I frequently give some spare change to the homeless or the sub-saharans that are selling tissues at the traffic circles. They likely don't even have a presence in the digital world and probably can't get one...
Most forecasting is done by meteorologists viewing the predicted conditions based on a numerical model that normally gets run every 12 hours. The model's forecast is usually pretty good out to 72 hours or so. What happens is that an experienced weather-guesser (ex-Navy, here) will look at the model's output (which lags realtime to some degree) and compare the prediction to the actual conditions for the timeframe in question. If the correlation is high, he/she will put more faith into the model's longer term predictions. If the model isn't tracking reality very well, the forecaster will rely on experience rather than the numerical prediction for the longer-range forecast.
Sounder data from the available weather satellites is used to seed the modelling software as close to its run time as possible, to set up starting conditions for the observable areas. If that data is lacking, the previous model run data closest to the time of the new run is used. (GIGO applies...)
The realtime data can also come from radiosondes, official observations stations, buoys, or what have you. Losing a bird doesn't mean the forecasting infrastructure will fall apart; it just means that imagery will come from a different source (= different angle, with attendant distortion), and some loss of realtime input for the model run.
When looking for a fg/bg color combination, I will use whatever color choosing applet I have available that provides a color wheel and choose two colors that are diametrically opposed. It works well in almost all cases, and though some of the combos are butt-ugly, they all tend to be quite legible...
I'm using perl threads in a production environment to generate 11K+ satellite images daily; I'd say they work pretty well...
Check out the website for a look-see.
This is a great all-in-one recovery kit on a single CD that also supports being loaded on a USB pen drive. The ISO image clocks in at around ~150Mb, is a pretty complete linux (based on Mandrake) with built-in sshd, smb support, partimage, and a good double-handful of useful recovery tools. It's designed for cross-platform support - the full suite of ntfs-tools are included as well. I have been using it to clone baseline builds of my production systems at work and it is excellent. Fast boot and a good selection of boot options as well. Can be had at http://trinityhome.org/. Check out the latest beta for even more functionality.
You need to consider that there are three factors involved in successful weather forecasting: Observational data, numerical simulations, and the forecaster's experience and expertise. Of the three, the only one that is absolutely reliable is observational data - satellite imagery, satellite soundings, the-guy-on-the-ground-looking-up, weather radar, etc. They provide snapshots of actual conditions at specific times. Numerical modeling works better all the time, but much of its accuracy is based on the original observation data that is used to seed the model run. As the model forecast period moves into the future (tau), it tends to deviate from what will actually occur. It's up to the human forecaster to interpret, interpolate, and extrapolate the observations and model predictions to come up with a (hopefully) accurate forecast.
A large selection of imagery with animations and image archives (~48 hours or so) can be had at https://www.nemoc.navy.mil/sat_user.php. Be sure to check out the modis/eos dataset. No password is required for 90% of the site...
I'd just like to correct a mis-statement I made in my previous post- Terra is not considered as part of the "A-Train" concept/constellation. It is the first satellite of the EOS Terra-Aqua-Aura trio, however, so there is a degree of overlap with the A-train. Its ascending node is at approx 1030L, as opposed to the afternoon ascendancy of the A-train components.
The first A-train satellite was Terra, launched in 2001. It and Aqua have similar sensor suites, geared towards terrestrial surface observation, whereas Aura carries no imaging (visible or near-ir) sensors. The biggest problem with having so many birds so close together in the time domain is that it's very difficult - without large expenditures - to track more than one at a time. As it is, Aura will conflict with Aqua (1330-1400 GMT ascending nodes). Fortunately, unless you're working in a heavily interdisciplinary environment, you will probably only need to track one of the two.
