Endless cold and strong winds at Camp Muir

The extraordinary cool March continues.... the climatology (red-average max, blue-average min) at Seattle versus observed temperatures shows the sad situation (image). During the last month only 3 days have reached or exceeded the normal maximum temperature, while over half the days have had minima below the normal lows. We should have highs in the mid-50s now.An underlying cause of the cold air has been the persistence of a certain atmospheric configuration, with a ridge over the eastern Pacific and a trough somewhere over our region--and this pattern is not going away soon (see example for later this week). This very persistent pattern results in a cold northerly flow and embedded troughs aloft (weather disturbances) that move in this northerly flow giving us intermittent cold precipitation. Last spring was also very cool...and I had some fun with the "barbeque index" last year to quantify the cold (the barbeque index is the number of days in spring reaching at least 60F, last year had the least number of such days from mid-March to mid-June since 1918!). Another major anomaly this year is Spokane's snow...with added snow this week, this is that city's snowiest winter on record. There was a strong pressure gradient at the surface at this time.

The next question you have is why is this happening? La Nina years have a higher frequency of such configurations...and this has been a La Nina year...so perhaps some of the blame can rest with the colder than normal sea surface temps over the tropical Pacific that are associated with La Nina. But even with that said, the cold pattern this year has been unusually persistent.

One of you (Mbeebe) noted the strong winds at Camp Muir...at 10,000 ft on Mt. Rainier.. this morning with winds gusting to 140 mph. Check the following link to see the winds at this site (
http://www.nwac.us/products/OSOMUR). Now it was windy in the lower mountain stations....but nothing like this. The strong winds accompanied a strong frontal passage this morning (see surface pressure, wind and near surface temp plot attached for 10 AM), in which the winds switched to northwesterly as a trough pushed through (image). The computer wind prediction (sustained not gusts) for 10 AM shows strong NW winds..but far less than occurred. Clearly, the observed trough aloft was strong than predicted---assuming the Camp Muir obsevations are reliable.

Like Father, Like Daughter

I have been guilty of the odd April fool's prank or two in my time. I used to have lots of fun making use of fax machines in the olden days. Anyhow, it appears my 10 year old daughter has that bug too. And her target was me.

This morning I woke up to find that all of the coffee in the house was gone. As I don't like to risk a shortage we have a massive surplus. This was not good news. My daughter heard my distress was nearby. She suggested glumly that maybe coffee was the latest in the removal of all harmful food substances. This was not going to be pretty.

Anyhow, it became obvious quickly that she was the cause of this. So I retaliated with emotional swings and roundabouts that led to threats to destroy a computer and lots of hugs.

What was impressive was the trouble she went to. It was in the works for weeks and she woke herself up at 4am this morning in order to clear the house of coffee. Now that is commitment.

That said, I am in masses of trouble for years to come. Those who have suffered at my hands will be jumping, I'm sure, with lots of joy.

Some Top 10 Lists from Fellow Bloggers I'd Like to See

The wonderful thing about the blogging village is there are scads of people with differing experiences and opinions on everything, and it occurred to me that there are a few top 10 lists I would love to see some of my peers work on because I would love to read their opinions on a few subjects.

Semaj or Jimmy Aquino: 10 Favorite Movie Scores: Both Semaj and Jimmy Aquino of A Fistful of Soundtracks are both people who have a lot of experience and love for the art of movie scores, and I would be very interested seeing how they boil down their favorite work down to a short list.

Lee: 10 Least Favorite Toys or Top 10 Favorite Comic Book Villains: Originally I was just going to have the Comic Villain thing, as Lee is a huge comic book fan, and as such, he would likely be able to produce a thought-provoking and interesting list all around. But then he posted about trying to sell a Marky Mark doll from Planet of the Apes, and I now have to know what are the 9 other toys that he has owned that he can't stand or was disappointed in.

Samuraifrog: Top 10 movies in a particular genre. As of late, SF has been doing quite a few lists including lists about his favorite Transformers and G.I. Joe characters and his counter list for Entertainment Weekly's recent list of the 25 greatest active directors, and given the breadth of his film knowledge, I think he could make some interesting observations on genre cinema.

Jeremy Barker: 10 Favorite Pop Cultural Last Supper references. Over the years, Jeremy has done a lot of blogging work around representations of the Last Supper in pop culture, and I would be very interested in knowing which ones represented his favorites.

Of course, if someone made a similar suggestion to me, I would definitely consider it.

Tags: jeremy barker, samuraifrog, semaj, a fistful of soundtracks, lee sargent, quit your day job, electronic cerebrectomy, popped culture, entertainment weekly, planet of the apes, mark wahlberg

Google Narratives Series: BuddyPoke

Continuing with the Google Narratives Series, we'd like to profile Google App Engine and OpenSocial developers, Dave Westwood and Randall Ho of BuddyPoke!

Dave and Randall both have backgrounds in 3D and avatars for the last 11+ years, with work in various web 3D games, facial tracking, facial animation, and mobile avatars. They've worked at five companies together - "Dave does all the technical stuff and I'm the technical artist." Simply put, they complement each other perfectly.

Q: Tell us the story of how BuddyPoke was envisioned.

A: We'd always worked for other companies, and disliked the company politics, etc, and always dreamed of just going and doing our own thing. When we saw the huge success of Slide's slide shows on MySpace, we quit our jobs and started work on a 3D pets widget. Facebook apps and OpenSocial weren't live yet and our first project failed miserably because we completely lacked a distribution model with viral channels. Fast forward a bit, and Nintendo Wii is huge with everyone making miis and talking about avatars. There was Playstation Home and Second Life. Also, the Simpsons Movie was just about to released and allowed for you to "Simsponize" yourself. We thought about the 30+ minutes people were putting into customizing their avatars, without any way of doing any cool interaction with friends. We also thought about the interesting fact that most people who installed these types of console games did it mostly for character personalization or "dress up," rather than to actually play the game. Bottom line, we knew we had to do something about it.

