Random Raves 40: Happy new year

[gay_Aleks]

But Arakhor, they're not dictators, they're brave, anti-imperialist heroes!

 

[JohannaK]

Well, three of the dictators and the revolutionary claimed to be Communist, so Marx is not entirely out of plave, though I will admit that the company is less than flattering.

Daily reminder that young Stalin was hawt.

 

[Hygro]

So, six dictators, a Russian revolutionary and... Karl Marx. Someone seems out of place there.

I like that Karl Marx is the outlier of a bunch of communists.

 

[gay_Aleks]

he only killed paper and ink

also alcohol I guess

 

[Kan' Sharuminar]

Just a few hours before the inevitable unravelling of England's rugby dreams by our hand.

 

[gay_Aleks]

What about the other dreams that England has, like keeping the United Kingdom united

 

[Arakhor]

Shush, you. Wales to win the Six Nations (of course).

 

[warpus]

1. Please, please start a Norway thread! Your video links and comments are scattered all over the place, mostly in the serial threads, and most of those are archived.

Thanks for the interest! And for voicing it so I know that it exists.

I will once I have finished these types of videos for all the outdoorsy activities I did on that trip, so that when I am putting up the thread you guys don't have to wait for new posts as I rush through putting videos together.
There weren't many opportunities to take out my camera to snap photos on some hikes, like this one.. due to the weather conditions and the intense nature of the hike (I was mostly focused on where I was stepping next and not so much thinking about photo ops) so some hikes that were actually spectacular would feel.. bare. There's a lot of great video footage though, the goPro was strapped to my chest and easily accessible, plus I had a lot of battery juice handy (plus extra batteries) and a lot of available storage space. So the goPro was on often. So I feel I can't do a thread without showing video reel highlights videos like this one.

Granted I know that this process of editing footage and making videos takes a while and it's already been a year and a half since my trip.... I've become a lot more proficient at doing this now though, I have a bit of a system going and some "lessons learned" type stuff to speed up the process. So there's 4 hikes left I think, a water rafting trip, a mountain biking trip, and a couple other assorted things I want to show (lookout spots, shots from trains, boats, etc.), so there's a lot left, but I'm already in the process of working on the next one.

So I guess give it a couple months and we'll see where I'm at.

2. What was that guy in the green jacket saying?

The guy in the green jacket and his girlfriend were 2 people I kept running into at the beginning of the hike. First I passed them, then they passed me, then I passed them, etc.

About an hour into the hike the clouds started moving in, and the conditions got worse. So I figured, I should talk to these people and get to know them, because it might make sense to do this hike as a team, for safety reasons. Hiking alone through the clouds on a ridge like that.. I would much rather hike with 2 Germans. Statistically it's a lot safer to be hiking in a group as opposed to by yourself, especially through challenging & unfamiliar terrain in poor visibility & wet & at times slippery conditions like that.

So turns out the guy is a land surveyor hobbyist. His favourite thing to do in his spare time is to survey land. I the video you can see a GPS device around his neck. It's got the whole trail pre-loaded in high detail, with long battery life, it showed us the exact altitude, where to go, etc. I couldn't believe my luck. We also seemed to have a lot in common, so we started talking about travel, sport, technology, etc.

3. I noticed a shorter video... heckuva place for your shoelaces to stop cooperating!

Haha.. That's from my favourite hike from the trip, on the Lofoten islands north of the arctic circle. There is a lot of amazing footage from that hike, as the weather that day was almost perfect. It was not an easy hike either, it was a bit technically intimidating.. doable if you took your time and did it right, but it was a bit imposing. It was a couple days before my flight home, and I was sooo incredibly happy about the weather, so I just kept on hiking. I wanted to be up there as long as possible. I brought a beer with me, a lunch, some snacks, and I tackled the trail one rock at a time and ended up making it all the way to the end.. at least in terms of where most people would go, I think you could press on further but would need more specialized equipment to get down from the ridge. Just guessing but that's what it seemed like.

Anyway, in order to stay psychologically on top of everything, I talked to myself. Swearing seemed to help me stay focused and positive. Like a morale boost. I would talk about what I was going to eat when I get back down, I talked about ideas for stories I might write at some point in the future, I talked about how amazing the view was and how I couldn't believe where I was, etc. There was nobody around most of the time, it was pretty much just me, so I could say whatever I want without worrying that someone might hear me.

I don't really understand why the swearing helps to be honest, but I also swear when I program. And that seems to help too. Maybe it's when you're just so super focused like that, any single thing that comes in your path as an obstacle (such as shoelaces continually coming undone) has to be approached as an enemy, figured out as soon as possible, taken care of, all while mentally you also have to stay focused on everything around you, so that you don't fall and die while you're doing something stupid like typing your %&&%@% shoelaces. So I have no idea why swearing helps me stay focused and psychologically positive, but it works, so on this particular hike there was a lot of swearing.