About 18 months ago, I finished ripping my entire (350+ LPs) vinyl collection to mp3/cd. Took about 18 months to do it, as well. I used gramofile, lame, and The Art of Noise (wav editor) as the toolkit. - Decide on a naming convention for your tracks. It will make it *much* easier to generate playlists and indexes later. I used Artist - Album - side/track [a-d][0-9] - Song Title.mp3 - Set up a couple of scripts that query you for song titles and track lengths, and then drive the conversion process. With the track lengths known, you can cue up a record and go off and do something until it's done. It's lots easier later when gramofile can't quite make up its mind about where to split a side; then fire up TAON (or another wav editor that can deal with a 200-300Mb sample file) and insert silence where appropriate. Re-run gramofile against the edited wav and it will split where you want to. - You will want the editor as well for those skips and ticks. - For live albums and those where songs segue into each other, with the editor you can insert silence, copy and paste a few seconds from the end of one track to the beginning of the next, and do a fade-out/fade-in with no loss of material. - Use an audio preamplifer to boost turntable levels prior to your sound card. Either DIY (I found some schematics on the 'net) or commercial ($50 or so). Try not to have flourescent lights in the vicinity and especially no cel phones! Their emissions can get into your cabling and you will remember when so-and-so called while you were ripping Close To The Edge. - Keep your original wav files if you can afford the storage. The one big mistake I made. - Use a decent bit rate. I compressed everything at 160kbps and am very happy with the results; ended up with about 1Mb/minute of audio. Have a ball. Get in touch with your old tunes (I graduated high school in '73, to place things in perspective) and enjoy. I fit my collection onto 31 CD's and dumped them all on a hard drive at work; letting XMMS shuffle through them all makes for great background.
Linguistic dexterity and polyglot expressionism
on
Ask Larry Wall
·
· Score: 1
Larry -
ObCompliment: First off, thanks for the gift of Perl - it fits like a comfortable old leather jacket and is like good glue - just a thin layer and you can stick anything together with it!
Your form of expression belies your love of language: I get the feeling that a well-turned phrase gives you as much satisfaction as idiomatic Perl spoken (written?) by an enlightened one.
Q: Having a noted interest, skill, and background in the art and science of language (both human and machine), do you believe that skill in multiple spoken languages improves our ability to communicate in any one language, in terms of being better able to codify (or express) abstract concepts within the framework of a defined linguistic rule set? If so, is do you feel there is greater benefit to be derived from mastering "opposed" languages (perl and lisp, or English and Japanese) than "similar" ones (two romance languages, or perl and PHP, for example)?
Thanks again...
A safety net while you test the waters
on
Working Abroad?
·
· Score: 1
One possibility to explore is that of working for the US Guvmint as a Civil Servant. There are numerous jobs available worldwide at any given time, usually requiring a pretty wide spread of IT skills. Given that you will live in the local community (in most cases), get "orientated" to the culture through welcome-aboard programs, and are with a group of (mostly) like-minded individuals, the culture shock is minimal. Although the wages aren't market-competitive, your living expenses will be covered, as will be your moving expenses. At the same time, you can (and probably will) start to explore your options for local employment when you're ready to take the plunge. A good starting place is USAJOBS The positions associated with the Navy are probably the most challenging...:-)
I'm a contractor working in Spain for a European subsidiary of a major US IT corporation. I was locally hired and fall under Spanish labor laws, which happen to be *strongly* biased towards the worker. I'd suggest looking for a similar position, i.e. a US company doing business over here. There will be somewhat less of a corporate culture shock (they'll be used to having had Americans around) and may be more accomodating regarding language skills. There are quite a few IT jobs here if you have the background, age (yes, they do discriminate), and a work permit. The suggestion to obtain a visa is a good one and a low-overhead exercise. To get one that authorizes you to obtain employment may be a different story altogether. "Don't leave home without it!" (tm)
If you shop around first, you may find a position with someone who would be willing to sponsor you - get used to the idea of having to become a European resident - during the contractual period. Aim high and shoot low - there are a lot of sharp *native* people here who will always be in line ahead of you, and there is an overwhelming amount of internal promotion, i.e. it's rare to see ads for senior management types.
If all that's not too depressing, and you get it together, you'll enjoy working in a culturally diverse, challenging environment. Yeah, it's a hassle at times, but the quality of life is infinitely better. Oh yeah - don't worry about taxes until you break the $80k ceiling. Do keep declaring to Uncle Sam, and file locally so you get back most of what you put it.
Good luck...
Why don't we take useless national defense projects like Star Wars and turn the technology around to propel solar sails with all the high-powered laser and particle cannons that are probably still up in orbit somewheres?
