blog – A Darker View

Favorite Posts of 2018

While the top posts of 2018 are interesting, the list is quite different when treated to a list of my favorite posts of 2018. The posts chronicle a very eventful year, a little too eventful perhaps. Fire and destruction was brought to a large section of the island, the entire island shaking and shuddering as the volcano erupted.

Fissure 8 Lava Fountain — The lava fountain at fissure 8 in Leilani Estates throwing lava hundreds of feet in the air on June 4th, 2018

As I compile this list I relive 2018 a bit, recalling good memories and the year’s many adventures. As I often state… DarkerView is a blog in the old sense, a web-log or online diary. It may be public, but it is also quite personal, a record of my life.

That is a long list! I find myself unable to shorten that list by much, indeed, there are good posts that should be added. The length of that list states one thing very clearly… 2018 was an eventful, interesting year.

A distinct change in this year was my increased political activity, particularly as it surrounds Mauna Kea. I am not just discussing blogging here, there was more… From submitting written testimony on state legislative actions, to attending public meetings, and testifying on issues I feel strongly about. The blog posts record some of that, but by no means all.

The year was eventful on the mauna. With record bad weather in the beginning of the year ruining many night of observing. there was plenty to keep my busy through the year. There is much to feel satisfied about, a few nice accomplishments, even a small victory or two.

The annual Alaskan voyage may very well be my last, my father is considering selling the boat, something that was always part of his plan. Certainly this was my last run along the Inside Passage, a milestone that I mark with some sorrow.

I re-read my written memories here, recall much of what has happened this year. I suspect that 2018 will stand out in my memory when other years have grown dim with fading memory.

Kiholo Bay by Drone — Kiholo Bay taken by the Mavic Air

Post	Hits
A Backyard Telescope Pier	3379
Tragedy on Mauna Kea	1980
Astrophotography with the EOS-M	1536
Repairing a Wii Balance Board	1529
Getting to the Lava (Revised)	1449
Starscape Photography	1436
Consequences of a Bad LED	1411
Rewiring a Celestron NexStar Telescope	809
Viewing the ISS	747
Visiting the Summit of Mauna Kea	656
Restoring an Orange Tube Celestron C8	622
Street Photography with the Canon EOS-M3	585
Fungus on Glass	575
Canon EOS-M3 Review	541
Shooting the Canon EOS M5	518

The Top DarkerView Posts of 2016

As I look back to 2016 I realize there were some pretty good posts. DarkerView is a true blog, as in “web log”. It exists as much as a personal diary as much anything else, a place for me to store my thoughts, my photos, my memories of life. A the new year is upon us it is traditionally a time to look back upon the year and recall some of those memories.

I posted nearly 300 blog posts through the year, not quite keeping to one per day as I had years ago, but rather trying to keep the quality high. Someone must appreciate that, There have been over 100,000 views and about 50,000 visitors to the site over the year. I am always slightly amazed that people come by to read what I write and even comment on it. Traffic is steady at between 100 to 200 visitors per day.

Of course most of those visitors are from the US, Canada, the UK, and Australia, but surprisingly India, Pakistan, Germany, and Norway all top 1k visitors to the site. Just about every country in the world is represented in the visitor list, only central African nations seem to be left out.

I find that my best posts, my best writing, was primarily my comment posts. A chance to editorialize on the issues that swirl about my life and our island. Sometimes the emotions and thoughts just need to be expressed, to be recorded. Writing is a way for my to further analyse my own thoughts. In organizing these ideas into an essay I can more clearly see the issue.

Looking back, 2016 was not a bad year at all…

Cultural Misappropration
Restoring an Orange Tube Celestron C8
Dual Lasers on the Galactic Center
A Helicopter with No Doors
Making Room for the Traditional
Cruft
Changing a Light Bulb
To the Flow by Sea
Restoring an Obsession
Broken, Now Fixed
Moana and Polynesian Culture
A Celestron FirstScope
Alone with the Mountain

Keck 2 Lases in the North — Keck 2 lasing to the north in the dawn the lights of Waimea and Honolulu behind.

Quiet Blog

I admit Darker View has been a bit quiet for the last few weeks. A few reasons for this. Firstly I was in Alaska with family for most of the month of June, fishing and exploring out of Juneau as usual. Then I was quite busy at work, compounded by recovering from a bout of bronchitis.

To top it all off I spent my blogging energies working on the NordicQuest.com blog instead of Darker View… Sorry.

