First day of June and it feels like the end of March out there. It always amazes me that a weatherperson buried in a hole out in the midwest (think about that one for just a moment, if you will) can predict any kind of weather with any degree of accuracy. For instance, how many times have the weather reports predicted a 20% chance of rain and you find yourself standing in a puddle with 2 salmon and a flock of geese enduring a great downpour? Or changed plans due to a 90% chance of rain and there's not a cloud in the sky?
I think a big part of the problem is information overload. These weather guys and gals get data from a ton of satallites and they've gotta crunch it all in order to make some sort of forcast. Well computers can only do so much at a time and the models that crunch the data have a lot of computational overhead. And coupled with the fact that weather is a chaotic system and not reliably predictable, the error margins add up. So we stand out in that 20% chance of rain without an umbrella.
A story related to me by an old Montana farmer tells of a weatherman in this small town who used to look at where the goats grazed on the hill at the end of town to make his daily prediction. If the goats were at the top of the hill the day was going to be nice. At the bottom, count on bad weather and somewhere in the middle, quite likely changable. And he was correct better than 90% of the time. So go figure...
Speaking of going to figure, I'm going back to work. Have a happy and keep smiling...
Memorial Day weekend is upon us and the weather is perfect for a yard sale. I've got a lot of stuff to purge but no yard to put it in. So I called my Mother and she's reluctantly allowed me to sell from her house. In return I need to fix steps, railings, and falling down doors. A small price to pay and she gets 20% of the take to boot, though she's completely unaware of the profit-sharing clause in the deal.
Gonna try to get a bike ride in today. Depending on the route I take I'm about 8 miles from the south Grand Island bridge. There is a very fine ride around the island that is good for about 30 miles and right along the river for a good portion of it. From the north end one can see the mist from Niagara Falls.
Took a drive last night up to Lewiston to look at the Toronto skyline across the lake. There was haze but the 'needle' was clearly visible as well as the skyline and the shoreline was visible for some distance. It would have been particularily pretty after dark with the Ontario shoreline lightiing up the horizon as it does this time of year.
Have to pack the truck and move. Have a great weekend and smile a lot...
Well I got out riding on Sunday, a really great day too. I came across a great paved path along an old railroad right-of-way. It cuts through some very nice countryside. I didn't ride it as far as I'd have liked to but that will happen soon enough.
I know some of you have heard of the rails-to-trails sites but for those that don't but love to bicycle follow the links on the RailServe.Com site for a lot of information on trail systems in The US and Southern Ontario. If you're looking for more information go to the Rails-to-Trails Conservency Website. Here you can find out about national programs and even place donations to help convert more abandoned rail lines to useable community greenspace. Wouldn't it be really great to bicycle along these paths from your home to just about anywhere else in the country?
I think I'm going to go riding so I'll see everyone later. Keep smiling...
Yesterday at work I was introduced to Quantum Mechanics in a lay fashion. We have a teaching aid that demonstrates saturation absorbtion of Rhubidium using lasers and some fancy optics. I grasp the concepts of what the system is supposed to be doing but the fun in this experiment will begin when I start applying the apparatus to real problems.
I'm not a strong math-oriented person, in fact I've got a single semester of Calculus. I was discussing this with my boss, a post-doc physics theorist and he told me that he is also not strong in math. In fact, he states, Einstein was also very poor in math. He always had a co-author on all of his papers. Einstein did the thinking and the mathematician worked out all the details. They only understood the math and not the physics so no one co-author ever worked on more than 1 paper. The fact that some of the greatest minds in modern physics are terrible mathematicians made me feel much more at ease.
So now I'm on the road to researching an experiment that the boss wants to build - a dream of his. My goal is to accumulate the necessary documentation and theory on the apparatus, none of the originators of the device are alive. The apparatus is tricky to set up, but the object is that a physics student will be able to create matter on a lab bench without the need for massive linear accelerators such as those used at Stanford or CERN. What a concept to propel an undergraduate physics student into a full-fledged researcher in advanced particle physics with a simple experiment.
I'm off to study my physics homework so I'll see ya all later. Keep smiling....
Well, the sun's out, my mood is brighter and who the hell cares about entanglement!
I was driving around today looking for my favorite auto parts store and realized that I was driving in leaf-induced shade! That is very cool! It's time to fix up the truck for spring and new treads and brakes are the in thing this year. Evan also wants me to turn my truck into a mad-thumpin ghetto box with it's own light show to include flashin-to-the-beat color changin glow rods all over the place. We'll see. Gotta clean the windows first!
Gonna take my mother out for lunch on Saturday so she can spend time with the rest of the family on Sunday. Also gotta prep some junk for a yard sale. Come to think of it, Memorial Day is a WNY-wide yard sale so maybe I'll just wait and put every thing out that day, providing it doesn't rain. Anybody want any old movies? We must have 500 of them laying around.
A sorting I'm a go, a sorting I'm a go.....
Keep smiling and I'll smile with ya.