Older newbie - coder and former amateur meteorologist
Posted: Fri 21 Dec 2012 9:19 pm
And with "former" I mean that, fourty years ago, I was a teenager with a little, self made "observatory station" on his balcony. A self-made little wood weatherhouse with a self-made barometer (which wasn't very accurate, but which did show me what I wanted to see: changes), a self made hair hygrometer (which didn't work all that well, really), a thermometer. And a little tin can with a funnel and markings to measure precipitation.
And yes, lots of note paper. And a stack of books on the subject.
If nothing else, it kept me busy for countless hours. And it made me score an A+ on my special subject oral gymnasium exam for geography: Weather systems in Western Europe.
Most of that knowledge is now in a murky corner of my subconscious. But my wife gave me an Alecto WS-5000, which is a rebranded Fine Offset WH3081, for my 55th birthday. Since said birthday is next Monday, I haven't unwrapped it yet.
I hope to:
- dust off whatever knowledge I still have, and re-acquire the rest.
- find an opportunity to fuel my addiction (writing code). I'm the sort of guy who is always looking to find a problem to my solution
(I already have a few ideas).
Other interests include photography (I am partial to skyscapes) and music. I earn my daily bread by architecting and coding. I am currently designing and writing a new (as in "from the ground up") API for our software, which is a Windows-based solution for credit management. I am an old-style coder... I don't want to, and am unable to, do user interfaces or HTML or PHP (God forbid!) or apps for your latest tablet -- I provide the business logic (and everything behind it) that is used by UI's. My code lives on the server, or (as of late) in the cloud, and outside the realms of Apache or IIS.
My work should be predictable (or "proven correct" as Edsger Dijkstra put it).
The weather will never succumb to such follies. The weather operates in a frame of logic that is way beyond our current capacity of fully understanding.
I guess that's what I like about it.
I'll be looking forward to gaining general meteorological knowlegde, and I'll be grateful for pointers.
I'll also be looking forward to learning how to make Fine Offset stuff work (and keep working) in the field.
cheers,
peter
And yes, lots of note paper. And a stack of books on the subject.
If nothing else, it kept me busy for countless hours. And it made me score an A+ on my special subject oral gymnasium exam for geography: Weather systems in Western Europe.
Most of that knowledge is now in a murky corner of my subconscious. But my wife gave me an Alecto WS-5000, which is a rebranded Fine Offset WH3081, for my 55th birthday. Since said birthday is next Monday, I haven't unwrapped it yet.
I hope to:
- dust off whatever knowledge I still have, and re-acquire the rest.
- find an opportunity to fuel my addiction (writing code). I'm the sort of guy who is always looking to find a problem to my solution
(I already have a few ideas). Other interests include photography (I am partial to skyscapes) and music. I earn my daily bread by architecting and coding. I am currently designing and writing a new (as in "from the ground up") API for our software, which is a Windows-based solution for credit management. I am an old-style coder... I don't want to, and am unable to, do user interfaces or HTML or PHP (God forbid!) or apps for your latest tablet -- I provide the business logic (and everything behind it) that is used by UI's. My code lives on the server, or (as of late) in the cloud, and outside the realms of Apache or IIS.
My work should be predictable (or "proven correct" as Edsger Dijkstra put it).
The weather will never succumb to such follies. The weather operates in a frame of logic that is way beyond our current capacity of fully understanding.
I guess that's what I like about it.
I'll be looking forward to gaining general meteorological knowlegde, and I'll be grateful for pointers.
I'll also be looking forward to learning how to make Fine Offset stuff work (and keep working) in the field.
cheers,
peter