[HN Gopher] The Geeks way of checking what the outside wheather ...
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The Geeks way of checking what the outside wheather is like
Author : zdw
Score : 54 points
Date : 2022-09-24 22:21 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.netbsd.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.netbsd.org)
| noncoml wrote:
| Non native speaker, off topic grammar question: Why do we
| capitalize "Geeks"?
| bombcar wrote:
| Usually it's a method of referring to a "group" as opposed to
| referring to a characteristic.
| mikestew wrote:
| For the same reason that "weather" is misspelled and "Geeks"
| isn't possessive (should be "Geek's"): author is probably also
| a non-native speaker, or written language just isn't their
| specialty.
|
| That said, this native American English speaker says that
| "Geeks" can be capitalized, but the rest of the title needs to
| be "title cased" as well: "The Geek's Way of Checking What the
| Weather..." Or it can all just be lower-cased ("The geek's way
| of..."). But mixed case as TFA has it is arguably wrong.
|
| Finally, to answer your question succinctly: there normally
| isn't a reason to capitalize "geeks" unless it's in the title
| of an article or book (as it is above).
| dredmorbius wrote:
| FWIW, Martin Huesmann appears to be German
| (<https://www.unixmen.com/meet-martin-husemann-and-netbsd-
| inte...>). That would suggest both that he's a non-native
| English speaker _and_ uses a language in which all nouns, not
| just proper ones, are typically capitalised.
|
| That said, yes, some sloppy editing as well. Not that I'd
| ever do schu a thing....
| munk-a wrote:
| It's good you caught all of you're typos.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Thats fore shore!!!
| Lendal wrote:
| I just assumed it was an unintentional typographical error, or
| a quirk for comedic effect.
| benou wrote:
| I'm using a similar setup but with a Davis Vantage Vue weather
| station [1], a Meteostick USB receiver [2] and WeeWX weather
| software [3]! It is pretty cool to be able to compare your
| feelings vs the hard facts (eg. I found it very hard to evaluate
| wind speed).
|
| [1] https://www.davisinstruments.com/pages/vantage-vue [2]
| https://www.smartbedded.com/wiki/index.php/Meteostick [3]
| https://weewx.com/
| [deleted]
| joezydeco wrote:
| My taxes pay for a weather station at the nearby airport with
| automated ATIS/METAR, and the USGS has a rain gauge a few blocks
| away. Two HTTP calls and I have everything I need.
| ajoseps wrote:
| what do you hit to get the info?
| barbazoo wrote:
| If you're in the US, go to https://aviationweather.gov/metar
| and pick your nearest station. For instance LA https://aviati
| onweather.gov/metar/data?ids=KLAX&format=decod.... That gives
| you the current conditions.
|
| If you want to parse it, get the raw METAR string and parse
| individual components such as temperature. Not a fun thing to
| do though.
| joezydeco wrote:
| There are plenty of premade libraries, especially in
| Python, that are ready to use and adapt.
|
| https://github.com/python-metar/python-metar
| joezydeco wrote:
| In the US, the US Geological Survey has plenty of APIs.
| Here's a starter page with information:
|
| https://help.waterdata.usgs.gov/faq/automated-retrievals
| causality0 wrote:
| I've got a window and a little ten dollar wireless outdoor
| thermometer. Seems to do the job.
| WalterBright wrote:
| I've got a window through which one can see the outside
| thermometer.
| rascul wrote:
| A weather rock is nice to have.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_rock
| wrycoder wrote:
| In Wyoming, they use an anvil.
| monksy wrote:
| I'm surprised that they didn't use grafana for those graphs.
| beezlewax wrote:
| This is fun. Although you could have just... you know gone
| outside to check.
| datameta wrote:
| What about all the other fascinating projects that could be
| obviated into nonexistence with "could have just"?
| anfractuosity wrote:
| I was thinking of making a disdrometer to decide when to bring
| the washing in, as it should let me detect between very light /
| heavy rain.
