I HATE APPLE

four years is a decent life for any notebook imo, or even most PCs. take that infant out to the parking lot and run it over with your car.

My MacBook pro is five and a half almost! Will be superseded but not totally retired when my Retina MBP arrives next week

yeah i'm still trying to figure out what to do with mine, set up a weather station or put it away until i can find a really cheap one to hack apart for parts

a seismograph was the other consideration but its a waste, you can do a weather station or a seismograph w/ a $300 dell box

My Mac Pro is 2008 vintage and still faster than nearly every other Mac. It's kinda mad how much more powerful the Pros are compared to everything else.

now that i finally got itunes and my ipod sorted my mind has spent today being blown at HOW FAST EVERYTHING IS ON MY NEW MACBOOK PRO OMG

everything works!!!! when i tell it to!! i am not used to this in a computer!

considering a ceremonial smashing of my old one for all the grief it's caused me, will prob just shove it into a drawer as an emergency spare

while this thread is up, can someone recommend a WAV editor program for the Mac that is like Peak but is not Audacity? I am happy to pay money for it, but BIAS just went out of business so I can't buy a new copy of Peak LE.

whoa is there a good resource online for how to build a weather station out of a (say) $300 Dell? that sounds great!

nope, audacity is the best i've found

euler it's basically like a kit you buy but since i'm a math / science / technology teacher i just apply for a grant and the nsta or someone would loan me a plug-and-play seismograph or weatherstation

i've heard good things about wiretap

can you recommend a kit? I'm totally serious, would be fab to get one going

i think the computer is basically just recording CSV data and maybe uploading it to a server ... there are various network of personal weather stations connected to the NOAA and there is a similar thing w/ USGS and citizen seismographs

it's the seismograph or weather station that's expensive

the weather stations i've seen are basically like digital meters of different sorts and you get a box that has in for each of the instruments and an out that goes to serial cable or usb ... i'm sure at this point there's wireless ones too but if you're gonna go w/ the ghetto box you need the ghetto cable

i can't euler! i'm not a consumer, i just use whatever the institution gives me.

http://www.flinnsci.com/store/Scripts/prodView.asp?idproduct=22361

like this is quite high-end and the price reflects the fact that a civil servant is going to purchase this for other people (like the thousand dollar toilet seat)

but you can find used models online for half that or less

also it's an integrated kit w/ a fancy housing that hides all the fidgety parts so as little messing w/ insides as possible (appropriate for primary and secondary school settings)

but you can buy all that shit separately w/ bare leads sticking out and wire it up yourself, nail to roof, etc

fascinating! I'll have a look. it would be a pricy hobby but uh we're on the mac thread so

i think like astronomy or a bike it's a fat initial investment followed but then relatively cheap and you can sink mad time into it for free

as opposed to an actually pricey hobby like golf

or helicopter acrobatics

also weather is a fascinating and complex science that is still in infancy, i find it hard to wrap my head around it even though i can pv = nrt in my head like a champ.

yeah I just bought a book on weather (isbn 0226898989) that I've been reading at the library for a while, & it's such a deep subject...but like I dunno molecular gastronomy it concerns pretty day-to-day stuff. plus data! lots of data!

& the math is badly understood right now; hydrodynamics is soooo poorly developed, b/c the equations are so damn complex

ah, good 'ol PerVNeRT

it's not easy to fit data to ten different nonlinear PDEs at once especially w/ phase changes and shit

that's what physical oceanography was like

it's fun to be able to look at the barometer / hygrometer / thermometer and a map and know which way the wind will be blowing tomorrow but i still need to be looking at a meteorology-for-dummies book while i think it through

can you recommend a good meteorology-for-dummies book?

http://www.amazon.com/Weather-Golden-Guide-Paul-Lehr/dp/1582381593

http://www.amazon.com/Living-By-Chemistry-Weather-Preliminary/dp/1559537027

http://ocw.mit.edu/high-school/physics/kinetic-theory-thermodynamics/ideal-gases/

still looking for some more rigorous lower division stuff that is not theory but is actual meteorology ... that MIT high school link could be community college out here

i need to look at earth science resources but that i am a college prep teacher and kids don't learn that after sixth grade here so i'm not sure where to look

the NOAA and scripps oceanography has links but those are also geared toward climate change rather than practical meteorology

unfortunately the connection between praxis and use is getting really tenuous (cf apple computers)

RE: Peak, I've never fully understood those programs when most current DAW software has all of those features, plust the ability to have multi-tracking, which I find very useful. I use Digital Performer, and I often bring in different versions of the same track so I can A/B them. Mastered vs unmastered, restored vs unrestored etc.

doesn't logic have a way to do these things?

i would think apple would work like adobe maybe and keep adding side apps to handle these side tasks

thanks Dan, I will check those out. I really just need a straight WAV editor, won't be using multitrack. I did occasionally use Peak to A/B old vs. remastered versions.

I'm not sure, but I think the major DAW programs (Logic, Pro Tools, Digital Performer etc) should be able to do everything Peak did, plus quite a bit that you'll never need, but maybe a few things you'll like. Adobe Audition I think is their audio engineering program. There are cheaper WAV editors. I actually use a cheap program called Fission all the time. Open up an mp3, chop it up, normalize it real quick, fade in/out etc. Wavs or MP3s.

ooh Fission looks perfect, thank you. I'll check it out this weekend.

Garageband is another cheap option for that kind of editing.

Wave Editor is another option I keep handy for that sort of thing.

really understanding the weather is the effing best and i recommend it to everyone.

i did atmospheric physics as an undergrad but i learnt far more "pracctical weather forecasting" once i started doing observational astronomy. just getting used to clouds, and familiar with the relevant ranges of pressure, dew point, humidity, etc. and looking at local radar/infrared cams

u + k: http://www.ghcc.msfc.nasa.gov/GOES/goeseastconusir.html

yeah it's one of those things (like celestial mechanics or hobby electronics) where you have to experience the phenomena to really get a sense for how it works beyond just some jargon and basic understandings

really understanding the weather is the effing best and i recommend it to everyone.

I shoulda been a meteor(ologist)

I should do that because I already think about the weather all the time anyway

some people walk through adiabatic condensation in an airmass saturated with water vapor, others just get wet

meteorologists do it... in an airmass saturated with water vapor

while this thread is up, can someone recommend a WAV editor program for the Mac that is like Peak but is not Audacity? I am happy to pay money for it, but BIAS just went out of business so I can't buy a new copy of Peak LE.

I use Amadeus. The pro version is expensive, but it's been indispensable. http://www.hairersoft.com/index.html

60 bucks isn't expensive for those kinds of features, if it works well. Looks like a good program for a lot of uses. It's not going to replace whatever they're using in mastering studios or whatever, but for home purposes...

Reaper is amazing, and is basically pay-if-you-like, with no restrictions.

Now 10.8 has twitter integration I am getting a pasword reset email from Twitter everyday saying something is trying to access my account. Can't be sure it is OS X but it only started since I upgraded.

FWIW, once I had entered my Twitter account in the Mail, Contacts, & Calendars system preferences much of the integration weirdness went away.

That sucks a bunch

of broccoli