Author Archives: Dan Nguyen

  

The Bastards Book: A Programming Tutorial for journalists, researchers, analysts, and anyone else who cares about data

Crossing Bleecker and Lafayette through a snowstorm

Back when I wrote my “Coding for Journalists 101″ guide about a year and a half ago, I barely realized how useful code could be as a journalistic tool. Since then, after the Dollars for Docs project at ProPublica and various other programming adventures, I’ve become a slightly better coder and even more adamant that programming is basically a necessity for anyone who cares about understanding and communicating about the world in a quantitative, meaningful way.

The world of data has exploded in the past few years without a corresponding increase in the people or tools to efficiently make sense of it. And so I’ve had a hankering to create a more cohesive, useful programming guide aimed at not just journalists, but for anyone in any field.

It’s called the Bastards Book of Ruby. It’s not really just about Ruby and “bastards” was a working title that I came up with but never got around to changing. But it seems to work for now.

As I was writing the introduction (“Programming is for Anyone“), I came across this Steve Jobs interview with Fresh Air. He says pretty much exactly what I’m thinking, but he said it 15 years ago — surprising given that the Web was in its infancy and Jobs’s fame was largely out of making computers brain-dead simple for people. He wasn’t much of a programmer, but he really was a genius at understanding the bigger picture of what he himself only dabbled in:

“In my perspective … science and computer science is a liberal art, it’s something everyone should know how to use, at least, and harness in their life. It’s not something that should be relegated to 5 percent of the population over in the corner. It’s something that everybody should be exposed to and everyone should have mastery of to some extent, and that’s how we viewed computation and these computation devices.”

Bastards Book of Ruby. It’s just a rough draft but already numbers at 75,000 words. See the table of contents.

  

Paul Newman, Scrappy Startup Entrepreneur

coolhandluke

"Sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand."

After watching Paul Newman in “The Hustler” on Netflix this weekend – and then reading the spectacular details of his life (according to Wikipedia) – I decided to buy his book that tells the origins of his “Newman’s Own” food brand. I know that the Newman O’s mint cookies are the best in the market and I knew vaguely that it donated to charity (about $300 million; all of its after-tax profits, since the company’s start), but didn’t really know there was much of a story behind it. After all, he’s Paul Newman. He could put his name on cowpies and they’d sell, right?

However, according to the book, Newman and his partner, author A. E. Hotchner, faced all of the challenges of a modern day startup (except perhaps, having to put their whole lives/assets on the line; Newman was still a busy actor into his last years). Early on in the book, they describe having a meeting with “the largest marketing company in America.” Despite Newman’s name recognition, the marketing executive informs him that “Just because they liked you as Butch Cassidy doesn’t mean they’ll like your salad dressing.”

Newman and Hotchner are told that the marketing alone – which includes focus groups, promotion, distribution and public relations – would cost more than $1 million. Newman and Hotchner leave the meeting and decide to launch their salad-dressing company with just $40,4000.

The origin story of Newman’s Own ends up sharing some traits common among today’s Internet-age startups:

Thinking you can do it better than the big guys:

Over the years, even in four-star restaurants, PL had been rejecting the house dressings and concocting his own….On one occasion, when the restaurant mistakenly served the salad with its own dressing, Paul took the salad to the men’s room, washed off the dressing, dried it with paper towels, and, after returning to the table, anointed it with his own, which he concocted with ingredients brought to him from the kitchen

Having previous entrepreneurial experience

When Paul was in college, he had demonstrated a knack for getting a business invention to fly. He was attending Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, when, to augment his dwindling GI Bill funds, he went into the laundry business. The school’s laundry company used to visit the dorms, going from room to room to pick up individual laundry; then Paul made a deal with the company for a much lower rate to pick up the laundry at one site in the town.

Paul rented an abandoned storefront in a partially developed part of Gambier…and advertised in the school paper that his laundry service would serve free beer to any customer bringing in his laundry. Figuring the cost of a keg of beer, plus rent and the laundry’s charges, against what he charged for the laundry, Paul was able to turn a profit of $80 a week, which by today’s conversion amounts to about $500.

