More Comments Equals More Views

Monday I posted another skiing YouTube video listing my top 5 favorite sidecountry ski areas. One thing about throwing out a term like "sidecountry" is that if you ask 10 different people, you may get 11 different responses on what it means. I provided a definition in the video and it is getting several comments. Some people don't agree with my definition and are asking questions.

At first glance, it seems like all of these comments are causing YouTube's algorithm that shares videos to push this new one to the front. I published another video on Saturday about preparing for the upcoming ski season and it doesn't have nearly the traffic even though it came out 2 days before this latest one. My hypothesis is that comments indicate engagement and so they think others will also like the video so YouTube is sharing it more.

All of this traffic for my video suggests I can get more traffic by creating controversial content. That does have a downside though. If people don't like your content, they might disengage from the channel. I also don't like controversy. While it is fine to disagree with an undefined word, there is also the chance people could be offended and I make an extra effort not to offend people.

I plan to watch video views over the next few weeks and see if the trend hold true. I may need to solicit a few of my friends to submit comments and see how that effects outside views. Currently I have a number of new viewers but not any new subscribers. If the number of subscribers increases, that will strengthen my hypothesis. I'll be sure to keep you posted.  

My Latest YouTube Releases

One advantage of working for Sony is that we get 4-day weekends for both Memorial and Labor Day. I like it because we get the Friday off before the Monday holidays and that gives me a bit of extra time to get stuff done. One year I used the that time to go visit Alaska and do some ocean kayaking. This year I did something different: I released 2 YouTube videos.

I woke up on Friday and decided I would try and put out a video in a single day. There is a lot of work that goes into each video and I wasn't sure I could do it but wanted to give it a try. I sat down at my computer and put together a compelling script. Then I recorded the narration. The subject of the video is preparing for the 2025/26 ski season. I came close but didn't quite finish the video in a single day. I had to roll over onto Saturday but got it released that evening.

In order to put out the video quickly, I had to interrupt another video I started creating over a year ago. I liked the topic but just didn't feel the need to get the video out and so it languished on my computer in a half-done state for months. Getting a video put out early in the weekend ignited a desire to finish an update on my second most popular video on the Top 5 Sidecountry Ski Areas of North America. My wife had to do some sewing and so she gave me permission yesterday to sit in front of my computer and finish the video. I completed everything last night and immediately released it.

Of the 2 videos, the Sidecountry one is my favorite. I can't really pinpoint why I didn't finish it earlier. I know one thing that slowed me down was not having enough photo and video content for one of the ski areas. I had to go back through an old photo album and scan pictures from back in the 1980's. I have a really good scanner and once I digitized the images, the video sat uncompleted for months. Perhaps laziness kept me from working on it or I valued spending my time on other pursuits. Ultimately I got it done and in less than 24 hours it has been viewed close to 100 times.

In the past, the closest I have ever released 2 videos is 5 days. This marks the first time I have done it in 2 days. I will be interested to see how that effects the number of views. My channel has about 650 subscribers and I hope to get more. Unfortunately I have not received any new ones since the first video on Friday. Perhaps there is something else I need to do to increase my popularity. Until then, I hope everyone enjoys the videos.

Old Photographs Don't Lie

I spent about 10 minutes this afternoon looking through old photographs and they scared me. I ran across old pictures of girlfriends, people I hung out with, and me skiing in my youth. While I don't claim to have the best memory, I remember being a much better skier than those pictures would indicate. I also confess thinking that my old girlfriends looked significantly better in my memory than those pictures would indicate. Perhaps my wife is just that much better looking.

The other thing I remember wrongly is the quality of film photographs. I have been using a digital camera for so long and they have continued to evolve from rather poor results to now when they are significantly better than the film photographs I remember. Now one important thing to remember is that not all cameras are created equal. That is true for film cameras as much as it is for digital ones. I'm sure I used a lot of those crummy disposable cameras as they easily fit in a pocket and could be pulled out to take very blurry pictures. Then you didn't know what you got until you spent money developing the film. With a digital camera, if you don't like the photograph, you can delete it and try again. While I have some poor film photographs, I also have some really nice ones taken with a top-of-the-line Nikon from that time. While they look amazing, I still prefer my high-end digital camera.

In going through my old photographs, one of the first thing to note is that I used to have hair. I found a great picture from my teenage years and I look much better with hair. I wish I still had it. Unfortunately my genes conspired against me and I'll have to be satisfied with being bald. It is a good thing I got married before I lost my hair.

