Ski By Fire

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yogi
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Ski By Fire

Post by yogi »

This is probably the most awesome skiing exhibition I've ever seen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_cont ... 4I4fzmfZXw
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Kellemora
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Re: Ski By Fire

Post by Kellemora »

Now that was cool! Not that I would attempt it myself, even when I was much younger, hi hi.

Some guy, I think it was in Georgia, got arrested for using a Drone to carry a Magnesium Flare over a crowded event.
He couldn't figure out why they arrested him since the Fire Department uses them all the time for the same purpose.
I never heard anything more about it. Probably wasn't true anyhow is why.
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yogi
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Re: Ski By Fire

Post by yogi »

Magnesium flares will burn a hole right through your arm so that I can understand why this guy with the drone was carted off. It was just a dumb move regardless of the legalities.

I never attempted skiing but always admired it from a distance. The video is totally awesome.
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Kellemora
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Re: Ski By Fire

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The flare in the video looked to me like a sodium flare, but I couldn't tell if it was being maneuvered by a drone or not.
I know they said heat seeking in the video, but I doubt that is accurate. My guess is a drone.
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pilvikki
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Re: Ski By Fire

Post by pilvikki »

skiing is fantastic fun! loved it! now, what this guy is doing is just a teeniest bit on the insane side, but boy! am i jealous.

i sent it to punkin, as by coincidence, saxon's school is up in the mountains on a skiing trip for 3 days.

we used to have ski trips with the school, but only when got to 14 or so. individual classes would go to a local hill and such, but mountains were for the bigger kids. i never went; forged my father's signature to excuse myself from it. for one, those things are more fun with money and friends and in sweden i had none at that time. i also thought downhill was boring; you go up, you come down, you go up, you....
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Kellemora
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Re: Ski By Fire

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We had a few nice hill at one school I attended when young. Brought a short pair of ski's with me one day, and ended up breaking one in half before I got to the top of the hill to ski down. Sure glad I wasn't going downhill at breakneck speed when it broke too. I do remember the store would not take it back, probably because all of the ones they sold were cheaply made and didn't last more than a day or two.
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yogi
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Re: Ski By Fire

Post by yogi »

Ahhh, planned obsolescence has been around for quite a while, hasn't it? LOL
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Kellemora
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Re: Ski By Fire

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My wife is furious over it too. She was just told her 2 year old Roku cannot be updated and she needs to buy a new one for like 90 bucks. She said no thanks!
It was working perfectly until she hit the reset button by mistake while cleaning.
Apparently this changes her log-in and now they can't set it back for her.
Her sister has one that is older and they reset it for her only a month or so ago when they got a new modem/router.
I told her to wait a few days and call back, maybe she'll get someone a littler smarter.
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yogi
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Re: Ski By Fire

Post by yogi »

I only have a vague notion about what Roku is. It seems to be a device for streaming media, which to my way of thinking is redundant if you have a computer. Not all streaming entertainment is available on computers so that I guess Roku's selling point is it's exclusive content. Not being a big fan of music or movies I am perfectly content to satisfy my streaming needs on YouTube. If they don't have it, I don't need to stream it. LOL The problem I've seen with dedicated media streams on the Internet is that the source may go out of business and the media player then becomes useless. I suppose it could be reprogrammed, but then different licensing may be required. It's all too complicated for me. :mrgreen:
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Kellemora
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Re: Ski By Fire

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I don't watch TV but my frau does. Most of the shows are through groups like Netflix, etc. which are all subscription services. However, since she is also an Amazon Prime member, she can get certain shows for free, and that is why she got the Roku in the first place.

In her office, she does have a TV she can stream a show to from her computer, while she is still using her computer for something else, but I have no idea how she's doing it. Never asked and never looked into it. Perhaps I will just to know.
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yogi
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Re: Ski By Fire

Post by yogi »

I can stream a broadcast on my computer while doing anything else I need to. The media player is just another Window driven by software. The only problem I could foresee is that it's all coming down a single pipeline. If you need to download something big while the streaming is running, something is going to slow down.
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Re: Ski By Fire

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We have a 100mbps Internet connection, and all of our LAN gear is gigabit.
One of Debi's cousins is who set up the ability to watch TV from her computer, and curiosity killed the cat. I looked last night and she has a second video card in the computer connected to the TV with an HDMI cable. When she selects the Watch TV icon on her desktop, the streaming output goes to that video card, but the control window stays on her desktop, so after she selects what she wants to watch, she has to drop it down in her systray (lower panel), not close it.
If it ever quits working, I wouldn't know how he set it up like that for her.
I had enough trouble trying to use a projection TV on a Windows computer. Didn't have any problems on Linux doing the same thing. Maybe because I'm just more familiar with Linux.