Paul finally sold the business in his senior year to a friend of his, but as luck would have it, a month or so later one of the customers who had overimbibed the free beer put on a boxing glove, staggered out into the street, and started to masturbate a horse that was tied up there. The authorities shut down the business, busting the whole shop

Using a ping-pong table as a desk

So instead of buying office furniture, Paul decided that since it was September and he was closing his swimming pool, he would simply furnish the office with his pool furniture, even to the extent of keeping a beach umbrella over our shared desk (his picnic table).

Paul’s Ping-Pong table became our conference table, but the only conferences we held were when we played Ping-Pong. Paul wrote our scores on the low ceiling, but when his losses mounted significantly, he had the ceiling painted.

Staying true to the vision, damn the reality

Newman’s and Hotchner’s were both appalled by the amount of preservatives found in supermarket dressings. They were determined to use a recipe that contained only fresh ingredients, not thinking how that would make production and storage difficult:

We did not have EDTA (ethylenediaminetetraaceticacid) in our formula, which was thought to be essential in preserving life span on the shelf. “If a bottled dressing cannot stay on the shelf for somewhere in the neighborhood of a year,” Andy explained, “it will not be acceptable to the supermarkets.

All those big outfits have chemists who’ve been using these fixes for as long as I’ve been in business. The food business is a very practicalaffair—whatever you put in a bottle has to have shelf life or forget it. Let’s try half of the usual EDTA. What about it?”

We didn’t budge.

All-natural meant positively no chemicals. Andy’s chemists gave him a hard time about it, but eventually they put our formula through the longevity test. The result was not what they expected. They found that in the process of making mustard, in grinding the whole mustard seed, a layer of mucus is released that is a natural gum and did everything that EDTA did, but did it naturally.

The company leader eating his own dog food

People would say to me, ‘Is Newman really involved in this thing?’ and they were surprised to hear that no product ever goes out unless he personally eats it, and if he doesn’t like it, it’s not going anyplace. Hotchner and Newman were hands-on about everything. They wrote the legends, they tinkered with the label, they were thoroughly involved

And:

Mr. Newman went on: “Some people have sexual dreams, but I dream about food. Then when I wake up I want to eat the food I dreamed about. That means I have to keep a big pantry, because you never know.

Facing rules that favored entrenched competitors

In the course of churning out new products, we came perilously close to putting ourselves out of business because we hadn’t taken into account a new phenomenon in the food business, a diabolical supermarket invention—slotting…slotting involved actual cash payments of $28,000–$30,000 to each store for the privilege of displaying a new product, and there was no guarantee as to how long a store would keep it on the shelf.

Of course, there are unrepeatable aspects of Newman’s business that just won’t apply to most other startups, mainly a) He’s Paul Newman and b) all of the company’s profits go to charity. But this book is a fast and fun read. It helps that Newman is one of the few (living or dead) uber-celebrities who, the more you find out about him, the more you love him.

The book is called “Shameless Exploitation in Pursuit of the Common Good: The Madcap Business Adventure by the Truly Oddest Couple” and is authored by Newman and Hotchner and published by Random House (2003). (Amazon / Google Books)

  

Tim Hetherington’s Last Libya Photos, at the Bronx Doc Center

Memorial to Tim Hetherington

Last weekend, the newly-built Bronx Documentary Center opened with an exhibition of fallen war photographer Tim Hetherington’s final photos. Hetherington was killed in Libya on Apr. 20, 2011, after Gadaffi forces shelled his position. Photographer Chris Hondros also died in the attack.

Two of my favorite of Hetherington’s final photos, from the city of Misurata, Apr. 19 and 20:

Tim Hetherington's Misurata, Libya photos, at the Bronx Doc Center

Before his death, Hetherington and his friend, Michael Kamber, a photojournalist with the New York Times, had shared a dream to build a gallery in the Bronx to further the teaching of photojournalism and documentary work in the city. Kamber continued with that vision after Hetherington’s death, and the Bronx Doc Center is the result of his and many others’ hard work and generosity.

