On the road again! Today, Beth Jukuri gives us a little lesson in roadside beauty, titled, “Summer Roads on my Route”. Summer roads in the country, like on Beth’s mail route are mostly dirt/gravel surfaces, so they get dry and pretty dusty, but even with that, you can’t beat the beauty of the colorful wildflowers that grow alongside these roads. I’ve been noticing some of the same while riding my bike.

Beth snapped a great bunch of Lupines, both pink and various shades of purple, but I absolutely love the small splash of yellow from the buttercup flowers that snuck in the middle of them. Who doesn’t remember holding these dainty yellow flowers under your chin to see if you like butter? If the shiny leaves reflect yellow on your chin, you “like butter”. But what it really means is that buttercup petals reflect light well.

The bottom photo is Bird’s-Foot Trefoil and also grows wild on the side of the road. Back when we were farming, we would plant that in our hay fields, as it adds excellent nutritional value in hay or even just in the pasture for the cows to eat. Not to mention it’s pretty to look at, too.

We have an Upper Peninsula Wildflower video from Douglas Feltman, who said he found most of these wildflowers along U.P. roads or in a local field or forest.

Love the lupines!

Was thinking of you UC since this was THE DAY until they moved it to July. We'll see if that one sticks!

Beautiful pix and video!
UC...bad start, good finish! I want to see a pic of you standing at High Rock when this is over, dude.

Make sure to watch the video in full screen at full resolution and 60 FPS.

I'd never seen a Lupine until the U.P. showed me.

Speaking of roadside flowers, I could never figure out who's guarding whom here:

D. A. (Midwested)
"Make sure to watch the video in full screen at full resolution and 60 FPS.
I'd never seen a Lupine until the U.P. showed me. …"

60 FPS? How do I make Yoot Toob do dat?
And exactly what is a "frame" in a digital video, as opposed to a film, with actual "frames"?

FRNash,

There are 2 factors that determine the final video quality. 1) what is the quality (or choice of qualities) of the source? and 2) what is the capability of your video display device?

The visual quality of a video source is usually adjustable via the little gear "settings" icon in the lower right corner. The "auto" selection typically picks the best options for your "Yoot Toob" (or whatever one has). Video displays have a variety of quality settings based on the internal technology. My flat screen only handles up to the old version of HD which was 1920w x 1080h pixels but does go up to 144 FPS. Your "Yoot Toob" may very well use a large glass vacuum tube and if so is probably limited to only 30 FPS (and almost certainly less than 1080 pixel height.) If so you need a new display. There are some super ones out there. At the high end you'll have a great deal of trouble finding video quality that will push their capabilities.

Original film is only 24 FPS. That was a minimum update rate to avoid flicker in your eyes. This is possible due to a persistence in the receptors or your eyes. American television adopted 30 frames per second (29.97 actually and only 525 pixels high)

Ain't no mess'n with D.A., he got's college.

The purple flowers in the guardrail photo are Vetch. Always a lovely Keweenaw early summer favorite.

D. A. (Midwested)
"FRNash,
… The visual quality of a video source is usually adjustable via the little gear 'settings' icon in the lower right corner. The "auto" selection typically picks the best options for your 'Yoot Toob' …"

FRNash,

You selected the "Playback Speed" choice.
Try the "Quality" selector.

The various vertical resolutions in pixels will be shown. These are the various forms in which the video has been encoded. Today's video is available in 144, 240, 360, 480, 720, 1080, 1440 and 2160. Not all of these may show up depending on your browser and display adapter. The "auto" feature tries to pick the maximum resolution it thinks your system can handle. The "p" suffix designates progressive scan which means non-interlaced. Interlaced uses "i". You don't see interlaced video much anymore. The FPS sometimes is simply tacked on as additional suffix as in today's video, other times it is more explicit as in "60 FPS". On my computer, resolutions higher than 480 were only available at 60 FPS. (e.g. 1080p60 was my "auto" setting.) Other videos have FPS choices for the same resolution. Offering lower settings keeps things friendly for people on slower internet connections.

Don
B.S.E.E. MTU '76

Love the photos + the video. Colorful.

D. A. (Midwested):
"FRNash,
You selected the "Playback Speed" choice."

Strange, I woulda thunk that "FPS (Feet-Per-Second) was in fact a "Playback Speed". Silly me!

"Try the 'Quality' selector.
… On my computer, resolutions higher than 480 were only available at 60 FPS. (e.g. 1080p60 was my "auto" setting.)

Okay, Quality referring to "resolution" makes complete sense.

"… The FPS sometimes is simply tacked on as additional suffix as in today's video, other times it is more explicit as in '60 FPS'."

So for me the Quality option shows: Auto, 144p, 240p, 360p, 480p, 720p60, 1080p60HD, 1440p60HD and 2160p60HD.

I guess I'm supposed to intuit that the "60" suffix, where present, means "FPS"? Okay, sort of.

(Of course the concept of "Feet-Per-Second" seems monumentally stoopid in a digital video recording, where there there are no "feet" as in real "film".)

Perhaps that is a reference to Adm. Grace Murray Hopper's "foot"? 😉

She was famous for her nanoseconds visual aid. People (such as generals and admirals) used to ask her why satellite communication took so long. She started handing out pieces of wire that were just under one foot long (11.8 inches (30 cm)) — the distance that light travels in one nanosecond.

FRNash,

The list of various qualities available under the "Quality" selector is what the producer of the video decided to make available. The Frames Per Second rate is integral to the encoding (or production) of the video stream. Sometimes they encode the video of a given vertical resolution at both 30 FPS and 60 FPS.

The potentially confusing method of labeling the choices is decided by Youtube. You could take your observations and suggestions to Google I guess (they own Youtube).

It makes me appreciate so much more that we have our own mini (old school) version of Facebook right here at Pasty Central. It's immune from the hamfisted control of "The Man". Well, except for Mary and Charlie of course but I still can't picture Mary as "The Man".

I love lupines. Ours have been blooming so
beautifully. Driving anywhere in the U.P. they
make the ditches so beautiful. Great pictures.