July 2008
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Minding the Gap Fire
Since I lack a car here, I haven’t gotten out much, and not at all to any place that gave me a vantage on the fire. Until today, that is, when we went to Goleta and I had a chance to pause on Hollister Street by the airport where the Forest Service runs P3 Orion… Continue reading
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Closing the Gap
This is my last full day in Santa Barbara this month (I fly tomorrow, and will be back for most of August), and I’m pleased to see the Gap Fire in what appears to be retreat. The warnings at InciWeb are less dire, evacuation orders have been reduced to warnings, and the latest MODIS Active… Continue reading
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Because TV’s death has a deadline
What happens after TV’s mainframe era ends next February? That’s the question I pose in a long essay by that title (and at that link) in Linux Journal. It’s makes a case that runs counter to all the propaganda you’re hearing about the “digital switchover” scheduled for television next February 17. TV as we know… Continue reading
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Gap Fire, 2:35, July 5
InciWeb just updated 8 minutes ago, with this report: Fire continued creeping to the north, east, and west with limited movement due to competing wind that kept the fire from making any significant runs. On the south flank significant containment was gained due to the diminishing down canyon winds. Fire progression continues on the northeast… Continue reading
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Gap Fire 5 July 8:15am
First, kudos again to Edhat‘s news list for not only gathering info from many sources, but for giving equal weight to both professional and amateur sources — and for hosting a great many comments on some of the postings. As an interactive local news service, “Ed” does a fine job. When surfing for the latest… Continue reading
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Gap Fire progress shots
I’ve loaded too many pictures onto this blog, so for this round I’m going to just point to shots elsewhere: in this case to a photo set of maps built with .kml files from the MODIS Active Fire Program and Google Earth. The latest one, from about 6pm this evening, has fewer active hot spots… Continue reading
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July 4 workfire
Here is a Fox News video* that tours the Gap Fire area from the air. It’s clearly submitted by an amateur using a helicopter, judging from the monolog, flavored with casual explitives. To those (like me) familiar with the landscape, the video does an excellent job of showing how “perimeter” is a mileading notion. The… Continue reading
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Jesse’s gone
Among the most amazing things to me, during my many years as a North Carolinian, was the eagerness with which a majority of voters there elected, and kept re-electing, Jesse Helms to the U.S. Senate. Hal Crowther did the best job, I thought, of summarizing Helms’ politics, even if Hal went over the top in… Continue reading
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Gap Fire, 4am on 4 July
The above is the latest from http://activefiremaps.fs.fed.us/wms.php. These are updated every hour. Download the .kmz and you’ll have what I show above on Google Earth. Details: The data links below provide access to MODIS MOD14 fire and thermal anomaly data in both a Web Mapping Service (WMS) and Keyhole Markup Language (KML) format for each… Continue reading
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Photoset: Gap Fire from Upper State Street
Click on the shot above to see the sunset I witnessed on Upper State Street in Santa Barbara last evening. I had gone to Radio Shack for supplies, and paid cash in a dark store, since the power was out. Stopped on the way back, stepped out of the car and shot this series. Tag:… Continue reading
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Gap Fire Day 4, 3am
Ray Ford has an excellent report on the fire in the Independent. A sample: Rather than forcing the fire downhill into the ranch lands where it could be dealt with by the forces that were massing along Cathedral Oaks, the flames followed lateral channels east and west along saddles formed by erosion of softer rock… Continue reading
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Gap Fire, 2-3pm Thursday
[Note.. Somehow I killed this post, but managed to find the HTML in cache somewhere and restore it. I can’t get the comments over, but I can point to them here and here. Meanwhile, my apologies. — Doc] Here’s the latest MODIS-based map of the fire, which you can obtain as well, staring on this… Continue reading
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Fire from the Mission
Click on the above to dig one of the best photosets I’ve shot in a while. I was driving to a Radio Shack to pick up a volt-ohm meter, so we could monitor the browning out of electrical service, when I saw the sun setting through the smoke from the fire, and knew instantly that… Continue reading
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Gap Fire, 2-3pm Thursday
Here’s the latest MODIS-based map of the fire, which you can obtain as well, staring on this page: Here is the latest Google Earth image, with .kmz data from ActiveFireMaps.fs.fed.us: To their credit, KTMS/990am and 1490am are covering the Gap Fire live, between national Fox newscasts. (Though they just broke into one to cover a… Continue reading
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Gap Fire growing
Inciweb’s latest on the Gap Fire (tag: sbgapfire. Hashtag: #sbgapfire) is 10 hours old, it says (as of 12:17am Thursday morning). Most of KEYT‘s 11pm newscast was devoted to the fire. Currently they’re reporting 1200 acres burned, 5% containment. The winds are not Santa Ana grade, but do come down from the NNW, flowing SSE… Continue reading
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Free as in markets
My latest in Linux Journal: Time to school the FCC on what “free” really means. One excerpt: The easy take here is to say “On the one hand, it’s free; on the other hand, it’s filtered.” But there are more than two hands here. FCC rulemaking is octopus farming, often resulting in a tangle… Continue reading
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Free range tweeter
As a Free Range Customer, I’m following Uncle Dave’s lead and starting up at Identi.ca. Follow me there as dsearls, same as my Twitter handle. We’ll see how it goes. Continue reading
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The fire this time
There are orange clouds to the West. Turns out this is the Gap Wildland Fire. (Tag: sbgapfire. Hashtag: #sbgapfire) It’s only 35 acres so far, but it’s very close to civilization. Here’s an LA Times story that shows the fire itself, near Lizard’s Mouth, a favorite local hiking site off West Camino Cielo. (Here are… Continue reading
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Sky show
Since moving to the Boston area for the school year, we have done appoximately zero astronomy. Now that we’re back in Santa Barbara, it’s fun to pick up where we left off. Last night I sat outside with The Kid, just like we did for most evenings of his first ten years on Earth and… Continue reading
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In case we forget
There are aparent connections between forms of cholesterol and memory. Continue reading