Jimmy

You’d think that with the lack of sleep I get on school nights (5-6 hours when I don’t have an exam or big project due the next morning), that I would love weekends and the chance to sleep in and relax, but alas, ’tis not so. The adrenaline that carries me through the week lets down once I get 9-11 hours of sleep during the weekend. It’s really quite sad (/sarcasm). That’s part of the reason that I haven’t posted in several days, despite the seemingly endless list of interesting possible topics (the fact that we’re somewhere between the top of the cliff marked “recession” and the bottom of the canyon marked “depression”; the presidential debate on Friday; Tropical Storm Hurricane Kyle; Sub-Tropical Storm Laura; etc.). The other part is probably pure laziness. Anyway. Life’s going pretty well in my neck of the woods. I weathered the first round of exams in all my classes pretty well. Not totally where I want to be grade-wise, but I think I’ve struck a nice balance between not doing very much school work at all (at least it doesn’t feel like very much, it’s true that I enjoy most of my homework so it probably doesn’t seem like that much) and getting good grades anyway. I’d say that’s a pretty big WIN. I’ve found out how most of my professors grade at this point, and will be making adjustments to my levels of caring about certain types of assignments accordingly. (Example: one professor puts far more weight on the class exams and far less weight on the homework assignments than I was expecting, so I’ll have to work harder on the exams and in theory don’t have to worry as much about the homework.)

I suppose if I spent less time analyzing all my professors’ grading matrices and more time on actually doing their assignments I might get the same grades, but given the choice of analyzing the screwy school system I chose to subject myself to and actually 100% subjecting myself to it…I’ll chose the former every day. And this model has gotten me really good grades, so I see no reason to change it now.

All that being said, there is that C++ program that really isn’t going to write itself and which is due in…26.5 hours. It’s not a huge program, but it does involve writing several different functions and also has several Extra Credit opportunities appended to it, so if I want to take advantage of those it might be a good idea for me to turn to my hard-working Linux box (most of the components of that comp are 7.5 years old. It’s a good little, albeit slow, Ubuntu installation) and start coding (I use my Linux computer rather than my Windows laptop for a couple of reasons: 1. installing a C++ compiler on the Linux box was really easy: “sudo apt-get gcc” [or something to that effect] while it seemed really confusing on my WinXP comp, 2. my laptop’s harddrive is getting pretty full and I’m trying not to install anything more on it [besides music, which is about a quarter of the drive at this point and is Very Important to me]).

Someday I’ll post about how my iPod is the only thing that allows me to survive this life of mine, but…I guess I just did.

Anyway. I’m not dead (4 days without a post, I’m sure everyone was really worried [/sarcasm]), and soon there might be a post about my views on transportation. All of it. It might be a long post.

Cheers!

-jbh

Just one tonight, because it’s oh-so-important: Pirates of the Caribbean 4 is a go, with Johnny Depp and (so far) nobody else. Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley are not going to be in it, no word on the other big or little stars. Personally I hope Gibbs returns. I like him.

That is all. Unless you want to watch Ruslana music videos on Youtube. (Finding new music after the first exam week(s) of school is so TOTALLY WIN.)

OK. That is all.

(“Go to bed, Jimmy” he muttered to himself as his mouse pointer hovered near the “Publish” button.)

Cheers.

-j

Well, you may already know that the low pressure area tagged as invest 93l for the last several days has finally developed a closed surface circulation and has therefore been dubbed Tropical Storm Kyle by the National Hurricane Center at 5pm today.

(Live updating infrared satellite image.)

The storm’s current position is a bit northeast of the lower Bahamas and moving north, so it’s not likely to be a threat to any land for several days save for being a possible concern to Bermuda, but it’s predicted by most of the computer prediction models and the official NHC forecast to pass west of that island.

In fact, the first land Kyle is predicted to seriously affect is the Canadian Maritime Provinces and eastern New England USA late this coming weekend. By then the storm is predicted to have reached hurricane status over the Gulf Stream and then fallen back down to Tropical Storm strength. It seems likely that Kyle will merge with the frontal system attached to the low pressure system currently off the coast of the Carolinas around that time, as well.

