First archived talk at User talk:Arpingstone/ArchiveMar3-2003
Second archived talk at User talk:Arpingstone/ArchiveJul10-2003

Hi!
I'm on holiday from 10th July 2003 to 17th July 2003 in Brixham in the county of Devon in southern England. So I won't see anything put here until the 16th July. Cheers!
Adrian Pingstone 08:50 10 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Hi Adrian. Just looking at your photos for Tattoo, could you crop the image

down a little further? With the tiny images we work with it seems we really need to fill the image almost completely with the subject or the detail gets completely lost. --Robert Merkel 06:23 14 Jul 2003 (UTC)

No problem, Adrian. I couldn't be bothered figuring out how to do it either, so I just re-uploaded the same picture from my hard drive. (I took a moment to sharpen it a fraction first, though sharpening only seems to work well when you have resized. That was taken with my old camera and was not resized, just cropped.) My duck is a female Blue-billed Duck, and I think she is the prettiest thing I've met since ... oh, since I was 17 and full of hormones, I guess. Here is all of her. The other picture, of course, just shows her tail feathers. I haven't written the 'pedia entry yet, but if you read Musk Duck you'll get a pretty reasonablle idea: female Blue-Bill Ducks look very like female Musk Ducks, and are equally fond of diving to the bottom to look for tasty morsels. She's just on her way down.

I've spent two full days a week taking bird pictures these last five or six weeks (bad weather or no bad weather), but that shot (at full size, not cramped down to small resolution) is the one I like best of all. But one day, I'll get one of her on the way up, just breaking the water. A very difficult shot to take, as they stay down for anything between 10 seconds and a minute, and if they want to they can come up anywhere at all within 20 meteres or more. So you have to guess where you think she will come up, and then guess when you think she will come up, and squeeze the shutter release a half-second before you see anything. But if I keep at it long enough, sooner or later, my lucky number wil come up. Cross some fingers for me! Cheers -- Tony

Hi Adrian, I hadn't realised that you had identified the Paignton zoo picture. We will make a birder of you yet. jimfbleak

Thanks Adrian - I'll have to write a few species articles soon, since I put on a few pics myself. Jim

The reason I used a fairly small image size was because the images in question were taken on a low-resolution (0.7 megapixel) digital camera, and so the images wont look very good if their blown up too much, but your right they are a bit too small. If you look at the train article, I have however enlarged the big versions to 550 pixels, which is about as far as the images can be blown up without looking terrible, what do you think of it now?.

BTW seem as your good at finding images, I was wondering if you could find a pic to go in the Mallard (train) article G-Man 22:39 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Adrian, I've written Andean Flamingo now. Do you know what the species is in your pic on Flamingo? It's hard to tell with their heads down. jimfbleak

Super Andean Flamingo - I don't think I've ever seen a photo of the species before. By all means replace the Flamingo pic, it makes more sense to have an image where we know what it is. I'll write Lesser Flamingo soon, but not sure quite when.

It's an eclipse male Common Eider. Most male ducks go into a much drabber "eclipse" plumage in the summer after breeding and while they moult. The eider in particular has a baffling range of juvenile/eclipse/firstyear plumages, but the head shape and feathering pattern around the bill are unmistakable. The only problem with photographic guides, even the best ones, is that they can't show every plumage.

I like trying to identify mystery birds, so don't worry about that. I've got Wildfowl of the World so any duck should be identifiable. Jim

I'm sorry. I didn't notice who had put Paris (France), it was not intended to be insulting to an indivudual contributor. Apologies. Mintguy 11:21, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Game Boy

I compiled all the versions into 1 long image.

I couldn't find a box image for the 1995 Play-It-Loud color/clear series, or a good box image for the 2003 A-SP series. If someone can find these images then feel free to modify the pic using a photo editor.

Tonius (UTC) 15:17

PS1: The 1995 version is distinct from the 1996/1998 color versions by the placement of the Start/Select buttons.

PS2:

• 2003 GB ASP
• 2001 GB A
• 1999 GB L
• 1998 GB C
• 1996 GB P
• 1995 GB PIL
• 1989 GB

Game Boy

798 x 115 - JPG - 27.3 KB

Sorry, I forgot about 56K - I have a 100 Mbps connection. Originally I was using JPG, but JeLuf requested that the pics be in PNG format which augments the file size by 2025 percent.

I made the panaramic myself using a photo editor; I'm working on the sources of the individual pics.

