The Base Camp - 2014-10-24

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7:52 AM

Morning all, it's Friday

8:43 AM

@nhinkle I think SE has a slight problem right now where it's distributing it's user base too sparsely. People get all precious about what is an isn't in scope so a new site is formed, but then the new site doesn't get enough users. Right now, we don't have enough users (fact). if adding birds to this increased our userbase and therefore made us a success then that would be a win win for us and the birding people, no?

Ok crazy idea. Could gardening and TGO be merged? pool our efforts? Gardening is very much an outdoors activity

9:24 AM

@Liam I don't see why not and that could allow identification questions of plants/trees?

Problem is Indoor plants is in scope on Gardening...

@Liam a lot of indoor plants are outdoor plant subspecies, and you can easily link it to the outdoors. We bring certain plants indoors over winter to prevent the frost from getting them

There is probably links there between frost affecting plants and foraging.

Top of my head: sloes.

@Aravona It could combine our forces quite well, I'm not sure if it's a) possible b) likely c)gardening would be interested

hmmm

9:39 AM

@Liam surely worth starting a dialog over?

@Aravona Yep. I'm hoping @J.Musser will have an opinion

being a member of both site :)

Morning, folks!

9:56 AM

@J.Musser morning

@J.Musser Morning!

@Liam No; too confusing for new users. I think there's a distinct margin of scope around each, and they don't really... fit very well.

in Tavern on the Meta on Meta Stack Exchange Chat, 7 mins ago, by Frank

... Me tree

@J.Musser Yeah it'd be great to consolidate the users, but I think you right, the fit is...iffy

cold out here. I'll have to wear a jacket.

grumble grumble grumble

So how do we increase the question rate?

10:07 AM

@Liam Ask the questions yourself, to set an ideal standard, and refer as many people as possible, wherever possible, to your site.

@J.Musser I've done that, but only so many question I can ask, really.

@Liam I answered a similar question on Bio, where I used to have 1300 rep, but bountied off. See if I can find it.

5

A: Why are we STILL in Beta? How can we fix this?

My three cents: I agree with fileunderwater's answer. I am active on Gardening & Landscaping beta, which is actually 189 days older than Biology. It is a much slower site question-wise, with all-around lower stats (See the GL's Area51 stats, compared with Bio's), but what I've found is that when ...

@J.Musser Yeah read that the otherday, got my thinking, hence this discussion! :)

@Liam Mad Scientist♦'s answer below is a good read.

Anyone know what site was last to graduate and when?

@J.Musser Yep. Makes sense

10:14 AM

Oh funny. Look who participates the most on that meta! I'm not even a 'regular'.

meta.biology.stackexchange.com/users?tab=participation

@Liam there are still new proposals which pop up and could come under TGO but people don't always bring their knowledge here even if it's closed as duplicate.

It's frustrating. Quite a few have put a lot of effort in recently

I'd ask / answer more but most of what comes up is beyond my knowledge

And I'm dry on questions atm.

@Aravona Are we too technical/elitist? A lot of technical climbing questions

@Aravona That's the problem with such a wide-scoped beta as this one.

10:16 AM

I'd ask more geocaching ones but those I've thought of are asked already

meta.outdoors.stackexchange.com/users

@Liam I think we are a bit harsh on general questions... Sometimes general is good, especially for beginners who are just wanting to get the basics?

@Aravona Not if they border on too broad.

@J.Musser Yeah, it's a balancing act.

@J.Musser I'd say half of TGO would be too broad under the eyes of other SE sites.

10:18 AM

@Aravona But if they don't call for an overly long answer, they are fine.

A lot of TGO is asking for advice / examples of..
Which boarders on opinion half the time.

But we still consider it in the scope of TGO where others would tell you to just use google

@Aravona So where do we draw the line?

That's the tough question :)

@Liam a guy I cached with the other weekend had a car full of climbing gear for trees, do you really need a harness etc to tree climb safely? Is it possible to do so without (this is a question I've had floating in my head for a few days, is it OT?)

@Aravona If you answer something easy to find by googling, you have to do an exceptional job, and make the post stick out as far better than your average google find. Otherwise, you defeat the purpose of SE, and it would be better to remove the question.

@Aravona Depends what tree you want to climb! If I was going much over 6m I'd want a harness and some rope!

