The Internet Archive, a non-profit digital library, needs help in finding URL's of sites and blogs that contain documents of this major disaster.

Please email links to sites and pages that should be saved for future research to katrina@archive.org.

We have worked to archive events such as 9/11 and the tsunami with the generous help of volunteers finding and sending in links. We then save these digital works for the long term and create research tools (for example: http://www.loc.gov/minerva/collect/sept11/index.html and http://web.archive.org). As a library, we provide free access to those wanting to learn from these events-- we can only hope that we learn some lessons from disasters such as these.

Again, please send email to katrina@archive.org with lists of URL's you suggest should be archived relevant to the Katrina Disaster.

We are also looking for a couple of volunteers that can help orchestrate the crawl. If you are interested, please send a note to katrina@archive.org with "volunteer" in the subject line.

What's that, you ask? Evidently, it's when you ignore the terms written on the side of Lexmark printer cartridge box, refilling the cartridge with ink even when the company has designated it "single use only." According to the Ninth Circuit ruling [PDF] this week in ACRA v. Lexmark, opening the package means you agree to Lexmark's wishes. And if you break that agreement, you could face claims under contract and patent law.

As Fred von Lohmann explains it, it's sort of like when you buy those fancy Gillette Sensor razors, then purchase cheap replacement razor heads -- except that a court has ruled that if the package says "single use," then by opening it you've agreed you can't have any cheap replacements (but you can buy another Gillette "single use" razor). And that means the company that makes the replacement heads is out of luck, too.

This is such a good idea it makes me practically weep with joy. Not only do we need a standard for copy-optimized audio, we also need a standard for copy-optimized video formats, PVRs, ebooks, etc -- man, this is exciting stuff!

What I envision is a disk format that is rigorously specified so that it will work reliably in the simplest embedded devices like car dashboard and home stereo players, but with completely unprotected Free Lossless Audio Codec files on them...

There needs to be a standard so that it's completely unambiguous just what one means when one says "Copy Optimized DVD Audio disc". It's that clear specification that will make embedded players and perfect peer-to-peer network copies possible. A disc containing such files could be popped into your home stereo DVD player and made to play, copy and share with no more user intervention than hitting a button...

But here's the key: each file will be named in a way that's optimized for file sharing, with artist, album, title and track number right in the filename, and with all the right metadata already embedded in the file when the album was mastered at the studio. To share Copy Optimized music you just direct your peer-to-peer filesharing application to your DVD drive so it will share what you're listening to, have your friends copy the tracks onto their computers' hard drives, or else burn them copies of the whole DVD.

But wait: there's more! The DVD disk itself will have a metadata file in its root directory that will specify the contents of the entire disk. My idea is that one could make a bit-for-bit reconstruction of the whole disk just by grabbing this one metadata file and then looking for the tracks on the file sharing networks. This file would be one or two kilobytes of XML that would have each track's metadata as well as its Secure Hash Algorithm checksum so it can be uniquely identified over the net.

At the outset, when designing NadaNet, I envisioned that it could be used to support parallel computing on Apple II machines. To add more processors and save space, I decided that I would package several Apple //e main boards together, without keyboards or peripheral slot cards. (I didn’t disassemble the Apples myself, but found a box of Apple //e main boards being sold as an auction lot for about a dollar each!) I settled on a wooden cube about one foot on a side which I slotted to hold up to 8 main boards. For whimsical reasons, I called it an "AppleCrate".

The boards are powered by a PC power supply (out of sight, with only its power switch showing in the picture). They are connected only to the network using the RCA connector on the lower right in front, described below. It is also possible to connect one or more monitors to their video ports. In the picture it is connected to machine $06.

I had originally hoped to use the board edge connectors (front edge) that Apple used at burn-in to power the boards, but discovered that different board revisions have different edge connections, and none have all the voltages normally supplied. I therefore decided to use threaded rods as power busses (on the bottom) and signal busses (on the top).

The usual mode of operation is to connect the AppleCrate to a more fully configured "master" Apple //e using NadaNet. The Master boots the eight Apples in the AppleCrate and uses them to do work. Once they have been booted and started, they can run independently of the master—though they are clearly I/O-constrained!

The owner of somethingawful.com, a fairly large counter-culture website, started a collection drive for Hurricane Katrina survivors via Paypal.

It appears that Paypal has locked him out of the collections account and is refusing to cooperate. His drive opened only today and accrued $20,000 in less than 24 hours (although, as a journalist myself I am keeping in mind the possibility that Paypal is simply investigating the account for swelling so fast -- this is still bullshit, pardon my french).

All of the somethingawful.com's normal content is gone (their servers were in New Orleans) and there is nothing on there that isn't safe to view at work.

Previously:

PayPal and fee-free transactions for Katrina victims

I am writing this to describe a horrific situation in NOLA that few are aware of, and those who are aware are doing little or nothing. As many of you have likely observed, the national media outlets are suggesting that hurricane relief is finally leading to vast improvements with each hour that passes. Food and water are being delivered, power restored, levees repaired, water drainage plans developed, and those still living successfully evacuated. Many are reporting that the final areas are being checked for survivors, as well as those who have passed at the hands of Katrina (and more often, neglect).

