Trip to Minneapolis 2008 (Typical freeway and road travel)

[OniDung]

lol, I can imagine driving down the highway and seeing ulillillia recording me.

[taistelutomaatti]

"For those of you who are not from the US, this is typical freeway and road travel. Watch all the signs and scenery whiz "

Indeed, no other country in the world except for US has roads. And us who are not from the US never travel in a moving vehicle on a road.

Hell I don't even know what a car is.

[ulillillia]

It's mainly to show what highway travel is like in the US, for those not in the US, so they compare the differences from what they're used to seeing. I don't recall the specifics that much, however.

[XXXMASTERISEXXX]

What?

[PureSolace]

under "Problems to resolve:" I noticed you posted "finding a way to post notices to everyone."

Have you ever considered starting your own Twitter?

[ulillillia]

I'm referring to YouTube. I saw the "bulletins" section on the channel, but that's for friends only (from what I can tell) and not everyone, including those not signed in.

[maiyaz]

I'm not sure if you realize this, but at no time were you in Minneapolis. You began in saint paul and traveled east away from minneapolis.

[ulillillia]

I just consider the entire metro area as Minneapolis.

[RealityCheckTech]

Have you ever been to Madison, Wisconsin? You should visit.

[ulillillia]

Unless it's near Minneapolis (like within 4 hours maximum), it's unlikely.

[Infinitesimalism]

I swear, lately YouTube videos have had intermittent loading symbols between videos and lack of sound. That's too bad.

[ulillillia]

Could you be having the same download troubles I am (that only seems to be present in Firefox at random, select sites)? For me, videos download for a bit, but then abruptly stop midstream and never resume unless I either refresh the page or I drag the slider to an area that hasn't been downloaded yet. I often need to do this several times in order to see the whole video and it's annoying. Videos are now also very jerky where they haven't been beforehand - lots of frame skips and stops).

[GovernorMan]

This happens to me in Opera occasionally.

[ulillillia]

I found the problem, though I have yet to fully confirm it - Flash. Dump it. I've taken Flash out (which means I won't be able to view videos at all any more), but what a difference in speed I'm seeing and downloads of even 300 MB go without a hitch where I'd normally struggle to download anything much above just 10% of that. 14 tries to download a 121 MB image from Visible Earth is ridiculous....

[YuutubeLosesAgainlol]

oh hey 5 month old comment, but whatever

Firefox seems to hate YouTube. Most of the issues I have with YouTube are related to Firefox. I use Google Chrome or Opera and encounter none of the issues I do currently. Frustrating to have to use one browser just to browse one website.

[ulillillia]

My problem is present everywhere and kind of randomly. I thought Flash was the culprit, but it's not. It appears that it's Firefox itself, after version 2.0.0.8. I'm now thinking of going back to 2.0.0.0 and staying there... without Flash. Glash or whatever that open source thing is might be the only other option.

[YuutubeLosesAgainlol]

Eh, well, check out Chrome at some point. I used it for about a month but felt the call of Firefox again.

Also I love your videos, bro. Like, if there was ever a professor of video games, you'd be the professor. Professor Ulillillia. Fo sho.

[slowhands666]

How fast do you think you were traveling through the freeway portion?

[ulillillia]

What do you suppose the speed limit is? The signs whiz by ya know, often showing 60, some 55. In rural areas, it's as high as 70.

[Kebie]

You can't go to South America by road, there is no road between Panama and Columbia it is all jungle and swamp. It is called the Darien Gap.

[thesunneversets]

hey ulillillia, i share some of your fascination with the 'parallax' scrolling of the real world while driving/on a train/other form of transportation, and i thought you may be interested in a music video I've found.

The song is called "Star Guitar" and it's by the Chemical Brothers. The entire concept for the video is that it's carefully edited footage of the landscape taken from inside a train. All the objects and scenery that the camera passes is 'remixed' in order to fit with the music. Cool

[thesunneversets]

oh and you can find that video on youtube obviously. also note that the director is known for not using computer editing - all the 'remixed' footage is hand-spliced with real film.

[realolmec]

8.1 years? Did you count leap years as well?

[ulillillia]

The last one was from late July to mid-August of 2000. This one was centered on Sep 17, 2008, so it's about 8.1 years. I don't know the exact date of the 2000 one so further precision is useless. For leap years, of I do account for (especially in determining my age), I'd need precision to 3 decimal places. Clock inaccuracies pose problems at 5 decimal places and beyond 6 is useless (6 is precise to within 31 5/9 seconds, 5 for within about 5 1/4 minutes).

[woofycakes]

good vid i like the description

[Roly426]

hi ulillillia

[angryjoy]

The best part in a road trip when I was younger was just staring out the car window and looking at the scenery...always make me feel so calm. I miss those days, now I drive myself everywhere, missing all the good stuff...

