Sacramento area community musical theater (esp. DMTC in Davis, 2000-2020); Liberal politics; Meteorology; "Breaking Bad," "Better Call Saul," and Albuquerque movie filming locations; New Mexico and California arcana, and general weirdness.
There is brewing tropical activity at the eastern tip of the Dominican Republic right now, just west of Puerto Rico, that looks like it'll be the next big trouble. Right now it's heading north, but forecasts indicate it'll soon start breaking for the Florida coast and thrashing its way through the Bahamas.
The NVG model suggests the storm will head towards Jacksonville, get pretty close, but then veer off instead for the North Carolina coast, making landfall there around November 12th. So, it'll be scary for the folks all along the FL-GA-SC-NC coast.
The GFS model instead suggests the storm will veer south, smash Miami on November 10th, then cross Florida for a direct hit on Tampa, before heading to Georgia and points northeast.
So, the devil is in the details. It'll be worrisome, no matter what happens.
For myself, I prefer Jones, because I think Ashby is tempermentally a Republican, no matter what her registration is. At least that's the overall impression that I got by once spending an hour in her presence.:
Various Ashby supporters began claiming the mailer is attacking Democrats, Newsom and the Feminist Democrats.
Newsom executive secretary Jim DeBoo on Sunday waded into the fray on Twitter, tagging California Democratic Party chair Rusty Hicks and the Democratic Party of Sacramento.
“@CA_DaveJones you are endorsed by the @CA_Dem but you sent a piece of mail to republicans denouncing democrats?” DeBoo said. “I guess sometimes nothing is surprising. @sacdems @rustyhicks what you say? Can’t imagine you endorse this behavior.”
I remember in 1970, my younger sister Michelle joined the Columbia Record Club. Soon, she was receiving cassette tapes in the mail. Some of her choices I didn't like all that much - she was my sister, after all - but we both agreed that "Tommy" was the best.
I love "The Who," but I ad given up on ever seeing them perform live. Time had moved on. But fate intervened. Friend E.M. caught Covid, and she and G.M. couldn't attend the scheduled Sacramento performance. E. was gracious enough to hand the tickets to me. I invited Joe the Plumber to come along.
I was really surprised to hear "The Who" were touring at all. Pete Townshend is 77; Roger Daltrey is 78. Zak Starkey on drums (Ringo Starr's eldest son) is 57. Townshend reminisced that he had been playing with Daltrey for 60 years. They were onstage for 2.5 hours with just one break. I think the music keeps them young.
We really do form our musical taste in our tweens. “The Who” played a crucial part in my youth, especially in the calamitous years of 1970-71, and I kept tearing up, for example, hearing “Tommy” as it should be played, with an orchestra (featuring many NorCal musicians), plus other tunes as well. Here are some of the tunes played at Golden One Center, Sacramento, Wednesday, October 26, 2022.
Plus, a few pictures:
Opening act was "Mike Campbell and The Dirty Knobs." Mike Campbell was a member of "Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers," and so his band is essentially the successor to the Heartbreakers, and they even played the Heartbreakers' "Refugee."
Cease fires are like knives: useful tools, but dangerous. If mutually agreeable, cease fires can help promote a peace process, but they can also lock in an aggressor's gains and promote war. Earlier this year, Ukrainians tried cease fires a number of times to help evacuate civilians, but Russia never respected any of them, and killed fleeing civilians instead.
The recent letter from Progressive Democrats urging a cease fire and direct negotiations over the heads of the Ukrainians (just withdrawn in a display of astonishing weakness), at this moment, helps enable Putin retool for a renewed invasion next year. The most-direct route to peace now is to back the Ukrainians to the hilt as they kick the shit out the invaders and break the Russian war machine. Until Russian will is broken, a cease fire means failure. Only a Ukrainian victory will yield a lasting peace. Only losers, like so many libertarians and conservative Republicans, back Putin. Don't back Putin - ever!
People are pointing out how the tank commander almost dies twice, including the sniper bullet ricocheting off the open ammo cover of his machine gun. That’s intense, yes. And then people marvel at the tank running into supply trucks (which are taken out by infantry). What people are missing, however, is that those trucks are towing artillery. That means that wherever this is in Kherson, Ukrainian forces have outrun the front lines and are wreaking havoc in the rear. Remember, artillery sits back at least 10-15 kilometers from the front.
Absolutely insane and chaotic combat footage from UKR tank. Russian convoy runs straight into UKR 25th brigade fighting near Kherson. Date Unknown. pic.twitter.com/a0eoJlhqxm
I need a Metaverse. We all need a Metaverse. But, for now, we have hers:
Nyce: For some people out there right now, this whole week is Taylor Swift. They are very much flipping between TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, even real life. But because they don’t have avatars and they’re not meeting in a virtual space, it’s not technically a metaverse?
Au: Correct. But yes, she could do that tomorrow if she wanted to. She could have her own metaverse platform. She could invite people immediately to jump in and hang out with her and create content based on her songs. And she could perform live if she wanted to. And she wouldn’t have to depend on any of the platforms. Right now, she’s making content for Instagram, which is owned by Meta, and TikTok.
Nyce: It sounds like the Swifties might be living in something that is pretty close to a metaverse currently. It doesn’t seem like it’s missing a lot to get there. People overuse the term vibes. But it seems like fandoms are giving off metaverse vibes right now.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. —
The first Native American woman in space said Wednesday she is overwhelmed by the beauty and delicacy of Mother Earth, and is channeling “positive energy” as her five-month mission gets underway.
