>> Very true, actually.. well, if you insist but I'll start a new thread for old stories, at least with my own to start off with, before this one explodes from all the posts we have made in here!
I do insist 
And if you do, you will get a well-earned hug (at least a virtual one! Corona-time, and who-knows how many miles there are between us!) from me This is an important matter.
Lauri
A quick story about how the most marvellous creation in the universe, the human brain works! Haha!
Nowadays I often get tired just by looking out of the window when laying in my bed ... how different things once were!
There were (at least) two cases when I was awake three days and nights in a row. And that's a bad thing, open-eye hallucinations started to emerge!
First, there was one case at work ... it was absolutely crucial to finish one piece of software. I sat there day and night, and lo and behold, I got it working ... but at that point I was so exhausted that I saw how the mouse and the keyboard started to fly in front of me! Huh!
At that time, I also had some health issues with my salivary glands. They had to be operated many times, it was some kind of tumor. One morning I was making a print-out of my code to take it with me to the hospital. Other people started to show up. One of my colleagues, the future CEO, remarked: "for God's sake, put those away when the doctor takes the scalpel in his hand!" We laughed so hard
The other time was when some early PC game was released, after Doom ... maybe it was Descent? Anyway it was the first true 3D game ever that I had seen. After playing it for 3 days and nights, the enemy ships were flying all over me, I didn't even need to play the game!
I was not smart enough to be worried about what kind of damage I caused to my brain with this kind of abuse -- probably nothing permanent, I suppose. In both cases I just wondered and thought Wow! That's one curious effect indeed!
Lauri
I've only had a limited number of those sleep-deprived hallucinations. One that springs to mind was when I was coding and testing some area updates for a Diku MUD back in the day; it was during term break and I had started in on Friday afternoon.
At some point on Sunday I realized that I shouldn't be seeing the action in 3D and my hands shouldn't feel like they were floating with the words just appearing on the screen as if directly from my mind. It was shortly after that that I realized it wasn't Friday night, and levitated my way to my bed.
I still have no idea what time on Sunday it was when I stopped; I woke up Monday afternoon with a bad headache.
[Edit:] It was kind of comforting to hear that other people had those hallucinations too! Maybe I was not such a freak after all
There was another effect: when I was extremely tired, it could happen that I temporarily lost my ability to see the world in 3D! That must have something to do with the brain, not the eyes ... but suddenly the world seemed to be "flat", like a photograph, I could not measure distances to other objects. The problem was always quickly restored, but the first time it happened I was very scared
Also, interestingly, the perception of depth is a genetic trait. Of course, most people have it -- but some more than others. Without even knowing that! An amusing story:
In my country, we have the conscription --- because of our troublesome history and even more troublesome Eastern neighbour. I have one sister and four brothers. Me and three of my brothers were tested for the stereo vision when we were in the Army. And each one of us tested had the best stereo eyesight in the company. That simply cannot be a coincidence, the odds would be infinitesimally low.
The reason for the testing was that this was the time before laser range-finders ... we were trained to measure distances to the enemy tanks etc using devices like this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereoscopic_rangefinder
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereopsis
Toying with that device was the one thing I liked in the Army! And just a few weeks ago, after much hunting, we found second-hand devices to play with. A Finnish Army surplus sale (the text is in my language, but see the pictures):
My brothers were busy so even though I was tired, I made a 400 km road trip -- and now, after 40 years, we have 4 of those devices to play with! Let the games begin! Haha!
Lauri
Great finding Lauri!
Optical range finders made by Carl Zeiss Jena. From the label, I would think they were made around 1940 maybe?
>> I would think they were made around 1940 maybe?
Yes! Something like that, maybe even before the war. There are small variations in the models. And our military was and still is operating on a very tight budget. Nothing was wasted! These meters were still used as late as the late eighties.
I wish I could explain how these things work ... well, I'll make an attempt. When you look inside, there is a thin three-dimensional dashed line, kind of a fence ... and small numbers. When all the adjustments are made properly, it is extremely fast to make a measurement. The object to be measured, whatever it might be, and the dashed line align at some distance in the 3D space. You just read the number next to it and shout it out loud! Or whisper, depending on the situation. Haha!
