7/31/20
Well, Dougie missed – just barely for some islands. The hurricane passed north of our island far enough that we got nada, zip, zilch. As it went further east it edged closer to each island, and for a while it looked like it might hit Kaua’i dead on. However, even that island got spared because the eyewall stayed about 30 miles offshore. They got buckets of rain, but that’s not at all unusual for them, even without a hurricane. Ok, that’s all the good news. The sobering part is that Dougie held together as it went by all the islands, staying a Category 1 hurricane even as it passed over northern waters. These waters have been warming over the last several years (leading to some coral bleaching, unfortunately), and so the storm’s energy wasn’t sapped as much as it might have been in earlier years. If this continues it doesn't bode well for future storms that come our way. Stay tuned.
My 8-year old desktop computer started giving me problems this week, and this prompted a deep dive down the internet rabbit hole to research new ones. A problem living in Hawai’i is that warranty service and returns may be 2000 miles away. We also have very few options of in-store buying. Many of us have found that Costco is our best bet, because they automatically extend the warranty and you can easily return something to the local store if it breaks, doesn’t work, or you just don’t like it – even if you bought it at Costco.com and had it shipped here. I have settled on a big bad boy (HP All-In-One) from Costco that has *almost* all the features I want. The exception is that the SSD drive isn’t as large as I think it should be. My solution is to buy a larger drive online and then swap out the old one. I’ve done this twice before, once on a laptop and once on the desktop, so I think I can do it with this one (with the help of You Tube, of course). I’ll let you know.
Our rainy and cloudy weather continues, and we locals are getting very tired of it. Evidence that this is unusual comes from my water bill (lowest in 2 years) and from my pv system – in the red for 5 of the last 6 months, which has never happened since it was activated 6 years ago. This summer has been the coolest and wettest we can remember. Good thing we haven’t had a lot of tourists because they would be very unhappy.
Oahu is getting record numbers of new Covid cases, but the other islands (us included) have stayed level. We want to keep it that way, and we were glad when the Governor extended the traveler quarantine order until September. Big debate now is over reopening schools. I think this could be done safely on our island but Oahu has to get it under control. The Oahu outbreak is attributed to greater population density and to bad behavior during the July 4th weekend.
Ok, that’s it for this week. Off to Farmers’ Market, breakfast picnic, and Planet Fitness. Take care, Stay cool, safe, and sane.
5 comments:
Well an old desktop from your lab is sill in service in a classroom at Miami University!
Wow! When it dies I hope it's given a proper send off. Like maybe drop it from the top floor -- I always liked making a splash.
Thanks
Not getting enough photons on the PV, eh? That's interesting. As for tourists, I was wondering if many were coming and imagining they were not.
We have an application into the state for Tesla Power Wall units as backup to the PV. Our state has a program for people like us on edge sanity/fire hazard areas that depend on well water to get battery back up systems. I hope we qualify as the power has been going off often this past 2 years due to maintenance but they keep threatening to turn off for fire danger too and have in some areas, just not ours.
My desk top died a couple months ago, I think it was 12 years old. I would rather it kept going as the change has not worked all that well. I did get a big screen, 32" and much faster processor, but didn't realize the Apple consultant on line wasn't giving me the full picture of the option I asked about and I wound up with a little older tech that what was available. Like you I found the HD too small, but have one 2TB external and about to add another.
Hope yours works out for you.
When we installed our PV battery backup wasn't as good an option as now, with much better and smaller batteries. If I was installing now I would definitely include a system of offline storage.
I imagine with all the photos you take and their high resolution that you'd need a LOT of storage. External seems to me your best bet. Even a 1 tb solid state drive with usb connection would be reasonable, probably less than $150. My 1 tb internal ssd will only be about 140. The new unit also will have an internal 1 tb HDD. For me that should be plenty.
Interesting about how the warmer water probably sustained Douglas long enough to pass by all the islands. Not good news...
Best wishes in your tech search!
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