This week the meeting of the local Audubon group was a presentation of the connections between birds and dinosaurs. {It’s complicated.} The presenter is knowledgeable and the information was interesting. No issues.
The problem – and this may be just local – was getting started.
With a start time of 7:00pm, at about 10 minutes to 7, the local coordinator turned on the computer and the projector and proceeded to bring up a ZOOM screen. At 7:15 the hassles reigned. We were treated to watching the arrow cursor move around the screen with clicks here and there – or not – with sometimes something happening. What didn’t happen was a working system. The cursor moving and clicking repeatedly move to the same buttons with similar results.
We could see the intended presenter and several people in their homes waiting. They could hear the speaker. The in-attendance folks could not. At about 7:20 I was about to leave. At the moment my attention left the screen the proper sequence of clicks brought the system to life. I don’t know what was done and I don’t think the coordinator knows.
The blame is laid on others that use the system. Audubon meets once a month in an annex to the public library. Three or four times each year a ZOOM meeting is tried – always with the same results. The library owns the equipment, and others do use it. Do they muck it up or is it too complicated for an average human to learn how to use it? Inquiring minds want to know.
Of the presentations I have seen – maybe 30 total – a major drawback is the lack of awareness of the speaker. A common problem is too close focus on the face and moving away and back. Waving hands across the view is a problem. This might not be an issue if you are in a 200 to 500 seat auditorium watching a person up front on a stage. On Zoom, the speaker almost always has something distracting going on. Last night several pages of notes repeatedly traversed the screen, no purpose, just distracting.
On other occasions the speaker holds something to show but it is as frequently off screen as on. Often the lighting is dim. Sometimes the speaker seems to be looking everywhere except at the camera.
Count me as unimpressed.
I was in town 20 minutes early and so did a circuit of several blocks. I was walking past a small bus stop shelter and noticed a small bicycle therein. I stopped and when my sight adjusted to the view I recognized there was a blanket covered human there. Temperature was 40°F. From under the bench and the blanket a medium size dog’s head appeared, giving me an inquisitive look. We made eye contact and departed company.
A cold weather shelter in Ellensburg will open on Monday at a local church and operate nightly until March. It will be about 15 blocks (¾ mile) from that bus stop.
Local lure on the Naneum Fan has it that we will get snow on the ground 10 days after the hills just to my north. The weather folks that hill snow will come Tuesday evening. For me, then, snow should appear on December 5th.
I need to be done with outside chores by then.
Keeping Track
on the Naneum Fan
John