Better Pictures of the 2013 Yucatan Flood

All photos are courtesy of Randy Roland, neighbor and friend. Most of the following pictures were taken around 10:00 AM and show some differences from the 5:00 AM ones that I took.

Once again we start close to home at the intersection where the old Yucatan Supper Club once operated. Water has never stood in the area shown despite prior floods and heavy rains.

Creamery Drive was still under five hours after first light. The new bridge held up well but the water simply went over the road in front and behind. It shows man’s limitations in dealing with the weather in a rather pointed fashion.

Going for the Hat Trick

I said I wouldn’t build or buy a new computer until it was possible to get three times the performance of my upgraded old warhorse. Opportunity came knocking and initial results are in…

Benchmarks were not done under perfectly clean circumstances because I wanted something closer to real world performance reflected. Dropbox and other utilities were running at the time. Also, the EVGA GeForce GTX 670 actually performs better now once I found the hardware fan settings were too low. Setting a new software profile changed its performance a great deal so it would be a full five stars now.

Benchmarks increased by the following multipliers:

• Passmark Rating 3.57
• CPU Mark 2.95
• 2D Graphics Mark 2.11
• 3D Graphics Mark 2.56
• Memory Mark 3.74
• Disk Mark 8.27

The focus was on CPU and memory speed rather than gaming benches since I consider myself a power user foremost. Video and image editing is incredibly fast now. Games are through the roof, of course, but less impressive than the multitasking boost.

I’ll post more about the build down the road a bit.

Slowing Down for the Holiday

With Independence Day coming up I’m slowing my posting down. House cleaning for company and wrapping up a technical project are consuming what energy I have. If time and health permit, I’ll get more photos of the flood and its aftermath up. Notes for a movie review are completed so that is in the pipeline. Eventually I’ll post about the technical project, which is going extremely well.

Also, I want to get outside a little since the weather has turned into something nearing perfect with sunlight, no rain, temperatures in the lower 80’s, no rain, cool nights, no rain, and most importantly, no rain.

An Excellent Video on Film Aspect Ratios

Perusing Blue’s News this morning I ran into a link to a must see video on why movies are shaped like they are. Ever wonder why older movies are almost square shaped and newer ones are elongated rectangles? Wonder no more, The Changing Shape of Cinema explains all.

In my reviews, I always detail what aspect ration the DVD or Blu-ray content is in since the ratios vary greatly. While I was aware of some of the history, this video answers the important questions of when and why different formats were created. It also explains why HDTV’s are a different shape than older television sets.

I have to go on record as loving widescreen and used to watch all my DVD’s in tiny letterbox mode on the old 4:3 27” TV. Getting a 40” HDTV as a gift made me a very happy camper and did justice rendering the glories of cinematography.

Go watch the video!

Ohbelog Referral Spam

So I see a Malaysian website on my Blogger stats today and couldn’t resist seeing what the latest spam was. It turned out to be a very interesting place to investigate. An ornate trap is what I would describe ohbelog . com as. At first look it appears to be a social media aggregate site where you can vote up or down on different links.

It’s flashy and oh so modern:

Scrolling down reveals that not a lot of voting is going on and clicking on some of the subsections in the menu nets these results:

Notice anything suspicious yet?

The Yucatan Valley Flood of 2000

Digging through my digital photographs, I did not find anything from the first flood that I photographed here in Yucatan. However, I did find copies of a friend’s pictures from that time. June 1, 2000 was the day I first experienced flooding up close and it all began when my late mother noticed water in the field where it shouldn’t be. I went outside to get a better look and realized that the creek (South Branch of the Root River) had gone over its banks.

Before long County 14 was under and later we heard from my father that he couldn’t get through from the south because the bridge was closed. Later that evening after things were open again, we took a drive along 14 and State 76 to see the flooding. It was beautiful and intimidating at the same time to see the valley filled with water. I felt like I’d glimpsed what it was like in Yucatan when the glaciers melted at the end of the last ice age.

An Eminent Threat

A strange sound awakened me today and it was somewhat like when raccoons have invaded the basement. Groggy, I stumbled out to find my father doing the dishes so I assumed that’s what I heard. While de-installing Nvidia’s latest and buggy beta drivers, I looked out my window and notices a sizeable branch down on the backyard maple tree.

Then I really looked at it.

A full third of the tree had gently fallen on an abandoned old shed.

It looks like rot spread deep and the excessive moisture in the valley helped accelerate the decay. Further splits are developing and that’s very bad news.

With the entire weight of the tree leaning in one direction, it puts the house in jeopardy. Also threatened is the power line so it would be a catastrophe when it falls. We are going to have to have someone come cut it down ASAP. One stiff storm wind could take out my side of the house.

It has been quite a week and it’s only Wednesday.