Here's what really kills fast in real, deep cold.
Too much clothing.
Why?
You start warm. You start moving. All that insulation is keeping the heat in. Your body gets hot. You start sweating. The sweat soaks your clothing -- and collapses the insulation.
Suddenly, you're standing there, with your body in full "dump heat" mode -- and you've soaked through, so the water in your clothing is conducting the heat right through. Water is *great* at conducting heat. Suddenly, you're really cold, you get stupid, and you die.
The biggest rule of cold -- if you're sweating, your screwing up. When you walk out from indoors, you should feel cold. If you start moving and still feel cold, you add a layer. More likely, though, you'll quickly get warm. Strip off that top layer. Keep moving. If you start to feel warm again, off with the next layer.
When you pause, you immediatly add a layer until you get moving again. When you stop for the night (if camping), you add at least two, unless and until you get into bed.
For Ghugle's sake -- don't forget your hats. Heck, if you're cold sleeping, wear one while sleeping.
Hydration is important -- even if you aren't sweating (and you mustn't), when your lungs warm 0F air to 90F, that air is very dry, and it will humidify in your lungs. You will exhale amazing amounts of moisture that you'll need to replace. Food is also important -- no fuel, your body cannot make heat. Camping Trick Number 3 -- eat before you sleep, and you sleep warm. (number 4 -- once you're in your bag, with your hat on, do ten situps. You'll be warm all night.)
When you get inside, get as much clothing off as possible. It'll need to dry, and you don't want to overheat (then you sweat when you get outside...) You can dry dampclothes in your sleeping bag while you sleep, but that energy comes at a price -- you provide it. If you don't have enough food, that's a big problem.
Finally -- the coldest activity is the world is astronomy. Clear nights are colder, because the Earth's heat radiates to the dark sky. Still nights (when the seeing is best) doubles this fast. Furthermore, if you're using optics, you aren't moving. The standard is dress 30 degrees *colder* that the acutal air temp. I don't think that's enough.
The one time I actually hit real hypothermia wasn't on Superior in January, or Chicago in February -- it was July in St. Louis, this year. How? Company moved, racking servers in new datacenter. Spent 14 hours in a dry, 60F room, not eating enough.
When I left, and tried to reach my car, I had to sit outside for 30 minutes before I stopped shaking enough to dry. Thankfully, warming up in St. Louis in July is *not* an issue.
That's how easy hypothermia is -- it's a simple equation. Your body burns fuel to generate heat. The enviroment pulls energy away. If the latter exceeds the former, you start to lose.
(And, on the converse -- there's a rule of rescue. There are no cold dead people in rescue situations. They have to warm up first, because you'd be surprised at how long someone can be cold, and come back. There is a limit, however -- if they're frozen solid, they're dead.
So, if you ever pull a kid out from under the ice, and that kid still bends, that kid isn't dead yet. Important.)
I'm never sure what gets you searched at airports.
Usual suspects:
Wrong last name.
Wrong first name.
One way flight.
You beeped twice at the magnetometer.
The first two you can often test for. Next time, fly as "L Miller, not Leah Miller", or other such trickery.
One way flight. A friend of mine got burned by this Sunday. Flying PDX-SFO-ORD, on AA. The PDX-SFO leg was a codeshare on Alaska. The Alaska plane was seriously delayed, so he was going to miss his connect. So, they walked him to United to get him to SFO to catch his flight to ORD.
Problem:
What He Saw -- ORD-PDX-SFO-ORD, on AA, Codeshare AA, AA. This is a round trip, like "Patriotic Americans" fly.
What the TSA saw. ORD-PDX on AA. PDX-SFO on UA. SFO-ORD on AA -- three one-way flights, like them terrorists fly. Bang, "SSSS" on the boarding pass.
The magentometer. I actually agree with this. They tell you, repeatedly, put the metal in your bag. However, everybody makes mistakes. So, if you walk in, and it beeps, you get another chance -- walk back, check for metal, put it on the belt. (Last time it happened to me, it was the new pager from the new job -- it wasn't part of the ritual Stowing Of Thine Electronics yet.)
If you beep again, then you get hand searched, rather than the rest of us watching you try six or seven times to figure out that your glasses/belt/claymore is what's setting off the detector.
Note, if this happens to you, and you find it is your glasses/belt/claymore that's setting it off, reconsider flying with it, or at least, put it in your bags. I know you get surprised by things like this the first time.
For the last year or so, the "pull random people aside" hasn't been done. The gate screening was a joke to anybody with at least one quarter clue. The frequent flyers figured out this dodge in about two seconds. They call the flight. Somebody walks up, and gets the "random" search. The frequent flyers then get on the plane.
However, this is apparently coming back with the new rules, though it appears it will be random searches at the security point, not the gates. Still, it's Yet Another Annoying Thing about travelling. Plus, you can have a four inch pair of scissors, but not a four inch knife, because nobody will think of stabbing someone with a pair of scissors.
Damn, why did it have to be a Staff Officer? If he was in the line, that was an order.
Damn.
Shame that we know *exactly* what Rumsfeild has to do, and quickly. Here's hoping he can't figure it out.
Despite the logical fallacy that the vote was not, in fact, a vote for war, it certainly looked, smelled, and quacked like a vote for war.
It was a vote for war.
On paper, of course, it wasn't, as Avedon keeps pointing out. But that law wasn't made in isolation.
Everyone knew that Bush wanted Iraq. This wasn't in any sort of doubt. Hell, the start of the Iraq Did It push was about two days after the towers fell.
On paper, this was a vote to authorize force if Iraq didn't comply with various agreements. In reality, everyone knew that everything after and including the word "if" was irrelevant. Anybody with a clue knew this was a rubberstamp for invasion. It is possible that a couple of Dems didn't figure this out -- that means, to me, that they're too stupid to serve, and I hope they lost thier seats later.
It was OBVIOUS that if this bill passed, Bush would invade. Thus, I don't buy the "that's not what the bill said" -- and a large part of the US population doesn't buy it either.
They knew that if this passed, we were going into Iraq. Many of them voted yes anyway. It was another deal of the "GOP wins, and the GOP wins" variety -- they get the war *and* if the Democrats bitch, we'll point out that they voted for the war.
Jim Macdonald's tack is the correct one to take. Don't argue that you weren't really voting for the war, because that not only looks, smells and sounds like bullshit, it *was* bullshit. You knew Bush was going to invade. Jim's tactic isn't based on a lie. "Yes, I voted to let Bush go to war, under the assumption that he would do a competent job. That assumption was my biggest mistake, and that's why I'm against his war now." There is no workable position based on "I really didn't vote for the war."
If you insist that the Democratic Party adopting yet another tactic based on "Bullshit the voters", we're going to lose.
Stop playing the hand you want to play, and start playing the hand you are dealt. "They really didn't vote for war because..." plays right into the "Democrats are wishy-washy" meme the GOP has gotten into the mainstream. "You screwed up badly" doesn't.
Anything based on apology or excuse fails. Stop making apologies and excuses. Start stating, not explaining, dammit!
For once, Reid does the right thing. What this was. This was Joe 1.
The message is simple, clear, and to the point, and like all truly effective messages, not one word about the real threat was uttered.
The rest of this is noise. The real point, however, is the first sign of hope I've seen in seven years. I just pray that Libermann and the other DLC fuckwads don't ruin things -- and that Durbin keeps a spine -- last thing we need is another cyring apology.
I do blame my genocide-free extinctionist Wizard for the start of my RSI.
See, folks, that's hardcore.
You learned this from Dale, didn't you?
No, it was a much more personal and interactive lesson -- but yes, Dale was the proximate cause, or better put, the trigger.
throwing chainsaws into volcanoes is fine. Just use a launcher.
Yep, but that's now launching, now throwing, and I stand by my statement.
And make sure you know what the alloy of the body is.
We knew that, at least, within a very small range of alloys. What we didn't know was how fast it would sink.
