The Boston Diaries

The ongoing saga of a programmer who doesn't live in Boston, nor does he even like Boston, but yet named his weblog/journal “The Boston Diaries.”

Go figure.

Monday, August 29, 2005

Thankful for satellite backed weather prediction

The Gulf of Mexico is hot; hot enough to to turn H urricane Katrina from a Catagory 1 to Catagory 5 in three days, just in time to wipe southern Louisiana off the map (although it was downgraded to a Catagory 4 just prior to landfall, understandable as hurricanes feed on water and Hurricane Katrina's northern edge is getting starved of fuel).

But you know, if this had happened in the 1920s? Nobody would have had a clue that this was on the way—there would have been no satellite tracking, no way of predicting which way the big wind would have shifted, and precious few ways of getting the word out ahead of the storm even if they had known. If Katrina turns out even half as bad as people say, it would have erupted out of nowhere to lay the smackdown with no warning whatsoever. A lot of people probably would have died.

theferrett: New Orleans, Yadda Yadda

My thoughts go out to those stuck in Louisiana and I hope that the death toll (last reported: three, but those happened during evacuation) does not rise at all. We do live in an incredible age where we are able to get significant warnings and save lives that might have otherwise been lost.

When all of this is over, the religious leaders will be calling everyone to thank God that everything is okay. No mention of the well-trained scientists and disaster experts who worked so tirelessly.

purplkat, in reply to theferrett


The mid-Atlantic running out of steam? I can only hope …

After I had written about the mid-Atlantic running out of steam for hurricanes, the National Hurricane Center started issuing reports for Tropical Depression Thirteen, which seemed to deflate my `mid-Atlantic running out of steam” theory. But I notice that Tropical Depression Thirteen is smaller than it was on Saturday when I last checked, so there may be something yet …

Then again, I'm not a meterologist.


Hmmmmmmmm …

Unless you have a REALLY high end sine wave UPS, get rid of it for all your audio gear, it doesn't have the balls to save you anyway. UPSs by thier nature inject all kinds of horrible hash onto the mains power. I mean get rid of ALL of them on the same phase as your audio gear. Don't even have'em plugged in in the same house if possible.

Repeat after me, as often as it takes,

One path to ground.
  One path to ground.
    One path to ground.
      One path to ground.
        One path to ground.

Mike Taht: One path to ground!!

Of the people that read me, Smirk and Wlofie may find this interesting. Mike Taht has a whole bunch of posts about power and audio systems.

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