I have previously described Twin Peaks as not much of a hike, which is absolutely true if you drive there. When I first moved to San Francisco I lived in Noe Valley and used to cycle up to Twin Peaks and then try to get home without pedalling. For many years after that I'd take visitors up to the top and developed a somewhat weird tradition of taking each new child there soon after they were released from the hospital.

Post lockdown I'm up there most weeks. This is my five mile loop which starts heading up Ulloa from West Portal to Portola. Portola breaks the climb briefly as you pass the striking herchurch and controversial Twin Peaks gas station before heading up Twin Peaks Boulevard to the 922 foot summits. For a while Twin Peaks Boulevard was entirely closed to traffic (although you really had to keep an eye out for high speed skateboarders). Unfortunately it's now open all the way to Christmas Tree Point. Head down the north side to Clarendon and follow this all the way down to Forest Hill and then back to West Portal.

(Previously: Twin Peaks 360 4K, Twin Peaks, San Francisco from Twin Peaks)

Hike starts at: 37.741879, -122.471354. View in Google Earth.

Updated 2023-08-10 03:02:

Hyperlapse of this hike from August 9, 2023.

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(Hike Map)

(Published to the Fediverse as: Twin Peaks Loop #hike #sanfrancisco #twinpeaks #coronavirus #map #video #hikevid #sfdogwalk Five mile loop hike from West Portal up Ulloa and Portola to the 922 foot summits of Twin Peaks and then back down Clarendon and Forest Hill. )

During the pandemic induced lockdowns last year we started hiking locally using random trails generated by Routeshuffle. Sometimes these were repetitive death marches along indistinguishable avenues (my kids would say 100% of the time). A few have emerged as favorites that I walk regularly and I'm going to add these to the ITHCWY hike collection.

Remnants in the Sunset is a three mile loop named for the islands of rock and dunes visited along the way. The west of San Francisco used to be all dunes and these parks are now all that remains of that original ecosystem.

Walk up 15th Avenue from Taraval to Grandview Park. Go up the steps, admire the view and then down the other side and follow 14th Avenue to Rocky Outcrop Park. This is a wind tunnel with houses on one side and cliffs on the other. Then head up to Golden Gate Heights Park and Larsen Peak at 755 feet. The return leg down Pacheco and Magellan provides views of Hawk Hill which has some unofficial trails but is closed to the public.

(Previously: Grand View of Fog, Post Storm Sunset)

Hike starts at: 37.741905, -122.471336. View in Google Earth.

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• Sunset Dunes
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(Hike Map)

(Published to the Fediverse as: Remnants in the Sunset #hike #sanfrancisco #coronavirus #map Three mile loop hike visiting the Remnants in the Sunset: Grandview Park, Rocky Outcrop Park, Golden Gate Heights Park and Hawk Hill in San Francisco, California. )

A four mile out and back hike from the Palo Alto Baylands Nature Preserve trailhead. Interesting wetlands with lots of birds and some good views over the bay.

Hike starts at: 37.433507, -122.098799. View in Google Earth.

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• Richards Fire Road
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(Hike Map)

(Published to the Fediverse as: Adobe Creek #hike #paloalto #pelican #map Four mile hike in the Palo Alto Baylands Nature Preserve, California. Wetlands with many birds and bay views. )

This is the third batch of crystals from our National Geographic Mega Crystal Growing Lab kit (see the previous two).

I have been meaning to experiment with Adobe's Super Resolution technology and this seemed like a good project for it. The video below has the same timelapse sequence repeated three times. If you're not bored of crystals growing yet you soon will be (don't worry, this is the last for now). The first version is a 2x digital zoom - a 960x540 crop of the original GoPro footage. The second version uses Super Resolution to scale up to full 1920x1080 HD. Finally I added both side by side so you can try to tell the difference.

Super Resolution generates a lot of data. I tried to use it once before for a longer sequence and realized that I didn't have enough hard drive space to process all the frames. In this case I upscaled the 960x540 JPEGs which went from 500K to 13MB, quite a jump. I don't see a huge difference in the side by side video though and wouldn't go through the extra steps based on these results. It's possible that going to JPEG before applying super resolution didn't help with quality. It's also possible that Adobe doesn't train its AI on a large array of crystal growth photos so I can imagine it might work better for a more traditional landscape timelapse. I'll test both these hypotheses together the next time I 10x my storage.