That system seemed to be looking like it might become sub-tropical for a while there (one of my professors saw the satellite loop of it on my computer and thought it was a tropical system this afternoon, also it’s been tagged invest 94l) but it’s now almost over land and will likely not be named by the NHC. A post-season analysis will likely be conducted on the system to determine if it was tropical enough to be upgraded post-season, but my thought is that while it’s close to sub-tropical status it doesn’t deserve to be upgraded/named.

My prediction for this system is that it will hang around the southeast for 24-36 hours (bringing much needed rain for some areas in the region) while the low pressure center begins to weaken. By Saturday, the energy associated with this system will begin to be drawn northeast (with whatever low pressure center is left of it) and will begin to merge with (Hurricane by then?) Kyle.

(Read the rest of the entry for more of my [amateur!] analysis of the two systems over the next several days.)

Read the rest of this entry »

My weekly schedule is kinda interesting in that I have a 9am class four days of the week, but on Wednesdays I don’t have class until 3pm. This, so far this semester, I have seen as nothing but I good thing since it allows me to get a whole bunch of sleep midweek to help stave off the fatigue brought on by sleeping 4-5 hours (technically I aim for 6-7 hours…my normal need is 9+) on my other school nights. (By now you’ve probably figured out that I’m a night owl, if you didn’t already figure that out by the timestamp on my posts.)

This week, however, I’m beginning to realize that I’ve really come to enjoy the fact that my 9am class gets me up in the morning and provides me hours of free time after it when I can do homework or whatever. I have an [chem lab] exam and a C++ program due on Thursday, so I kinda need to do a lot of work tomorrow (studying, finishing lab reports I never finished, programming….) in-between 4 hours of classes and also taking my weekly household cooking/dish turn, but I’m realizing that if I had a morning class that would so rudely cut my sleep short and get me up and about at 7:50am I would have several more hours of homework time to…well, OK, I’d probably just spend half most of it staring at the walls procrastinating and wondering why I’m so tired. So maybe sleeping later doesn’t matter all that much.

I’m sure you’ve all enjoyed this oh so fascinating look into my thought processes and semi-meta discussion of my homework schedule, but I think it’s time for bed. ‘Cause, you know, the sooner I get to bed the sooner I can get up in the morning and…do…all…that…work. Oh crap.

Cheers!

-j

There was going to be a “serious post” today about America’s new nationalized financial system OR invest 93l OR more about Podcars OR ….

But instead there was a chemistry exam that I was studying for all morning and a C++ program that I was writing after that and a 3D Animation/Modeling class that needed my attendance in the evening. After that there was the unwinding that my body and mind were screaming for and the “early” bedtime that my thought processes requested.

And here we are. Regular programming will hopefully return tomorrow when I have an entirely free afternoon, but there is that pesky quiz in my evening class that might require some pre-class attention, plus that 3D modeling that also needs to be dealt with before class on Wednesday, so eh.

That’s a long and fancy way of saying: I’m busy and tired. Deal with it.

Cheers.

-j

At 4:15pm EDT the NHC issued another Special Tropical Disturbance Statement regarding invest 93l:

SATELLITE IMAGERY…SURFACE OBSERVATIONS…RECONNAISSANCE AIRCRAFT DATA…AND NOAA DOPPLER WEATHER RADAR DATA FROM SAN JUAN PUERTO RICO INDICATE THE BROAD LOW PRESSURE AREA PREVIOUSLY OVER THE NORTHEASTERN CARIBBEAN SEA IS NOW CENTERED OVER CENTRAL AND WESTERN PUERTO RICO. THE AIRCRAFT REPORTED 30 TO 35 MPH SURFACE WINDS IN SQUALLS TO THE SOUTH AND EAST OF THE CENTER. HOWEVER…THE DATA SHOW THE SYSTEM DOES NOT YET HAVE A WELL-DEFINED SURFACE CIRCULATION.

THE LOW IS EXPECTED TO MOVE GENERALLY NORTHWARD DURING THE NEXT DAY OR TWO…AND COULD BECOME A TROPICAL DEPRESSION AT ANY TIME. REGARDLESS OF DEVELOPMENT…LOCALLY HEAVY RAINFALL WILL CONTINUE OVER PUERTO RICO AND THE U. S. AND BRITISH VIRGIN ISLANDS THROUGH MONDAY. THESE RAINS COULD CAUSE LIFE-THREATENING FLASH FLOODS AND MUDSLIDES. INTERESTS IN PUERTO RICO…THE U.S. AND BRITISH VIRGIN ISLANDS…AND EASTERN HISPANIOLA SHOULD MONITOR THE PROGRESS OF THIS SYSTEM AND ANY PRODUCTS ISSUED BY THEIR RESPECTIVE WEATHER FORECAST OFFICES.