10:21 AM

@Liam I think the line should probably be drawn with each question, with a general blob of scope for everything... Sometimes we conaider a question OT, and a similar one OFFT...

@Liam thanks :) worth posting...? If I can't find similar already?

@Aravona Also depends how brave/stupid you are

:P

@Liam I'm pretty stupid.

It's a really good question

I also had a question which I can't remember if its covered about how to tell if a piece of wood can hold your weight (again a cachers problem)

"he may be dumb, but he sure is stupid."

10:23 AM

anyway, I have meetings to go to, will be back later

@Liam cya mate :)

@Aravona I climb trees regularly, for trimming and stuff. You wouldn't believe how many folks end up falling and getting injured, from not using basic safety guidelines. I never climb a tree without a proper harness and suit. Unless I'm on my own property. At home, I probably wont climb higher than 40' without a harness, because above that height, I am not sure I know how to land without breaking something.

@J.Musser 40inches? I've posted my tree climbing question, feel free to take a look

@Aravona ' = feet

Also we have often come across wet wood, and seperate rotten wood, which often look the same. Which lead to my other half putting his weight on a dead log and getting a scratched arm as it collapsed, even after testing it, any suggestions?

@J.Musser oh yeah duh.

10:36 AM

@Aravona Huh. I guess it's all experience. I only trust my weight to live wood, and the branch diameter depends on species, environmental factors, like how much weight the branch is holding already, health/stress factors, like possible borer infestations, etc...

@J.Musser this wasn't attached to the tree anymore, he was using it as support as he jumped a gully

@Aravona read it, +1. Look s entirely in-scope to me.

@Aravona ...That wasn't too smart.

Hahahaha.

lol

@J.Musser he tested it and it seemed fine, he was leaning on it for a good 5 mins, then he moved and it just crumbled!

Rotten wood has a distinct feel/smell, once you lift some bark.

He put dettol on his arm and carried on lol

Oh really? Musky like leaf litter?

10:42 AM

@Aravona Kinda. It's rotten because fungus is eating it, so it doesn't smell like sound wood at all.

@J.Musser ahh I see. So wet good wood and wet rotten wood should still smell different?

Even if it's somewhat masked by the rain?

@Aravona rain doesn't have an overpowering smell.

We get a lot of moss covered woods near us, sometimes you can stand on a log, sometimes you go right through it.

@Aravona Wet good wood should smell un-fungusy, but it kinda depends on the species.

@J.Musser rain can have a strong smell, you can smell a change before it rains.

10:48 AM

@Aravona I carry a knife, and stick it in the wood before I trust any weight to it.

But I guess the level of smell will change per person and per environment

@Aravona Yeah, but you can still sense the difference in the wood.

@J.Musser that's good advice. And would be a good answer to my potential question.

@Aravona Which advice?

@J.Musser both the smell of the wood and the knife to test.

10:52 AM

@Aravona Oh.

:) might ask that one later

You can also take a chainsaw, and cut down the tree you want to climb. It makes things so much simpler. :D

@Rory nice answer to the ski exercise question

@J.Musser lol... True that's always an option but I don't think it'd fit in my geocaching bag haha

Hmm does TGO have any questions about Torches (electrial)?

7

Q: What characteristics should I look for in a good torch/flashlight?

I'm looking to buy a flashlight/torch (or build my own even if that works out cheaper), and am looking to take the following into consideration: Good battery life (LEDs would probably suit best in this regard) Takes rechargeable batteries of common size (so AA, C, D - some don't seem to) Rugged...

equipment flashlight

9

Q: How bright a flashlight would I realistically need for searching through terrain?

Modern flashlights have brightness up to several thousand lumens which is great. However it's not clear how bright a flashlight I might realistically need. Suppose I want to go on a search party such as for example when a person is lost in the terrain and police and volunteers move through the t...

equipment search-and-rescue flashlight

Two main ones^

@J.Musser those might cover it... Background
.. We had several different strength and size torches when geocaching, and head torches as well. Ideally I wanted to know aa basically noneof these torches were the same what the beat kind of torch for night caching is. Bearing in mind not wanting to scare off animals etc, so would need a red light possibly, but with also bearing in mind which lights aee good for preserving night vision (green I think?)

Just random thoughts after a few geocaching trips.

Clearly my A and S keys are too close together on my phone lol...

11:02 AM

@Aravona red light is very low contrast when used outdoors. I think it will be the noise more than the light that will scare the animals anyway.