Tonius 17:44

PS: Game Boy 750 x 108 & thanks for the image recommendations. What do you think of my Videogame Timeline page? Tonius 18:29

PS2: Thanks again for the more information. The Videogame Timeline is also a compilation of countless internet sources. So far (that I know of) there is no other website that offers a more complete timeline of video games than this one. Tonius 19:34

PS3: Please see the Timeline of video games User talk:Tonius 03:28

I uploaded a slightly cleaner version of Image:Klm.b737.300pix.jpg, since the original was kind of pixelly-looking (compare new with old). I'm not certain, but it looks like Image:Piper.gdltr.300pix.jpg and other aircraft photos may have a similar pixellated appearance. What software are you using to shrink them? It seems like it's not doing the greatest anti-aliasing :-) -- Wapcaplet 13:13, 11 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with Photoplus, but Photoshop has always seemed to do well with resizing. One thing which I know can cause aliasing is resizing when the image is in indexed-color format; if it's RGB format during resizing, it ought to work. Also, I seem to recall some older software I used which made a distinction between "resize" and "resample"; the former simply hacked out enough pixels to shrink the image (and looked pretty bad), while the latter would interpolate and average out the pixels, resulting in a smoother appearance. I don't know if either of these things is the culprit, though. Best of luck finding a solution! -- Wapcaplet 14:52, 11 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for your ideas, I'll return to Photoshop and see if I can make improvements.

Adrian Pingstone 14:56, 11 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Regarding the 6k size for the KLM image: that is output from the default quality setting of a UNIX utility called "convert", which is part of the free ImageMagick suite of image manipulation tools. Looks to be available for many platforms; my (Linux) version is command-line, but there may be a GUI interface for it as well. I know there are a number of specialized JPEG compression tools which let you tweak the compression settings and preview the results, and are useful for finding a good compromise between file size and image quality, but it seems like most of those are commercial software, and free tools like ImageMagick seem to do pretty well with just default settings.

Also, if you are working on PNGs, there's one called pngcrush which I believe is only available for UNIX variants or MSDOS; if you have one of those platforms at your disposal, you may want to check it out. -- Wapcaplet 17:24, 11 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I liked your changes to Cemetery. Kat 21:38, 13 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for the Emperor Goose pic Adrian. My guess is that it's a one year old bird. It's basically in adult plumage, but the brown tinge and the paler bill are juvenile features, according to my Wildfowl of the World book. There doesn't seem to be much seasonal variation although the book doesn't go overboard on detail for this virtually unmistakable species. Jim

Thank you for removing the Grasshopper image. Kpjas

Adrian! I too am a former British Aerospace employee. I worked at Brough for 10 years until 2000. I live in Las Vegas, USA now. Be seeing ya! -- sugarfish 21:04, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Hi Adrian! On the subject of image titles... I actually agree with you but I had my wrist slapped a couple of times (by whom I don't remember) for using the <small> tags. I'm happy to use the tags because you're right regarding the overly large fonts. Like they said in WWII... "I was just following...", etc. -- sugarfish 08:43, 7 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Hi Adrian. Until recently, the Caribbean Flamingo and the European Flamingo ( and sometimes Chilean Flamingo ) were classed as races of the same species, Phoenicopterus ruber ruber and P. ruber roseus respectively. Last year, the British Ornithological Union split them as separate species, so Caribbean becomes P. ruber and Greater (European) becomes P. roseus. Because this is such a recent change, it's inevitable that there will be a considerable time lag before it becomes common. jimfbleak

I thought "both ends in South Glos" sounded a little odd, so I checked on an OS map that showed the Avon-Gloucs border as it was in the 1970s. Here are some Multimap URLs that show the borders around the bridge... [1] [2]. Thanks for that PDF link, it's a useful reference. --rbrwr

Thanks for sorting out Salzburg's population. now if we can only figure out what to do with SR-71 Blackbird. Rmhermen 16:18, Sep 17, 2003 (UTC)

Hi Adrian,

the reason I removed your Plumed Basilisk picture was that I created an entrance for Basiliscus plumifrons and put the picture there (http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basiliscus_plumifrons). I just thought it would fit in there better. I didn't want to be rude so I apologise I didn't make clear that I put the picture somewhere else.

