Landfall dynamics are a VERY active point of research in hurricanes right now. Land changes a lot of variables which we can normally take for granted in a hurricane over the water... the surface has different properties, elevation changes make the air behave differently, land doesn't evaporate near as much water vapor as the ocean, etc.
So, with land, you leave the realm of an initial value problem with relatively well-understood boundary conditions that you have with a storm over the ocean to a realm that has much-less-well-understood boundary conditions. The problem becomes much harder to close, much less solve. And with a system like the hurricane which REQUIRES good knowledge of the boundary (after all, the hurricane is fueled by latent heat release by condensation of water vapor which comes from the ocean), not knowing the boundary as well as you can makes prediction much much harder.
Charley's swerve was forecast by a good number of models, but NHC played the worse case scenario card a little too long by persisting on a landfall near Tampa Bay.
Frances' stop was due to a very irregular pattern, much like a saddle point. If you are pushed any direction, you get very different behavior. You can see that on the following model ensemble plot... there's a small cluster of 48 hour predictions that are slower than the others. http://euler.atmos.colostate.edu/~vigh/gu idance/at lantic/store/early_AAL06_04090300.png
Ivan's bounce off Jamaica is a seriously cool research topic, since Jamaica is a mountainous island. That big elevation change could make it more "visible" to the core of the storm (unlike the plains of Florida). This will be a serious research topic for decades to come. Many of the models did not handle it well (which isn't too surprising since Jamaica is a relatively small island and the models that are used frequently are global or near-global models). And some previous storms (Gilbert, 1988) didn't even notice Jamaica as they passed over, so experience is a split decision.
So, hopefully that sheds a little insight on this issue. Land is a BIG problem for track forecasting, and we're just starting to work out the kinks.
Pure and simple, as had been taught in my CS minor, OO-programming is very good. Except in numerical calculations, because you'll sit there and try to figure out these cutesy algorithms and objects and stuff that makes everything more complicated than it needs to be.
You're talking about, at its simplest level, integrating the following groups of equations in time: http://amsglossary.allenpress.com/glossary/ browse? s=e&p=30
It's a straightforward problem that really doesn't need to complicated by object orientation. Why do something in a language that does more than you need it to?
Trust me, as an atmospheric science grad student, I don't like programming in FORTRAN any more than I have to, but it's one of the most terrific tools for high-speed pure numerical calculation. It's simple to learn, very fast, and well-tested. It has, like any other language, its quirks, but you quickly learn what to do about those and work with them. It's a beautifully direct and useful language. I never understood why FORTRAN programmers are given the disdainful look down the nose by many other programmers.
(There's this argument, as well as the FORTRAN optimization argument and the FORTRAN inertia argument. FORTRAN 90, also, can have very object-oriented portions of code... the same with analysis programming languages like IDL or MATLAB.)
There IS a bit of the people problem, but it's not cut and dry as that out here. People out here get used to the frequent storms, and not all storms seem to drop lightning, so reminding people about lightning dangers is important, too.
Don't worry about it, though. I only noticed your later posts after I posted myself.
As an atmospheric science graduate student at CSU (for the last 4+ years), I will tell you that common sense around here (while occasionally in short supply) would tell you that you should stay inside from noon to midnight pretty much every day during the summer. Guess I won't be seeing you out and about if you ever move out here.
Why? Colorado's front range lights up with thunderstorms pretty much every day during the summer. The lightning from these, though, typically stays in-cloud, but the bolts that do reach the ground may end up travelling tens of miles from the main storm. And storms that don't even have any evidence of rain hitting the ground may be just as dangerous as those with rain, so simple visible watching may not tell you any thing.
As a storm chaser, I can attest to this first hand. I was watching a beautiful storm in front of me one time. There were a few storms behind me developing at the time, but nothing severe. You can imagine how close I was to pissing my pants when a bolt from the blue... from the storms BEHIND ME... hit no more than a mile behind me.
For some reason, even the most innocent-looking storm out here can drop a bolt from the blue. I don't know what it is about the atmospheric conditions out here that lets this happen, but it does. (Not a lightning expert here... tropical weather for me.)
This system could be useful, but all in all, I think it's probably not a good investment. College students are the worst people in the world when it comes to following safety procedures. But, I applaud the interesting use of technology here, even if it probably won't be useful. But, if it saves one life, hell, $25K for a life could be worth it.
It's insightful for pretty much exactly the reason I've been ragging on Libertarians for years now. I have yet to meet an actual pragmatic Libertarian... you know, one who actually has a reasonable plan of attack for setting ideas into motion. Every Libertarian I've met is of the "we have to revolutionize so-and-so and do it now" mold with no method to implement this plan.
I've done my research on the Libertarian party before and find that their motto of "The Party of Principle" is almost TOO true. They seem to be TOO based in principle and not enough in planning. Principles are great, but if you live in the proverbial "ivory tower", it's hard to take people seriously like that.
It was called "Andromeda Strain". Even though it dealt with an "extra-terrestrial" microbe, it would not be hard to imagine that such a microbe in Vostok could be essentially ET in nature.
And "Andromeda Strain" was a good read from Crichton... as his first book, it really gave the reader a good sense of suspense without being overbearing about it like some of his later works did.
I'd doubt it. The box that iPods come in (at least mine did) are cubes that have similar dimensions as the length of a CD booklet. I'd chalk it up to coincidence. The box happens to fit the whole setup pretty well.
As a young scientist, I've had my turn at reviewing papers (and having been reviewed, also). Trust me, without a good peer review, there would be an incredible amount of crap put out there. The more stringent the review process tends to be, the better the journal.
I have no problem shifting the economics, though. It is expensive to print a journal article for the authors as is. I believe that the last article I published cost almost $1000... and this was for a small 7 pager. ("Journal of Atmospheric Science", in case you're wondering.)