@Aravona The mobile interface is evil. I try to avoid it. ;P

@J.Musser lol yeah. It is awful

We had a lot of curious deer the other night, until they got a face full of light.

@Aravona Then don't shine in their faces...

@J.Musser have you ever been night geocaching?

@Aravona Nope.

The aim is to find tacks on trees that reflect like a catseye? Sometimes up to 100ft away. You get a lot then that blink, so obviously not what you are after, but they look the same at distance.

Also it's nice to look for nocturnal animals and insects so a torch which could cover those too would be nice I think.

11:08 AM

gtg, cya!

Cya dude

11:30 AM

afternoon all

@Aravona Thanks. It's because I am at my desk 9 hours a day and need to do something to keep ski/snowboard fitness

I wrotes a luvely story

0

A: How to overcome fear of falling in lead climbing

Everyone who climbs suffers from this to some degree, so you need to accept that doing this will make you scared. I've had very similar issues to the one's your describe over the years. I've tried several techniques to help with this with mixed result. From my personal experience the below didn...

:)

12:13 PM

@Rory yeah same, those are all good for a tighthip flexor muscle tok

Too*

12:27 PM

why is this question getting quite so much hatred?

1

Q: Trail gun for protection against bears

Choosing a trail gun is proving more challenging than I would like, I'm wondering what handgun calibers are powerful enough to provide some protection against bears, particularly the aggressive variety, while being manageable enough for a smaller framed shooter ( whether that be a younger shooter...

safety bears shooting guns

-2 and 4 close votes.

I don't agree with guns but the question seems perfectly valid to me and clear?

@Liam I think the question is a bit unclear because it just seems like someones musings. I'm happy to retract my vote though, the answer is clearly dont use a gun, which has been stated more than once on TGO

No actual definitive question to my reading.

I haven't voted on it, but it isn't clear, and appears to start from a 'which gun' perspective when the answer is 'not a gun'

I'm going to try and re-frame it. To me it seems clear. though your right, the no gun option seems to be missing....

If there is an safe altetnative to Gun, the answer should be No Gun, regardless of what animal is involved

Just my opinion on animals.

Well safe / humane.

No gun is no good if it causes undue distress, pain or suffering.

@Aravona I agree but, well different people (cough americans cough) probably wouldn't.

I'vre rephrased it to make the question more obvious

12:39 PM

@Liam if you reframe I will happily retract my vote

@Aravona Don't get me wrong, do what you feel is right

@Aravona You are well within your rights to vote to close

I just don't think it's unclear.

Does 5' 7" count as a dwarf?!

that's pretty short

@Liam no that is clearer in mymind.

I think i looked into it once, you have to be under 4' 10" or something

;)

@Liam very nice

Plus aggressive bears leans towards grizzlies and polar bears, where a gun makes some more sense. Black bears I believe would be much calmer towards people.

Since black bears like to use peoples pools hehe.

Gotta love You've Been Framed style home vids of wild animals

@Liam I asked my tree climbing question.

12:43 PM

@Aravona Yep, I saw +1 (obvs)

I have time to answer right now

If it's not got a good answer soon I'll pop something down

short answer maybe

:)

@Liam short != bad

@Aravona LOLZ

Did you see my musings over torches?

Not sure if torch questions are OT though, even though we have some.

@Aravona why would they be? I can't think of a good reason

@Liam true, and I want advice on high power vs animal friendliness.

1:17 PM

@Aravona There are two points here - animals will know you are there, so if you want to see them, you need a torch which can get them at a distance (hence bright) or if they hate light you need something which doesn't annoy them (possibly infra-red torch with nightvision goggles)

I'd go with the former for hiking, and only go for night sight if I was going to be in a hide / stationary to photograph wild animals at a waterhole etc

@RoryAlsop A red light also helps by not messing up your night vision. It allows your pupils to stay expanded so when you look away from the light you can still see

Half the time if it's a bright night, large moon, I prefer to move about without a torch at all. You can see better without the focused circle that the torch brings

@Liam Yeah - red light not so good at seeing animals though. Have tried (I use when working at night, and when bird ringing etc)

@RoryAlsop Good point

I'm the same as you for movement, my eyes are much better in the dark than the rest of the family, so even when they see it as pitch black, I'd far rather just use what little light there is

@RoryAlsop Constamntly trying to get my girlfriend to turn her torch off! ha ha she looks at my and that's it, night vision screwed for another 5 mins

1:24 PM

(I have an overabundance of rods as compared to cones - so not so good with colours and bright sunshine, but perfectly happy in the dark)

@Liam My technique is to look directly at the light (whether it is a torch or a car light) and then I only lose sensitivity right in the centre, but as you don't use that at night it doesn't matter

@RoryAlsop hmm, good one that

@RoryAlsop How do you know that?

