At least, I think we were.
My stats report that on April 24, there was a blitz of “bot” activity hitting this site. I’m not sure if that was the cause or that a recent update to the WordPress system infected my database with some nasty joo-joo. I spent three hours cleaning things out — which is more or less a waste of time.
Fingers crossed, all is well for now. My thanks go out to the three people who read this on a regular basis for their patience.
And I think they improved the sausage sandwiches. At least they changed the mustard!
I seem to have many friends with iPhones who’ve barely scratched the surface of its capabilities, and many of them often ask me to recommend apps or help them with problems. In light of that, I want to recommend a couple of excellent weather apps that just hit the scene. I know that there are a bazillion weather apps in the store right now, most free some paid, but I can’t imagine how you can do much better than these, and both are free.
Forecast
I have used the Weather.com and the Accuweather apps over the years, and while they provide copious amounts of meteorological data, most of the time I want to know just a two things: Current temperature and the extended forecast. With this app, launch it and it’s done and done. Forecast also provides a map showing the movement of weather systems. Two or three taps and you have all you need. There’s no videos or complicated animations. Just good, clean info.
I also like the fact that this is a web app, meaning you don’t need to download it from the App Store. Just go to this link, and tap on the Add to Home Screen icon at the bottom of your screen. You’re good to go.
Yahoo Weather
Under the leadership of Marissa Meyer, Yahoo has gone on a tear updating a broad array of their apps and services. Their latest weather app seems to apply Meyer’s clean, uncluttered design aesthetic. Simply put, it’s gorgeous, and the fact that it ties into Flickr and displays images tagged for your location, you also get a beautiful photo gallery of your local scenery.
Yahoo Weather displays more information than Forecast on its home screen, but the first thing you see after launch is simply the temperature and current conditions. A quick flick and a bevy of information scrolls up, including extended forecast, wind speed and pressure, a map, and a graphic display of sunrise and sunset times.
A Yahoo account is not required, but I’m guessing that if you have a Flickr account and you start to upload images from your location, they’ll appear on the App. Let me know if that happens for you.
I’m so conflicted about which one I like better, I’m keeping both on my phone for the foreseeable future. Over the past week or so since the Yahoo app came out, I find myself going back and forth between the two, with a slight edge going to Forecast. Your mileage may vary. Find the app in the App store.
…we live in a complex world where you’re going to have to have a level of security greater than you did back in the olden days, if you will. And our laws and our interpretation of the Constitution, I think, have to change.
Excuse me, but Bloomberg has become a moronic grandstanding statist dipshit. I used to like this guy, but he has only proved the point I always make that the party in power becomes the party about power, and this exemplifies this point perfectly, albeit in a very specific way.
Funny thing about civilized societies is that people sometimes die in tragic fashion. The fact that these bozos were caught within a week thanks mostly to the vigilance of private citizens and the technology under their control speaks volumes about the value of our civil liberties.
If I had the power to just order things to be the way I think they should be I’d require some logical security responses like the armoring of cockpit doors that practically eliminated airliner hijacking as a threat then beyond that do little or nothing. A huge nation can absorb a blow or two and once It’s seen there’s no real impact on our culture the terrorists will go on to other, more compliant, targets.
But that’s not the way we seem to do things around here. Instead we throw trillions into byzantine security programs and overseas adventuring, most of it useless, then we try to blame others for the resultant debt. So any further suggestions I have for improving the peace must be mapped against that broader scene of government greed and stupidity.
via The terahertz revolution and local security – I, Cringely.
Cringely echoes my sentiments exactly. I anticipate someone calling for a ban on pressure cookers any minute now. You know it’s coming, which would be a real tragedy.
Some of my mother’s best meals came from a pressure cooker.
During a 1991 mortar attack on 10 Downing Street, then-prime-minister John Major reportedly said to his staff after surviving the near-miss, “I think we had better start again, somewhere else.”
If I admire anything about the British, I revel in their indomitable attitude in the face of tragedy. I think of that quote whenever something like the events of yesterday take place and the media fans out in search of reaction. We end up hearing a lot of crying and navel gazing, but I wonder how many times the reporter passed over the guy who said simply, “It’s an awful thing that three died, but we’ll be fine,” and moved on to find dinner.