Bronx Documentary Center, Tim Hetherington Exhibition

Kamber wrote a piece for the NYT Lens blog

More than any journalist I know, Tim was conceptual in his work. He thought about the big ideas behind an event, the dynamics, history and driving forces. He then tailored his photography and multimedia work accordingly, trying to dig through and expose these forces. His methods stood in stark contrast to many of us who photograph what fate and others present to us, unwittingly allowing the narrative to be shaped through our acquiescence.

In an astonishingly wide-ranging oeuvre that ran from photo books to articles and film to personal videos, Tim smashed boundaries and enlarged our understanding of what a documentarian and journalist could be.

Michael Kamber:

Michael Kamber, Bronx Doc Center's exhibition of Tim Hetherington

One of Hetherington’s documentaries, “Diary,” was projected against the side of a neighboring building:

Hetherington's doc, "Diary", shown on a Bronx building

Kamber’s tribute to Hetherington in the NYT also includes the kind of praise that every photojournalist hopes to receive in his or her lifetime:

Tim began planning his return to Libya. He combed through his images to find something — some concept that stood apart from the thousands of images the other photojournalists were putting out from Benghazi and Ajdabiya.

He was upset at how some photographers presented the rag-tag rebels as heroic fighters, when in fact they were sometimes “kind of a joke.” Those pictures, he said, might win prizes, but not his respect.

“We have to fight making propaganda,” he said to me one night at dinner. “The media has become such a part of the war machine now that we all have to be conscious of it more than ever before. ”

You can follow the Bronx Doc center’s Tumblr here. The BDC is located on 614 Courtlandt Avenue and 151st street in the South Bronx and is open Wednesday-Sunday, 11AM – 6PM.

Hetherington’s last photo, dated April 20, 2011, in the city of Misurata:

Tim Hetherington, Bronx Documentary Center

  

Steve Jobs, 1955-2011

(I love that the filename for this Steve Jobs photo on apple.com is: http://images.apple.com/home/images/t_hero.png)

It’s hard to believe that we’ll ever see such a passionate and imaginative inventor in this generation again. R.I.P. Steve.

His 2005 commencement speech to Stanford:

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That’s it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: “We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?” They said: “Of course.” My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents’ savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn’t see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn’t interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn’t all romantic. I didn’t have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends’ rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn’t have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it’s likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn’t know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down – that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple’s current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I’m pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn’t even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor’s code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you’d have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I’m fine now.

This was the closest I’ve been to facing death, and I hope it’s the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960’s, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

  

Pilots marching on Wall Street

I had a brief moment of Internet popularity when this photo of United and Continental pilots protesting near the Stock Exchange pulled in nearly 150,000 views in a day, thanks to Reddit users’ upvotes:

United/Continental pilots march on Wall Street

Of all the protest photos I took that day (this was a 15-minute break in the work day, since it took place a block away from my office), this was the least interesting to me. The pilots were arranged for a photo-op, so this is a photo of a photo-op. But I submitted it to Reddit because it was the most straightforward; yes, it’s a protest on Wall Street, but one with specific grievances against a specific corporation and not one that necessarily endorses the ongoing #occupywallst protest.

Still, the appetite for protest is big and these meticulously dressed pilots holding a picket make for a striking image. And a good number of them probably sympathize with the anti-Wall Street sentiment of the Zuccotti Park campers.

My personal favorite image from the bunch is this one, even with its weak composition, just because it was such a funny coincidence for someone who had a particular resemblance to a certain Golden Age actress to be walking down Broadway at the same time as a stream of pilots dressed in the same elegance as that period:
Woman in white, pilots

I also like this one, because of the rhythm of the pilots’ uniforms and hats, contrasted with some guy just trying to get down Broad street:

Pilots walk down Broad Street, near Stock Exchange

The Daily Dot wrote about the photo’s popularity here.

  

Casting Call, New York Fashion Week Spring 2012 (NYFW, with ACW Worldwide)

I had an opportunity to document one of the ceremonies behind the New York Fashion Week: a casting call, in which hundreds of models line up to be sized up by a casting director. They’re asked to look natural (i.e. not overdo makeup) and let down their hair, and then show their walk.

