geofffox's comments

Not like now. Sophisticated programs to do complex analysis.

I am a meteorologist and I know a little about how programming works. I'm going to be 75 this month. My last computer class was the '67-'68 semester of high school.

That being said, AI and I have written some amazing programs to produce beautiful graphics I use on-the-air. And it's all in Python, a language I can read and not write.

If I can do this you should be scared.

The original Taking of Pelham123. I grew up in NYC. I rode the subway to high school (Brooklyn Tech) every day. The movie is technically accurate and pretty close to the technically accurate book.

BTW - a friend 'in the system' explains the twisting action necessary in today's subway cars would make "The Gimmick" worthless.

I use Firefox... still.

I'm a meteorologist. Feel like sharing?

I am a meteorologist and I forecast for Nebraska. Those theories might be wrong, but agriculture has surely changed the weather, especially the summertime dew point. A single acre of corn can sweat 4,000 gallons of water a day. Those circular fields you fly over are around 130 acres each. It is noticably more humid in the summer than before pivot irrigation was used.

Worth it. No regrets. I am alive!

The article talks about only 9% surviving five years. That's probably me. I'm three years out from Whipple Surgery (the only fix in 2019) with no sign of a cancer return. My blood is tested and I get CTscans often enough to know everyone by name.

Because I'm a pancreatic unicorn people come to me all the time (a German camgirl recently approached me on her professional account when her uncle was afflicted).

It's very sad and I often feel survivors guilt because I know how it will end for them. Pancreatic cancer is not a pleasant way to die.

Once it has spread it is fatal 100%. When Alex Trebek said Stage 4, I knew his fate was sealed in spite of his positive vibe. Undoubtedly Alex knows too.

How did I get lucky? I got sick one night -- vomit and poop simultaneously. It had nothing to do with my cancer, but it got me the tests that found it. Once it was found I was on the medical conveyor belt.

I am 69 and I've never experience medical care close to this. The care was proactive. They made the referrals and appointments. I just had to show up.

To have my cancer removed (there is no cure) took around a half dozen small procedures where I was put out and an angioplasty where my cardiologist yelled, "Geoffrey, I'm trying to work" when I asked too many questions about the technology. This was followed by a six hour, two surgeon Whipple Surgery (consider small by Whipple standards), a week in the hospital, sixteen staples holding my belly together (and diabetes now that I only half half a pancreas), chemo, radiation and more chemo.

I currently receive NO TREATMENT for cancer. No one you know is luckier. I am playing on house money.

I am a pancreatic cancer survivor. It is considered incurable in 2019 and I'm here because of a 1930s era surgery called a Whipple procedure. Around 9% survive five years or more -- a number that hasn't really changed.

In a belt plus suspenders move I underwent 2 rounds (six infusions per round) of chemo plus 28 consecutive weekdays of radiation after surgery. All my doctors are amazed at my recovery, a few saying the best they've seen (though it came with diabetes and a different digestive pathway).

Chemo was awful. Mine came with a bag of steroids first to mask the effects for a few days. I scheduled my sessions for Thursday, knowing it wouldn't hit me until Friday night. One Saturday I slept around 20 hours.

However, by the end we had figured out how to minimize the effect of the chemo. I needed my wife who watched me diligently. Cancer is not a one person job! She made sure every time I opened my eyes I stayed hydrated and ate something.

Chemo should have gotten worse. It actually got easier.

My cancer never caused me pain. The treatment... that's another story. I left the hospital with my belly held together by 16 staples.

The first computer graphics program I used in the early 80s on Cromemco hardware running their "ix" flavor os was called Amazon.

I wonder if this was the inspiration for Michael Chricton's book "Airframe?" It seems so similar.

It is very cool for me to hear that something I did years ago was memorable for your family. Thanks for saying hi.

I work. That's common.

I haven't thought about it. I have a business in mind for the maps which would keep them in demand. More about that in my AMA I suppose.

I am very happy with my life and where we live. I really don't want develop a big business. Can I just be an artisinal meteorologist?

Scoggs knows.

I am blushing. The people of Connecticut were very kind to me and I will be forever grateful.

If you wrote code like mine you wouldn't want it seen. I have borrowed freely from others, especially the College of DuPage whose entire site (except satellites) is on github. Their code is well written and documented.

Sure -- It's a multistage process making a graphics sandwich. The meteo data is done by GrADS. I render these at full HD resolution-- 1920x1080.

The base map and overlay are both produced in QGIS using the NaturalEarth database. Because GrADS can't read geographical info from graphics they are built by hand and the parameters are entered into GrADS by hand.

Animations are made from still png frames using ffmpeg.

OpenSans is my font.

All of this runs on an i5 with 8Gb of RAM under CentOS7. I make around 40,000 maps a day (one per frame in the animations).

I am 68 years old. My only computer training came 51 years ago. This is all self taught.

Already found a great article on 'how-to.' I will.

It's second nature to me, but most people are sort of stunned when they see a broadcast quality studio in my (former) garage.

Point me in the right direction. I'd love to do an AMA -- except I'd take questions on the site and answer via YouTube live or something similar. That way I could demo any studio questions live.

Where can I get info on doing one?

Also, sneakily, I have other ideas for where my studio can be used beside traditional outlets, especially since I make a full suite of weather maps. This would give me a chance to explain.