Finally a snow storm

March 1st, 2009

It’s March first and looks like we might actually get some snow.  State college has us under a winter storm warning for five to eight inches of snow here.  The problem is we’ll be on the back edge of the precipiation and it’ll have a sharp cutoff.  I’ll take  the snow though.  It’s much better than anything we’ve had so far this winter.

Now my at my parents’ house in Bucks county are forcast to get eight to fourteen inches.  When I still lived there it seemed like there was always more snow north and west of Philly but Lately it seems to be more from Philly east, go figure.   It doesn’t even seem like they’ll have to be concerned with a changer to rain.

Oh well, it should be interesting to watch things unfold.

Popularity: 22% [?]

Strong warm February storm

February 12th, 2009

Yesterday a strong storm system developed and moved into the great lakes bringing with it a strong cold front.  We had highs in the 60s with Sun most of the day and that helped create a really impressive squall line moving east across Pennsylvania.  At one point it was moving east at 75 mph but it was just a bit too late for us in northwest Lancaster county.  I broke up and we barely got a shower.  Still it was impressive for February.  I’m sort of disapointed I wasn’t home to watch things develope.

Today we have a high wind warning and the winds have been pretty strong.  Once again I am wishing I had the means to setup the wind sensor for my davis vantage pro2.

Popularity: 31% [?]

Amazon kindle 2’s text-to-speech

February 12th, 2009

Amazon’s new kindle 2 looks pretty intersting.  I’d consider getting one if I coud just see it first.  It seems like you can change the text size on it so that might just be the perfect thing for me but I’d like to see it in person too so I can tell whether the contrast is good for me.

It also seems to includee a feature to read     the book to you.  That to me is huge and could give other low vision users the freedom to have a book read to them when they want.  Sure there are other options but this just seems so convieniant. It could allow sigted people to listen to a book while doing something else too where reading it isn’t really an option.

This is where the shit comes in.  A group that represents writers is saying having the device read the book outloud violates copyright.  Thanks autheor’s guild.  Isn’t it enough that you can only use the book you bought on the kindle?  You want me to have to buy it to read on the kindle then buy a seperate audio book?  How about if I buy neither instead?

I just love when greed gets in the way of innovation.

Popularity: 26% [?]

Woman buys dell with Ubuntu then blames them that it doesn’t have windows.

January 15th, 2009

Woman blames Dell for missing online classes

I saw this online somewhere and just wanted to say that I am really surprised we don’t see it happen more often now that Dell sells Ubuntu computers.

The woman in the article ordered a dell laptop with Ubuntu installed for the operating system and when she got it she couldn’t use it because she needed windows to set up her Verizon internet.  I could probably find a way around that and she probably could have too but didn’t.  At least Verizon is helping her with that.

It seems to me that she bought the linux computer with out knowing what she was buying and I assume that it was clearly stated that the computer didn’t come with windows.  If so then too bad for her.  She could always have bought her own copy of windows and installed it herself or had it installed.

For some reason computers bring out the dumb in people.  So many people just find it easy to say it doesn’t work than learn or figure out problems on their own.  I always thought this could be a problem with dell selling linux computers but it hasn’t been as much of one as I expected.

Popularity: 38% [?]

Arctic shot next week

January 11th, 2009

The cold has been building in Alaska for a while now and it has mostly stayed where it is.  It looks like it will head straight down into the midwest and north east US..  We’ll probably get below zero here but the NWS isn’t forcasting that yet.  I imagine it’ll be pretty brutal just a bit north of here where there is snow cover on the ground and if it clears up at night.

I wonder if we’ll make a run at 1994’s numbers.. I still remember that well.  I was still in high school and lived with my parents in Bensalem and the temperature never made it above 10 the one day with the sun out.  I was also lucky enough to fall through ice and have about 5 blocks to walk home.  That year there was also not snow cover.

We’ll see what happens.

Popularity: 40% [?]

trying out windows 7 public beta soon

January 10th, 2009

Microsoft is releasing a public beta of windows 7.  Once I get my older hard drive installed in this computer I think I may give it a try to see what it’s like.  Even though I rarely use windows at this point I need it for a few things like mapping software for our gpsrs and some other little thinks like that.

Vista is on Molly’s laptop and I just don’t like that.  I do like windows XP which I have installed on this computer and dual boot but I won’t be able to use that forever.  Sooner or later it won’t have drivers that I need or that sort of thing.  Her laptop seems pretty stable though so I can’t complain  too much about it.

From what I’ve read windows 7 seems to be easier on memory which is nice.  Even though ram is cheap now I still would rather it be used for what I want it used for.

Popularity: 40% [?]

Delorme pn-40 is nice but not for me

January 10th, 2009

Well I had a Delorme pn-40 which I liked a lot.  It had good accuracy from what I could tell but I never really got the chance to use it.  The first time I got very short battery life.  I returned it and they repaired it.  The second time I got it back and it just didn’t power on.  Then I  received it again and If I had to guess I put the batteries in backwards and it didn’t work.  The markings are all but impossible for me to see.  I am returning it for a refund which I’m very disappointed to do but I just don’t see it working out for me.

It seemed to be on par with my Garmin 60csx as far as getting and holding a lock on satellites.   The screen is smaller but very bright and clear and I could see it just as well as the 60csx.  I will surly consider any other gps Delorme may come out with.  The best thing about it is the maps are included with the gps unlike some of the other hand held gpsrs where they are an aditional cost (and not cheap.)

Popularity: 38% [?]

Earthquake real close to home

December 27th, 2008

Wow… I don’t know if it woke me up or I was awake but I heard a deep rumbling and thought that sounds  like an earthquake.  Well I got up and went on the computer and checked Millersville’s real time seismic data.. Something showed up.. So maybe it wasn’t my imagination.  Checked  USGS’s earthquake site and they showed a confirmed 3.3 earthquake just north of Mountville,pa  Pretty cool!

Here’s info for USGS’s site - Magnitude 3.4 - PENNSYLVANIA

Ju

Popularity: 50% [?]

If only it had been snow..

December 12th, 2008

We had a nice moisture rich  storm system move from the gulf coast up the East coast..   The system is currently causing snow and major ice in the new england states.

Here we were in the mid 50’s all day yesterday with rain and then in the evening the rain became heavy.  ended up with 2 - 3 inches of rain in the area.  My Davis vantage pro measured 2.06 inches of rain here.  This is on top of the rain from the day before.  I’m really surprised there’s not more flooding.

It looks like quite a bit of flooding going on in the area where my parrents live.  We had the warmer air in our area but They had snow west of here.. Snow in Texas, snow in New Orleans.

It’s been a pretty interesting December with some snow and plenty of cold air available to storms.

Popularity: 54% [?]

Meteor lights up Canadian skies

November 25th, 2008

Last a meteor came down over Canada and lit up the skies ad it burned up. I wish I could witness one some day.

Anyways they’re estimating it weighed between one and ten tons and was from the size of a chair to the size of a desk. It broke p and the believe pieces landed over Alberta and Saskatchewan. It will be interesting if they find any of the pieces that reached the ground.

Popularity: 55% [?]