texascavers Digest 18 Sep 2009 03:25:14 -0000 Issue 855 Topics (messages 12110 through 12122):
Re: UK bat house
12110 by: Jim Kennedy
More on Bat Singing Research
12111 by: Mark Minton
12112 by: Fritz Holt
Re: book review: Huautla
12113 by: Mark Minton
12114 by: Pete Lindsley
12120 by: tbsamsel.verizon.net
RFID--a schematic
12115 by: Gill Edigar
RFID--a schematic (again)
12116 by: Gill Edigar
a Texas spelunker in the news ?
12117 by: David
12118 by: Kurt L. Menking
12119 by: Mark.Alman.l-3com.com
Monica needs some help
12121 by: Gill Edigar
Book editing and proofreading
12122 by: Carl Kunath
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--- Begin Message ---There is basic difference between a good bat house and a structure that bats may use. A good bat house (or bridge, or mine, or artificial cave, or whatever) tries to mimic a good roost and meet the basic requirements of the bat's needs at that time of year, usually in the summer for a maternity colony of bats. The most important are temperature (critical!), especially warm temperatures, crevice structure (size [3/4" crevices] and substrate [gripping surface]), protection from predators and human disturbance, and so on. Well-designed bat houses (or artificial caves, or bridges, or whatever) will easily attract a good colony of bats, and there are numerous examples ranging from the D'Hanis bridge on US 90 to Bambergers artificial cave (the "Chiroptoreum"). Where a lot of people make mistakes is looking at what is being used by desperate bats. Bats will indeed roost in almost anything, but will they have long-term survival and thrive as a colony? A huge number of consumer-grade bat houses available out there (from bird stores and home stores and garden centers) are just plain crap. They might be suitable for the random bachelor male, but would never accommodate a maternity colony of females and young. Like I said in the earlier post, I don't know any details about the new UK bat house, so I am not even going to speculate about its efficacy. But my gut feeling is that the openings are entirely too close to the ground, making entering/emerging bats very susceptible to predation, at least from house cats (I have no idea what other predators may be in the area), and that the structure is going to be far too cool in that climate for a maternity colony. The latter could at least be rectified by painting it dark brown, or even black. There is a reason that bats prefer to roost in attics and church steeples instead of basements. It's the warmest there, due to the hot air rising. Even here in central Texas we need to paint out bat houses at least a medium dark shade of color to help them warm up. Enough about bat houses. All this information is (and has been for years) on BCI's excellent website. The bat house info specifically is at http://batcon.org/index.php/get-involved/install-a-bat-house.html -- Jim Well, Jim, as we all know, bats seek out some pretty strange places to roost--bridges, attics, underneath siding, caves, etc--so if they have some place to cling, maybe this will all work out for them. But as with any real estate, it's location, location, location.
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--- Begin Message ---http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/DyeHard/Story?id=8465855&page=1 Mark Minton You may reply to [email protected] Permanent email address is [email protected]
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--- Begin Message ---Thanks, Mark. With this and other previous news items on bats, it would appear that they are not only the most interesting and beneficial mammals but also the most complex. Cattle rate pretty high also for certain purposes. Fritz ________________________________ From: Mark Minton [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, September 16, 2009 1:10 PM To: Texascavers; New Mexico Cavers Subject: [Texascavers] More on Bat Singing Research http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/DyeHard/Story?id=8465855&page=1 Mark Minton You may reply to [email protected] Permanent email address is [email protected]