This statement seems a little less “bullish” than the ones earlier today, but it still tells us that 93L is only one step away from becoming a Tropical Depression: all that needs to happen is for a closed surface circulation to form.

The 18z (2pm EDT) computer prediction model data has come in, and most of the models seem to be coming into consensus behind a track generally toward the north, with perhaps a turn toward the north-northwest or northwest in several days:

I’m not sure how this plays into my theory of this system merging with the predicted Nor’easter, but I think that given how close the two systems are forecasted to be late this week that it’s still possible or likely that they’ll merge. We’ll see.

As for intensity, the consensus of the 18z models forecasts the system to be Tropical Storm Kyle by tomorrow afternoon and to reach hurricane force by Thursday afternoon or evening. There’s quite a bit of spread in the predictions even a couple of days out, but they all bring the system to tropical storm force by Monday night. This, of course, is dependent on the surface circulation closing off really soon, but I think that’s likely to happen within the next 12-24 hours.

Until later, stay safe and sound everyone.

Cheerio!

-j

At 10:30am EDT the National Hurricane Center had this to say about invest 93l:

SATELLITE IMAGERY…SURFACE OBSERVATIONS…AND NOAA DOPPLER WEATHER RADAR DATA FROM SAN JUAN PUERTO RICO INDICATE THE LOW PRESSURE AREA LOCATED ABOUT 70 MILES SOUTH OF PUERTO RICO HAS CONTINUED TO BECOME BETTER ORGANIZED THIS MORNING. THIS SYSTEM COULD BECOME A TROPICAL DEPRESSION AT ANY TIME AS IT MOVES SLOWLY NORTH-NORTHWESTWARD OR NORTHWARD AT ABOUT 5 MPH. AN AIR FORCE RESERVE RECONNAISSANCE AIRCRAFT IS CURRENTLY ENROUTE TO INVESTIGATE THE SYSTEM.

By 2pm, this is what they had to say:

THE LOW PRESSURE SYSTEM LOCATED OVER THE NORTHEASTERN CARIBBEAN SEA ABOUT 50 MILES SOUTH OF PUERTO RICO HAS CONTINUED TO BECOME BETTER ORGANIZED TODAY…AND A TROPICAL DEPRESSION COULD FORM AT ANY TIME AS THE SYSTEM MOVES SLOWLY NORTH OR NORTH-NORTHWESTWARD. AN AIR FORCE RESERVE RECONNAISSANCE AIRCRAFT IS CURRENTLY ENROUTE TO INVESTIGATE THE SYSTEM TO PROVIDE MORE INFORMATION ON BOTH ITS STRUCTURE AND STRENGTH. A WIND GUST IN EXCESS OF 40 MPH WAS REPORTED AT ST. THOMAS IN THE U.S. VIRGIN ISLANDS EARLIER TODAY. HEAVY RAINFALL AND STRONG GUSTY WINDS WILL AFFECT PUERTO RICO…THE VIRGIN ISLANDS…AND THE NORTHERN LEEWARD ISLANDS THROUGH MONDAY. INTERESTS IN THESE AREAS SHOULD CLOSELY MONITOR PRODUCTS FROM THEIR LOCAL WEATHER FORECAST OFFICE FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS SYSTEM. IN ADDITION…A SPECIAL ADVISORY PACKAGE WILL BE ISSUED BY THE NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER THIS AFTERNOON…IF NECESSARY…WHICH COULD REQUIRE THE ISSUANCE OF WARNINGS AND WATCHES.

It sounds to me like the NHC is ready to start issuing advisories on this system, but they’re just waiting for the data from the hurricane hunters before doing so. Given the reported wind gust of Tropical Storm strength at St. Thomas, which is more than 100 miles from the center, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Hurricane Hunters find this system to already be Tropical Storm Kyle. Of course it’s all dependent on the storm having a closed surface circulation, if there’s no closed surface circulation the wind speed doesn’t matter because it’s not considered a tropical cyclone.