[buyable]

dude, this is good

[mrbeef911]

supernatural olympics should have a freeway stage

[ulillillia]

There's at least one freeway, a second thought of. The main one is near the city. The second, thought of, is for Urusu Valley's south side, but would be hard to make out due to the great distance. Cars on that one would be a fraction of a pixel.

[gurnt]

tight vid

[SCPantera]

Nifty, I was down in Minneapolis the weekend before this last one. Went to visit the Mall of America after not having been there for almost a decade.

Was disappointed to find it mostly clothing stores and restaurants now. Not as many specialty shops as there used to be. The Nickelodeon theme park isn't as cool as Camp Snoopy used to be either :|

They totally got rid of the Mystery Mine Ride, 'tis blasphemy.

[ulillillia]

Clothing stores indeed. There's still various other things too, like Magnet Max. I actually have one of those maps of the place. At least they still had the log chute ride, a favorite from over 8 years ago (likely as much as 12 years ago).

[SCPantera]

Yeah, I think that magnet store was the only specialty store that I remember from way back when that's still there. I was hoping Wizards of the Coast was still there, but no luck.

I went through the aquarium too while I was there since I hadn't been through it in years. Kind of an expensive ticket, but it was rather amusing.

[ulillillia]

I looked through the directory I have, and Wizards of the Coast is not listed. Then again, "Hi-score games" was actually there, even though it's not listed.... The aquarium is not really that expensive for an individual. I wanted to go to it in 2000, but at the time, it was under construction.

[SCPantera]

Yeah, I had gone through it right after it opened when I was younger, so it was kind of a nostalgia trip for me.

My girlfriend and I both went through it, so at 20 bucks each it put a pretty nasty dent in my $100 vacation spending budget. We were going to go to the Renaissance Fair that weekend also but it had rained all weekend so we skipped out on it, grabbed a case of White Castle, and headed back.

Spent most rest of my mall cash at the sushi joint in the mall and Coldstone Creamery.

[SCPantera]

Also, did you go all the way there or back in one go from/to Minot? That'd be, what, about 8 hours both ways? Just going there from Fargo tests my patience thresholds, though I do generally enjoy freeway driving.

[ulillillia]

Yep, all in one go. Hotels/motels are just too pricy so it's faster and cheaper to do it all in one go. We do stop at rest stops, restaurants, and, obviously, gas stations along the way.

[pentherapy]

Out of interest, have you ever left the US? I've met a surprising amount of Americans who haven't, probably because your country is so big and has such a range of climates that there's no need to go abroad just to ski or see the desert.

[HelmerandRawlins]

It is tricky perhaps because there are only other two countries to visit by road. Many people try out Canada and Mexico, but trips over ocean usually are at quite an expense and for special occasions.

We are quite lucky to have such a range of climate here, I enjoy the changes and options.

[pentherapy]

Being British, I've always taken cheap air travel for granted, because we can get to Europe for very little. It's also quite convenient for us to get to places by sea.

I've always been envious of America's wide, straight roads though. The disadvantage of having a much older road system and many ancient, unplanned cities is a chaotic, congested network that we can't really drive anywhere quickly in.

[ulillillia]

I've never been on an airline so I have no idea what they, or even airports, are like (and TV isn't all that worthy due to a low-quality picture and the impossibility of true feelings). Cruise ships and buses are the same. Trains, however, are different - I've been on one about 3 times, always at night though and always to MN.

[ulillillia]

Two countries? Wrong. What do you suppose is further south and east of Mexico? You can get there by road, places like Nicaragua or Panama, or even Chile (in South America). Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia are out of question for road travel, unless some kind of transatlantic tunnel is built....

[HelmerandRawlins]

Well sure. I don't know anyone who has driven all the way through Mexico to get to South America and trips to Mexico are usually via air due to the corruption of Mexican police and the danger in road travel there. I sure as hell wouldn't take a road trip through Mexico.

Being somewhere like Switzerland you could hit numerous countries in every direction. That was my point. Interstate travel in the US is similar to traveling out of country for many European residents.

[ulillillia]

I've been to Canada on a road trip. A road trip, to me, is not a vacation, as it doesn't meet the 36-hour part. This occurred during June of 2005. Before that, it was only a few feet (the Peace Gardens) across the border. I haven't been anywhere near south enough to get to Mexico - Minneapolis or Wishek is about the closest.

[pauleau]

We have freeways here too, you know...

[fredrykrucket2]

I have also noticed the relationship between the mile markers and the exits. Thought it was just coincidence. Very pretty video U.

[WoYendor]

Where did you go on vacation?

[Cleverconveyence]

Even though there's no sound, this is pretty profound for some reason.