First archived talk at User talk:Arpingstone/ArchiveMar3-2003
Second archived talk at User talk:Arpingstone/ArchiveJul10-2003
Third archived talk at User talk:Arpingstone/ArchiveFeb20-2004

I saw your Coot query, Adrian. You're right that the shield should extend onto the head, but I think it's just the angle, so that some of the white is hidden by black head feathers. It's definitely Eurasian Coot, and an adult at that (sub-adults still have a similar shield, but the bill is grey-tipped. Jim

Ha! Jim is too quick for me again. Yup: definatly a Coot. Maybe ours are a little different. I'll look into it after the more important task -- some sleep! (I just got home after a 3-day trip. It's 2:20AM and I'm bushed.) Cheers -- Tannin

If this is still the same coot pic (as at 3 Feb), yes it is a Eurasian Coot; the absence of the 'white piece extending up over the head' indicates that it is an immature; the white shield only reaches full size when it is about a year old. - MPF 15:09, 3 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Seems our thumbnails have gone the way of the dodo. I have a mild workload ahead of me, but I sure don't envy yours.  :) - Hephaestos 14:59, 4 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Hi Adrian, A quick word of thanks for all the effort you've put in adding the many car photographs to articles over the last few months. One small point though - I wonder why nearly all of them are a rear three-quarter view? Do you favour this view for some particular reason or is it accidental? Most illustrative photos of cars tend to go for front 3/4 views. I'm only curious - no criticism intended. Keep up the good work! Graham 05:42, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Hey Adrian: Thanks for the support , buddy! I have begun uploading photos of boxers to their pages. Preferably, when they are hitting an important opponent cause I think those photos are awesome. Of course, after asking for permission first. But I enlisted Maio for that because I dont want to over load you with work! I have permission for a Mexicana de Aviacion jetliner but permit was given two years ago almost. I also will ask for permission of a Delta Airlines jet. My love affair with Delta dates back to 1980 when I first flew and it was on Delta, to Orlando from SJU. Thank God dad didnt choose the alternative, Eastern Airlines, cause then my favorite airline would be gone now! LOL!

But Im gonna re ask for the Mexicana permit and ask for the Delta permit in March, so not to overload you with work! BTW I love Mexicana too although I never flew them: Theirs was one of the first planes I could recognize at SJU when I was about nine..LOL

I even knew at what time Mexicana was arriving , I ususally made grandpa wait until seven PM so we coud see the Mexicana DC-10 or 727's arrival! LOL same with Viasa and Iberia.

Well, thanks for the support with this reddice guy. He seems to me to be one who doesnt get jokes. Oh well, we must deal with everyone...LOL

Thnaks and God bless you!

Sincerely yours, Antonio stuck in the 80s Music Martin (ps: Im listening to a 80s music cd right now hence the nick..lol)

Hi Adrian - These two really belong on the Tadorninae page, not the Goose page - OK if I move them? - MPF 23:37, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Thanks; done. I've also moved the (broken) links for a Falcated Duck pic from Dabbling duck to Talk:Dabbling duck (and similarly for Coscoroba Swan on the Anatidae page); if the links can be repaired I'll put them back. MPF 20:41, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Do I have your permission to delete our discussion at Talk:Giant sequoia? I'm just trying to 1) follow Wikipedia:Wikiquette and 2) not leave a mess for search engines. -- hike395 07:06, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Dear Arp: Hi1 My friend from Puerto Rico is having trouble finding the images I want him to download. I need to ask you another favor: Can I please direct you to the exact page with the photo Ive been given permission to portray both of Wilfred and Clara Benitez and then have you download them?

And I need to ask, exactly what system to I need in my memory to be able to transport photo files from my files to wikipedia and how do I get that system and is it expensive?

Thank you and God bless you!

Sincerely yours, Antonio Angel on my left shoulder, demon on my right one Martin

Dear Arp; Hey, thanks for the help1Im gonna call the Benitez family tomorrow, they will surely like the way it looks,as much as I do.

