Another Broadcast For Slooh

The image at the top of this entry shows some of the asteroid’s movement through the sky. We captured this with Slooh’s telescope in Chile. You’re seeing an object the size of an aircraft carrier from millions of miles away!

I hosted another broadcast this morning PDT for Slooh.com. Near Earth Asteroid 2014 HQ124 won’t hit Earth, but it will be in the neighborhood the next few days. That’s good reason for us to go live.

The image at the top of this entry shows some of the asteroid’s movement through the sky. We captured this with Slooh’s telescope in Chile. You’re seeing an object the size of an aircraft carrier from millions of miles away!

After the broadcast I stopped to ponder our own technological achievement. We had participants on from the East and West Coast, plus England and Australia. We used images taken in Australia and Chile.

We had the right experts and pictures with lots of insight, coordinated in Hartford, CT where our producer/director sits.

We’re about to make a huge technological leap which should bring up the quality of our transmissions greatly. Noticeable change.

It’s all pretty exciting and, for me, nerdy fun.

We Miss The Boat On Security Again

Personally I think we need to see some heads roll at TSA. The TSA has other ideas. They’re adding more inconvenience to flying!

Helluva holiday. A suicidal crazy tried to blow up a Detroit bound Northwest Airlines jet. We knew he was a crazy. He was on some sort of security list. Not only that, his dad went to the embassy to make sure we knew he was a threat.

His trip began at Murtala Mohammed International Airport in Lagos, Nigeria. Even I know what goes on there. This isn’t the first time I mentioned that particular airport. Back in 2006 I wrote:

Where are the good old days when the only signs you saw warned you about Murtala Mohammed Airport?

I was referring to signs which used to be posted at every US airline ticket counter and gate warning of the one airport (really, they only warned about one for a while) with the worst security in the world: Murtala Mohammed International Airport.

Here’s more from UK’s Independent:

Police know that the KLM ticket that Abdulmutallab travelled on was purchased on 16 December, with cash, in Nigeria. The departure airport was changed from Accra to Lagos shortly afterwards. When he took his window seat, number 19A, he had only one piece of hand luggage and none in the hold – unusual for someone who was allegedly planning a two-week stay in Detroit.

Did he need to wear neon to be noticed?

You would think the TSA would make sure this suicidal crazy didn’t get on a US bound airplane. Wrong.

Again, this was a guy we knew was bad. Maybe we need to spend a little more time stopping people like him and less time patting down my mom.

We are so scared of offending people that no one can be targeted or profiled. We will never be any closer to being safe if we consider every passenger an equal threat. There will always be some way for a bad person to do major harm

It is much easier to find bad people than it is to close every possible security weak spot.

Personally I think we need to see some heads roll at TSA. These would be high ranking heads. The TSA has other ideas. They’re adding more inconvenience to flying!

International travelers will now be restricted for the last hour of their trip (no bathroom for you travelers). There will probably be some carry-on restrictions added too. Legitimate travelers will suffer while terrorists will work around new regulations or find softer targets.

The US governments action’s this past week were dumb. To be good, security must be smart.

All My Geoff Foxes

This isn’t my first run-in with another Geoff Fox. There’s a writer in Brooklyn. The guy who started Fox Racing is also Geoff Fox. Then there are the professors who share my name (or maybe it’s the other way around).

Helaine and I were leaving the movie theater Saturday when I looked down at my phone and saw I’d gotten email from Geoff Fox. That’s not unusual. There are a number of warning services associated with this website and some weather data that comes with me as the return address.

When I came home and looked it was obviously not me–though it was from Geoff Fox!

Just found your web site, and thought I would say hello (from England)

Geoff Fox

GeoffFox-uk.jpgThis isn’t my first run-in with another Geoff Fox. There’s a writer in Brooklyn. The guy who started Fox Racing is also Geoff Fox. Then there are the professors who share my name (or maybe it’s the other way around).

In each case I feel a little inadequate. The Geoff’s I know of are all accomplished. The English Geoff is no different.

I run a renewable energy company called SolarUK. We design, manufacturer and install solar thermal collectors.

I used to run a software house in the City of London, but 10 years ago got fed up with London and started again.

We are currently building our second factory (which we have recycled) which will be a 17 sided R&D centre in Battle (near Hasting 1066 and all that)

In what little spare time I have, my wife (Sabine) and I have built a new house on our 50 acre farm near Ashdown Forest. The old house in the background has now been knocked down.

