At first, I thought ok...they're all moving and I'm not a bit surprised by the ridiculous amount of wind (Sounds like RIT does when you walk through it's wind tunnels...which has plenty enough force to knock over freshman).
But then it started cookin' and the other swings were barely budging. Not to mention the other swings were moving in the opposite axis due to the wind. Or perhaps they have it all wrong. The wind is making the middle swing move, and ghosts are sitting in the other swings holding them mostly still.
Obvious Conclusion: If it's not a ghost, it's definitely aliens.
Real Answer: It's actually caused by the gravitational forces from the moon. Yea... just like waves. Don't bother questioning this answer, it's fact. :)
Geoff said about 2 hours later
I had trouble watching it with all that WIND.
Oh, and those little green martians too.
Steve said about 3 hours later
If you click on some of the other videos, you'll see the ghost has friends, as a couple of swings start swinging in succession.
Want a simple solution? Change the shape or the weight of the swing, and you'll scare the ghosts away.
GJ said about 4 hours later
Or film on a calm day.
Geoff said about 6 hours later
Yeah..or have someone sit in the seat. You would think a ghost wouldn't put up with that!
Abby said 1 day later
Lol.
But that CAN'T be wind- unless the wind was really strong, and in a tiny gale that only hit the middle swing, it wasn't wind.
Steve said 2 days later
Comment deleted on 11/1/2007 at 6:52PM
GJ said 2 days later
Please define really strong. I would say that winds gusting to 20mph could do this easily, and without a weight carried by the swing (i.e., a person), you would definitely get the twisting motion that is so apparent in the video. Listening to the audio, it sounds like it was rather blustery that day. What's also funny--I've found three more videos of this taken at different times...and each time, the microphone picks up significant wind noise.
The better question--why does it only affect the middle swing? Could it be that the other two swings proximity to the main swing supports is breaking up the wind in some fashion?
Marc said 2 days later
That's where it's odd. If the wind is coming from the back or front of the swing to push it in that motion, it shouldn't be breaking the wind in a way that the swings next to it don't swing in a similar back and forth fashion. Sure they would be affected by each other, but the reason is looks ghostly is because the physics don't seem to add up.
I bet they just greased up the middle swing's hooks or soldered the outside swings' hooks. :)
GJ said 2 days later
Another video I saw showed all three swings moving wildly. I think it's a mild resonance issue that's driving the swings. But ghosts? Come on, a ghost would at least keep the dang swing straight.
Steve said 2 days later
Like I said, add some weight to the swings, or change the aerodynamic properties of the swing (remember those old hard plastic type swings with holes in them?). Those should scare your ghosts off.
Geoff said 3 days later
Here is the simple truth...the middle swing was abducted by aliens and returned to us mutated by their evil experiments.
I've been trying not to think about it, it's making me feel old. :) Happy Birthday Abby!
Abby said about 2 hours later
Lol. =D
Oh yes... the world is MINE to rule... the rest of you can all live on the moon. Mwahaha.
GJ said about 2 hours later
It's making YOU feel old? Imagine what Mom and Dad are thinking!!! LOL!
Geoff said about 5 hours later
Happy Birfday Abby! Is Mars an option?
Steve said about 6 hours later
Happy Birthday Abby! Card is in the mail!
After reading Darcy's post, I can't seem to disassociate Abby from Stewie, the character from The Family Guy. Something about world domination....
And just think, 3 years until she can start driving!!!
Abby said 2 days later
*shrug* Go live on Mars if you really want to, lol.
Steve said 2 days later
Well, I think you will be a very responsible driver when it comes time for you to start driving. And between you and me, we just need to convince your parents that you should take a teen driving school. They are becoming available in many more places, and I'm sure there will be some beginning in the Albany area within the next few years. We hold these schools at the test track where I work a couple of times a year. I instructed at the first one, and it was very educational and fun for both the teens and myself. I highly recommend all parents look into sending their kids to one of these teen driving school seminars. And when it snows, get your Dad to take you out to a snow covered parking lot and teach you how to handle emergency situations in the snow.
Geoff said 2 days later
Make sure you work in some time to play "hit the bank"....
GJ said 2 days later
Don't know of any such schools in the Albany area right now, but you can be certain that all my kids will learn how to drive responsibly. After all, I can't very well let kids like what we were like in our teens drive my pre-midlife-crisis commuter car, can I?
Marc said 3 days later
Buy them a Prius, then they won't cause any trouble. It's the Electro-Metro!
GJ said 3 days later
I've been passed by more than a few Prius over the past few months. Their owners apparently are unaware that driving at 80mph and accelerating like crazy probably gets them worse gas mileage than I get. :)
Steve said 3 days later
Hopefully young kids today will have the benefit of driving "old" cars that actually have very good handling capabilities, and very good crash performance. Get them into anything built since about 2004 and it should have very good impact performance. And while 2004 models aren't old now, they will be by the time Abby, Trevor, Aaron, Kyle, and Katelyn start driving, especially the younger ones.
As for the schools, I'm fairly certain they will be popping up all over the place now. People are finally taking teenager driver education seriously, and many of us in the auto industry and in sports car clubs are working on putting on schools ourselves. So I wouldn't be surprised when your local Sports Car Club of America region offers the school (likely only offered once or twice a year, as it is a volunteer school). BMW, and Chrysler/Jeep/Dodge both have teen driving schools that travel the country. Chrysler even has a website http://www.roadreadyteens.org/ to help educate teens about safe driving.
Steve said 3 days later
Oh, that roadreadyteens website isn't just for teens, it's also for parents of teen drivers.
I haven't had a problem with it. Does it just not install and if so, is it showing you any errors?
Steve said 1 day later
It says it installs just fine, but I can't view any video via flash, like watching webisodes of TV shows I missed, etc. I'm about ready to say f-it and just switch over to Mozilla full time. I can watch it with Mozilla no problem.
Marc said 1 day later
That sounds strange, you might search for Adobe Flash beta and see if one of the betas works for you. That's if you wanna stick with IE. Firefox is probably a better choice. Any reason why Firefox doesn't interest you now? Or is it more the occasional website doesn't render correctly in Firefox?
Steve said 1 day later
IE...force of habit. It's what I've used since graduating from Netscape Navigator back in college (a long time ago for me...
I am working on this mini site and it has Flash video. See if it works for you in IE.
Marc said 1 day later
Yea, definitely go Firefox. It actually renders pages faster too, so you'll notice a slight speed increase while browsing the web. It takes a little longer to startup than IE the first time you run it after a reboot, but after that it's good to go.
GJ said 1 day later
bad news, though, is that it doesn't work well with Microsoft's Sharepoint app...surprise, surprise. However, you generally only encounter that beast at work, on your internal network.
Geoff said 1 day later
Microsoft sucks.
Steve said 1 day later
Weird. It works on the sight Geoff pointed me to. I'll try to start to migrate to Firefox.
Geoff said 2 days later
Hey Steve, it works because I built the site, and I wrock.
