Speleological Survey was active in far southern Indiana, mainly during the sixties and seventies exploring and surveying Binkleys Cave, the third-longest cave in Indiana. Wet and muddy, Binkleys was never a popular cave, but this may have been partly because the owner allowed only ISS trips into the cave. Members of the group, especially the author, also were heavily involved in the development or redevelopment of Indiana show caves Squire Boon Caverns and Marengo Cave, and they surveyed other Indiana caves, including those in Spring Mill State Park. Most of the early work in Binkleys was poorly documented at the time, and the author put a lot of effort into reconstructing the history of the cave, interviewing many of his fellow participants. There are black-and-white photographs, both old and newly taken for the book, on most pages. These are important as documentation, but not printed terribly well. I have yet to figure out what prepress disaster befell the color photograph on the cover. The biggest disappointment is the lack of real drafted maps of even parts of Binkleys; I suspect none exist for most of the 24-mile cave. There are enough line plots to keep the reader oriented. Roberson does a pretty good job of reminding the reader where he has seen a person or place mentioned before, but an index of place and caver names would have been nice.This book is an important historical record, and the writing is, if one ignores matters of commas and the occasional evidence of haste in getting the book out by the International Congress, quite good, with clear sentences and well-organized paragraphs and chapters. The fact remains that this book is basically a couple hundred thousand words of detailed reports on trips from sewer tunnel to muddy crawlway to back- breaker, and I’m afraid few readers will plow through it all. Those young and gung-ho cavers who do, however, will be rewarded with lots of leads in Binkleys that have not been visited for over thirty years. I understand that even the preparation of the book led to a resurgence of interest in Binkleys and the discovery of a mile of new cave.--Bill Mixon---------------------------------------- A fearless man cannot be brave. ---------------------------------------- You may "reply" to the address this message came from, but for long-term use, save: Personal: [email protected] AMCS: [email protected] or [email protected]
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--- Begin Message ---This is a pretty dead horse by now, so why not go out with a good British rant? Here is one of the Absolutlely Fabulous girls venting (near the end) hilariously on laws to protect the stupid: "Bugger ugly traffic wardens and bolloky pedestrian bloody crossings!!" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUosm_BBv9g Roger
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--- Begin Message ---The national do not call # is 1-888-382-1222. Very soon cell phone #'s will go public & telemarketers can start calling your cell & you have to pay for the call. Register from the phone you wish to block at this #. Karen
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--- Begin Message ---Urban legend. http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/cell411.asp -- _____________________ Michael Pugliese Director of Photography www.MPCINE.com 570.898.3011<<attachment: mike.vcf>>
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--- Begin Message ---This keeps going around. See this URL for information: http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2007/10/dnccellphones.shtm ===Carl Kunath ----- Original Message ----- From: Karen Perry To: [email protected] ; [email protected] Sent: Monday, October 05, 2009 7:45 PM Subject: [Texascavers] protect your cell phone The national do not call # is 1-888-382-1222. Very soon cell phone #'s will go public & telemarketers can start calling your cell & you have to pay for the call. Register from the phone you wish to block at this #. Karen
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--- Begin Message ---Not real sure what's so scary about these tunnels......but these are some pretty cool "cave like" photos: http://smoont.com/10-scariest-underground-tunnels/
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--- Begin Message ---Halloween Party at Kiowa Saturday Oct. 24th, 2009 Costumes highly encouraged Time: anytime between 7 p.m. and the witching hour What to bring: laughter, your scary self and scary friends, lawn chairs, musical instruments, additional drinks, tent if you plan to camp What’s provided: drinks, food, scary people, early graves, music, friends and maybe even new friends. Your hosts: Dreadful Billy and Gruesome Kira 512 644-6262 512 847-8616 980 Old Oaks Ranch Rd Wimberley TX 78676 Directions: From Wimberley – take RR 12 towards Dripping Springs. Right on Old Oaks Ranch Road. Go one mile and turn right at Frankenstein. >From Dripping Springs – go out Ranch Road 12 towards Wimberley. Take a left >on Old Oaks Ranch Road. Follow directions above. _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail: Trusted email with Microsoft’s powerful SPAM protection. http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/177141664/direct/01/
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