Facebook apps then started to take off, and OpenSocial came out. We closely watched what worked and what didn't on Facebook by looking at usage charts of the top 200 apps. After a lot of trial and error, we applied our 3D backgrounds to some of the ideas and came up with a way of doing the 3D rendering in Flash. That's when we came up with BuddyPoke.

Q: Describe your implementation and why you decided on Google App Engine.

A: During the time that we were focused on researching app usage, we noticed that most apps were struggling with scalability. Their difficulties sounded vaguely familiar with our current implementation and we knew we needed to find a platform that would help us avoid the same issue, especially since we were working on the version for MySpace. The main thing here was timing with the release of Google App Engine and the announcement of OpenSocial. All of a sudden we found ourselves able to quickly roll out our app to the various OpenSocial sites without having to worry about scaling.

Q: Tell us about your overall development experience and any obstacles you have encountered along the way.

A: When Google App Engine first came out, the big learning curve was BigTable. Our data models were horrible. Then, after watching Ryan and Brett's talks at I/O, we redid everything and it's running well now. Our only concern is the organization of our code on AppSpot - everything runs on one AppSpot site. If we knew ahead of time of our success, we would have broken the code up in groups to make updating easier. Also, our main ask is XMPP support so that we can implement chat on App Engine.

One last thing...we're thrilled about the success of BuddyPoke. The barrier to entry is so low from a developer's perspective. We never imagined having 3D characters seen by so many people, without having to even think about the technology behind them or without even having to buy a Wii.

We really enjoy hearing from developers in the community about inspiring stories, so if you have something you'd like to share, visit our online submission form. Better yet, come tell us your story at Google I/O. You can also check out Dave & Randall's cool story on the Ning blog!

Thanks Dave & Randall!

By Christine Songco, Google Developer Team

An Instant Classic

It is hard to find words when you have just read a (literally) classic children's book. But I just have and it is Lemony Snicket's The Composer is Dead. The problem is that I don't want to describe any part of this book to you. It is a rare instance that, I, as parent and reader-out-loud did not know how the book was going to end as I read it. I did not know that it would strike so many chords. I did not know it would be so amusing. And I did not know it would be so dramatic. The next time you find yourself in a bookstore with a child, seek this book out and force your child to listen to you read it. I can't vouch for whether they will like it. You will and it still counts for any book-related parenting points you might wish to earn.

Code Conversations Ep. 3 - Leslie Hawthorn on Google Summer of Code 2009

Google Summer of Code™ is a global program that offers student developers stipends to write code for various open source software projects. We have worked with several open source, free software, and technology-related groups to identify and fund several projects over a three month period. Since its inception in 2005, the program has brought together nearly 2500 successful student participants and 2500 mentors from 98 countries worldwide, all for the love of code. Stephanie Liu of the Developer Programs team sat down with Leslie to understand the history of the program, hear some of the many success stories and find out what's new for SoC 2009.




Leslie Hawthorn is a Program Manager for Google's Open Source Programs Office, where she's the Community Manager for Google Summer of Code. She serves on the Advisory Board of the GNOME Foundation and the Open Source Business Resource, as well as the Steering Committee for the Humanitarian FOSS Project. Her personal website is http://www.hawthornlandings.org.

This is the third episode in the "Code Conversations" video series on YouTube and Google Code. You can view the entire series at this link: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=633DD2FE10E46955

By Neel Kshetramade, Google Developer Programs

New Maths

This site will make your day. A taste.

360 degree evaluations

So how do your kids rate your parenting? Is it much different than how you would rate yourself? According to a study reported in Ellen Galinsky’s Ask the Children: What America's Children Really Think About Working Parents, apparently there is a quite a bit of correlation (even when pooling parents and kids together rather than matching them).

Bryan Caplan provides a neat discussion. Apparently, on the question of whether parent’s control their tempers, both parents and kids give themselves the lowest marks but the kids also rate the parents more poorly.

I'm tempted to say that this shows that parents and kids would be better off if parents focused more on themselves.  Parents would feel better about their lives if they gave themselves a break; kids would indirectly benefit because their parents would express less anger toward them.  "See a movie on your way home from work - and smile at your kids when you get home," would be my slogan.  But the fact that parents agree that they have an anger problem makes me wonder.

I’d rate myself low on that question too. In fact, I am not known for getting angry and shouting but my kids know that I can.

Sunday Night Video: Ping Pong

Warner Music made it very difficult for me to bring you this Sunday Night Video as they've really cracked down on their music on Youtube, but given the current economic circumstances, this Stereolab song seemed very appropriate and well worth my effort to show you.

And because the lead singer, Laetitia Sadier is French, here are the lyrics:

it's alright 'cos the historical pattern has shown
how the economical cycle tends to revolve
in a round of decades three stages stand out in a loop
a slump and war then peel back to square one and back for more
bigger slump and bigger wars and a smaller recovery
huger slump and greater wars and a shallower recovery
you see the recovery always comes 'round again
there's nothing to worry for things will look after themselves
it's alright recovery always comes 'round again
there's nothing to worry - things can only get better
there's only millions that lose their jobs
and homes and sometimes accents
there's only millions that die in their bloody wars,
it's alright
it's only their lives and the lives of their next of kin
that they are losing
it's only their lives and the lives of their next of kin
that they are losing
it's alright 'cos the historical pattern has shown
how the economical cycle tends to revolve
in a round of decades three stages stand out in a loop
a slump and war then peel back to square one and back for more
bigger slump and bigger wars and a smaller recovery
huger slump and greater wars and a shallower recovery
don't worry be happy things will get better naturally
don't worry shut up sit down go with it and be happy
dum, dum, dum, de dum dum, de duh de duh de dum dum dum... ah ah
dum, dum, dum, de dum dum, de duh de duh de dum dum dum... ah ah

This song was released in 1994... which is sort of prophetic really. I am sure some of you out there can also tell that they are Marxists as well.