This casting call was held by Andrew Weir and his ACW Worldwide at the Hudson Hotel. Even though I was documenting the day rather than taking formal portraits, I don’t think there was a minute in which the models weren’t in some kind of pose, subconscious or not, when they sensed a camera near them.

See more of my photos from Fashion Week.

#NYFW Even waiting means posing

Casting Couch (#NYFW Spring 2012)

Headshot

Casting Card

#NYFW: Walking shoes and shoes for Walking

Waiting for #NYFW Spring 2012

  

New Hurricane Irene data predicts increased chance of high speed winds

UPDATE 1:30PM: New NOAA numbers project REDUCED probabilities, table updated:

According to raw data from the National Hurricane Center, the probability that NYC will suffer sustained high winds has increased significantly

I had yesterday's numbers saved on my web cache from yesterday. Here they are compared with this morning's numbers (reports 26 and 28 respectively):

City KT SAT 0200-1400 SAT 1400-SUN 0200 SUN 0200-1400 SUN 1400-MON 0200 MON 0200 - TUE 0200 TUE 0200-WED 0200 WED 0600 - THU 0600
NYC 34 1( 1) 23(24) 44(68) 1(69) X(69) X(69)
NYC 50 X( X) 2( 2) 27(29) X(29) X(29) X(29)
NYC 64 X( X) X( X) 5( 5) X( 5) X( 5) X( 5)
New proj:
NYC 34 1 35(36) 47(83) X(83) X(83) X(83) X(83)
NYC 50 X 3( 3) 41(44) X(44) X(44) X(44) X(44)
NYC 64 X X( X) 10(10) X(10) X(10) X(10) X(10)
NEWER proj (#29):
NYC 34 10 59(69) 5(74) X(74) X(74) X(74) X(74)
NYC 50 X 30(30) 3(33) X(33) X(33) X(33) X(33)
NYC 64 X 5( 5) 1( 6) X( 6) X( 6) X( 6) X( 6)


The KT values are sustained winds (1 minute or longer) measurements. They translate to:

34 39mph
50 58mph
64 74mph

The number in the parentheses is the projected cumulative chance that NYC experiences those wind speeds. The number outside the parentheses are the chance that those wind speeds will occur in the given time period.

How bad are those wind speeds for New York? Nate Silver of the New York Times has a great article and chart showing the projected damage. Summary: It's not good, at all:

Nate Silver Hurricane Irene damage chart

Nate Silver Hurricane Irene damage chart

The NYTimes is keeping a good up-to-date blog of the latest Irene news.

Here's the current NOAA raw data for all the cities (next time around, I'll just make a web app to translate this mess):


000
FONT14 KNHC 271449
PWSAT4

HURRICANE IRENE WIND SPEED PROBABILITIES NUMBER  29                 
NWS NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL       AL092011               
1500 UTC SAT AUG 27 2011                                            

AT 1500Z THE CENTER OF HURRICANE IRENE WAS LOCATED NEAR LATITUDE    
35.2 NORTH...LONGITUDE 76.4 WEST WITH MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS NEAR  
75 KTS...85 MPH...140 KM/H.                                         

Z INDICATES COORDINATED UNIVERSAL TIME (GREENWICH)                  
   ATLANTIC STANDARD TIME (AST)...SUBTRACT 4 HOURS FROM Z TIME      
   EASTERN  DAYLIGHT TIME (EDT)...SUBTRACT 4 HOURS FROM Z TIME      
   CENTRAL  DAYLIGHT TIME (CDT)...SUBTRACT 5 HOURS FROM Z TIME      


I.  MAXIMUM WIND SPEED (INTENSITY) PROBABILITY TABLE                

CHANCES THAT THE MAXIMUM SUSTAINED (1-MINUTE AVERAGE) WIND SPEED OF 
THE TROPICAL CYCLONE WILL BE WITHIN ANY OF THE FOLLOWING CATEGORIES 
AT EACH OFFICIAL FORECAST TIME DURING THE NEXT 5 DAYS.              
PROBABILITIES ARE GIVEN IN PERCENT.  X INDICATES PROBABILITIES LESS 
THAN 1 PERCENT.                                                     


