20 Apr
2001
20 Apr
'01
8:16 a.m.
Quoting "McFadden, Mike" <mmcfadden(a)cmh.edu>du>:
Our power was off for 4 hours in a recent thunderstorm
and the
first thing I tried to do when it went off was try to login to look
at the National Weather service Doppler image of the storm. My UPS
keeps the cable modem and router up but the PC was dead. I was
holding a flashlight in my mouth when I tried. It's actually
pretty neat to see the image and recognize that the storm cell is
probably over my house.
Ah, the National Weather Service. They and the National Severe
Storms Laboratory are down the road from my home in Norman, Oklahoma.
They're at the Max Westheimer airpark, which has quite a few large
doppler radar spheres lying around. I took a tour at NSSL once, and
was simply amazed at the quantity of computers I saw. Raised floors,
big iron -- they had it all. This was almost 10 years ago, so I don't
remember exactly what I saw. I think I'll go again sometime soon.
I called recently to find out what happened to their surplus stuff,
but it was a disappointment. They are required to take it all to
Tinker AFB for storage/scrapping/whatever, and there was no way for me
to make any kind of offer.
--
Jeffrey S. Sharp
jss(a)ou.edu