I have also decided to hide all of my old ski pictures from my kids. I ski much better now than I did back then. Part of it could be that I ski over 100 days every season now and I was lucky to get 20 back then. The important thing is that if my kids see those old photographs I will be ridiculed and made fun of the rest of my life. I should probably burn those pictures.

Technology Improves Our Lives

This morning I woke up at 6am and ran through my usual morning routine of breakfast. Then I got ready to go skiing. It is early November which means lifts are not really running at Alta and so if you want to ski, you get to hike up the hill and earn your turns. My daughter joined me today.

Yesterday we did the same thing and had the luxury of clear skies. Today we started driving in a rainstorm that turned into snow the higher in elevation we drove. We arrived at the Wildcat lot in a full-blown blizzard. My daughter and I don't care as we live by the philosophy that there is no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing. We got our skis ready and started climbing the hill while it snowed heavily around us. 

I felt incredibly comfortable as I hiked up the hill. We both made sure not to overdress as that would cause us to sweat too much which would freeze and make us cold. Instead the breathability of our Gortex-like shells kept the water out and allowed our perspiration to escape. I thought to myself that even though I was outside, I felt comfortable enough as if inside.

Technology constantly makes our lives better. I would not want to trade places with the wealthiest people of 200 years ago because of our many modern conveniences. Clothing is just one example. The many uses of electricity also come to mind. We can use it to keep us warm in the winter and cool in the summer, not to mention run our computers, light our homes, and power our entertainment devices. Yes, I am happy living right now.

Get Your Flu Shot

There are a lot of strong feelings about vaccines and if you are opposed to them, feel free to disregard this post. For those that think they are a benefit, please keep reading. As you can probably guess, I fall into this second category.

My company sends me notices every fall to remind me to get my annual flu shot. When I actually went into an office, they had healthcare professionals come to the office and provide free flu shots to all those interested in receiving them. Now that I work from home, they send me a voucher that can be used at any Walgreens to get a free flu shot. This year I printed up the voucher and headed down to my local Walgreen's pharmacy. When I got there, the pharmacy area of the store had a huge line and so I turned around and came home.

I thought about going to another store in the area but opted to schedule an appointment at the one around the corner from my house. I logged into the Walgreen's website and set up a time for my shot the next day. Then I set an alarm on my phone so I wouldn't forget. I also added the appointment to my work calendar so nobody would try to schedule a meeting at the same time.

The next day the time for my appointment rolled around and I drove the short mile to the pharmacy. I went back to where they administer the shot and waited all of 30 seconds. Then a nice young lady escorted me into a private room, rolled up my sleeve, and gave me a shot containing the flu vaccine. While I set aside 30 minutes in my calendar, I only needed about 10. I quickly drove home and resumed my work.

The one thing common with all vaccines is a sore arm and I felt that the next day but not severely. Sometimes there are very mild flu-like symptoms but I didn't feel any of that. The weekend has passed and I actually feel this has been one of the easiest flu shots ever.

For the past couple years I have not bothered to get my flu shot and never came down with the flu. This year I don't want to take that chance. I let my COVID vaccine expire and came down with it in August. My dad didn't bother to get a shingles vaccine and just spent the last week suffering from the ailment. Because of these two incidents, I felt it prudent to get my flu vaccine this year.

Hopefully you don't fall victim to the normalcy bias where you feel it unnecessary to get the flu vaccine because you haven't gotten sick over the past couple of years without it. It only takes a few minutes to get the shot and most insurance covers the cost so it is free. You never know if you will get exposed and those few minutes can keep you from getting sick for a week or more. After all it could mean a lost week of skiing for me.

My Latest YouTube Video

It has been a little over 2 years since I have started publishing YouTube videos in earnest. During that time I have learned a lot. Sometimes you post a video that you think will be popular only to get a handful of views. Then you publish something and it surprises you with the number of people watching it. I suppose after a bit of experience you can guess at what people want to view and may even be right.

I just published my latest YouTube video and I knew it would be popular, which is why I made it. My most popular video is of the Top 5 Steepest Ski Areas in North America. I actually threw in a ski area that deserved to be on the list but one that I expected to remove when I skied someplace with steeper terrain. Unfortunately I didn't find such a place until this year. I quickly put together a new video and published it on Tuesday. Since then I have watched the video's popularity grow and am pleased with the response. I hope that the new content receives as many views as the original which has been played over 100,000 times.