I wonder why the army is not keeping at least some of them. I talked to some senior officers and they said "nobody would know how to use them any more" ... and more such nonsense. These devices are easy to operate, I should know! And one additional thing to consider: if you use a laser range-finder, you are at the same time exposing yourself to the enemy. I have even heard that there are certain border regions in the world where if you try to point any kind of laser beam across the border, an automatic cannon instantly aims and shoots you ... but I'm not sure if this is true or not, hearsay
Lauri
Exactly what I thought, Lauri. Any laser source may easily be aimed at.
At university, we had a a few "Carl Zeiss Jena" photometers in usage in 1975 and later.
The Zeiss machines usually outperformed digital photometers easily.
You had to choose the correct filter manually and the measuring was done by a clumsy micrometer like knob. Quite a difference to just pushing a button on a "modern" Perkin-Elmer.
I was using one of those photometers in school in 1989. We also had the Carl Zeiss Jena spectrometers; those things were rugged, and perfect for student use!
Hmm? Because the word "photometer" was new to me -- never heard about it before -- I had to ask my dear "uncle Google"
Is this what you two guys were talking about:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photometer
Lauri
Kind of, but digital readouts like that are too newfangled for the ones I used to use. The ones I used had a diffraction lens with a PV sensor behind it; you could adjust the diffraction bandwidth and then adjust which part the PV sensor was behind, thereby being able to take intensity readings for any subset of the visible bandwidth. Great for photography. Mine didn't use batteries, just the sensor, lense, a dial to dial in the lens, and a swiss clock-style face to measure the intensity.
Indeed! Btw, among other things, I'm also an ornithologist Long time ago, when I bought my spotting scope, there were only two possible options: Zeiss (Swiss) and Swarovski (American). All the others were no more than toys ... I tested these two out and both were equally good. Eventually it was a no-brainer to buy Zeiss ... because before I could make up my mind, Swarovski was sold out and I was in a hurry! Haha! In my opinion, both were of exceptional quality.
Lauri
Hah... I got mine from my great aunt, who was told to keep it when she left the military after WWII. Great spotting scope, and my kids still use it today. It's heavier than modern alternatives, but the lenses are tougher and clearer, and the manual adjustments just feel nice and have a good weight. It's too bad the original leather strap eventually disintegrated, but the rest has held up to the weather and generations of children
I have always wondered, how it is even possible that they can make optical devices as good as I have seen!? Beating electronics, in some cases, as someone mentioned. It is almost like magic
And, as you said, the "feel" and weight of these old things feel also so good. I would compare that to weighing an old book in my hand: the sheer weight and feel of the object is a promise; read this, something good may happen. Am I silly or what?! Haha!
Lauri
As a side note: I'm very grateful that the admin of this site has allowed an occasional off-topic discussion like this, without kicking me out! Thank you. Even though I (or we) have temporarily deviated quite a bit from talking about B2, Macintosh and emulation, I have enjoyed this enormously ... and maybe I would still have some stories to tell ...
By the way, who is the admin / admins?
Lauri
Hi Lauri, besides myself, there's quite a bunch of us acting as admin/moderators etc; There's also:
24bit, Bolkonskij, Daxeria, fogWraith, IIGS_User, Knez, mrdav & watchsmart
Phew; No wonder there's such little spam oozing from the seams in here 
Straying off topic under the General discussion forum is fine. And, your kind of OT is encouraged
I've flagged down a couple of spammers too, lol
Yes, cbone, you guy's are on the ball and help us out too.
Mike, I was going to ask, regarding Lauri's build, do you happen to know off-hand if it can run separately from the JIT builds on Windows? I use Win 10 x64, which came with the tower I got, if that helps. I already have a version of Basilisk II on there, but I'm sure it's the main one emaculation.com points to, which may not be build 142.. of course, if you know of any updates to your favorite build, I'm all ears
I want to see how both the default and 142 versions handle some of MGs educational titles with all the efforts I'm making to test and setup educational software.. a surprising number of these run exceptionally well on BII, so I can at some point go find and populate that GDoc spreadsheet kicking around in the forums after I get through all my findings! 
As I'm testing this stuff, it will also be run and tested on a Performa 6360 for a real-world Power Mac comparison, since it can run 68k software out-of-the-box, lol
If you don't mind an answer from not Mike, then: yes it can run completely separate from any other Basilisk installation. The latest 142 build was made by me in 2008 when I dived into setting up a build environment. Phew: https://surfdrive.surf.nl/files/index.php/s/yr1NJIa8aZ8J1Rb/download
Absolutely, Howard!