I need tutorial on how to upload photo files from your computer to wikipedia, what program do you need ect.

I wanted to ask how much did you enjoy your experience at Britih Aerospace? Must have seen a lot of airplanes from different airlines ah? I know if Icant become famous Id surely love getting a job at Airbus, for example, in the future..LOL I mean, imagine, Ive seen many different North American, European and Latin American airliners in person,but I was lucky one time that I saw one of Saudi Arabian Airlines after an unscheduled stop herein Phoenix once! So I bet it must have been fun seeing all those planes from airlines worldwide while at BIa!.

Well, Thats all for now. Thanks and Godbless you!

Sincerely yours, Antonio Flying High Martin

Hi Adrian. You might be interested in what I wrote at User talk:Hike395 just now. I adressed that to Hike, and won't waste server space by copying it over here as well, but read it over and feel free to jump in with a comment if you like. Best -- Tannin 11:00, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I went ahead and replaced the discussion at Talk:Giant sequoia with a 2 sentence summary. If you think that was a mistake, please feel free to revert or re-summarize. I think the discussion at User talk:Tannin states our positions nicely. -- hike395 18:19, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

text-align:center doesn't work with all browsers, and mess the page up. IE 5 place the image in centre of the page instead. Nico 16:50, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Ok, I see. I guess it's not a very big problem, though (it looks like this). Anyway, I think there now are a new and more simple standard for pictures, see Prussia. Nico 17:05, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Hello, Adrian Pingstone, and thank you for the good point and corrections in the iris photo caption and iridology talk pages. Highly appreciated :-) Now, we are begging for an iris photograph :-) Sincerely, irismeister 14:18, 2004 Feb 18 (UTC)

250 pixels is certainly good; especially when you're using the 'thumb' parameter that puts that (rather ugly, so far) border around the image. Good thing with the new code is that it's just a quick edit to change the size! However, when not using 'thumb' in the attributes, 300px doesn't look over big, IMO.

I've been putting up pics of most of the US military types that lack them, too. —Morven 20:19, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Hi. We've decided that we need to tag all images because of all the dodgy images on wikipedia. As you release your (really good) images into the public domain I've been tagging them with {{msg:PD}}. As you point out the wording of this needs to be changed as yours are public domain internationally. Secretlondon 12:20, Feb 21, 2004 (UTC)

I think we should make the international PD the default. The current message is really designed for images that are copyright expired in the US. The idea behind tagging is so that images can be filtered. At the moment some using wikipedia can't really use any of the images as there is no way of filtering out American fair use, etc. This is what I'm doing - so a third party user can keep the legal ones. I hope this makes sense. :Secretlondon 12:28, Feb 21, 2004 (UTC)

Adrian - I've sorted it. Please add {{subst:PD}} to your images. I've made the US specific one {{subst:PD-US}}. It reads This image has been released into the public domain by the author. This applies worldwide. See Copyright. ::Secretlondon 13:22, Feb 21, 2004 (UTC)

That's good. I'll add the worldwide message to future pics and go back little by little over the relevant old ones! Thanks for sorting that out.

Adrian Pingstone 18:21, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

As I updated the message, it seems to have updated it on the image pages. But do check, all the same. Secretlondon 18:27, Feb 21, 2004 (UTC)

You may be interested in the Public Domain Dedication and dedication form from Creative Commons. Martin 18:09, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Dear Arp: Hi1 How are you? I discussed with another friend, the other Puerto Rican guy, about the addition of a photo in the Menudo article. The website has not been updated in two years, and my friend told me something that I could download it based on free usage or something because the site hasnt been changed in two years so the webmaster probably doesnt keep it anymore etc, etc. I asked for permission but wasnt answered.

Anyways Im gonna send it to you and if you believe it grants being here, let me know.

Thanks and God bless you!