I have to chuckle here, because at church, they use a little laptop to display the hymn words on a screen in front of the church from a projection TV. He always has his Windows desktop display come up on the big screen before he gets them switched around, or just lets both screens show the same thing, hi hi. He wasn't there a few weeks ago, and someone else tried to do it for him, and the projected screen was about 1/4th size it should be, and changing the resolution setting didn't seem to make a difference. I finally told him to hold down the control key and turn the mouse wheel. Trouble is, he had no mouse wheel to turn, so used the up and down keys. Took him about ten minutes before it was at a size we could read, hi hi.
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yogi
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Re: Ski By Fire

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Many years ago I ran across ads for TV tuners that could be installed into a computer. I think it was back in the Windows 98 days too. I never did it but the idea seemed simple enough. The Internet didn't have any bandwidth back then. Everybody was still on dial-up, but with a local tuner inside the computer that didn't matter. It's not a big trick running multiple video cards. In fact the Bitcoin miners so popular today use many GPU cards in place of the main processor. If you have the resources you can approach super-computer strength doing that. The downside of it all is that crypto currency mining is so popular that there is/was a shortage of video cards. The prices went sky high for a while because so many people were doing it.

Streaming is the way things are done in 2019. All you need is the equivalent of a splitter to send a given signal to a given video card. Normally the system wants to default to only one, but there are ways to get around that. No, I don't know what those ways are. LOL
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Re: Ski By Fire

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When my sister got a new computer, she gave me her old one, it had a TV and Radio tuner in it. The TV part only picked up broadcast stations the same as a TV with rabbit ears.
I had a stack of old cards out of computers over two feet tall sitting around for years.
A fellow ham was here visiting and I gave him all of them, and a half a trunk load of other old stuff laying around here to take with him to the big Hamfest in Indiana.

We have an unused laptop I probably could connect to the TV using an HDMI cable, but I have no idea how to connect to the video streams. Debi would love to have her Amazon Prime shows back again since her Roku no longer works. She's not paying for Netflix anymore, but there were other shows she could get using the Roku stick.

I've not had time to search on-line for how it is done using a computer, I'm sure it is simple if one knows where to look.
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yogi
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Re: Ski By Fire

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I'm guessing it's just a matter of getting the correct URL. Most media players I've seen will handle streaming video and if it doesn't, there probably is a codec somewhere to make it happen. I don't think it would take a lot of online research to find out what software/app is needed. Finding the live stream would be the hard part. :mrgreen:

I know a gal that buys old television screens instead of computer monitors. She hooks up the TV screen and gets her display video that way. She claims she never owned a dedicated monitor in her whole life. If it's really that simple then there is no setup that you do not know about already. It's just a matter of connecting the HDMI ports together.
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Re: Ski By Fire

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I found out the frau is a dozen steps ahead of me Yogi.
She's been streaming several shows which were dropped from her normal source, using links she got through ProjectFreeTV and others.
Ever since DirecTV went to using WiFi, she can send the signal from her computer to her DirecTV that way.
It's just that it cannot be done from the remote control, other than to watch what they provide or record.
She showed me how she does it, and it's not all that difficult. From her computer she connects to the DirectTV box and changed the source from DirecTV to Computer. Then she can start a streaming video. Only thing she can't do is record the show while streaming, but she can Download the shows if she wants to watch them later, but why, they are always available. Even the new shows she's interested in which have not yet appeared on regular TV channels yet.

The good side about that is now I know she can do it from her computer without having to figure out how to connect a cable to both without messing everything else up. She's already using HDMI1, HDMI2, COMP, and CABLE ports on the TV itself. COMP is using her DVD player. Don't know what the rest are using, but she does, hi hi.
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yogi
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Re: Ski By Fire

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You have one of them there "smart TVs" and your wife seems to be very proficient at using it. LOL I recall going out to buy a new television a few years back and was befuddled at all those connectors in the back. All I was hoping for is one or two, but some had upwards of six. I asked the sales dude what all those ports are for and he just chuckled. He mentioned people like your wife need that many but I could do with one of the cheaper versions that only had three ports. Well yeah. I guess so.