Slashdot Mirror
I frequently give some spare change to the homeless or the sub-saharans that are selling tissues at the traffic circles. They likely don't even have a presence in the digital world and probably can't get one...
IIRC, the HUD display in the original Terminator contained a scrolling dump of the Apple ]['s Integer Basic ROM...
4chan /g/
... to make this an important consideration?
Most forecasting is done by meteorologists viewing the predicted conditions based on a numerical model that normally gets run every 12 hours. The model's forecast is usually pretty good out to 72 hours or so. What happens is that an experienced weather-guesser (ex-Navy, here) will look at the model's output (which lags realtime to some degree) and compare the prediction to the actual conditions for the timeframe in question. If the correlation is high, he/she will put more faith into the model's longer term predictions. If the model isn't tracking reality very well, the forecaster will rely on experience rather than the numerical prediction for the longer-range forecast.
Sounder data from the available weather satellites is used to seed the modelling software as close to its run time as possible, to set up starting conditions for the observable areas. If that data is lacking, the previous model run data closest to the time of the new run is used. (GIGO applies...)
The realtime data can also come from radiosondes, official observations stations, buoys, or what have you. Losing a bird doesn't mean the forecasting infrastructure will fall apart; it just means that imagery will come from a different source (= different angle, with attendant distortion), and some loss of realtime input for the model run.
Ummm - American Coding Psycho, anyone?
There's got to be an underlying relationship to Boxer Day here...
When looking for a fg/bg color combination, I will use whatever color choosing applet I have available that provides a color wheel and choose two colors that are diametrically opposed. It works well in almost all cases, and though some of the combos are butt-ugly, they all tend to be quite legible...
I'm using perl threads in a production environment to generate 11K+ satellite images daily; I'd say they work pretty well... Check out the website for a look-see.
This is a great all-in-one recovery kit on a single CD that also supports being loaded on a USB pen drive. The ISO image clocks in at around ~150Mb, is a pretty complete linux (based on Mandrake) with built-in sshd, smb support, partimage, and a good double-handful of useful recovery tools. It's designed for cross-platform support - the full suite of ntfs-tools are included as well. I have been using it to clone baseline builds of my production systems at work and it is excellent. Fast boot and a good selection of boot options as well. Can be had at http://trinityhome.org/. Check out the latest beta for even more functionality.
You need to consider that there are three factors involved in successful weather forecasting: Observational data, numerical simulations, and the forecaster's experience and expertise. Of the three, the only one that is absolutely reliable is observational data - satellite imagery, satellite soundings, the-guy-on-the-ground-looking-up, weather radar, etc. They provide snapshots of actual conditions at specific times. Numerical modeling works better all the time, but much of its accuracy is based on the original observation data that is used to seed the model run. As the model forecast period moves into the future (tau), it tends to deviate from what will actually occur. It's up to the human forecaster to interpret, interpolate, and extrapolate the observations and model predictions to come up with a (hopefully) accurate forecast.
A large selection of imagery with animations and image archives (~48 hours or so) can be had at https://www.nemoc.navy.mil/sat_user.php. Be sure to check out the modis/eos dataset. No password is required for 90% of the site...
I'd just like to correct a mis-statement I made in my previous post-
Terra is not considered as part of the "A-Train" concept/constellation. It is the first satellite of the EOS Terra-Aqua-Aura trio, however, so there is a degree of overlap with the A-train. Its ascending node is at approx 1030L, as opposed to the afternoon ascendancy of the A-train components.
The first A-train satellite was Terra, launched in 2001. It and Aqua have similar sensor suites, geared towards terrestrial surface observation, whereas Aura carries no imaging (visible or near-ir) sensors. The biggest problem with having so many birds so close together in the time domain is that it's very difficult - without large expenditures - to track more than one at a time. As it is, Aura will conflict with Aqua (1330-1400 GMT ascending nodes). Fortunately, unless you're working in a heavily interdisciplinary environment, you will probably only need to track one of the two.
About 18 months ago, I finished ripping my entire (350+ LPs) vinyl collection to mp3/cd. Took about 18 months to do it, as well. I used gramofile, lame, and The Art of Noise (wav editor) as the toolkit.