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(More Timelapses)

(Published to the Fediverse as: Adobe Super Resolution Timelapse (Crystal Growth) #timelapse #crystals #ml #video Time lapse using Adobe Super Resolution to upscale each frame before creating the video (source is crystals growing over two weeks with photos every five minutes). )

We have tried Common Core, Race to the Top, Charter Schools and No Child Left Behind. The US ranks #37 in math according to PISA, behind China, Russia, and Estonia. And we're not making any progress:

"Test scores on the federally funded National Assessment of Educational Progress—known as “the Nation’s Report Card—have been stagnant for the past decade. The scores of the lowest-ranked students declined."

Of course poverty, ideology and unions all play a role here. But none of these challenges are unique to the US. I think the problem is sports.

Something that has always bothered me as I travel around America is that most schools primarily identify themselves by their sports team. Home of the Tigers! Or whatever. What must that do to the majority of non-Tigers turning up for school every day. Nice work on the math test but the only thing we're actually proud of is the football team.

Sports are important of course, to build teamwork and for exercise and as a future career for a tiny minority of students. Nearly everything else the school does is far more impactful.

An important and easy (although likely unpopular) Federal education reform would be to force schools to promote all extracurricular activities equally. Schools could choose to promote nothing and just be a school (like the vast majority of the rest of the world). Or they could give each activity, club and society an equal share of their jumbotron to represent the full diversity of the student body.

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(All Politics Posts)

(Published to the Fediverse as: Home of the Whatevers #politics #education Ban promoting sports teams at the expense of other activities, a Federal education reform that might actually work. )

• Catfood WebCamSaver Settings
• General
• Webcams
• Advanced
• Catfood WebCam Browser
• Installation and Support for Catfood WebCamSaver
• Customer Reviews

Catfood WebCamSaver is a Windows screen saver that streams live views from random webcams around the world. Download for Windows. You can choose to display 1, 4 or 16 webcams at the same time, and WebCamSaver fully supports multiple monitors. Catfood WebCamSaver was first released in 2004.

Download Catfood WebCamSaver

Catfood WebCamSaver Settings

When you install Catfood WebCamSaver a shortcut is created to Screen Saver Settings. You can search for Catfood WebCamSaver Settings and run the shortcut, or open Screen Saver Settings directly (on Windows 10, Start -> Settings -> Personalization -> Lock screen -> Screen saver settings). From Screen Saver Settings make sure that Catfood WebCamSaver is selected and then click Settings. On the Windows settings dialog you can also choose how many minutes to wait before starting the selected screen saver and if the login screen should be displayed when the screen saver exits.

Catfood WebCamSaver Settings has three tabs:

General

Under Description choose if the description of the webcam and the local time if available should be displayed. Click Font to pick the font, color, and optional outline color to use for the description and time.

Under Display choose the number of webcams to show at the same time (1, 4 or 16), how often to switch to a new webcam and how often to refresh the webcam image.

Under Offline Display you can choose a fallback screensaver to start if the Internet is not available.

Webcams

Please note that recent releases of WebCamSaver will delete and recreate the webcam list on install. This means you will lose any customization of the list on upgrade. See the import and export instructions below to back up any changes you have made.

The Webcams list shows the current library of webcams. Click the column headers to sort (and click again to sort in the opposite direction). You can enable to disable a specific cam using the checkbox in the list.

Click Add to enter details for a new webcam.

When a webcam in the list is selected click Open to launch the web page associated with the webcam, Edit to update details or Delete to remove it from the list entirely.

Click Delete All to remove all webcams from the list.

Click Enable All or Disable All to toggle the checkboxes for all webcams in the list.

You can save your customized list by clicking Export and restore it by clicking Import.

Advanced

If you prefer day (or night) scenes you can set a local time range here. If this option is enabled webcams where the time zone is unknown will never be displayed.

Click Proxy Settings to configure a proxy server.

Catfood WebCam Browser

Catfood WebCam Browser is a companion application installed with WebCamSaver. When you open WebCam Browser it will start showing a random webcam from the library.

Pick Cam opens a window where you can select a webcam to view from the full list. You can sort the list (click any column header, click again to sort the opposite direction). There is also a filter that only shows webcams matching text that you enter.

Random Cam will select a new webcam at random from the list and start streaming images.

Control Cam launches a URL where you can control the currently selected webcam (if available).

About shows the version and copyright information for the application.

Installation and Support for Catfood WebCamSaver

Catfood WebCamSaver requires version 4.8 of the .NET Framework. You almost certainly have this already and the installer will download it if necessary. The installer for Catfood WebCamSaver is digitally signed. You may get a warning about it being infrequently used which you will need to ignore to install.

For support please visit this post, check to see if your issue has already been addressed and if not leave a new comment.