We have 1 dog (Joule), 2 cats, 7 horses and 1 helicopter. I have been flying my own helicopter for about 16 years, and never get enough time.

DSC00847.JPGYeah–he’s green, he’s tech and he flies a chopper he built himself!

Geoff suggested a Geoff Fox convention. Wouldn’t that be cool? I wonder if we have anything in common besides our name. Growing up I thought it was an unusual name and assumed I was the only one. How wrong I was.

On the other hand, I’m glad I bought geofffox.com while it was available and apologize for being the first Geoff Fox you get in Google. OK–maybe not.

Nothing To Hide

There is an independent group from Cambridge Environmental Research Consultants in England who have been monitoring the air and issuing their own forecasts which have been much more pessimistic than the official government version. Now that forecast is gone!

beijing-smog.jpgThere’s been a lot of talk about Beijing’s air quality problems, especially with the Olympics underway. What some observers have called smog has been characterized by the Chinese as mist.

The official government air quality numbers have been surprisingly good–considering the weather has created the ideal set-up for bad! Some of us have suspected they’re cooking the books. There’s really no way for me to know.

There is an independent group from Cambridge Environmental Research Consultants in England who have been monitoring the air and issuing their own forecasts which have been much more pessimistic than the official government version. Now that forecast is gone!

From Telegraph.co.uk: British scientists monitoring air quality in Beijing have been ordered to close down their website after their readings clashed with official statistics showing the city was meeting its pollution targets.

Until now, something about Beijing’s air didn’t smell right. Now it’s two things.

Faith And Politics

I am Jewish. No surprise there. I have mentioned it enough times on the blog.

I’m not a particularly observant Jew. As with many other Jews, I look at my “Jewishness” as much an ethnicity as a religion.

I don’t think Jews have found a shortcut to heaven. In fact, Jews don’t believe in heaven. We are not the only nor necessarily the best religion.

I respect my friends who have religious beliefs different than mine.

God knows (he really does), I’ve been in enough churches during my 23 years in Connecticut! I’ve spoken to church groups and church schools. I was honored to eulogize my friend Kevin at a Mormon ceremony.

With all this having been established, I am troubled by things I read which suggests some people running for the White House feel it’s a job for a Christian.

Oh, it has to be the right kind of Christian too… maybe not the Mitt Romney kind. Maybe not the Rudy Guiliani kind either. Is Mike Huckabee OK? Depends who you ask.

We are a secular nation. Unlike England, for instance, there is no state church here. We are a nation of laws, not doctrine. Our leaders are elected by the people, not anointed by God.

In essence, I’m hoping the first amendment covers me when it says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

It is right for Christians, or any other group, to act in concert to advance their agenda. It is wrong to do that to the exclusion of others.

My Jewishness should never cause me to be uncomfortable in our society. At the moment, it does.

Out Of Bandwidth

In England, the BBC has just started streaming TV shows through a proprietary program call iPlayer. People must be watching because the ISPs (the companies that deliver the Internet to you) are worried.

From DownloadSquad: iPlayer is causing all sorts of other trouble for ISPs. The player, built for viewing and downloading popular television shows onto computers through the special application is taking a toll on the ISPs bandwidth. So much so that they are looking for compensation from the BBC, threatening to initiate traffic shaping that would slow down service and render the player unusable if they don’t pay up.

I had been thinking about this on my own before the British scare. Internet bandwidth isn’t infinite. There are choke points all over the place that can get swamped with traffic. High quality video is about the most bandwidth intensive you can run!

I wasn’t too concerned about the BBC originally. My worry is closer to home. Imagine the traffic for NBC and the Olympics.

More Beryl

My partner-in-crime at the TV station, who is pronouncing Beryl differently than I am, sent me this today:

Geoff,

The National Hurricane Center sent out a pronunciation for Beryl…said it was like Milton Berle. Arlene’s middle name is Beryl, and she and her family always pronounced her name likewise. So, who am I to argue?

Dr. Mel

In this case, Arlene is Dr. Mel’s wife. Doesn’t this make her a Beryl expert? So, I was going to go back to Beryl said as “burl,” when I got this.

Hello Geoff,

Just a quick note to say how much I enjoy watching your weather reports! I was interested to hear the discussions about how to pronounce ‘Beryl’ because I too have a friend and you pronounced it correctly! I am from England and have lived in CT for three years. I find many words pronounced differently here but expected everyone to be able to say Beryl correctly! BERril!!