Now the real question is how to drive more traffic to my channel without constantly putting out new versions of the same video? I can go back through and look at my short films in order of popularity and work on a revision of the second most popular one, which is something I am doing. Ideally I need to come up with new content that is equally as compelling to watch as my most popular video. That is tough to do. If it was easy, we would have a lot more original content out of Hollywood and not nearly as many sequels. Fortunately I have found that controversial topics generate a lot more views than safe ones. Let's see if I can come up with such a topic.

Measure Twice, Cut Once

Last night I had one of the neighbor kids come over and ask me to help him mount a new pair of bindings on a new pair of skis. He had been skiing earlier in the day and damaged his old skis. Naturally he wanted to get the new ones ready to go. I used to work in a ski shop and mount bindings professionally so I know what I am doing, otherwise I don't recommend mounting your own skis. I also have all of the equipment to mount bindings correctly.

Before he came over, I asked about the brand and model for both the skis and the bindings. This is important so I knew what I was getting into. Naturally he had Look Pivot 14 bindings, which are the most difficult binding to mount. Fortunately I have a jig for them to help drill the holes in the right place. I told him to bring a boot with him.

My neighbor arrived exactly when he said he would and we headed down to my ski tuning room. The first thing we did was measure the screw-hole distances on his new binding with those on the jig. I'm glad we checked as Look has 3 different hole patterns for their Pivot-line of bindings. I had pulled out the wrong one and needed to get the right one. Then we double checked it with the bindings. Everything checked out.

Now we needed to size the jig for the boots. My jig requires knowing the sole length of the boot. This is normally stamped on the bottom. My neighbor's boot had 2 numbers: 265 and 307. The smaller number is etched larger and prominently while I barely noticed the 307. Having looked at a lot of boot soles in my day, I knew that 265 wasn't right and so I pulled out my ruler which has imperial units as well as metric. The number I needed is in millimeters and so I used the metric side. As I suspected his boot sole is the larger of the 2. I set the jig accordingly.

Next is making sure I used the correct drill bit. Skis with metal in them can use a slightly larger bit while those without need a narrower one. Most skis will tell you which bit to use. My neighbor's skis did not. However they did say they contained a metal layer in the ski. That told me to use the larger of my 3 bits.

I drilled the holes and then added a waterproof glue into each one before placing the binding pieces on the ski. I then started each screw until it bit into the freshly drilled hole. Then I let my neighbor finish screwing the bindings to the ski. I followed along afterwards making sure the bindings hugged the skis tightly. Then we put the boot in and made sure it fit. It did. Next we made sure to set the DIN's and forward pressure appropriately so the skis fall off when they should but also don't release prematurely.

My neighbor felt a huge sense of accomplishment after helping to mount bindings on his new skis. Throughout the entire process, I had him double-check all of the settings and he felt included in the entire process. He is probably up on the hill right now testing them out.

So what does this have to do with computers? Throughout the entire process of mounting the bindings, we followed the rule of, "Measure twice, cut once." In our case we used a drill instead of a saw but the net result is the same. With computers, the consequences are much less severe and so we tend to measure once and if it doesn't work, go back and measure again. For me and some of my coding projects, this can often mean trying different values 3 or 4 times. Things go so much easier when I take the time to double check all of my values first.

Sometimes You Gotta Get Outdoors

Next week is Thanksgiving and when getting outside becomes more difficult. With all of the technology in our lives, we can keep ourselves entertained while hibernating during the winter months. Unfortunately this may be bad for some. This is the time of the year when seasonal depression kicks in and being outside can help cure it in some instances.

My kids are among those that benefit from being outdoors. It is probably a good thing we spend a lot of the winter skiing as I don't know how else to embrace winter and enjoy being outside. My youngest daughter is noticeably happier after spending a cold winter day teaching little groms how ski. Last year with all of the road closures on the way to Alta because of avalanche danger, she had to find other ways to get outside and keep from getting down.

Today I spent some time with my youngest son. This morning he felt rather down and so we headed outside for a walk to the donut shop. If that doesn't cheer you up, I don't know what will. Unfortunately he still wasn't his jovial self and so we put on jackets this afternoon and headed outside. We walked to a nearby park and played a round of disc golf. I'm not sure if my comedic skills brightened his day or just being outside did the trick. Afterwards he felt much better and we all enjoyed being around him more.

