Hey Janice,

I see you went from an axe to a chain saw–that’s not good! I hope they figure things out soon. A few weeks ago the health system lost its Internet service for hours and since I do a lot of my work online, I didn’t know what to do with myself! We take all this high tech stuff for granted and it’s hard to adjust when something goes wrong. Hang in there. Things will get better!

Take care,
Margie

You know JD this reminds me of a cartoon I once saw, some 20 years ago, about the daily frustrations with computers. They were quite frustrating 20 years ago too.

This woman was sitting at her desk holding a revolver in her hand pointing it at the computer. The caption read….”OK dirt bag, give me back my data”.

Janice! Maybe I can give you some luck. ALL computers here at work are back online AND I can hear Fox News through my headphones. We just had so sacrifice a goat to the computer gods.

Does anyone know when FNC is going to come out in HD? I heard its later this month. I wonder if worth the trouble to install it?

The problem could also be an overheating of your computer monitor. If you havent already, maybe you should consider getting a cooling pad. Best Buy has them for a cheap price.

I dont really like all the technology in the iphone either. I wonder if its really good fror our society, because we become to dependent on it. I heard that is why cases of road rage in the highways have rising dramatically.

People have become really too dependent on the technology. Watch young people try to do math in their heads. You can almost smell the burning circuitry in their heads!

We had that last summer at the cabin in B.C. All we have there is a clock radio to listen to in the evenings. The first night, all the kids were coming up to us asking where the TV and computer were. We told them there weren’t any but there were plenty of board games, cards, and books to read as when we were kids. By the end of the vacation, the kids had learned to play cards, they had read some books, made smores, and basically learned that sometimes it’s ok to be cut off from the world for a bit!

Hey, Janice:

How are you today?

Hey, everyone! Dont forget to try to get a copy of the magazine special EXTREME WEATHER put out by ASTRONOMY magazine as I mentioned earlier on this site.

Janice, I was wondering, what is the rate of change for a hurricane from cat to cat? What I mean is, how long does it take for a hurricane to change from cat 1 to cat 2? 5 minutes? A few hours? A day?

Also, when tornadoes touch down, what part does friction with the land and friction with the local atmosphere play in affecting the tornado? Does it cause the tornado to slow down in anyway? Does friction detract from tornadic power?

Sal

Also, those California fires look like Hell! I expect to see the Devil jump out any minute and toast some marshmellows. Governor Arnold is asking Pres Bush to send in regular military to lend a hand.
This inferno was not started by an arsonist, was it? It WAS started by natural causes, yes?

If an arsonist is responsible, then they should set on fire a certain part of his/her anatomy, and I do not mean their butts, either (pardon my crudeness, Janice)!

This scorching of the land is INEXCUSABLE AND UNFORGIVEABLE!

Sal

Hermit.

One of the fires in CA is listed as possible arson. I always thought if they catch an arsonist they should have a special punishment. During the next forest fire, drop him by parachute with a supersoaker filled with water and a fire axe into the middle of it and let him fight his way out. If he gets out..fine. If not, the animals whose habitat he just destroyed have something to eat.

Hey Sal,

Since Janice can’t answer us on the blog at the moment, I can help out a little. Hurricanes intensify at different rates because of varying atmospheric conditions. Some will take days to go from a tropical storm to a hurricane, while others do so very quickly. Bertha went from a tropical storm to a category 3 in less than a day because the conditions in the atmosphere were favorable for that. Last September, Hurricane Felix went from a tropical storm to a category 4 in only one day and eventually reached category 5. It has to do with the temperature of the water and all kinds of complicated atmospheric conditions to make the perfect storm. Some storms never become hurricanes because the conditions aren’t just right.

I think most of the fires in California were started by lightning. I think they had a system go through there that didn’t produce rain, but created a lot of lightning, which ignited the very dry brush.”

Tornadoes are more complicated because they are not fully understood. If the meteorologists don’t understand them, this little ol’ medical librarian isn’t even going to try to explain them! I do know that they require contrasts in air temperatures and it’s those contrasting air masses that can cause the super cells to form. That’s all I’m going to attempt on that one!

I hope this helps a little.

Margie

Sal,

One more thing…scorching the land is a bad thing but putting those brave firefighters in danger is the inexcusable part!