Unfortunately, this is not the case. As demonstrated on nola.com's blog section, many individuals know the exact locations and WORKING telephone numbers of family members, most of whom are elderly, sickly, starving, and in serious need of medical attention. When able to get through on emergency telephone numbers, a feat not to be taken lightly, they are dismissed or told that dispatch would be sent immediately, yet no one has come, even though calls have been placed for days. Many do not require full evacuation, but basic medical attention and/or supplies. Many are completely immobile, and unable to access the limited relief sites or food drops. I spoke to one such individual, Ms. Lee Livermore, who was still trapped in her home earlier this evening (around 6:00pm EST). Her nephew, living in Michigan, explained to me that she is diabetic, has difficulty moving, and he has been in contact with the coast guard, emergency services, and even the governor's office, yet nothing is being done. Stranded on a 3rd floor apartment, with little food, no sweets, and low blood sugar, her outlook is not promising. This is just one case out of hundreds, probably thousands. Incredibly, much of this information is available through nola.com, a resource many of the media are utilizing, yet remains unreported. The television broadcasts refer to none of this, simply stressing the importance of financial contributions, encouraging National Guard membership for potential volunteers, and emphasizing the positive direction the situation is headed.

Link to full text of Ms. Turner's e-mail, as blogged by Michael "Interdictor" Barnett -- an employee of a New Orleans data center who has maintained a blog inside the city throughout the disaster.

Related sites:

Katrina Help wiki
NOLA post-Katrina intel wiki

(Thanks, carrieboo)

# It fits easily in your back pocket or purse.
# It's as cheap as one piece of paper (Because that's all it is!)
# It opens like a book. Leading to easier to find, more organized notes.
# The first page has a pouch, big enough to carry a business card!
# Customizable with "Mods" tailored to your needs.
# It's free and fun!

Update: Eric sez, "If you think PocketMod is cool, you should take a look at Douglas Johnston's D*I*Y Planner, a series of lots of templates distributed under a Creative Commons license, including a 'widget kit' in OpenOffice.org Draw format to assist in creating your own! The D*I*Y Planner is available in several sizes (including 'Hipster PDA' index card size), and new templates are included in every release."

Here's what it does: take any form of media -- DivX/MPEG/whatever video, still images, MP3s, etc -- and load it onto any storage medium -- hard-drive, SD cards, etc -- and this thing will play it back on your TV without requiring a PC. Download the latest Red Vs Blue clips, some machinima, and Battlestar Galactica and put them on an SD card, stick it in your camera and walk over to your friend's place. On the way, shoot a short clip of a street preacher and a photo series at a local garage sale. Take the SD out of your camera and stick it in your friend's Porta-Cinema and bam, you can watch it all, and play any MP3s you've got on your pocket-sized 100GB hard drive as well. The cost of the Porta-Cinema (not including any storage media) was about US$150.

This thing is the bull-goose model of an entire range of similar products. I picked up a no-name 2.5" hard-drive enclosure that has a remote and VGA/composite video/SVHS outputs and plays all the same media formats as the Porta-Cinema (but lacks the flash-memory slots and the clever cartridge system for hard drives), paying about US$70 for it. Another $70 bought me an 80GB Hitachi 5400 RPM 2.5" hard drive. Now I've got a drive the size of an iPod that I can use to play back any video media I lay hands on. (Why the hell doesn't my iPod do this already?)

An oft-repeated mantra about the future of digital media is that no one wants to watch videos on her computer, everyone prefers the wide-screen set in the living room. This is certainly true of some people, at least. These devices solve that problem.

As for me, I'm thinking of going back for another no-name device and loading it with all my family photos and all my parents' photos too, then giving it to my grandmother, who has been feeling excluded by all the digital photography that her brood have been indulging in lately. With this thing, she can watch all the family pics on her TV and take them with her to a friend's house, too.

My friends in Singapore were surprised that I hadn't seen these devices before, but Asia is way ahead of the US, Canada and Europe in this respect. They had one piece of sage advice: spend a little extra for a model with flashable firmware so that you can update the video codecs as new versions of DivX emerge. Good idea. Link

Does this mean the United States is now in an undeclared state of civil war?

From the September 2 article titled "Troops begin combat operations in New Orleans":

NEW ORLEANS - Combat operations are underway on the streets "to take this city back" in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

"This place is going to look like Little Somalia," Brig. Gen. Gary Jones, commander of the Louisiana National Guard's Joint Task Force told Army Times Friday as hundreds of armed troops under his charge prepared to launch a massive citywide security mission from a staging area outside the Louisiana Superdome. "We're going to go out and take this city back. This will be a combat operation to get this city under control."

Jones said the military first needs to establish security throughout the city. Military and police officials have said there are several large areas of the city are in a full state of anarchy. Dozens of military trucks and up-armored Humvees left the staging area just after 11 a.m. Friday, while hundreds more troops arrived at the same staging area in the city via Black Hawk and Chinook helicopters.

"We're here to do whatever they need us to do," Sgt. 1st Class Ron Dixon, of the Oklahoma National Guard's 1345th Transportation Company. "We packed to stay as long as it takes."

While some fight the insurgency in the city, other carry on with rescue and evacuation operations. Helicopters are still pulling hundreds of stranded people from rooftops of flooded homes.

Update: Many readers have written in to ask why I find the use of the word "insurgency" alarming in this context. Let's start with the definition:

an organized rebellion aimed at overthrowing a constituted government through the use of subversion and armed conflict

They're showing all these reports of people looting and doing all that weird stuff, and they are doing that, but people are desperate and they're trying to find food and water, the majority of them.

Now you got some knuckleheads out there, and they are taking advantage of this lawless -- this situation where, you know, we can't really control it, and they're doing some awful, awful things. But that's a small [minority] of the people. Most people are looking to try and survive.

And one of the things people -- nobody's talked about this. Drugs flowed in and out of New Orleans and the surrounding metropolitan area so freely it was scary to me, and that's why we were having the escalation in murders. People don't want to talk about this, but I'm going to talk about it.

