Big Banner Fan

[DeathValleyDazed]

I was unable to find the thread or posts about the lovely banners that grace this forum's masthead. I often click on the image area which triggers a move to the next banner. I believe there are four or five of these delightful panorama shots which for me represent Death Valley so well. Kudos to all who make this forum such an enjoyable rest stop for Death Valley adventurers.

[Kauri]

I'm starting to worry about your memory, Dazed

The thread about the forum banners and the list of locations where TacoLand took these photos is:
https://dv.netllama.us/dv/thread-5-page-3.html
(and you did reply to that thread )

[TacoLand]

Thus hinting that Kauri is perhaps one of our younger members, and DeathValleyDazed is, well ...

[DAW89446]

His screen name is a big giveaway ... “dazed.” 

[DeathValleyDazed]

His screen name is a big giveaway ... “dazed.” 

Okay, I admit that I set myself up big time from my fellow forum members to throw me some "shade" on this topic. But what the hell, shade is a valuable commodity in DEVA! Besides, losing my memory just gives me one less thing to keep track of. 

I'm glad TacoLand joined the thread because I want to make sure I have the locations of (your wonderful banners) correct so please check these two composite images I created from your eight banners. Note: By clicking on the banner-masthead of this forum all eight banners will rotate through. 

Here's the composite without the subtitles:
http://www.salamandersociety.com/deathva...-small.png

And here with the subtitles which I hope are correct. Let me know if I've got them mixed up as I have not personally been to the Owlsheads or Kaleidoscope Canyon, yet.
http://www.salamandersociety.com/deathva...titles.png

[TacoLand]

Haha, nice one on the "shade" .... though if I had to put money on it I'd say I'm the most dazed of the group when it comes to running around DV making bad/good life decisions.

I took a look at your subtitles and you did a great job, though #6 and #8 are not correct.

#8 was actually shot from Mt. Perry, looking down at the main valley which is called ... Death Valley? Well I'll be.

And #6 was shot in the Last Chance Range, looking west.

[DeathValleyDazed]

Speaking of banners, gotta shout out to our very own Mojave Geek whose wonderful collection of panoramas was one of the main catalysts for me developing a passion for Death Valley. I thoroughly enjoyed just now studying all of MG's panos again and forced myself to pick a favorite which is not an easy task. I selected the Mount Perry pano which also prompted me to complete the hike out and back from Dante's View a few years ago. 

Here's the link to MG's valuable pano collection. Thanks Geek!
https://web.media.mit.edu/~geek/dv_panos.html

[MojaveGeek]

I'm glad you enjoyed those panos!  I haven't made a new one in years and I was thinking about that literally just earlier this week.  I'm retired now, but when I used to work at MIT, I had 5 high resolution monitors side by side.  It covered a whole wall on my physical desktop and I had about 13K pixels across.  Ideally it would have been a half circle, but I did not have the space.  I could sit in the middle and just immerse myself.  I've not had the ability to view them at this rez since I retired and it's de-motivated me from doing new panos, though I have plenty of material (I stitch them by software, not in camera, as the in-camera tools don't support anywhere near that resolution).

The brassy box on the shelf above the monitors is one of the earliest computer digital audio systems around - it dates back to 1978.  I didn't build the hardware, but wrote all the software.  There were 8 output channels of analog, and I could play 4 digital audio files simultaneously through any weighting and mixing of the 8 outputs, but I had to work pretty hard to make that code fast enough back in the day   I had to write my own file system to support efficient layout of the continuous media files on the physical disk (which was, gasp, 10 Mb)

Anyway, it is great that you were inspired by the panos, Dazed!

[netllama]

I'm glad you enjoyed those panos!  I haven't made a new one in years and I was thinking about that literally just earlier this week.  I'm retired now, but when I used to work at MIT, I had 5 high resolution monitors side by side.  It covered a whole wall on my physical desktop and I had about 13K pixels across.  Ideally it would have been a half circle, but I did not have the space.  I could sit in the middle and just immerse myself.  I've not had the ability to view them at this rez since I retired and it's de-motivated me from doing new panos, though I have plenty of material (I stitch them by software, not in camera, as the in-camera tools don't support anywhere near that resolution).

The brassy box on the shelf above the monitors is one of the earliest computer digital audio systems around - it dates back to 1978.  I didn't build the hardware, but wrote all the software.  There were 8 output channels of analog, and I could play 4 digital audio files simultaneously through any weighting and mixing of the 8 outputs, but I had to work pretty hard to make that code fast enough back in the day   I had to write my own file system to support efficient layout of the continuous media files on the physical disk (which was, gasp, 10 Mb)

Anyway, it is great that you were inspired by the panos, Dazed!

That's quite the impressive setup, especially for the time. I see a (now) vintage SUN Micro workstation sitting there, which was a pretty beefy system during its time. Not so much anymore. Of course, with the advent of 4k resolution displays, you could likely get away with just 3 of them in place of your 5.

[MojaveGeek]

Ha, yes, that was a SparcStation 10, named "rainier" (my favorite mountain, the theme of our network cluster was mountains, there was a "corkscrew" too!)   I helped design bits of the audio system and ISDN (remember that?) protocol stack, as it came with basic rate ISDN on board.

Good point about the 4K monitors but interestingly, all the action in the panos is along the horizon line.  Gaining more vertical isn't worth much with respect to the whole experience.  I guess it is partly a visual perception thing.  

In fact I have all the parts to rebuild my old system.   They were so glad I agreed to retire that they said I could take home anything I wanted from my office except the shelves screwed into the walls and even hired movers.  But I don't have any space in my house that can take all five monitors, so I'd have to re-cut the panos to be 4 monitors wide (not too hard, but it is better to have an odd number, so there isn't a bezel right in the middle of the image.  I could / should do that, but in 2019 I was too busy hiking and creating new memories, and in 2020 I was rather bummed out and no one would be coming to my house to share the images so....

I am accepting that I am slowing down a bit.   I'm looking at some hikes for Washington (South Cascades) next month (if I decide I can tolerate the Covid risk of flying) and old GPS tracks had me doing 4k+ vertical a day.   These days, it's hard for me to get in more than low 3k.  Though I've lost much of my Covid weight gain so maybe 4k will be attainable.