You know JD this reminds me of a cartoon I once saw, some 20 years ago, about the daily frustrations with computers. They were quite frustrating 20 years ago too.

This woman was sitting at her desk holding a revolver in her hand pointing it at the computer. The caption read….”OK dirt bag, give me back my data

I had a poster once that said ERROR and Garfield standing over it with a Chainsaw the caption was very simple COMPUTE THIS!!!!!!

I thought I’d pass on a heartwarming story from the aftermath of the Iowa floods. This is from the Mason City, IA, Globe-Gazette, and it shows that sometimes corporate America does have a heart. The company name is pronounced “HOLE-sihm”.

http://www.globegazette.com/articles/2008/07/10/news/local/doc487581109a686377337237.txt

Hey, Margie:

Thanks for the explanation on the storms and the fires. Sounds good to me.

Also, no argument from me concerning your comments on the firefighters in California.

Sal

Hey, Don:

Fine with me, but let the arsonist be dropped into the hot zone WITHOUT a parachute!

Sal

Hey Janice!
Before your computer went down was it saying things like HAL in 2001 A Space Odessey?

“What are you doing Janice?” “I can feel my mind going.” “Daisy, Daisy…..givvvvvveeee”

And then the little light went out. Thank God you weren’t approaching Jupier when that happened!!

Happy 711, Janice and everyone!

My first computer is on my other computer desk, right behind me. I bought it on St. Patrick’s Day in 1983. It is an Apple IIe and still works perfectly! So does the Epson dot matrix printer I bought at the same time. It’s fun to use them. I used them extensively throughout the 1980’s and well into the 1990’s.

In fact, in the early days of personal computing, before the advent of the Internet, I often communicated online with people in different parts of North America. How? By using The Source, CompuServe, and Dow-Jones information services. I added a Hayes 300 baud modem (it’s still inside my Apple IIe) when I bought my IIe. The Hayes modem plugged into my phone line. It was fairly easy to configure parameters so I could access these information services.

Throughout the 1980’s, I worked in public and financial relations. I used my Apple IIe to issue press releases on my clients’ behalf. I could send them instantaneously to Chicago newspapers, the City News Bureau, and the Chicago bureaus of Dow Jones, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal. When clients asked me to release a press release at 6:00 AM on a certain day, I prepared the final draft of the release the day before. At 5:45 AM, I read the release one last time. At 6:00 AM, I issued it while sitting in my pajamas at my computer desk in my apartment in Chicago. Then I had breakfast, showered, and got ready for work.

I arrived at my office at 8 AM. Usually, two or three reporters had left messages about the release I just issued. Clients appreciated how promptly I issued them.

My boss appreciated all that I did on my Apple IIe at home. About six months after I started working for him in December 1983, he bought me an identical system for my office. I often wrote at home in the evening and sent it to myself, then worked on it again the following morning at work.

Some of my clients appreciated how I used my Apple IIe, others could care less. Using my Apple IIe, for example, I could write and transmit not only press releases for their approval but also copy for quarterly and annual reports, brochures, corporate fact books, and so on. A client in Toronto had a young chief financial officer who was as into computers as I was. He had an IBM PC at work and another at home.

We sent documents back and forth all the time. By doing so, we practically eliminated the need to send anything via Federal Express overnight shipping, which was quite expensive then as it is today.

I’m using my Compaq PC to write this post. I bought it in December 2005, right after my six-and-a-half-year-old PC conked out. HP just repaired my Compaq, replacing its motherboard and hard drive. I’ve had good experiences with HP. My repaired computer works like a charm — as it should.

From time to time, I write on my blogs about inexplicable problems I have with my computer, always under the heading, “The Joys of Computing.” Yes, from time to time, things happen I just don’t understand.

But that’s enough for now. More on another day….

George Spink
Los Angeles

Scott-

Thanks for the article. Its very heartwarming and brings a smile to your face.

It’s really refreshing to hear about a company that cares that much about it’s employees. and having paid time off immediately after the floods? That is mighty generous of them.

I remember 2001- A Space Odessey. I just it the other night on AMC. Great classic movie, with all the special effects.

Bill-

By any chance was the cartoon those famous Mr Magoo ones? Those bring back great memories.