You have drug addicts that are now walking around this city looking for a fix, and that's the reason why they were breaking in hospitals and drugstores. They're looking for something to take the edge off of their jones, if you will.

And right now, they don't have anything to take the edge off. And they've probably found guns. So what you're seeing is drug-starving crazy addicts, drug addicts, that are [wreaking] havoc.

We often hear the term used by military leaders or politicians to refer to armed entities in Iraq and other war zones overseas.

We are talking about fellow American citizens here -- in America.

Not insurgents. Not refugees. Not enemies. Americans.

If you work for a wireless company, an internet service provider, or another tech company that can assist -- please consider how your resources might help the countless Americans now displaced and suffering. Link

Reader comment: A BB reader who asks to remain anonymous says,

This has no URL, it was called in to our paper by a reliable BellSouth rep. There is a possibility - it's just that right now - that damage to the telecom infrastructure caused by Hurricane Katrina in Mississippi and the flooding in New Orleans, combined with added stress on the system, may bring down BellSouth as a whole, shutting down phone and other BellSouth telecom service from Texas to the East Coast. Nothing may happen, and I don't want to start a panic. But if you find that your landline phone or Internet starts falling apart -- if you're here, dialing out, and if you're outside of BellSouth's service area, calling into it - that would be why.

The update from the anonymous source who stated that infrastructure damage may "bring down BellSouth as a whole, shutting down phone and other BellSouth telecom service from Texas to the East Coast" is absolutely rubbish.

While I don't speak in an official capacity for BellSouth I do work closely enough with the IP side of our network to tell you that this is just impossible. We pop out to Level3 in a dozen different redundant places. Ditto the frame circuits that move voice traffic.

This weekend I spoke with someone personally who was provisioning data circuits for the Red Cross in one of the disaster afflicted areas. Modern networks do not fail when parts of them fall off the map - they route around the damage. In fact, this damage is being repaired around the clock. Please squelch this verifiably false rumor now.

Meetup.com has designated hurricane.meetup.com to help aid the relief efforts for victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Chris Lin says,

As an addendum to the original post, here are a few other compiled lists:

LiveJournal user alchemy_gryph is maintaining a list on the Academics Anonymous community, with comments coming in very quickly. A-M, N-Z

Also, minervacat is maintaining a list here.

Society for College and University Planning

National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (private universities)

KatrinaHelp wiki direct page:

EN Wikinews

It would help greatly if BB readers could help centralize these lists to a Wiki.

You've been listing schools one by one, but there are hundreds of universities who have offered admissions assistance over the last two days. Many private schools are offering free tuition for at least the fall semester. Most public schools would like to at least offer in-state tuition rates but are still waiting on permission from the state to do so. Here's my school's information page -- at the bottom there are links to several roundup sites for admissions info.

I saw your post on BoingBoing about colleges offering to help students displaced by Katrina. To help parents and students I've started a page to bring all the contact information to one place . My wife is at the University of South Florida and we're calling other universities as we can. Right now we're concentrating on Florida, but I hope to have information up for Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Texas, and Arkansas by later tonight. Link

Cornell isn't the only school offering students a new home. Case Western Reserve University (Cleveland, OH) is doing the same. And I'm not sure about Law Students, but I know that the Med School already has a couple of takers. Link

Both MIT and Harvard appear to have opened their doors to students affected by Hurricane Katrina - though (at least in MIT's case) applications are due within a few days.

[ASU] will allow students who were enrolled in higher education institutions that were affected by Hurricane Katrina to enroll at ASU through September 6. Out-of-state students from those institutions will be granted in-state tuition. Arkansas residents from those institutions will be provided a scholarship for tuition and fees for the fall 2005 semester. Residence Hall housing is available for single students. Please contact the Office of Admissions at 1-800-382-3030.

Bryan says,

Regarding your post on Cornell accepting displaced students, I thought you might like to know that the University of Texas is instituting a similar policy (for more than just it's law school). The policy has different provisions depending on the students residence and prior acceptance status. Complete writeup at the UT website.

The University of Pennsylvania (as well as other Philly area schools) are offering space to Katrina students. Link

My alma mater (UNC Law School) has joined the dozens of law schools that have offered to enroll displaced students from law schools in New Orleans. Link

Although not listed on the AALS website, Boalt Hall at Berkeley is also accepting students from Tulane for the Fall semester: Link

Texas A&M University is offering Katrina refugees dorm, courses, hosting for faculties and university programs. Link

The College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, VA is offering itself to displaced Virginia students.

NC State is offering help for displaced students from Katrina. They are willing to help with not only housing, but also enrollment.

Our Lady of the Lake University, in San Antonio, TX, is offering to take in some students that have been displaced by Hurricane Katrina. I'm not sure exactly how they're planning on doing this, but there is contact information on this page.

The University of Oregon is also offering aid to students displaced by hurricane Katrina. Link

Public health graduate students at Tulane, unlike law students and others, have a different process for finishing their studies this fall. The Association of the Schools of Public Health will take students' requests and match them with a "host school" from one of the 36 other accredited public health institutions. The ASPH schools got together on Friday and worked out this system, hoping that having students go to a single contact (the ASPH) would be easier than having the victims spending their time calling 5-10 institutions trying to find the right match. Link

In addition to the numerous schools listed, this press release details (well, as many details as they have) how the California State University system (over 20 universities) has implemented measures to welcome students from gulf coast schools -- not just the students from California. Link

Collumbia College of Chicago is offering full ride scholarships (including room and board and transportation) to at risk or in need students.

Katrina specific pages: General Info, Process for admission.