Customer Reviews

“We LOVE your screen saver. I've seen others try this idea, but never quite seemed to get it right.” Buddy King

“The other day I watched as a middle aged couple in Japan took photos of the changing orange leaves along a calm street. I saw another couple, some tourists, digging for their sunscreen on the beach in Kona, HI.” MIT Center for Future Civic Media Blog

“I've been fascinated by your ‘saver’! It strikes me that so many different places & cultures seem to share some common traits, so that each saver appears to be both familiar and exotic.” Tom

“Very nice screensaver. One of the best I've seen.” Andy Cant

“As a live webcam afficionado, I believe your product is the best, offering high quality resolution, reliable transmissions, a nice blend of everyday street scenes with landscape views, and multiple cam shots filling the entire widescreen page.” Oliver Garrison

“The new version is wonderful. I love being able to sort by age (so I'll never miss a new addition), and I love how easy it is to select my favourites. Basically, I love everything about it. It's so much fun, and brings so much variety to the screen. I have my favourite cams - The streets of Narbonne, that crazy Japanese wind-speed screen, the flag-filled car-park of a Dutch retail park - But it's always fun to leave this screensaver on random and let it transport me to a completely new place.” James

“I have to say that I am enjoying the sights that I am able to see on the web cam. The views are very clear and they are never the same shots. I like being able to show off my new screensaver. Thank you.” Isaac Adel

“Hi, I just love your web cam, I enjoy looking around the world at places I have never been to. Whoever thought up this idea, gets a 10/10 from me.” Lynne

Updates

• Catfood WebCamSaver 3.22
• Catfood WebCamSaver 3.31
• Catfood WebCamSaver 3.30
• Catfood WebCamSaver 3.29.0002
• Catfood WebCamSaver 3.28
• Catfood WebCamSaver 3.27
• Catfood WebCamSaver 3.26
• Catfood WebCamSaver 3.25
• Catfood WebCamSaver 3.24
• Catfood WebCamSaver 3.21
• Catfood WebCamSaver 3.20

Catfood WebCamSaver 3.22

Catfood WebCamSaver 3.22 is available to download. This release updates the webcam list.

Catfood WebCamSaver 3.31

Catfood WebCamSaver 3.31 is available to download. This includes the latest update to the webcam list.

Catfood WebCamSaver 3.30

Catfood WebCamSaver 3.30 is now available to download. This release contains the latest webcam updates.

Catfood WebCamSaver 3.29.0002

Catfood WebCamSaver 3.29 is now available to download.

This release updates the webcam list and includes a selection of new webcams provided by a long-time user.

Catfood WebCamSaver 3.28

Catfood WebCamSaver 3.28 is available to download.

This release updates the webcam list.

Catfood WebCamSaver 3.27

Catfood WebCamSaver 3.27 is available to download.

This release contains the latest webcam list and will upgrade any current set of webcams. I'm currently releasing updates for WebCamSaver every three months with the latest cams.

Catfood WebCamSaver 3.26

Catfood WebCamSaver 3.26 is available to download.

This update includes the latest list of webcams. It has also been updated to use .NET 4.8 which means it will install with no additional downloads needed on Windows 10 and 11. The installer is now signed. You might get a warning from Defender about the program being infrequently used, you will need to ignore this to install. Lastly WebCamSaver will now automatically check for updates so you'll get a desktop notification when a new version is available.

Catfood WebCamSaver 3.25

Catfood WebCamSaver 3.25 is available for download. This release includes the latest webcam list.

Catfood WebCamSaver 3.24

Catfood WebCamSaver 3.24 is available for download. This release includes an update to the default list of webcams.

(Previously: Catfood WebCamSaver 3.21)

Catfood WebCamSaver 3.21

Catfood WebCamSaver 3.21 is available for download.

This update fixes a screensaver install issue on recent versions of Windows 10 and has the latest webcam list.

Catfood WebCamSaver 3.20

Catfood WebCamSaver 3.20 is available for download.

WebCamSaver is a Windows screensaver that shows you a feed from open web cameras around the world. It also includes WebCamBrowser which allows you to explore the directory and launch a URL where you can control each cam.

Version 3.20 includes an updated list of working webcams - if you are an existing user this will replace any current list the first time you run the updated version.

(Previously)

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(All Code Posts)

(Published to the Fediverse as: Catfood WebCamSaver #code #webcamsaver #catfood #webcam #screensaver #webcam #software #webcams #screensaver A Windows screen saver that displays live webcams from around the world. Supports 1, 4 or 16 webcams per monitor (multi-display setups fully supported). Free download. )