However, I actually don't see this as a bad thing overall. If a scientist is smart, they'll put the publishing fees into their budgets initially. Yes, it does handcuff them in a way, in that it will limit how much they can publish, but that's NOT A BAD THING. Like I said, there's a good amount of crap out there. The costs provide a nice sort of "check and balance"... if you're a talented and fiscally responsible scientist, you will usually have little trouble getting your results published. It forces the scientists to be a little more concise and conclusive in their works... which is a scary thought since some of the articles even published right now are insanely long for small results. (In the old days, early 1900's, articles were 4-6 pages... now the average in many of the journals I read is well into the 20 page range. There's something good to be said for brevity.)
But, shifting the ecomonics would be good. I'm not a fan of putting a lot more fiscal responsibility on the authors, but a little more isn't bad if it lowers fees for the readers.
... I choose on feeling and productivity. That was a factor in my computer purchase a few years ago.
I mostly use Linux at work (with a smattering of Windows). I had a PowerMac 7300 at the time, so I was using Mac OS 9. My undergrad roommates had Windows machines which I was on frequently.
So, the time came to choose a new computer for home since my PowerMac was slowly dying (various SCSI drive troubles... would've cost me $600+ to fix entirely).
Linux was nice, but I hated working with some of its idiosyncracies at the time (it's much better now compared to late 2001). It was the cheapest solution, but felt like too much work to run at home where I wanted a machine that would run without being a pain. So, Windows vs. Mac was the debate that was most prevalent. I'm not a huge gamer, so that wasn't an issue, really. The big issue for me came to simple productivity.
I absolutely HATE the way Windows intrudes all the time. It always felt as if Windows was just there... watching me... like a boss standing over your shoulder. And just setting simple things up could be such a pain in the rear. It's not that I don't understand the reasons for all this, but it just felt like Windows was always doing things using "brute force" methods.
Granted, Mac OS wasn't much better in some respects. But, it felt more comfortable to me. And with OS X coming along soon, I figured that it couldn't get much worse. With a BSD core, I also figured that it would help me inter-operate with my work computer better.
In the end, it was just how the different user-interface philosophies between Windows and Mac that sold me on getting a new Mac. Nowadays, with all the improvements in OS X, I'm completely glad I chose that way (even though I've been seriously looking into building/buying a cheap x86 box for Linux recently, too). So, for me, I just disliked the philosophy of the Windows GUI... it seems too intrusive to be productive.
Almost right... it depends highly on the initial trajectory, though. Gravity-assist, or "the sling-shot effect", shows that gravity can be used as a "veering" mechanism, depending on the trajectory of the particles.
Who modded this as interesting? My gods, a basic understanding of the water cycle debunks this. Water vapor has one of the shortest lifetimes of any stable molecule in the atmosphere. We're talking weeks, at best, here, folks. Yes, water vapor is actually MORE potent than carbon dioxide when it comes to IR radiation trapping, but it's also a little more potent in reflecting solar radiation (ever hear of clouds?). In fact, the water vapor feedback is a problem that has no definite answers. To say that a rise in water vapor concentrations raises global temperatures is using linear theory on a completely nonlinear problem (or, in layman's terms, using a mitre saw to hammer in a nail).
Besides, more water vapor is evaporated into the air every day than we could EVER hope to put out with our energy. Need proof? Recall that a hurricane gains much of its energy from the latent heat release of water vapor as it condenses (which means that it must be evaporated first). Recall that the kinetic energy in a decent hurricane is multiple orders of magnitude above what nuclear bombs put out. We're talking terawatts over the spans of days. And that's for one very small hurricane, not counting all the global budget. A back of the envelope calculation puts the latent heat of all the water vapor in the atmosphere around 10^23 Joules, whereas a 20-kiloton bomb releases about 10^14 Joules. Ancedotal, yes, but true. Drop in the bucket.
With such small quantities and such a short atmospheric lifetime, the climatological impacts of this would be like trying to quantify the impacts of a flu outbreak that's occuring only in your office building on the global economy. Anyone who has suggested this has obviously not done their homework.
Unknown asteroid -- we can only guess at its composition and structure. We can only guess at the result if we tried to blow it up. It could shatter into a cloud of rubble. Said cloud of rubble would have the same average velocity as the original asteroid. Would having the Earth hit by a trillion tons of rubble be all that much better than being hit by a single trillion ton rock?
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Ah, but you forget one HUGE consideration which makes the idea not SO crazy.
The one trillion ton rock burns up a little in the atmosphere... but EACH of the one trillion one-ton rocks burn up a little in the atmosphere also. Given that the burn-up rate is vaguely proportional to surface area, by splitting up the huge rock into smaller ones, you increase the amount the atmosphere can burn up. Each of these smaller rocks is also easier to slow down through the atmosphere than the big one, which significantly reduces the kinetic energy transfer from the rocks to the Earth (which then reduces the total "destruction"). Granted, the atmosphere takes a bigger blow, but the atmosphere is relatively resilient... and considering how little impact it has in the "big" collision, it probably helps us out to have it absorb a much larger portion of the impact.
I'm trying to remember where I heard or read this, but, supposedly, when asked about what they would do about the rise in ocean levels by as much as a meter in 50 years, one of the guys who is in charge of the dykes that keep the Netherlands dry replied, "We'll build the wall higher."
Let's not forget that humans are where we are in the planetary scale of things because of our incredible ability to adapt to our environments. It's not as if these changes will be immediate... you won't go to bed on the oceanfront and find your house flooded by a new meter of water. In fact, most people won't even notice anything, even over the course of a year.
You make a good point, though. There's lots of people who are running around, crying that the sky is falling... and doing nothing about it or not proposing solutions to the problems. It's truly annoying. I'm not advocating that we do nothing; there have been some "solutions" presented. Whether or not they'll "work" is another problem altogether (e.g. humans may or may not be doing ANYTHING to the climate system), but it's still a start. We have to ultimately accept that change, in many ways and forms, is inevitable and get over the whole "why can't things be the same as before?" attitude that's so prevalent in the western philosophy.