Just wanted to let you know that even the University of Wisconsin is also offering to accommodate students displaced by Hurricane Katrina- with an enrollment deadline of Sept. 23. Here's their website.

A more local options for displaced students may be Centenary College of Louisiana, located only 6 hours away from New Orleans, in Shreveport. We're a tiny private liberal arts school, but I know that we're working to take on as many students as possible. I'd encourage any displaced students to apply before the deadline on Tuesday. Also, there are two major shelters that folks may be overlooking in operation here, one at the LSUS gynasium and another at the Hirsch Auditorium. Across the river, Bossier City is sheltering folks at the CenturyTel Center and Civic Center. Link

The University of Maryland has opened its doors, hearts and arms to the affected students and faculty from Tulane and elsewhere. We will help them to the extent possible by minimizing administrative procedures for those who come to College Park to continue their studies and work. Substantial numbers of students have enrolled already and we do expect more. Link

Georgia Tech in Atlanta is temporarily housing 500 evacuees in the Alexander Memorial Coliseum and accepting students through Sept 8th from universities that have been closed due to the hurricane and associated flood waters including 275 from Tulane. Link

-------

The Katrina Help Wiki is a great resource for disaster info in general, but also contains roundups of universities offering various forms of aid.

Hero or felon?

Eighteen-year-old Jabbor Gibson jumped aboard the bus as it sat abandoned on a street in New Orleans and took control. "I just took the bus and drove all the way here...seven hours straight,' Gibson admitted. "I hadn't ever drove a bus."

The teen packed it full of complete strangers and drove to Houston. He beat thousands of evacuees slated to arrive there. Authorities eventually allowed the renegade passengers inside the dome. But the 18-year-old who ensured their safety could find himself in a world of trouble for stealing the school bus.

"I dont care if I get blamed for it," Gibson said, "as long as I saved my people."

There was no official anything on the way in. very few cops, no federal oversight whatsoever.

we walked to the dome and asked arund about where to take these clothes only to be told by cops that they were not accepting donations. I thought that to be BULLSHIT. The administrators and politicians kept saying they did not need anything that they had enough of food and clothes, but anytime the eporters managed to talk to any volunteers or doctors or red cross people, all they could say was "we need EVERYTHING" and "whoever is telling you that there are adequate or suficient supplies of ANYTHING, from food to manpower, is delusional." so I found a red cross worker and asked and she said if we took it into the dome someone would definitely use it.

so we walked down the east ramp, into the saddest, most surreal scene I have ever witnessed in my life. we found a volunteerr who took the clothes we brought and told us how much they were appreciated and we went over and signed up to volunteer.

First of all, the Red Cross is the ONLY organization doing anything remotely organized. they ahve NO federal help. NO national guards, NO military personnel, Nothing at all. they are stretched to the limit in every possble way.the federal government is screwing these people over. it was chaos, but a slightly controlled chaos, and while it was inded heart wrenching to see those people, the babies, the SMELL (not B.O. It was the smel of sewage from these people's clothes. the ones who had not yet gotten to the showers weer weatring the same clothes they have had on for 4 days.) the sight of the babies, the little children, the elderly...

Ned Sublette says: "i can confirm from another source that the orleans parish prison riot really happened, though it hasn't been in the media much, if at all. by the way, the AK-47 is known in new orleans as a "chopper" or a "chop." as in b.g.'s "chopper city in the ghetto" (1998), a platinum-selling album on cash money which gave the world the phrase "bling bling."

We got a call from Baton Rouge on Sunday to be ready to be activated. We shipped out Tuesday morning. We (about 600 Probation and Parole Officers from all over the state) had to empty the Orleans Parish Prison which had 4,000 prisoners and transport them to state facilities in other parts of the state. They were rioting, killing each other and holding civilian hostages.

This never made the news, at least not to the extent that actually played out. We had to have our State CERT teams go in there and use lethal force. I still don't have the exact count of how many had to be shot. I saw the body of one after having been shot and having fallen from the window they had broken through to escape.

Nearby I saw the body of another guy who appeared to have been robbed and killed, then thrown off the expressway that all the refugees were using to get around above the flooded street. There were bodies everywhere. Dogs were dying all over from drinking the water that was flooding the area. We were stationed on the expressway right opposite the Super Dome, about six hundred yards away.

Update: Ned Sublette forwards along this correction request from Elijah Wald:

All 7,100 inmates who had been trapped in the Orleans Parish Prison, which is perhaps the nation's largest jail, were evacuated safely by Friday, state officials said. Deputies, other jail staff, and their families were taken to a shelter in Houma. Despite reports to the contrary, state and local corrections officials said there were no acts of violence during the jail evacuation and that not a single inmate escaped. Link to related New Orleans Times-Picayune story.

[Kanye -- not reading from teleprompter, as planned]: "I hate the way they portray us in the media. If you see a black family it says they are looting if you see a white family it says they are looking for food. (...) those are my people down there. (...) "We already realize a lot of the people that could help are at war now fighting another way and they've given them permission to go down and shoot us."

[Meyers, visibly uncomfortable, reads from prompter script. Camera cuts back to Kanye, who pauses, then says]

"George Bush doesn't care about black people!"

[camera abruptly switches back to a stunned Myers, then to actor Chris Tucker]

NBC quickly issued this statement:

Kanye West departed from the scripted comments that were prepared for him, and his opinions in no way represent the views of the networks. It would be most unfortunate if the efforts of the artists who participated tonight and the generosity of millions of Americans who are helping those in need are overshadowed by one person's opinion.

