Watts Up With That?

Who can forget the cartoon scene shown above where Wile E. Coyote has a little trouble controlling some tornados he seeds in yet another futile attempt to capture the elusive Road Runner?

About ten years ago I thought of creating a computer game where you could create and steer your own tornado, but then I quickly thought to myself “I’d instantly be laughed and ridiculed out of the TV weather business for making such a socially distasteful product” so the thought passed just as quickly as an F0 twister.

Today I’m wandering COMPUSA in LA and what do I see? A game called Tornado Jockey.

From the game’s website description: “Target different objects like: vehicles, baseball stadiums and drug stores. Steer your storm away from forces like ‘Ray Gun Trucks’ and ‘Radar Bombers’ that aim to kill your tornado. You’re at the helm of mother nature’s energy, so pick your path and have a little fun!”

Then they go on to add: * Percentage of proceeds are donated to the American Red Cross

Yeah…. surely that makes it far more… umm…socially correct?

Here’s a screenshot of what the game looks like in operation:

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There’s an article in The Oil Drum that focuses on electricity production; or rather how or what we will need to do to keep pace with people’s demands while balancing that with environmental and economic impact. It is lengthy but well-reasoned and good reading.

From the article: “One of the biggest threats the USA faces today is a serious shortage of energy. Vulnerabilities in our system have been made glaringly obvious several times; since the 1970’s the USA has had social and economic upheaval due to the actions of foreign oil producers, and two hurricanes in 2005 showed just how fragile our remaining domestic supplies of oil and natural gas are.”

The president recently reiterated a commitment to reducing our national oil consumption, and I hope that gets implemented as its really a good idea. Hybrids and electric vehicles are looking better and better. Chances are my next car will be one of these.

From the "almost a
Darwin Award winner"
department
and from
WISN-TV
in Milwaukee…TV News Truck Breaks Through Ice:

Even though the temperatures have fallen, the ice on many bodies of water is
not thick enough to support vehicles.

A crew for a local television station drove its news truck onto a channel to
Big Muskeo Lake Sunday and broke through the ice. Crews for WDJT-TV in Milwaukee
were reportedly shooting a story about thin ice when the truck fell through.
The driver reportedly mistook the channel for a road when the accident happened.

The truck was approximately 150 yards off the boat launch, according to a
release issued by the City of Muskego Police Department.

The driver of the truck was the sole occupant and was able to get out without
injury, but the truck remains partially submerged.

Moderators note: Having worked in TV news myself, I’m
not that surprised. Often the only thing on reporters and producers minds is the
story deadline. Caution and common sense sometimes take a backseat in the news van.

You may have heard or seen that I donated the equipment and continue to provide the high bandwidth server to carry the City Council Meetings, School Board, Planning Commission and other public meetings via live Internet Webcast as a public service.

Councilman Larry Wahl and I worked together on this project to make it become a reality, and I was pleased to announce its operation in September of 2005. It was a fun and useful project since many people can’t get cable channel 11 to see public meetings.

Well tonight as I blog this over a glass of wine, there’s some new personal satisfaction in that I’ve sucessfully completed a major test that will make this medium even more valuable for the citizens of our fair city.

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It’s not often that I get to have a glass of wine at a restaurant in Chico and have WiFi Connectivity at the same time. Having both of these at the newly opened Market Cafe where Highway 32 meets 99 I decided I’d do my first “Live” blog entry.

Restaurants come and go in Chico, some don’t ever rise above the level of having an “open” sign. Finding new ones with ambiance and class is a treat. Finding one that gives every customer a free appetizing plate after 5 is even better.

This restaurant used to be “The Bean Scene” which was started by a couple of people I used to call “The Evil Blonde Ladies” because they’d come into Bidwell Perk and take notes on that business just before opening up their own gig. They didn’t make it, partly because it took them 20 minutes to toast a bagel.

So seeing a new restaurant in Chico is always a good thing, as on Friday and Saturday nights it’s often impossible to find a classy place to eat that isn’t fully booked. So while I’m never mentioned any Chico business before, I thought this one was worth a mention not only because they are new, but because its run by locals, Bob and Patricia Johansen.

