Category: Engineering

What’s happening at Lake Oroville?

What’s happening at Lake Oroville?

| February 12, 2017 | 2 Replies

No, I don’t mean — at least, not directly — the current problems with the concrete and emergency spillways, nor the evacuation. I mean the chart above. Look at that chart. The solid color represents the historical average of the amount of water in Lake Oroville. The sharply rising blue line represents the current (2016-2017) […]

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Keeping perspective

Keeping perspective

| March 19, 2011 | 1 Reply

Click on the chart above to see it in full size. The smallest scale is the one at the bottom (labeled (1)). Each scale above that one represents 10x the range of the scale below it. When you hear news reports about “detectable radiation that is above normally accepted limits” around the heavily damaged Fukushima […]

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Wednesday’s a snooze day

Wednesday’s a snooze day

| April 29, 2009 | Reply

MORNING LINKS ITEM: Speaking of swine flu hysteria, this may be a good time to invest in pork belly futures — there may be a shortage soon. ITEM: Yet another way in which Western Europeans are looking for the US to help them financially. ITEM: Here’s a slideshow of items from the Michael Jackson Neverland […]

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Tuesday stings

Tuesday stings

| April 14, 2009 | 2 Replies

[Here are Wednesday’s links as well] MORNING LINKS ITEM: USA Today has an outstanding article debunking the various myths about the Columbine shooters who killed just over a dozen of their fellow students 10 years ago: They weren’t goths or loners. The two teenagers who killed 13 people and themselves at suburban Denver’s Columbine High […]

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Wednesday with the snark

Wednesday with the snark

| April 1, 2009 | 1 Reply

MORNING LINKS –first two are bumped from overnight links Item: (April Fool’s joke): The 2010 All New Omobile! ITEM (ah, if only it weren’t a joke): Obama forces GM chief out, puts Reid, Pelosi on leave ITEM (not a joke, but wouldn’t it be ironic?): Penn State researchers have discovered how to use microbes to […]

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Are you ready for toll roads everywhere?

Are you ready for toll roads everywhere?

| February 14, 2009 | Reply

Here in Colorado, part of the 470 beltway is a toll road — E-470 — run by the surrounding counties and other regioinal authorities. If you have a transponder (as we do), you can use the automated toll section. Since we live at the southeast corner of E-470, we use the toll road every time […]

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iPhone 2.0 – Or The Importance Of Load Testing

iPhone 2.0 – Or The Importance Of Load Testing

| July 11, 2008 | Reply

In case you did not happen to be within 3 miles of an Apple fan today, Friday July 11th was THE day, the holy day when Jobs the Magnificent would allow the faithful to purchase some really nice hardware, namely the second generation / 3G iPhone. But, boys and girls, this is instead a lesson […]

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“Pitfalls of Modern Software Engineering”: an update

“Pitfalls of Modern Software Engineering”: an update

| May 29, 2008 | Reply

One of the books I’m currently writing is Pitfalls of Modern Software Engineering, a greatly expanded and updated version of a book I published back in the 1990s. I’ve been posted new and revised pitfalls over at my Bruce F. Webster & Associates (bfwa.com) website. To make the pitfalls a bit easier to browse, I’ve […]

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On Mars: Phoenix Lander Photographed In Descent

On Mars: Phoenix Lander Photographed In Descent

| May 27, 2008 | Reply

Over the long US holiday weekend, the latest Mars probe known as “Phoenix” landed near the Martian north pole. As wonderful as it is when we can actually get some of our gear on Mars to work correctly, it was even more fun that we were able to snap a picture of it taking place. […]

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Death of the Polaroid camera

Death of the Polaroid camera

| February 9, 2008 | Reply

Gaius over at Blue Crab Boulevard (one of my favorite daily blogs) reports that Polaroid is shutting down the last of its manufacturing facilities for Polaroid cameras: When Polaroid users pulled a picture out of their cameras, an image would slowly appear before their eyes. Now, like the process in reverse, the image of the […]

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