Link to video (Windows); Link (Quicktime), a torrent, here is another mirror. (Thanks, David Gallardo, Charles Vestal, and Kinsley)

Reader comment: Mr. Snitch says,

Your linked Kayne West video feeds have maxed out and are not working. Consider eliminating some of them, and adding this link, which is responding well: Link

Reader comment: Jason Short says,

Comcast is currently censoring CNN Headline news right now because they are showing the Kayne West clip. Every half hour the last 8 minutes of the CNN broadcast is being replaced by public access TV.

Update: not so, Comcast isn't "censoring" the broadcast. As reader Patrick J Kubley explains,

Comcast has actually been airing those ads during those times for the last few years now. At least here in the Bay Area and down in the San Joaquin Valley where my family lives. I don't know for sure, but I was under the impression that that was true for every market in the western US.

Furthermore, they're more like Public Service segments than ads. This guy, Jack Hanson I think his name is, interviews a particular member of the local community about a certain subject (eg, road problems, neighborhood events, LGBT issues, etc.) They talk for 8 minutes, and a half hour later another taped segment appears with a different guest on. Unless Comcast has been airing something else today (I haven't been home all day to watch the news), then these "ads" are simply part of the regular programming.

My son and his family - his wife and kids, ages 1, 5 and 8 - were flooded out of their home when the levee broke. They had to swim out until they found an abandoned building with two rooms above water level.

There were 21 people in those two rooms for a day and a half. A guy in a boat who just said "I'm going to help regardless" rescued them and took them to Highway I-10 and dropped them there. They sat on the freeway for about three hours, because someone said they'd be rescued and taken to the Superdome. Finally they just started walking, had to walk six and a half miles.

When they got to the Superdome, my son wasn't allowed in - I don't know why - so his wife and kids wouldn't go in. They kept walking, and they happened to run across a guy with a tow truck that they knew, and he gave them his own personal truck. When they got here, they had no gas, so I had to punch a hole in my gas tank to give them some gas, and now I'm trapped. I'm getting around by bicycle.

People from Placquemine Parish were rescued on a ferry and dropped off on a dock near here. All day they were sitting on the dock in the hot sun with no food, no water. Many were in a daze; they've lost everything. They were all sitting there surrounded by armed guards. We asked the guards could we bring them water and food. My mother and all the other church ladies were cooking for them, and we have plenty of good water. But the guards said, "No. If you don't have enough water and food for everybody, you can't give anything." Finally the people were hauled off on school buses from other parishes.

(...) I'm in the Algiers neighborhood of New Orleans, the only part that isn't flooded. The water is good. Our parks and schools could easily hold 40,000 people, and they're not using any of it. This is criminal. These people are dying for no other reason than the lack of organization. Everything is needed, but we're still too disorganized. I'm asking people to go ahead and gather donations and relief supplies but to hold on to them for a few days until we have a way to put them to good use.

If Massachusetts follows through, it will be the first US state to require that all documents be created in an open format. Such a move would boost the credibility of open file formats and encourage fresh competition against Microsoft Office, which holds over 90 percent of the world market in office productivity software...

Microsoft and other companies could keep doing business with the state government by adding OpenDocument as a standard file format. The upcoming version of Microsoft Office, due next year, will use a file format based on the open XML document standard, which is similar to OpenDocument.

But Alan Yates, general manager of Microsoft's information worker business strategy unit, indicated in an e-mailed statement that the company isn't interested in adopting the full OpenDocument standard.

For me, the unsettling aspect of Singapore isn't their repression, which is subtle and always nicely-dressed in legalisms. No, the weird part is the public exhortations, the regime's Taoist PR campaign. They've got some kind of genuine Techno-Confucian Mandate of Heaven thing going on. It's being carried out by really bright, eager, workaholic city apparatchiks who are keenly rehearsed.

Once you've got the population ship-shape through relentless moral pressure and the efficient delivery of social goods, they really don't require a lot of caning and drug executions; on the contrary, even though they're not all spontaneous and touchy-feely, they're proud of themselves. They're not real thrilled at waving party flags and national banners -- they'd obviously rather go shopping -- but, well, they put up with the official triumphalism. They seem to take some comfort in knowing that some exquisitely educated Lion City mandarin is firmly in charge of coining slogans.

"We've got a lot of rebuilding to do. First, we're going to save lives and stabilize the situation. And then we're going to help these communities rebuild.

The good news is -- and it's hard for some to see it now -- that out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast, like it was before.

Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house -- he's lost his entire house -- there's going to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch. (Laughter.)"

I just left New Orleans a couple hours ago. I traveled from the apartment I was staying in by boat to a helicopter to a refugee camp. If anyone wants to examine the attitude of federal and state officials towards the victims of hurricane Katrina, I advise you to visit one of the refugee camps.

Thousands of people (at least 90% black and poor) stood and squatted in mud and trash behind metal barricades, under an unforgiving sun, with heavily armed soldiers standing guard over them. When a bus would come through, it would stop at a random spot, state police would open a gap in one of the barricades, and people would rush for the bus, with no information given about where the bus was going. Once inside (we were told) evacuees would be told where the bus was taking them - Baton Rouge, Houston, Arkansas, Dallas, or other locations. I was told that if you boarded a bus bound for Arkansas (for example), even people with family and a place to stay in Baton Rouge would not be allowed to get out of the bus as it passed through Baton Rouge. You had no choice but to go to the shelter in Arkansas. If you had people willing to come to New Orleans to pick you up, they could not come within 17 miles of the camp.

