Somewhere I heard that ice storms were causing power outages in many areas of the U.S.
So I wanted to find out where these outages were (are) and how large the overall situation was (is).
At first I started looking for city newspapers, and looked at a few weather sites, but after half-an-hour I still know very little, except that the overnight low in Chicago was -1 and that New York City is expecting 4-6" snow.
Oh, and Keene, New Hampshire has a temperature of 32-degrees.
Is there a quicker way of gathering macro news of this kind?
I just entered "nation wide power outage" in a web search engine and found a few sites which provide this information.
Generally searches on specific topics are successful.
There is a TED Talk presentation which I just viewed on the subject of on line news and searches where the presenter claims that searches are filtered according to each user's specific profile. If true, this could affect your results which may differ from mine.
Neil
i intend to eventually buy a portable generator for my part 15 station and also have a high power auxilliary transmitter for regional emergencies that knock out public utilities taking many of the local stations with it.
Radio 8Z raised a curious thing...
"searches are (possibly) filtered according to each user's specific profile."
What I wonder now is, how can we "estimate" what our profile might be?
I'll guess it would be based on web history, e.g., sites visited, search topics, videos watched, blogs made...
Difficult to presume how such a profile would alter the outcome of searching for "nation-wide power-outage."
I recently searched for "shoes" online. Perhaps I'd get some connection between ice-storms and shoes frozen onto driveways.
We had a mixed batch of precipitation
today, here in the Hartford area.
Black ice with snow on top, water
that froze, etc.
I guess a lot of it missed us and also -
New Jersey.got most of it before
it even hit here.
There is supposed to be a storm coming
here on the weekend.
I think weather forecasting is still really
difficult, despite the technology that
is available. It's a 3 dimentional problem
that can be hundreds or thousand of miles
long, hundreds of miles wide, and ?? miles high -
whearever the troposhere tops off.
Oh man! Duty calls! Sorry about the typos.
Gotta go!
Bruce, DOGRADIO)
that froze, etc.
I believe that search engines store your profile in a brower cookie. If you delete these, then you should get a somewhat more unbiased search. Personally, I hate the personalized searches, as many times they just give me what I don't want.
Perhaps the information is stored in browser cookies but my browser is set to clear cookies upon exit and still I see evidence that filtering or targeting is happening. It could be that the info is associated with your IP or MAC address as well.
My wife and I share an IP address and she complains that all she gets back from a search is advertising where I get few ad hits. She buys a lot from the net and I don't so that may have something to do with it.
Neil
No outages in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. Just a lot of cold air. Temperature is 23 now. Temps are supposed to go upper teens to lower 20's for a few days.
No precepiation today. We were supposed to have a nasty ICE storm last night but nothing.
From the local National Weather Service:
- Tonight A slight chance of snow showers before 1am. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 15. West wind 11 to 16 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%.
- Wednesday A chance of snow showers, mainly after 11am. Cloudy, with a high near 25. Southwest wind 9 to 13 mph. Chance of precipitation is 50%. New snow accumulation of less than a half inch possible.
- Wednesday NightA chance of snow showers, mainly before 11pm. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 11. Wind chill values as low as -3. West wind around 14 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New snow accumulation of less than a half inch possible.
- Thursday A slight chance of snow showers. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 18. Wind chill values as low as -4. West wind around 14 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%.
- Thursday NightA slight chance of snow showers before 8pm. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 13. Southwest wind 10 to 14 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%.
- FridayMostly cloudy, with a high near 28.
- Friday Night A chance of snow after 2am. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 21. Chance of precipitation is 40%.
There is a provision in FCC rules about emergency communications.
The lack of privacy is the dark side of the Internet.
An interesting topic has been touched upon first by kc8gpd stating that he plans to be prepared to offer backup emergency radio broadcast service, including transmission facility and generator power.
WDCX adds an important extension to the subject by referring to FCC provisions which enable special broadcast authority during emergency conditions.
The December 4th edition of Radio World includes a very detailed on-topic story on STANDBY POWER: BASIC EQUIPMENT OR BOONDOGGLE? If you find a link to the story please post, in the meanwhile here's their website...
As to the FCC emergency rules, I think we have hit upon a good topic for an upcoming ALPB SEMINAR on the subject, do we have any volunteers?
Try this link: http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/newbay/rw_20131204/index.php#/14
for the article about emergency power. Use the tool bar arrows at the top to page through the magazine.
This link: http://www.radioworld.com/digital-editions lists all the back issues.