meteorology

Why does it seem like the west coasts of the seven continents have bigger and more consistent surf than the east coasts?
asked by Mike Kassak

Answer

Surfline's very own tag team of Adam Wright and Marcus Sanders take a stab at it:

Well, Mike, you're pretty right on: west coasts do get better surf than east coasts, the world over. By "better" we mean west coasts are given to long-interval groomed groundswells over reefs, rather than scrappy, short-interval windswells.

And no, it's not just luck. It's actually pretty simple. In order to get serious groundswell -- that is, a swell with an interval of more than say, 14 seconds between wave crests, which can translate to corduroy-like lines and pinwheeling spokes along a pointbreaks such as Rincon -- you need a large area of water for wind to blow across for an extended period of time. This is called fetch, and along with wind duration and wind speed, it's one Sean Collins' three Golden Rules of surf creation:

"Wave generation requires three variables: wind velocity, wind duration and wind fetch. The harder the wind blows, the longer the time it blows and the greater the distance it blows, the bigger the waves. Limitation of any one of these variables will severely restrict the development of wave heights and the transfer of energy into the water."

OK, so you need a bunch of water for wind to blow across. Big deal. How can France see 12-foot grinding Guethary -- with 10 wave sets, evenly spaced out -- while New Jersey is shoulder-high and breaking all over the place? Same ocean, right? Well, yeah, but here's the kicker: due to the fact that the earth is spinning (duh), almost every single significant frontal storm, in both hemispheres, tracks from west to east.

Why do west coasts get better surf | Surfline | Who the F&*K Knows

MONTERREY, Mexico: This dramatic photograph shows a car ploughing into cyclists in a race along a highway near the US-Mexico border.

One rider was killed and 10 others injured in the incident. The 28-year-old driver was apparently drunk and fell asleep when he crashed into the cyclists, said a police investigator, Jose Alfredo Rodriguez.

'Sleeping' driver ploughs into bike race - World - smh.com.au

BOSTON (AP) -- Dunkin' Donuts has pulled an online advertisement featuring Rachael Ray after complaints that a fringed black-and-white scarf that the celebrity chef wore in the ad offers symbolic support for Muslim extremism and terrorism.

You see how evil and insidious the terrorists are? That sweet, cute lady Rachael Ray was recruited - probably unknowingly - into being a hell spawn of Satan!

'Paisley' or 'jihad?' Dunkin' Donuts yanks Rachael Ray ad - May. 29, 2008

If anyone cares the math is not that hard to follow:

You take the transmitter output power, subtract any loss in the cable between the transmitter and the antenna, add the gain of the anteana. http://db.osoal.org.nz/eirp-calculator.html [osoal.org.nz]

Then you have to subtract the free space loss of your path ( the loss you get by putting the signal across the air ): http://db.osoal.org.nz/freespace-loss-calculator.h tml [osoal.org.nz]

And finally you add the recieve gain of the receiving antenna, subtract the loss from the cable on the recieving end and compare with the receive sensitivity of your wireless receiver. I have bundled the rest of the calculation into this bit of javascript. [osoal.org.nz]

For example, if I have two 2.4ghz radios that output 15dbm (32mw) that have a recieve sensitivity of -83db that are in waterproof boxes on the antenna mounting connected to two 22db antenna's 5km apart very roughly.

15db - 1db 22db = 36db or ~3981mw (just under the 4 watt max).

- 121.65db for our free space loss

22db - 1db = -64.65

-64.65 is the strength of the signal received at the other end, fortunately the receiver has a receive sensitivity of -83 so we are in business. There is a link margin of ~19db to account for a little bit of noise, fade, solar flares, alien abductions etc.

If you want more range, increase the power of the transmitter or the gain of your antenna. The government limits ( 4 watts for 2.4ghz, 250mw for 5.3ghz and 4 watts for 5.8Ghz in New Zealand ) are going to determine your maximum range barring some magical new wireless gear that has a better receive sensitivity.

Slashdot | 5 km Range Commercial Wi-Fi Available

Air Force Historical Research Agency
The Air Force Historical Research Agency is the repository for Air Force historical documents. The Agency's collection, begun in Washington, DC, during World War II, moved in 1949 to Maxwell Air Force Base, the site of Air University, to provide research facilities for professional military education students, the faculty, visiting scholars, and the general public. It consists today of over 70,000,000 pages devoted to the history of the service, and represents the world's largest and most valuable organized collection of documents on US military aviation.

Air Force Historical Research Agency - Home

Bruce Lee’s Top 7 Fundamentals for Getting Your Life in Shape

Bruce Lee’s Top 7 Fundamentals for Getting Your Life in Shape

"As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one."

Godwin's Law apparently applies to Democratic politics, not just Usenet...

Hat tip to TechPresident.

Hillary's Downfall

This is how most Americans (perhaps 10% saw the ride) were introduced to their great white flight to suburbia.

Futurama - 1939 New York World's Fair

use IO::All;

# Let the madness begin...
# Some of the many ways to read a whole file into a scalar
io('file.txt') > $contents;

# Overloaded "arrow"
$contents < io 'file.txt';

# Flipped but same operation
$io = io 'file.txt';

# Create a new IO::All object
$contents = $$io;

# Overloaded scalar dereference $contents =
$io->all;

# A method to read everything
$contents = $io->slurp;

# Another method for that
$contents = join '', $io->getlines;

# Join the separate lines
$contents = join '', map "$_\n", @$io;

# Same. Overloaded array deref
$io->tie;

# Tie the object as a handle
$contents = join '', <$io>;

# And use it in builtins # and the list goes on ...

Super neat lib.

IO::All - IO::All of it to Graham and Damian! - search.cpan.org

Each month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics gathers 84,000 prices in about 200 categories — like gasoline, bananas, dresses and garbage collection — to form the Consumer Price Index, one measure of inflation.

It’s among the statistics that the Federal Reserve considered when it cut interest rates on Wednesday. The categories are weighted according to an estimate of what the average American spends, as shown below.

All of Inflation’s Little Parts - The New York Times