      - - - MAXIMUM WIND SPEED (INTENSITY) PROBABILITIES - - -      

VALID TIME   00Z SUN 12Z SUN 00Z MON 12Z MON 12Z TUE 12Z WED 12Z THU
FORECAST HOUR   12      24      36      48      72      96     120  
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
DISSIPATED       X       4       4      10      25      30      31
TROP DEPRESSION  3      19       7      26      31      29      28
TROPICAL STORM  41      56      65      53      41      38      38
HURRICANE       56      21      24      12       3       4       3
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
HUR CAT 1       52      18      21      10       3       3       3
HUR CAT 2        4       2       3       2       X       X       X
HUR CAT 3        1       1       X       X       X       X       X
HUR CAT 4        X       X       X       X       X       X       X
HUR CAT 5        X       X       X       X       X       X       X
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
FCST MAX WIND   70KT    65KT    60KT    45KT    40KT    35KT    35KT


II. WIND SPEED PROBABILITY TABLE FOR SPECIFIC LOCATIONS             

CHANCES OF SUSTAINED (1-MINUTE AVERAGE) WIND SPEEDS OF AT LEAST     
   ...34 KT (39 MPH... 63 KPH)...                                   
   ...50 KT (58 MPH... 93 KPH)...                                   
   ...64 KT (74 MPH...119 KPH)...                                   
FOR LOCATIONS AND TIME PERIODS DURING THE NEXT 5 DAYS               

PROBABILITIES FOR LOCATIONS ARE GIVEN AS IP(CP) WHERE               
    IP  IS THE PROBABILITY OF THE EVENT BEGINNING DURING            
        AN INDIVIDUAL TIME PERIOD (INDIVIDUAL PROBABILITY)          
   (CP) IS THE PROBABILITY OF THE EVENT OCCURRING BETWEEN           
        12Z SAT AND THE FORECAST HOUR (CUMULATIVE PROBABILITY)      

PROBABILITIES ARE GIVEN IN PERCENT                                  
X INDICATES PROBABILITIES LESS THAN 1 PERCENT                       
PROBABILITIES FOR 34 KT AND 50 KT ARE SHOWN AT A GIVEN LOCATION WHEN
THE 5-DAY CUMULATIVE PROBABILITY IS AT LEAST 3 PERCENT.             
PROBABILITIES FOR 64 KT ARE SHOWN WHEN THE 5-DAY CUMULATIVE         
PROBABILITY IS AT LEAST 1 PERCENT.                                  


  - - - - WIND SPEED PROBABILITIES FOR SELECTED  LOCATIONS - - - -  

               FROM    FROM    FROM    FROM    FROM    FROM    FROM 
  TIME       12Z SAT 00Z SUN 12Z SUN 00Z MON 12Z MON 12Z TUE 12Z WED
PERIODS         TO      TO      TO      TO      TO      TO      TO  
             00Z SUN 12Z SUN 00Z MON 12Z MON 12Z TUE 12Z WED 12Z THU

FORECAST HOUR    (12)   (24)    (36)    (48)    (72)    (96)   (120)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 
LOCATION       KT                                                   

BURGEO NFLD    34  X   X( X)   X( X)   X( X)   6( 6)   X( 6)   X( 6)

PTX BASQUES    34  X   X( X)   X( X)   2( 2)   8(10)   X(10)   X(10)

EDDY POINT NS  34  X   X( X)   X( X)   4( 4)   1( 5)   X( 5)   X( 5)

SYDNEY NS      34  X   X( X)   X( X)   2( 2)   3( 5)   X( 5)   X( 5)

HALIFAX NS     34  X   X( X)   1( 1)   8( 9)   X( 9)   X( 9)   X( 9)

YARMOUTH NS    34  X   X( X)  16(16)   6(22)   X(22)   X(22)   X(22)

MONCTON NB     34  X   X( X)   3( 3)  20(23)   1(24)   X(24)   X(24)

ST JOHN NB     34  X   X( X)  12(12)  18(30)   X(30)   X(30)   X(30)
ST JOHN NB     50  X   X( X)   X( X)   3( 3)   X( 3)   X( 3)   X( 3)

