As Rice County Skywarn is a Weather-Ready Nation Ambassador, we got the opportunity to tour the National Weather Service in Chanhassen today! We talked to the meteorologists that forecast our weather and do such a good job updating the public over social media, without sensationalism. At 6 p.m., we watched a weather balloon launch with a radiosonde which measures temperature, humidity, and pressure all the way up to 100,000 feet. The data is used to create the models we use each day to predict the weather. The staff was so accommodating, informative, and polite! Afterwards, we stopped by Lion’s Tap for supper. It was a great afternoon away from the office!
As we take a moment to look back at our relaxing and enjoyable week on Big Island, I am left with several thoughts:
1) Why do I always get a pat down and a groping from the TSA whenever passing through airport security? EVERY time I get scanned, I turn around and see two big red squares on the screen where my balls should be. I know you may think this feeds my ego as the scanner detects steel and other metals, but this really just slows down the line. I wonder if TSA precheck will exempt me from the upper inner thigh check I receive as part of my vacation package.
2) You’re nothing on the islands unless you drive a Toyota Tacoma with a minimum of a 3″ body lift.
3) The Jeep Cherokee Trailhawk is potentially the worst vehicle I’ve ever driven, and that’s saying a lot coming from a previous owner of a 1978 Plymouth Volare’. When going up a slight incline with cruise control on, it can’t even keep speed. It won’t downshift to a more powerful gear, and you have to floor it to get back up to the cruise speed. I needed 90% throttle to keep 35 MPH speed up an 18% grade going up a mountain. I thought the newer Dodge Dart was the worst rental I’ve ever had, but this thing takes the cake.
4) Mauna Loa last erupted on March 25, 1984, nearly destroying the city of Hilo. 34 years earlier in 1950, it also erupted, destroying the village of Hoʻokena-mauka. Following this pattern of 34 years, it could erupt again on Sunday. I sure hope getting out of the car twice on Mauna Loa to take a whiz behind the car door didn’t anger the volcano Gods too much!
5) The best food is ALWAYS at the rundown looking food stands. Bonus points for having the Department of Health ahead of you in line… because he is hungry.
6) You won’t hit a deer on a road in Hawaii, but goats, donkeys, mongoose, and the elderly are all fair game.
Mahalo (thanks) for joining us on our journey! 🤙🤙🤙
Poor Sears. They are shutting down another 100 stores as their businesses continue to fail. Sears was perfectly positioned to monopolize computer-based sales since they had a 100-year head start with their mail order business.
Before almost anyone had Internet, CBS, IBM and Sears joined forces to create an online service called “Prodigy” in 1984. This actually allowed people to purchase things from Sears on their home computer some 10 years before Amazon was founded. Unfortunately, their vision was just too early as most people had to pay long distance phone charges to connect in addition to the monthly subscription.
In the mid to late 90s when Internet became more popular, Sears was gun-shy about investing more money into the same idea. Unfortunately, this would be the beginning of the end since Sears never really did innovate again.
Enjoy this commercial for the Prodigy online service from 1990.
Since the increase in Bitcoin’s worth to almost $20,000 (before Christmas), I’ve been asked by several people about Bitcoin. Here are a few reasons why getting involved with them, in my opinion, is a horrible idea.
1. Your Bitcoin wallet is kept on your computer. If you lose the key to your wallet, or your computer crashes, you lose all of your money.
2. If you put your Bitcoin on an exchange, when that exchange gets hacked, you lose all of your money. This has already happened several times since there are only a handful of exchanges that deal with US currency.
3. In order to buy something with Bitcoin, you have to pay to have that transaction processed by all the Bitcoin “miners” in the world. This on average costs over $20 a transaction, and takes 2 hours to complete. The more you pay, the higher your priority in line.
4. This one transaction, according to https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption, takes as much electricity to process as what is consumed by 10 average U.S. households in a single day. This is mainly due to inefficiencies in the Bitcoin protocol.
5. Refunds or chargebacks are impossible with Bitcoin. There is no turning back a transaction.
6. Since there is little value to using Bitcoin for everyday transactions, most of its current value (in my opinion) is only from its possible future prospective value (when will the bubble completely burst?)
Now that Bitcoin value is back down to under $15,000, some are wondering if it might be time to invest. Take a look at these graphs and ask yourself, is this the bull trap before the bottom drops out?
Anybody in their 30s or 40s now will definitely be living in a world where electric cars, charged by renewable energy such as solar or wind power, will be the majority of vehicles on the road. Major trucking companies have already put orders in for the Tesla Semi based on ROI for delivery in 2019. AND, they release an electric car that does an 8.9 second 1/4 mile with a 600 mile range at highway speeds.Gasoline and diesel engines will go the way of the steam engine in the next 30-40 years.
I am proud to announce that the Digital Video Editor Certification offered by Electronics Technicians Association, International (ETA) is now complete! I served as a Subject Matter Expert on this committee for the last half year, and we believe we have created a certification test that employers will value. The future job prospects for this field are expected to grow much faster than average, and median wages for a DVE were $30.18 an hour!
ETA is a US-based not-for-profit 501(c) 6 professional association which provides certifications in industries such as basic electronics, fiber optics and data cabling, renewable energy, information technology, photonics and precision optics, customer service, biomedical, avionics, wireless communications, radar, and smart home. ETA is also one of the 13 COLEMs (Commercial Operator License Examination Manager) for U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) testing. ETA works with technicians, educators, and military personnel. ETA also partners with companies such as Motorola Solutions to provide certification to their employees.
48 years ago today, Man first landed on the moon. Catch Walter Kronkite (veteran CBS anchor) and Wally Schirra (one of the first Mercury 7 astronauts) follow the LEM through powered descent to make a landing.
Then, catch the first step on the moon in this video:
