[Geysers] Webcam stuff

[Chase Ellison]

Final post

 >So what? Is it really your opinion that students of history and/or  
science
 >(now or in the future) are so stupid as to not understand the  
limitations
 >of webcam based reports?

 >Let me also pose the following: Which is "better" data: a report  
from an
 >on-site observer claiming to have seen something, claiming to have an
 >accurate clock, and claiming to have correctly read and recorded that
 >information; or a webcam based report supported by the inclusion of a
 >date/time stamped webcam frame.

Let me remind you of what we are doing here. We are collecting  
scientific data to be used for use in future studies. . In fact I  
think that is what is posted for what G.O.S.A.'s purpose. Setting my  
watch to the atomic clock now seems rather arbitrary if we now allow  
things to be noted that could be up to 5 minutes off. Now if in the  
future someone is doing a study  with some method none of us have  
thought of (yes people do think outside the box) that requires some  
sort of precise time and the data is incorrect in the logbook they  
are using (yes people do log things in logbooks incorrectly) then it  
could cause a problem.
Secondly, we do not know what if any effects it has made on studies  
but I would rather be closer to correct than not. I have a B.S. in  
Geology (emphasis in hydrogeology)   and I also have a B.A. in  
History and started on a masters in  hydrogeology. I can not tell you  
how many times logged discussions like this came up in my studies  
most of the time I threw out all of that data because it was not  
correct data. Also, in my geology studies, I found that many times  
when data like off a web cam was recorded it was incorrect. People  
who did have a structure in place to note that they were electronic  
times did not post them correctly. This in turn made my data  
incorrect which I can tell you annoyed me to no extent as I had  
sometimes waisted up to 16 hours worth of work. Now, as much as too  
little data can be annoying to much data can ALSO be a problem. When  
you know you have 5 data points on one item for the same thing you  
are investigating you need to take an educated guess on which is  
correct.
And about the on-site observer vs. the web cam I would take the  
observer any day since I already know that the data from the web cam  
is incorrect. If you knew something was wrong why would you continue  
to do something?
The guessing often causes more problems than not having a data point  
for that one instance. Anyway, I am gonna take the one hour drive  
down to Old Faithful from Canyon and go watch geysers.


Chase Ellison
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