| munk-a wrote:
| The title should be "weather" not "wheather" - though the
| original site has this same typo.
| mckirk wrote:
| It's a great title for catching your eye though! And for making
| you wonder if you're having a stroke.
| jihadjihad wrote:
| OT: one of the stranger interview questions I've been asked was
| something along the lines of, "How would you tell what the
| weather is without going outside?" Still to this day (10+ years
| later) I have no idea what the interviewers wanted for an answer,
| or if any answers I gave were any good. I didn't get the job, so
| I guess it was me. But I still think about that question at
| random times when looking out the window!
| michaelmcdonald wrote:
| I'm curious: what answers _did_ you give?
| [deleted]
| throwaway2203 wrote:
| ouid wrote:
| "What the weather is" is far too general. To what radius? To
| what granularity? What questions do we care about? Temperature?
| Humidity? Wind speed? Wind direction? Cloud cover? Air quality?
| Pressure? Is it raining, snowing, sleeting, hailing? What are
| the features of the precipitation, if it exists? How long has
| it been raining? Are the rivers in danger of overflowing their
| banks? Is it flooding? If it is snowing, is the snow sticking?
| Are the conditions right for black ice?
|
| This is why, when I want to know what the weather is, I use the
| vast array of sensors that the US government has paid for, and
| the expertise of meteorologists. Just google it.
| themanmaran wrote:
| Do you have a window? Breath on the glass and examine the
| condensation. That'll get you a +/- on 98.6. You can measure
| how long until the condensation fades.
|
| No window? Listen for rain, wind, crickets, birds. If you're in
| a city, what sound do car tires make when they drive by? Sound
| like wet streets, or snow slush?
|
| Maybe you could get some info on how much condensation forms on
| a glass of cold water. But that might just be measuring the
| inside temp.
| stevekemp wrote:
| Phone a friend and ask them to go outside!
| WalterBright wrote:
| Haha, we found the practical fellow!
|
| Reminds me of the MIT question of how to find the height of
| a building with a barometer. The best answer was find the
| building superintendent and offer to trade the expensive
| barometer for the height of the building.
| Someone wrote:
| Pro tip: many windows can be opened.
| adrianmonk wrote:
| Or observe how often the AC (or heat) comes on and how long
| it runs each time. There's a strong correlation between that
| and outdoor temperature.
|
| You might even be able to come up with a numerical
| guesstimate. Theoretically, a properly designed AC system is
| sized to run 100% of the time during the hottest weather. And
| obviously 0% if it's cool enough outside.
|
| Or just look around the office and note how people are
| dressed, whether there are coats on people's chairs, how
| heavy those coats are, and whether you see any umbrellas
| lying around.
| aireo wrote:
| I wonder if your last sentence was the answer. Or, at least,
| one reasonable answer.
| sleton38234234 wrote:
| With a question like that, it could've just as easily been them
| too. I've seen many more hiring failures on the hiring side of
| the table, than the other side.
| em-bee wrote:
| _" Got a window? Open it!"_
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| Listen to the radio. https://www.weather.gov/nwr/
| dang wrote:
| Sorry for the offtopicness but could you please email
| hn@ycombinator.com? I want to send you a repost invite.
| INTPenis wrote:
| This question is odd to me because 10 years ago we already had
| apps here in Sweden showing the weather, and current radar
| image of cloud density so I always found these a lot more
| informative than looking outside.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| Surely the answer is "look out the window" and the intent of
| the question is to see whether you follow the KISS principle.
| the_only_law wrote:
| Today, I'd just look at my phone if I wanted to know the
| weather. Probably would have been pretty similar in 2012. And
| nothing stated in the question excludes me from having
| electronics and internet in their hypothetical.
| wrycoder wrote:
| Quick glance at my iWatch MyRadar complication. 68, partly
| cloudy.
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