Notable Precipitation Totals

Some impressive rain totals the past 24 hours, with nearly five inches along the SE side of the Olympics and 3+ along the Olympic windward slopes and the western side of the north Cascades.  At the same time Port Townsend received 0.06 and Ellensburg .02.   Enough to make you a believer in the profound rain shadows we have around here.

As shown by this table from the National Weather Service, some locations on the windward side of the Olympics got 7.5-9 inches during the past 72 hr.   Wet season has begun.

 The precipitation totals for Seattle Rainwatch indicates large contrasts over Puget Sound country during the last 48 hr, with the Kitsap getting hammered with 3-4 inches, and heavy rain extending northeast to north Seattle. The radar blockage by the Olympics is profound, with other blockage over the north Cascades.

After a few more days of rain it looks like we are heading into a relatively dry spell:  here is the latest 8-10 day forecast from the Climate Prediction Center.

GTOG Podcast: The Election, Halloween, Big Ben, the NHL Lockout, and more

With Hurricane Sandy behind us, we assess the election; government postponement of Halloween; Steelers-Giants; Ben's command of Eli, Phil and Matt; the NHL Lockout; and much more. It's the GTOG Podcast.

Click here to subscribe on iTunes


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Young cadets.

Chess to the death

I've mentioned that I'm something of a chess fan. Maybe the oddest game show for chess fans is Chess.com's "Death Match." This three-hour blitz and bullet festival pits two chess masters against each other in shorter and shorter time formats. First, five minutes a game, then three minutes a game, then one minute a game in the ultimate bullet showdown. (Well, there are wussy one-second increments per move in each format.)

International masters Danny Rensch and David Pruess provide sometimes goofy, sometimes insightful comments on the games as they play out over the Internet. The latest match saw two women players duke it out, Americans Anna Zatonskih and Tatev Abrahamyan. Really, Anna should have won because she is the much higher rated player.

But sometimes upsets happen. Tatev pulled away late in the match to a pretty easy win. Even though she looked a little haggard and fuzzy-haired during the pre- and post-match interviews, the lower rated Tatev really didn't have much trouble, especially in the one-minute games. You never know.

GDL Presents: Women Techmakers

By Amanda Surya, Manager of YouTube and Commerce Developer Relations

When we launched Google Developers Live back in June, our goal was to give you 24/7/365 access to inspiration and training on our developer tools and platforms, extending the unmatched enthusiasm we see every year at Google I/O. We expanded the scope of our programming with GDL Presents: focused, week-long series with varied perspectives from developers on how they're successfully tackling technical and business challenges.

Our series for next week, GDL Presents: Women Techmakers bring you conversations with women tech leaders, activists and creators from diverse backgrounds.

Women Techmakers

will start as a five-episode series airing November 5th-9th daily at 2:30 PM PST (22:30 UTC), highlighting women in the technical space who are fearlessly innovating, honing technical expertise, and testing the boundaries of technology. Join us live in the studio as we chat with the following prominent female tech entrepreneurs:

Full episode schedule

JESS3

Monday, 11/5 at 2:30 PM PST | 22:30 UTC [Add to calendar]

Hosts: Megan Smith - Vice President, Google [x] | Betsy Masiello - Policy Manager

Guest: Leslie Bradshaw - President, COO and Co-founder, JESS3

Join Leslie, COO and Co-founder of JESS3, in conversation with Megan Smith and Betsy Masiello, as they discuss Leslie’s experience growing a design business from two employees to a transnational operation.

Pixel Qi

Tuesday, 11/6 at 2:30 PM PST | 22:30 UTC [Add to calendar]

Hosts: Jean Wang - Lead Hardware Engineer for Project Glass
     Vivian Cromwell - Manager, Global Chrome Developer Relations

Guest: Mary Lou Jepsen - CEO and Founder, Pixel Qi

Drawing on Mary Lou’s experience leading the engineering and architectural design of the $100 laptops that inspired the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) organization, hosts Jean Wang and Vivian Cromwell sit down with the 2011 Anita Borg “Woman of Vision” Award for Innovation winner to discuss overcoming technical challenges in hardware.

SoftTech VC and NewME Accelerator

Wednesday, 11/7 at 2:30 PM PST | 22:30 UTC [Add to calendar]

Hosts: Mary Grove - Head of Global Entrepreneurial Outreach
Stephanie Liu - Senior Program Manager, Developer Relations

Guests: Stephanie Palmeri - Principal with SoftTech VC
Angela Benton - Founder & CEO NewME Accelerator

Stephanie Palmeri of SoftTech VC and Angela Benton of NewMe Accelerator join Mary Grove and Stephanie Liu in the GDL studio to discuss their experiences with diversity in the startups/investment space.