Oh, I definitely understand your drift... it's just that now, every time I hit upon Fenchurch in the books, I will get the mental picture of Harvey Fierstein in my head. Eeeee... *laughs.*
Read those too! Those are totally different, but, IMHO, better than the H2G2 trilogy in many ways. I re-read the Gently books more than the H2G2. They're just THAT good. The humor is just as witty in those, and the first chapter in "Long, Dark Tea-Time of the Soul" about the airport is, easily, one of the most perfectly written chapters Mr. Adams ever wrote.
Gotta agree with you there...... but the statement "... Fenchurch is played by Harvey Fierstein." really got me. Out, out damned visions! Now you've given me my nightmares for the next couple years!;)
5. The purpose of putting the Trash in the corner instead of the Dock is twofold. First, you want to have it in a consistent place so that you always know how to perform a common operation without a need for hunting as on the ever-shifting dock. This allows you to do it unconsciously without having to devote attention to it -- another good UI goal. Second, you want to use the corner because it's one of the easiest points on the screen to get to. You can't overshoot it easily since two edges of the screen act as a guide to direct your movement towards it.
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Piffle! (I always did like using that word in an argument. It always lightens it.)
The corner is the easiest to get to, yes. However, the Trash was NEVER in the exact corner. You always had to come back to it, thus devoting visual resources to make sure that you hadn't missed. (And missing it was really annoying in Classic when you did miss and you had "Stick to grid" on... then your misplaced icon would end up ON TOP of the Trash, hiding it and further adding to the frustration by usually forcing two MORE drag-and-drops.) You have to do the same with the Dock Trash... move to the corner then correct from there. Yes, it's not in the same EXACT place, but the access is the same group of movements in the scenario you present.
The only time that a static Trash is actually more useful than the Dock's is when the Dock is perpetually small because of a lack of a user-defined static list (and if you're really using your Dock, it should almost always be the entire length of the screen most of the session, unless you're an extreme neatnik) or when you had the exact muscle memory to drag exactly to the static Trash every time. The chances of the latter are extremely small... the former, though, depends on how much the Dock gets used and customized. Mine is almost entirely the length of the screen thanks to a large number of frequently used programs that inhabit it.
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4. That's good if you are only having to deal with a mental stack size of 1. However, as you work with minimizing and maximizing multiple documents, you constantly reorder the Dock.
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No, it's fine for most people. Why? 'Cause you quickly learn that if you were JUST working on the document, it should be on the right-hand side. Any user with half-a-brain should be able to figure out which of the icons is the one they want without any trouble.
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3. Wait -- you use the Dock in hidden mode all the time, and you never ever have to deal with it popping up when you drag your mouse down towards the bottom of an app that you're working with? I call BS.
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Maybe because I never go down to the bottom of the screen because I manage my windows such that they're all near the top since I USE the Dock's minimization functions? Don't call BS unless you know it to be true. And I work with a smaller desktop: 1152 X 768, or whatever that one is... I've only once had trouble with the Dock's pop-up and that was after a monitor resolution switch which left my iTunes small window under the Dock. That was fixed quickly by clicking on the iTunes icon in the Dock to bring it to the forefront.
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2. I honestly can't see how tabbed folders were harder to work with than the dock.
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Well, first of all, it comes down to the way the thing is used. ALL of my common apps are in the Dock already, and the only way they reorganize is when I drag them to other places in the Dock. Thus, the Dock performs exactly the same function to me as the tabbed folder. However, the ability to take something off the "list" that the Dock provides by, literally, TAKING it off the list makes more sense than deleting an alias. Yes, you could do the same with the folder, but then you have the alias floating around elsewhere.
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1. The point is that the Dock is the only thing in Mac OS X where you drag and item from it to destroy it (instead of moving or copying it).
I have found few of the changes to the Mac OS GUI to even be steps backwards compared to Classic. In fact, I find OSX's GUI to be much more usable than Classic's. I cringe at using Classic's GUI in the few times I've had to boot back to Classic.
I've been a fan of the Dock since I first saw it. For me, it's an indispensible piece of the GUI that really works. I always felt that the window-shading was a terrible solution in that each window STILL took up space, even when you didn't want it to. OSX, click the yellow minimize button to send the window to the Dock, and the whole window is out of sight until I want to see it again. (I have the Dock set to hide, obviously.) Granted, I could use the Hide Application option, but that always felt bad to me since I often have multiple documents open with each application.
Yes, OSX has some usability issues that I'd like resolved, but at least, from what I've seen, I find OSX to be the most usable of all the GUIs I've used (or am using on a daily basis like OSX, Gnome, Windows XP, KDE, and Windows 98). OSX looks good, works well and fairly consistently, and does things in a way that feels comfortable to me.
As for the articles, here's my rebuttal to Tog's nine points against the Dock:
9. The Dock is big and clumsy: Considering what it does, wouldn't it HAVE to be? And set to hide, it takes up no screen space until I want it to. The old Application menu still does that!
8. Identical icons look identical: DUH! Aren't they supposed to? New things are new, after all... and red things are red. The point he makes is easily countered by the fact that the dock will pop up textual information about the icon once you roll over it. And, sorry, few other GUI tools do any better, including the majority (maybe, all?) of the Classic ones.
7. Dock icons have no labels: This is an actual concern, but, again, rather than complain, how about propose a solution that works in the setup? I have little trouble with this, since I set up my Dock to such a point that I never have that problem. I have custom folder icons on important folders (which SHOULD BE the only folders to be in the Dock!). It's simple, and you'd have to use the same work-around in almost every other tool out there.
6. Dock objects need color: This would be a solution to #7, and, in fact, when you think about it, is only a more specific argument for #7. Thus, he should consolidate #6 and #7, then attack that. Again, this is a point that I agree with.
