Web Browsing- Professors' Liberalism Contagious? Maybe Not - NYTimes.com 3 November 2008Do liberal faculty affect the political leanings of students? These people say no. But let's look a little deeper. One author says "it is really hard to change the mind of anyone over 15." Does this mean that the average American thinks about politics now the same way he did when he was 15? Yikes. It appears to imply that political opinions are not firmly rooted in ideas, but in feelings and prejudices. The article also suggests that the real problem is that students aren't actually being educated. They aren't getting the "good stuff." In fact, this may be the root of the problem. Even if students don't buy the liberalism of their teachers, they don't get much else either. Notable deficiencies appear in political and military history, especially of the West, but also include traditional literary criticism (and probably content), civics, and economics.
- Obama, Shaman by Michael Knox Beran, City Journal Summer 2008 3 November 2008Beran brilliant combines culture, religion, and literature into a powerful commentary on the religious aspects of Barack Obama's candidacy. The article is rich (and lengthy), but certainly worth digesting.
- Obama and the Politics of Crowds - WSJ.com 30 October 2008Fouad Ajami offers a rich and culturally insightful glimpse into Senator Obama's magic. He draws upon broad themes and key historical features of American cultural history to make his case for caution. Perhaps most telling is his observation about an American distinctive. Whereas the rest of the world champions equality, American has championed liberty. Obama offers the former, and the current financial panic has suspended Americans' faith in the latter. Consequently, we are on the verge of electing someone who inspires in the way a relgious leader, a messiah, does. But the religious hype quickly fades and people realize too late that they have been fleeced.
- America's Most Overrated Product: the Bachelor's Degree - Chronicle.com 24 October 2008Chronicle of Higher Ed points out the pointlessness of most bachelor's degrees.
- Professors' Liberalism Contagious? Maybe Not - NYTimes.com 3 November 2008
Sep
13
Hurricane predictions
Filed Under News, Random Thoughts | 1 Comment
Price per gallon today at Hess: $3.55. Line: 4 cars.
Price per gallon today at Citgo: $3.54. Line: 1 car.
Price per gallon today at Chevron: $4.19. Line: You must be joking.
I will laugh if the price per gallon doesn’t rise much because of the hurricane. Nonetheless, I did fill it all the way up today (I needed some anyway), just in case. I’m not one to succumb to media hype, but this one could be pretty rough.
Ike from the International Space Station
I’ve always been fascinated by hurricanes. Suprisingly, I’ve managed to miss being notably near one, even though I’ve lived in the Florida Panhandle. Ironically, during the 2 1/2 years I lived there, Hurricane Hugo hit Charleston and came up through Greenville. Since we moved back to Greenville, Pensacola has had its fair share of tropical cyclones.
At the moment, I’m watching all sorts of live data about Hurricane Ike. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is chartered to provide current, relevant, and accurate weather information to the public free of charge. The result has been that the many commercial weather providers — like Accuweather, The Weather Channel, Intellicast, etc. — have to provide even better data. In my opinion, they don’t. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) provides very good, current data. However, much of their more interesting data requires a good bit of interpretation. If you’re willing to do the research into the various map legends, computer models, and forcasting philosophies, you can collect a lot of fascinating raw data in near real-time.
IKE near landfall in Texas
However, these data sometimes come in large, obscure tables or with only basic visualizations (there are, of course, notable exceptions). Among the computer and weather geeks of the world, a substantial industry (hobby?) has developed to provide better graphical interpretations of ordinarily inscrutable data. Frankly, even the forecasters use expensive computer modeling systems to interpret the raw data.
The several sites I’m watching now provide good, helpful information. I will pass them along for your enjoyment.
1. NOAA has several satellite pages. You can find the basic one by clicking the “Satellite” link on the NHC homepage. I recommend the GOES floater images. Find your storm and pick one of the images. The loops run in Java and seem to do quite well. The best bets for intelligible image are Visible, IR AVN, and IR RGB. If you can understand Dvorak, great. Other interesting NOAA satellite sites are NESDIS and OSEI (the former is better for hurricanes).
2. Weather Underground has a very nice tropical page. Jeff Master’s blog on the same page can also provide extra information. He doesn’t just parrott the NHC like so many others. The site has lots of intelligent graphs and very current data. It’s usually a good bet to read the NHC Discussion on the forecasts. You can also find the discussion on the NHC website, but in either case, the forecasters are very good writers and can offer a lot of information about how hurricanes work and how to think about them.
3. Tropical Atlantic has some of the coolest tools for data interpretation. The best are their .kml files for Google Earth. You can actually download LIVE aircraft reconaissance data into Google Earth. They also have more Google Earth overlays than you could count.
4. It can be hard to find coherent information about storm surges. Several places will give you generic predictions, but they tend to hedge quite a bit. NOAA has a nice Tides and Currents page that lists active events and includes relevant sea surface information. You can look at nearly live graphs of sea levels in a storm. At the moment, I’m watching a station in Galveston and one in Sabine Pass, TX.
5. Finally, for general education about how hurricanes work and how forecasters predict them, Wikipedia is a fine resource. Wikipedia includes an entire portal dedicated to tropical cyclones.
If you have any other nifty sites to add, please do so.