That's fantastic! I will see what I actually have installed now and add this one to the mix
I truly want to see how they compare and use them for future kids-at-home projects I've been working on, on-and-off.. I'm also using the Android version of Basilisk II, but I can really do some educational CD game testing with the 6360!
Hi Lauri, besides myself, there's quite a bunch of us acting as admin/moderators etc; There's also:
24bit, Bolkonskij, Daxeria, fogWraith, IIGS_User, Knez, mrdav & watchsmart
The ones who have access to the server, and run the site itself, are...
24bit, Bolkonskij, Daxeria, fogWraith, IIGS_User, Knez,mrdav & watchsmart
May I ask you (any of you) what is the reason that keeps you doing this?
Let me first tell you about my motivations why I started the B2 Windows port. There were three reasons: I needed to run some programs that I could not using the other emulators (so this was selfish), and I was curious: can this really be done? And the third one, the love for the Mac!
Then things changed! After I uploaded the first (very basic) port, I realised: it feels good to help other people and to interact with them. Maybe I'm exaggerating a little bit now, I had released many more freeware programs before that -- but at least it made me remember that feeling For two years, it was great. I'll write some other day the story, what really was the reason that made me stop doing that. It needs to be written much more carefully than my other blabberings, so that there will be no chance of misunderstandings. I wrote something about it before, and all of that is true, I just checked what I wrote ... but there is more, the other reasons need to be explained.
Lauri
Money, power, women, fame
Or rather, it's fun and always exciting when anything "new" is unearthed, archived and preserved for the future. I was bit by the Mac bug in my early childhood, though could never afford one until much later (adult), so the next best thing was emulation.
Interaction with others was never part of the plan, yet here we are
All the various and interesting hardware and software made from the 80's and up was always fun to read about. It had that "wow"-factor, and sometimes acquiring some of this now, today, simply blows you away. Brilliant minds and incredible solutions / products.
You guys are doing great work. Props for that!
You know, I almost had a gag reflex and had to vomit after writing such a stupid phrase ... but what a man can do, the truth must be told! Haha!
Lauri
It certainly has its ups and downs!
Personally it aligns with my own interests, and strong beliefs that there are certain things that should remain open and free without strings attached. I've got some views on what I think the internet should be like, and it's one of the reasons why we have no ads or sponsored contents running on the site, for instance.
Many things were better before 
Sometimes I miss the simplicity from the past
>> certain things that should remain open and free
I think that you hit the nail in the head.
Not long ago, I made a joke: I said to Christian Bauer that think about how many hundreds thousands of dollars/euros we could have made. With his knowledge of Mac internals, and my knowledge how to write programs for the most lucrative market! (We don't talk often, but now I had a reason to bother him: The 42 thing, remember?)
But it is not that simple. If this (completely hypothetical) scenario had happened, so many other things would also have been different. If I had been working for some kind of "company" for money, I would not have gotten that much help from other people ... and surely the same has applied to him as well,
Many other things would have been different also! However, it is interesting to speculate. The "real" companies making emulators at that time were not doing too well. I have no inside information of their financial standings, but nobody made a fortune, I think.
There are pieces of software that should, indeed, be open source ... and some others not. I remember when there was a discussion on the vMac dev list about this. (I'm too tired to find the exact quote). Darek said he needs to make a living; and Alan replied back that he had found a way to make it so that free software makes his living. Maybe I'll find that discussion later, it could also be somewhere freely available.
Lauri
The only people to make a fortune off of emulators around that time (slightly later) were Connectix AFAIK. Richard Bannister made a bit off his Emulator Enhancer, but that was always hobby money for him so he could go roller coastering.
Would that be the same Richard Bannister who once ported vMac to Macintosh? If so, good for him! I did not know him too well although we were subscribed to the same dev list.
And come to think about it ... Darek has kept going year after year, I don't know whether he has made a real fortune or not but at least a living!
Christian's ShapeShifter made some decent amount of money.
Microcode Solutions something, I don't know how much.
Lauri
Darek was an "early" Microsoft employee. I think he's been with them (with some interruptions) for more than 30 years. I suspect he's got a few dollars.