I expect the authorities to find the rotted soul who carried out the act, but sadly, I also expect that our leaders will begin the process of parading the emotional to help pass more restrictive laws. We’ve spent trillions on “Homeland Security,” and yet this bombing still happened. Meanwhile, our country is blanketed by cameras, our travel is choked by checkpoints, and our private correspondences are much less so.
When the dog escaped from the house last Sunday through the door that my daughter failed to close properly, I didn’t say to my wife, “Well, I guess we better get rid of that door.” We need that door. The lesson learned by my daughter is simply this: Make double sure she closes it when the dog is inside.
Phillies take on the Mets
“It was just intended to suggest to these women who are on campus today, again, keep an open mind. Look around you. These are the best guys,” Patton said. “If the womens movement has done what it has supposed to do, it should enable all women to make whatever choices are appropriate for them, even if their choices are seemingly retrogressive.”
Based only on the Yahoo article, I interpret her remarks as basically this: Don’t stray from your tribe. There’s a good reason all those people are at a place like Princeton: They likely share your values, income level, outlook on life, AND your level of intelligence.
I look back on my days at UMass, and I was probably never again exposed to such a large pool of interesting, like-minded, and attractive women, but it’s hardly an absolute. There’s plenty of exceptions to that rule, but once you’re out into the world, making those connections becomes, in my experience, that much more difficult.
That said, had I married at 21, I would surely be divorced at least once by now, and probably not a whole lot better off.
Awake at 2:30 this morning thanks to quarreling cats in our bed. Finally back to sleep at about 4:30 thanks to the BBC playing softly in my earbuds.
Probably the most unwelcome development of aging (at least for me so far ) has been the inability to sleep through the night on at least one or two days per week. Most of the time, it has nothing to do with going to the bathroom or a breathing issue. I just wake up.
Typically, this happens at about 4:30. If my mind begins to wander into the theater showing the playback reel of my life, I can count on another two hours of frustrated attempts to nod off. More often than not, however I simply get up. This, of course, has its advantages. No one would ever call me an early bird, but the extra time awake does give me a chance to catch up a few things, but the rest of the day becomes a struggle. One morning this happened during a visit to my mother’s house last year. I ended up leaving for home at an unheard of five o’clock, nearly making it home before my wife left for work. The rest of the day dragged on, however.
You hear from a lot of people on the subject of aging as your age. My mother used to say that her 60s were the best years of her life. Given that she spent most of the years before as a de facto orphan, in a bad marriage, and as a poverty stricken divorcee, I completely understand her sentiments.
On the other hand, I heard from plenty of elderly who used to warn me not to get old. I wished I had listened to them. Yes, I’m “only” fifty-two, but I see the storm clouds gathering. I have lingering pains in my knees and elbows. My eyes have finally begun to fail me. Ten years after the eye doctor told me that I had “the retinas of an eighteen-year-old,” I now have a real problem reading small print up close.
And don’t get me started about the course of my career.
I used to lie awake and think about my daughter. During her infancy and toddlerhood, I merely had to think of her smiling and giggling, and it would soothe me back to slumber. Now that she’s eight and often troublesome, that time almost seems like another lifetime belonging to someone else.
Last night, I plugged in the earbuds and tuned into the BBC. Soothing, melodic British voices talking about everything from soccer scores to the invention of a new type of microscope took me away from my problems and lulled me back to sleep. I can’t say that my methods give me a “cure” for my issue, but I have another tool in the box I think.
Just don’t suggest to me that I start popping pills.
There exists no better example of how badly government can wreck an entire industry than what it almost did to the railroads. We should keep this in mind as the government assumes a bigger role in our health care (or much of anything else, for that matter).
Congress, having determined that arcane, antiquated, and rigid economic regulation was a malefactor intended the Staggers Act to establish market forces as the primary arbiter of freight rates, track abandonments, and marketing initiatives. The law also was recognition that the significant market power held by railroads in the late 19th and early 20th centuries had been eroded by alternative forms of federally subsidized transportation facing less burdensome regulation.
via Keep railroads FREE to keep the economy moving | Railway Age.