Tags: stereolab, marxist, ping pong, warner music group, wmg, youtube, 1994, laetitia sadier

Kids in the Kitchen

A few weeks ago, Slate railed against kids cooking programs. Their lament was the whole public saturation of various cooking programs, restaurant reviews and whathaveyou, featuring kids. I must admit that my reaction was if you don't like it just switch off. As of today, I think the real crisis is in kids' cooking in the home.

Actually, our kids have been doing pretty well helping out in the kitchen. They are, in fact, net contributors. But today, it was our 8 year old son's desire to cook dinner for everyone.

"What are you going to cook?"

"Not sure. I'll work it out."

"OK, just don't take too long."

An hour later.

"What are you cooking?"

"I'm not sure. It doesn't have a name."

"How's it going?"

(Trying to mix something in a bowl too dense to mix without a jackhammer) "It is really quite hard."

The problem is: you can't just switch off this show. Everyone is eating it.

So we sat down at the table and were presented with a bowl of stuff that if I took my glasses off could have been mistaken for breakfast cereal. Unfortunately, there was one sense that wasn't going to escape this show.

My reaction, like most caring parents in this situation, was to wait and see whether others survived before delving in myself. Our 4 year old seemed happy to dig right in. She liked it (and ended up finishing her entire bowl). Our 10 year old was less sure but had the good sense not to complain. The cook himself displayed some uncertainty after the first bite but kept going. Their mother smiled and thanked him for the wonderful meal doing her best Meryl Streep in the process which is even harder given the amount of chewing that was required.

That prompted me to suggest that surely she didn't have enough but she covered without losing a beat and said, "surely we want there to be enough for the children should they want more."

So the moment of truth came for me. I'll tell you this much, it was not something I had tasted before. It had the consistency of broken crackers, the coolness of frozen cheese and another quite tangy ingredient that I couldn't place.

"Umm. What's in it?"

"Well, first I took some seaweed rice crackers and corn rice cakes and blended them together. I mixed in some grated cheese which I took from the freezer because I didn't have time to let it warm up and then I added three bottles of Yakult." (Yakult is a milky drink that is designed to ensure that 'good' bacteria stays in your stomach although in this case, I am not hopeful of their survival.)

"Yes, you can really taste the Yakult. I am certain we are the first people to ever taste this. How do you like it?"

"Well, I don't mean to be rude to myself, but I don't really want to finish this."

"That's OK. How about giving what you have left to your mother who finished all hers?"

That prompted a look that suggested I might want to leave home ... quickly. Alas, with this thing in my stomach that it was not clear could be digested, I really was in no position to run anywhere.

Storms of the Pacific Museum

What does the Washington coast have in spades? ... great storms. And people are very interested in severe weather. How can we provide a wonderful education resource on this topic, give a major boost to the economy of the Washington coast, and offer a wonderful recreational experience?

Imagine a "Pacific Storms Museum" in Westport (or some other coastal town). A facility with exhibits on past great storms (like the Columbus Day Storm), explanations of the structure and nature of major Pacific storms, pictures and videos of strong events--perhaps even a surround-type experience for a strong event. An exhibit describing the effects of strong storms on the forests. A weather station with the latest readings. A room describing local shipwrecks. And, of course, a gift shop. This facility could also include an exhibit on tsunamis.

This museum could be a major educational and tourist attraction that would bring
tens of thousands --even hundreds of thousands--of visitors a year to Westport or some other lucky town...and could have a nationwide draw. And it could be an economic boom for the region.

But the fun doesn't stop there. People spend thousands of dollars to
go storm chasing in the midwest (I have a friend who is in the business...and it is booming even in bad times). Imagine storm weekends or longer in Westport. They could experience the weather themselves during the November-February season, enjoy lectures from weather experts and locals, enjoy special "storm meals" at local restaurants (perhaps even illuminated by storm lanterns), and stay in local B&Bs and hotels. Perhaps even field trips to see blowdowns or shipwrecks. I tell you..this could be a very large attraction, at least as big as Lewis and Clarke museum near North Head and the marine museum in Astoria....and probably much bigger. What do you think? How could this idea be improved? How could we get started on this?

The Washington coast have a tremendous resource--the storms--and my
intuition is that there is a very viable business model for a "storm industry" . Then as long as you have this free-spending crowd, there are lots of other things local shops can sell them..like coastal art, watercolor paintings, and yes...teeshirts. It has always bothered me that people drive all the way to Cannon Beach for a quality beach experience. Why not much closer and something much more authentic?

PS: Arthur Grunbaum, who leaves on Gray's Harbor, suggested a version of this to me a few years ago...so he deserves the credit (or the blame).

Snow Returns

The mountains will be getting plenty of snow..but there is a chance the lowlands--particularly above 500 ft--could see some snow mixing in tomorrow AM. The latest WRF-GFS run in fact has light amounts over portions of the lowlands (see graphic for 3-h snow ending 11 AM), while the MM5-NAM keeps the lowlands snowfree. The biggest threat should be over the Kitsap and lower hood canal areas as a developing low center moves towards us from the south (see graphic). Temperature will warm during the day...so rain will dominate in any case. And it should be quie a wet day over the western portion of Washington. The below normal temps continue.

More answers for Akst

Bryan Caplan, who is authoring a book that I have termed, "The Real Parentonomics," provides an answer to this question from Daniel Akst at the end of his WSJ review of Parentonomics.

It's a pity that Mr. Gans misses the chance to cover the most interesting question an economist might address in the parenting arena: Why he decided to have children in the first place? They're no longer an economic asset, after all. So is human reproduction nowadays irrational? Is it even ethical? If a pill is invented that would confer the joys of parenthood without all the mess or expense, should people take it? Dreary speculation, I know, but what better topic for the dismal science?

Bryan's answer to (i) is because we like them. The rest follows. Read on.

Week 46: Pageant of the Transmundane

A pony this week garnered a lot of attention this week. Why? Well, it has very short legs and a normal sized body, and passersby kept thinking it was somehow stuck in the mud. I am sure people seeing Verne Troyer for the first time assume the same thing.

