I shall say this once, and only once....
"Sunny"

You won't catch me saying it again. Being from dear old Cymru you don't often see the majesty and glory of the sun.

I want a sun....
Or an Apple Powerbook....

anyone got one spare?

When you get a PowerBook can I borrow it...permanently? ;)

Yeh, right, like it would leave my sight!

When you close your eyes and got to slept it does, or when you blink, or when I knock you out and take it (j/k)! I'll be getting one within about a month or two.

Swine, now I'm really jealous

Ha! I've had nothing but rain (coulds when it wasn't) all summer! New England has the worst weather.

what are you talking about??? rainy and cloudy weather is the best. (especially if you're a computer programmer, which we are) besides I didn't drain all my weather-controlling powers just to get complaints...

I'm not saying the weather was bad for us, just that compared to other places it was bad (at least in the way of other peoples thinking...)

very well... but my powers of weather control are diminishing with the advance of summer...

We kinda got a mix here in PA. Little bit of sunny, then little bit of rain, repeat. Thats how it is here.

Plus a couple storms... the weather hasn't been too constant. But, it's better than Winter. Summer is my favorite season.

Yesterday morning we were about 50% of normal precip. in Harrisburg for July. Then we got about 2" yesterday afternoon and then storms today, so now we're probably about 1.5-2" above normal. I drove through a hail storm yesterday. Pretty scary. Thought my car would be all dented up. Luckily was only pea-sized and didn't damage my car.

Other than that, this summer has pretty much changed to a mostly sunny summer after a cloudy/damp/cold June.

I think the weather has been very damp lately. Very rainy... sort of a miserable weather. Lots of wind, too. It's never stayed constant. Hopefully, it will become nice and sunny before school starts and stay that way.

You drove through a hailstorm in Harrisburg?

Well, it was near Harrisburg. Just north of Newport on Route 22/322 coming back from visiting Penn State. The next day though, there was golf-ball sized hail just north of Harrisburg.

For the most part, it's been sun, sun, sun in So. Illinois, except for the lengthy thunderstorm today.

The rain has been crazy here in NE Florida. There were some lightning strikes I swear were right next door.

We had a really bad lightning storm a while back. It woke me up, and I could have sworn the lightning was in our back yard. It [the thunder] was VERY loud.

If the thunder was very loud then the strike wasn't in you back yard.
When lightning strikes right by you the thunder isn't 'very loud'.

It is possible the lightning was between clouds just above your house though, that is quit noticeable.

Where I live, on top of a hill at the base of about 4 valleys the lightning is truely beautiful when it comes. You can see pillars that are physically appearinging over 10mm across (measured from around a foot in front of you) that is aroung 3 miles away. Something that is really worth seeing. Also, sheet lightning is truely majestic.

I was with some friends, when thunder struck 15 feet away from us. Then we started laughing. It pays to have more balls than brain.

Uhhh...do you mean lightning? If that were the case, you should have waited for the storm to clear, and then you should have gone to the spot where it struck. Because lighning bolts are very, very hot (I don't know the exact temperature), they will melt the dirt where it struck and leave a lightning-shaped 3D piece of glass. They can be as long as 10 feet (3 meters) and are very valuable.

Whoa... I never knew that. That's cool! If lightning ever strikes in our backyard, I'll remember that :)

Ah! So you too watch NOVA. One of the best shows around! Lightning turns some of the air into plasma and is hotter than the surface of the sun.

Nope, I watch Discovery Channel, I read Discover Magazine, Astronomy Magazine, and Reptiles Magazine, and I've seen a pic of the glass formation that lightning makes.

Wow, lightning is over 12000 degrees F, and it moves at 90 mps!

Well NOVA has a program on Lightning where some scientists monitored the static build up in the atmosphere, and tried to induce a strike by launching a model rocket into the air with a metal wire connecting it to a bucket of sand.

I think I've seen some NOVA video before in Biology class. Not that one though.

I didn't see that one, but I heard about it from others.