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--- Begin Message ---Charles Goldsmith said: >Bill, just my opinion on it, but I disagree on your critique. >It was probably edited too much, so no, it shouldn't have been edited more.I have to disagree about the editing, Charles. It _did_ need more, as Mixon said. Sure, it reads well and makes a great story, but there are things an editor should have caught. For example, the large room in San Agustín where Camp III was located is spelled at least three ways: Sala Grande de la Sierra Mazateca (p. 26), Sala Grande de las Sierra Mazateca (p. 109), and Sala Grande de las Sierra Mazatecas (p. 146). The first is correct. Swiss caver Philippe Rouiller's last name is also spelled three different ways on pages 193-4. Or how about on p. 201 where it says that a row of stalagmites hung on the ceiling? However the most egregious error is that the north arrow on all of the line maps in the chapters points the wrong way, although it is correct inside the front cover. That can be very confusing if one doesn't know the system and tries to make sense of some of the progress described in the book. There are also several minor factual errors, but those are mostly inconsequential and would not be detectable by the casual reader.Don't get me wrong, I like the book and found it to be fast reading. I too look forward to Steele's next book. But I hope it is better edited.Mark Minton You may reply to [email protected] Permanent email address is [email protected]
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--- Begin Message --- You can always do additional editing and checking, but I suspect in this case it was deemed more important to have the book out in time for the ICS. One way to catch the errors that Mark mentioned is to do an index. Particularly for a book like this, where there are a number of people and a number of places mentioned, an index is valuable for folks to find a particular name. And when you index such a volume you always end up with "almost duplicate" or similar spellings that can then be discovered and corrected.The Atlas of the Great Caves of the World is a good example where the index paid off big time because of the amount of "foreign" names that went well beyond the 128 character fonts available at the time. The solution was to design a special 256 character font with all the special accents, etc. Fortunately computer technology has come a long way since that 20 year old edition.I thought it was a great read and look forward to similar books by both Bill and others cavers.- Pete CaveBooks.com On Sep 16, 2009, at 1:14 PM, Mark Minton wrote: Charles Goldsmith said: >Bill, just my opinion on it, but I disagree on your critique.>It was probably edited too much, so no, it shouldn't have been edited more.I have to disagree about the editing, Charles. It _did_ need more, as Mixon said. Sure, it reads well and makes a great story, but there are things an editor should have caught. For example, the large room in San Agustín where Camp III was located is spelled at least three ways: Sala Grande de la Sierra Mazateca (p. 26), Sala Grande de las Sierra Mazateca (p. 109), and Sala Grande de las Sierra Mazatecas (p. 146). The first is correct. Swiss caver Philippe Rouiller's last name is also spelled three different ways on pages 193-4. Or how about on p. 201 where it says that a row of stalagmites hung on the ceiling? However the most egregious error is that the north arrow on all of the line maps in the chapters points the wrong way, although it is correct inside the front cover. That can be very confusing if one doesn't know the system and tries to make sense of some of the progress described in the book. There are also several minor factual errors, but those are mostly inconsequential and would not be detectable by the casual reader.Don't get me wrong, I like the book and found it to be fast reading. I too look forward to Steele's next book. But I hope it is better edited.Mark Minton You may reply to [email protected] Permanent email address is [email protected]
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- PeteCaveBooks.com
On Sep 16, 2009, at 1:14 PM, Mark Minton wrote:
Charles Goldsmith said:
>Bill, just my opinion on it, but I disagree on your critique.
>It was probably edited too much, so no, it shouldn't have been edited more.
I have to disagree about the editing, Charles. It _did_ need more, as Mixon said. Sure, it reads well and makes a great story, but there are things an editor should have caught. For example, the large room in San Agustín where Camp III was located is spelled at least three ways: Sala Grande de la Sierra Mazateca (p. 26), Sala Grande de las Sierra Mazateca (p. 109), and Sala Grande de las Sierra Mazatecas (p. 146). The first is correct. Swiss caver Philippe Rouiller's last name is also spelled three different ways on pages 193-4. Or how about on p. 201 where it says that a row of stalagmites hung on the ceiling? However the most egregious error is that the north arrow on all of the line maps in the chapters points the wrong way, although it is correct inside the front cover. That can be very confusing if one doesn't know the system and tries to make sense of some of the progress described in the book. There are also several minor factual errors, but those are mostly inconsequential and would not be detectable by the casual reader.
Don't get me wrong, I like the book and found it to be fast reading. I too look forward to Steele's next book. But I hope it is better edited.
