I have re-enabled anonymous commenting after adjusting Drupal to thwart these spam posting attacks. MT.Net wouldn’t be the same without the Peanut Gallery!
Pressure Drop
(In honor of Hurricane Charley.)
—
Pressure Drop
By Toots And The Maytals
Hmm hmm hmm, yeah… [3x]
It is you (oh yeah)
It is you, you (oh yeah)
It is you (oh yeah)
Continue reading
Hurricane Charley Approaches
Hurricane Charley is about to rip up Central Florida. It is a category 4 hurricane with 145 MPH sustained winds and a pressure of 954 millibars. For comparision, Hurricane Fran was 954 millibars when it came ashore. Once it’s had its way with Central Florida, Charley could potentially hop into the Atlantic and bulldoze Myrtle Beach.
This is going to be a very destructive, very expensive storm.
Comment ability adjusted
I have adjusted the ability to comment on MT.Net as my site has attracted the attention of blog-spammers. My site was picked up from this Google search which targets Drupal sites.
If you don’t have an account, your comment will be held for approval. Registered users don’t have this restriction. I hate to do this, but I don’t have time to weed out spam comments. I may change this back to open comments in the future, or maybe not. We’ll see how it goes.
The Paths of Old Friends
The Brian Nicholson who was attributed with allegedly writing an unflattering portrait of his neighbor, John Edwards was once my best friend. Brian refuses to talk about the letter, which he says was distorted from what he originally wrote.
Back when Jim Hunt was running to unseat Jesse Helms, Brian and I engaged in an argument about them which resulted in a pushing match. I’ll let you decide whom each of us defended!
Soon after my family moved from Charlotte in 1986, I lost contact with him until a bizarre encounter at the now-defunct Darryl’s on Wake Forest Road. He and I hadn’t seen each other for ten years, but somehow we arrived for lunch at the same restaurant at the same time. Even weirder was that it was our last day at each of our respective jobs!
I gotta call him up and see what he’s up to.
Stick A Fork In Her Because She’s Done
Julia Child has cooked up her last meal. She lived a long, 91-year life, though. Shows what good eating can do for you.
With the Frugal Gourmet, Jeff Smith, dying last month, it’s not been a good summer for TV chefs.
Blackouts and Fuel Cells
Tomorrow marks the one year anniversary of the Northeast Blackout of 2003. As Hurricane Charley closes in on Florida, it’s apparent lessons of the blackout haven’t been learned. There wouldn’t be this mad scramble for power crews to repair storm damage if this country had gone with Thomas Edison’s model for electric power use. That is, every house has its own generator. Such could be reality here with the increased acceptance of fuel cells.
During the Northeast blackout, the NYC police station in Central Park remained fully-lit, thanks to a fuel cell. Widespread fuel cells would prevent storm blackouts. Natural gas lines are prevalent and storm-proof, for all practical purposes. Fuel cells are whisper quiet and enviromentally friendly, even generating water and heat as a byproduct.
There are fuel cells already available with capacity to power whole houses, but they’re still prohibitively expensive. How many times will our power grid get ripped up before we try something new?
Network TV
I followed a link from a website today to a Bittorrent link of a TV show. Twenty minutes later, this show was copied onto my laptop. And once again, I appreciated the power of this means of distribution.
It’s not like I haven’t used Bittorrent to transfer files: I’ve known about it for over a year. But I forget about how dadgum cool it is to use it for things other than operating system iso’s.
It reminded me of my idea to build an ad-hoc network of Bittorrent hosts, where anyone could become a network producer. Got a story to tell? Create a video file and let it sail the world’s networks. The cost of getting your video “voice” heard has dropped to near zero.
I’m now itching to get a used Xbox that I can turn into a Linux media machine. With it, I hope to build a media revolution.
Mark Your Calendars
Today, Kelly made an appointment for us to meet our son. She scheduled his birthday for October 27th. While I’m looking forward to meeting the Big Guy, the thought that we can schedule his birth kinda wigs me out. Can’t we leave something up to nature? I don’t want The Boy to be a slave to the clock before he’s even born. But such is the world we live in, I guess.
Of course, he could arrive earlier than that. As long as he doesn’t arrive too much earlier. Either way, though, we’ll be quite happy to meet him.
Here Comes Trouble
The outlook around the Gulf of Mexico isn’t so good. Right now there are two storms vying to ruin my vacation in Panama City, Bonnie and Tropical Depression Three (to become Charley if it reaches Tropical Storm status).
Both should be long gone by the time we’re there. The only question is, what will be left? Their tracks aren’t guaranteed, but they bear watching. Especially Charley.