And then this.

To add fuel to the fire, how do we pronounce the great actress Meryl Streep’s name?

The official hurricane list of names doesn’t repeat for another seven years. Even that’s too soon!

Politically Correct

You used a phrase that I have been trying to get rid of for years. The phrase is “rule of thumb”.

Last night, with 5 or 6 seconds left in my part of the broadcast, I mentioned a viewer’s email – Could it snow at 50&#176? I sad, “no,” the rule of thumb was there was no snow at temperatures above 45&#176.

It wasn’t long before this came.

Geoff just caught your forecast, loved it!

Also I wanted to make a mention that you used a phrase that I have been

trying to get rid of for years. The phrase is “rule of thumb”. This phrase

used the measurement of the thumb for a very heinous use. In 1732 Francis

Butler, an English judge, declared that a ” man could beat his wife with a

stick no bigger then his thumb” Thus, the rule of thumb. Please avoid the

term and pass this along to others. Thanks. all the best Lori

Uh… OK. I don’t want to offend. Except… it’s not true.

There are lots of citations online (here’s one from England). Some of them are cruel in their attempt to debunk a an outspoken feminist and lesbian, Del Martin, who published this ‘fact’ in print.

That being said, it looks to me as if “rule of thumb” was never a reference to any English law&#185.

So, what to do? If I use the expression, I risk offending people – though only the misinformed. It is truly political correctness for the sake of political correctness.

I’m stumped. This should be such an easy decision, but it’s not.

&#185 – It also seems there was never any law, thumb sized or not, that allowed a husband to beat his wife.

The 40 Year Old Virgin

Were we the last people in America to see The 40 Year Old Virgin&#185? We’ve seen it now!

Other than getting the newspaper and picking up the mail, I didn’t leave the house on Saturday. Helaine wasn’t far behind. Tonight, with little going on and both of us in pajamas, I asked if she wanted to see a movie?

We had never ordered a pay-per-view film before. I hit the big ‘money button’ on the remote control and scrolled through the titles. There’s a lot of garbage available. In fact, the percentage of crap is astounding, especially when coupled with the fact – someone wants you to pay for it!

We got to the “T”s before there was one movie we’d even consider watching. Helaine said “The 40 Year Old Virgin” was supposed to be funny, so we gave it a shot. The $3.99 we paid seems reasonable versus what it would cost to rent a DVD.

It was certainly a lot more convenient.

There’s plenty to like about this movie. The cast was excellent, starting with Steve Carrell and working down. But let me start where the credit belongs – the writing.

On many occassions Carrell and Judd Apatow’s script could have easily turned Andy, the title character, into a stereotype. Instead, at each fork in the road, Andy establishes himself as multidimensional and human. It’s a neat trick, and though some of his personality traits are unexpected, it works.

Andy, a stock clerk at a Circuit City type store, reveals his lack of sexual experience while playing cards with the guys. The movie is his journey out of virginity.

This is a real ensemble cast with five or six solid performances by characters that aren’t written paper thin. I particularly like Seth Rogen (the tattoos were ‘special effects’), Romany Malco and Paul Rudd as his co-workers and Catherine Keener as Trish.

Until last week I had no idea who Catherin Keener was. Then I saw Death To Smoochy, where she had a large supporting role opposite Edward Norton. She was very good last week and just as good this week.

If you were watching TV any time around the release of the movie, you probably saw a clip of the scene where Steve Carrell has his chest waxed. The word is, his pained expression… his pain actually… was real.

It was hysterical, but I am such a wimp I had to look away.

I enjoyed Carrell on The Daily Show and in Anchorman. This was far better and he is a fine comedic actor. I haven’t seen The Office, his show on NBC. I guess I have to now.

My guess is, in time this movie will be considered a classic. Honest. Is that too much to predict?

There is some nudity and explicit sexual content. If my daughter has seen this movie, I’d rather not know.

&#185 – Actually, no more than two minutes ago, my friend Farrell said he hadn’t see it either. He is in England at the moment, so we very well may be the only people in America not to have seen it.

The World Traveler Calls on IM

I was on IM at 3:00 AM when a new window opened on my screen. It was a friend of mine. “I’m in Seoul,” he said.

“So, you’re a soul man,” I replied (using the cheapest joke I could think of. He’s in Korea for some sort of conference.

