All The News Thats Fit But Skipped
School starts on Monday, so Im doing as much riding as possible this weekend. Thanks to Bill and Ashland Mountain Adventures I dont have to ride to the top under my own power (I did that all this week, tired of it now)
Lets hope nothing like this happens.
I installed Linux Mint yesterday because my Ubuntu installtion was starting to get a little messed up from all the costant configuration, reconfiguration, and installation of new (and often not stable) packages. Nothing like a fresh start right?
Mint Linux has some cool custom applications, one of them being mintUpload. It allows you to upload a file in 2 clicks to a FTP server and gives you the URL. Unfortuneatly, Mint doesnt make it easy to confugre the tool to use any service other than its own crappy one. But it is possible.
If you have your own server you want to use with mintUpload, just follow these steps.
1) Create a writeable directory on your webserver where you want the uplaods to go, ex. /httpdocs/uploads
2) Create a file in that directory named “space.html” and put a single line in it: 100000000/100000000 This will tell mintUpload how much space you have, but since its your own server and we dont really care to keep track how much space is left, it will be static.
3) Go to /usr/lib/linuxmint/mintUpload/services and create a file with the name of your server.
4) Put this in your file:
name=<YourName>
host=<YourHost>
user=<FTP Username>
pass=<FTP Password>
path=<Path to upload folder, ex httpdocs/uploads/>
space=<Path to space.html>
url=<URL to upload directory>/<TIMESTAMP/<FILE>
maxsize=1000000000
persistance=365
Note that <TIMESTAMP> and <FILE> are variables used by mintUpload and you should leave them as they are.
Save the file, and you should now have a working service in mintUpload! This works great, but there was one thing that still annoyed me. mintUpload places the files in subdirectories named from timestamps of the main upload folder. This is great if you are hosting a service that thousands of people will be using and the files will be deleted every so often. But I’m the only one using this service so it would be better if the files went directly into the uploads folder without and subdirectories so they can be easily viewed. To fix that:
1) change url=<path to upload directory>/<TIMESTAMP/<FILE> to url=<path to upload directory>/<FILE>
2) Open /usr/lib/linuxmint/mintUpload/mintUpload.py and comment out lines 155, 156, 157 and 162. To comment out a line, simply put a # in front of it. ex: #ftp.cwd(directory)
Save the file, now all uploads will go directly into the upload directory without any subdirectories. Cheers!
Seriously, this gut puts all those posers on longboards skating around SOU to shame.
Ever since Amazing Geological Oddities was published, it has attracted quite a few comments. Most of them are useless Internet flame that you would expect to find anywhere, but several good people posted some great stuff. In this post, I will be collecting the best of the suggestions that people left on the original post. Enjoy!
Link to original Post: http://www.fingel.com/2008/04/amazing-geological-oddities/
This incredible rock formation, named obviously because of its wave like shape, is approximately 15 meters (about 50 feet) tall and 110 meters (360 feet) long. The shape was caused by subsurface erosion of the granite rock. After the rock was exposed, algae began to grow on its face, causing the darker streaks that add to the look of this rock.
This site is truly amazing, with an incredible back story as well. 35 years ago, geologists were drilling for gas outside the small town of Darvaz. The drilling equipment unexpectedly broke through a cavern and the entire thing caved in. The gas that the geologists were looking for began to seep through the ground, and to make sure that nobody was harmed by the potentially poisonous gas, they lit it on fire. It has been burning ever since with no end in sight.
The Bay of Fundy is not so much a marvel of geology as it a total coincidence. That doesnt mean its easy to understand how it works. Oceanographers say that the huge tidal range, which can fluctuate an entire 17 merers (thats about 55 feet) is a result of the perfect timing of normal tides, and the amount of time a wave takes to move from the opening of the bay to the end. One thing I find funny about the Bay of Fundy is that although it has these huge tides, people still have docks with boats on them, even though half way through the day any boat will be grounded!
Bay of fundy at high tide.
Same place at low tide!
The bay of fundy really gets its justice with a video:
This huge rock, as there is no other way to describe it, stands tall in comparison to its surroundings. Although still disputed, the prevailing (and this writers favorite) theory is that the formation is a volcanic plug of a long extinct volcano. Magma moved up the inside of the volcano, but before it could erupt, the volcano died and the magma was left sitting inside. The hard igneous rock that the magma formed is more resiliant to erosion that the surroundig volcano which has long ago been washed away. The Devils Tower hexagonal pattern is the result of the cooling of magma. When magma cools, it shrinks, causing the cracks and pattern. This is called Jointing. The volacano that the Devils Tower was originally formed in would have been massive.
There is a similar formation in Southern Oregon called Pilot rock that was formed the same way:
Legend has it that the Giants Causeway was built by an Irish giant as a bridge to Scotland so he could fight his rival giant there. But really, the Giants Causeway was formed in much the same way as the Devils Tower and Pilot Rock. The rock is from an ancient volcanic eruption, and the cooling of the magma formed the hexagonal pillars, a phenomena called “jointing”. The Giants Causeway covers a huge area that contains about 40,000 almost perfect hexagonal columns.
Blue holes are another result of Karst topography. That is, formation by massive amounts of erosion. Blue holes are named because of the contrast between their dark, deep inner waters and the light blue water surrounding them. Many of them are hundreds of feet deep, the deepest one is 663 feet deep! The water inside is extremely anoxic (without oxegen) so they don’t support much life other than certain types of bacteria.
The Belize blue hole, close up.
The same blue hole, but from a distance.
Good for swimming?
There seemed to be some controversy over how those moving rocks really move. Here is a great video that might help clear things up. Thanks Henry!
“Enjoy the awesomeness of this world; you have only one chance at life to do so as the odds of experiencing life is immeasurably billions against. Don’t waste it on negativity”
Thanks to all that enjoyed and left feedback on the original post! Hope everyone enjoys round 2!
People Are Saying: