Having a Great Time, Wish You Were Here

No, not really.

Snowmageddapocalypse II: The Wrath of Khan has been dubbed “snowverkill” “snoverkill” by some. It’s a mess; I haven’t ventured out but I lost heat and hot water for about six hours. The local channels have been in nonstop-coverage mode, which is kind of silly, and is a matter of packing ten minutes of news into their hourly segments. In case you want to see what you’re missing, here’s some video shot through my window. You might have to turn the sound up a little, but you can hear the wind whistling at the window.

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And, because I can (and because I’m a geek), here’s a shot in slow motion.

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Here I Sit, Brokenhearted

Crescat Graffiti, Vita Excolatur

Since September 27, 2007, I have been documenting the graffiti left in public study areas in the Joseph Regenstein Library (“the Reg”): the study nooks tucked into the stacks, the whiteboards in the all-night study space, and the study carrels in the reading rooms. I have transcribed over 620 “pieces” of graffiti—many of which contain more than one single contribution—and over 410 of them are datable to within a week of their creation. The following is an analysis of the data to date; you can access the entire data set at my website, Crescat Graffiti, Vita Excolatur.

It should go without scrawling on the walls, this is NSFW.

Unfortunately, I see no mention of grammar and/or spelling statistics and correlations to the other topics.

More at the website and associated blog

On Top of It, Sort Of

Feb. 9, 1870: Feds Get on Top of the Weather

It had been obvious for centuries that weather in North America generally moves from west to east, or southwest to northeast. But other than looking upwind, that knowledge was little help in predicting the weather until you could move weather reports downwind faster than the weather itself was moving.

The telegraph finally made that possible. The Smithsonian Institution in 1849 began supplying weather instruments to telegraph companies. Volunteer observers submitted observations to the Smithsonian, which tracked the movement of storms across the country. Several states soon established their own weather services to gather data.

Knowledge is power, but it doesn’t prevent mother nature from kicking our ass, as Snowmageddapocalypse 2010 has shown. Though we can at least try and prepare for how hard she’s going to kick it.

I didn’t know how many of them it was going to take to kick my ass, but I knew how many they was going to use. Ron White

Is That What I Sound Like?

To Deter Plague of Bark Beetles, A Boombox Blasting Bug Sounds

[T]he NAU scientists started by blasting rock music and backwards recordings of Rush Limbaugh (presumably because playing the Rush Limbaugh recordings forward is a punishment too terrible even for the beetles). Unfortunately, the beetles quickly became immune to the sounds of heavy metal and heavy bloviating.

The researchers then struck back with an even more annoying sound: recordings of the beetles themselves.

It worked with then bugs, but would it work with Rush? Somehow, I think not.