Yes, that's the same Richard Bannister - https://www.bannister.org/. Looks like he's just started writing games again this autumn after a 20 year break!
Writing games has always been something that I wanted to try. Long time ago, I made some efforts but the results were, frankly, garbage. A very good idea is needed, something that hits the nerve of the audience. And then some infra if you want to make money. Who could have thought that for example "Sudoku" would be such a big success? It's a hit or miss, but would not require anything special: just an idea that is good enough to become a global phenomenon
Lauri
and it's one of the reasons why we have no ads or sponsored contents running on the site
That's one of several reasons why I love the MG so much 
Money, power, women, fame
fogWraith, I think you're actually onto something here! 
Money: Cæteris paribus, time's made the obsolete relevant in our eyes. Howard made a very valid point on his post yesterday, and was the crux of my thesis in college, which was that things are first given worth then made obsolete to suit economic needs. Even Æsop, a fabled slave and poet of ancient Greek times, spun a fable whose moral was let well alone, let sleepings dogs lie and it's relatively more modern iteration, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
How does it relate? In the 90s, Macs had become the ultimate dream machines of their time. Overseas, the people I frequented most in my technical Mac sales and support were moguls, diplomats, top private schools, including American-run, law, architecture, print media and marketing design firms and professionals and children of affluent families would be sent for classes on Mac basics. Bottom line, high-society of the time liked the style, ease-of-use and exclusivity of owning and using Macs; they could afford to make their life simpler.. and who wouldn't want any of that? So here we are, lol, reaping all the benefits of an era gone by but never to be forgotten! (at least not by us)
In the same vein, Power: Apple, while make for non-tech people, became a sort of status symbol. It gave you power over computing, which was very unfriendly prior to the simplicity of mouse and GUI-based computing. Jobs, Woz and their Apple dream-team brought that power home. They evangelized insanely great Macs made for the rest of us, to give us, just everyday folks, the Chutzpah to stick it to corporate sticks-in-the-mud.. now that's power, lol, "be the rebel"! But all that power came at a price, making Macs überexclusive, which created a must-have appeal in a lot of people. Got milk?
Women and Fame: The essence of both is attraction. If you had a Mac back in the day, it meant you had the means and/or smarts to get one, and that instantly made you attractive. Or if you had the tech-smarts, you'd be accosted to come fix whatever issue you had with your Mac. Either way, you got any and all the attention and praise you desired, plus many accolades, favors and other trade-benefits! Of course, I'm describing an ideal scenario; in the real world, ymmv.
>> Money, power, women, fame
cbone, your entry was so well formulated ... thank you. It took some time before I even had the courage to respond. Are you a teacher, professor or something?
If I would have the energy, I would collect a list from the ten thousand+ emails I got during the B2 days, statistics of what kind of people asked for help from me. The results would be surprising! No heads of the state, though, as far as I know! All the other walks of life.
My take (remember, I'm a simple man ...)
Money: if I have just enough, I'm satisfied. I never had a desire to collect enormous wealth, I cannot take it with me when I leave I just need to have enough money so that I can stop thinking about it!
Power: I wish that there were some power in my muscles now.
Women: cannot live without them ... the best part is not the hmm, erotic aspects, even though that is absolutely necessary, too. But the women I have known, have had quite different kinds of intelligence than I do. Sometimes when I need to be disciplined, no man could do that, I would only get irritated or whatever. Women can do that! Haha! And please don't misunderstand: during my travels, I also have known women that had the same kind of "rational" intelligence that I have. One of them was far superior than me, I think! Hmm? I'll contact her and ask for her opinion.
Fame: I got some, sort of, deserved or not. And right now I'm using or abusing it to get an audience to tell my life stories!
Lauri
>> Money, power, women, fame
No, it's "Person, woman, man, camera, TV", see:
Kalkofes Mattscheibe - Trumps Test"
Of course I do not do anything over here (except for the occasional download but I started over on emaculation.com with Basilisk for Windows builds to help out my then-girlfriend who needed a "Mac" to get through her graphic design studies, while I studied philosophy and AI. We used Macs for some AI programming. How expensive those Macs were for students that were always broke. From there on I moved to compiling various emulators to keep on avoiding the Apple surcharge... I always liked the hardware and software and have a small collection of hardware that will once be part of my personal museum when I get room for it.