Will this week's Homer Simpson Transmundanity Award winning entry equal or top that? You'll have to decide for yourself.

The winner this week is Samuraifrog of Electronic Cerebrectomy.

He discovered a comic in which the Watchmen take on roles in a very memorable ad campaign from my childhood.

And seeing as this week's winner is superhero related, well, it seemed appropriate that Pieman Homer makes an appearance. Stunningly appropriate.



Congratulations SF. Here is your badge.



The rules of this little contest: Every week I will be selecting one blog post that I have seen from the vast reaches of the blogosphere to bestow with the Homer Simpson Transmundanity Award for being one of the freakiest(in a funny way) things I've seen or read during a 7 day period. It doesn't necessarily have to have been written during the week, I just had to have encountered it. That means that if you find something interesting and repost it like a movie or whatever, if I saw it at your blog first, you get the prize. Of course, creating your own content is also a very good way to win.

Now, if you see a post that you think is worthy of this illustrious prize, just drop me a line at campybeaver@gmail.com and we'll see if we can't get your suggestion up and award-ready while giving you some credit and a link to your own blog.

Tags: homer simpson, pageant of the transmundane, sausage horse, samuraifrog, electronic cerebrectomy, watchmen, pieman, hostess fruit pies, richard nixon

WSJ Review: Don't spare the rod!

The first US review of Parentonomics (non-Amazon that is) has come in and it is from a big media outlet, the Wall Street Journal. I won't dress it up, the reviewer, Dan Akst didn't like it. Put simply, he seems tired of pop economics books and certainly didn't want to read one where the author uses his own experiences as the base (or to use his term a "bore").

But there was actually more to it. He has a very different view of how to punish kids, to me, jaw droppingly, so.

Some of the author's child-rearing ideas will not strike such a universal chord. Mr. Gans doesn't believe in spanking, but he admits that he and his wife frequently punish their children by means of shunning -- making their kids stand in a corner, in keeping with the modern preference for emotional pain over corporal punishment. At one point Mr. Gans even uses hunger as a weapon, sending a helpless child to bed without her supper (prompting in him a meditation on whether the punishment is costlier to parents or child). Wouldn't a quick swat to the tush and a full belly be preferable all around?

Wow. And I was getting in trouble for suggesting using incentives with kids. I know parents angst over whether 'time outs' are effective but they are usually not reaching for the rod as an alternative. This was definitely a new kind of reviewer.

So I figured I might investigate some more. And when you look at Mr Akst's past writings, this is not a new theme. Take this offering from the WSJ back in 1999:

I say "mere," but it’s startling how casually this creepy technique is advocated. A whack to the bottom is held to violate the taboo against violence, but for some reason ostracism, physical isolation and emotional withholding are broadly approved, often in the widely adopted form of the "time out," which for the uninitiated resembles very closely what Dennis the Menace’s parents must have inflicted when the cartoonist drew him sulking in a rocking chair in the corner.

With its emphasis on silence and isolation, coupled with its faith in rehabilitation, the rise of the time out recapitulates the Quaker-inspired embrace of solitary confinement prison generations ago as a proper response to transgression. The idea was that the the wrongdoer could reflect on his sins without distraction. The time out is supposed to have the same effect, and justreplacement for corporal or other punishments in society at large. And just as America is a world leader in penitentiaries, American parents seem to lead the world in time outs (as well as in disrespectful children, it sometimes seems)., so too are we world leaders in incarceration.

Actually, I call it "incarceration" in the book (p.138) so I hardly glossed over these issues. But that was after, for the book at least, a fairly thoughtful and research-informed look at spanking that basically said, if you have to do it often, it is a bad and ineffective idea (and by the way, that is consistent with the economics of punishment).

But he goes on.

As the With its sporty name and air of thoughtful "hold everything," The time out is the emblematic punishment of our times, the time out is . It’s in keeping, to cite one example, with our preference in recent years for economic sanctions in lieu of war. Leaving aside our recent belligerence in Iraq and Yugoslavia, generally speaking we prefer to punish rogue countries nowadays by expelling them "from the community of nations." Diplomatic ties are broken, and trade is at least threatened. If you can’t be good, we won't let you play in our markets.

On a more prosaic level, the time out reflects a certain feminization of culture in which traditional fatherliness has become as dispensable as fathers themselves. Calling a time out--shunning your child until he does what you like--substitutes emotional manipulation for physical force, thereby replacing one dubious form of compulsion with another. Its lasting effect, such as it is, arises from the fear of psychological rather than physical pain, and contrary to appearances, its widespread adoption is based not on kindness but on weaknessselfishness. Except in the case of abusers and other sickos, whacking a kid’s bottom probably does hurt parent more than child, and inflicting pain on the psyche has somehow come to seem more palatable.

That theme comes through even more strongly here. But before you think that Mr Akst is favouring spanking, reading on, he is in favour something else:

Aside from these humane ploys, I’m a pragmatist. On mornings when it's up to me to dress bmy sons, for instance, I throw shirts and pants onto them as fast as I can, regardless of what they think or whether they're ready. I know I'm supposed to solicit their views in all this, but that usually results in a wrestling match. Work fast, and by the time they figure out they're missing a golden opportunity to argue, it's too late: they're already dressed. I figure if I keep this up, before I know it pretty soon they'll be old enough to read Bartleby instead of emulating him.

And neither of us will have to suffer through too many time outs or sore bottoms along the way.

He just goes for full command and control. No wonder he didn't like the book. At its heart is the idea that we are parenting kids so they can exercise good judgment themselves. Punishment is one means of communicating the dimensions of that judgment. If you decide instead to give them no control, you avoid the need for punishment and much else. Mr Akst doesn't like books like Parentonomics for a reason. Its philosophy shares much with that of economics that we want to allow people (including children) to make their own choices but to feel the consequences rather than to deny the choices themselves. Forget the spanking issue, this is an area where we seriously disagree,

Custom Logos for Open Source Projects

Open source projects now have customizable logos! You can use this to maintain consistency with your other websites or just for fun. Here's an example of a project with its own logo. To update the logo on your project, click on the Administer tab (as long as you're a project owner) and upload an image. It will automatically be resized. You can switch back the default logo or upload a new logo at any point.

