We can thank Jobs for beta testing the capacity of the Internet

by mattbuchanan

Apple’s iPad Event Broke the Internets – Yahoo! News
[Via PCWorld]

We knew today’s Apple tablet announcement was a big deal. We didn’t know, however, that it was big enough to bring the Internet to a near-standstill.

While Steve Jobs was discussing the highly anticipated iPad, IT workers across the country were discussing how to get their servers back up and running. And this time, it wasn’t just Twitter taking the nosedive.

[More]

I saw this firsthand. So many sites just went down hard during the event. Engadget and Gizmodo held up the best but even those required some futzing (usually forcing a reload of the page). Luckily both recovered and, at least for me, neither was down at the same time.

Poor Cover It Live, which is usually quite a fun way to see a live blog, was hammered for every site that tried to use it. BUt, it will be because of events like today that these groups get a better handle on actually providing such peak coverage of breaking events. Perhaps for something with real importance and not just an Apple announcement.

Google and NOAA sitting in a tree

Picture This: NOAA, Google Join Forces to Visualize Scientific Data:
[Via NOAA News Releases]

NOAA’s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research and Google have signed a cooperative research and development agreement outlining how they will work together to create state-of-the-art visualizations of scientific data to illustrate how our planet works.

[More]

This could be really useful and fun, much like what Google Earth has accomplished. Google has all sorts of resources and expertise with presentation of data. It can do some things that NOAA can just not afford to do.

This is a collaboration to keep an eye on.

Technorati Tags: Science, Technology

Weird West coast weather

The January Record:
[Via Cliff Mass Weather Blog]

Will this month be the warmest January on record at Seattle Tacoma Airport? It is going to be a nail-biter but it appears we will make it.

A recap. The warmest January month until now was January 2006, when the average monthly temperature was 46.55 F. Where are we right now? Averaging all the days this month, including today, gives 47.1. Still above.

We have five days left.

Using the current NWS forecasts, the mean temperature of those days will be 45.9F.
Properly averaging this with the rest of the month gives a monthly-mean temperature of 46.9F. We make it with .35F to spare! Ok, I would like more of a margin, but it looks like the record will fall.

[More]

More about just how warm it has been in Seattle. Now, since this is just local, and just hits year, it is weather not climate. But it sure is weird. particularly when you see something else he posts:

But what will really go down in the record books is the broad area of very, very low pressure over the western U.S. this month. Here is an amazing figure provided to me by Nate Mantua of the UW Climate Impact Group. It shows the pressure anomaly, the difference between the actual and climatological pressures, for January 15 through 23. An extraordinary anomaly reaching 21 mb (this is a large number for such things) over a huge area. I have never seen anything like it and probably won’t see again for decades. There is reason that half the western U.S. set their ALL TIME low pressure records…records than have stood for 50-100+ years at these locations.

That huge low has just been producing all sorts of weird weather and it is an incredible low, much deeper than ever seen before. Now, I wish I was better informed at this but I would have thought a low like this would have drawn in all sorts of cloudy, rainy weather. The Southwest got hit with just those sorts of weather conditions but not the Pacific NW. We have actually had mostly dry, warm, even sunny days this month. Why?

Technorati Tags: Environment, Science