This place though.. it was so beautiful. I couldn't f'n believe it. I am headed back here at some point in my life. I have to.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Thanks for the interest! And for voicing it so I know that it exists.

Yay!

I will once I have finished these types of videos for all the outdoorsy activities I did on that trip, so that when I am putting up the thread you guys don't have to wait for new posts as I rush through putting videos together.
There weren't many opportunities to take out my camera to snap photos on some hikes, like this one.. due to the weather conditions and the intense nature of the hike (I was mostly focused on where I was stepping next and not so much thinking about photo ops) so some hikes that were actually spectacular would feel.. bare. There's a lot of great video footage though, the goPro was strapped to my chest and easily accessible, plus I had a lot of battery juice handy (plus extra batteries) and a lot of available storage space. So the goPro was on often. So I feel I can't do a thread without showing video reel highlights videos like this one.

Was it raining there? Or just really foggy?

Granted I know that this process of editing footage and making videos takes a while and it's already been a year and a half since my trip.... I've become a lot more proficient at doing this now though, I have a bit of a system going and some "lessons learned" type stuff to speed up the process. So there's 4 hikes left I think, a water rafting trip, a mountain biking trip, and a couple other assorted things I want to show (lookout spots, shots from trains, boats, etc.), so there's a lot left, but I'm already in the process of working on the next one.

So I guess give it a couple months and we'll see where I'm at.

The guy in the green jacket and his girlfriend were 2 people I kept running into at the beginning of the hike. First I passed them, then they passed me, then I passed them, etc.

About an hour into the hike the clouds started moving in, and the conditions got worse. So I figured, I should talk to these people and get to know them, because it might make sense to do this hike as a team, for safety reasons. Hiking alone through the clouds on a ridge like that.. I would much rather hike with 2 Germans. Statistically it's a lot safer to be hiking in a group as opposed to by yourself, especially through challenging & unfamiliar terrain in poor visibility & wet & at times slippery conditions like that.

So turns out the guy is a land surveyor hobbyist. His favourite thing to do in his spare time is to survey land. I the video you can see a GPS device around his neck. It's got the whole trail pre-loaded in high detail, with long battery life, it showed us the exact altitude, where to go, etc. I couldn't believe my luck. We also seemed to have a lot in common, so we started talking about travel, sport, technology, etc.

I'm going to have to take another look - didn't notice the GPS thing. Those cameras you were using need to be equipped with windshield wipers.

Haha.. That's from my favourite hike from the trip, on the Lofoten islands north of the arctic circle. There is a lot of amazing footage from that hike, as the weather that day was almost perfect. It was not an easy hike either, it was a bit technically intimidating.. doable if you took your time and did it right, but it was a bit imposing. It was a couple days before my flight home, and I was sooo incredibly happy about the weather, so I just kept on hiking. I wanted to be up there as long as possible. I brought a beer with me, a lunch, some snacks, and I tackled the trail one rock at a time and ended up making it all the way to the end.. at least in terms of where most people would go, I think you could press on further but would need more specialized equipment to get down from the ridge. Just guessing but that's what it seemed like.

Anyway, in order to stay psychologically on top of everything, I talked to myself. Swearing seemed to help me stay focused and positive. Like a morale boost. I would talk about what I was going to eat when I get back down, I talked about ideas for stories I might write at some point in the future, I talked about how amazing the view was and how I couldn't believe where I was, etc. There was nobody around most of the time, it was pretty much just me, so I could say whatever I want without worrying that someone might hear me.

I don't really understand why the swearing helps to be honest, but I also swear when I program. And that seems to help too. Maybe it's when you're just so super focused like that, any single thing that comes in your path as an obstacle (such as shoelaces continually coming undone) has to be approached as an enemy, figured out as soon as possible, taken care of, all while mentally you also have to stay focused on everything around you, so that you don't fall and die while you're doing something stupid like typing your %&&%@% shoelaces. So I have no idea why swearing helps me stay focused and psychologically positive, but it works, so on this particular hike there was a lot of swearing.

Not a problem. The video title caught my eye, and I noticed it was one of yours, so I watched it. The thing with inanimate objects, they tend to do the wrong thing at the wrong time. You should hear what I say to my computer sometimes.

But of course I'm not up on a mountain when the computer decides not to cooperate, and I completely understand your frustration and concern about staying safe.

This place though.. it was so beautiful. I couldn't f'n believe it. I am headed back here at some point in my life. I have to.