Over on emaculation we keep things running with just three people, but we have invested in some heavier anti-spam measures. I also strive to understand some of the tech behind the emulation and to exchange with the main qemu-system-ppc developer to keep the community informed on developments. Some social instinct kicks in somewhere, and something a bit of unsolicited praise helps to keep me going
Interesting, Howard.
And it is also easy to see who those three people are. I'm an occasional lurker!
>> while I studied philosophy
Hah! I guessed that, remember our very, very deep and thoughtful discussion about "intelligence" ... until you ... hmm ... graciously let me off the hook! I would be no match for you if we would talk again about deeper meanings of life! I'm such a simple and straightforward guy! Haha!
>> unsolicited praise helps to keep me going
Nowadays I'm so honest that I could not lie even if I would try very hard! How disgusting! HAHA! So: yes: your work is appreciated!!! Btw, Mikhail Bulgakov, one of my all-time favorites, wrote in his masterpiece, "The Master and Margarita": "To speak the truth is easy and pleasant.”. If you have not read that novel, I would recommend it.
Bulgakov was a Russian. In one of my previous posts I said that we have a troublesome Eastern neighbour. True, but that applies only to their governments. The people, however, that is another story. In my country, we know the Russian people very well, they are warm and lovable.
Lauri
Howard, could you please explain me one thing:
I wrote:
>> it feels good to help other people and to interact with them
You wrote:
>> bit of unsolicited praise helps to keep me going
Although your comment was not referring to me, it made me wonder: now it sounds in my own ears that what I wrote might have been fake. You, the master-philosopher, tell me: what I did, could it all have been just ego-tripping, writing free software for others and listening to praises? (Haha: not always, some ugly words were also heard!) Or genuine desire to help others? Or maybe some kind of combination of both? Maybe even more reasons that I cannot see ...
Please note, whatever the answer is, I see no problems, I'm just curious as always. It was enjoyable I'm not having any regrets or even doing serious soul-searching, just for fun!
Lauri
Haha, I have only limited knowledge of myself, and certainly limited knowledge of you. But some things might be common to all. I guess emotions are complex things that might be softened by thinking about them and understanding their causes. If you see them like this, you might come to the conclusion that they are things of the imagination acting up before understand the world in concepts of cause and effect... However that might be, there is almost always some thing or someone involved, except perhaps in true intellectual understanding (which might be craved after for its own sake?) Why and how one is motivated is complex: If we see happiness as increasing our powers to act and think, and sadness as decreasing our powers to act and think, we might look for things that improve happiness. In our current case, praise is craved for as it is good for the self-love (everyone might have a bit of "look at me"), but modesty then mitigates the overt soliciting for praise (which might burden others). So the balanced person can only hope for it...but it makes happy.
As we said earlier, perhaps humans (even from an egotistical stance) do understand the benefit of working together, as that can improve the situation for all. And the net balance could be happiness and some quietness in oneself after understanding one's situation. So, keep on thinking...
Ok, thank you! I may even understand, truly!
The next time I visit your country I will make an appointment to sit on a chair so that you can study my mind!
Actually, I have never "been" to the Netherlands ... just rushing through it, in a hurry to be somewhere else ...
Now I'm no longer in a hurry, the limiting factors are quite different, hah
Lauri
This is funny: after drinking 2 beers, here I am again, browsing through the B2 source code.
Why am I doing this? I should be tending my garden. I should be making love with the woman I love. I should be digging for gold in the North -- the real North. I should do something to fix my health. I should ... whatever! And yet, here I am! Love for the Macintosh, anybody?
Lauri
Why be Candide when you can be Don Quixote? It's much more fun to tilt at windmills than to get caught up in the disasters of reality.
The beer has released you from your internal ethics? Now you do what you really want to do. Perhaps if you drink some more, you'll start coding, but spaghetti-style
What do you mean by real north? Last time I went to Kirkeness from the Netherlands, I drove up through Sweden and the top part of Finland. Silly me thinking Finland was not part of the Euro-zone (blush) and asking for the exchange rate...
2 beers is quite enough When I was younger, oh boy, there were no limits Not any more.
