Saturday - February 13, 2010

hate the name, love the site

I’ve installed two little widgety thingies on the right sidebar. They show the weather at my place and at Peiper’s. Just for fun. My brother sent me the link, and it looks like this might be one of the better weather sites online. It’s hooked into all the active local weather stations. You know, those little recording and reporting mechanisms that are all over the country, the ones Watts Up With That was tracking down? Thousands of them.

Turns out that there is one of these stations just a few hundred yards away from where I live. One problem: it’s dead. It’s been reporting ___ degrees, ___ wind speed, ___ wind direction, etc., for some time now.  So to get data for the widget I have to use the weather station just south of town. I can’t use the Cherryville station (found at Watts Up) because it doesn’t seem to exist. Or, if it does exist, it doesn’t report in real-time the way these other stations do. Every 5 minutes actually.

Going to this link gets you a nice full size terrain map around your area, and all the local readings. Clicking on any of those numbers brings up that weather station and it’s current readings. Clicking on the ID of that weather station takes you in to the web site itself, and from there you can hit links for all sorts of weather related stuff. The only thing that I can find wrong with the place is it’s name.

It’s called the Weather Underground.

Poor choice of names. Very. That’s the name of a terrorist group. And they now it. But like the “Che” crap, I think they think that makes them cool. Um, wrong.

The growing Internet weather program was given the name Weather Underground, a reference to the 1960’s radical group that also originated at the University of Michigan, which had taken its name from the lyrics to Bob Dylan’s Subterranean Homesick Blues, “You don’t need a weather man to know which way the wind blows.”

So I’ll keep those 2 weather links on the side for a bit for fun, while I debate whether I should associate with these folks. Come on, if your local meat store was The Al Qaida Butcher Shop, would you give them business? Humus by Hamas? The Sinn Fein Leprechaun House, “we put the IRA in IRA-ish”? This is pretty much the same thing.

Posted by Drew458     on 02/13/2010 at 02:27 PM   
Filed Under: • Climate-Weather • Terrorists •  
• Comments (1) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

DISCLAIMER

THE SERVICES AND MATERIALS ON THIS WEBSITE ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE HOSTS OF THIS SITE EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ANY AND ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF SATISFACTORY QUALITY, MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, WITH RESPECT TO THE SERVICE OR ANY MATERIALS.

Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:

1. Keep a firm grasp of Right and Wrong
2. Stay involved with government on every level and don't let those bastards get away with a thing
3. Use every legal means to defend yourself in the event of real internal trouble, and, most importantly:
4. Keep talking to each other, whether here or elsewhere

It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.

THE INFORMATION AND OTHER CONTENTS OF THIS WEBSITE ARE DESIGNED TO COMPLY WITH THE LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. THIS WEBSITE SHALL BE GOVERNED BY AND CONSTRUED IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND ALL PARTIES IRREVOCABLY SUBMIT TO THE JURISDICTION OF THE AMERICAN COURTS. IF ANYTHING ON THIS WEBSITE IS CONSTRUED AS BEING CONTRARY TO THE LAWS APPLICABLE IN ANY OTHER COUNTRY, THEN THIS WEBSITE IS NOT INTENDED TO BE ACCESSED BY PERSONS FROM THAT COUNTRY AND ANY PERSONS WHO ARE SUBJECT TO SUCH LAWS SHALL NOT BE ENTITLED TO USE OUR SERVICES UNLESS THEY CAN SATISFY US THAT SUCH USE WOULD BE LAWFUL.

Copyright © 2004-2008 Domain Owner