Mark Minton
You may reply to [email protected]
Permanent email address is [email protected]
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--- Begin Message ---Here is a schematic that was sent to me today which has some relevance to the RFID device thread that's been going around. Some parts of this page and its parent site may be found amusing by those who are not really interested in the electronics discussion. --Ediger
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--- Begin Message ---Got called to supper. Here is the website for my previous post about the RFID. http://thefirstborn.org/Firstborn/MarkBeast.html --Ediger
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--- Begin Message ---According to this news story, Texas has a "professional spelunker." http://herald-zeitung.com/story.lasso?ewcd=c2d2192a35803d5e&-session=HeraldZeitung:42F944EB1663d0000BOUK3320071 I have never heard of Mr. Price ( supposedly from Spring Branch, presuming in Comal County ) But everybody knows Dr. Lundelius. Was Mr. Price really "exploring a newly discovered passage in Snookies Cave" ?? Any of you out there, the alleged "UT graduate students" that plan to further investigate this?? Not to re-ignite the old spelunker vs. caver debate, but I know many old-timer cavers that spent many years trying their best to be good respectable spelunkers long before people started calling cave explorers as cavers. On many of my first caving trips, I was excited to be spelunking. I have no issue with recreational cavers using the term spelunking. In fact, if I were to write a book, it would most likely be have the word spelunking in the title. It appears that in many areas were uninformed people enter caves, they cause problems and get labeled as spelunkers. Now, I am not sure what a professional spelunker is. Meaning, I don't see how anybody could make a living doing recreational caving. They could be a tour guide for caves on private property ? There is a difference between an arm-chair spelunker and an arm-chair caver, but you can be both, if you want. David Locklear arm-chair spelunker from Fort Bend County
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--- Begin Message ---BT Price has been a member of the Bexar Grotto for many years. He lives in the spring branch area and has contacted many land owners in the area, and found several significant caves along with dozens of smaller more typical central Texas caves. Myself and my son Justin were surveying a new section of Snookies cave this past weekend and BT was moving rock to enlarge one of the many very small crawlway passages when he found the mastodon leg bone. After seeing the leg bone my son and I were more careful and began to look for other bones as we surveyed. Justin and I found the tooth and many other bone pieces. Snookies is a great cave with some very nice decorated walking passage, and some significant lower level crawling sized passages. This past weekend in addition to the bones we discovered Justin and I surveyed 200 feet of virgin passage. Total length now is near 900'. After 8 plus hours in the cave I had quite enough of laying on my belly and squeezing through various constrictions so we ended the survey. Justin pushed around the next corner after we ended the survey and insisted I come to where he was... I needed to see something. After moving more rock and negotiating one more squeeze I arrived in a small sit up room, and I wasn't impressed at his find. Justin then pointed to a 8" diameter hole at the end of a belly crawl and said I had to go look through the hole. I forced myself to the window, and sure enough there was large walking passage on the other side. After some bashing and more rock moving Justin was on the other side. He said it went big, so I did a little more work and I was in as well. We explored at least 100' of ever enlarging passage. We turned around in a 50' diameter room with a funnel shaped floor that was 40' tall with a 20' pit to what looks like water passage. The air quality was very bad as we were both seriously panting, and getting headaches. We decided to leave and come back another day to survey. A San Antonio TV station did a short spot about BT's mammoth bone: http://www.ksat.com/news/20942397/detail.html -----Original Message----- From: David [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Thursday, September 17, 2009 12:48 AM To: Cavers Texas Subject: [Texascavers] a Texas spelunker in the news ? According to this news story, Texas has a "professional spelunker." http://herald-zeitung.com/story.lasso?ewcd=c2d2192a35803d5e&-session=Her aldZeitung:42F944EB1663d0000BOUK3320071 I have never heard of Mr. Price ( supposedly from Spring Branch, presuming in Comal County ) But everybody knows Dr. Lundelius. Was Mr. Price really "exploring a newly discovered passage in Snookies Cave" ?? Any of you out there, the alleged "UT graduate students" that plan to further investigate this?? Not to re-ignite the old spelunker vs. caver debate, but I know many old-timer cavers that spent many years trying their best to be good respectable spelunkers long before people started calling cave explorers as cavers. On many of my first caving trips, I was excited to be spelunking. I have no issue with recreational cavers using the term spelunking. In fact, if I were to write a book, it would most likely be have the word spelunking in the title. It appears that in many areas were uninformed people enter caves, they cause problems and get labeled as spelunkers. Now, I am not sure what a professional spelunker is. Meaning, I don't see how anybody could make a living doing recreational caving. They could be a tour guide for caves on private property ? There is a difference between an arm-chair spelunker and an arm-chair caver, but you can be both, if you want. David Locklear arm-chair spelunker from Fort Bend County --------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 ---BT also posted this in the comments section after the story Kurt references below: This is B. T. Price and I will answer any