I will have to cross post a couple of the good postings that I put up over at NQ here. While the blog has been quiet, I have been having fun!

Breach! — A humpback whale breaches in Chatham Strait

Header Images

One of the fun features offered by the new theme is randomized header images. I have recycled a few of my back catalog of images to create a new look for the site. I am rather pleased with the effect. Sometimes this website/blog stuff is just fun.

In case you are wondering what they are, here is the cheat sheet, if you want it. I may add more images to the header over time.

Continue reading “Header Images”

Some Blog Changes Coming

You may have noticed that DarkerView got hacked back in late March. Somehow malicious files were inserted that sent search traffic to various less than reputable websites, of course that means mostly sex sites. Sorry about that.

GyPSy in the Night — The 11″ NexStar GPS telescope, GyPSy set up at Ka’Ohe

Only search traffic was affected, those who went directly to the site saw the correct webpage, thus I did not notice right away as I use direct links. As a side note, getting hacked does result in a huge spike in traffic volume, that was the first sign. This sort of hack is apparently called conditional redirect hack, essentially borrowing a reputable website’s reputation with the search engines to send traffic towards certain websites.

As a result I have been tightening up security around here. Removing some old plugins, changing things around and checking for known vulnerabilities. One thing you will soon see is that the old theme will be replaced for an entirely new look for DarkerView.

The old theme is just that… old. Also probably insecure as there has been no maintenance on it in years. As I really do not know how the attacker got in I need to look to everything that could have been the weakness. Time to update the look and update the code to something that is modern and supported.

A Photo Review of 2015

Cobbler — Old boots and an older sewing machine in a cobbler’s shop

A review of my favorite photographs of 2015. So many wonderful images, so many memories! It was a very good year for photography with a number of excellent photo opportunities. Opportunities I did not waste. of course living in Hawaiʻi and working atop Mauna Kea often provide a photo or two. Add a trip to Nicaragua allowed a whole new range of photos.

In past eras it was popular to keep a detailed diary of one’s life. While real diaries are rarely kept anymore, blogs and photographs serve much the same purpose. As I have often stated, Darker View is a blog in the original sense, a personal diary of my life. To look back through these photos I relive much of the past year, the good parts anyway.

Click through for the full gallery and click on any photo for a slideshow.

Continue reading “A Photo Review of 2015”

Jan in SanFran

On our recent trip to Nicaragua I had a chance to meet a few people. One of the more interesting was Jan Adams, who uses the handle JanInSanFran for her online identities. She was elected to the board of El Porvenir during the meetings, a good choice to help with the work.

Jan maintains a great personal blog, Can it happen here?, a blend of personal observations and liberal comment. Her latest post on Nicaraguan children, a nice collection of photos that includes some of the same subjects I photographed while visiting Tierra Amarilla. She is right, we met a lot of happy, smiling kids in Nicaragua, a good sign for the country.

2013 In Review

A year in review article? Really? Yeah, everyone does it, and you get tired of them. I am going to do it anyway… It is a nice excuse to look back over the previous year and see what I spent the last 365 days of my life doing.

As Darker View is intended to be a web diary, in the original sense of the term blog, I can look back through a year of postings to do this. I have to admit a few surprises were to be had, things I had forgotten about!

Pāhoehoe — An active pāhoehoe breakout at Kupapaʻu

Looking back I have to admit it was not a bad year.

Andrew and the Galaxy — Taking astrophotos under the Milky Way Galaxy

Gone Fishing

Again we are taking the boat out, another voyage on the Nordic Quest. This time the destination is Icy Strait, Glacier Bay and other points west of Juneau. It has been a few years since I have been through this area, it should be fun. There are old favorite sights that I can see over gain, there are a few places I have meant to check, hopefully there will be opportunities to do so.

Gone Fishing may be a misleading title, I pack no fishing gear. I do pack plenty of camera gear. If past trips are any indication there will be plenty of photos as a result of this journey.

Never fear, no internet does not mean a lack of posts here on Darker View. I have scheduled plenty of material to post while I am traveling. I admit some of these are old articles, yes, there are reposts. But they are good old articles! I am still moving stuff from the old blog, and this is as good an excuse as any to move over some more Alaska posts and photos. There is also some really old stuff, some things salvaged from my old website that predates the blog. I have put some of this under a new category, Fish Tales.

I hope to return to civilization eventually. Hopefully well supplied with Salmon and Halibut. Until then, enjoy a little visual beauty…

Nordic Quest 2011 from Andrew Cooper on Vimeo.

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