Autopsis

Criteria Model for Overland Expedition Vehicles

Doug — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 15:57:35 +0000

Model is located here: http://www.hackneys.com/travel/docs/oevcriteria.xls

Intended use for the model:

Document the general parameters, priorities and specific requirements for a proposed Overland Expedition Vehicle (OEV).

The model is intended to improve communication between potential OEV owners and their dreams, fabricators, subcontractors and manufacturers.

In practical use it can help potential OEV owners identity disparities between their stated priorities / requirements and the characteristics of available platforms / vehicles.

Used together with the OEV Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) model a potential OEV owner can have a much better idea of the type of vehicle they require and what the total ownership experience will cost.

To use the model:
   1. Download the model spreadsheet to your computer
   2. Open the model in XL
   3. Perform a File:Save As operation and change the name of the model to preserve the original version
   4. Enter your data into any cell that is colored green
   5. Perform periodical File:Save As operations as you load the model. It is a good idea to increment the file name as you progress, i.e. myOEV-criteria 01, myOEV-criteria 02, myOEV-criteria 03, etc.
   6. Save the final version of the model

To Print:
7. Select File:Print

Total Cost of Ownership for Overland Expedition Vehicles

Doug — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 18:07:48 +0000

Introduction

When you discuss the purchase of an overland expedition vehicle (OEV), typically the only costs mentioned are the purchase cost and the options cost. Very rarely, ongoing operational costs are mentioned. You will probably never hear anyone discuss the costs of selling of the OEV when they are done using it. Unfortunately for potential and current owners, the purchase price is only a small portion of the total costs of the ownership experience with an OEV.

The critical perspective that is missing from almost every OEV purchase is not the simple cost of the vehicle and its options but the total cost of ownership (TCO) of the vehicle over the entire time span of ownership experience.

***************************************

Click here for the full document: www.hackneys.com/travel/docs/oevtco-overview.pdf

Pack List for Overland Expedition Vehicles

Doug — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 00:18:43 +0000

Introduction

This pack list is based on unsupported global travel in developing countries.

Developed countries have most of the resources available in the U.S.A. and Europe, so fewer of the spare parts on this list are required.

This pack list is based on full time overland travel for one year (six months in the U.S.A., five months in South America, one month for shipping).

This mode of travel is fully independent, meaning all sleeping, cooking, showering, repairs, etc. are performed in/on the vehicle.

Everyone’s experiences, requirements, vehicle, destinations, etc. are unique, so no one list could ever be universally applicable. Your unique needs will determine your own list. This list is intended as a starting point for your planning and testing purposes.

*********************

Click here for the full document: www.hackneys.com/travel/docs/oevpacklist.pdf

*********************

Saving The Books

Doug — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 14:18:06 +0000

If I could have participated in only one flood relief effort in Iowa, this is the one I would have chosen:

June 14, 2008

Heroic story of books

By MIKE KILEN
mkilen@dmreg.com

Iowa City, Ia. — In all the statewide stories of heroism, it would be hard to find more passion than in the snaking line going up the steps of the Main Library at the University of Iowa on the banks of the flooding Iowa River.

Hand over hand; all man’s ideas were handed. Philosophy and theatre, science and religion. Books rising from the basement to a higher level.

A student handed to a professor to a fresh-faced child.

This is Iowa City, after all, where thinking and literature are in the very blood, no less important than a homeowner’s prized possession or a building’s boiler.

Taylor Raborn, a graduate student, handed "Atmosphere on Space Cabins and Closed Environments" to the next man and the next, up three stories it traveled.

"I want to make sure the books are out," he said. "I saw Nietzsche and books on Judaism and Islam go by. It makes you want to come back and read them all. Hopefully we will be able to because I love books.

"There are a lot of bibliophiles in this city."

Librarians have been moving books from the basement all week — only copies of manuscripts and theses. But when they heard the news Thursday that the river was going to rise higher than expected, they put out a call for help.

"All of the sudden, ‘whoosh’ all these people showed up," said Nancy Baker, university librarian. "This is where it shows up for people, library books. They are very powerful for people. Many things can be replaced but not some of these books."

Many are out of print, books dating back to the 1800s or older that have been stacked in the basement for generations — called special collections — while so-called "rare" books are already on higher ground.

"We are a research library, the big library in Iowa. We provide the whole state with education and research. Some of these books you can’t just get another copy," Baker said.

As the hour approached quitting time at 5 p.m., when all operations were ordered to halt and volunteers evacuate the building, hands moved faster and faster.

One stack was emptied every 20 minutes.

Psychiatry professor Jim Beeghor said his shift started with Western philosophy, Kant and Spinoza, and he handed off to theater professor Kim Marra, who was glad to see a rescue of old plays from the 18th century, up the stairs, through the hands of joking students — 95 people to the top.

The best guess is more than 100,000 books are moving upward as they raced the clock, realizing some would be left behind.

Another line up a back set of stairs had 115 people, the last book landing on a pile — "Measurement of the Stretch of Muscles" — as the announcement to quit was heard.