questions later tonight. We do offer wild cave tours for small groups of any skill level at Snookie's Cave which is associated with Guadalupe RV and Camping Park. The number is 830-885-4044. Sounds like a fun and significant cave and one worth checking out. Mark ________________________________ From: Kurt L. Menking [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Thu 9/17/2009 8:03 AM To: Cavers Texas Cc: William Price Subject: RE: [Texascavers] a Texas spelunker in the news ? BT Price has been a member of the Bexar Grotto for many years. He lives in the spring branch area and has contacted many land owners in the area, and found several significant caves along with dozens of smaller more typical central Texas caves. Myself and my son Justin were surveying a new section of Snookies cave this past weekend and BT was moving rock to enlarge one of the many very small crawlway passages when he found the mastodon leg bone. After seeing the leg bone my son and I were more careful and began to look for other bones as we surveyed. Justin and I found the tooth and many other bone pieces. Snookies is a great cave with some very nice decorated walking passage, and some significant lower level crawling sized passages. This past weekend in addition to the bones we discovered Justin and I surveyed 200 feet of virgin passage. Total length now is near 900'. After 8 plus hours in the cave I had quite enough of laying on my belly and squeezing through various constrictions so we ended the survey. Justin pushed around the next corner after we ended the survey and insisted I come to where he was... I needed to see something. After moving more rock and negotiating one more squeeze I arrived in a small sit up room, and I wasn't impressed at his find. Justin then pointed to a 8" diameter hole at the end of a belly crawl and said I had to go look through the hole. I forced myself to the window, and sure enough there was large walking passage on the other side. After some bashing and more rock moving Justin was on the other side. He said it went big, so I did a little more work and I was in as well. We explored at least 100' of ever enlarging passage. We turned around in a 50' diameter room with a funnel shaped floor that was 40' tall with a 20' pit to what looks like water passage. The air quality was very bad as we were both seriously panting, and getting headaches. We decided to leave and come back another day to survey. A San Antonio TV station did a short spot about BT's mammoth bone: http://www.ksat.com/news/20942397/detail.html -----Original Message----- From: David [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Thursday, September 17, 2009 12:48 AM To: Cavers Texas Subject: [Texascavers] a Texas spelunker in the news ? According to this news story, Texas has a "professional spelunker." http://herald-zeitung.com/story.lasso?ewcd=c2d2192a35803d5e&-session=Her aldZeitung:42F944EB1663d0000BOUK3320071 I have never heard of Mr. Price ( supposedly from Spring Branch, presuming in Comal County ) But everybody knows Dr. Lundelius. Was Mr. Price really "exploring a newly discovered passage in Snookies Cave" ?? Any of you out there, the alleged "UT graduate students" that plan to further investigate this?? Not to re-ignite the old spelunker vs. caver debate, but I know many old-timer cavers that spent many years trying their best to be good respectable spelunkers long before people started calling cave explorers as cavers. On many of my first caving trips, I was excited to be spelunking. I have no issue with recreational cavers using the term spelunking. In fact, if I were to write a book, it would most likely be have the word spelunking in the title. It appears that in many areas were uninformed people enter caves, they cause problems and get labeled as spelunkers. Now, I am not sure what a professional spelunker is. Meaning, I don't see how anybody could make a living doing recreational caving. They could be a tour guide for caves on private property ? There is a difference between an arm-chair spelunker and an arm-chair caver, but you can be both, if you want. David Locklear arm-chair spelunker from Fort Bend County --------------------------------------------------------------------- Visit our website: http://texascavers.com To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected] --------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 ---Those of you who keep up with Mexico caving news are probably familiar with Monica Ponce--or her name, at least, if not her wonderful smile. She doggedly attended the ICS in Kerrville this past hot Texas summer, bald-headed and smiling, and wowed nearly everyone she came in contact with. For the past several years Monica has organized the SpeleoCoahuila caving conferences in the state of Coahuila which used to be a part of the northern Mexican territory of Coahuila y Texas, well before most of you were born. Many of you have attended the conferences and know Monica personally. She is a wonderful woman, a caver, and supports caving in a way that far surpasses any of the efforts that most of us have been able put out on our own. Last March, after a week-long trip to Brinco, Monica was diagnosed with breast cancer and had surgery a week or so later. Since then she has been on a chemo-therapy regimen that requires noxious treatments every 3 weeks. Those treatments are very expensive and Monica's monetary resources have dried up just before her last treatment is to be administered and her radiological therapy set to begin. She is distraught. Up to now she had been doing well and handling the treatment like a trooper, posting photos of her clinic visits on the internet and keeping her extended caver family entertained and informed. Her attitude has remained highly optimistic and enthusiastic and her sense of humor is undaunted and she remains otherwise healthy and exuberant. The outlook is good. Monica's only anxiety concerns the eminent short-fall of funds to continue her treatments. Texas cavers have already donated almost $10,000 to Monica's cause. The UT