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 Friday,
October 6
0815
We are again
waiting for the daily fog to lift, so check back soon for
more 16-way competition.
0930
I have photos posted from last night's 8-way awards on
yesterday's tidbits. Many
thanks to Paige Macdonald for the photos! Um, at 1000 we
are still fogged in. The competitors have just been
released until noon. I hear they are jumping in Florida
and Arizona ;-)
1200
The meet director has just released all competitors
until 1400. Solid overcast at grande.
Hey you fellow techno geeks out there: the webmaster
has a mysterious hardware problem. Who ever solves it gets
a free nationals video. Here it is: I have a new 60 gig
UDMA hard drive for AV editing (D drive). It worked fine for days
after installing it. Then one day it mysteriously decided
that it was no longer a DMA compatible drive and will now
work only in PIO mode (and therefore won't handle DV
capture or playback). This is the case regardless of
whether I boot to Win98 or Win2000 or yes even Linux 2.
Anyone? By the way, my C drive (not the new 60 gig) is
UDMA, same manufacturer (Maxtor), has the same driver, and
it stays in DMA mode no problem. MB is an Iwill, Pentium
III 500, all late great hardware and BIOS.
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I have to say that
with more thought, I strongly agree with Rob's
position. While I 100% support the integration of
the videographer into a 100% member of the team,
there is definite merit in his views. Rob alludes to
the fact but does not come out and directly say it,
so I will... If a formation cannot be scored because
of video angle, framing etc. then it would be almost
hypocritical to penalize it as well (If you can't
see it well enough to credit it, you can't see it
well enough to penalize it). The point simply does
not count. I know and support the view that teams
need to prove to the judges a point in order to be
credited, but as with most things, it has its
limitations. There is no incentive to top level
teams between choosing an O or J, they both hurt and
everybody works hard at eliminating them both. To me
the discrepancy comes in, not with the rules but the
lack of consistency in judging. You would know
better than I how to fix that, but I believe that
remains the area where this problem needs to be
fixed. Have all the judges on the same page prior to
the meet commencing on when to score a J or not.
- Graham Harding
T2 responds:
I too agree with many of Rob's points, but not his
fundamental position. If the judges are to determine
what is a J or 0 before a meet starts, by what
standards are the teams supposed to train at all
year before the meet? I still challenge anyone to
submit an objective definition that separates in
black and white when a non-judgeable formation is
the team's fault or the camera flyer's fault. What
distance? What angle? If you want consistency in
judging, you need objective rules that can be
applied without discussing who is at fault. |
1400
The competitors have just been released until 1600. This
morning I posed the following question to Dan BC:
“Is Airspeed going to represent the U.S. in 8-way at the
World Meet next year?” To which he responded,
“We are going to discuss the possibilities and make an
announcement in a couple of weeks. We want to be sure the
U.S. fields the best possible team in both 4- and
8-way.” I like that answer. At 1500 it's still
cloudy here and we're all sitting around reading books and
watching videos while I work on my computer. Speaking of
my computer, I'll be using it to make the Nationals
video, and I can promise you it will be my best video
ever. I know this because Wendy Smith and Michael McGowan
have been shooting lots of cool footage for me to use in
addition to all the stock competition footage. I'm playing
one of Wendy's rough edits on DZTV right now and it's
excellent stuff! 1600
The illustrious Meet Director has just called it a
day. Not one load got off the ground. So much for the
forecast! See you bright and early tomorrow! ;-) T2
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