We’ll know soon enough, though, so I guess it’s just time to wait. In the meantime, the storm seems to have a nice (mid-level?) spin in San Juan radar, as well as visible satellite imagery.

As for where the system is heading, there seem to be two schools of thought among the computer prediction models (click on “storm 93″ for plots of this system)(also see this plot for a slightly different set of models): first is that the storm will slowly move west-northwest or northwest along the northern coast of Hispaniola before taking a north-northeastward turn, second is that the storm will move more quickly off toward the north or north-northwest. As for me, I’m going to split the difference and say the storm will head off on a heading just north of northwest and will travel just to the northeast of the Bahamas before being absorbed into the Nor’easter that’s predicted to form off the coast of Florida in several days.

Alright. That’s all I’ve got for now. Stay safe everyone.

-j

Some readers may recall my post last month about how I didn’t think Paris Hilton was as immature and “ditsy” as the media portrays her, and now there’s a new documentary film proving just that.

The film, made by the daughter of Tom Petty, is called Paris, Not France and shows that the “real” Paris is much more than the “media” Paris that we’ve all heard about. Apparently the director was looking for an angle that nobody had every taken before when talking about Paris, and she came up with the angle of “Paris is actually a human” (my sarcastic words, not hers). CNN reports that the director said that this was “the only option left” for ways/angles to look at Paris, which makes me wonder if anyone ever thought that Paris had any brains at all until they were, in effect, “forced” into it by the fact that every other possibility had been examined. Perhaps I’m being overly cynical, but that’s the way I see it.

The reaction to the film is perhaps predictable in that the media doesn’t like it (because it paints them in a rather unfavorable light?) (although to give CNN credit they wrote what seemed to me to be a fairly unbiased story about the film, one of the few media outlets that I can find that did*) and regular (non-media) viewers seem to have had a better opinion of it (although not many people besides the media have seen it as it only had one showing at the Toronto International Film Festival a couple of weeks ago).

*I just found a news story on an Australian website that seemed a bit favorable. Overall, though, the top results on Google are mostly unfavorable.

All in all, I’m looking forward to seeing this film and being able to write a slightly more informed analysis, but from what I can tell so far, it seems that my assertion last month was very much correct.

Cheers!

-j

Not to be content after sending seven tropical storms or hurricanes in a row into the United State coastline (count ‘em: T.S. Cristobal battered the coasts of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina in mid-July; Hurricane Dolly hit southern Texas just a few days later; T.S. Edouard made landfall near the Texas/Louisiana border in early August; T.S. Fay I blogged about quite a bit as it made it’s way through the Caribbean and hit Florida several times in mid-August; Hurricane Gustav I again blogged about as it slammed Cuba and hit Louisiana in late August and early September; Hurricane Hanna you might remember as the storm that simply could not decide where to go in late August and early September; and finally Hurricane Ike which we all know had a little fun with Galveston, Texas a week ago today) the tropics are again bubbling and threatening toil and trouble. Or something.

Anyway, Invest 93L has formed in the southeastern Caribbean and the NHC has this to say about it at 8pm EDT:

A WESTWARD-MOVING TROPICAL WAVE…ACCOMPANIED BY A BROAD SURFACE LOW PRESSURE SYSTEM OVER THE SOUTHEASTERN CARIBBEAN SEA…IS PRODUCING WIDESPREAD CLOUDINESS AND SHOWERS OVER THE LESSER ANTILLES…AND ADJACENT CARIBBEAN AND ATLANTIC WATERS. THIS SYSTEM HAS CHANGED LITTLE IN ORGANIZATION DURING THE PAST SEVERAL HOURS. WHILE UPPER-LEVEL WINDS ARE CURRENTLY UNFAVORABLE…THEY ARE EXPECTED TO BECOME MORE CONDUCIVE FOR SOME DEVELOPMENT TO OCCUR OVER THE NEXT COUPLE OF DAYS.

So I guess the bottom line is, it’s not a big worry at the moment, but it could become a bigger worry in the next couple of days, and it certainly bares watching over the next few days as it’s predicted by the computer forecasting models to be near Haiti, Jamaica and Cuba in a few days. Its general direction of movement also suggests that if it forms into something that something could be entering the Gulf of Mexico in a little over a week.