(...) The city has a 40% illiteracy rate, and over 50% of black ninth graders will not graduate in four years. Louisiana spends on average $4,724 per child's education and ranks 48th in the country for lowest teacher salaries. The equivalent of more than two classrooms of young people drop out of Louisiana schools every day and about 50,000 students are absent from school on any given day. Far too many young black men from New Orleans end up enslaved in Angola Prison, a former slave plantation where inmates still do manual farm labor, and over 90% of inmates eventually die in the prison. It is a city where industry has left, and most remaining jobs are are low-paying, transient, insecure jobs in the service economy.

Race has always been the undercurrent of Louisiana politics. This disaster is one that was constructed out of racism, neglect and incompetence. Hurricane Katrina was the inevitable spark igniting the gasoline of cruelty and corruption. From the neighborhoods left most at risk, to the treatment of the refugees to the the media portrayal of the victims, this disaster is shaped by race.

I was able to get out on the Wednesday after Katrina hit when the city officials ordered the water shut down. The water was cut and it was time to go. And I had to flee this city that I have lived in for the past twenty years not via the efforts of authorized personnel but via a pirate bus, a yellow vehicle with the Jefferson Parish School Board brand on its side -- a bus that operated the kind of rescue mission only imagined in a Louisiana Hollywood bayou version of "Hotel Rwanda." I escaped with my partner Claudia Copeland, my writer friend Jimmy Nolan, who is a fifth-generation native born in the middle of an unnamed hurricane, and his neighbor who I only know as Kip. Kip was on his third day of survival without access to a dialysis machine that cleans his liver and allows him to live.

By 9pm the buses had not arrived and the hotel management was as confused us all of us waiting as to why we were still standing there at this time of night with the city police escort they had also hired just in case their missing buses were rushed by people without the proper tickets to board.

When the yellow pirate school bus cut the dark like some night creature on the street pointing its blinding headlight eyes to the waiting hundreds some cheers broke the whisperings, and we finally thought our hired fleet of heroic rescue vehicles had arrived. The bus only arrived with the information that the fleet had been commandeered -- confiscated--stolen by local police officials acting on martial law.

All along, I had placed myself in waiting close to the hotel management at the corner of Royal and Iberville to be in proximity to hear any information on what was unfolding. Only then did I speak to one of the yellow bus crew of two that told me there were no buses coming and that they were there relaying this difficult news while offering passage to Baton Rouge at fifty dollars a head. (...) Certainly, we made an offer to the bus driver for the four of us that was quite below their asking rate, and like any other transaction under the table in this city, it was accepted.

If the Monteleone could privately engineer a rescue effort to bring in ten buses, then how is it possible that the city and state could not organize a fleet of 100 buses to rescue all the people left behind? These officials could have used the stealth training of the pirate bus crew that seemed to come in and out of town through back roads that were quite dry as opposed to news accounts that water compromised all land rescue efforts. We, the citizens of New Orleans who have managed to escape, are willing to mount our own pirate and private efforts to come and rescue our friends and family members who are still trapped by the infinite and mounting incompetence of those in command.

I ask you to mount a collective scream of outrage and wolf howls into the airwaves, radio and TV stations (...)

Being poor is knowing exactly how much everything costs.

Being poor is getting angry at your kids for asking for all the crap they see on TV.

Being poor is having to keep buying $800 cars because they're what you can afford, and then having the cars break down on you, because there's not an $800 car in America that's worth a damn.

Being poor is hoping the toothache goes away.

Being poor is knowing your kid goes to friends' houses but never has friends over to yours.

Being poor is going to the restroom before you get in the school lunch line so your friends will be ahead of you and won't hear you say "I get free lunch" when you get to the cashier.

Being poor is living next to the freeway.

Prior to joining Google, I set up a meeting on or about November 11, 2004 with Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer to discuss my planned departure....At some point in the conversation Mr. Ballmer said: "Just tell me it's not Google." I told him it was Google.

At that point, Mr. Ballmer picked up a chair and threw it across the room hitting a table in his office. Mr. Ballmer then said: "Fucking Eric Schmidt is a fucking pussy. I'm going to fucking bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I'm going to fucking kill Google." ....

Thereafter, Mr. Ballmer resumed trying to persuade me to stay....Among other things, Mr. Ballmer told me that "Google's not a real company. It's a house of cards."

I worked for T-Mobile a while back. I had direct involvement with the links between the various WiFi roaming partners, including the T-Mobile providers outside of the USA.

I can attest to the fact that the gouge for WiFi roaming is a profit burden, and not much else. There was no new equipment, as most of what needed to be done for WiFi roaming was simply adding in new networks and peering partners into the backend. The only real costs associated with their roaming are the usual monthlies (power, cooling, yaddda yadda) and bandwidth (almost all links are made using VPN's, -not- long distance leased circuits. In both cost categories, T-Mobile purchases with the Costco plan of "buy in bulk and save". It was mostly put in as a marketing tool to go along with their craptacular "global" (because it certainly isn't world wide) phone "service". I suppose it's not so much of a marketing tool these days.

Lack of communications systems has been identified as a critical issue holding back aid, missing persons, law enforcement, etc. in crisis areas.

FCC personnel are working throughout the weekend to coordinate these efforts with private industry, with wireless technology groups, FEMA, and state governments in Mississippi, Louisiana, etc.

COMPANIES WITH TECH ASSETS AND/OR HUMAN RESOURCES TO DONATE FOR COMMUNICATIONS AID IN KATRINA-IMPACTED AREAS SHOULD DO THE FOLLOWING

FCC Chief of Staff Dan Gonzalez (daniel dot gonzales at fcc dot gov) says

FCC needs the following information from would be tech donors BY NOON EASTERN ON SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 3.

