Off Topic The Review Thread
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Weather Apps
I have three weather apps on my phone
- the one which Apple includes
- the BBC app
- the Met Office app
They are all pretty crap, and amusingly inconsistent with each other. The Apple store one majors on being amazingly geographically accurate, telling you the weather for obscure sub divisions of where you are. Sadly even in real time it is frequently wrong in telling you what the weather is like, let alone what it is going to be like. The BBC app gives stupidly precise predictions (73% chance of rain! As if) and covers it’s bases by being incredibly pessimistic all of the time. Also frequently wrong. The Met Office app, which is the one I want to trust (and am rather confused as to where the other apps get their information from. If I am paying Apple or the BBC to run parallel weather prediction organisations they should at least be better than they are), might be marginally better but is also pretty scattergun and unreliable.
I try to triangulate the information between all three to come up with some idea of what the weather will do in just the next hour. As a result I have been soaked to the skin three times this week.
Conclusion - just stick your head out of the window and use your common sense.
I have three weather apps on my phone
- the one which Apple includes
- the BBC app
- the Met Office app
They are all pretty crap, and amusingly inconsistent with each other. The Apple store one majors on being amazingly geographically accurate, telling you the weather for obscure sub divisions of where you are. Sadly even in real time it is frequently wrong in telling you what the weather is like, let alone what it is going to be like. The BBC app gives stupidly precise predictions (73% chance of rain! As if) and covers it’s bases by being incredibly pessimistic all of the time. Also frequently wrong. The Met Office app, which is the one I want to trust (and am rather confused as to where the other apps get their information from. If I am paying Apple or the BBC to run parallel weather prediction organisations they should at least be better than they are), might be marginally better but is also pretty scattergun and unreliable.
I try to triangulate the information between all three to come up with some idea of what the weather will do in just the next hour. As a result I have been soaked to the skin three times this week.
Conclusion - just stick your head out of the window and use your common sense.
Ha ha, I had this same discussion with my wife this morning. Last Saturday afternoon it was pouring with rain where I live. The Apple app was still displaying the cloud graphic with the sun poking out behind it.
I don't have the BBC app but I did download the Met Office app, which I find is better than the Apple app, although it didn't stop me from inadvertently getting soaked yesterday afternoon. I checked the apps and they predicted that rain would be with us ( 80 - 100% ) from 2pm onwards for about four hours. I said to my wife that I was going to walk the dog early so we wouldn't get caught up in the oncoming downpour. I went out at 12:30 instead of the usual 2 o'clock for this time of year and got to the furthest point of my walk when the sky opened up with a huge deluge. I made it back to the car, dog and I completely soaked through and dripping wet. We got home and dried out only for the sun to come out. It stayed out until sunset in what turned out to be a beautiful autumnal afternoon.
The Mrs swears by "Windy Wilson" on Facebook and Twitter...
Not much good for you guys unless you are planning a trip up here sometime, but he's an amateur weatherman wh is pretty accurate with most of his predictions - and quite funny too
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Not much good for you guys unless you are planning a trip up here sometime, but he's an amateur weatherman wh is pretty accurate with most of his predictions - and quite funny too
I went to my local woods to pick up the fallen fruit of one of the pines in order to make my own barometer, only to find the area around the base of the tree was coned off.
I work when the US wakes up. It’s Friday and next week is thanksgiving, so all done now, they’ve all turned their laptops off.
get yourself a weather stone
hang it up somewhere outside and its 100% accurate
if its wet its raining
if its warm to the touch the suns out
if its moving from side to side its windy
best of all its transportable
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hang it up somewhere outside and its 100% accurate
if its wet its raining
if its warm to the touch the suns out
if its moving from side to side its windy
best of all its transportable
Just watched Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri - shocking, funny, moving, bizarre, brilliant.
Oh, and the music is perfect.
Oh, and the music is perfect.