Google projects such as Chromium will retain the large Google logo.

For other notable changes, see our groups post.

By Andy Chu, Software Engineer, Google Code

The Culture Kills Music Podcast Episode 4

Well, that was a lot of work. I mean, this time out it seemed like a monumental task bringing this show to completion. And what was causing the delay never really got solved so there is a lot of background noise during my talking bits, which is something I wish I could have fixed, but I still don't have the kung fu to do it.

I am still dissatisfied with the end product, but since I made a promise to you all that if I didn't fix it, I would still post what I had, here is the 4th Episode of the Culture Kills Music Podcast.

The playlist for this show:

Fagan - Dante from Shipping Secrets
(Sugar Rush - Sol Records) Buy at Amazon MP3

Social Studies - The Dante Corey War from the EP The World's Biggest Hammer

Corb Lund - Horse Soldier, Horse Soldier from the album Horse Soldier, Horse Soldier

Bat for Lashes - Horse and I from the album Fur and Gold

Tree Wave - Sleep from the EP The Cabana EP (Read my Interview with the band as well)

The Squarewaves - Cosine (Do the Math)


You can listen to it on the embedded player below:


Of course, if you want to download it for future listening, it is also available in MP3 form (32 MB at 128 Kbps)

The Podcast is also available at Mevio, which has an RSS feed and additional listening options.

The music was provided by RCRD LBL, the Podsafe Music Network, Killbeat Music and Ioda Promonet, Tree Wave, and The Squarewaves.

And if you are an independent musician or represent a publicity or record company that makes music available for podcast and you would like me to know about it, feel free to contact me at campybeaver@gmail.com.

You can also revisit past episodes of the show.

Episode 1: The Pimps of Joytime, Triptic Winter, Val Emmich, Betika, Uma Floresta, The Squarewaves
Episode 2: Ekho, Little Name, Patti Rothberg, Dare Dukes, The Squarewaves, Social Studies
Episode 3: Kensington Prairie, Giant Brain, Kaiser Cartel, Sandy and the Surfsonics, Kraak and Smaak

Enjoy!

Tags: culture kills, music podcast, dante, fagan, corb lund, horse soldier, social studies, rcrd lbl, ioda promonet, horse and i, bat for lashes, tree wave, sleep, squarewaves, cosine, betika, pimps of joytime, podsafe, fur and gold, val emmich, patti rothberg, dare dukes, kraak and smaak, kaiser cartel

Snow! (In the Mountains)

One of you asked about the snow in the mountains...well, the snowpack has recovered quite nicely the last week or so...take a look at the map. Southern and central Cascades..western slopes and crest..are now above normal. The northern Cascades and Okanogan have gotten some...but still are about 25-35% below normal.
We had a cold winter and the spring is no better. Look at the temps at Sea Tac versus climo...generally below normal temps. In fact, of the last 100 days, approximately 75 have been below normal. So the complaints I have heard are well founded. I really hope we don't repeat last spring, which according to my Barbeque index, was the coldest since 1918! Two cold springs in a row will not only be bad for my vegetable garden, but would really be a downer. Good for water supply and late season skiing though.

The Storms of the Pacific Museum!

What does the Washington coast have in spades? ... great storms. And
people are very interested in severe weather. How can we provide a wonderful education resource on this topic, give a major boost to the economy of the Washington coast, and offer a wonderful recreational experience?

Imagine a "Pacific Storms Museum" in Westport (or some other coastal
town). A facility with exhibits on past great storms (like the Columbus Day Storm), explanations of the structure and nature of major Pacific storms, pictures and videos of strong
events--perhaps even a surround-type experience for a strong event. An exhibit describing the effects of strong storms on the forests A weather station with the latest readings. A room describing local shipwrecks. And, of course, a gift shop. This facility could also include an exhibit on tsunamis.

This museum could be a major educational and tourist attraction that would bring
tens of thousands --even hundreds of thousands--of visitors a year to Westport or some other lucky town...and could have a nationwide draw. And it could be an economic boom for the region.

But the fun doesn't stop there. People spend thousands of dollars to
go storm chasing in the midwest (I have a friend who is in the
business...and it is booming even in bad times). Imagine storm
weekends or longer in Westport. They could experience the weather
themselves during the November-February season, enjoy lectures from
weather experts and locals, enjoy special "storm meals" at local
restaurants (perhaps even illuminated by storm lanterns), and stay
in local B&Bs and hotels. Perhaps even field trips to see blowdowns
or shipwrecks. I tell you..this could be a very large attraction, at least as big as Lewis and Clarke museum near North Head and the marine museum in Astoria....and probably much bigger. What do you think? How could this idea be improved? How could we get started on this?

The Washington coast have a tremendous resource--the storms--and my
intuition is that there is a very viable business model for a "storm industry" . Then
as long as you have this free-spending crowd, there are lots of other
things local shops can sell them..like coastal art, watercolor paintings, and yes...teeshirts. It has always bothered me that people drive all the way to Cannon Beach for a quality beach experience. Why not much closer and something much more authentic?

PS: Arthur Grunbaum, who leaves on Gray's Harbor, suggested a version of this to me a few years ago...so he deserves the credit (or the blame).

