Clouds: Fast, Slow, Broken
March 6, 2010
Measuring cloud speed is one of those chores aspiring meteorologists must endure. Here’s a snapshot of what’s involved. My source is Charles F. Brooks, The Use of Clouds in Forecasting, page 1167:
The quickest way of getting cloud motions is with a window-sill nephoscope consisting of a plane, black, horizontal mirror of eight to ten inches diameter, with- out markings on the mirror other than a depression at the center, and a peephole eyepiece through which the observer can watch the motion of the image of a cloud and follow it with a small marker. When followed for a standard period (or easy fraction or multiple), the direction and relative speed are determined with a single placement of a ruler,
Whew. That’s going to take some hunting here in Harrod’s Creek. I wonder if the gun and ammo shop has a nephoscope.
I was thinking about cloud speed when I read “Steve Ballmer’s Memo To Microsoft Staff: “We Must Move At Cloud Speed”. I think the idea is for Microsoft to move quickly. As I said in my SSN Minute today, Microsoft is turning to Cray to help Microsoft with its data center issues. My hunch is that if Microsoft moves too quickly its plumbing might not be able to keep pace. Here’s the snippet that caught my attention in the write up:
We have strong competitors. We need to be (and are) willing to change our business models to take advantage of the cloud. We must move at “cloud speed,” especially in our consumer offerings. And we need to be crystal clear about the value we provide to all our customers. To drive our message home even further, today you will see an ad campaign in the U.S. focused on our commercial and government businesses, a new website with consolidated content and case studies, and ongoing emphasis on the cloud from me and other members of the SLT in our upcoming speeches and presentations.
I will be most interested to see how Microsoft Fast, the enterprise search product, performs as a cloud service. I recall the good old days of the application service providers (ASP) and hosted Exchange. The cloud was moving slowly. Will Microsoft Fast move quickly as indexes update and queries get processed? There are fast clouds and there are slow clouds? Which will be the cloud for Microsoft Fast?
Stephen E Arnold, March 6, 2010
No one paid me to write this. I have to report unpaid writing to NOAA, an outfit that understands but is not yet able to control clouds. Someday I expect. Someday.
Comments
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
