News to me: Lightning wrecks weather radar

Has this been in the news? I missed a few days, so was surprised to find this when I browsed to find Miami weather radar.

National Weather Service Text Product Display:

"Message Date: Sep 12 2009 00:01:37
UPDATED TO AMX RADAR DOWNTIME. THE EL TECHS SAID THAT MORE PARTS ARE NEEDED DUE TO THE LIGHTNING STRIKE ON WEDNESDAY NIGHT. THE PARTS SHOULD BE HERE OVER THE WEEKEND...AND THE RADAR SHOULD BE UP SOMETIME ON MONDAY (09/14/09) AT THE EARLIEST . WILL KEEP YOU ALL UPDATED ON THE STATUS OF THE RADAR DOWNTIME."

Technology Thursday. Stuff to blow minds

This blog doesn’t often devote itself to technology. I’m interested but way behind the times and figure anything I say would be old hat. Nonetheless …

Last night, thanks to a chance meeting the day before with Alex de Carvalho organized by tireless Obama campaigner Brad Schenck http://twitter.com/bradaschenck to toast the conversion of Arlen Specter, I went to a meeting of Refresh Miami and was plunged into a hundred people who are at a much higher level of Internet understanding than I am and for at least a while here I’m Tweeting and Facebooking at speed and ricocheting around cyberspace where new things reside and are announced.

Look at this: Something better than Google, and coming soon. It’s called Wolfram Alpha.

Now, I remember having had a change to invest in Google at the beginning and passing it up. Will the same thing happen with Wolfram Alpha? Yes, I had more money then.

A few clicks further, and I’ve been captured by yet another microblogging service that promises to hit close to home. Take a look at flaprogressives.com. Here’s a rundown by the creator of it all ( think), Dave Harper.

This could speed up our campaigning in ’10, which brings me back to earth.

UPDATE: Thanks to Alex and Twitter for letting me know about this link to a slide show of pix from the Refresh Miami event Wednesday night. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wQ8lafzqc8

Your blogger can be seen in several pix wearing a long-sleeved white T-shirt, with Flip camera in hand.

Tricks for your cell phone

This was a revelation. The cell phone can cost so much, and the service plan also is expensive. But there are free ways to get 411. You don't have to pay a buck or two to get the number of that pizza parlor.

The helpful NY Times article tips you to a bunch of free info services. Enjoy.