Yup, ajay. Liquified laughing gas.
Too expensive, given the cost of LOX nowadays, but a perfectly useful oxidizer. Space Ship One basically flew on this and superballs, ok, hydroxy-terminated polybutadiene. Easier to handle than LOX (though we're pretty good with LOX) -- several high-power model rocket engines are N20/PVC or N20/HTPB powered.
Civ IV has been released??
The first step is to admit that you have a problem with Civilization
Besides, this is 2005. It'll be a bugridden piece of crap like every other game rushed out the door. Don't install until there's at least three patchsets released.
Civ-junkies don't know what long term addiction can do to you. It takes a NetHack junkie to show you that. Have you ascended your tourist today?
I'm not sure if this is competent incompetence or incompetent incompetence.
As to the joys of many of these things, I will remain silent. DHS, and all that. I will remark, however, Olson's Fourth Observation: The fundamental difference between smart people and stupid people is that smart people get to do stupid things more than once.
As to ad-hackery, last project was converting the BSD Desktop to SCSI storage. BOR-ING. The project before that was a headphone amplifier optimized to drive headphones with very low input impedance (namely, Grados.) I'm still deciding if it is done (so I can hook up the volume pot and close the case) or if it could stand BUF-634 buffers on the output channels (the ground is already buffered.)
And, of course, if I make that change, we start the whole cycle of "try these op amps, change this bias resistor, etc. etc." Fortunatly, the Grados have more than enough detail to make many of these changes instantly obvious, and since this is my headphone amp, for my ears, the only real spec is "Does it sound better or worse to me?"
HTH. HAND. And don't throw chainsaws into volcanos.
June, too soon
July, stand by
August, the worst
September, remember
October, all over.
Except, of course, for the Witch of November.
And it's not over in October. Historically, the heart of the season is July-September. October sees, on average, 1.6 named storms a year. November sees one typically once every two years.
Given the incredible warmth of the tropical oceans this year, and the fact than just about anything that forms near Cuba this year has quickly ramped up to a Category 5 storm, this isn't over by a long shot. I wouldn't call the 2005 Hurricane Season over until 1-Jan-2006.
I don't know what's more atypical. Three of the Five lowest hurricane pressures ever recorded in the Atlantic Basin were this year, or Vince making a run at Portugal.
The one salient feature of this seasons has been storms forming and intensifying in completely ahistorical ways. TD 24 was expected to spin up for three days before she became Wilma, when she did, they were looking at maybe a Category 2, before hitting severe shear in the Gulf.
12 hours and 72 lost millibars later, and the forecasters are just staring at the data going "What the fuck? How the fuck? Where the fuck did that come from?"
This storm spun up so hard and fast we almost lost a hurricane hunter plane, as they made a typical Category 2 pass along the 850mb pressure contour -- then hit the incredibly tight eye, and found themselves looking at sub 900 mb of pressure -- and only 1500' of altitude left before they hit the water. The rest of the passes were made at 700mb -- normally, this level is about 10000 feet. In Wilma, at ~895mb, the 700mb level is around 6500 feet, but that's a mile more air between the plane and the waves.
It's late October. We shouldn't even be thinking of such, but I give it better than 50% we see Tropical Storm Alpha.
He doesn't regret being incompetant, he just regrets not having greater control over the spin.
Why should he regret being incompetent? He's still getting paid. He'll get a nice cushy job somewhere when the contract gig ends.
The problem most people have is they simple cannot imagine this level of corruption.
Note Operation Offset.
Most people would simply think that the Republicans are out to gut everything we stand for. You're not thinking corrupt enough.
The real point is to gut everything we stand for, implement another tax cut, and then say "Sorry, we simply can't afford to rebuild New Orleans."
Those thinking that this will get them thrown out of office have forgotten who counts the votes.
for i in `jot 1000000` ; do echo "Thanks!" ; done
Err, I wouldn't want my charming dialect to be attributed to anyone else but me. Could you run an s/Eric/Erik on the above post? Thankee.