I know you would expect different advice from someone that used to work for a major video game company. After all, shouldn't I be telling you to play the latest and greatest game as it will make you feel better? Nope, the reality is that we all need sunshine. It is tougher to get in the winter but no less important. When you feel yourself getting down on a cold winter day, put down the donut and hot chocolate, put on a nice-warm jacket, and spend sometime outside. Remember there is no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing. 

Technology Can't Compete with Mother Nature

Mankind has achieved some really amazing things. Just thinking about all the technological advancements that allow me to post to this blog illustrates some of those achievements. Looking at advances in transportation, housing, food production, and many other areas leads one to believe that we can do a lot.

Tuesday we had a nice snowstorm here in Utah and so I decided to drive up to Alta Ski Area on Wednesday morning before work and see if I could make a few turns before the lifts start running in earnest. In addition to snow, Tuesday's storm ushered in colder temperatures and Alta has started making snow. Making snow is a fairly simple process where you spray tiny water droplets in front of a large-powerful fan that keeps the water in the air long enough to freeze before it hits the ground. The key to making snow is having cold enough temperatures.

I put on all my equipment and started hiking up a run called Corkscrew. It is the same run I hike at the beginning of every season and Alta is kind enough to allow people like me the chance to do so. They also have their snow makers cranking out snow so skiers don't have to worry about rocks in the middle of the run. The only problem is that you don't want to spend too much time in front of the snow makers as it can be cold and wet. During the course of my hike, I passed no fewer than 5 snow makers blowing snow 50 to 100 feet in the air.

Man-made snow has a much different consistency than natural snow. It is great for a base layer on runs that are skied frequently as it is more ice than Mother Nature's soft-fluffy flakes. The ice is more durable and does not get scraped off the mountain nearly as easily. The downside is that it is ice and not very fun to ski. I would much rather have natural snow fall from the sky and get compressed by hoards of skiers. Still the technology does allow us early skiing when Mother Nature doesn't cooperate.

As I hiked up the trail, I saw the remnants of Tuesday's storm and marveled at the uniform consistency. The snow blanketed the entire mountain without the need of strategically-placed machines. Even though Alta's snow makers cranked out a lot of fresh snow, it paled in comparison to what Mother Nature provided. Yes mankind can do some amazing things but we still have a long ways to go to catch up to naturally occurring phenomenon.

Effective Use of my Smartphone

I often find myself in certain ruts where I don't try anything new and keep doing things the way they have been done for awhile. Then something will happen that challenges the old way and makes me look for improvement in everyday things. One such recent improvement came from the question of how effectively I am using my smartphone.

Every morning in the winter, I wake up and get ready to go skiing. I drive the 14 miles to Snowbird and ski for an hour before work. When anyone asks, this is my "gym time." That means I am using my ski boots daily and they need help drying out. I have a set of boot dryers that I use and only want them to run for a limited amount of time. I used to turn them on while I got ready for the day but decided I could use the timer on my smartphone. It is set for 50 minutes. When it goes off, I turn off the boot dryers. It is a little thing but started my mental wheels turning about how to use my smartphone more effectively.

Smartphones come loaded with a number of productivity applications and so there is no need to load up any more. Are you using those you have to their fullest potential? This morning my wife is busily working and sent me a quick text even though she is in the room above me. This is much more efficient than yelling through the house and trying to have "the original" long-distance communication.

One app I do have loaded onto my phone that I use constantly is a dictionary. I'm a pretty smart guy and figure I know the meaning to most of the words I hear in English. The reality is that there are a small number of words that I guess at the meaning based on context. Recognizing this, I have started looking up the meaning for words I am not absolutely sure of. This is tough to do in conversations but easy to do when I am reading something. Often times I will look up a word and remember something I heard from someone else and look that up too. I wouldn't say that my vocabulary is exploding, but I am finding I understand a lot more about what is being said.

Unfortunately there are a number of smartphone apps that can hinder you. I purposely don't have any social media loaded on my phone. I find it can be a distraction and keep me from actually being productive. I also don't have a lot of games on my mobile device. While they can help pass the time when you are stuck in line or waiting for an event to start, they more often keep one from doing more important things.

Using your smartphone effectively is a combination of taking advantage of its features as well as not letting it become a distraction. If you have any suggestions on what works for you, I'd be interested in your comments.