Doppler Radar

This is lots of talk about Doppler radar...but the interesting thing is that most of you NEVER see the Doppler part. That will end right now! Normally, the only radar images you see show you where it is precipitating. More technically, the normal radar images show you reflectivity...how much of the microwave radar beam is scattered back to the radar. Heavier precipitation generally has a higher reflectivity...so that is why radar is useful.
But you don't need a Doppler radar to see precipitation. A Doppler radar has an additional capability...it can measure the velocity of the precipitation particles towards or away from the radar. And since precipitation is pushed around by the winds, that give you information about the winds. TV stations tell you about their super Doppler radars, their pinpoint Dopplers, their Storm-Tracker Dopplers, and for a short time a decade ago...their Wappler Doppler radar. At one point, there was a pinpoint, severe-weather center, storm tracker Doppler radar! But they never ever show the Doppler imagery on TV. I should correct myself..when KING 5 got their own radar, Jeff Renner showed the Doppler velocities for a few days. It was taken off VERY quickly, never to return. OK, want to see what you are missing?
Tonight there is a very nice convergence zone over central Puget Sound (see image). A nice example...and most of you probably recognize the band of cloud extending across the Sound (see image). Next, take a look at the Doppler velocity image (image). Both are for the lowest radar angle (.5 degree above the horizontal). Enough to drive you to drink?
Cool colors (e.g, blue and green) show velocites towards the radar and warm colds (yellow, red) indicate velocities moving away. The radar is located in the center of image at Camano Island. So air is moving towards the radar in the Strait of Juan de Fuca (since the colors are green and blue) and away from the radar in the very north Sound (see the small area of yellow). Those are northerlies. And you see the gray area over the Sound? There is no velocity towards or away from the radar....this is the center of the convergence zone. Anyway, it is lots of fun and not a little challenging sometime to figure out the wind directions from the Doppler image...since it is only giving you one component of the wind (towards or away from the radar). I bet you now understand why this is not shown on TV...my colleagues at the TV stations would spend all their time explaining the images!

Another Reason I am not on Twitter

There are days when I almost break my vow not to join Twitter because I want to respond to something that someone has said on their feed, or just to see how many people I can get to follow me.

And then I read a story that puts things into perspective. Like the breaking celebrity news that the reason Jennifer Aniston dumped John Mayer was because he was ignoring her to Twitter.

That sounds like something I would do. I mean, seriously, I could see myself letting things like my interpersonal relationships slide because I just had to write one more thing on an online service.

And the think is, I don't have a business reason to use it, because professionally, most of the stuff I do isn't noteworthy enough to immortalize in 140 characters. Not to mention the fact that even though I blog, I am not the most intimate of people when it comes to my feelings and such online. And I am not as cool as Christopher Walken either.

So I am not ready to jump on to Twitter and ruin its credibility at the moment.

But I guess I am not alone, as Supernews also did something about Twitter recently.

Tags: john mayer, jennifer aniston, twitter, supernews, christopher walken

Toward an open web standard for 3D graphics

For years, developers have tried to create rich 3D experiences on the web. However, the lack of a common way to render 3D graphics in the browser has forced them to use workarounds like special purpose plugins or software rendering frameworks. As a result, web users have generally experienced lower quality graphics compared to what can be found in today's desktop apps.

This is why Google is excited about the "Accelerated 3D graphics for the web" initiative by the Khronos Group and the Mozilla Foundation. As Javascript is becoming faster every day, we believe that it is time to create a general purpose API for 3D graphics on the web to allow developers to create compelling 3D applications in the browser. Khronos's initiative to develop a new, open web standard for high performance 3D graphics is a promising step in that direction. Google plans to contribute technology and web development expertise to the discussion within Khronos and the broader development community. As an active contributor to Khronos, Google would also like to encourage other technology companies to join Khronos in this effort and embrace a project that promises to move the web forward.

By Matthew Papakipos, Engineering Director and Vangelis Kokkevis, Software Engineer

See, it's a misunderstood condition

From The Onion:

NEW YORK—A new study published in The Journal Of Pediatric Medicine found that a shocking 98 percent of all infants suffer from bipolar disorder. "The majority of our subjects, regardless of size, sex, or race, exhibited extreme mood swings, often crying one minute and then giggling playfully the next," the study's author Dr. Steven Gregory told reporters. "Additionally we found that most babies had trouble concentrating during the day, often struggled to sleep at night, and could not be counted on to take care of themselves—all classic symptoms of manic depression." Gregory added that nearly 100 percent of infants appear to suffer from the poor motor skills and impaired speech associated with Parkinson's disease.

Express Checkout: Who You Gonna Call (Ghostbusters, Not LiLo or the Sellout)

• Lindsay Lohan is thinking about giving up acting entirely for a career in high fashion modeling. Am I the only one that suspects the reason she might be considering this change in occupations isn't because it will be more fun, but rather, because those precious acting jobs are no longer so plentiful, so modeling may be the only career available to her nowadays since she has burned so many bridges. I could say something rather cutting and crass about how thin she is getting, but I feel that would be really wrong.


• The producers of the upcoming Ghostbusters game have decided on the actress who will replace Sigourney Weaver, who opted out of appearing in the game... and they did manage to snag someone else with a recognizable name, but not the same kind of reputation for quality work. However, they do have experience working with the supernatural. I am of course talking about former Who's The Boss and Charmed actress Alyssa Milano. Personally, I would have thought verisimilitude would have trumped star power in this case, but I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt in this case... she may indeed be able to pull off that voice.


• Well, it is official. Billy Corgan is the last man standing in The Smashing Pumpkins. Then again, when you think about all the positions Billy Corgan has taken in the past and his recent behavior, well, I would say the Smashing Pumpkins have been dead in the water for months. I would love to think that if 1995 Corgan saw the 2009 model, he'd kick his own ass. He was against using the band's music in commercials and had quite a few choice words about Live Nation and Ticketmaster in the past, and his modern counterpart has sold the song that he claimed helped him not commit suicide to Visa, a company that, let's face it, has probably been part of the reason that more than a few people have taken their lives. And while he was selling out, he was also championing the merger between Live Nation and Ticketmaster while taking time out of his busy schedule to publicly support the Performance Rights Act which would basically kill independent stations, the very stations which helped the Smashing Pumpkins get off the ground. I am expecting to read a story any day now that Corgan was caught punching babies in the face while kicking puppies and kittens.