Sincerely yours, Antonio Menudomania at full Martin

Hi Adrian, do you still object to deleting the thumbnails listed on Wikipedia:Images for deletion now that the thumbnail code has been in for a while? silsor 00:10, Feb 25, 2004 (UTC)

Hi - yes, it was me who moved Embraer ERJ 145. I used ERJ-145 because searching the web, it seems to be the most common way to render the name. However, you're right - there should be no dash and I've corrected this. Will add appropriate redirects. Cheers --Rlandmann 22:11, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)

You might also like to take a look at what we're doing over at Wikipedia:WikiProject Aircraft and perhaps especially at the civil aircraft benchmark at Wikipedia:WikiProject Aircraft/checklist (civil) - we still need an article on the BAe Jetstream, for example ;) --Rlandmann 23:57, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Oops again. I was working from a US Navy fact sheet, but further investigation seems to show the USN using both "Sea Hawk" and "Seahawk" interchangably, but with "Seahawk" more common. I'll revert. --Rlandmann 14:27, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Thanks Adrian, I'll write articles as and when I get the chance. jimfbleak

I'm no expert on cameras. My Fuji Finepix 4700 is mechanically and optically good, but only 3X optical zoom, not interchangeable nor screw-on to my telescope. Jim. Incidentally, this page is at 39kb. ---

==USAF Museum photos== On futher looking, you are probably correct (that they are *not* normally okay to post). I just *assumed* USAF photos and did a real quick look thru the USAF museum info itself. Guess I should learn to look closer! Anyway, I found replacement photos (from NASA!!!), but can't seem to get them to replace the old ones (using the same filename)... Guess this is gonna be one my 'stupid' days. Thanx for pointing it out though!!! ---serak 21:34, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Hi Adrian. Cameras ..... Tough choice! I can only really comment on the Nikons in any detail. I have a Coolpix 4500 (well, two of them now) which is a little over-priced, 4MP, 4X zoom, very neat and clever in lots of ways, and drives me crazy with its shutter delay. The delay is about 0.7 sec. Doing wildlife stuff (as I do) that makes it mega-frustrating, but for digiscoping the CoolPix 4500 is petty much the only game in town. Nothing else fits onto a scope and performs as wel as the Nikon does. (With nearly all others, you get a lot of vignetting.)

That estimated 0.7sec is including focus delay, so you'd stil find it better than your Oly, but I doubt you'd be saisfied.

What would I get if I were you? (i.e., not digiscoping.) First, I'd listen to EricD's advice (on my talk page). Eric is much better informed than I am about cameras in general. Second, I think I'd bite the bullet and make up my mind to wait another 6 to 12 months, and then buy an SLR.

Digital SLRs are really starting to threaten decent value now. There is the new Canon, essentially a 10D with a plastic body and slightly downgraded electronics, that is getting excellent reports and about 2X the price of a Coolpix. More interesting still is the new small Pentax. Give the Pentax three or four months to start biting into Canon's market share at the DSLR entry-level point, and it's price war time. Good for buyers! Say ... oh ... any time from Octover or so onwards. Better yet, just after Xmas is usually a good time. Retailers are flat and manufacturers try to sweeten things up for them.

I know that isn't what you wanted to hear, but I am not aware of a non-SLR digital camera that will really do what you want yet.

Finally, some random thoughts.

• Ignore "digital zoom". It's complete maketing crap. Serves no purpose whatever. Optical or nothing.
• Try to avoid non-standard flash card formats (i.e., Sony Memory Stick, XD, all those other weird ones. Real cameras use genuine Compact Flash.
• When calculating the cost of the camera, be sure to include the cost of at least one set of spare batteries (more likely two sets - I have 5 batteries plus an in-car charger, and it's only just enough), and plenty of flash cards. The more megapixels the camera, the faster you go through flash cards, as your images take more space.

Best of luck with your purchase! Tannin 11:57, 1 Mar 2004 (UTC)