When we were out looking for a place to live here in O'Fallon a few of the homes had magnificent electronics. One home in particular had what must have been a network server with at least a dozen cables. This place had a media center built into the basement and I later found out that there were multiple networks running in that house. The streaming media had a protocol of it's own separate and apart from the computer LAN, which didn't include the voice channels. It was too mind boggling for me to comprehend, but I was drooling just to see it. :mrgreen:
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Kellemora
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Re: Ski By Fire

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Sounds about like my old house, and my office up here.
When I built this office, before putting up the drywall, I installed two separate 6-wire shielded phone lines, coaxial cable for token ring LAN, and another for TV, plus CAT cable for ethernet. Dozens of outlets, some dedicated for computers separate from those used for printers and other stuff. I never did use the coaxial cable for token ring, nor the coax for a TV, and the original CAT installed was superseded with CAT5 first exposed, and now CAT6 exposed. Nevertheless, I'm glad I put all that stuff in, because I found a few other uses for it. The coaxial cable is part of my security system, and the coax was used for an intercom speaker, currently not working, hi hi.

When I lived at my dads house, during my school years. I had a special room in the basement for my hobbies. It had speakers built into the wall pointing out toward the basement to use for parties. Dad loved it, and had more parties than I did, hi hi. An entire stereo system was built into nice low cost cabinetry, along with my CB and Ham gear. After I added a couch, a couple of end tables, a recliner and coffee table, this is where I would bring my friends, rather than to my bedroom upstairs.
One weird thing about that room though. I had to use a drop ceiling rather than drywall, because we needed access to things like duct vents, water shut-offs, etc. I bought fireproof drop ceiling panels which were lighter in weight than what they use for fireproof ceilings these days. When you opened the door fast, some of the ceiling panels would raise and drop back down again, making it sound like the whole roof was falling in. To stop this, I added a cold air return to the furnace duct work, which also helped keep the temp in the room in balance with the rest of the house. No more whoomph boom from the ceiling panels.
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yogi
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Re: Ski By Fire

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I keep thinking that I'd like to so something similar to the basement here. I'd love to have a pool table, but then I'd be the only one playing. Not worth the expense and besides, I have virtual pool installed on this computer. LOL I also have vision of a command and control center next to a theater media center. My wife might enjoy that but I am not a fan of movies. Besides, she has a hard time going up and down the stairs so that any such luxury would mostly go unused. One of the homes we looked at in our search for housing had what must have been a 20x20 shower built into the basement. It was all flagstone on three walls and the floor, and landscaped like a Caribbean island. It was all open too so that nobody else could be in the basement while showering, unless some kinky kind of activity was going on. :lol:

We'll never do any of that, but I will say that all the homes we looked at here had finished basements. It was almost necessary in order to get a decent price for the house. It's just me and my wife of many years now and I still can't get motivated to do anything down there. Besides, the next owner will rip it all out and change it anyway.
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Kellemora
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Re: Ski By Fire

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When I lived in my grandparents old house, I had a pool table built for me using woods I collected over the years. The company who built it specialized in using exotic hardwoods, and didn't charge more if you provided your own. They would also use their own woods if there was a problem with some of what you shipped to them.
It was a beautiful table, and a shame I had to sell it when I moved. No place to put it in the house I moved to. I did sell it to someone who gave me the option of buying it back. But he too had to move suddenly before I got a room addition on my house, which was probably for the better in the long run.

My grandfather was big on using conveyors for almost everything, and a few of the vertical conveyors were used by the workers to move from floor to floor in the warehouses, when he wasn't looking, hi hi.
When I was in my teens or early twenties, the fire marshal made him take it out and close up the open area in the floors for fire safety reasons. He just moved it to outside the structure and added a door to outside on each floor.

My last home had a beautiful finished basement. Large bathroom, two bedrooms, workshop, and office, plus the utility side which was basically unfinished. After the first flood, we replaced all the paneling with drywall which brought it up to date. But after the second flood, nearly everything came down, including the partition walls and studs, except for the inside of the bathroom, because we could get in the walls from the outside of the bathroom to let it dry out and not mold. Although we managed to prevent another flood, I never had the desire to redo the basement in a nice way a third time. Besides, my wife was very close to being totally wheelchair bound, so would never see a finished basement.
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