Grotto alone, in an amazing show of support, collected nearly $1000 at a single Grotto meeting one Wednesday night. Nevertheless, the need for ready cash continues. Any Texas or Mexican cavers or cavers of the world who would like to help Monica out can do so by making a generous donation--hopefully one with several zeros as many thousands of dollars are still needed--and sending or handing it to me (make checks out to me on Monica's behalf) and I will see that it gets delivered promptly. Grottos are especially urged to encourage their members to contribute, even if they don't know Monica. The lure of Mexico caves may someday call them and Monica's efforts will almost certainly affect them personally at some point. Feel free to repost this appeal to other caver forums. My address is: Gill Ediger 300 Mockingburd Austin TX 78745 My cell phone is: 410-303-1177 Monica's email address is: <[email protected]> and her cell phone number in Mexico (you can dial direct) is: 011-52-844-147-8311 She speaks English well enough for a meaningful conversation and can be quite talkative, informative, and funny. Support of any sort, of course, personal or financial, will be appreciated. Monica's treatments should be completed in mid-November and with any luck she will be able to start working on organizing SpeleoCoahuila 2010 where we will hope to see you all, and Monica, next summer, somewhere in the caving regions of the state of Coahuila. If you don't have a passport, get one now. Thanks a whole bunch for reading down this far and, please, be generous--a fellow caver needs your help. --Gill Ediger Texas, Mexico, and the rest of the world
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--- Begin Message ---Many caving publications are done with very low budgets. As a result, there is no staff of well-paid graphic artists and proofreaders standing by to take over when the manuscript and illustrations are plopped upon the publisher's desk. As a result, volunteer, non-professionals do the best they can with the time and resources available. Results vary depending on deadlines, level of interest, ability, and (perhaps most importantly) the personal standards of those involved. Fortunately for many authors/publishers, the caving community is not too picky about such things and many readers are satisfied with mediocre journalism, sloppy layout, muddy-looking illustrations, and slip-shod indexes. The production of a work of any significant size is a major undertaking and, when the end appears near, some things are pushed aside in the last minute fervor to "get the job done." Indexes are often casualties in such situations. As Pete has mentioned, the job of indexing is very important and offers a last opportunity to catch errors, particularly in spelling of proper names. A good index is a vital part of a book and deserves just as much care as any other portion. The indexes for 50 YEARS OF TEXAS CAVING (22 three-column pages) were meant to be as thorough as possible and are the result of many, many hours of labor by Katie Arens, Logan McNatt, Jerry Atkinson, and myself. Human indexing to the max! ===Carl Kunath ----- Original Message ----- From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Cc: [email protected] ; [email protected] ; [email protected] ; [email protected] ; [email protected] ; [email protected] ; [email protected] Sent: Thursday, September 17, 2009 9:41 AM Subject: Re: Re: [Texascavers] Re: book review: Huautla Computer indexing is often nearly a joke. Human indexing, alas, is seldom done any more. T Sep 16, 2009 04:08:33 PM, [email protected] wrote: You can always do additional editing and checking, but I suspect in this case it was deemed more important to have the book out in time for the ICS. One way to catch the errors that Mark mentioned is to do an index. Particularly for a book like this, where there are a number of people and a number of places mentioned, an index is valuable for folks to find a particular name. And when you index such a volume you always end up with "almost duplicate" or similar spellings that can then be discovered and corrected. The Atlas of the Great Caves of the World is a good example where the index paid off big time because of the amount of "foreign" names that went well beyond the 128 character fonts available at the time. The solution was to design a special 256 character font with all the special accents, etc. Fortunately computer technology has come a long way since that 20 year old edition. I thought it was a great read and look forward to similar books by both Bill and others cavers. - Pete CaveBooks.com On Sep 16, 2009, at 1:14 PM, Mark Minton wrote: Charles Goldsmith said: >Bill, just my opinion on it, but I disagree on your critique. >It was probably edited too much, so no, it shouldn't have been edited more. I have to disagree about the editing, Charles. It _did_ need more, as Mixon said. Sure, it reads well and makes a great story, but there are things an editor should have caught. For example, the large room in San Agustín where Camp III was located is spelled at least three ways: Sala Grande de la Sierra Mazateca (p. 26), Sala Grande de las Sierra Mazateca (p. 109), and Sala Grande de las Sierra Mazatecas (p. 146). The first is correct. Swiss caver Philippe Rouiller's last name is also spelled three different ways on pages 193-4. Or how about on p. 201 where it says that a row of stalagmites hung on the ceiling? However the most egregious error is that the north arrow on all of the line maps in the chapters points the wrong way, although it is correct inside the front cover. That can be very confusing if one doesn't know the system and tries to make sense of some of the progress described in the book. There are also several minor factual errors, but those are mostly inconsequential and would not be detectable by the casual reader. Don't get me wrong, I like the book and found it to be fast reading. I too look forward to Steele's next book. But I hope it is better edited. Mark Minton
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