5. Trash Can belongs in the corner: Excuse me while I play a sad song on the world's smallest violin. My Trash Can, even in Classic days, was NEVER in the corner. I hated that position for it. Still do to this day. And, Tog... I use Command-Delete because it's FASTER and EASIER and makes more sense than the iconic Trash-drag to my mind... not because the Trash is in a "bad" position.
4. The Dock's locations are unpredictable: Excuse me, what? You minimize a document, it minimizes as the RIGHTMOST icon in the document side of the Dock (for a bottom Dock, that is). What's so hard about THAT? A little use of the Dock shows exactly how predictable things are there. And a new application that isn't in the Dock will pop up in the RIGHTMOST spot of the Application side of it. Is this THAT hard to comprehend?
3. The Dock is a sprawler: Yes, it is. Is that a truly bad thing? Instead of having to tell people that they have to move to a specific set of spots, I can just say, "Move your mouse to the bottom of the screen." Simple instructions, simple idea, simple implementation, and simple response. I don't have to tell them to sweep along the bottom until the Dock appears, or aim for a corner. Just go to one side and everything comes up.
2. The Dock replaced better objects: Huh? Tab menus were nice, but what did I do with them? Yeah, I had a folder with links to all my programs and document folders. It worked much like a static Dock. Only, it was a bit more of a p
Each is run using somewhat different equations, making them often come up with different, quite contrary solutions.
Emphasis on "somewhat," please. The dry dynamical equations are well represented and can be written out completely. It's the moisture that's slightly different. Granted, there are different discrete approximations to derivatives and such in some of the models for the equations. But the equations are all fundamentally the same.
It's a great job... a magnificent physics puzzle, solvable with high level math and some acquired skill.
NO!!!
Even the dry dynamics are not solvable, by any mathematics! It's a system of nonlinear equations that is almost fundamentally unsolvable. That's why you still have a job... and why I'm going to have one for ages, too. You can solve simplifications of the equations with some, actually, low-level calculus and differential equations, but the full equations... they're unsolvable. Purely unsolvable.
As for the whole running a model on your own computer, don't expect too much. Unless you run the models at low resolution, the model will take longer to run for a forecast than the forecast is for. In other words, run it at too fine a resolution, and you'll be waiting 12 hours for your 6 hour forecast.
It's neat to do, though. For my graduate work here (in Atmospheric Science), I'm running the RAMS model (similar to the MM5, with its own advantages and disadvantages). It's fun to see the results.
I believe that they've already covered such places. In fact, they would probably argue the following:
1.) These bacteria are more toxic than those found on Capitol Hill since the ones on Capitol Hill still have expensive and delicate outer coverings on themselves. The lack of corrosion of these outer coverings is something that would occur naturally with the newly discovered bacteria, thus, they are more toxic than those on Capitol Hill.
2.) The distinctions between stupidly evil and toxic cannot be more emphasized here.
That part was original, yes... but it's pretty simple to draw the parallels between FFVII's plot and FFVI's plot, at least the basic ones. Disgruntled underling gets more and more powerful thanks to magical powers that he seeks out or gains and ends up wanting to start the world over as, essentially, its god. The vehicles getting to that point are different, yes, but FFVI did the basic premise better than FFVII.
The characters, though, were interesting in FFVII. That's why VII isn't that far behind VIII for me. 'Course, I've heard arguments that Cloud was just a re-packaged Locke, only taking the submissive role rather than the obsessive protective role. In fact, it's not too much of a stretch, if you ignore the setting and "occupation" of both, that Locke is nothing but Cloud, advanced about five to ten years.
Not quite. Actually, of the PS FFs, I also liked FFVIII the most. FFVII's plot was too cliche for my tastes in many points. FFIX lacked a certain emotional tone during it's middle section that ir ended up being boring. FFVIII's plot and characters are always unfairly portrayed, at least in my eyes, as shallow or predictable. But, I always felt that there was a little more adult tones to the whole storyline. It was refreshing. Squall doesn't "grow" as a person, and people find fault with that, but does every main character have to "grow" for the game to be good?
The battle system, while eventually degenerate at points, was refreshing in its own way. The limit breaks were lots of fun to play with and added some additional feedback and actual play into the battles. The difficulty of many of the bosses throughout the game were excellently balanced such that most of them were close and enjoyable. The game could be beaten WITHOUT having to spend a lot of time levelling or working through the sidequests (most annoying aspect of FF7, really... the world's on the verge of being destroyed and you're spending your time breeding chocobos!!!). The plot was interesting and had some nice facets... and had some good twists (granted, some of them were expected, but others were a little unexpected).
Yes, it wasn't perfect, but I would contend as a full game package, it was more enjoyable than either VII or IX. FFIX is still a minor disappointment to me. It's not bad, per se, but just a little underwhelming. VII's late game was ludicrous and annoying... I love VII's early and mid-game... but after the mid-point of Disc 2, it started bothering me just how much extra I had to do to keep up with everything. VIII, even though it's battle system was flawed because it "forced" you to lengthen battles and have more encounters, was just a more enjoyable package than the other two.
Granted, I'll gladly pick up games in either three at any time... and ChronoCross, too... but I also liked VIII the most of the PS era. (FFVI, though, is still the overall favorite... but that's almost universally true.)
*laughs.* I had never thought of that, actually... but that explains why I've had so much trouble finding some of the better albums missing from my collection at the used stores. Geez, one would think that I would have figured that out a long time ago.
Slashdot Mirror
... to see the "Celebrity" version of that. Particularly if they REALLY do the airlock part. :)
:-D
"Oh, I'm sorry, Carrottop. You've been voted off the station. The crew has spoken."
Oh... I salivate at the very thought.
-Jellisky
-enjoying morbidly fun thoughts since 1978.