Went to beervarna tonight
Forty odd craft breweries showcasing their beers
Some absolute stunners and some absolute **** craft beers out there
My favourite of the night was the garage projects soylent green
Might be made from humans
Forty odd craft breweries showcasing their beers
Some absolute stunners and some absolute **** craft beers out there
My favourite of the night was the garage projects soylent green
Might be made from humans
BBC News digging its own grave with enthusiasm again this morning on Broadcasting House, a programme which has been in decline with its jokey, repetitive, segments for years. This mornings key serious commentator/interviewee is one Sasha Swire, wife of an ex minister and great mate of Cameron, who wrote a bitchy book ‘Diary of an MPs Wife’, about all her Tory friends. This is a woman who presumably has a good, or at least expensive, education, but still has a vocabulary consisting of 50% ‘you know’ and who has zero intelligent input or insight. Hope she can write better than she speaks, not that I will be reading any of her oeuvre.
I can only assume she’s on because the programme has become so irrelevant that nobody else would participate.
Ninesey’s neighbour Jacqui Oatley is on now as part of the turbo charged papers review squad. I’m sure she’s very pleasant but the best there is to say for is is that it can’t be costing the licence payer much.
I can only assume she’s on because the programme has become so irrelevant that nobody else would participate.
Ninesey’s neighbour Jacqui Oatley is on now as part of the turbo charged papers review squad. I’m sure she’s very pleasant but the best there is to say for is is that it can’t be costing the licence payer much.
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I listened to it and the Sasha lady was unbearable to listen to and was exactly how you portrayed ... 'You know' ... 'Um.' An unlikeable person that you would try to avoid if you knew her personally. A bit like I do with Jacqui, she's nice enough but every time I see her she feels compelled to flaunt her virtuosity. Quite often I bump into her at the local shops and every single time she'll say '' I think it's important to support your local shops.'' Yeah, so do I but I don't ever feel the need to say it.
The other thing she does is that when there's a woman's tournament on, she'll ask me if I'm watching. I feel like I need to have some knowledge of women's sport so that I can say '' Yeah, Lucy Bronze played a blinder. '' Thumbs up. Other than that she's alright. Before all of the Covid stuff me and my mate used to meet up for a few beers twice a week in our local coffee shop/wine bar and she'd often be in there on her laptop. We nicknamed her Jacqui Wokely.
Watched the first two episodes last night - addicted already! It really is very good, thanks for the tip
who'd have thought a story about a junkie chess player would be such a hit - apparently sales of chess sets have rocketed because of this (I suppose being able to play against friends remotely during any form of lockdown would be a selling point too)
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The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly was on telly a couple of nights ago. I hadn’t seen it for years, so decided to turn off all distractions and focus on just the one screen for a change.
Simply magnificent filmmaking, everything about it, from panoramic shots to stylised gunfights, anti war cameos, to music, brilliant. The long last scene in the graveyard still breathtaking. I had forgotten how great Eli Wallach (Tuco, the Ugly) was in this film.
Time well spent.
Simply magnificent filmmaking, everything about it, from panoramic shots to stylised gunfights, anti war cameos, to music, brilliant. The long last scene in the graveyard still breathtaking. I had forgotten how great Eli Wallach (Tuco, the Ugly) was in this film.
Time well spent.
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How strange, I watched it too and had similar thoughts. The graveyard scene is superb, as is the music.
Love this film. A couple of months back, when Morricone died, I dug out my CD of the soundtrack. It's the first CD I've listened to in years, but it's still brilliant.
They've been showing a few of the Clint Eastwood westerns lately, High Plains Drifter another of my favourites which I watched last week.
We could probably argue all night, but for me Eastwoods' westerns were far superior to John Waynes' and others in the genre.
Pale Rider is a favourite of mine - mystical.
When I was at school, we had a group of musicians come in one day to give a kind of musical lecture. We were all gathered in the hall and they played a few pieces, interspersed with descriptions of the various instruments and how they combined in each. When they'd finished, they asked if anyone had any questions. My mate misheard, and, thinking they'd asked for requests, stuck his hand up and said 'The Good the Bad and the Ugly'. Much embarrassment for him and hilarity for the rest of us.
Probably agree, Unforgiven is just a great film regardless of genre. Although no Eastwood, Once upon a Time in the West runs Leone’s other westerns very close for greatness. But some of those films from the fifties are surprisingly deep - The Searchers is a genuinely complicated and odd film, very good indeed.
I’ll get some grief for this, but Waitrose Cellar, it’s online booze shop, has some sensational offers at the moment, a bunch of very good wines and a superb port for £10 a bottle. I bought a varied 12, saved over £80 on usual prices.