Tags: billy corgan, smashing pumpkins, who's the boss, charmed, alyssa milano, sigourney weaver, ghostbusters, performance rights act, lindsay lohan, modeling, video games, visa, sellout

Ferry Weather

If you ever do any boating...or just interested in weather over the water...few web sites are more educational than the Ferry Weather web site (http://i90.atmos.washington.edu/ferry/Ferryjs/mainframe1.htm). Many of the Washington State ferries have weather sensors on them and send the information back to WSDOT and the University of Washington in real-time (see screenshot). At the UW we plot the winds and temperatures on this web site...and add nearby land observations to complete the picture. As you see by the second image...one thing is clear...winds are generally stronger over the water than over the land...often by 50-200%!! Why is that? Water is much smoother aerodynamically than the land..with its trees, buildings, and hills, and this rougher surface slows the winds.

I am sure you have noticed this effect when you drive across one of the local floating bridges (which have weather instrumements as well). As you can see from the image, when land is upwind of a ferry, the winds really drop. I have seen winds blowing at 30 mph in the central Sound...and only 5-8 mph in harbor. When air goes from land to water the wind speed does eventually speed up...takes a few miles to do so, as higher momentum air from aloft is mixed down. The ferry weather web site is heavily used by recreational boaters, the WA State Ferries themselves, and commercial shipping. It is also invaluable for meteorologists to learn about the details of our local winds.
Today is a nice example...a Puget Sound convergence zone has developed (see radar image wind SW-NE band across Puget Sound). Look at the Ferry Weather...you can see it clearly..with northerly winds on the Kingston run and southerly winds on the Bainbridge run.

Sunday Night Video: Atom Bomb

I remember back in the days when music stations actually played videos, this little vignette got some decent airplay.

Yes, it is Atom Bomb by Fluke from the Wipeout 2097 soundtrack. Whee!

And yet I've never played a Wipeout game. Ever. But I do own this particular soundtrack, one of the few soundtracks I have (and the only video game related one I own), and this song is the reason why I bought it.

Tags: fluke, atom bomb, wipeout 2097, video, soundtrack

The very lucrative caterpillar

Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar is 40 years old. It is special for me as it was a book I remember loving when I was very young and was a rare occasion when I finally picked it up for my daughter she loved it as well. I guess it was the almost unique combination of eating and mathematics that really worked for her. And let's not forget the whole non-standard page and hole form that almost scuttled it from ever being published.

What travels less through time is the whole notion that the caterpillar being a caterpillar was somewhat less 'good' than the butterfly it became. And if you think that I am stretching this interpretation too far, consider what the author himself says:

"My friends, my family, my editors, my publisher, we all wondered why it's been so successful," Carle says. "It is a book about hope. If you're an insignificant caterpillar, you can grow up to be a big butterfly in the world."

Let's face it the whole Ugly Duckling resolution just doesn't stack up these days with our general attempts to have children by happy with what they are. Then again, the caterpillar transformation is more natural and less societal, and gives us days of the week to boot.

Al Roth notes just how lucrative the whole inter-generational children's book industry is.

Bestsellers in any category are what make publishing profitable. But childrens' books must be very special, because a bestseller can have high sales for a long time, as new generations of the target audience are born. I've always thought that this must be especially true for those books made of thick cardboard, suitable for chewing on as well as reading, since each new reader needs a new copy (chewing cuts down on the used book/hand me down market). But I hadn't guessed just how big the revenue stream is.

And that revenue stream is $50 million annually. A quick walk around my house and I can see why. We have the original paperback I bought my daughter, and then the board book I bought because I wanted the paperback to survive until the next child. But we also have a nice hardcover version that we never let out (maybe that is for future grandkids) and also a mini pocket version that I think came with a plush of the very hungry caterpillar itself. Finally, there is a jigsaw puzzle. That's alot of merchandise for a single book and a quick look at Amazon suggests that we didn't even touch the surface there. Take it from me: one book is enough.

The "Weak" Front

OK...that turned out not to be such a weak front. There was no indication in the models we would have such a sharp transition and with no coastal radar we could not see it coming. A convective line formed on the front with very heavy precipitation...take a look at the radar..you can see the reddish color of very intense precipitation. The observations at the top of the UW Atmos. Sci building shows the dramatic nature of the transition...substantial wind shift, sharp pressure trough, sudden drop of temperature and increase of humidity, and increase in winds to 30 mph (see figure). Or look at the Seattle profiler (image)...a very sharp shift from southerly to SW winds and big temp decline. Finally, you can see the line in the visible satellite imagery if you look carefully (image).

Week 45: Pageant of the Transmundane

Someone in Venezuela somehow fashioned a complete 42 piece dinnerware set out of cocaine to try to help smuggle the drug into Spain. Now that is pretty weird.

This week's winning entry was recommended by Maven during the week, and it is one of those cases where the whole is greater than any one particular small detail.

Basically, it is a blog that has one long entry, but the story is so fascinating and yet so bizarre, I had to recognize it.

In short, it was a long entry about one man and the weird relationship he developed with a character who was trying to scam him through email.

Now I had a little bit of a decision to make about this week's winner, since this week's winner was composed of one entry but at the same time, a whole blog as well. I decided that since the meat of this entry was the entry, it would win the Homer Simpson Transmundanity Award rather than a Krusty.

And since this week's winning entry has to do with running a con, well, Homer Simpson running a scam seemed to be the most appropriate image I could think of (and if you remember this episode well, you will note that he got counterconned, which is also relevant to the entry/blog in question).



Congrats A--- for astonishing me this week with your wild tale. I know you don't have any form of adornment on your blog, but here is your badge nonetheless. And thanks go out to Maven for bring this slice of oddity to my attention.



The rules of this little contest: Every week I will be selecting one blog post that I have seen from the vast reaches of the blogosphere to bestow with the Homer Simpson Transmundanity Award for being one of the freakiest(in a funny way) things I've seen or read during a 7 day period. It doesn't necessarily have to have been written during the week, I just had to have encountered it. That means that if you find something interesting and repost it like a movie or whatever, if I saw it at your blog first, you get the prize. Of course, creating your own content is also a very good way to win.