We didn’t chat for long, but he said I should go. It was the kind of place I’d enjoy… a country which resembles a gigantic Best Buy&#185. I look upon much of Asia that way.

The guy in Korea is someone I’ve known for 25 years. During that time he’s traveled everywhere for business and pleasure, including a few years living in Europe and more living in Asia.

He travels enough that my daughter suspects he works for the CIA. I don’t think so, but it’s a good fable.

There aren’t many things that bring out envy in me, but this is one of them. I’m not sure I need to travel enough to get extra pages added to a passport – I’d just like to need a passport. I’ve been to England once and the Caribbean many times. That’s pretty much the extent of my long distance travel.

I’d like to visit Oriental Asia – China, Japan, Korea, the Malay Peninsula, maybe Thailand. Sure I want to come home with electronics and optics, but I want to see where it happens. Photos and videos I’ve seen of teeming Asian cities are enticing.

Quite honestly, I don’t know what I’d do once I got there!

Europe doesn’t hold quite the same attraction. I can’t say why. Maybe it’s Europe is so 19th Century and Asia is so 21st. That’s no more than a guess.

Helaine says I probably wouldn’t do well on a 24 hour transpolar flight. I’m not sure I disagree. That’s a long time to have your knees in your chest, sleeping sitting up. My Southwest Airlines miles won’t help. I certainly know this trip isn’t her priority.

My on-the-road friend will be back in the states this weekend. It won’t be long before he’s traveling again. He racks up frequent flier miles like they’re going out of style. Maybe next time he’ll shoot some photos.

&#185 – His characterization. Obviously, he doesn’t know about the screaming match I once had inside a Best Buy. “Go ahead, call the police!” was one of the things I yelled. Need I say more?

Maybe The Revolution Will Be Televised After All

Gil Scott-Heron said “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.” I’m not sure this was what he was talking about, but based on what’s come out of London with the subway and bus explosions, he needs to rewrite the song.

The advent of cellphones with still and video cameras and the proliferation of fixed security cameras has changed everything. Not only did we see still images from the tunnels of the London subway system, we saw video too. It won’t surprise me if, as was the case in Spain, higher quality images from security cameras come out later.

The quality of the hand held cameras isn’t all that great, but it will get better with time. Actually, the quality of the video is inconsequential. The mere fact that we’re all able to be eyewitnesses is what’s important. We saw that demonstrated during the Gulf War when jumpy, pixelated videophones were the only live way out.

This trend of every significant human event being documented was even more evident in the pictures that came out of Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Thailand during the December tsunami. With many of the cameras connected to the Internet, these photos are available immediately.

Today convenience store robberies… gas station fires… even police traffic stops are all seen on TV – and seen often.

How will this affect us? Recently, while watching a baseball game on ESPN, a fan ran onto the field. The cameras immediately left the field so as not to encourage others.

Will all of this coverage encourage more terrorism? It’s possible.

On the other hand, there are many who believe the major factor in turning public opinion away from the Vietnam War was the constant images on the nightly news. Could images of carnage stop the violence we saw yesterday in England? That’s possible too. Or it just might serve to galvanize the resolve of those targeted.

This will be much easier to judge in hindsight. All I can say now is, things have changed. This genie is not going back in the bottle.

Global Warming Revisited

This is probably the only controversial subject I address on the blog – Global Warming. I think I’ve made it clear I’m a skeptic, and the others I know who forecast the weather are also mainly skeptics.

It’s not a small thing. If I’m wrong, I’m asking you to sit by and doom the planet. If the Global Warming proponents are wrong, they’ve asked that we cripple our industrial base, allow others to continue to spew ‘greenhouse gasses’… and all for naught.

Every time I feel my position is solid, I think of reading things like:

Dr Naomi Oreskes, of the University of California, analysed almost 1,000 papers on the subject published since the early 1990s, and concluded that 75 per cent of them either explicitly or implicitly backed the consensus view, while none directly dissented from it.

That always gives me second thoughts.

Now there’s more… but it’s nothing I ever expected. It’s an eye opening article in the Telegraph from the UK. In case the link ‘expires,’ I will place the actual text at the bottom of this entry.

Here’s a little excerpt:

However, her (Dr Naomi Oreskes, of the University of California) unequivocal conclusions immediately raised suspicions among other academics, who knew of many papers that dissented from the pro-global warming line.