Landfall dynamics are a VERY active point of research in hurricanes right now. Land changes a lot of variables which we can normally take for granted in a hurricane over the water... the surface has different properties, elevation changes make the air behave differently, land doesn't evaporate near as much water vapor as the ocean, etc.
u idance/at lantic/store/early_AAL06_04090300.png
So, with land, you leave the realm of an initial value problem with relatively well-understood boundary conditions that you have with a storm over the ocean to a realm that has much-less-well-understood boundary conditions. The problem becomes much harder to close, much less solve. And with a system like the hurricane which REQUIRES good knowledge of the boundary (after all, the hurricane is fueled by latent heat release by condensation of water vapor which comes from the ocean), not knowing the boundary as well as you can makes prediction much much harder.
Charley's swerve was forecast by a good number of models, but NHC played the worse case scenario card a little too long by persisting on a landfall near Tampa Bay.
Frances' stop was due to a very irregular pattern, much like a saddle point. If you are pushed any direction, you get very different behavior. You can see that on the following model ensemble plot... there's a small cluster of 48 hour predictions that are slower than the others.
http://euler.atmos.colostate.edu/~vigh/g
Ivan's bounce off Jamaica is a seriously cool research topic, since Jamaica is a mountainous island. That big elevation change could make it more "visible" to the core of the storm (unlike the plains of Florida). This will be a serious research topic for decades to come. Many of the models did not handle it well (which isn't too surprising since Jamaica is a relatively small island and the models that are used frequently are global or near-global models). And some previous storms (Gilbert, 1988) didn't even notice Jamaica as they passed over, so experience is a split decision.
So, hopefully that sheds a little insight on this issue. Land is a BIG problem for track forecasting, and we're just starting to work out the kinks.
-Jellisky
"Why fix something when it ain't broke?"
/ browse? s=e&p=30
Pure and simple, as had been taught in my CS minor, OO-programming is very good. Except in numerical calculations, because you'll sit there and try to figure out these cutesy algorithms and objects and stuff that makes everything more complicated than it needs to be.
You're talking about, at its simplest level, integrating the following groups of equations in time:
http://amsglossary.allenpress.com/glossary
It's a straightforward problem that really doesn't need to complicated by object orientation. Why do something in a language that does more than you need it to?
Trust me, as an atmospheric science grad student, I don't like programming in FORTRAN any more than I have to, but it's one of the most terrific tools for high-speed pure numerical calculation. It's simple to learn, very fast, and well-tested. It has, like any other language, its quirks, but you quickly learn what to do about those and work with them. It's a beautifully direct and useful language. I never understood why FORTRAN programmers are given the disdainful look down the nose by many other programmers.
(There's this argument, as well as the FORTRAN optimization argument and the FORTRAN inertia argument. FORTRAN 90, also, can have very object-oriented portions of code... the same with analysis programming languages like IDL or MATLAB.)
-Jellisky
'Tis fine.
There IS a bit of the people problem, but it's not cut and dry as that out here. People out here get used to the frequent storms, and not all storms seem to drop lightning, so reminding people about lightning dangers is important, too.
Don't worry about it, though. I only noticed your later posts after I posted myself.
-Jellisky
As an atmospheric science graduate student at CSU (for the last 4+ years), I will tell you that common sense around here (while occasionally in short supply) would tell you that you should stay inside from noon to midnight pretty much every day during the summer. Guess I won't be seeing you out and about if you ever move out here.
Why? Colorado's front range lights up with thunderstorms pretty much every day during the summer. The lightning from these, though, typically stays in-cloud, but the bolts that do reach the ground may end up travelling tens of miles from the main storm. And storms that don't even have any evidence of rain hitting the ground may be just as dangerous as those with rain, so simple visible watching may not tell you any thing.
As a storm chaser, I can attest to this first hand. I was watching a beautiful storm in front of me one time. There were a few storms behind me developing at the time, but nothing severe. You can imagine how close I was to pissing my pants when a bolt from the blue... from the storms BEHIND ME... hit no more than a mile behind me.
For some reason, even the most innocent-looking storm out here can drop a bolt from the blue. I don't know what it is about the atmospheric conditions out here that lets this happen, but it does. (Not a lightning expert here... tropical weather for me.)
This system could be useful, but all in all, I think it's probably not a good investment. College students are the worst people in the world when it comes to following safety procedures. But, I applaud the interesting use of technology here, even if it probably won't be useful. But, if it saves one life, hell, $25K for a life could be worth it.
-Jellisky
It's insightful for pretty much exactly the reason I've been ragging on Libertarians for years now. I have yet to meet an actual pragmatic Libertarian... you know, one who actually has a reasonable plan of attack for setting ideas into motion. Every Libertarian I've met is of the "we have to revolutionize so-and-so and do it now" mold with no method to implement this plan.
I've done my research on the Libertarian party before and find that their motto of "The Party of Principle" is almost TOO true. They seem to be TOO based in principle and not enough in planning. Principles are great, but if you live in the proverbial "ivory tower", it's hard to take people seriously like that.
-Jellisky
... you're the home town of one of the best bands of all time: XTC!
;)
Name one decent band out of Fresno.
-Jellisky
It was called "Andromeda Strain". Even though it dealt with an "extra-terrestrial" microbe, it would not be hard to imagine that such a microbe in Vostok could be essentially ET in nature.
And "Andromeda Strain" was a good read from Crichton... as his first book, it really gave the reader a good sense of suspense without being overbearing about it like some of his later works did.
-Jellisky
I'd doubt it. The box that iPods come in (at least mine did) are cubes that have similar dimensions as the length of a CD booklet. I'd chalk it up to coincidence. The box happens to fit the whole setup pretty well.
-Jellisky
As a young scientist, I've had my turn at reviewing papers (and having been reviewed, also). Trust me, without a good peer review, there would be an incredible amount of crap put out there. The more stringent the review process tends to be, the better the journal.
I have no problem shifting the economics, though. It is expensive to print a journal article for the authors as is. I believe that the last article I published cost almost $1000... and this was for a small 7 pager. ("Journal of Atmospheric Science", in case you're wondering.)