- Decide on a naming convention for your tracks. It will make it *much* easier to generate playlists and indexes later. I used Artist - Album - side/track [a-d][0-9] - Song Title.mp3
- Set up a couple of scripts that query you for song titles and track lengths, and then drive the conversion process. With the track lengths known, you can cue up a record and go off and do something until it's done. It's lots easier later when gramofile can't quite make up its mind about where to split a side; then fire up TAON (or another wav editor that can deal with a 200-300Mb sample file) and insert silence where appropriate. Re-run gramofile against the edited wav and it will split where you want to.
- You will want the editor as well for those skips and ticks.
- For live albums and those where songs segue into each other, with the editor you can insert silence, copy and paste a few seconds from the end of one track to the beginning of the next, and do a fade-out/fade-in with no loss of material.
- Use an audio preamplifer to boost turntable levels prior to your sound card. Either DIY (I found some schematics on the 'net) or commercial ($50 or so). Try not to have flourescent lights in the vicinity and especially no cel phones! Their emissions can get into your cabling and you will remember when so-and-so called while you were ripping Close To The Edge.
- Keep your original wav files if you can afford the storage. The one big mistake I made.
- Use a decent bit rate. I compressed everything at 160kbps and am very happy with the results; ended up with about 1Mb/minute of audio.
Have a ball. Get in touch with your old tunes (I graduated high school in '73, to place things in perspective) and enjoy. I fit my collection onto 31 CD's and dumped them all on a hard drive at work; letting XMMS shuffle through them all makes for great background.
Larry -
ObCompliment:
First off, thanks for the gift of Perl - it fits like a comfortable old leather jacket and is like good glue - just a thin layer and you can stick anything together with it!
Your form of expression belies your love of language: I get the feeling that a well-turned phrase gives you as much satisfaction as idiomatic Perl spoken (written?) by an enlightened one.
Q:
Having a noted interest, skill, and background in the art and science of language (both human and machine), do you believe that skill in multiple spoken languages improves our ability to communicate in any one language, in terms of being better able to codify (or express) abstract concepts within the framework of a defined linguistic rule set? If so, is do you feel there is greater benefit to be derived from mastering "opposed" languages (perl and lisp, or English and Japanese) than "similar" ones (two romance languages, or perl and PHP, for example)?
Thanks again...
One possibility to explore is that of working for the US Guvmint as a Civil Servant. There are numerous jobs available worldwide at any given time, usually requiring a pretty wide spread of IT skills. Given that you will live in the local community (in most cases), get "orientated" to the culture through welcome-aboard programs, and are with a group of (mostly) like-minded individuals, the culture shock is minimal. Although the wages aren't market-competitive, your living expenses will be covered, as will be your moving expenses. At the same time, you can (and probably will) start to explore your options for local employment when you're ready to take the plunge. A good starting place is USAJOBS The positions associated with the Navy are probably the most challenging... :-)
I'm a contractor working in Spain for a European subsidiary of a major US IT corporation. I was locally hired and fall under Spanish labor laws, which happen to be *strongly* biased towards the worker. I'd suggest looking for a similar position, i.e. a US company doing business over here. There will be somewhat less of a corporate culture shock (they'll be used to having had Americans around) and may be more accomodating regarding language skills. There are quite a few IT jobs here if you have the background, age (yes, they do discriminate), and a work permit. The suggestion to obtain a visa is a good one and a low-overhead exercise. To get one that authorizes you to obtain employment may be a different story altogether. "Don't leave home without it!" (tm) If you shop around first, you may find a position with someone who would be willing to sponsor you - get used to the idea of having to become a European resident - during the contractual period. Aim high and shoot low - there are a lot of sharp *native* people here who will always be in line ahead of you, and there is an overwhelming amount of internal promotion, i.e. it's rare to see ads for senior management types. If all that's not too depressing, and you get it together, you'll enjoy working in a culturally diverse, challenging environment. Yeah, it's a hassle at times, but the quality of life is infinitely better. Oh yeah - don't worry about taxes until you break the $80k ceiling. Do keep declaring to Uncle Sam, and file locally so you get back most of what you put it. Good luck...
Why don't we take useless national defense projects like Star Wars and turn the technology around to propel solar sails with all the high-powered laser and particle cannons that are probably still up in orbit somewheres?