1) identify the provider (name of your company or group)
2) identify assets you are willing to commit
3) state clearly what assets you are technologically capable of providing (IP? data? voice?)
4) what your logistical requirements are to bring that to the affected area.
5) can you bring generators? if so what size? capacity? power levels?

SUBMIT THIS INFORMATION TO

PART-15.ORG (they have an online submission form to collect this data)
or wireless@part-15.org

contacts: Michael Anderson (wireless@part-15.org) 630-466-9090, and Claudia Crowley (ccrowley at gmail dot com), 817-292-0230.

Snip from part-15.org website:

The FCC and FEMA is in a desperate need to reestablish communications in the disaster area. More specifically, the metropolitan area of New Orleans and it's surrounding areas. What can Wireless access internet service providers do to help? We can reestablish internal communications and provide connectivity to all disaster relief efforts by installing point to point, point to multipoint links, IP Web cams to assist the police and fire departments who can not be everywhere in such a large area, VoIP phones to provide voice communications to relief personnel in remote areas and many other types of normal everyday communications that most people take for granted.

To accomplish these goals, we will need not only the License Exempt Industry as a whole, but local communities, major companies, and all others that can provide even the slightest of assistance to our teams.

* One of the challenges the FCC faces is fact that the coordination effort involves multiple layers of bureaucracies -- also, that there has been no central point for directing available assets offered by private industry. Participants on the call included folks from Cisco, Intel, and wireless organizations.

* Another challenge: working with FEMA and local governments to ascertain whether it is more immediately effective to get old systems up and running, or create new temporary ones. Depends on tech behind communications system in question. * FCC reps on the conference call also said they may relax some regulations (power restrictions, etc) but are concerned that the effort be coordinated centrally, carefully, so that various emergency communications "efforts don't end up stepping on each other" and causing more of a tech mess.

* Quote from call participant Jim Duncan, Cisco Critical Infrastructure Insurance group:
"Operational issue number one is fuel and energy. Convoy accident happened today with fuel truck heading into one area... getting fuel and power in is critical, nothing can happen in terms of communications without that. Communications priorities will include law enforcement issues, but also missing persons -- getting refugees access to webpages to unite missing families... Cisco is working with Red Cross to help them figure out how to get backhaul connectivity to hundreds of tent cities they're setting up..."

* Some call participants also noted that any volunteers who end up being assigned in the affected area should bring sleeping bags, water, food so as not to strain resources. Hotel rooms, cars are hard to come by. Tech experts who end up coming to the area (by way of coordinated aid efforts) should be prepared to camp out.

* SBC and other companies are working to get voice and data service set up for refugees at the Houston Astrodome. One provider of digital TV service will also be applying its technology to text messaging tools, so that people there can reconnect with families.

* Jeffrey Citron, CEO of Vonage, says his company has been donating gear and just got a hospital back online with voice services. They've been trying to round up a large number of wireless VoIP phones to distribute to first responders.

I attended a private demonstration for military and law enforcement of new nonlethal acoustic devices yesterday at Edwards AFB. Here's my report for Wired News.

Air-raid sirens, Frank Sinatra songs and Muhammad Ali trash talk blared over the Southern California desert in a demonstration of new acoustic technology for crowd control and disaster communications.

In mid-90's morning heat at Edwards Air Force Base, HPV Technologies and American Technology demonstrated prototypes of non-lethal sonic devices for a group of military and law enforcement guests, including representatives of the U.K. Home Office.

Representatives of both companies say that within days, they will ship some units of their respective products to areas hit by Hurricane Katrina, so authorities can use the tools for crowd control, aid distribution and rescue operations.

Costa Mesa, California-based HPV showed off three sizes of its Magnetic Acoustic Device, or MAD, a black square panel composed of multiple speakers. The units on display ranged from about 4 to 10 feet across. The device uses magnets approximately 6 inches tall and 9.25 inches wide to convert electrical pulses into sound waves, and is capable of aiming sound precisely for thousands of feet -- like the sonic equivalent of a laser, or spotlight.

Above, snapshot I took of a technician behind three MADs. We heard sound blasted from these devices up to and beyond a one mile mark on this road, below. Some of it hurt.

(Thanks, Cyrus Farivar!)

Parapsychology is about as far off mainstream science as it is possible to get in a reputable university. It is the study of paranormal phenomena, and the subjects of the Koestler lab's recent experiments range from extrasensory perception through psychokinesis and clairvoyance to hauntings and out-of-body experiences. It is easy to see why the scientific community might give them a wide berth. Yet parapsychologists use the rational language and rigorous methods of science. They have no time for charlatans and fantasists.

Striving for academic reputability, the researchers at the KPU are incredibly careful about their methodology and their language. In many respects they are a model of scientific good practice. "Parapsychologists make extraordinary claims," explains Caroline Watt, acting head of the unit, "so they must take extraordinary care in their experiments." She insists that their results are accurate. They need to be though: even the most ardent believers in "psi" (the Greek letter is used as a blanket term to cover psychic phenomena) accept that evidence in favour of it is made up of small anomalies that are often difficult to identify with any certainty.

How did you two meet, and what got you started on your quest?
Christopher Dawes: Well, I first met Rat because I moved in directly opposite him in Brentford. So the first thing I see when I open my curtains in the morning is his house – and, very often, him. And he has the same thing with me – we were brought together by chance. I was 15 when punk happened, and my favourite band was The Damned; it's probably what started me on a career as a music journalist. So it was a pretty weird coincidence to end up living opposite this guy who had been a big influence on me, although in all my years as a journalist I'd never actually met him.