Google

Thursday, 11/8 at 2:30 PM PST | 22:30 UTC [Add to calendar]

Hosts: Claire Hughes Johnson - Vice President, Google Offers
Jessie Jiang - Product Management Lead, Google Cloud Platform

Guest: Diane Greene - Board of Directors, Google

Vice President of Google Offers Claire Hughes Johnson co-hosts with Cloud Platform PM Lead Jessie Jiang in Episode 4 of WTM. They will be exploring former VMWare CEO and current Google board member Diane Greene’s high-level thoughts on cloud computing and the role of women in the tech space.

Bitly and Pixability (Double Feature)

Friday, 11/9 at 2:30 PM PST (Part I) | 22:30 UTC

Hosts: Gretchen Howard - Director of Global Social Solutions
Amanda Surya - Manager, Developer Relations

[Part I] Guest: Bettina Hein - Founder and CEO, Pixability [Add to calendar]

Gretchen Howard and Amanda Surya speak with Pixability Founder & CEO Bettina Hein about her experience building successful technology businesses worldwide, and her commitment to activating women involvement in the tech space.

Friday, 11/9 at 3:15 PM PST (Part II) | 23:15 UTC

Hosts: April Anderson - Industry Director, Retail Sales at Google
Kathryn Hurley - Developer Programs Engineer, Google Compute Engine

[Part II] Guest: Hilary Mason - Chief Scientist, Bitly [Add to calendar]

April Anderson and Kathryn Hurley chat with Bitly Chief Scientist Hilary Mason about the role data plays in making business decisions, the intersection of government, policy, and technology, and her experience in the New York tech community.

You can view these episodes on Google Developers Live, the Google Developers YouTube channel, and on +Google Developers. RSVP to next week’s events by following +Google Developers Live, and add +Google Developers to your circles to submit questions and thoughts. Follow and contribute to the conversation using #WTM.


Amanda Surya is Manager of the YouTube and Commerce Developer Relations team at Google. In her spare time, she likes to blog about time-saving tips and of course watch YouTube videos.

Posted by Scott Knaster, Editor

MalmCon Flames of War tournament pictures part 1

This weekend Patrik "Saaywhu" and Johan "Johanem" organized a pretty awesome Flames of War tournament proving once again that southern Sweden is a solid place for FoW tournaments with great tables and fantastic terrain. 

The tournament was a joint effort of Thomas and Patrik who were casting and sculpting new terrain (and prizes) for the event for a couple of months ahead of time, Johan who tracked down the location for the tournament and was together with Patrik in charge of the operation during the two day long tournament. Also a special thanks to our local FoW club "Bunkerkommando Süd" who provided additional terrain for the tournament, and of course all of those players who hauled themselves across half of Sweden and across the sea from Denmark.

This two day event, saw 5 battles using the mid-war North Africa book. Provided below are the first half of the pictures, a mix of my own and those that my buddy David took. I will post the second batch of pictures tomorrow.

Winner: Magnus "Amrtaka" Lindroth (Italian army)
First loser (2nd place): Karl "Sardukar" Benisch

Additional prizes:

Best painted: Magnus Lindroth and his Italian army with stiff competition from Jesper "SomuaS40" Graff and Andreas "Deathbullar" Nedmark. All top 3 armies looked fantastic.

Sportsmanship award: Erik Gustavsson

Special prize for the best "bitching comment": Per "Stakka" Kjöllerström, awarded for a comment about "having to face damn Panzerstrelk's in the desert".





Last place award: A truck stuck in the sand - Erik Gustavsson
Best Allied: A blown up German tank - Karl Benisch
Best German: A blown up Allied tank - Jesper Graff
Best Italian (awarded to the Italian player who did not win) A blown up Italian tank (lol) Peter Johnels.

Final results:
1. Magnus Lindroth - 23

2. Karl Benisch - 23

3. Patrik Swärdh - 23

4. Vidar Haraldsson - 22
5. Jesper Graff - 20
6. Staffan Gustavsson - 19
7. Andreas Nedmark - 18
8. Sören Roed - 17
9   Per Engström - 17
10  David Mollander -17
11. Peter Johnels - 16
12  Patrick Beck -16
13. Michael Trillingsgaard - 14
14  Lars Bosma - 14
15. Per Kjöllerstrom - 13
16. Martin Gunnarsson - 10
17. Erik Gustavsson - 10
As you can see 3 people tied 1st place based upon tournament score. Johan had to figure out the winner somehow. The problem was the all 3 players had won 6-1 victories.
Magnus and Karl had each won 5-2 victories, here Patrik dropped out.
Both Magnus and Karl had won 4-3 victories, they had also met each other in a battle that resulted in a 2-2...

The only thing left to do was to check the sportsmanship where Magnus had 2 more points than Karl!