EASTPORT ME    34  X   X( X)  22(22)  16(38)   X(38)   X(38)   X(38)
EASTPORT ME    50  X   X( X)   1( 1)   4( 5)   X( 5)   X( 5)   X( 5)

BAR HARBOR ME  34  X   X( X)  41(41)  12(53)   X(53)   X(53)   X(53)
BAR HARBOR ME  50  X   X( X)   6( 6)   6(12)   X(12)   X(12)   X(12)
BAR HARBOR ME  64  X   X( X)   1( 1)   1( 2)   X( 2)   X( 2)   X( 2)

AUGUSTA ME     34  X   1( 1)  62(63)   7(70)   X(70)   X(70)   X(70)
AUGUSTA ME     50  X   X( X)  18(18)   6(24)   X(24)   X(24)   X(24)
AUGUSTA ME     64  X   X( X)   3( 3)   1( 4)   X( 4)   X( 4)   X( 4)

PORTLAND ME    34  X   5( 5)  67(72)   2(74)   X(74)   X(74)   X(74)
PORTLAND ME    50  X   X( X)  26(26)   2(28)   X(28)   X(28)   X(28)
PORTLAND ME    64  X   X( X)   5( 5)   X( 5)   X( 5)   X( 5)   X( 5)

CONCORD NH     34  X   9( 9)  68(77)   1(78)   X(78)   X(78)   X(78)
CONCORD NH     50  X   X( X)  37(37)   X(37)   X(37)   X(37)   X(37)
CONCORD NH     64  X   X( X)   7( 7)   X( 7)   X( 7)   X( 7)   X( 7)

BOSTON MA      34  X  18(18)  54(72)   X(72)   X(72)   X(72)   X(72)
BOSTON MA      50  X   X( X)  29(29)   X(29)   X(29)   X(29)   X(29)
BOSTON MA      64  X   X( X)   5( 5)   X( 5)   X( 5)   X( 5)   X( 5)

HYANNIS MA     34  X  19(19)  34(53)   X(53)   X(53)   X(53)   X(53)
HYANNIS MA     50  X   X( X)  12(12)   X(12)   X(12)   X(12)   X(12)
HYANNIS MA     64  X   X( X)   1( 1)   X( 1)   X( 1)   X( 1)   X( 1)

NANTUCKET MA   34  X  20(20)  26(46)   X(46)   X(46)   X(46)   X(46)
NANTUCKET MA   50  X   1( 1)   6( 7)   X( 7)   X( 7)   X( 7)   X( 7)
NANTUCKET MA   64  X   X( X)   1( 1)   X( 1)   X( 1)   X( 1)   X( 1)

PROVIDENCE RI  34  X  30(30)  39(69)   1(70)   X(70)   X(70)   X(70)
PROVIDENCE RI  50  X   2( 2)  28(30)   X(30)   X(30)   X(30)   X(30)
PROVIDENCE RI  64  X   X( X)   6( 6)   X( 6)   X( 6)   X( 6)   X( 6)

HARTFORD CT    34  2  39(41)  34(75)   X(75)   X(75)   X(75)   X(75)
HARTFORD CT    50  X   6( 6)  29(35)   X(35)   X(35)   X(35)   X(35)
HARTFORD CT    64  X   X( X)   6( 6)   X( 6)   X( 6)   X( 6)   X( 6)

MONTAUK POINT  34  4  42(46)  23(69)   X(69)   X(69)   X(69)   X(69)
MONTAUK POINT  50  X  11(11)  23(34)   X(34)   X(34)   X(34)   X(34)
MONTAUK POINT  64  X   1( 1)   6( 7)   X( 7)   X( 7)   X( 7)   X( 7)

NEW YORK CITY  34 10  59(69)   5(74)   X(74)   X(74)   X(74)   X(74)
NEW YORK CITY  50  X  30(30)   3(33)   X(33)   X(33)   X(33)   X(33)
NEW YORK CITY  64  X   5( 5)   1( 6)   X( 6)   X( 6)   X( 6)   X( 6)