"Real north" was a joke, a reference to "Game of Thrones". Have you not watched it? If not, you should. It is a quality TV show by HBO, I would recommend it. When making jokes like this, of course, it would be better to make it more obvious ... but it is so easy to forget things like that. I'm glad that you asked, maybe some other people also wondered what I meant
Lauri
2 beers is quite enough Smile When I was younger, oh boy, there were no limits
I do not like watching other peoples drinking beer in the pub. That's boring for me, since the beginning.
I do not like watching other peoples drinking beer in the pub. That's boring for me, since the beginning. Wink
I remember that if I was not at the same level of drunkenness as the other people, it was impossible to stand their blabbering! Only drunken people could stand other drunks!
[Edit] ... and the same must have applied to myself, maybe I just didn't notice! I need to ask Howard when I'll visit him for a head-doctor session! HAHA!
Lauri
Now that we were talking about Northern part of this lovely continent, I would like to bother you with a story what happened during my gold-digging days! Might be amusing. But first my fingers need some time to recover.
Lauri
I can't wait for the next tale from our very own Mac Bard of the North!
Gold!
How many of you know what it is? Truly is? I don't mean the atomic weight or other boring physical properties.
Gold is passion, power; a thing that started and paid for wars. Once you have had a chunk of it in your hand, you may understand: the weight, the color, the shine, and the knowledge that this is something very valuable. Many men have died for it in the course of history. Finding enough of it could turn your life around and feed your children!
And how about wandering into the wilderness, trying to find it yourself, riches? Back in the times of the Great Gold Rushes -- California, Yukon, Australia -- and on a smaller scale, in my own country -- it was dangerous. Now it can be done without so much danger, but part of the excitement is still there.
Yes! Once I got this fewer too. I was lucky, this is probably the only country in Europe where alluvial gold can be found. Indeed, this is my story about searching for alluvial gold only -- I know nothing about hard rock mining .. although our stupid government gives permissions to outsiders to step in and take our mineral wealth!
And again, this relates to B2 only remotely -- only the same passion! Haha! And also, these trips were holidays from writing the code ...
So, about 20 years ago, I got the itch. For three years, I dragged my wife to accompany me to Lappland, in a search for this elusive treasure. It was not easy at all! And the results were not much, but the search itself, that was the thrill!
The first place we tried it, panning for gold, was at Tankavaara. Here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tankavaara
A place for tourists, a set-up where one can get a small glimpse of the old tradition. And even though I knew that this was a far cry from the old-time gold rushes, I was immediately addicted: seeing how small yellow flakes of gold appeared after flushing away the black dirt ... it was like magic.
The best thing that happened over there was that we met a German geologist, Kasper von Wuthenau. He teached us proper techniques and later on rented us some of his equipment.
He is still up there! After the Tankavaara gold village went bankrupt, he and some of his friends bought it, and are now running the place. If you ever happen to visit the place, say hello from us!
Two years ago, Kasper also found a diamond, the first ever in Lappland! Cannot doubt his qualities as a geologist, now can we? Diamonds had been found before in the Eastern Finland, but this was something new. Sorry, I could not find English page but if you are interested, Google Translate keeps getting better:
https://www.is.fi/kotimaa/art-2000005994709.html
Later on we got more serious and rented a small place near the Ivalojoki river valley. The results? Please don't ask! Nothing to write home about. The guys renting these places, naturally, keep the best places for themselves, and for a small fee, let the "tourists" dig at somewhat worse places. Nevertheless, it was always fun!
Then at a small claim at Harrijoki river we saw how gold can be found by diving and dredging. I did not try it myself but watched with great interest how our "landlord" dived into the river and eventually popped up to the surface unharmed, with some results Even though he was quite ill, he was also one of those guys with "life imprisonment"; I don't know the proper translation, but the local term means the guys that are so badly bitten by the gold fewer that they can never leave! And I would say Kasper is one of them
A few years ago, I had a chance to buy my own place, better ground. I could not do that for many reasons. But now I have other ideas on how to continue this Odyssey, if only I get better. There is a new technique, I think that I figured out a way how gold could be panned in places where it was not previously possible -- ancient river valleys, nowadays dry. Let's see what happens. Haha!
Lauri
Reminds me of when I was young; my parents gave me a gold pan and told me to go at it.
After spending a few weekends in various streams and creeks, I almost collected enough gold to buy myself another gold pan. When I realized how much effort I'd put into it for how much return, and how much paperwork was involved with actually staking a claim, I gifted the pan to my father for his birthday and never panned for gold again