Hey Don-

Last years wildfires in CA were also arson too, but it was started by a 10 year old boy playing with matches. Dont know if they even charged him with the crime.

I heard about several major cities passing tougher arson crime laws, which will make anyone convicted spend a longer time in jail, 10 years to be exact.

Hey Janice-

You always amaze me with your knowledge about everything that is going on in this world. Thanks for the detailed info on hurricanes and wildfires. A lot of info i am just learning right now

Take Care.

Hey Gang,

Since we’re all sharing computer frustrations, I have to tell you what happened to me last night. I was doing some work on my computer when I got an error message about WeatherBug. When I don’t have it open, it displays the temperature on the tool bar. Well, something happened and it closed the program. This happened at the same time I was playing some music on my Real Player. Well, after the problem with WeatherBug, the music stopped. When I clicked on Real Player on my tool bar I got the same message as I did with WeatherBug. I reopened the program and I got a message that said something like the database was corrupted and needed to be repaired. I clicked on “repair” and it started to repair things. I guess I got in a hurry so I decided to go online while it was repairing, which I guess was too much for my computer and I got another error message. I forget what it said, but basically it wiped out all my play lists that I saved. I still have all the music on my computer, but I’ll have to waste a lot of time reorganizing my music files. I’m not a happy camper right now! It’s kind of ironic that the song that was playing when all this happened was “Take Heart” by Donna Summer. I guess I should take heart because there are a lot of worse things in life! Maybe I’ll borrow Janice’s chain saw and go after my computer! (I hope she doesn’t have any other problems, since her pictures went from an axe to a chainsaw. The next thing might be a Howitzer!)

I hope everyone has a computer bug-free day!

Margie

Janice………….sorry to hear about your ongoing computer woes. It amazes me how much we’ve come to rely om these whirring and clicking boxes on our desks. Makes you wonder if we could survive as a species without them. I remember as a kid we were told how much easier our lives will because of the invent of the computer. Oh yeah?……..when’s that day coming.
Anyway, since your having trouble blogging, I’ll do my part to keep the troops entertained………….
Since we are in the middle of our summer thunderstorm season here in the US, some may find this interesting and helpfull……

http://www.wunderground.com/health/lightning.asp

Have a great weekend

Mornin’ Everybody!
JD: Hope you get your computer problems fixed soon. In the meantime we just putter along and do the best we can.

John: Checked out the lightning website. I’ve always been fascinated by lightning. Just last weekend, lightning hit our house during an afternoon thunderstorm. We think that it struck a large oak tree about 40 feet from our house, then jumped to a wooden fort-type play structure/swingset that we’ve had for years under that tree. The chains on the one of the fort’s swings were fried and broken apart. One of my son’s bedroom is at that corner of the house. The lightning came in on his tv (which is on a surge protector) and messed up the color. He was also playing a Playstation video game at the time and the game controller was knocked out of his hands. Fortunately, the only other damage we could find was a blackened area around the light switchplate in the adjoining bathroom. I was in the other end of the house at the time, but it sounded like someone had just shot a shotgun in the house when the lightning hit. Actually, it was pretty scary.

Hope all have a good day!

Hey Gwen,

I’m glad no one got hurt by that lightning strike! Whenever there’s a bad storm around, I turn things off to be safe. You never know with lightning!

Have a great day.

Margie

I once was using my computer when there was a high wind storm. During that time, the entire rooms dimmed for a second and came back on. I guess that was a major power surge.

But i have never been actually seen a lightning strike. I have heard them coming from the distance. They can be really dangerous and scary if a person is not careful.

I almost forgot to mention, i just heard Donna Summers “I work hard for the money” in a GMAC commericial. Just thought i would you folks know.

I dont know much about computers, but i do know that Real Player, Macromedia Flash Player, and those others can contain embedded viruses that can harm you computer.

I know sometimes when there is a phishing scam, that Flash Player windows appears. It usually happens when a person tried to access a person’s profile on a social networking site, filled with unprofessional layouts.

Thanks for that link John-

Its never too early or late to brush up on your lightning safety and prevention skills.

I don’t use a computer…that is how I avoid computer problems.

Just kidding, of course!

Sal

Great joke, i basically only use a computer to post on this blog, and read up on the days news. I guess if you avoid those sites with a ton of cookies and viruses, you should be alright.