@Liam I had a weird result on an eye test a while back that could have indicated cancer on my retina. Turns out it wasn't (just a birthmark - in my eyeball - weird) but the tests they carried out were extensive

@RoryAlsop (thumbs up)

@Rory isn't it green light for Animals? Dynadin has a headtorch with red green and blue lights?

Basically my hand torch was not powerful enough for the activity we were doing, which did involve accidentally shining torches at deer 100ft away on occasion

But the high power torches we had were also super heavy

@Aravona green doesn't upset some, but the problem is that all nocturnal animals have high light sensitivity (except the ones that use sonar!) so the more useful assumption is that you should go for really bright torches, and assume that you may need to spot animals at distance

@Aravona there is that, yes

1:31 PM

Some animals will freeze in bright lights. that's how you hunt rabbits

Other's leg it

Got my bouldering grade up to V6 last night. That's officially the highest I've ever been. Training on the boards is really paying off

@Liam I like walking in deer country in the dark. The 'huffing' noises the stags make is very weird, and impossible to figure out distance...

@RoryAlsop Not much around here. foxes, badgers, rabbits

@Liam excellent! That'll be the fingers and forearms toughened right up then

@RoryAlsop Yep, part of anyway. Been doing sets of dead hangs

turn it into a compeition with my mates

though it's very variable as I do it after an evenings climbing

@RoryAlsop There are some black grouse on the moors but I'm not much of a bird watcher, too impatient

The black grouse or blackgame (Tetrao tetrix) is a large game bird in the grouse family. It is a sedentary species, breeding across northern Eurasia in moorland and bog areas near to woodland, mostly boreal. The black grouse is closely related to the Caucasian grouse. The female is greyish-brown and has a cackling call. She takes all responsibility for nesting and caring for the chicks, as is typical with gamebirds. The black grouse's genome has been sequenced in 2014. == Taxonomy and naming == The black grouse is one of the many species first described in the 10th edition of Systema Naturae in...

50% of the species in the UK nest on the denbigh moor, which is up the road from my house

Very endangered in this country

@Liam I have a chin up bar in the door between the kitchen and the dining room, but unfortunately my wife likes to use that space for 'tidying' things, so I don't do chin ups or hangs anywhere near as much as I'd like

1:39 PM

there's a peg board at my local gym:

#notme

woah!

@RoryAlsop He's one of the locals, bit of a beast

@Liam that's more upper body strength than I have ever had. It's getting close to teenage girl power to weight ratio (the best climbers on our competition wall - an 8C and up - are all girls)

@RoryAlsop I used to go to the climbing hanger, they sponsor shauna coxsey. She's like number 3 in the world right now....

She used to warm up on my top grade

"hows it going?"

"Yeah just warming up on these v5's. Not done anything this easy in ages"

@Liam Vorac added a good comment.

To my question...

1:50 PM

@Liam heh

2:00 PM

@liam so jealous of the free classes theclimbinghangar.com/climbingcoaching/rock-climbing

I'd love to introduce climbing to some people i know, but i have to sell them on a 50$ course beforehand...

@soph-e Yeah I don't go there anymore unfortunately

moved away

They used to do the women's climbing symposium too

I think it was Glasgow this year

man, i really want to go now ;)

my gym has a good selection of bouldering, but i don't think i've seen any traverses

and not super beginner friendly, afaik

climbing's just not that big a sport where I'm at, I'm afraid

@soph-e Yeah it is, honestly. The V0's are easy, There's a massive kids playing area

2:19 PM

so that site I was talking about yesterday seems to be morphing into a database of scrambles with maps. Which I actually think is a good idea. Will keep you posted

Right guys I'm off for now. Might not be around next weekend due to jury duty. Have a great weekend all!

2:43 PM

@Aravona see ya good luck!

@Aravona see you!

8 hours later…

10:41 PM

Hiya

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