NASA astronaut Nicole Mann said from the International Space Station that she’s received lots of prayers and blessings from her family and tribal community. She is a member of the Wailacki of the Round Valley Indian Tribes in Northern California.
Mann showed off the dream catcher she took up with her, a childhood gift from her mother that she’s always held dear. The small traditional webbed hoop with feathers is used to offer protection, and she said it's given her strength during challenging times. Years before joining NASA in 2013, she flew combat in Iraq for the Marines.
For myself, I don't rely on too many models, because it just causes confusion in my mind. It's like the old adage, "the man with one watch knows what time it is, but the man with two watches is never sure." I primarily consult the NVG model (a baroclinic model, and thus more likely to be accurate), but also look at the GFS model (a barotropic model, which makes it less accurate, but which runs further out in the future - 16 days!) Actually, I don't know where to get the European model results, but it's another baroclinic model, and no doubt good, but it might conflict with the NVG model, and thus cause dissonance. Some weather forecasters have time to consult with a full ensemble of model results, but I don't want that. What I want is to intuitively feel what is making the hurricane move the way it does. There are usually several forces at work, any one of which can make the hurricane move, and which force dominates is usually a matter of timing. Which force is first? Which force is strongest? Do the forces trade off? Understanding that trade off is more important than having multiple model results. The model results usually vary from one another anyway because the timing of force changes are modeled to be slightly different. So, the models all have their strengths, but need not all be accurate.
The Hurricane Center uses what it considers to be the top models for forecasting hurricanes. The models come from different countries with their own weather services, and some come from the United States, which has multiple agencies that have their own weather models for their own purposes: the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Weather Service, the Navy, NASA and more.
But the two we hear about most are an American model known as the Global Forecast System, or GFS; and the European model or the ECMWF, which is the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. The two global models are considered the best in the world, and are often pitted against one another.
Experts generally agree the European model has an edge over the GFS, Rood said.
Both are modeled from equations performed by high-powered computers. The GFS and the European both are medium-range forecasting models and can forecast fairly far into the future. The Euro can forecast 10 days out, while the GFS can model 16 days out.
These two models, along with all the others, have the opportunity to use the same shared data in their model runs. Yet, they result in different outcomes.
“Just because they have the opportunity doesn’t mean they are all starting with ... the same data,” Rood said. “The other thing is, they all use the data in a little bit of a different way, so they have different algorithms.”
The main difference in the models is “data assimilation,” which essentially means how the models start. Scientists use different methods to begin these assimilations, which gives them different results. Rood said the European model generally has a better assimilation process than the GFS, which can at times lead to more accurate models.
The same models can also be run about 30 to 50 times to make what’s called an ensemble. Slight tweaks to the information used in the same model can result in dozens of different tracks. While it may look overwhelming to the untrained eye, these ensembles are helpful for forecasters.
Outside of the models that are used for everyday weather, there are exclusively hurricane models that focus on a much smaller area where a storm is located. These models are good at gathering more details like wind speeds and have become another piece in a forecaster’s tool belt.
“From a forecaster’s point of view, there is an advantage of having multiple models, because it helps them to better understand the uncertainty,” Rood said.
Two good friends have Covid, so I get their tickets to see "The Who" next week. Who ever dreamed I might see "The Who?" Need a Baby Boomer for this, so I asked Joe the Plumber to come along. Sounds like he's game. If only I can get him to wear a mask. I mean, shouldn't be that hard, right? I mean, the only reason he gets to go is because of Covid!
Trained and knowledgeable workers are retiring or moving to other industries. The average oil and gas worker is 44 years old, a recent report from Deloitte found. The industry has mostly rehired the 15,000 workers it laid off during the 2020 crash, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Statistics. But the workforce numbers have been on a long downward trend since 2015, when oil prices took a plunge after a supply glut. The volatility of the industry — the cycle of laying off and hiring people — is another factor that makes the jobs unappealing, the Deloitte report said.
"Half of oil and gas professionals, I believe, would gladly leave the oil and gas industry tomorrow if they could get a renewable energy job," said Dar-Lon Chang, who worked as an engineer at ExxonMobil for 16 years before resigning in 2019 over concerns about climate change. A recent global survey by AirSwift found that 82 percent of current oil and gas workers would consider switching to another energy sector in the next three years, up from 79 percent last year and 73 percent in 2020. Fifty-four percent of those thinking about leaving picked the renewable industry as a preferred destination.
"Retention is a massive, massive problem," Dennett said. "They're losing their most expert, skilled, and experienced technicians, engineers, designers, operators, mechanics … I think they will be starved of new talent."
Don't know what to think of Grimes' status since 2018 as sometimes Elon Musk girlfriend. She must have access to resources that other musicians can only dream of. And he's been showing signs of becoming an ass. But she definitely makes music that can appeal to my taste.
The extreme storminess in Central America has resolved itself into a new storm - Tropical Storm Karl - that is now circling around the Gulf of Mexico's Bay of Campeche, near the Mexican coast. Karl isn't showing any signs of coming east to Florida, but the storminess is likely to linger in the Bay of Campeche for a long time, which will be a problem for Veracruz, and other places in Mexico. Model forecasts are now showing no particular impact in Texas (although they will get some unrelated rain next week).
I hope Karl dissipates quickly. The longer it persists, the greater danger it poses.
For inscrutable reasons, they sent me to this unfamiliar clinic in West Sacramento. Felt like a lost honeybee in an antiseptic hive. Didn't even feel the sting.
