Andy Rodker's favorite articles

Dear members and friends of ipernity, Last Saturday, March 25th, 2023 the Ipernity General Assembly 2023 took place. The previous Board of our Association was discharged for its activities in 2022. The following links provide information on the course of the Assembly and the results: ● Agenda of the 2023 IGA ● Participants in the 2023 IGA ● President's report on 2022 ● Treasurer's report on 2022 ● Annual financial report for 2022 ● Minutes of the 2023 IGA…

For boys born before 1960, Meccano was as memorable a part of childhood as school or Christmas. Invented in 1901 by Frank Hornby, and produced in Liverpool for over 70 years, it is said to have engendered generations of engineers, the very backbone of Britain’s industrial greatness. The Meccano Guild, open to boys across the Empire, rivalled the Scout movement in promoting clean living and wholesome pursuits, Meccano in particular. In its heyday in the 1930’s, the company had agencies in 36 c…

For other languages: ipernity club members may use the integrated translator at the end of this article. (Visitors: Please use DeepL Translator or install an add-on that suits your browser.) Dear members and friends of ipernity, 1. This weekend we are celebrating a 5 years anniversary , as on September 1, 2017, we members took over the operation of this website and thus saved it from disappearing. Since then, we have overcome all challenges. We are g…

For other languages: ipernity club members may use the integrated translator at the end of this article. (Visitors: Please use DeepL Translator or install an add-on that suits your browser.) Dear members and friends of ipernity, 1. In June there was a temporary downtime of the satellite view in the map functionality. It was caused by an update on the side of Google, which we had to adjust to. In the meantime,…

For other languages: ipernity members may use the integrated translator at the end of this article. (Visitors: Please use DeepL Translator or install an add-on that suits your browser.) Dear members and friends of ipernity, 1) Last Sunday, March 27, 2022, the Ipernity General Assembly 2022 took place. The previous Board of our Association was discharged for its activities i…

For other languages: ipernity members may use the integrated translator at the end of this article. (Visitors: Please use DeepL Translator or install an add-on that suits your browser.)…

For other languages: ipernity members may use the integrated translator at the end of this article. (Visitors: Please use DeepL Translator or install an add-on that suits your browser.) Dear members and friends of ipernity, 1) The summer pictures are now online on our homepage. We would like to thank all the photographers who provided the images. Here you…

For other languages: ipernity members may use the integrated translator at the end of this article. (Visitors: Please use DeepL Translator or install an add-on that suits your browser.) Dear members and friends of ipernity, 1) Last Sunday, March 29, 2021, the Ipernity General Assembly 2021 took place. The previous Board of our Association was discharged for its activities in 2020. The p…

1. HAVE FUN! 2. ADDING IMAGES TO COMMENTS: -- Image has to be up on ipernity (though it can be private). -- On image page, go to Actions/Share (HTML code) [find the Actions link on the bar to the right of the image]. -- Choose size of photo you want to embed in the comment. -- THEN, copy "Insert the photo" code HTML (bottom box). -- Place this code into the comment field. Note: You can preview your comment to make sure the image shows up correctly and is the size you want. All comm…

⏩ Deutsche Version ⏩ Version française Dear members and friends of ipernity, A turbulent year ends. In everyday life, we were confronted with incidents that were not even vaguely imaginable at the start of the year. And with regard to our website we also encountered some very critical challenges. In spring, we were struck by an interruption in the connection to PayPal. The cause was that our website was using outdated software that PayPal no longer accepted. In summer, a se…

Written March 15th 2019 --------------------------------- Ownership is Independent from big business Being run by people that care about the site and its future ( the users themselves) Funded by subscription Not funded by advertisers The site is simple but effective with added features for adding articles and documents. Most users are able to post in their own languages and translate seems to be accurate more often than not. Users who can afford to do so can donate money to help kee…

Let’s fund the reprogramming and future proofing of Ipernity in 2021 If the cost is around 30,000 EUR and I say I will donate 100 EUR are there 290 other members who are able and willing to do the same ? The answer from previous attempts is probably No. If I say I will donate 1,000 EUR are there 29 other members who are able and willing to do the same ? I guess the answer may also be no. BUT what if a smaller number of people donate a larger amount e.g 3,000 EUR a…

Record for the archives To answer the many questions about what actually happened: Friday, November 20, 2020, 18:00 CET the ima-team published the fortnightly 'Club News' (previously called 'Newsflash'). For that week, this was the last action of the ima team, executed with help of the normal ipernity blog editor. Any kind of modification to the software on the servers had not been done. No new html-files had been uploaded, except the notice banner. However, this is a proven, uncritical a…

Notes: Header Illustration created from stock images purchased from Shutterstock®. Story is a narrative of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. The United States has been invaded. The Coronavirus has taken over the White House. To deceive the American people, officials claim it “snuck” in. Maybe the secret service is to blame for sleeping on the job! If it was only so! The President threw open every door and window and invited it in. Now the Coronavirus controls the country’…

Can it get worse than a pandemic, record-breaking heat and a science-denying president? Yes, it can. All of that plus raging fires over big swathes of California, Oregon and Washington. If you don't know already, I live in southern Oregon. The closest fire to me is about 15 miles (24 km) north. The wind is currently blowing it toward the NW, but that changes, of course. There are so many fires all around that thick smoke is blanketing the entire region, making it highly undesireable to g…

EN TODAY MONDAY 32ST AUGUST I HAD A DOUBLE DOCTOR APPOINTMENT DAY. THE FIRST WAS WITH DR CHEEMA MY BRAIN SURGEON AT 11.4AM THEN DR GUNTER THE GAMMA KNIFE DOCTOR THAT DR CHEEMA TEAMED WITH ON 22ND JANUARY FOR THE GAMMA KNIFE PROCEDURE en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiosurgery#Gamma_Knife WHEN THE GAMMA PROCEDURE WAS DECIDED ON IT WAS POINTED OUT THAT IT WAS NO INSTANT FIX AND THAT IT WOULD TAKE 18 MONTHS TO TWO YEARS FOR THE AVM IN en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arteriovenous_malformation…

[EN] Dear members and friends of ipernity, 1) As part of the quality offensive, which our President Eric Desjours encouraged in his annual report, we continue to work on improving the linguistic and visual consistency of ipernity. We have therefore adapted the translation of the different dates. In the future we will use the following terms consistently: 2) The upload…

[EN] Dear members and friends of ipernity! 1) Updating the operating software of our servers with the support of innovations ON went without major difficulties. 2) The interruption in the automated PayPal payment process has thus been resolved. PayPal payments are now handled promptly again. 3) Next, innovations ON will take care of the credit card payment options that have been idle for over two years. If everything goes as expected, those options will be available again shortl…

[EN] Dear members and friends of ipernity! 1) There is currently a problem in the PayPal payment process. Deposits are accepted correctly, but are not automatically booked through. The manual activation of subscription renewals and their confirmation can take up to 48 hours. We ask for patience until the error is corrected. 2) To keep the register of members up to date, we occasionally delete accounts that have not been used for more than three years. If their owners were group adminis…

Well, as y'all may have noticed, I haven't been around much of late. Other things have been getting in the way--but I did go ahead and re-up my membership. I won't be able to participate a lot, but what I have done for now is remove the "me only" authorization on my newer uploads. I had been waiting to label them properly, but I just don't have time, and maybe people would find them of some interest even so--