I’m partial to wine blends, as they tend to take the edge off of the aftertaste. Tonight I sampled one of the best blends I’ve had in a very very long time. Its called Falling Star Merlot-Malbec (shown above), and I gotta tell you it beats my former favorite “Clous du Bois Marlstone” by a long shot, and costs about 66% less. ($19/bottle -vs- $60)

It’s worth checking out, if nothing else for the free appetizer and WiFi.

You know the old saying that “no two snowflakes are alike“? Well it may be possible for two snowflakes to be alike after all. There’s a fascinating article in LiveScience that details how this may be possible.

For anyone who studies probability, this seems reasonable, given that the article mentions that 10^24 snowflakes fall in any given year. The article also contains a photo gallery of fascinating snowflake pictures like the one shown above.

From the article: “A typical snow crystal weighs roughly one millionth of a gram. This means a cubic foot of snow can contain roughly one billion crystals … It is probably safe to say that the possible number of snow crystal shapes exceeds the estimated number of atoms in the known universe.”

Kenneth Libbrecht, a professor of physics at California Institute of Technology runs a website devoted entirely to Snow Crystals at www.snowcrystals.com which is also visually impressive.

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Anyone who knows much about me knows that I’ve been a strong advocate for alternate energy, and that I’ve put my money where my mouth is by putting solar power projects on my home as well as at Little Chico Creek School in my former role as CUSD Trustee.

Now I’m going to push an alternate way to do home or business computing.

A couple of months ago I wrote about the upcoming release of Windows Vista, and how I was disappointed that this new release from Microsoft and all of its Digital Rights Management (DRM) nonsense made the operating system turn your PC into a version of George Orwell’s Big Brother.

A friend of mine, school Trustee Rick Anderson recently dumped his PC and bought a Mac Mini because he said he was tired of all the viruses, spyware, upgrades and the like. I pointed out that if all he needed to do was do email, web browsing, word processing, some digital picture work and maybe some video editing, then the Mac Mini would be a good choice since it comes with all those things right out of the box.

It’s an important point, because what I described is what the majority of non technical people need in a personal computer. So why go through the expense and hassle that has become Windows? That got me to looking at an operating system that I once only thought of to be the domain of the uber Geeks – Linux.

For those who don’t know about Linux, or have the view that you have to be one of those people that stares at a computer screen until 3AM and then falls asleep on a stack of empty pizza boxes, that used to be the case. But Linux has grown up. While there are still a few distributions aka distros out there that cater to that some new ones have emerged recently that are as easy to use as Windows. They even come with applications like word processors, spread sheets, etc and the best part is they are free or low priced. Some work right out of the box, requiring only a simple install.

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City Councilor Ann Schwab proposed a “Gold Line” to protect the foothills from development as a complement to the Green Line which protects rich agricultural farmland to the west of Chico.

Being a meteorologist, I naturally thought of what I might propose to protect our environmentally sensitive atmosphere from errant development, and thus I’ve decided we need a “Blue Line” to protect our naturally blue skies. The Blue line will protect our valuable natural atmospheric viewshed, making sure that development won’t spoil the view for future generations.

Here is what I propose as the Blue Line:

A moratorium on building anything in Chico’s sphere of influence that is taller than our twin water towers downtown. Thats about 125 feet. This will of course allow historical structures like the Senator Theatre Tower, Sierra Nevada’s Brew Towers, and the Bell tower at CSUC to remain among others to be exempt.

UPDATE: A new RED LINE has been proposed by fellow blogger Lon Glazner.

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When I first saw this I thought for sure it was fellow blogger Lon Glazners basement, since he finds ways to work Star Trek into many things he writes about.

But this basement belongs to Gary Reign, a guy with apparently way too much time on his hands, who built a home theater in his basement. That by itself is not unusual. However, the room is designed, floor to ceiling, as the bridge of a Star Trek style starship. See his photo page for details.

The titles says it all. These are the least thought out, dumbest, just plain old ridiculous domain names registered to very serious websites and businesses… enjoy!

