Cheap Thoughts: Chance Of Rain

Is there anything more worthless than the weather service information on “chance of rain?” Why bother to provide it at all? Rain is so hit-or-miss that any stats are essentially worthless.

If you think about it, the chance of somebody getting rain is pretty much 100 percent. It just may not be anywhere near you.

While driving around today, I noticed gathering clouds. Rain clouds, to be exact. They’re gonna rain on somebody nearby; the chance of that is 100 percent. Still, the official forecast says 40 percent.

What the forecast needs to say is the chance that rain will fall somewhere within the area. In addition to that, there needs to be a chance that that rain will fall on any particular spot, which is what is done now. Thus, there is a 100 percent chance of rain in the area, but only a 40 percent chance it will fall any particular place.

Or I can just poke my head outside every now and then to check. That might make more sense.

Tropospheric Ducting

This past weekend I spent some time installing my mobile ham radio into my car. The radio install went well, though disconnecting the battery cables had some reprocussions. My factory-installed car stereo has a stupid security code enabled which you have to enter each time the radio loses power. Like anyone would want to steal a boxy, Honda factory stereo! I had to track down the code before I could listen to any music.

Once I finally got my stereo working again, I found it tuned to a frequency just below the FM band: 87.7MHz. That frequency is in the low-VHF TV band, so I only a little surprised to hear something on that frequency. I was thinking it was Raleigh’s WRAL-TV Channel 5, but further listening proved it to be WECT Channel 6, the NBC affiliate in Wilmington! That’s a good 127 miles, according to Google Maps!

Yesterday, I also heard a repeater in Greensboro, itself a nice hop away. There’s been some pretty impressive tropospheric ducting going on lately.

NASA’s World Wind: Google Earth For The Rest Of Us

I think Google’s Google Earth is an amazing tool. I mean, being able to view any point on the globe like you’re flying over it is captivatingly cool. I’ve used it a few times to map out the route to a customer meeting ahead of time. The only problem with Google Earth is that it has no Linux client. Sure, you can run it under WINE, but its buggy: the screens make you dizzy and the menus don’t draw.

NASA has a lot of satellite imagery in its collection, so naturally they built their own mapping project called World Wind. World Wind offers access to all of NASA’s high-quality imagery, including all the data from the shuttle’s Topography Mission. The result is a rich, 3D view of the world.

Still, World Wind does not in itself offer a Linux client so an enterprising Russian hacker named Vitaliy Pronkin made his own WW2D is a free and open source, Java-based client to NASA’s World Wind data.

World Wind’s detail rivals Google Earth’s, though the WW2D client doesn’t offer 3D views (NASA’s version for Windows does). Still, its great to see that the Linux community now has a place to play with maps.

For more information:
News Forge article on World Wind
NASA World Wind
World Wind FAQ
WW2D – a Java World Wind Client

Applying The Heat Shield

Going on the bizarre theory that houses are easier to cool if the heat is kept out of them to begin with, I finally got around to installing a radiant barrier on our garage door. I got the idea last year when looking at solutions for our attic heat. A lot of university cooperative sites were steering people away from powered cooling (gable fans, for instance) in favor of passive solutions, like radiant barriers. Radiant barriers reflect heat back into space, before it can seep into the conditioned part of your house. I’d like to do the whole attic, but a test was needed first. The garage door is a good candidate for a radiant barrier, as it faces due west and gets cooked by the afternoon sun.

Applying the barrier wasn’t hard at all. It’s essentially bubble wrap covered by aluminum foil. All I had to do was cut it to fit the panels of my door. The barrier fit so snugly into the door panels that they didn’t even need to be fastened.

The results were immediately obvious. As I insulated panel after panel, I could feel the source of heat – the hot door – disappearing. An hour later, I had 95% of the door covered in foil. The windows are the only remaining problem, the sun’s rays still burn right through them.

Radiant barriers aren’t cheap. The 2′ x 25′ roll I used for the door cost around $23. Still, but the radiant barrier seems like a good candidate for the attic, especially considering our air conditioner can’t keep our house cool on hot summer days. If a barrier can cut the attic temperature from 140 degrees to 100, it will make a world of difference in our summertime comfort.

Gunslinger Followup

I think I may have solved the Curious Case of the Nighttime Gunshots. At a Memorial Day neighborhood party, a neighbor who’s a golfer sounded convinced it was the owner of Cheviot Hills golf course. He told me the owner is an older gentleman who owns the lone house out there. He thinks the guy picks up his rifle and takes an occasional shot at the rabbits and deer that are on his property.

Since the course is on county property and not in the city limits, he’s probably within his rights to shoot his gun. That doesn’t make me any happer that he’s doing it at 1 AM, though. Maybe I’ll have a friendly, neighbor-to-neighbor chat with him sometime and suggest he consider other, safer ways of passing the time.

Like golf, for instance.

Afghanistan Isn’t Safe For Dog Washers

The paper this morning carried news of riots in Afghanistan (remember Afghanistan? How we cleaned it up and all?), allegedly in response to abuses by the U.S. military. While the military is unfortunately used to being seen as the bad guy around there, I was stunned to learn the other target of their fury.

They were chanting “death to dog washers!” Yep, dog washers.

Apparently dog washers are the worst scum of the earth in Afghanistan, which leads me to wonder: what about the dirty dogs? Here in ‘Merica, dirty dogs are pretty low. You call someone a dirty dog, them’s fighting words. So do Afghanis consider clean dogs to be worse?

“I hate you,” screamed one protestor in my imagination. “You … you washed your dog!”

I just don’t understand the Middle East.

Hip, Hop, Hippie

I’ve been listening to the online radio station Party Radio USA. It’s got some great old-school dance music. Check it out, yo.

Rapper’s Delight
Sugarhill Gang

I said a hip hop,
Hippie to the hippie,
The hip, hip a hop, and you don’t stop, a rock it
To the bang bang boogie, say, up jump the boogie,
To the rhythm of the boogie, the beat. Continue reading →

Rumble, Rumble, Boom, Boom, Boom

I got home yesterday just in time for the fireworks. A fierce thunderstorm rolled through, pummelling our house and dumping buckets of rain and deadly lightning bolts. The weather station says half an inch of rain fell, but it sure seemed like more.

The storm did some damage to the area. A number of trees were blown down a mile or two south of us. Power lines fell over I-540 near Capital Boulevard. Nearby businesses and homes were without electricity for hours as crews repaired the fallen lines.

Our power flickered a few times but never went fully out. Our biggest problem was lightning. A bolt hit so close to the house that it left no gap between the flash and deafening thunder. We all dove for the floor! I don’t think I’ve ever been that close to lightning and I don’t care to be again. We’ll have to check our backyard trees carefully to see if any got roasted.

More fun might be in store for this afternoon. At least we’re getting the rain.