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Umbrella Today:
I have such mixed emotions about this app. Basically, I'm a bit of a
country girl, and this is a real city folk app.
When country folk check the weather they want to know a LOT about it.
If there are high winds or tornadoes, tell me what wind speed, what
direction, what kind of shifts, how fast is the front moving, how many
miles per hour, how many minutes until it reaches me, what is in the
path, what preparations should be taken to protect valuables (people,
property, plants, animals) that are in the path, etc*. If it is cold I
want to know not just how cold it is in real temperature, but what is
the wind chill, the direction of the winds, how many seconds to
frostbite for exposed skin, visibility, how icy is the ground surface,
etc. When I moved to Michigan, that first summer there was a tornado
outside of Ann Arbor, where I live. I thought I had moved to the place
with the stupidest weatherman on earth, since Fox news kept saying
repeatedly, "Tornado sighted outside of Ann Arbor," but never said
which side of Ann Arbor, had it touched down, how fast was it moving,
or anything useful.
But I've lived in Chicago, too, which is primo city-folk territory. In
Chicago we measured the cold by when the downtown suits became furs,
and all most folk really wanted to know was whether or not they needed
to carry an umbrella or wear a coat. That's it. Other than that, they
were indoors or taking public transit or driving. Seldom did you need
to wait outside very long without shelter.
So, if all folks really want or need for their own daily weather
information needs is:
Umbrella? Yes/No
then, why not simplify things to give them only the information they
really need? There was a small debate about this at #SOLO10 earlier
today. (SOLO10 = Science Online London 2010.) @attilacsordas and @mrgunn were talking about
minimum information standards becoming maximum information standards,
and how high or low the bar is set needs to be defined by the
community the information is serving. Well, the folks at ThoughtBot seem to have already been
thinking along the same lines. Umbrella Today answers that one, very
simple, yes or no question about the weather, and does it via web or
iPhone, and will send you daily alerts via email or SMS (texting).
Take the one thing you really want to know, and make it astonishingly
simple and obvious to find out. Pretty darn obvious, now that someone
else has thought of it, isn't it?
* This is also why I absolutely LOVE the Weather Underground and find
it vastly superior to www.weather.com, but that is a
discussion for another time.