However, I actually don't see this as a bad thing overall. If a scientist is smart, they'll put the publishing fees into their budgets initially. Yes, it does handcuff them in a way, in that it will limit how much they can publish, but that's NOT A BAD THING. Like I said, there's a good amount of crap out there. The costs provide a nice sort of "check and balance"... if you're a talented and fiscally responsible scientist, you will usually have little trouble getting your results published. It forces the scientists to be a little more concise and conclusive in their works... which is a scary thought since some of the articles even published right now are insanely long for small results. (In the old days, early 1900's, articles were 4-6 pages... now the average in many of the journals I read is well into the 20 page range. There's something good to be said for brevity.)
But, shifting the ecomonics would be good. I'm not a fan of putting a lot more fiscal responsibility on the authors, but a little more isn't bad if it lowers fees for the readers.
-Jellisky
... I choose on feeling and productivity. That was a factor in my computer purchase a few years ago.
I mostly use Linux at work (with a smattering of Windows). I had a PowerMac 7300 at the time, so I was using Mac OS 9. My undergrad roommates had Windows machines which I was on frequently.
So, the time came to choose a new computer for home since my PowerMac was slowly dying (various SCSI drive troubles... would've cost me $600+ to fix entirely).
Linux was nice, but I hated working with some of its idiosyncracies at the time (it's much better now compared to late 2001). It was the cheapest solution, but felt like too much work to run at home where I wanted a machine that would run without being a pain. So, Windows vs. Mac was the debate that was most prevalent. I'm not a huge gamer, so that wasn't an issue, really. The big issue for me came to simple productivity.
I absolutely HATE the way Windows intrudes all the time. It always felt as if Windows was just there... watching me... like a boss standing over your shoulder. And just setting simple things up could be such a pain in the rear. It's not that I don't understand the reasons for all this, but it just felt like Windows was always doing things using "brute force" methods.
Granted, Mac OS wasn't much better in some respects. But, it felt more comfortable to me. And with OS X coming along soon, I figured that it couldn't get much worse. With a BSD core, I also figured that it would help me inter-operate with my work computer better.
In the end, it was just how the different user-interface philosophies between Windows and Mac that sold me on getting a new Mac. Nowadays, with all the improvements in OS X, I'm completely glad I chose that way (even though I've been seriously looking into building/buying a cheap x86 box for Linux recently, too). So, for me, I just disliked the philosophy of the Windows GUI... it seems too intrusive to be productive.
-Jellisky
Almost right... it depends highly on the initial trajectory, though. Gravity-assist, or "the sling-shot effect", shows that gravity can be used as a "veering" mechanism, depending on the trajectory of the particles.
See: http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/basics/bsf4-1.htm
-Jellisky
Who modded this as interesting? My gods, a basic understanding of the water cycle debunks this. Water vapor has one of the shortest lifetimes of any stable molecule in the atmosphere. We're talking weeks, at best, here, folks. Yes, water vapor is actually MORE potent than carbon dioxide when it comes to IR radiation trapping, but it's also a little more potent in reflecting solar radiation (ever hear of clouds?). In fact, the water vapor feedback is a problem that has no definite answers. To say that a rise in water vapor concentrations raises global temperatures is using linear theory on a completely nonlinear problem (or, in layman's terms, using a mitre saw to hammer in a nail).
Besides, more water vapor is evaporated into the air every day than we could EVER hope to put out with our energy. Need proof? Recall that a hurricane gains much of its energy from the latent heat release of water vapor as it condenses (which means that it must be evaporated first). Recall that the kinetic energy in a decent hurricane is multiple orders of magnitude above what nuclear bombs put out. We're talking terawatts over the spans of days. And that's for one very small hurricane, not counting all the global budget. A back of the envelope calculation puts the latent heat of all the water vapor in the atmosphere around 10^23 Joules, whereas a 20-kiloton bomb releases about 10^14 Joules. Ancedotal, yes, but true. Drop in the bucket.
With such small quantities and such a short atmospheric lifetime, the climatological impacts of this would be like trying to quantify the impacts of a flu outbreak that's occuring only in your office building on the global economy. Anyone who has suggested this has obviously not done their homework.
-Jellisky
Unknown asteroid -- we can only guess at its composition and structure. We can only guess at the result if we tried to blow it up. It could shatter into a cloud of rubble. Said cloud of rubble would have the same average velocity as the original asteroid. Would having the Earth hit by a trillion tons of rubble be all that much better than being hit by a single trillion ton rock?
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Ah, but you forget one HUGE consideration which makes the idea not SO crazy.
The one trillion ton rock burns up a little in the atmosphere... but EACH of the one trillion one-ton rocks burn up a little in the atmosphere also. Given that the burn-up rate is vaguely proportional to surface area, by splitting up the huge rock into smaller ones, you increase the amount the atmosphere can burn up. Each of these smaller rocks is also easier to slow down through the atmosphere than the big one, which significantly reduces the kinetic energy transfer from the rocks to the Earth (which then reduces the total "destruction"). Granted, the atmosphere takes a bigger blow, but the atmosphere is relatively resilient... and considering how little impact it has in the "big" collision, it probably helps us out to have it absorb a much larger portion of the impact.
-Jellisky
I'm trying to remember where I heard or read this, but, supposedly, when asked about what they would do about the rise in ocean levels by as much as a meter in 50 years, one of the guys who is in charge of the dykes that keep the Netherlands dry replied, "We'll build the wall higher."
Let's not forget that humans are where we are in the planetary scale of things because of our incredible ability to adapt to our environments. It's not as if these changes will be immediate... you won't go to bed on the oceanfront and find your house flooded by a new meter of water. In fact, most people won't even notice anything, even over the course of a year.
