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Getting to the peak of storm season

Starting to head into the peak period for hurricane season now. There’s TS Debby brewing out in the eastern Atlantic.
Sounds like development of Debby won’t be very fast, and the forecast track seems have it staying out in the ocean and not coming close to the US. Still lots of time for that to change though. Plenty of storm season left to keep watch on too.
From today’s 5 AM discussion:

DEBBY WILL BE ENCOUNTERING DRIER MID-LEVEL AIR AND SLIGHTLY COOLER SSTS OVER THE NEXT 36 HOURS OR SO…WHICH SHOULD KEEP INTENSIFICATION SLOW IN THE NEAR TERM. THEREAFTER… THE CYCLONE WILL BE PASSING OVER WARMER SSTS…BUT SHEAR IS FORECAST TO STRENGTHEN WHICH MAKES FOR A DIFFICULT INTENSITY PREDICTION. THE NHC FORECAST BRINGS DEBBY TO HURRICANE STRENGTH IN 4 DAYS…WHICH IS VERY CLOSE TO THE CONSENSUS OF THE GFDL AND SHIPS…BUT IS LEVELED OFF IN DEFERENCE TO THE POSSIBILITY OF INCREASING SHEAR.

TS Debby - 23-Aug-06

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Palm software plug

As just about every PDA owner will attest to, there comes a time in a PDA’s life where digitizer drift sets in: the PDA registers a screen touch in a different location than where it actually occurred. My first Handspring Visor suffered from this before eventually dying. My Tungsten T3 currently has a mild case of this.

Palm PDAs have a built in digitizer program that’s supposed to help recalibrate the digitizer. Most of the time it works…for a while. Sometimes it doesn’t help things at all, or ends up making things worse.

There are a few programs out there to help stricken PDAs. DigiE was one that I used before that helped a little, although the middle of the screen would still be off. One problem with DigiE I had was that it kept turning the PDA on (software bug), so you either have to move it to the SD card, or uninstall it after calibrating.

Then I stumbled onto a new program called PowerDigi. It’s pretty slick, offering 3 different levels of digitizer recalibration utilizing different numbers of screen taps. Works beautifully and cured my T3 of digitizer drift (for now at least). One thing I have noticed is that Grafitti recognition is kind of slow when using the DIA. Otherwise I can tap all over the screen and not worry about guessing where I need to tap.

Severe digitizer problems? Try PowerDigi. 14 day trial mode, and it’s pretty cheap.

5 stars out of 5.

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Curtain call for SG-1

From Slashdot and SciFi comes news that SG-1 isn’t coming back for an 11th season. I guess TPTB have decided SG-1 has run it’s course. At least SG: Atlantis will be back.
sigh That’s too bad. Another good TV show bites the dust. I’m looking forward to seeing how they wrap everything up though.

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New equipment gripes

I have a few gripes with x-ray equipment manufacturers when it comes to their digital radiography (DR) offerings.

  • The technique controls are terrible. If you’re going to make the technologists tap buttons on a touch screen to change the technique settings, give them the option of entering values into a text field instead of having to tap tap tap on the screen all the time. I want to go from 60 to 120 kVp without having to tap the screen a million times.
  • Give me a way to turn off the stupid collimation mask applied to the images. It’s aggravating when I can’t see something at the edge of the radiation field because it’s blacked out by the mask.
  • Give me some kind of reasonably easy to access service mode so I can see the unprocessed images (or at least an image with a linear greyscale applied to it) and enter arbitrary x-ray techniques. Some of the pre-programmed modes are too pre-programmed.
  • Include a screen calibration routine for your FSE’s and make it part of the installation and PM procedures. It’s very annoying when you tap on a button and the computer thinks you’ve tapped somewhere else.
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She’s got the spirit! She’s got the spirit!

Yesterday I had my first experience at a southern Baptist church. A Missionary Baptist church in Wilmington NC. The wife’s mom decided to get baptized into this new church, so we went up there to share the big moment with her.
It was definitely an experience. It really is like you see on TV.
There was some serious preaching going on and more than a few people getting into this freaky weird frenzied state. “Getting the spirit” the wife called it. One lady in front of us who looked to be about 7 months pregnant was getting some serious spirit. I was afraid she might go into labour right there! Another lady got so much spirit she collapsed on the floor. I said to the wife that I thought EMS should be standing by for these church sessions. According to her it was all quite normal.
For me it was all a little over the top and too frenzied for my taste. Definitely not my style. When we left I felt like I needed to get away just to restore some of my calm and serenity. To each their own I suppose.