Technology Can Help Make Smart Decisions

Today I went skiing with the adult members of my family and we had quite the adventure. We started at Alta and went looking for leftover powder from yesterday. We skied over to the Supreme chairlift only to discover all the new snow had been skied out. We probed along the ski run looking for newly opened gates to see if we might find something fun to ski. All of the gates remained closed because of high avalanche danger and so we stayed on the main run.

Next we headed over to the Sugarloaf chairlift and traversed over to the Collins side of the resort. We had a bit of a hike but made some good turns and found some unskied snow. Unfortunately it was a long way to go for only a few turns. We kept looking. When we got to the bottom of the Collins chairlift the line looked very long compared to the Wildcat lift which only had a few people in it. Not wanting to wait in line, we headed up Wildcat. At the top, we had a decision to make. We could stay at Alta or we could drop into Snowbird via the Keyhole gate. It is this decision where technology could have helped yet we trusted our own intuition. Well I trusted mine and my wife gave me the look that said she didn't.

There are several options for moving between Snowbird and Alta. Before even considering skiing both resorts in the same day you need to have an AltaBird pass. Otherwise you are stuck in one resort or the other. We all had the requisite pass and wanted to take advantage of it. We knew we could use the Keyhole gate to get from Alta to Snowbird. The trick was how to get from Snowbird back to Alta. One option is to take the public bus. That is always the last resort as we came to ski, not ride a bus. There is also the option of dropping into Mineral Basin and taking the Baldy Express chair back to Alta. Unfortunately it is too early in the season and Mineral Basin isn't open yet.

As we sat on the top of the Wildcat chairlift deciding which way to go, we knew we couldn't use Mineral Basin but knew we could use the Armpit gate on Baldy to get from Snowbird to Alta. With that as our plan, we headed to Snowbird. In hindsight, we had all of the tools necessary to augment our decision. We should have pulled out a mobile phone and checked to make sure we could use the Tram to get up to Baldy. Given the tram closure, we could also leverage the Little Cloud chairlift. Furthermore, we could have verified that the ski patrol allowed people to ski on Baldy. Remember that the avalanche danger was high enough at Alta that we couldn't guarantee Baldy would be skiable.

Armed with only the intuition that we would be able to get back to our car at Alta, we headed to Snowbird. We definitely found the fresh powder we wanted. Those turns at the top of Keyhole are the stuff skier's dreams are made of. Then we carefully threaded our way down the narrow chute that gives Keyhole its name. Once on the main runs at Snowbird we headed to the tram so we could get back to Alta. This is where the adventure began.

We got to the tram and found it to be closed. We are not sure we would have known that while still at Alta as the closure seemed to happen as we got there. The reason for the closure was high winds at the top of the mountain. A quick check of the weather on the Snowbird website would have told us that the winds approached the maximum speeds for tram operation and we might be flirting with a closure. We explained our desire to return to Alta in the hopes of a suggestion from the Snowbird staff. I threw out the idea of heading over to Little Cloud and hiking from it to the top of the tram so we could get to Baldy. Chairlifts can run in higher wind speeds than the tram. Unfortunately Little Cloud was temporarily closed because of avalanche activity in the resort.

We saw our options decreasing with every idea but had a few more. Next we headed up the Peruvian chairlift. From there we had 2 options. We could try to make the short hike up a very steep face which would put us on Baldy. The second option was to ski down to the condo complex below and make the mile walk to Alta. I didn't want to wear everyone out and I do enough hiking so I suggested I would make the hike up to Baldy, get to the car, and drive down to pick the rest of the party up at Snowbird. My wife wanted someone else to go with me and so I picked the kid that kept up with me best while hiking earlier in the season. We started the climb and got about a third of the way up before others on the trail told us that ski patrol had just closed Baldy because of avalanche danger.

That left skiing down to the condos and hiking the mile to Alta. We tried to find other ways to get to Alta as we skied down towards the condos but couldn't find one. We pulled off our skis, threw them over our shoulders, and started walking. It didn't take long to find a ski trail. We put our skis back on and skied across the snow. We found another parking area and pulled skis off to walk through before putting our skis on for the last time. We had to skate up a few slight inclines but we made it to Alta and got the car.

We never wanted to take the bus and that turned out to be a blessing. Right now the public transit system in Salt Lake can't find enough drivers and so they have suspended bus service at Snowbird and Alta until later in the month. It turns out, the bus was never an option. Once again, a quick Internet search would have told us that our absolute fail-safe option wasn't an option after all.