You make a good point, though. There's lots of people who are running around, crying that the sky is falling... and doing nothing about it or not proposing solutions to the problems. It's truly annoying. I'm not advocating that we do nothing; there have been some "solutions" presented. Whether or not they'll "work" is another problem altogether (e.g. humans may or may not be doing ANYTHING to the climate system), but it's still a start. We have to ultimately accept that change, in many ways and forms, is inevitable and get over the whole "why can't things be the same as before?" attitude that's so prevalent in the western philosophy.
Okay, end of rant. *laughs.*
-Jellisky
Oh, I definitely understand your drift... it's just that now, every time I hit upon Fenchurch in the books, I will get the mental picture of Harvey Fierstein in my head. Eeeee... *laughs.*
-Jellisky
Read those too! Those are totally different, but, IMHO, better than the H2G2 trilogy in many ways. I re-read the Gently books more than the H2G2. They're just THAT good. The humor is just as witty in those, and the first chapter in "Long, Dark Tea-Time of the Soul" about the airport is, easily, one of the most perfectly written chapters Mr. Adams ever wrote.
-Jellisky
Gotta agree with you there... ... but the statement "... Fenchurch is played by Harvey Fierstein." really got me. Out, out damned visions! Now you've given me my nightmares for the next couple years! ;)
-Jellisky
5. The purpose of putting the Trash in the corner instead of the Dock is twofold. First, you want to have it in a consistent place so that you always know how to perform a common operation without a need for hunting as on the ever-shifting dock. This allows you to do it unconsciously without having to devote attention to it -- another good UI goal. Second, you want to use the corner because it's one of the easiest points on the screen to get to. You can't overshoot it easily since two edges of the screen act as a guide to direct your movement towards it.
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Piffle! (I always did like using that word in an argument. It always lightens it.)
The corner is the easiest to get to, yes. However, the Trash was NEVER in the exact corner. You always had to come back to it, thus devoting visual resources to make sure that you hadn't missed. (And missing it was really annoying in Classic when you did miss and you had "Stick to grid" on... then your misplaced icon would end up ON TOP of the Trash, hiding it and further adding to the frustration by usually forcing two MORE drag-and-drops.) You have to do the same with the Dock Trash... move to the corner then correct from there. Yes, it's not in the same EXACT place, but the access is the same group of movements in the scenario you present.
The only time that a static Trash is actually more useful than the Dock's is when the Dock is perpetually small because of a lack of a user-defined static list (and if you're really using your Dock, it should almost always be the entire length of the screen most of the session, unless you're an extreme neatnik) or when you had the exact muscle memory to drag exactly to the static Trash every time. The chances of the latter are extremely small... the former, though, depends on how much the Dock gets used and customized. Mine is almost entirely the length of the screen thanks to a large number of frequently used programs that inhabit it.
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4. That's good if you are only having to deal with a mental stack size of 1. However, as you work with minimizing and maximizing multiple documents, you constantly reorder the Dock.
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No, it's fine for most people. Why? 'Cause you quickly learn that if you were JUST working on the document, it should be on the right-hand side. Any user with half-a-brain should be able to figure out which of the icons is the one they want without any trouble.
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3. Wait -- you use the Dock in hidden mode all the time, and you never ever have to deal with it popping up when you drag your mouse down towards the bottom of an app that you're working with? I call BS.
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Maybe because I never go down to the bottom of the screen because I manage my windows such that they're all near the top since I USE the Dock's minimization functions? Don't call BS unless you know it to be true. And I work with a smaller desktop: 1152 X 768, or whatever that one is... I've only once had trouble with the Dock's pop-up and that was after a monitor resolution switch which left my iTunes small window under the Dock. That was fixed quickly by clicking on the iTunes icon in the Dock to bring it to the forefront.
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2. I honestly can't see how tabbed folders were harder to work with than the dock.
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Well, first of all, it comes down to the way the thing is used. ALL of my common apps are in the Dock already, and the only way they reorganize is when I drag them to other places in the Dock. Thus, the Dock performs exactly the same function to me as the tabbed folder. However, the ability to take something off the "list" that the Dock provides by, literally, TAKING it off the list makes more sense than deleting an alias. Yes, you could do the same with the folder, but then you have the alias floating around elsewhere.
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1. The point is that the Dock is the only thing in Mac OS X where you drag and item from it to destroy it (instead of moving or copying it).
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I have found few of the changes to the Mac OS GUI to even be steps backwards compared to Classic. In fact, I find OSX's GUI to be much more usable than Classic's. I cringe at using Classic's GUI in the few times I've had to boot back to Classic.
I've been a fan of the Dock since I first saw it. For me, it's an indispensible piece of the GUI that really works. I always felt that the window-shading was a terrible solution in that each window STILL took up space, even when you didn't want it to. OSX, click the yellow minimize button to send the window to the Dock, and the whole window is out of sight until I want to see it again. (I have the Dock set to hide, obviously.) Granted, I could use the Hide Application option, but that always felt bad to me since I often have multiple documents open with each application.
Yes, OSX has some usability issues that I'd like resolved, but at least, from what I've seen, I find OSX to be the most usable of all the GUIs I've used (or am using on a daily basis like OSX, Gnome, Windows XP, KDE, and Windows 98). OSX looks good, works well and fairly consistently, and does things in a way that feels comfortable to me.
As for the articles, here's my rebuttal to Tog's nine points against the Dock:
9. The Dock is big and clumsy: Considering what it does, wouldn't it HAVE to be? And set to hide, it takes up no screen space until I want it to. The old Application menu still does that!
8. Identical icons look identical: DUH! Aren't they supposed to? New things are new, after all... and red things are red. The point he makes is easily countered by the fact that the dock will pop up textual information about the icon once you roll over it. And, sorry, few other GUI tools do any better, including the majority (maybe, all?) of the Classic ones.
7. Dock icons have no labels: This is an actual concern, but, again, rather than complain, how about propose a solution that works in the setup? I have little trouble with this, since I set up my Dock to such a point that I never have that problem. I have custom folder icons on important folders (which SHOULD BE the only folders to be in the Dock!). It's simple, and you'd have to use the same work-around in almost every other tool out there.