1. A site called ‘Who Represents‘ where you can find the name of the agent that represents a celebrity. Their domain name… wait for it… is
www.whorepresents.com

2. Experts Exchange, a knowledge base where programmers can exchange advice and views at
www.expertsexchange.com

3. Looking for a pen? Look no further than Pen Island at
www.penisland.net

4. Need a therapist? Try Therapist Finder at
www.therapistfinder.com

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I found this to be the perfect way to kill time. Click at your own risk, betcha can’t click just once.

This still image above from my Bidwell Ranch weather station at 10:30 this morning.

The cold air mass that originated in Siberian Polar regions made its way into Northern California yesterday, and as winds died last night, the temperature plummeted in the still unmixed air. The new record low for this date is 19 degrees, besting the old record of 22 degrees set in 1963.

More record cold is expected tonight. We could see 16 degrees in the outlying areas and 20 in the City.

the most current forecast from my automated forecast system is available here

Note that the record high for this date was 76 in 1920.

The hottest temperatures on recrod wordlwide are available at the NOAA NCDC Climate Center

What I find most interesting is the fact that none of the hottest temperatures worldwide have occurred during the 1998-2006 period of hot weather that many claim is the beginning of irreversible global warming. In fact they mostly occurred in the early and mid 20th century.

And its not just Chico that set new records lows overnight.

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My lovely wife Stacey, our two children, and myself braved the cold and gusty winds to get this photo of Comet McNaught over the coastal mountain range tonight. Stacey took this photo at about 1500′ elevation along Highway 32 on a turnout near Forest Ranch. This was about 15 minutes after sunset, about 5:18PM. The sky was an orange glow over the coastal mountains due to dust in the atmosphere. This was with a telephoto lens looking across the Sacramento Valley direct over Chico and zoomed on the coastal range.

The comet was easily visible to the naked eye. It was a once in a lifetime spectacular sight as this comet won’t be seen again in our lifetime. It may be visible again Saturday evening, but will be even closer to the sun, making photography difficult because it will be so low on the horizon.

View a larger image

There’s a photo op tonight just after sunset. Sunset is at 5:03 PM PST. Comet McNaught is the brightest comet in 30 years and is visible to the west, just after sunset. Astronomers at Harvard estimate it has a magnitude of -3

NASA astronomer Tony Phillips says Comet McNaught is the brightest comet visible from Earth in 30 years. It is six times brighter than Hale-Bopp in 1997, and 100 times brighter than Halley’s Comet when it appeared in 1986, Phillips told The Associated Press on Thursday.

“It will remain a spectacular comet for weeks, perhaps months, in the Southern Hemisphere,” Phillips said. “It could emerge as the brightest comet in recorded history.”

People in San Francisco saw it last night at sunset. We should be able to see it to the West just as well. We could not see it last night due to some clouds over the coastal range, but tonight I’m expecting clear skies and there’s a chance we’ll be able to see it. Its only a few degrees above the horizon between West and West Southwest and will only be visible for a few minutes after sunset.

Here is a link on how to find it: http://www.spaceweather.com/images2007/08jan07/skymap_north.gif

The best vantage points would be in Upper Park, along Highway 32 on the way to Forest Ranch, or from lookout point on the Skyway. That way you’ll not have the coastal range mountains hiding it from the angled view from the valley floor.

PHOTOGRAPHER SAFTEY NOTE: whatever you do, don’t look through your camera viewfinder until the sun is safely below the horizon. I’ve seen even seasoned photographers make that mistake out of habit and end up with a retina burn.

In a couple of days, comet McNaught will be too close to the sun to see, but in a week or so, once it comes around the sun, it may become visible again and may even be brighter due to heating by the sun.

I was is COSTCO Saturday and something odd caught my eye. Something I never saw before and was totally unexpected. There on an endcap, was a pallette of 5 gallon buckets labeled “EMERGENCY FOOD SUPPY” $99.99

Does COSTCO know something we don’t?

Are they worried the recent Democratic takeover will hasten Armageddon? I was at the store the week before and they weren’t there. Now the weekend before Democrats take control of the House and Senate, this shows up. I immediately thought of fellow blogger Lon Glazner and his episode of sheltering in place due to a gas leak announced by the City of Chico. The sales lady there seemed annoyed when I asked if there were any “Celebration Ales” in the kit.

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