Ultimately we had the technology at our fingertips to help us make an informed decision. Knowing the buses were not running might have been enough to keep me from making the wrong decision to head into Snowbird. In the end though, I did get a good story out of the experience. I also hit my step count for the day before noon.

Thankful for Technology

I have had a nearly perfect Thanksgiving today and so I thought I would post some thoughts about the technology I am thankful for right now. After all, I do try to focus that in this blog on technology.

My oldest daughter and my youngest son are both in Ohio celebrating this special holiday. We would have liked them to join us in Utah but that just is not possible because of work schedules and the cost of travel. While my middle two children joined us with family and friends, my oldest and youngest joined in on the celebration with a video call. Furthermore it didn't cost any money for the call. Think back 30 years ago when you counted minutes for long-distance phone calls because every one cost money. The ability to make video calls is one thing I am very thankful for.

This morning I got to head up to Alta and go skiing with my family here in Utah. We had the luxury of riding on high-speed detachable quad chairlifts. When I first started skiing, everything was slow-fixed-grip chairlifts. The new lifts whisk you to the top of the mountain in about a quarter of the time of the old ones. On cold days I would turn into a popsicle long before reaching the top. Now I hardly spend any time at all and that is perfect for when I am skiing with my grandchildren who hate riding the lifts but love skiing.

In thinking about this post, I thought about some of the bad things associated with technology. There are computer viruses, identity theft, and other woes we did not have to worry about 20 years ago. Fortunately the conveniences technology provides greatly outweighs the problems. If it was the other way around, we would stop using it. So life moves on and while it may not necessarily get easier, technology at least makes it more efficient and for that I am thankful.

YouTube Season

I seem to have found a bit of a following with my YouTube videos that focus on the Top 5 Ski Areas of North America. That means that ski season is also YouTube season for me. I tried putting together some videos over the summer but discovered I couldn't easily run up to the ski resort and get more content when needed. I have also found that ski videos don't really get watched during the summer.

My most popular video has just passed 70,000 views, which I think is a lot. I know I would get a lot more if I was a 20-year-old girl trying on swimsuits but that isn't what I am interested in sharing. When I look at other ski videos, I am doing fairly well. There are only a few that get more views and most are less than that.

I am also discovering the content the people want to see. The videos I have the most fun making are about backcountry ski trips but they only get a few hundred views. Show something controversial like which resorts have the steepest slopes or the best powder and you rack up the views. Controversy also means you get people disliking your content and leaving mean comments. I try to respond kindly and let them express their opinion. Hopefully it is paying off.

Lately I have been getting some very nice complements from people that seem to like my videos. That is gratifying but I can't let it go to my head. Fortunately there is someone that will come along and tell me I am an idiot for suggesting a particular ski area and so I think I am staying fairly grounded. If I get back up to 8000 views per day like I did at the end of last season, then I can't make any promises.

Causal Analysis: The Buoy Pop

I spend a lot of my time looking at data. Sometimes I get the chance to look at trends and perform causal analysis. What is causal analysis? It is looking at data and figuring out when one event causes another. A good example is that is the old-time belief that the rooster crowing in the morning causes the sun to rise. Don't laugh, that was an actual belief. We all know that it is the rising sun that causes the rooster to crow and not the other way around.

A more complex example of causal analysis is in correlating wine drinking with good health. There was a study done that indicated people that drink a glass of wine a day are more healthy than those that don't. On the surface it would seem that everyone should drink a glass of wine every day. Unfortunately life isn't that simple. There are a number of other factors that need to be taken into account as well. The reality is that if you can afford to drink wine, you can also afford proper healthcare. It is not the glass of wine that makes someone healthy, it is affluence and the ability to get proper medical attention when needed. They never mentioned that in the study.

Yesterday I came across a very interesting article about the "Buoy Pop." There is a scientific buoy in the middle of the Pacific Ocean that can predict a snow storm in winter for Utah 2 weeks before it happens. This is important if you are a skier and want to know when the next powder storm is on its way. Meteorologists discount the buoy because the best they can do is predict storms 10 days out with only 20% accuracy. How can wave height indicate a storm 14 days away? This is where data science comes in and says there is some other phenomenon at work that meteorologists have not yet identified. Before continuing, the "Buoy Pop" is only 66% accurate, not 100%. Still that is significantly better than what professional weather forecasters can do.

