Category Archives: Santa Barbara

FM Stations Down on Gibraltar Peak

[Update: 11:20 AM Wednesday 18 January] Well, I woke this morning to hear all the signals from Gibraltar Peak back on the air. I don’t know if the site is on generator power, or if electric power has been restored. … Continue reading

Posted in Broadcasting, california, data, infrastructure, Journalism, Santa Barbara | 1 Comment

Heavy Weather

Most of California has just two seasons: rain and fire. Rain is another name for Winter, and it peaks in January. In most years, January in California isn’t any more wet than, say, New York, Miami or Chicago. But every few years … Continue reading

Posted in data, Nature, Santa Barbara, weather | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

About a pretty pole

The tallest structure in Santa Barbara’s skyline is a (roughly) 200-foot pole painted red and white. It stands in a city equipment yard, not far from the ocean and the city’s famous Wharf. You can see it in the photo … Continue reading

Posted in audio, Broadcasting, Business, california, radio, Santa Barbara | Leave a comment

Toward no longer running naked through the digital world

We live in two worlds now: the natural one where we have bodies that obey the laws of gravity and space/time, and the virtual one where there is no gravity or distance (though there is time). In other words, we … Continue reading

Posted in adtech, advertising, Business, infrastructure, Internet, Personal, Santa Barbara, VRM | 2 Comments

Geology answers for Montecito and Santa Barbara

Just before it started, the geology meeting at the Santa Barbara Central Library on Thursday looked like this from the front of the room (where I also tweeted the same pano): Our speakers were geology professor Ed Keller of UCSB and … Continue reading

Posted in Future, Geography, Geology, history, infrastructure, Nature, Photography, Places, Research, Santa Barbara, Science, ThomasFire, weather, wildfire | 17 Comments

Doing the after math

When I flew out of California on the 14th, this blog was still working. When I went here to post about the Thomas Fire on 15th, it wasn’t. (Somebody later told me Harvard was moving servers around, so maybe that … Continue reading

Posted in fire, Santa Barbara | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

#ThomasFire live

[Update: 7:22am Monday December 11] Two views of ThomasFire developments. First, MODIS fire detections, plotted on Google Earth Pro, current at 7am Pacific time: Second, a screenshot of the NCWG (National Wildfire Coordinating Group) map of the area, 7:18am Pacific … Continue reading

Posted in Geography, infrastructure, problems, Santa Barbara, Travel | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Bad and dead air

That was yesterday. Hard to tell from just looking at it, but that’s a 180° shot, panning from east to west across California’s South Coast, most of which is masked by smoke from the Thomas Fire. We weren’t in the … Continue reading

Posted in Broadcasting, california, Geography, Health, infrastructure, radio, Santa Barbara, Technology, weather | Tagged | 7 Comments

Jack Ucciferri for 4th District

Santa Barbara is one of the world’s great sea coast towns. It’s also in a good position to be one of the world’s great Internet coast towns too. Luckily, Santa Barbara is advantaged by its location not just on the … Continue reading

Posted in infrastructure, Internet, Santa Barbara | Leave a comment

Ya(cht) gotta love the Web

A giant yacht was anchored just outside the harbor in Santa Barbara for much of this past week: Among its impressive features (though not especially visible in this, my shitty photo) is the helicopter on one of the aft decks. … Continue reading

Posted in Geography, Santa Barbara | 2 Comments