One of the reasons I've been so interested in this trip of yours is because this is where my ancestors are from. I've probably still got distant relatives in that region (my grandfather's mother's branch of the family).

 

[Hygro]

https://soundcloud.com/hygro/but-u-wanna-b-bad/s-mqcPX

 

[Takhisis]

Another example would be a man with minimal scientific knowledge condescendingly explaining, say, something about climate change that he has lots of false misconceptions of, to a woman with a PhD in Atmospheric Science.

Um, no. That's (at best) very idiosyncratic.

FTFY, and choxorn was very likely referring to an actual event that happened recently on Twitter.

What about the other dreams that England has, like keeping the United Kingdom united

Notice how Kan isn't jinxing that one.

 

[choxorn]

FTFY, and choxorn was very likely referring to an actual event that happened recently on Twitter.

I probably screwed up the details, but more or less, and events of a similar nature are more common than you might think.

 

[gay_Aleks]

ok

 

[warpus]

Was it raining there? Or just really foggy?

At first the clouds moved in all around us. The hike starts at 400m above sea level, but takes up higher and higher and next thing you know you're about 1200m above sea level, and the valley floor is actually right there beside you.. we just couldn't see it at first due to all the clouds.

Anyway, yeah, for a while we were hiking through the clouds. They seem to stick to the mountain sides and tops. Hiking through that was tough because visibility was very poor, plus some of those clouds were rain clouds, so it would rain and for a while it snowed.

I'm going to have to take another look - didn't notice the GPS thing. Those cameras you were using need to be equipped with windshield wipers.

I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure it was around his neck. The camera I was using was a goPro, it's in a waterproof container and strapped to my chest. So I could easily wipe it with my hand whenever it got too much water on it.

But of course I'm not up on a mountain when the computer decides not to cooperate, and I completely understand your frustration and concern about staying safe.

Honestly, if I hadn't done these first couple hikes (including the one in the video), I probably wouldn't have made it so far on my last hike (the one you saw in the 'Ahole boots' video). I would have probably not felt safe enough and turned around. The first couple hikes got me a lot more comfortable with Norwegian hiking standards though. They were a great introduction for what was to come.

One of the reasons I've been so interested in this trip of yours is because this is where my ancestors are from. I've probably still got distant relatives in that region (my grandfather's mother's branch of the family).

You'll probably find the cultural aspects of my trip I ran into interesting as well. Most of the stuff I've been showing off so far are hikes, etc. I never had my goPro strapped on me while I was walking through cities though, sitting in restaurants, etc. But I did take a lot of photos of the cities, the architecture, some of the food, etc. I've been mostly working through my video footage, but yeah the photos have a lot of good stuff too.

 

[Takhisis]

I probably screwed up the details, but more or less, and events of a similar nature are more common than you might think.

I saw it myself, someone telling off a woman for posting about the climate (she didn't know ‘science’) and then the woman just said she had a PhD. So, yes, mansplaining. :/

 

[Lohrenswald]

Loudbot's back

 

[Takhisis]

Loudbot's back

 

[Hygro]

LOUDBOT'S ALIVE!!!

 

[Bootstoots]

Regarding the situation in which the FBI showed up:

Someone at the university's police department showed up this morning, having announced she would come over by email yesterday, along with a fire department guy. I did let them in and showed them my chem stuff. All they seemed to be concerned about was fire risk, and they did appreciate my rudimentary precautions (putting all the flammables in one plastic bin, putting stuff that emits noxious fumes in a big jar inside another bin, putting water-sensitive compounds in an airtight jar filled with a desiccant to keep moisture out, and separating strong acids and bases. Most of the chemicals I have are in small quantities, no more than 250 mL and usually more like 30-120 mL (or g of solid reagents). The fact that I really am a grad student in a field vaguely related to chemistry, and that I have a bunch of nerd toys lying around that have nothing to do with chemistry, helped my case too.

The fire safety guy said he may get in touch with me later regarding proper storage of things, but he didn't tell me that I needed to do anything immediately. At worst, I might be required to buy one of those metal flammables cabinets. Even then, though, I really only have at most 10 L of flammable solvents, probably not even that much, and most of them are things like acetone and denatured alcohol bought at Home Depot and Walmart.

My anxiety level is returning to normal parameters. It turns out that, as long as you fit the profile of "nerd" more or less exactly, and you're not actually doing anything illegal, it can be to your benefit to talk to the police.

 

[warpus]

I think most legal types would have instructed you to talk to a lawyer first, before talking to the cops, and following the lawyer's advice. Mind you I understand that not everyone can afford a couple hours' of a lawyer's time whenever such issues arise.