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Friday, New Year's Eve, December 31, 2004
Bedunking politcal chatter as usual 
| | Chris Nolan on the Washington Post story that's making the rounds (I got it, improbably, from a White House email service). Sez Chris: |
| | In the end, the Post story doesn't say much that hasn't been suspected or said. It does, however, put it all in one place and it gets Republican strategist to talk about how they ran the campaign. That's an eye-opener if you're a someone who thinks this election was somehow stolen. And for a real, 360-degree look at the campaign, read Mark Danner's "How Bush Really Won," in The New York Review of Books. |
| | In their separate ways, the stories who how that Republican National Committee had a good, sound strategy and they spent money and time making sure it worked, worked well and was executed beautifully. Republican's understanding of how on-line communications work and how polling can be used to get insights into voter preferences is top-notch. Why did it work so well? Because it's wasn't sentimental. |
| | Want to know the real, clear-eyed, unsentimental reasons why Bush won and Kerry lost? Start here. |
Pod on
Good to hear
| | Just got word from Jeff Littlejohn, SVP Engineering for Clear Channel Radio, that "We do plan to re-establish KFI-AMs dominant signal in Los Angeles." He went on to say they're exploring "several options." Which makes complete sense. |
| | On behalf of longtime fans of KFI's signal, I want to publicly thank Jeff and Clear Channel for getting back to me (and the rest of us) on that. |
| | Now the (armchair as well as professional) engineers can have fun thinking out loud about what some of those options might be. A sectionalized but shorter tower on the current site? A new tower at the KLAC site? A co-location at one of the other sites (owned by other companies) that already have a big tower and/or a lot of land? KNX's site comes to mind. There would be a bit of a loss toward the Inland Empire, but a huge gain all along the coast due to a fortuitous location and much higher ground conductivity. Then, there would also be potential interference issues to consider, such as with the station on 660 in Orcutt. |
| | Bonus Link: DIY radio, cont'd. That's in hope that some of the Clear Channel (and other mainstream radio) people can hop onto the podwagon. There's a lot of good source material there, folks. |
| | Bonus Link #2: Marvin Collins' KFI Transmitter Site. Shows the tower before it went down (it stood there since 1948). Marvin's KFI stamp above is identical to one I got from KFI when I reported reception in 1962 or so when I was a kid in New Jersey, listening to faraway radio when I should have been reading books or chasing girls. Here's a photo from Marvin's site showing (what I presume to be) one of the two towers shown in the stamp, coming down. |
Sending the old year out with a Gang
| | Dave says forget about sepctrum, that's such a 20th Century concept. I'm in agreement with his second point, which is In the age of podcasting, spectrum is infinite and costs $35 a year from Network Solutions. Except I'd rather not buy anything from Network Solutions (fortunately, there are alternatives), and spectrum is still behind cellular telephony and wi-fi, which are still kinda handy even if they're deployed in an Olde School regulatory regime. |
| | As for old-fashioned radio, I will cop to some residual attachments. |
| | Meanwhile, looking forward to an hour with Dave (calling in from the road), Drummond, Marc, Bryan, Kim, Craig, Simon, Phil, and Steve, whose Gang it is. |
A warming global welcome
| | RealClimate is a commentary site on climate science by working climate scientists for the interested public and journalists. We aim to provide a quick response to developing stories and provide the context sometimes missing in mainstream commentary. The discussion here is restricted to scientific topics and will not get involved in any political or economic implications of the science. |
| | Good reading. Thanks to Hanan for the pointer. |
Findings
| | Like Scoble, I'm helping Technorati experiment with its new "searchlet", there on the right. So far, it's pretty darn handy. Dave Sifry just told me Technorati will be releasing it as soon as they finish shaking out the kinks. |
| | By the way, a search for "searchlet" there on the right yielded results less than 10 minutes after I wrote the above. Nice. |
Doing good
Pacific Theater
| | According to this report, Sumatra did not move 100 feet to the left, and the Earth did not slow down or move off its axis, when Sunday's 9.0 earthquake struck the coast of Sumatra. But sea levels did go up and down around the Pacific, the greatest increase located on the Mexican coast: 8.6 feet. Here in Santa Barbara we were told it rose about a foot or something. |
| | As it happened, the arrival of the non-tsunami coincided with a series of Winter storms. Here's an album of photos taken Tuesday from the hill where we live (where this Newsweek shot was taken), and from breakfast at the Wharf that forms the Eastern boundary of Santa Barbara's harbor. Three boats were washed up on shore, and the surf was remarkably high for the normally sheltered waters of the harbor. Shielded by the Channel Islands, Santa Barabara's surf levels are normally low for a Pacific coast town, but some of the waves crashing against the sea-wall raised plumes that flew up to a hundred feet or so into the air. I didn't photograph any of those, unfortunately. These I'd guess were in the 30-foot range. |
| | We were also treated to Cloud Theater. These pictures were taken Tuesday morning, right as a cold front rolled through. Another followed that evening, bringing the first thunderstorms we've experienced since moving to Santa Barbara four years ago. |
Only 995 years until the next one
| | It's been five years since the worst party-pooping event in a millennium: the Y2sKare. |
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