A truly breathtaking season that thankfully resulted in few storms directly hitting us here in the Caribbean. The US, particularly Louisiana, didn’t have such fortune, with Laura, Marco, Sally and Delta all affecting the state. An overly busy season appeared as predicted, with (so far) 29 depressions, 28 named storms, 12 hurricanes (Category 1 and 2) and 4 major hurricanes (Categories 3+).
Each year the NOAA and other meteorological institutions around the world predict the season ahead using a scale called the ACE or Accumulated Cyclone Energy index.
If you listened to the podcast version, you’d note I added some music. I broke out my skills in Garageband to make a quick accompanying jingle to spice up the podcast. Let me know what you think. 🎵
On to this week’s topics.
I’m astonished I didn’t get roasted for completely dissing Blockchain as a useless technology a couple of weeks ago. I thought I’d talk about an example where I’m actually quite bullish about the technology.
There are currently many moving parts to the tech industry, and as tech becomes more and more pervasive in society, it is getting roped into discussions and being judged by standards that never applied in the past. Debates are ranging from whether or not big tech has built unmatched and unrivalled monopolies, whether those monopolies are legal or not, to whether big tech is going to be responsible for the downfall of democracy and ultimately the next world war.
It’s good to be back.
I decided to take a summer holiday, of sorts, retiring myself from the pressure of writing these articles. If you know me, you’ll recall that I’ve pretty much not had a holiday since I started my professional life—much to the consternation of my family. So I decided to take a little time for myself this year. Being that this year has been, er, rather unusual to say the least, I thought this would be the perfect opportunity.
Genuinely a worrying image to see when you live in the Caribbean. For the best sources to follow and to learn about how these predictions are done, the NHC NOAA website is key, but my preference is for Tropical Tidbits. His nightly (during current storms) presentations on his YouTube channel are second to none. Easy to understand, easy to get the key messages and removed from drama to prevent panic, something the world’s TV channels would do well to emulate.