[Geysers] Re: Grand geyser sillyness

[TSBryan at aol.com]

Hi, All:

Well, now I've received a few -- only four, actually -- responses to my 
tongue-in-cheek posting of a hypothetical, insanely long, clearly meaningless code 
for logging an eruption of Grand Geyser. Two laugh and support my poking fun 
at the "institutionalized... gibberish" of "people who take themselves just a 
little too seriously."

Two, however, thought that I was being frivilous and that my post should not 
have been promulgated as it (in the words of one) "needlessly made fun of a 
legitimate quest for understanding." Oh, crud.

I honestly believe that there are some gazers who hate (not too strong) such 
posts by me. OK. Do let me say that I think the basic notation (for example: 
D3/T2Q) is fine. I routinely log such things and so on. But I personally doubt 
if there is any validity to noting the different between what are perceived as 
long vs short second bursts (* or no-*), third bursts, etc. C'mon folks. Who 
decided that an apparently arbitrary difference of 1 second -- 44 versus 45 -- 
is significant? Do even the most dedicated of gazers _always_ watch their 
watch consistently enough to even say that it honestly was 44 versus 45 seconds, 
that such would be judged as "statistically significant" (which seems to be 
vital to some)?

Indeed, after many years and _thousands_ of logged eruptions (and it truly is 
into the thousands by now), I have yet to hear of any significant meaning to 
T versus G, C versus Q and etc. Sometimes, if an eruption is closely watched, 
a series of afterbursts can be anticipated, BUT is there any meaning to 
afterbursts?

The only reasonably solid things I can recall as being at least minimally 
discussed recently, are: 
-- a bit of a relationship between total duration (regardless of the number 
of bursts) and following the following interval;
-- a relationship between total Vent-Turban action after Grand and refill 
time.
Will I follow up on these? Probably not, as I certainly do not now possess 
either the data or the will to spend the necessary time at Grand. But some 
people around -- quite a few -- wouldn't miss Grand for anything. So......

Here, really, is the point to this whole thing......

If anybody out there is able to show meaning in any of this stuff, then why 
have they not -- not once so far -- promulgated the information. Why? The 
venues have been available -- The Sput was started in 1987, and the first 
Transactions came out in 1989.

If anybody _does_ have info on the significance of any of the above, then I'm 
sure that many other people would be happy to learn of it. Gee -- maybe a 
note to the Sput, or a Transactions article. Or even a list post.

Thanks for listening.

Scott Bryan
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