I think they have been lowering the Bar on the President ever since Clinton, maybe even before…but I know when G.W. was elected the people were ready for anyone else but slick Willie and a Pseudo- Texan fit the Bill, Then after all the years of war the people were ready for someone to come in and say they were going to stop the war and offer hope and change…now with all the lies over the last 6 years and him just being totally weak especially on foreign affair issues and the 100 million dollar vacation…I think you are right they will screaming for a person like Rambo to step in and take over…The people behind the scenes up there know what they are doing and they do it very well!

I wanted to drop my $.02 in response to offer another option to the caller who wants to record conversations with his father. With the disclaimer that I’ve used all the rigs Jack suggested and they all worked well for me, except an early version of Pamela, which kicked my butt, but that doesn’t apply to the caller.

I’d suggest looking at the Tascam DR-40 (or similar digital recorders) as an excellent recording option for one on one interviews. I mount mine on the table with a tiny tripod. The onboard microphones should do the job but it also has 2 external microphone xlr inputs with phantom power, so you can go pretty much use whatever microphones you want. But I have the feeling if you keep your rig simple you’ll get the best interview.

*** Whatever rig you use , I’d have a few practice conversations with a willing participant before recording with your father. That will help you work out microphone placement and level issues or whatever bugs with your computer, software or other rig pop up. More importantly, by getting familiar with your rig now, you can focus on your conversation more and your equipment less, which will greatly improve the quality of the content of your recording.

Also ditto on Audacity is being a great audio software.

I’ve made great sounding field recordings on the Zoom H4 and H4N, haven’t tried the new H5 yet. I’ve been able to get reasonable quality from a speaker outdoors from several feet away. All of the advice that Jack gave is really good especially about keeping the mic close. Every time you double the distance from the mic you get 1/4 the sound. When dealing with basic audio recordings I too use Audacity.

At 1:52:29 Jack states “Root biomass is (…) generally at least equal to above ground biomass for most plants and trees.”
I have heard this claim for many years, though have not heard a source for the claim. Most of the roots from fallen or road-cut trees I see, indicate that the root mass is only a few percent of the above-ground mass. Exceptions include young trees, especially oak and eucalyptus trees with tap roots.
“On the Maximum Extent of Tree Roots” shows most (though not all) trees have shallow roots:
http://soilslab.cfr.washington.edu/publications/Stone&Kalicz-1991.pdf
A recent trip to the Yosemite Rim Fire area showed that the 5 or so species of conifers toppled by the fire have very shallow roots which could have been as low as 1% of the mass of the above-ground tree.

I shert mulched a bed and mulched it with straw. Before any of my greens came up I had grass growing. Pulled the frass out and found it was coming from seed heads.I couldn’t keep up with it so decided to cover all but the one row of greens that came up with newspaper. I was out if compost by then so I topped it with some cheap potting soil from the grocery store. Big mistake. I think it may have been municipal sludge. Nothing would grow in it and one of the greens near it tastes horrible. I do finnaly have some red romaine that was under the newspaper growing through. I’m wonderimg if I should try to scape the soil off or just chop and drop the greens and mulch over for next year.

Hey Jack, I was disappointed to see you missed the simplest explanation for the Ukraine incident. I think it is a mistake to look for who has to gain anything from this event, and remember that you don’t need malice to explain this where absolute incompetence will suffice.

I think the most likely explanation is that someone screwed up. I don’t know who screwed up, my guess is the “rebels”, but that is secondary. As you said, you can probably train someone in weeks or less how to press buttons on those missile systems, but it probably takes a bit longer to train someone to competently differentiate between a military transport and an airliner. I think the simplest explanation is that a half trained “rebel”, eager to get a Ukrainian aircraft kill notch on his figurative gun stock, for personal and publicity reasons, saw a bleep on his screen and not being able to tell the difference between types of bleeps rushed to press a button.

The gear being likely smarter then the operator did the rest.

Falling for conspiracy theories, on either side of this issue is not necessary, because people frack up. I don’t think anyone on either side had any interest in killing a plane full of civilians.