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Rural High Speed Access

I can relate to this article. My mom lives in a very rural area, and I work in one. Fortunately, I live in a small town with a couple of choices for high-speed access. I would find it very difficult to give up my DSL. My mom lives about as far in the woods as one can go, and she has DSL! It's through a company called CenturyTel, and they specialize in rural high speed access. However, I have some friends that live a little further out, and it hasn't got to them yet. Hopefully, it will soon.

Excert from the article

Verizon is not alone in its desire to reduce the number of landlines it owns. Big phone and cable companies are reluctant to upgrade and expand their networks in sparsely populated places where there are not enough customers to justify the investment. Instead, they are funneling billions of dollars into projects in cities and suburbs where the prospects for a decent return are higher.

Update: It's A Girl!

The itty bitty baby panda at Zoo Atlanta is a girl!!!

Mother and baby are doing fine. She will be named in a ceremony when she turns 100 days old.

Link to Yahoo article

Awwww

These two pandas at the Atlanta Zoo are the proud parents of a baby panda. The little cub was born Wednesday, September 6. The baby panda is very, very small and is only the size of "a stick of butter." You can watch the mother panda, Lun Lun, and her new baby on the Panda Cam.

Image from Yahoo/AFP/File/Steve Schaefer

Florence Update

Looks like Florence will probably not be a threat to the US, although it could hit Bermuda. It's becoming disorganized so the Weather Channel doesn't look for much to come of it as of now.

Let's hope so.

Update: Florence has some more thunderstorms so it's still possible for it to evolve into a hurricane, but still it's not a threat to land.

Florence

This picture is of Florence from this morning. She's churning away in the Atlantic and gaining strength. So far, she appears that she is going to miss the mainland US. Hope so.

Image from The Weather Channel

A New Name

Now Tropical Depression 6 is officially Tropical Storm Florence. Let's watch the progression of the projected path over the next few days.

Image from The Weather Channel

Tropical Depression 6 UPDATE

It still doesn't amount to much yet, but Tropical Depression 6, with winds of 35 mph, could become Tropical Storm Florence later today. Let's see what happens.

It's still a long way from anywhere, and let's hope it stays that way.

Image from The Weather Channel

Labor Day

Happy Labor Day!

How did Labor Day begin? According to the US Department of Labor, there is still some doubt as to who proposed the holiday.

Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country.

Link to Article

What A Find!

Some manuscripts have been found and are dated to be the earliest ones of composer Johann Sebastian Bach. Dated to be written in 1700, when Bach was only 15, demonstrate his musical ability and genius at an early age. They contain arrangments of other composers' works and are arranged for the organ. They are very musically demanding.


Image by Tobias Schwarz/Reuters

Read the rest of the article here.

Here We Go Again

I don't want to run this in the ground, but let's follow this one and see what it does over the next several days. This can be kind of interesting, although I hope it doesn't amount to too much.

Image from The Weather Channel

You can follow the storm's path on The Weather Channel home page.

Crash on the Moon

The European Space Agency successfully launched a spacecraft to the moon and over a three year mission tested such technologies as a low-thrust ion engine. Cool. Star Trek rules again. It orbited the moon for months taking readings and high resolution pictures of the moon's surface. It was luanched in September 2003, and scientists deliberately crashed it today.

Photo credits AP/ESA/Yahoo

Link to full Article on Yahoo

The Wiki Bandwagon

I've decided to step onto the Wiki bandwagon. I have a teacher friend who has a classroom full of wireless laptops she received last year with a Title IID grant. She also got a set of CPS units this year, and her students are going wild with them! A CPS unit is a set of little remote control "clickers" that students can use to answer questions. The software package can keep up with the correct/incorrect answers a student gives. I want to introduce this teacher to the world of a Wiki, possibly beginning by just giving them a place to host essay paragraphs, definitions, maybe some pictures, etc. I've done a little reading about it today, and I think I'm going to give it a try. I think I'll start by doing the Lifehacker "introduction" to wikis. I've got one set up on my home computers now that is not on the Web. I think this can be a good way to get started. To read the Lifehacker page on personal computer wikis, click here. It took me a few minutes to figure out the "server" side software as the command line commands didn't exactly work as notated on the site. However, once I got going things were pretty simple!

Heading North

Ernesto is headed north after making landfall in North Carolina last night. It's still got some gusty winds and is delivering rainfall on the order of 3-6 inches. It will be bringing winds to the Virginia area and interacting with some weather in southern Canada and heading into New England.

Bye-bye, Ernesto.

Image from The Weather Channel