It's velocity is dependent on the speed of the electrons that are arcing. This depending on the forces between the two surfaces (Not saying you are wrong, just giving a broader view).

Electrons move at a very high speed in a piece of copper, about 10^6 m/s, the actual electron will take a whole minute to travel just 20mm (0.02m) This has always tickled me (0.0003 m/s).

In both DC and AC currents ellectrons don't move they just transfer their chage to another electron.

Current is a net flow of electrons.
The ATOM doesn't move, it transfers its free electrons to a near by atom.

So the electron most definitely does move.

...
Mains switches are sprung, this means that when you turn the power off at the wall the electricity is stopped abruptly. If the switches weren't sprung then there would be extra arcing between the contacts due to hovering near each other - which greatly reduces life.
Hence why you should always turn a socket off before removing the plug.

Really!? I've always heard it was excess energy that was transfered because it takes a tremendous amount of engery to remove an electron from its shell.
On another note: Plasma atoms with such high energy that electrons cannot stably orbit the nucleus and a song off, in other words bare nucleus

Your English is confusing!, but still I figured out what you meant...

Also, it is believed that the northern lights are caused by plasma. Very interesting.

With respect to electrons, Any thing in a normal orbit is very dificult to knock out of orbit. However, take an atom with one electron in its outmost shell. This is very vulnerable to being knocked out and is therefore classed as a 'free' electron. All metals have free electrons. And, if I remember rightly carbon has four in its outer shell (max of 8) which is why it has some conductability.

Fact: H2O (- water) is an excellent insulator. Not a lot of you will believe that, but it is.

Yup, most scientists believe that northern lights (aurora borealis (sp?)) and southern lights (aurora australious (sp?)) are caused by solar wind (which is magnetically attracted to the magnetic poles of the planet) bombarding with the ionosphere (again, sp?). This reaction probably releases enough energy to free some electrons from the high altitude atoms to create plasma.

Sorry for any spelling errors; I just got back from 13 hours of marching band camp (this is day 4, and I play a 30 lbs instrument).

There is nothing wrong with spelling ffonetikly. it may look a bit wierd, but if people can read out loud they can normally figure what you mean.
Anyway - a useful tip.
Google is a great spell checker.

You should also subscribe to Weatherwise magazine. It comes out every two months. ~$32/year

Well, I don't really know how close it was, but it was a lot closer than the usual thunderstorm that goes by. Anyway, it woke me up, so I wasn't enjoying it too much. :( Thunderstorms also make me turn off the computer (instant boredom).
Haha- I just remembered when I was little, when I was so afraid of thunderstorms. *hides under the covers*

I know how you feel...

Anyways, my computer acts really weird during power outages. When the power comes back on, the COMPUTER also turns on by itself!!!

Ever heard of a UPS (Uninterupted Power Supply), a.k.a. a backup battery that generates AC current for a few minutes so on can turn their computer off. BTW, I highly recomend having one because when the power comes back on it usually surges and can fry some of the insides of your machine.

or you could just get a laptop and when during thunderstorms run it off of battery power and then plug it back in after the storm is over or whenever you get your power back.

Laptops have less processing power and are not as udgradable as desktops. But laptops are mobile.

I would agree with the less processing power, but laptops are as upgrade-able as desktops. You can usually find memory and hard drive upgrades for laptops in catlogues. Also, If you need something extra such as USB or ect you can always get those PCMCIA cards. (cheaper no, but upgrade-able)

Oh while we are on the subject of lighting and computers, anyone know if lighting can cause disturbences in wireless networks??

Computers aren't turned off unless you deny them all power (hit switch on wall). The power switch on modern systems sends the MoBo into suspend. All the components are still live (look at the network card).
So when the computer comes on the MoBo can do a reboot.
This can be turned off in the BIOS usually - something I advise as if the power doesn't come on until the middle of the night....
Also, stuff the UPS they cost a fortune, but at least have a surge protected adapter - £20 and they also supply ~ £20000 insurance on some of them.