So. I guess we weren’t going to get off that easy with the tropical weather just ending, huh? Hurricane season runs for nearly another 2.5 months, after all.

Stay safe, dear readers.

Cheerio!

-j

I’ve been following the evolving world of Personal Rapid Transit¹ (PRT) for several years now via a Google Alert and I’ve recently noticed a change in the terminology the media has used to talk about the issue. Over the last couple of months a lot of news stories have begun referring to PRT as Podcars, a change that confused me for a while until I realized that this shift was concurrent with the approach of the Podcar City: Ithaca international conference (the second annual occurrence of that conference, the first having taken place in Sweden in October 2007) that just wrapped up in Ithaca, NY. A further comparison of the Google search results for the terms ‘podcar’ and ‘personal rapid transit’ reveals that the switch in terminology has the interesting effect of bringing up a fresher set of results, since “Personal Rapid Transit” has been a term in use for 30 years (and has collected quite a group of naysayers over that time) but “podcar” is a newer term and is only contained in news stories and websites that are very “fresh”/recent.

In my opinion, now that the technology is actually maturing and being seriously considered and built by governments and planners around the world², the switch in terminology is a great thing since it distances the newest crop of podcar ideas from the failed PRT projects of the past which are what give the technology’s detractors their fire.

I’m not trying to legitimize those who oppose Podcars/PRT (quite the opposite, I have a few choice words for those types but this isn’t the post for that), but I am saying that from a marketing standpoint I think the switch is just good PR (even if it wasn’t organized by anybody, which it doesn’t seem to have been as it seems to have happened in an organic sort of way).

¹Basically the idea is to use today’s incredible computer powers and networking concepts to build a new type of public transit that wouldn’t have been possible even 10 years ago (yes, I know PRT was already a fully grown concept 10 years ago, but I think today we can build networks much better than we could have then) network of small PRT/podcar guideways across an area that needs public transit. When you want to go somewhere you walk or bike less than a quarter mile to the nearest podcar station, get in a waiting podcar (the size of a very small car, with seating for 3-4 people) and enter your destination station. The system then takes you straight there with no stops. Because the podcars are small and light, the guideways can be fairly small and low-cost to install, meaning the podcar technology can have a much higher density of track and stations than light rail can. Also, because it’s automated the system can run 24/7, greatly increasing profit margins.
²Exhibit A: Heathrow Airport in England is building a small PRT/podcar system between the new Terminal 5 and a parking complex that’s set to open in early 2009 and the airport has plans to expand the system over the entire airport if it proves itself at Terminal 5.
Exhibit B: I’ve read several times the management of PRT/podcar companies saying that “there’s a long list of people that want to be second [to build a modern Podcar system]” (see this PDF document, page 4 for one such quote), meaning that if and when the Heathrow PRT proves the technology, many, many decision makers will begin to seriously look into implementing this technology in their own cities and towns.
Exhibit C: the City of Santa Cruz, CA apparently doesn’t feel the need to wait for the Heathrow project to be completed before beginning the process that could lead to a Podcar system in their city (PDF document, page 1), as the City Council voted 6-1 in July to approve a “Request for Qualification” to invite PRT/Podcar companies to design, build and operate a system in that city.

So you see, the PRT/Podcar idea is like a good wine: it only gets better with age (I am of course using that purely as a metaphor as I am underage and also bound by the rules of my Christian University, so: no drinking), and the people working on PRT have had over 3 decades to “age”/mature the technology that has begun to be known as Podcars. The technology is now ready and decision makers are starting to take notice. I have every faith that the Heathrow system will prove itself quite well, and that within the next couple of years there will be a huge uptick in the interest paid to this amazing concept by decision makers in every level of government, and that soon we’ll all begin to see Podcar systems being built in a city near us.

And to those of you who still doubt this technology I have two things to say: first is that if you haven’t looked at it in detail in a while you might do to look again, I’ve personally noticed that the technology has gotten a lot better looking in just the couple of years that I’ve been watching this issue; and second is: if you don’t believe me, just wait and see. If the first few PRT/Podcar systems don’t convince you, I don’t know what to say.

Anyway. There’s my 2 cents (10 cents?) on Podcars for the evening.

Cheerio!

-j