Oh, wait, I'm supposed insult that fuckwad Brown again. Okay, done.
Let's make him the demonstration target for "Why do you kick a man when he's down?"
How bad?
Look who got rehired.
The Onion might as well fold.
As to Rita, the hurricane that would stall over Texas, it dumped about 4 inches on St. Louis as it headed towards Detroit. Given the Mississippi/Ohio valley drought, this was a good thing.
America has four cities.
New York
Washington
Hollywood
The city most of your ancestors immigrated to.
If you don't live in those cities, overseas terrorists won't bother. That's one reason I knew the OKC bombing was homegrown. Chicago needs to worry a bit, because, well, it's that city most of your ancestors immigrated to, but everywhere else, the chances are so slight that your much better off dumping DHS and spending the money mitigating whatever natural disaster is likely to hit you.
Erik, giving up is just not an option.
Funny, if that was the case, Bush would be hanging from a tree by now. You already have given up. You keep thinking that things like "elections" matter. You think a protest will help -- but the so called opposition party won't show up.
Meanwhile, the GOP shuts down more right, steals more money, and kills more people.
Repeat until dead, arguing the whole time about what "Right vs. wrong" means, and how you can't resort to violence, because that would be wrong.
On the up-side: if this goes on, if it isn't all a bad dream, the USA will be irrelevant in another generation.
Charlie: No nation with 5000+ nuclear weapons and the ability to place them anywhere on the planet in 30 minutes or less is irrelevant.
Imagine Germany in 1945 with the same capability. Because that's the road we're heading down. When the economy collapses because of oil, BushCo will not go down quietly. They'll tell everyone all the oil is theirs, and when China or the UK or Iraq -- or anyone -- argues, cities will die.
These are people who postulate the end of the world as a goal. And they don't give a flying fuck how many other people they kill.
I fear any answer is going to hark back to Thomas Jefferson's quote (or was it Washington?) about trees, liberty, and irrigation with the blood of patriots.
Which will not happen. The American Liberal does not fight. The reason the GOP doesn't even try to hide what they are doing anymore is that the own the government, they own the press, and they know the opposition won't truly fight. They might protest, but when push comes to shove, they'll run. When the lines form, the rethugs will quickly kill and string up a few liberals, and then simply march the rest into the camps.
Quit planning on how to save the US, and start planning on how to deal with the US as a hostile country. We were lost on Dec. 12, 2000.
Oh, it may look like Bush is slipping now. Of course it does. It's an odd year. He always sucks in odd years. Then the year changes, Rove makes a few phone calls, and lots of New Evidence Of Evil Liberals is released, and the polls spike nicely in time for the next "election", which is rigged anyway, just to be sure.
Repeat, each time, ripping out a few more rights, stealing a few hundred more billion, and so forth. Repeat. Forever.
Central Pressure's apparenly back to 913mb, and the eyewall replacement cycle is finished. She's over a colder eddy current, but is moving towards a warmer one -- but shear from an anticyclone may begin to hold her back.
The problem is that sheer and the high pulling away from Ohio is turning Rita further and faster than we thought. Every forecast track in the last two days has moved to the right -- we started as a "Mexico US border" landfall, we're now looking at "TX/LA border" as the focus point.
The cloudtops have cooled again, the eyewall is closed, clearing, and back down to 17nm (from the occluded 45nm at the "height" of the eyewall replacement.) All signs that she's stregthening again, and 915mb is still a very, very low pressure -- indeed, it's hard to say 125kts sustained in the face of that pressure, which is more typical of 140-150kts.
Woops -- new pass, central pressure is now 911mb. Max flight winds still 133kts, implying (by the 90% rule) sea level winds of 120kts, or 140mph -- high Cat IV. Still showing two eyewalls, 15nm and 40nm, both solid, the outer contracting. She's winding up again.
The hot raw data, from the crazy guys who fly through these beasts, is here. Instructions on interpreting are here.
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2005 | 81 |
| 2004 | 43 |
| 2003 | 159 |
| 2002 | 54 |
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