Now, if you see a post that you think is worthy of this illustrious prize, just drop me a line at campybeaver@gmail.com and we'll see if we can't get your suggestion up and award-ready while giving you some credit and a link to your own blog.

Tags: pageant of the transmundane, homer simpson, room with a screw, con, fraud, email scam, scheme, cocaine, 42 piece dinnerware, venezuela, spain

Rembrandts on the Fridge

From James Kwak:

I got this from some friends who have an 8-year-old daughter whom I’ll call Franny:

Friend (looking at Franny’s artwork, which is labeled “$10,000″): How much do I have to pay you for that picture?

Franny: $10,000.

Friend: Is that in real money or pretend money?

Franny: You can pay me $5,000 in real money and $5,000 in pretend money. And if you only want to pay me the pretend money, then you get to borrow the picture for the weekend.

I’ve been struggling for weeks trying to think of the perfect real-world analogy - maybe something to do with assets being held on the books at $10,000 that everyone knows are only worth $5,000.

Improvements to Google Checkout Module for osCommerce

At Google Checkout, we're constantly striving to improve our usability. That's why we've recently simplified and improved the installation and configuration process for the osCommerce Google Checkout module. osCommerce is a popular open-source e-commerce solution and the module is an open-source project hosted on code.google.com.

We've completely reworked the installation process by no longer requiring users to manually copy and paste large swaths of PHP code into their files. Instead, we've created an automated deployment app (shown below) that does this for you. This should ease concerns about lines of PHP getting copied into the wrong place. If you want to learn more about the installation process, you can take a look at our documentation, which contains a step-by-step walkthrough with screenshots showing exactly how it works.


For more details, check out our post on the Checkout blog. We're excited about the improvements to the osCommerce Checkout module. If you're using osCommerce, we invite you to give Checkout a try and share your feedback with us.

By Ed Davisson, Google Checkout Team

Friday Favorites: This Game Company practice has got to go!

Video game related posts have always been popular here at Culture Kills... at least from a writing standpoint (generally they end up being the least commented work I do). But there are times when something I wrote about the industry or a specific title remains relevant even over a long period of time, and this was one of those entries.
--

I have a little pet peeve, and I am sorry some of you have to go along for the ride on this, but it has to be said: PC games that have the CD nag are starting to piss me off.

Now, this doesn't bother me when I know there is stuff on the CD that the game needs to run, like video files or whatever, because usually you have a choice when you install. That's FINE. And I understand having such a restriction on a 50 dollar product when it first comes out to try prevent some forms of theft, even though I don't like it and statistically it probably stops 1-2% of piracy if that.

But when a company is, I don't know, GIVING their games away in a box of cereal or in a magazine or is selling them as part of a larger set for about what the actual disc the game is on would cost to buy as a blank, well then, what is the point of forcing me to stick in a CD to prove that I own it when all the files needed to run it are on my hard drive... really.

I mean, these companies are giving away or selling these games deeply discounted for some future financial gain later because I may want to buy full price games from them after seeing the quality of work they produce, but showing me that you don't trust me with your free or heavily discounted software isn't winning my undying devotion. This is especially true of products that have been patched on the disc, because I know the company spent some time repackaging the product, so why didn't they add that little bit of code to make a full installation no-CD? I mean, I could be a bad boy and go look for help from the industry's sworn enemies, but I don't want to do that. I want the companies that made the games to meet me halfway on this and actually trust me, the consumer, for once.

I know it is merely an inconvenience and not a major issue, but it has always been something that just irked me.

Tags: cd checks, copy protection, legacy, pc games, video games, pet peeves, no cd, full installation, abandonware

Weak Front

A weak front is moving through today...with good rainshadowing over Sequim and Port Townsend right now. It will move through this evening, with cooler air in its wake. Tomorrow should be mostly dry....which is unfortunate since I will be at the NW weather workshop all day tomorrow (info on this at right). Then another weak front Saturday night/Sunday AM, with a chance of showers on Sunday. Wish we had some exciting weather coming....nothing on the horizon.

The Podcast is Delayed

I was in the process of editing down the spoken intros/outros for the fourth episode of the Culture Kills Music Podcast, and it just isn't coming together like it should. There were some technical problems which frankly I don't feel are acceptable.

I need to up my sound editing kung fu belt level a few notches before I will be satisfied with the end result (I need to learn how to do noise cancellation truth be told) especially with the number of redubs I have to do to make it presentable. If I can't come up with a workable solution, then I will present what I have next Thursday.

I am sure you, my six listeners, are disappointed by this delay, but I felt it was something I had to do. I'd rather delay than present something that was really substandard.

Tags: culture kills music podcast, delay, kung fu, redub, sound editing

Snow expose and other items

The Seattle Times has a nice story on the poor snow removal of the December 2008 snows. Check out:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2008885019_sdot19m.html

and KIRO TV is doing their storm special again at 10 PM.



Nice example of rainshadowing today NE of the Olympics (both in the radar AND the visible satellite picture). Those retirees in Sequim may be golfing in the sun right now, while I had to bike in in the rain! The models handle this kind of situation well...take a look at the 3-h precipitation ending 10 AM....

Three By Theme: Album covers

You ever notice that when there is one movie about a particular subject out, there are usually 2 or 3 more released within the next few years that are strangely similar... like somehow Hollywood is creatively bankrupt. Well, I've noticed the same trend in music videos as well.

Or the special effects techs and artists learn how to do something new and then just keep running with it (I remember reading about how once special effects technicians figured out how to do a flaming man stunt, they just wanted to keep throwing it into movies, which is why it is such a prevalent death in movies of the late 1970's and early 1980's.)

The following three videos are living proof of one of those two maxims.

Erykah Badu - Honey

Morningwood - Nth Degree

Liz Phair - Why Can't I

And naturally, the videos for those songs make me think of this old gem:

Tags: erykah badu, honey, morningwood, nth degree, liz phair, why can't i, albums galore