It was over. People groaned. They begged to go on.

Hold on. Librarians announced to cheers that they could stay until 9 p.m. to save more books.

Floodwaters would not steal great thoughts. Not here.

Source: DesMoinesRegister.com

Where My Heart Lies

Doug — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 14:15:07 +0000

I am in a rural area.

It is a flat plain, with rich, dark, loamy soil.

The dirt here is dark, from cocoa to black – from merely laced with fertility to boiling with it.

The people here are friendly, open, rich in spirit and generosity. They are genuine.

The crops here were bountiful. Now, with the changing of the seasons, the land rests, dozes off, into the long slumber of winter.

For I am not home, in the heartland. I am in the parallel universe, the mirror image of the heartland, the polar opposite of home.

I am in the plains of central Chile, the breadbasket of the nation.

I awake to the crowing of the roosters and the lowing of the cattle. The puttering of the tractors paces my day.

All is good here.

But all is not good everywhere.

All is not good at home.

Home is under muddy water.

At home, my family and friends throw sandbags instead of Frisbees.

This is not how summer is meant to be in the heartland.

And here, 5,520 miles / 8,885 km from home, I long to be there, throwing sandbags.

Home, where my heart lies.

**************************

To those of you back home in Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin, our thoughts and prayers are with you.

The Boots

Doug — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 18:30:48 +0000

We both wanted to buy real hiking boots before we departed the U.S. for this journey.

The task slipped down the To Do list until we found ourselves at REI a day or two before we flew out, sitting in the shoe department surrounded by towers of shoe boxes.

I’ve never spent as much time in my life on a shoe purchase as on those boots.

I’m a guy shopper: know what you want, stride in, locate the target, acquire, and exit.

(more…)

Digital Photography Meta Data Overview

Doug — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 18:38:11 +0000

Introduction

Winston Churchill’s immortal description of 1939 Russia as “A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma” is equally true of the current state of digital photography meta data.

Most casual digital photographers never come face to face with meta data. They take their photos, they upload them to a web photo sharing or social networking web site, they may even print a photo occasionally, and at no time are they even aware that digital photography meta data exists. In many respects, they are the lucky ones.

Serious amateur and professional photographers wrestle with meta data as part and parcel of their daily workflow. Meta data problems, flaws, corruptions and disasters are a regular part of photography forums and discussion groups. Challenges can be as simple as one tool displaying a photo’s caption/description while another will not. Or, they can be as catastrophic as the loss of thousands of photos’ meta data, often painstakingly entered over weeks, months or years.

Meta data, defined as “data about data,” can be a very technical, daunting subject. In practice and application in digital photography, it has often been an unmitigated disaster.

Even at its young age, digital photography has experienced multiple meta data standards. Each of these standards has been ignored, corrupted or “enhanced” by digital photography software vendors. There has been no backwards compatibility or standardized mapping established to bridge from one standard to the next. The lack of standards regarding the labeling of meta data information has led to a plethora of conflicting terms used to label the very same piece of meta data, spawning mass frustration and confusion among users.

Unfortunately, there is no immediate relief in sight for serious amateur and professional photographers. If anything, the meta data anarchy and chaos created by the software vendors promises to increase.

The only hope for those tasked with unwrapping the meta data riddle lies in better understanding digital photography meta data. Only by understanding meta data can we accurately diagnose the challenges and build workarounds.

*****

Full document is here: http://www.hackneys.com/travel/docs/…taoverview.pdf

Breeze Browser Pro EXIF/XMP-IPTC Bug and Workaround

Doug — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 14:59:16 +0000

Problem/Bug: BBP not populating EXIF comment/description from IPTC Description

Scope: Problem/bug affects all BBP users who need to replicate IPTC description to EXIF description for JPG images. (This issue may affect other image types as well, I only tested JPG.) Impact is across all images used with any tool or environment, i.e. web photo hosting service, that defaults to or requires the use of EXIF data fields and/or does not support XMP data.

Click here for the full document: www.hackneys.com/travel/docs/bbp-exif-iptc-desc-bug-workaround.pdf

Meta Data Audit

Doug — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 14:54:28 +0000

Introduction

Digital photographers are often faced with the challenge of missing, corrupted or disappearing meta data in their workflow.

As a photo moves down the workflow, meta data can disappear or be corrupted. This missing or corrupted meta data may not be detected for weeks, months or years after the fact, often leading to disastrous consequences, especially for practicing professional shooters.

The only way to know, with certainty, what is happening to your photos’ meta data in your workflow, using your tools, is to do a step by step, tool by tool, audit of the meta data across your workflow.

The audit takes from 10 minutes to an hour, depending on the workflows complexity and the tools used.

Click here for the full document: www.hackneys.com/travel/docs/metadataaudit.pdf

Bigfoot Camper Berth Condensation

Doug — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 15:04:02 +0000

On 1 May 2008 we discovered major condensation in the berth area of our camper.

Click here for the story of diagnosing and fixing the problem: www.hackneys.com/travel/docs/berthcondensation.pdf