<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; ">Final post<DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Lucida Grande">>So what? Is it really your opinion that students of history and/or science</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Lucida Grande">>(now or in the future) are so stupid as to not understand the limitations</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Lucida Grande">>of webcam based reports?</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Lucida Grande; min-height: 15px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Lucida Grande">>Let me also pose the following: Which is "better" data: a report from an</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Lucida Grande">>on-site observer claiming to have seen something, claiming to have an</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Lucida Grande">>accurate clock, and claiming to have correctly read and recorded that</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Lucida Grande">>information; or a webcam based report supported by the inclusion of a</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Lucida Grande">>date/time stamped webcam frame</FONT>.</DIV><DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>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. </DIV><DIV>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. </DIV><DIV>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? </DIV><DIV>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. </DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Chase Ellison</DIV></DIV></BODY></HTML>