Posts from — May 2016

Position: 33.4N 79.8W [10AM CDT 1500 UTC].
Movement: East-Northeast [065°] near 2 mph [ 4 kph].
Maximum sustained winds: 30 mph [ 45 kph].
Wind Gusts: 40 mph [ 65 kph].
Minimum central pressure: 1012 mb.

Currently about 45 miles [ 70 km] North-Northeast of Charleston, South Carolina.

At 10AM CDT the National Hurricane Center issued its final advisory on Bonnie as it had transitioned into a post-tropical cyclone.

Here’s the link for NOAA’s latest satellite images.

[For the latest information click on the storm symbol, or go to the CATEGORIES drop-down box below the CALENDAR and select “Hurricanes” for all of the posts related to storms on this site.]

This is a picture from one of the columbariums at the Arlington National Cemetery, the final resting place of many of those who served the United States since the middle of the 19^th century.

That is my Father’s marker. He didn’t know those located around his marker, but they all shared service to their country as part of their life.

The country continues to ask for service and people still respond to that call. As you think about the sacrifices represented by Arlington and other cemeteries, ask yourself if you have done what you could to prevent misuse of the willingness of some to serve.

It is rather for us the living, we here be dedicated to the great task remaining before us–that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion–that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.

After the fold is the new version of my parents’ marker [Read more →]

Position: 32.8N 80.1W [10PM CDT 0300 UTC].
Movement: South-Southeast [160°] near 1 mph [ 2 kph].
Maximum sustained winds: 30 mph [ 45 kph].
Wind Gusts: 40 mph [ 65 kph].
Minimum central pressure: 1012 mb ↑.

Currently about 5 miles [ 10 km] West of Charleston, South Carolina.

Bonnie was downgraded to a depression at 7AM CDT. It is inland at 10AM CDT.

Here’s the link for NOAA’s latest satellite images.

[For the latest information click on the storm symbol, or go to the CATEGORIES drop-down box below the CALENDAR and select “Hurricanes” for all of the posts related to storms on this site.]

Position: 31.0N 79.5W [10PM CDT 0300 UTC].
Movement: Stationary.
Maximum sustained winds: 40 mph [ 65 kph].
Wind Gusts: 50 mph [ 80 kph].
Tropical Storm Wind Radius: 70 miles [110 km].
Minimum central pressure: 1008 mb ↑.

Currently about 130 miles [ 205 km] South-Southeast of Charleston, South Carolina.

A Tropical Storm Warning is in effect for Savannah River to Little River Inlet South Carolina.

The system became a tropical storm with the 4PM CDT advisory.

Here’s the link for NOAA’s latest satellite images.

[For the latest information click on the storm symbol, or go to the CATEGORIES drop-down box below the CALENDAR and select “Hurricanes” for all of the posts related to storms on this site.]

Google defeats Oracle in Java code copyright case. This is round 2, with Oracle vowing to go to the Supreme Court because Google used some Java APIs in Android.

If you are running Windows 7 and are tired of being bugged about Windows 10, go to Windows Update and uninstall KB3035583. If they send another copy of the ‘update’, highlight it, right click and ‘hide’ the update instead of installing it. They issued a different version of the ‘update’ yesterday and I turned off automatic updates and uninstalled the sucker.

Adobe is continuing its pattern of every other update of Flash freezing your browser.

Position: 29.0N 75.9W [10PM CDT 0300 UTC].
Movement: West-Northwest [300°] near 12 mph [19 kph].
Maximum sustained winds: 35 mph [ 55 kph].
Wind Gusts: 45 mph [ 70 kph].
Minimum central pressure: 1009 mb.

Currently about 355 miles [ 575 km] Southeast of Charleston, South Carolina.

As a result of the investigation by a Hurricane Hunter aircraft this afternoon, Invest 91L has been declared a tropical depression.

A Tropical Storm Warning is in effect for Savannah River to Little River Inlet South Carolina.

Here’s the link for NOAA’s latest satellite images.

[For the latest information click on the storm symbol, or go to the CATEGORIES drop-down box below the CALENDAR and select “Hurricanes” for all of the posts related to storms on this site.]

