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Stormchaser Andy Gabrielson 1987 – 2012
By Matt DanielFEB 06, 2012 Andy Gabrielson, founder of FindTheTornado.com, passed away Saturday, February 4, 2012 in a car accident near Tulsa, Oklahoma. He was hit in a head-on collision due to a wrong-way driver near the town of Sapulpa. The accident directly killed Andy and one other person. Four total cars were involved in the accident, which was caused by a drunken driver behind the wheel. Andy Gabrielson was known for his amazing footage documenting severe thunderstorms and tornadoes. His dedication and passion for storms was evident as he continuously provided the National Weather Service valuable information that helped save many lives. The entire meteorology community is saddened to hear about the passing of Andy Gabrielson. Although I have never met Andy personally, I really admire his work
A Vision Of The Future
Just a A Vision Of The Future… I believe the future belongs to those who develop Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors and Electric Vehicles. Yes, you can quote me on that. As I write this, there is a movement out there to bring to light a technology developed many years ago. Known as LFTR (pronounced “lifter”), the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor is a form of Molten Salt Reactor that uses the radioactive element Thorium as its primary fuel. As I’ve discussed in a previous article it’s a much safer, cleaner and cheaper form of nuclear power that really should have been the direction the world headed in when developing nuclear power as the way to generate electricity. I won’t go into all of the details because there is a
Announcing First Nationwide EAS Test
Posted by: Damon Penn, Assistant Administrator, National Continuity Programs As we often say here at FEMA, it’s critical that all members of the team, whether its federal, state, local and tribal governments, or the public, have an emergency communications plan. Knowing how you would get in touch with the residents in your communities, or your loved ones, is a key part of how we all can prepare for disasters, both natural and man-made. One of the most important communications tools that helps federal, state, local, territorial and tribal authorities issue emergency information and warnings to the public is the Emergency Alert System. This system is frequently used and tested at the local level, but to date it has never been tested on the national level. Chances are you have
Pot-In-Pot Evaporative Refrigerator
The Pot-In-Pot Evaporative Refrigerator or “Zeer Pot” is an astoundingly simple but effective device. The refrigerator consists of two ceramic pots of different sizes, sand, water and a towel or cloth. It cools the inner chamber and its contents using evaporative cooling, much like a swamp cooler. Constructing the pot-in-pot refrigerator is an easy process. Obtain two ceramic flower pots, one large and one the next size down, so they nest one inside the other with a gap between them. If there are holes in the pots, cover them with duct tape or fill the holes in with putty so that no sand or water escapes out the bottom of the large pot, or enters the smaller pot. Pour a layer of sand in the larger pot. Set
Cooking By Accident
This is Cooking By Accident. So I decided to cook a roast in the crock pot. During my trip to the store this week I picked up a pot roast, some onion soup mix, a can of cream of mushroom soup and some egg noodles. It sounded like a good combination in my head. I sliced up the roast into smaller chunks and threw them in the crock pot. Added one of the two packets of onion soup mix and filled the crock pot with water til it covered the meat. Cranked it up to high and let it cook for about 5 hours or so. When the meat was tender, I tossed in a bag of egg noodles and added some water to cover the noodles. When
Welcome To The All New Mindless Dreck!
Announcing the new and improved Mindless Dreck! After realizing the title of this blog should be more prominent, I’ve decided to go ahead and secure the domain and move the site. DrRighteous.net is now mindlessdreck.com! I’ll be keeping the old domain, but it now redirects to this one. This is one of many recent improvements I’ve made to this site. Having recently discovered a lot of the (relatively) new WordPress features and excellent plugins. You could say this place has had a complete makeover. If you’d like me to do some of this work for you, or set up a complete site, feel free to contact me.
Free Cell Phone Service Redux
It’s been a while since I’ve posted on my adventures in Free Cell Phone Service. Some things have changed recently, so I thought I should post an update. For some time I have been relying on a combination of Google Voice and Spare Phone over a WIFI connection to make and receive phone calls. Unfortunately, the author of Spare Phone has updated the app, rendering it completely useless if you install the update. Until now, I’ve been using an older version, not allowing it to update, which has been working. Google has recently integrated Google Voice into Google Hangouts. I thought I’d give it a shot and I was pleasantly surprised. Call quality using Hangouts is far superior to that of Spare Phone. No more echo, no more
Thorium, LFTR And The New Economic Arms Race
As I’ve written before, I believe Thorium (specifically the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor) is the future of energy production. A cheap, clean, abundant and safe form of nuclear power discovered decades ago, but largely ignored for economic and military reasons. It’s a disruptive technology that would displace petroleum as energy king, and it’s impossible to make nuclear weapons from. I just read a news article today that scares the ever-loving shit out of me. Chinese going for broke on thorium nuclear power, and good luck to them The nuclear race is on. China is upping the ante dramatically on thorium nuclear energy. Scientists in Shanghai have been told to accelerate plans (sorry for the pun) to build the first fully-functioning thorium reactor within ten years, instead of 25
A Nuclear Power Wake Up Call In California
A recent post from The Breakthrough Institute, posted on Facebook by Energy From Thorium, has me so pissed I can’t help but laugh my ass off. After shuttering the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station this past June, the state of California delivered an extra 18 million tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, in addition to the loss of 1,500 jobs and $50 million in revenue. A recent NPR report on California’s rising emissions mistakenly argued that the closure of the aging SONGS was still the right decision. The issue with the reactor’s steam generators was only present when they were run at a higher output – meaning that we could reduce the output to around 70% and still deliver over 13 billion kWhrs of low-carbon electricity each
Living With Free Cell Phone Service On Android – Upgrade
Here’s a little update on my life with free cell phone service using an Android phone. I finally got tired of the poor performance using my old LG Optimus S and decided it was time for an upgrade. I searched on Craigslist and found a guy selling a Samsung Galaxy S2 (Sprint Epic 4G Touch) for $150. I looked up the specs online and decided this was the cell phone for me. So, I bought it. Within 5 minutes of buying the phone, and while sitting in my truck outside of a local IHOP, I had my free cell phone service set back up. For those that have missed my previous posts, free cell phone service is as easy as setting up a purchasing Spare Phone from the
Founding Fathers Gave Individuals The Right To Bear Arms
By Charley Reese of The Orlando Sentinel June 22, 1989 We saw in Beijing what James Madison and other American revolutionaries hoped to prevent ever happening in the United States – unarmed civilians being shot down by their own country’s standing army. There is a concerted move today to weaken or in effect do away with the Second Amendment, which guarantees the right of individual Americans to keep and bear arms. We should oppose it strenuously. Shyster lawyers and propagandists will tell you that the Second Amendment was intended only to provide arms for the National Guard and Army Reserve. That’s stuff and nonsense. Neither of those existed at the time and both, unlike the militia, are today federal organizations. Besides, the historical record is crystal clear that
Free Cell Phone Service On Android – Update
It’s been 6 months since I made the switch to free WIFI cell phone service using my Android phone. As I’ve mentioned in my previous article, I use a combination of Google Voice and Spare Phone to grant me free cell phone service. I thought since my previous article got so much attention, I would update everyone on what it’s like living with free cell phone service. For one thing, I do not in any way miss spending nearly $100 a month to Sprint for the privilege of using their network. I was never much of a fan of talking or texting while driving anyway. As long as I’m near a WIFI connection, I can use my free cell phone service as much as I like without paying a dime