3 Hurricane Sites I Trust

This is sort of a re-hash, but I was asked about it today, so here goes:

The best first, the National Hurricane Center:
https://www.nhc.noaa.gov

This site has raw model results buried down in there:
https://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/?index_region=at

This site has a meteorology grad student explaining what's going on:
https://www.tropicaltidbits.com
He usually posts once per day, in the evening.  Things are frequently out of date by the next day.

All the rest is media-screaming, designed to induce watching thru the next commercial break.

It's gonna be a bumpy week.

2020 So Far

Maybe have something constructive to say over the weekend.

Silca Pump Rebuild: 32 Years and Going Strong

Strangely, there's not a lot to say here beyond the post title.  Parts are available directly from Silca.  If you don't have one of their basic floor pumps, they'll be happy to sell you one for $99.  As I've pointed out before, this is not a cheap price but then this is not a cheap pump either: 32 years, two rebuilds, and still as good a new, albeit with a nice patina and a lot of fond memories.  But first, a picture:

So what parts did this overhaul require?  The leather plunger washer was the main one, just because it's the heart of the pump.  (Don't forget to buy the required leather oil that Silca also conveniently sells.)  The rubbery washer in the presta chuck; those just wear with every use, and it stacks up over 17 years.  Finally, the gauge.  The old one from circa 1988 was plastic-bodied.  It could flex when smacked on the side, which lead to the clear cover popping off sometime back during the first Bush administration, and eventually to the demise of the internal parts.  It held air nonetheless, but it did necessitate a separate hand gauge (something you should have anyway; strangely, Silca doesn't sell these).  The new one is metal, and there's a fair chance it'll outlast me.  Accurate too.  BTW, they sell a complete overhaul kit or the required bits individually.  I opted for the al la carte route, since the air hose was still good from the last rebuild.

It's noteworthy that everything, and I mean everything, went together smoothly and all seals were air-tight on the first try.  How often does something like that happen on a hard-used third-of-a-century-old piece of gear?  You can get a cheaper – in more than one sense – bike pump down at the big-box store, but this is the real deal, the one you want.

Plug "silca" into the search bar for some of my other impressions of their pumps and customer service.

ps: I still can't get the right font in this crappy new blogger interface.  Will continue with what we've got here for the moment, mostly out of inertia.

Yeah, Google/Blogger's Crapped the Bed

OK, I'm out for a while.  Will drop back by in a few weeks, and if this thing's still half-ass working, it's off to another blogging platform.

Update 8/8: 

Had a few minutes to play with the new interface.  It's... not good, marginally functional.  Change fonts?  Randomly it seems.  Certainly couldn't get it stick in a test post.  FWIW, I'm using Firefox on an old Mac at the moment.

 

Q: How do you know when a software company has run out of ideas?

A: When it stops improving products and starts producing pointless interface changes.

Here's some related content for your weekend contemplations: How Software Companies Die, by Orson Scott "Ender's Game" Card.

An Interesting Possible Path to Fusion

I'll just post the links to an IEEE article, along with two article links to Phys Rev C, and say that this looks promising.

https://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/energy/nuclear/nuclear-fusiontokamak-not-included
https://journals.aps.org/prc/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevC.101.044610

https://journals.aps.org/prc/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevC.101.044609

While this method does employ lattice confinement and electron screening techniques to nudge nuclei closer to one another before giving a final kick of energy via electron beam, this is emphatically not cold fusion.  Also, publishing in Phys Rev C first before going public gives it an air of general respectability.

ps, Saturday 8/8: Edited this post for clean-up.  It looks like Google/Blogger has backed off of some of their plans for a Brave New Interface, at least to the point where things are useable again.

Interesting Junk Mail Today

Just a nice full-color card in today's junk mail, from an unusual source: a plasma center in the next major town west of here.  It looks like a saturate-the-area mass mailing, with splashy graphics and a can't-miss offer: bring this card in to their newly opened office and get $100 on your first visit.

This is about double the usual amount (according to Business Insider anyway), and only for the first visit, so what gives?  Looking at the company's web site: COVID-19 convalescent plasma.  There we go.

Now that junk mail makes sense.  Blood plasma's got to come from somewhere, so they might as well put a collection center near a hot spot, then pay double-rate for the first visit to draw more people in for screening.  And face it, many people who are recovering from COVID could probably use a few extra bucks right now.  Win all around.

It's an interesting advertising campaign.  Strange times we're living in.

Dragon on the Way Back

Splashdown (how long since we've used that term – 45 years!) slated for just after 2:45 EDT in the Gulf of Mexico.

There seems to be some confusion in the press as to where in the Gulf the capsule will splash down. According to NPR it's off Panama City, but according to the BBC it's off Pensacola.  Draw your own conclusions.

ps, somewhat later in the day:  Nailed it!  Would it be too NASA retro-futuristic to say that this splashdown went A-OK?  Because, as you can see, it did.

Yes, this is what the future looks like, and it is good.