6. Dock objects need color: This would be a solution to #7, and, in fact, when you think about it, is only a more specific argument for #7. Thus, he should consolidate #6 and #7, then attack that. Again, this is a point that I agree with.
5. Trash Can belongs in the corner: Excuse me while I play a sad song on the world's smallest violin. My Trash Can, even in Classic days, was NEVER in the corner. I hated that position for it. Still do to this day. And, Tog... I use Command-Delete because it's FASTER and EASIER and makes more sense than the iconic Trash-drag to my mind... not because the Trash is in a "bad" position.
4. The Dock's locations are unpredictable: Excuse me, what? You minimize a document, it minimizes as the RIGHTMOST icon in the document side of the Dock (for a bottom Dock, that is). What's so hard about THAT? A little use of the Dock shows exactly how predictable things are there. And a new application that isn't in the Dock will pop up in the RIGHTMOST spot of the Application side of it. Is this THAT hard to comprehend?
3. The Dock is a sprawler: Yes, it is. Is that a truly bad thing? Instead of having to tell people that they have to move to a specific set of spots, I can just say, "Move your mouse to the bottom of the screen." Simple instructions, simple idea, simple implementation, and simple response. I don't have to tell them to sweep along the bottom until the Dock appears, or aim for a corner. Just go to one side and everything comes up.
2. The Dock replaced better objects: Huh? Tab menus were nice, but what did I do with them? Yeah, I had a folder with links to all my programs and document folders. It worked much like a static Dock. Only, it was a bit more of a p
Each is run using somewhat different equations, making them often come up with different, quite contrary solutions.
Emphasis on "somewhat," please. The dry dynamical equations are well represented and can be written out completely. It's the moisture that's slightly different. Granted, there are different discrete approximations to derivatives and such in some of the models for the equations. But the equations are all fundamentally the same.
It's a great job... a magnificent physics puzzle, solvable with high level math and some acquired skill.
NO!!!
Even the dry dynamics are not solvable, by any mathematics! It's a system of nonlinear equations that is almost fundamentally unsolvable. That's why you still have a job... and why I'm going to have one for ages, too. You can solve simplifications of the equations with some, actually, low-level calculus and differential equations, but the full equations... they're unsolvable. Purely unsolvable.
As for the whole running a model on your own computer, don't expect too much. Unless you run the models at low resolution, the model will take longer to run for a forecast than the forecast is for. In other words, run it at too fine a resolution, and you'll be waiting 12 hours for your 6 hour forecast.
It's neat to do, though. For my graduate work here (in Atmospheric Science), I'm running the RAMS model (similar to the MM5, with its own advantages and disadvantages). It's fun to see the results.
-Jellisky
I believe that they've already covered such places. In fact, they would probably argue the following:
1.) These bacteria are more toxic than those found on Capitol Hill since the ones on Capitol Hill still have expensive and delicate outer coverings on themselves. The lack of corrosion of these outer coverings is something that would occur naturally with the newly discovered bacteria, thus, they are more toxic than those on Capitol Hill.
2.) The distinctions between stupidly evil and toxic cannot be more emphasized here.
-Jellisky
That part was original, yes... but it's pretty simple to draw the parallels between FFVII's plot and FFVI's plot, at least the basic ones. Disgruntled underling gets more and more powerful thanks to magical powers that he seeks out or gains and ends up wanting to start the world over as, essentially, its god. The vehicles getting to that point are different, yes, but FFVI did the basic premise better than FFVII.
The characters, though, were interesting in FFVII. That's why VII isn't that far behind VIII for me. 'Course, I've heard arguments that Cloud was just a re-packaged Locke, only taking the submissive role rather than the obsessive protective role. In fact, it's not too much of a stretch, if you ignore the setting and "occupation" of both, that Locke is nothing but Cloud, advanced about five to ten years.
-Jellisky
Not quite. Actually, of the PS FFs, I also liked FFVIII the most. FFVII's plot was too cliche for my tastes in many points. FFIX lacked a certain emotional tone during it's middle section that ir ended up being boring. FFVIII's plot and characters are always unfairly portrayed, at least in my eyes, as shallow or predictable. But, I always felt that there was a little more adult tones to the whole storyline. It was refreshing. Squall doesn't "grow" as a person, and people find fault with that, but does every main character have to "grow" for the game to be good?
The battle system, while eventually degenerate at points, was refreshing in its own way. The limit breaks were lots of fun to play with and added some additional feedback and actual play into the battles. The difficulty of many of the bosses throughout the game were excellently balanced such that most of them were close and enjoyable. The game could be beaten WITHOUT having to spend a lot of time levelling or working through the sidequests (most annoying aspect of FF7, really... the world's on the verge of being destroyed and you're spending your time breeding chocobos!!!). The plot was interesting and had some nice facets... and had some good twists (granted, some of them were expected, but others were a little unexpected).
Yes, it wasn't perfect, but I would contend as a full game package, it was more enjoyable than either VII or IX. FFIX is still a minor disappointment to me. It's not bad, per se, but just a little underwhelming. VII's late game was ludicrous and annoying... I love VII's early and mid-game... but after the mid-point of Disc 2, it started bothering me just how much extra I had to do to keep up with everything. VIII, even though it's battle system was flawed because it "forced" you to lengthen battles and have more encounters, was just a more enjoyable package than the other two.
Granted, I'll gladly pick up games in either three at any time... and ChronoCross, too... but I also liked VIII the most of the PS era. (FFVI, though, is still the overall favorite... but that's almost universally true.)
-Jellisky
*laughs.* I had never thought of that, actually... but that explains why I've had so much trouble finding some of the better albums missing from my collection at the used stores. Geez, one would think that I would have figured that out a long time ago.
-Jellisky