They included Dr Benny Peiser, a senior lecturer in the science faculty at Liverpool John Moores University, who decided to conduct his own analysis of the same set of 1,000 documents – and concluded that only one third backed the consensus view, while only one per cent did so explicitly.

I have often feared Global Warming is a politically and not scientifically motivated

campaign.

I’ll keep my ears open for more on this.

Continue reading “Global Warming Revisited”

Cayman Island Earthquake

I was surprised, to say the least, to read about a strong earthquake tonight close to the Cayman Islands (20 miles southeast of Georgetown, the capital). Actually, there are a number of surprises for me here and I might as well run them down.

Though I knew there are plates upon which all of the Earth’s surface floats, I didn’t realize there was a boundary between two plates in the Caribbean. They grind against each other slowly, but constantly. The relative motion is only 6/10″ per year.

Of course one year is nothing to the Earth. Over 20 years that’s around a foot of motion. Over decades and centuries… well, you get the idea.

At some point something’s gotta give… and it did tonight. The quake was magnitude 6.7&#185. That’s enough to be very scary and even more destructive. I have not yet heard any damage reports from the Caymans. Magnitude alone is not enough to predict destruction.

My second surprise was seeing actual ‘shock reports‘ from the Cayman Islands. This is actually an interesting idea from the United States Geological Service. They ask people to check in and rate the quake! It’s like Dick Clark on American Bandstand circa 1965.

As I type this there are 189 reports from the Caymans and one from Haiti. Each locale is averaged to show how the quake was felt.

I think the USGS does an amazing job keeping up with earthquakes. Their website is fast and thorough. I’m a math and science guy, so it appeals to me more than most. Still, if you’re curious, it’s worth looking at.

And, to get my own little plug in, there’s a link to the most recent large earthquake in the column on the right: Latest Large Earthquakes Worldwide.

&#185 – Remember Richter? The Richter scale is no longer in use by geologists.

Continue reading “Cayman Island Earthquake”

My Life in Edumacation

I have just begun my second year at Mississippi State University (These are the Bulldogs, it’s not Ole Miss), studying meteorology.

You might ask, why would someone who has performed the job of meteorologist for the past 20 some odd years now go to school for it… and isn’t the commute to Starkville going to kill me?

It started at my last contract negotiation. Though my boss has a slightly different memory of it that I, the facts are pretty much the same. Our collective boss (The Big WASP Kahuna) thought it would be better, and more promotable if I had the American Meteorological Society Broadcasting Seal of Approval (aka the seal).

At one time, the AMS handed these out like candy on Halloween. That ended about 20 minutes after I entered the weather field when the seal program became the Meteorologists Full Employment Act of 1983. In order to get a seal you would need a core meteorological college level curriculum and then pass a screening.

The station’s offer was, if you invest the time to take the courses (3 years, 17 courses), we will pay your way. So, I’m on a LIN Television scholarship. Interestingly, I will have the seal a few months after the expiration of my current contract.

Mississippi State University developed this distance learning course (what used to be called “correspondence school” ) to scratch an itch. I have recently seen estimates that nearly 30% of all TV meteorologists went through the MSU program.

The lectures are on DVD and videocassette. The textbooks are standard, overpriced, and professor written. Tests and quizzes are given online and are all multiple choice. I guess this opens the program up to cheating, though I have never heard a hint of it.

So far, I’m a straight “A” student. I only mention that because my previous college career (which began in 1968 and is on my permanent record at Mississippi State – and is the reason for the name of this weblog) was a disaster.

I was to college as Gigli was to movies.

This semester my courses are Statistical Climatology and Severe Weather. I actually have enjoyed most of the courses I’ve taken so far, though it is obvious that not every course has the right amount of material for exactly one semester, and not every professor has a flair for lecturing on DVD (It was like chalk on a blackboard to hear one lecturer mispronounce Greenwich, England).

It has been interesting to watch Mississippi State operate. I get lots of emails that are written for students on campus. I found out that cowbells were banned from football games. Who knew? I was invited to seminars to grill perspective administrator candidates.

MSU’s computer system, which is my link to the school, seems rickety. It is constantly down for varying lengths of time. A few semesters ago, during finals, it ran out of space and lost a load of final exams (though not mine). There was no backed up data!

I just went to get an MSU logo to put with this entry… it’s down right now.

A while ago my wife asked, “Have you learned anything?”

The answer is yes.

“But,” she continued, “how important could it be if you haven’t needed it in the last 20 years?”

Good point.