The National Hurricane Center turned on the lights early to report on 91L in the Atlantic Northeast of the Bahamas and heading North with 30 MPH winds. it has a 30% chance of becoming a tropical depression in the next 48 hours.

The El Niño has become a La Niña, so things could get interesting again.

Towel Day

You do know where your towel is?

Microsoft accused of Windows 10 upgrade ‘nasty trick’, which is changing the behavior of the red X box in the upper right-hand corner to mean ‘sure, go ahead and screw up my life by upgrading to Windows 10’, rather than closing the the program. I had to use Task Manager to get rid of the PITA.

Microsoft already turned one of my computers into a brick, they aren’t going near my laptop.

In foreign affairs [if you don’t live in Australia] the current government knows what kind of Internet people want:

Australians do not need the super-fast internet speeds promised when Labor wanted to roll out the National Broadband Network, Liberal frontbencher Christopher Pyne says.

Labor headed into the 2013 election promising its NBN would deliver download speeds of 1Gbps through a network mainly consisting of fibre to the home.

The Coalition’s version aims to have significantly slower download speeds of 25Mbps, but was pitched as having a smaller price tag and earlier completion date.

So just ignore the reports of cost overruns and delayed completion dates…

Even if you’re paying for an Internet connection, you have no guarantee of actually having one.

The Fort McMurray fire has been slowed by two days of rain, and a wind direction change is moving it away from the oil sands camps.

Meanwhile it looks like they are closing in on the crash site of EgyptAir Flight MS804 as they have been collecting debris that has been identified as belonging to the aircraft. Also today the aviation media is reporting that the automatic data channel transmissions between the aircraft and air traffic control reported ‘smoke detected’ inside cabin before crash. This was the automatic system and we only know that sensors were reporting smoke and well as other problems in the last minutes of the flight. The reports are probably a record of problems on the plane, but they could also be a symptom of the aircraft’s systems failing.

The Fort McMurray fire has moved eastward into Saskatchewan and increased in size to nearly 1.2 million acres [4830km²/1865mi²]. It has reached some of the oil workers camps and is pushing people in front of it, depopulating a huge swath of Alberta. The continuing activity is stalling the plans to allow people to return to Fort McMurray.

Nevada has a three part system for selecting delegates. The first part that was covered on TV was won by Clinton. The second part, the county caucuses, that was covered by local newspapers in Nevada, was won by Sanders. The state convention that chooses the actual delegates was not either fair or transparent as Sanders delegates were ‘purged’ without any appeal process or explanation. This left the Sanders supporters very unhappy as it occurs following the fight over representation of the candidates on the committees for the national convention.

When they think they are being cheated, people get angry and strike out. Clinton supporters are not helping their candidate by screwing around like this. I know Obama did the same thing to them in 2008, but Clinton doesn’t need even the hint of corruption in the process.

The fire stalled for a while because of a brief change in the weather but that was temporary: Fort McMurray firefighters facing extreme fire conditions.

The fire has burned 875,000 acres [1370 square miles/3550 square kilometers] and now threatens the camps for the oilsands workers. If the sands catch fire it will be an ecological and economic disaster for Alberta and Canada. The price of oil is up around $50/barrel because of the loss of production.

It is going to take a change in the weather pattern to bring this fire under control, and some officials believe that it might not be out until the Fall.

Godwin’s Law says that the longer a comment thread continues the probability that someone will make a comparison involving Hitler or Nazis approaches 1, i.e. a certainty. Apparently if you are a former mayor of London you start out very near 1.

First it was Labour’s Ken Livingstone who repeated a claim by Netanyahu that Hitler was a Zionist wanting all Jews sent to Israel until the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem convinced him to adopt the “final solution”. Netanyahu was accused of trivializing the Holocaust for making the statement. Livingstone should really know that you never repeat claims made by Bibi.

Now you have the former Tory mayor of London and Donald Trump stand-in, Boris Johnson, claiming that the European Union is trying to emulate Hitler by unifying Europe. Sorry, but I think the British Empire was a bit bigger and more global than the Third Reich. There is no ‘European Army’ and countries can leave without revolutions.

Hyperbole is a form of political speech defect – they can’t help themselves…