Met up Randy Z Christmas just gone

I appreciate you writing it up, Richard, but did you have to use that awful Web page style of giving you one bite then forcing you to click and so on? Why not put it all on one page?

GWE

Hi Grant

You made me think about this!

Traditionally, thinking about "bandwidth" in the days of dial-up and the time it took computers time to render pages with images, you made each "page" manageable in size. So you made a succession of "pages", each of which would load in a couple of seconds even on dial-up of old. Of course images are the biggest part of the bandwidth and rendering effort, but the more text the more images accompanying it...

But is that necessary any more?

And even if the number of people on some low-bandwidth connection is underestimated, the chances of them being on a computer less powerful than the first Cray-1 supercomputer (that milestone was passed well over 10 years ago) is minimal, so it will have multi-tasking Operating System, multithreaded browser, etc, etc, etc - all techie stuff I don't get into - and it will be displaying your big long page almost immediately and filling in the images faster than you can read the content...

So maybe I've unquestioningly embedding assumptions from more than 10 years ago without reviewing their relevance.

My one (?) use of modernity - you will see I use Cascading Style Sheets (well I use a single all-site "stylesheet" and it doesn't cascade!), giving a uniform appearance, eg. with margins. Nice, easy and quick. Helped stay with hand-written HTML - text with images.

There is a reason, "for myself" why still work in "pages".

You've got to organise your "story" in your head to make writing it a manageable task. For every HTML page you had to click through - that started as a sheet of writing paper with hand-written notes and sketches of the general ideas of what was going to make up that "topic". So I could sequentially build up my story of my trip to BC and the amazing welder training program - as if it all happened according to some flawless master-plan (it didn't - I glued it together on-the-fly at payphones in far-flung places, while getting through thick snowfalls very uncommon in that part of the Pacific North-West! (driving along with Randy a lot of other drivers had chosen to park their cars on their roofs (they must have been in a hurry to stop and eat that pizza!!!)).

So as I was writing back at home - and getting on with other things (which were pressing!) - at least I was sequentially picking off the writing task in "blocks" between day-to-day stuff...

So I return to you with a question...

What comment or advice can you offer?

Regards

Richard Smith

I think you did an excellent job.

I have gotten through life with using a limited number of knots. After seeing your discussion of rigging, I plan to add the Truckers Hitch.

The bit about using thimbles to reduce friction is something I will remember.

The only thing I can think of that would improve this would be to add a link to a blow up of how to splice an eye in wire rope. The illustration was not quite clear enough for me. Looked like it was a Flemish Eye, but I could not be sure.

=20 Dan

Grant, everyone

If you revisit the link

I tried making it as all one page, apart form a couple of side-branches to off-shot topics - and reckon Grant is correct - it is better. Anyone else agree / disagree?

Richard Smith

Dan

Thanks for the encouraging words. It took a bit of work to do, in reality!

The picture of splicing an eye in a 6-strand steel rope is from the BC Boilermaking Manual (all copyright duly acknowledged and declared).

The section goes over 4 pages and lists a 24-step procedure.

The technique I show is definitely an "eye splice in a steel rope". (a "Flemish eye" is listed and appears to be part-splice and part saddle-clamp).

I quoted it as a source of inspiration. I cannot comment any further

- I never got to work with wire rope.

If you found the rigging part of the "BC Welder Training Program" interesting, perhaps you'd enjoy looking at some of my other rigging work web-pages?

There's

My earliest page on knot and rope skills (don't you come a long way before you realise it in a Trade job?!)

- testing ropes, knots and splices (and the results are astounding to see - eg Fisherman's Knot (an easy bend (!!!) joining two ropes) in 10mm (3/8th inch) cheap polypropylene "builder's merchant" rope broke at 900kg-f)

And there's a diary page of events surrounding using rope for big steel moves (steels much heavier than one person could carry) in Autumn 2008 - has sketches of techniques as couldn't take photos at time

Hi Richard,

I like your single-page approach. It is easier to scroll through one large page. But I do have a fast connection and I appreciate that some people may not be so well off. I think your original paged approach was good but perhaps the pages are too small.

Congratulations on the nice presentation and hand-written page.

Cheers,