2020
Find out which weather service is most accurate in your area
ForecastAdvisor shows you the accuracy of major weather forecasting services in your area. It says that The Weather Channel and AccuWeather are most accurate for us, which matches my unscientific explorations.
There is a joke that San Diego doesn’t need weather forecasts because the weather is always the same. There is some truth to that – but only some. Generally, you can tell what the weather is going to be by looking at the calendar, and any forecasting service will give you the rest of the information you need. It doesn’t rain much, which is bad, because we’re in a drought. It gets chilly, but not cold, in the winter. Sometimes too hot in the summer, in our party of the county. Spring and fall are lovely.
But we’ve been having rain for days, and I like to schedule my walk around the rain. So suddenly I care about the accuracy of weather forecasts. The Weather Channel and AccuWeather seem to do best for hourly forecasts.
Dark Sky, which fans say can do an uncanny job of predicting rain down to the MINUTE, doesn’t work well here at all.
AT&T CEO pay rose to $32 million in 2019 while he cut 20,000 jobs
The Verge guide to Twitter (with a contribution from yrs trly)
Reporters Without Borders uses Minecraft to sneak censored works across borders.
The Zoom virtual background for videoconferences doesn’t seem to work with my Mac. I can buy a portable green screen, that attaches to the back of a chair, for $65.
Or I can just clean my office.
Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (aka MBS) is a brutal tyrant, who has also implemented reforms, including expanded women’s rights and crippling the oppressive, conservative Saudi clergy.
But even for his reforms: Permission is not the same thing as freedom. Permissions granted by a tyrant can be taken away by the tyrant.
Barbara Krasnoff: How to hide your messy room during a Zoom video conference
Another excuse for me to postpone cleaning up the mountain of empty Amazon boxes in my home office.
Um, thanks, Barbara?
Jason Snell: How to customize the display of the Apple Watch Workouts app.
Useful tips - I did it right away after reading this article.
Twitter 101: how to follow people and discover topics.
Should be headlined: “How To Tell Your @ From a Hole in the Ground.”
By me on The Verge (with a lot of work from my editor, Barbara Krasnoff - thanks!)
The FCC is giving out big bucks for rural broadband, and New York is the one state in the continental US that’s been left out.
IBM says it’s number three in cloud sales, but analysts say nope. Not even close.
Interesting definitional disagreement on what “the cloud is.” Analysts say if it’s not like Amazon, it’s not the cloud.
These face-touching memes have been canceled for public health reasons.
Funny.
Cory Doctorow: “Senate Republicans have killed emergency sick leave legislation, a move that will force millions of low-waged cleaning and food-service workers to choose between homelessness and potentially spreading Covid-19.”
Billions for tax cuts for the rich, but when it comes to helping the poor, the GOP suddenly gets fiscal responsibility religion.
This is peak disaster capitalism. If employers are required to pay sick leave, they lose money. But if people get sick and die, the healthcare and funeral industries make bank.
Cory Doctorow: A former top Cigna exec calls baloney on Biden’s claims that Medicaire-for-all is impractical.
For starters, M4A wouldn’t COST $35T; it would SAVE at least $450B/year.
The head of the TSA says he’s standing by a decision to take away healthcare coverage from part-time agents.
Because of the nature of their work, TSA agents are at high risk of spreading infectious disease, like Covid-19.
Trump’s ban on European travel exempt nations where he owns resorts.
What an extraordinary coincidence! How fortunate for him!
Cory Doctorow: A scam-buster hacks into a scam factory and surveills the heck out of them.
Cory Doctorow: Details of Italy’s “I stay in the house” law.