Jurriaan

Hi Adrian,
I didn't know how to sign with the four tildes. Thank you for the suggestion!
Cheers!
Jurriaan 10:08, 21 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Hello Adrian -

Thanks for letting me know you removed the Egyptair statistics. I reverted them and am starting a project to add such numbers to all airlines that have Wiki listings. I agree with you - if one has it they all should - and I feel it's important data. NuclearWinner 23:21, 21 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Whops, sorry about removing the pic! I guess I just saw you mention reversion and I went ahead and did so. Should have paid more attention NuclearWinner 22:16, 22 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Nice Woodpigeon Adrian Jim

Heya,

I just wanted to say thanks for all the images you've contributed to Wikipedia. Without you, the place would be a lot poorer!—Eloquence 21:17, 29 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Hi, among the hastily-taken pics I snagged at the Moscow airport, one is of an aircraft that seems to from a "Yakutia" airline which may or may not also be called Sakha, after a region of Siberia - Google finds almost nothing, although there is at least one other spotters' photo online that I found by searching on the tail number(!). Is there some sort of definitive official reference of known airlines, with basic facts about them, in print perhaps, or not otherwise visible to Google? Thanks for any info! Stan 17:00, 30 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Why do you think that the picture on Ford Model A is a replica and not just a restored car? I have heard of replicas being made of '32 coupes and some of the rare old cars. Rmhermen 20:04, Oct 11, 2003 (UTC)

I don't have any knowledge of classic cars so all I could do was quote directly from the typed list the organiser gave me, which called it a replica. In any case, I doubt the reader cares much. Restored, rebuilt or original, the photo will surely look much the same.

Adrian Pingstone 21:57, 12 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for the 40s Cadillac picture on the Cadillac automobile page -- nice car. --Morven 17:58, 17 Oct 2003 (UTC)

They are indeed gorgeous vehicles. The decline of the American automobile has been a slow but continuous one, unfortunately. While Europe still produces a vehicle or two to stir the blood, even if the true golden ages are rather past - America by and large does not, except for the Corvette (still a rather intensely fast and sophisticated machine).

Most fans of the American automobile consider the clock stopped in 1973-75 (about when the double threat of the oil crisis and pollution regulations dealt the American automobile industry a blow it's never really regained its full faculties after).

However, at the very top end things had been trending towards the ordinary for some time -- the American automobile had been 'flattening' in market, the expensive cars becoming more ordinary even as the ordinary became better. The 1950s were probably the end of true opulence at the top end, but one must look earlier for the most beautiful cars.

What's considered the Classic period was around 1925-1947, during which time the most luxurious and expensive American cars were the equal of anyone's. That Cadillac would definitely fit in that category. See the article I mostly wrote at Classic Car Club of America that details the cars (American and otherwise) of that period, and take a look at their web page, http://www.classiccarclub.org/ for more. Duesenbergs and Cadillacs and Packards and Lincolns etc. of that era are quite amazing things. --Morven 07:26, 19 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Austin Princess

• There was a 1940s/50s limousine
• On the evidence of your picture there was a 60s Austin Princess
• There was a 70s wedge- shaped Princess made by Leyland and badged as an Austin

Three completely different cars. The Leyland princess is just the last one. We need another article for the others. Andy G 21:31, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)

That article has now been created & I put the picture of the '60s car in it. --Morven 08:23, 22 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Dear Arp: Hi! How are you? Im having trouble. Go to the Prinair page and see what happned when I tried to place a photo of a Prinair plane that I have been allowed to place by its owner. I need help. Maybe you, the God of airplane photographers if there is such a thing at Wiki, can help me..lol

Thanks, and God bless you!

Sincerely yours, Antonio Rockero Martin

Dear Arp: Thanks for the update on Prinair! From now on, I officially name you Lord of the wikipedia aviation photographers!

BTW, I read your update on the Kalitta page, and had to laugh at myself for thinking Connie Kalitta was a woman..LOL!!

Thanks and God bless you!

Sincerely yours, Antonio T-Bird Martin

Quick search for the logo led me here doule the size and resoluction for a printout on a transfer on ink jet for a holloween costume. Even my friends and NASA's site did not have the quality you had. Bravo.

- Aaron B. GSI Commerce Inc. Babcok St. Melbourne, FL.

Thanks for the thanks but from your message (above) I can't tell which picture you used. Just let me know which article it was on, please. How does NASA relate to Halloween?

Best Wishes, Adrian Pingstone 09:05, 30 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Kia Ora Arp. Would you have a suitable pic to upload to the De Havilland Vampire page. Cheers. Moriori 22:29, 9 Nov 2003 (UTC)

You know about the odd-colored sattelite picture of Paris that I put in, right? That was originally from the Dutch wikipedia. If you want, you can fix that version also. WhisperToMe 02:07, 11 Nov 2003 (UTC)