Computer Bits October 2003 covers the weather

The October 2003 column for Computer Bits covers the weather. When we were up in SF talking with Chris Larsen, he asked about the column. I told him October was a weather-related column and he said to be sure to include iWindsurf.com . Great site. The miracles of modern science.

More ...

The Weather Network is Canada’s only weather-devoted specialty channel. The French sister-station is MétéoMédia. The Web site offers

# detailed city forecast pages for more than 3,000 cities in Canada, the U.S. and internationally
# WeatherDirect - get daily local forecasts directly to your e-mbx (worldwide)
# Weather and radar maps (worldwide)
# Highway and road construction updates (Canadian)
# Traffic cameras (Canadian)
# Golf reports for more than 2,000 courses (Canadian)
# Monthly and seasonal forecasts (Canadian, US and international)
... and more.

International coverage is not deep: e.g. Italy consists of Rome, Milan, Venice and Naples, but not Florence. Interested in Palermo, Taormina or Mount Etna, anywhere on Sicily in fact? Tough luck.

The Weather Channel provides similar information for an American audience. The site provides current weather and forecasts for sixty-five Portland OR area golf courses!

NOAA (the national Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)'s National Weather Service provides local forecasts by ZIP, city or state as well as satellite images, hazardous weather warnings, radar imagery, surf forecasts, fire weather, river conditions, small craft advisories and more.

Pickup your local forecast. e.g. Portland, OR . Or go to the Website for the Portland region and get information about various hazards and storm reports. Check out the local satellite and radar scans. The site also links to the Oregon Department of Transportation cams: see what the weather's like at I-84 and Lloyd Blvd.

NOAA's Climate Prediction center offers expert assessments. Every Tuesday the CPC issues a hazard assessment for the United States for the upcoming three days to two weeks. The Center also offers drought assessments, heat assessments, climate assessments and more.

Useful information NOAA has on tap, and they also have pretty piccies!

The following restrictions apply to use of NOAA images. "Most NOAA photos and slides are in the public domain and CANNOT be copyrighted. Although at present no fee is charged for using the photos, credit MUST be given to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/Department of Commerce unless otherwise instructed to give credit to the photographer or other source."


More weather links:
http://www.iwindsurf.com iWindsurf
http://www.wpotd.com Weather picture of the day
http://zebu.uoregon.edu/weather.html Portland OR current weather conditions
http://www.wunderground.com Weather Underground
http://www.wunderground.com/US/OR/Portland.html Weather Underground Portland OR forecast
http://www.ucar.edu/ucar University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
http://www.cnn.com/WEATHER/index.html CNN Weather
http://polar.gsfc.nasa.gov/VLM WWW Virtual Library - meteorology

Computer Bits March 2003 - trivia sites and facts that aren't

The March 2003 column for Computer Bits is for the most part done. The subject is trivia sites on the Web and e-mails and virus warnings and how their facts aren't always -- a caveat lector sort of look at things. So, I pulled all the "trivia" bookmarks out of my bookmark file. Turned out I only used a few, but as long as I had them in a separate spot, I decided to put them here.

TIME LINES AND CALENDARS

American Society of Clinical Pathology - Timeline
Camelot International - On This Day - April
Daily Globe: "J" World Dates Archive - SEPTEMBER
Dr. Mac's Cultural Calendar
MendelWeb: During Mendel's Lifetime (1822-1859) (not complete 1860-1884)
Minnesota Public Radio's The Writer's Almanac
PBS History: On This Day In History
pre-WWI trivia
Daily Dose of History
Dave's Date Books and Celebrity Birthdays
Special Events for the Year 1949
Michael J Maggio's Daily Almanacs
"inQuiry Almanack" - Thisday - November, 1997
"inQuiry Almanack" - Thisday - October, 1997
1997 Trivia

I have more date trivia links here (http://www.internet-resources.com/writers/wrlinks-history-ref.htm#dates)

FACTOIDS AND TRIVIA

Joey Green - weird
The Straight Dope: Home Page
Urban Legends Reference Pages
Urban Legends Reference Pages: Toxin du jour (Kiss My Aspartame)

FunTrivia.com - The Archive of Fun Facts and Trivia
The Archive of Useless Facts and Trivia
Bubble gum trivia
Buckknives.com
Michael H. Burchett's Notes on the 20th Century
Caligraph 3
Chicago - Trivia
A Collection of Word Oddities and Trivia
Cornerstone Trivia Game
Did you know?
FCS News - Trivia Page 3
Erin Barrett & Jack Mingo - Fun Facts
FunTrivia.com - Trivia Search Engine
Past Mailings: Gagler Trivia
Geography Trivia
LIST: MOVIE TRIVIA: in-jokes, cameos, signatures
Mind Uploading: Past Developments
The Miscellanea Digest
m i s s p e l l i n g s
MONEY, WEALTH, SUPERSTITIONS, FOLKLORE AND MORE
physicians doctors who were writers poets
Santa Clara Valley trivia
"skosh" "kamikaze"
Snap:Entertainment:Fun Pages:Trivia
Tox Trivia
toy trivia
trivia
Trivia Ink Old Questions
Trivia Questions
Trivial Trivia
The Useless Information Home Page
Weird Factoids

TYPEWRITER HISTORY
Typewriter invented by newspaper editor
Myths about QWERTY

I have some other miscellaneous trivia information here (http://www.internet-resources.com/writers/wrlinks-ref.htm#research) and here (http://www.internet-resources.com/writers/wrlinks-wordstuff.htm#wordstuff).

I'm sure there are more than these in my bookmark file, but these will have to do for now. I'll take out those links that are 404s when I get around to checking and add the others ditto.

A potpourri of blogs

We were discussing blogging on alt.writing recently and I gave a list of some, to me, interesting Web logs.

There are a zillion blogs out there and, like the Web, the quality is sometimes questionable.

http://www.mamohanraj.com/journal/ - Mary Anne Mohanraj
http://boingboing.net/ - eclectic mix from Cory Doctorow and others
http://scalzi.com/whatever.htm - John Scalzi
http://www.joannejacobs.com/ - Joanne Jacobs
http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/blog/blog.asp - William Gibson
http://www.infinitematrix.net/columns/sterling/index.html - Bruce Sterling
http://www.jessamyn.com/journal - Jessamyn West

and I pointed off to the article I wrote for Computer Bits a while back on blogging.

Blogging takes time. If the blog is tracking your progress somewhere else and, like the blog for http://www.internet-resources.com/writers tracks changes to the site (although that blog doesn't track all changes), that means I add a link to the site, sometimes post to misc.writing and misc.writing.moderated about the link and then sometimes add information to the blog. I am a bit compulsive, but boy, does all that tip tap and duplication take time I'd rather spend elsewhere.

So, it's not that I haven't been collecting links for my columns or that I haven't written a column since August or that there's nothing knew at http://www.internet-resources.com/writers, it's just that there is no time for everything. This blog and that one over there will be attended to on an occasional basis.