In order to do proper causal analysis, I would need to gather all possible variables and apply a number of statistical algorithms to see what the actual cause of the snow storm is. All I know for now is that something that causes the storms to arrive also sends a nice wave under a specific buoy in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

Ultimately the "Buoy Pop" is a nice statistical problem for me to think about but it doesn't effect my actions much. I purposely live in Utah near the ski resorts so that I can take advantage of powder storms as they arrive. For someone who has to travel to ski, I would definitely study when the buoy pops and plan a trip to my favorite Intermountain ski area.

Thousands of Views on YouTube

Something special happened over the past week with my YouTube channel: I started getting over a thousand views a day on my skiing videos. I was happy to get tens of views and the rise from that number to the thousands only took about five days. I wish I could tell you what happened but I can only guess.

My first guess is based on what happens with sports video games. When the regular season comes to an end, people still want to get their sports fix. In video games they will go back to playing a football game like Madden once the Super Bowl is over. As most of the ski areas in North America have closed down for the season, skiers and snowboarders are left wanting more. They resort to watching ski videos on YouTube. Again, it is just a guess.

Another guess is that I met a popular YouTube personality with around two thousand subscribers. He subscribed to my channel and a lot of his followers might also like my content and so they are viewing my videos based on him subscribing. Again, it is just a guess.

Finally I have spent a lot of time responding to every comment to each of my videos. I am guessing that lots of comments translates into YouTube recommending my content more. As each comment results in my response, the algorithm may see two comments for every user leaving a message. This would indicate that creators responding to viewers helps drive more traffic and it makes sense. All I know is that I am spending about an hour or so each day responding. It can be flattering but I have to find time to get back to everyone. I also discovered that not everyone likes my videos. While I expected people to disagree with ski areas that I list as favorites, I didn't anticipate avalanche nazis telling me I am promoting unsafe backcountry skiing. Don't worry, I'm not. They just want disclaimers all over the place.

Ultimately I am happy with the overwhelmingly positive response and requests of locals to show me around the next time I am at their ski area. Unfortunately I am still a long ways away from being able to quit my job and become a full-time YouTuber. I still need about 650 more subscribers before I can even monetize the channel. Once I hit that mark I expect my monthly income to be somewhere between being able to afford a gumball or a can of soda. In other words, I am not quitting my day job.

Getting More YouTube Views

For the past 5 weeks I have been trying to put out one new video on my YouTube channel every week. The reason is that I wanted to see if frequent posting of content changes the number of views my videos receive. It does and the numbers are interesting.

YouTube provides analytics that I can check whenever I want. Looking at those statistics I see that I used to get roughly tens of recommendations by YouTube for my videos on a daily basis. That means that of all the viewers on YouTube looking for skiing or adventure videos, only ten or so will have the chance to see one of mine. That's not a lot.

When I started posting more videos, that number shot up significantly. As long as I posted weekly, YouTube recommended my content around three to four hundred times per day. Yes some of that can be attributed to the fact that I have more videos to choose from and so I looked at another statistic. I waited 8 days before I posted my video last night. Before posting that video, the number of times YouTube recommended my content had dropped down below a hundred. After posting it, the number of recommendations increased significantly again.

So what does all of this mean? Simply posting content more frequently gets you more views. I am now trying to figure out a way to post more frequently. Evidence suggests that posting daily would dramatically increase my audience. Unfortunately I put a lot of work into each of my videos and a side-effect of posting more frequently would mean a reduction in quality. I hope that isn't the case as that would mean a bunch of short junk videos would gain a larger audience than longer well-crafted ones. I hope that viewers would be somewhat discriminatory with what they watch.

I will see what I can do to post more frequently without a reduction in quality and see if the data agrees with my hypothesis or not. In any event, I am learning a lot and that is the whole reason I am creating videos.

Creating Your Own QR Code

Creating your own quick reader or QR code is actually very simple. I have been creating a YouTube video every week for the past few weeks and in an effort to drive traffic to my channel, I created a QR code and am having them printed on business cards. I can then hand out those cards as I ride up the chairlift with other skiers interested in my Top 5 Ski Areas of North America video series.

A QR code is simply a 2-dimensional bar code that translates into text. You could make a QR code for your name but it is more useful to make one for your website. In my case I looked at the URL for my YouTube channel and dropped it into a QR-Code generator that I found doing an Internet search. I didn't feel the need to add a logo in the middle or anything fancy like that but had the option if I desired.

Once I had the QR code, I saved it as an image file and can now add it to any number of places. I originally thought about making my own business cards and picked up some Avery printable sheets that could be separated into 10 cards per page. Unfortunately my color laser printer jams with thick paper and so I had to print them using my ink-jet printer that I really only use as a scanner. The ink tends to run when it gets wet and so it is not something I want to carry around in my jacket pocket on a snowy day. Instead I went to Vistaprint and had 100 cards printed inexpensively.

Today I spent my morning skiing at Snowbird and handed out a few of my sample cards that I created. When other skiers find out I am making videos they are interested in watching them and having a QR code makes them easy to view. As the QR code is for my channel and not a specific video, I don't need to update the cards every time I release a new video. In a few weeks, I'll be able to see if they help drive any traffic.

Video Quality Assurance

Last week I spent 3 days backcountry skiing with my two sons and one of my oldest son's friends. As I am trying to put out a YouTube video every week, I quickly assembled the footage, wrote a narrative, added some background music and posted the resulting video. In the first viewing, I immediately noticed 3 different errors. One would think I didn't do any error checking of the video while I assembled it but that would be wrong. I had gone through it over a dozen times.

One issue I had is that I had to go back and rerecord the initial narration clip. For some reason it is not as loud as the others and so I had to bump the sound level so that it matches the rest of the video. That is easy to do and by itself would not warrant redoing the video.

The second issue I found is that I have one movie clip where I have my thumb in the lower right. It is not large and easy to remove with a bit of editing. The sad thing is that one of my checks is to specifically look for my thumb as my action camera makes it easy to include that particular digit. Only after posting the video to YouTube did I finally see the problem. Again, that would not cause me to fix the issue and repost a new version.

The real problem came in the closing credits. I like using free background music from Bensound as all I need to do is identify the song and give the URL to the website.  As I created the credits, I hadn't decided which song to actually use. Rather than leave the section blank, I put the word "Something." Unfortunately that really did need to be fixed even though I put the correct information in the video description. I had to go in and delete the old video and re-upload the corrected one. Fortunately that didn't take too long.

It never fails. I think I have done an excellent job reviewing the quality of my latest video. Then I upload it to YouTube and I notice all sorts of problems. Fortunately I caught these 3 issues before anyone other than myself had the chance to view the video. Otherwise I would have lost several video views. Those that post frequently know how important they can be. Especially as one tries to grow his or her audience.

A YouTube Experiment

In my last post I mentioned I published a new video on YouTube about the Top 5 Steepest Ski Areas in North America. Today I published a follow-up video about the Top 5 Powder Ski Areas in North America. My experiment is to see if publishing content more closely spaced together leads to a wider audience. So far I have to say it has been somewhat of a disappointment. 

I published my "Steep" video and then broadcast it on LinkedIn and here on my blog. There are not a lot of regular readers to the blog and so I know it doesn't generate too much traffic. I do have over 500 contacts on LinkedIn and so I did get a lot of people watching the video. Some of those contacts shared the video with others and I managed to pick up about a dozen new subscribers. My hope is that those subscribers will continue to remain engaged and share the channel with others.

I published my "Powder" video a few hours ago and have not seen any traffic other than my own viewing to make sure it uploaded correctly. Perhaps I am not giving it enough time and people need to get notified that I put up the new video. I will give it a few days and then do some promoting and see if that helps. I don't want to rely on my LinkedIn network though and will have to come up with some creative ways to spread the news. If anyone has any ideas. Please feel free to send me a comment.

Top 5 Steepest Ski Areas in North America

Last night I was putting the finishing touches on my latest video, the Top 5 Steepest Ski Areas in North America when I realized that I needed one more picture for the video. I mentioned High Rustler at Alta but didn't have any pictures of the iconic ski run. I had already shown pictures of the trail map and knew that a quality photo taken from the road would convey the right message.

My daughter is a ski instructor at Alta and I asked her if she had any pictures of High Rustler. She didn't but did have today off and so we drove up to the resort together. Before getting to the parking lot, I pulled off to the side of the road and she took a beautiful picture with my camera. We then spent the morning skiing on our World Cup GS race skis carving high-speed turns on the beautifully groomed runs. A few hours later, we headed home.

Dropping the photo into iMovie was easy and it made for a dramatic scene in the video. High Rustler is really one of those steep runs that even advanced skiers have nightmares about. When I first started skiing it in college, I would have to force any fear out of my mind or it would paralyze me at the top. Today's photo captured that. If you are interested in seeing it, just watch the link at the top of the post.