NEWARK NJ      34  9  53(62)   5(67)   X(67)   X(67)   X(67)   X(67)
NEWARK NJ      50  X  21(21)   2(23)   X(23)   X(23)   X(23)   X(23)
NEWARK NJ      64  X   3( 3)   1( 4)   X( 4)   X( 4)   X( 4)   X( 4)

TRENTON NJ     34 15  45(60)   2(62)   X(62)   X(62)   X(62)   X(62)
TRENTON NJ     50  X  16(16)   X(16)   X(16)   X(16)   X(16)   X(16)
TRENTON NJ     64  X   2( 2)   X( 2)   X( 2)   X( 2)   X( 2)   X( 2)

ATLANTIC CITY  34 44  38(82)   X(82)   X(82)   X(82)   X(82)   X(82)
ATLANTIC CITY  50  1  42(43)   X(43)   X(43)   X(43)   X(43)   X(43)
ATLANTIC CITY  64  X   7( 7)   X( 7)   X( 7)   X( 7)   X( 7)   X( 7)

BALTIMORE MD   34 26   9(35)   X(35)   X(35)   X(35)   X(35)   X(35)

DOVER DE       34 54  20(74)   1(75)   X(75)   X(75)   X(75)   X(75)
DOVER DE       50  2  20(22)   X(22)   X(22)   X(22)   X(22)   X(22)
DOVER DE       64  X   2( 2)   X( 2)   X( 2)   X( 2)   X( 2)   X( 2)

ANNAPOLIS MD   34 35  10(45)   1(46)   X(46)   X(46)   X(46)   X(46)

WASHINGTON DC  34 26   7(33)   X(33)   X(33)   X(33)   X(33)   X(33)

OCEAN CITY MD  34 83   9(92)   X(92)   X(92)   X(92)   X(92)   X(92)
OCEAN CITY MD  50 43  26(69)   X(69)   X(69)   X(69)   X(69)   X(69)
OCEAN CITY MD  64  5   9(14)   X(14)   X(14)   X(14)   X(14)   X(14)

RICHMOND VA    34 57   1(58)   X(58)   X(58)   X(58)   X(58)   X(58)

NORFOLK NAS    34 99   X(99)   X(99)   X(99)   X(99)   X(99)   X(99)
NORFOLK NAS    50 71   X(71)   X(71)   X(71)   X(71)   X(71)   X(71)
NORFOLK NAS    64  6   X( 6)   X( 6)   X( 6)   X( 6)   X( 6)   X( 6)

NORFOLK VA     34 99   X(99)   X(99)   X(99)   X(99)   X(99)   X(99)
NORFOLK VA     50 84   X(84)   X(84)   X(84)   X(84)   X(84)   X(84)
NORFOLK VA     64 10   X(10)   X(10)   X(10)   X(10)   X(10)   X(10)

GREENSBORO NC  34  4   X( 4)   X( 4)   X( 4)   X( 4)   X( 4)   X( 4)

RALEIGH NC     34 12   1(13)   X(13)   X(13)   X(13)   X(13)   X(13)

CAPE HATTERAS  34 99   X(99)   X(99)   X(99)   X(99)   X(99)   X(99)
CAPE HATTERAS  50 99   X(99)   X(99)   X(99)   X(99)   X(99)   X(99)
CAPE HATTERAS  64 99   X(99)   X(99)   X(99)   X(99)   X(99)   X(99)

CHARLOTTE NC   34  3   X( 3)   X( 3)   X( 3)   X( 3)   X( 3)   X( 3)

MOREHEAD CITY  34 99   X(99)   X(99)   X(99)   X(99)   X(99)   X(99)
MOREHEAD CITY  50 99   X(99)   X(99)   X(99)   X(99)   X(99)   X(99)
MOREHEAD CITY  64 14   X(14)   X(14)   X(14)   X(14)   X(14)   X(14)

WILMINGTON NC  34 99   X(99)   X(99)   X(99)   X(99)   X(99)   X(99)
WILMINGTON NC  50 99   X(99)   X(99)   X(99)   X(99)   X(99)   X(99)

MYRTLE BEACH   34  3   X( 3)   X( 3)   X( 3)   X( 3)   X( 3)   X( 3)

$$                                                                  
FORECASTER BROWN