Rat Scabies: I'd just quit the Damned and that whole show business thing and I really wanted to write something. I thought that the story of Father Bérenger Saunière is such a good one, with so many twists and turns to it, and I knew it so well that it seemed a good place to start. So I began writing a film script and trying it out on people. Having Chris, who's a writer, living opposite me meant he was one of my main targets! He'd never really heard the story before, but the more I told him about it, the more he got sucked into it.

Thirty-five years from now, the illicit professionals who remain in the business will be custom drug designers catering to the wealthy. Their concoctions will be fine-tuned to one’s own body and neural chemistry. In time, the most destructive side effects will be designed out, perhaps even addiction itself. These custom drug dealers will design the perfect chemical experience for those who can afford it. The combination of cocaine with skiing, sex, or other intense physical activities is common today; likewise for pot and making music. In the future, there will be custom drugs for meals, golf, gardening, and more. Like crystal meth today, some drugs will reach the point of home manufacturing. And they will all be designed to make their use invisible to others—no red eyes, nervous tics, or lethargy...

The boundary between legal performance enhancement (Viagra) and the illegal drugs of pleasure and creativity will blur. The political and social pressure against drug use will remain, but it will increasingly resemble the campaigns against performance-enhancing drugs for athletes. Widespread use will spark debates about fairness and authenticity: Is a drug-using musician better than one who composes and performs naturally? Is it fair for only the wealthy to have the richest sexual or culinary experiences?

this link is a HOWTO on using SMS in (most digital) cellphones to send & receive e-mail, even if the mobile does not have an e-mail client or web browser.

Might be handy for folks to learn, esp. since only about 1/4 of folks in the States use SMS now, so a streamlined intro could be useful.

Also placed it in the InfoDump over in the Wiki supporting the Interdictor blog. There, it could be useful in extremis.

Virgin Mobile (USA): Area Code+Mobile Number@vmobl.com

Virgin claims you can send a text message to an e-mail address by just putting the e-mail address in the 'Send To' field. Since they are using the SprintPCS infrastructure, that may or may not work for SprintPCS users.

It's not well known, but FEMA hires temporary federal employees to do the same kind of disaster work as the Red Cross has been doing for years; disaster assessment and casework. I am not sure of how to get into these jobs, as FEMA never told me how I got onto their lists; I suspect it was CERT training.

But once you're in, it's salary + OT + per diem + (frequently) a car to use on scene. This would be a great job for a college student between terms (especially if the college blew away to Oz..) or one contemplating a federal career and wanting to get a leg up. So, here's my suggestion if you are interested:

1. Enroll in the Citizen Corps. Check the CERT & Freedom Corps tick boxes, plus others as desired and appropriate. 2. Take two or more courses . My best guess is the most useful courses are

* IS-7 A Citizen's Guide to Disaster Assistance
* IS-100.FW Introduction to the Incident Command System, I-100 for Federal Disaster Workers
* IS-700 National Incident Management System (NIMS) An Introduction
* IS-200 Basic Incident Command System, I-200 for Federal Disaster Workers

3. Once you've done all that, check the USA JOBS website for postings.

4. Then, contact your closest FEMA office and ask, gently, politely, about temporary work in the disaster area. Be prepared to tell them you are prepared to accept hardship.

5. Other agencies will have temp jobs. Refer back to that USAJOBS site and do other searches.

6. Until accepted, also call your area fire departments and emergency management offices (large cities and some counties) and ask about local CERT training( they may call it something else).

=== Now, if you are willing to volunteer, instead ===

7. Volunteer at the Freedom Corps site. Click the radio button for Public Safety & Disaster Preparation and specify your target state(s).

8. Keep checking back at the Freedom Corps site for new volunteer needs.

Update: Here is the web page where FEMA will officially list employment vacancies for temp jons in disaster recovery.

I'm a Red Cross volunteer techie, and have started speaking with Red Cross in-kind folks to try to open a channel into the RTT (Response Technology Team) folks who ride herd on phones and computer systems.

My first priority is finding a place for RayNet's offer of an Asterisk-based VOIP PABX, but I'd be happy to *try* to find a home for other tech gear.

*Try*. It could be days, or weeks, until the telecomm infrastructure in the worst-affected areas (e.g., New Orleans, Gulfport, Biloxi) is able to handle much of the gear I've seen offered. But, if donors are prepared to be flexible as to where their gear goes, likely what is servicable will find a home serving disaster clients wherever they are.

The American Red Cross In-Kind hotline (everything but cash, checks & credit cards): 800-7IN-KIND

Trango Broadband Wireless is reaching out to find a way to help with Katrina disaster. Shayne told me that he is soliciting info from WISPs and other local companies that are helping in the area. Basically, they are offering equipment, support, contract work, and support for reconstruction contracts. He also said that FEMA has a $182 Million contract that includes communications equipment and mobile command centers. (A Trango reseller is bidding on that contract.)

Trango is open to donating equipment for point-to-point and point-to-multipoint links. Trango does not have Wi-Fi gear, so it's not going to work with anyone's laptop. But it is well suited as a backhaul to Wi-Fi gear like Tropos or other Wi-Fi access points.

ATTENTION: WISPS and Local Companies in the Hurricane Region

Trango Broadband Wireless would like to assist in the relief efforts to re-establish connectivity in the disaster areas. If there are Trango WISPS and local companies engaged in the relief efforts to re-establish communication links, and assistance is needed in this effort, please contact Trango as soon as possible. We are especially interested in assisting companies that are donating time/resources to help people in the region.

If you have immediate needs or are willing to help, please contact me ASAP (shayne at trangobroadband dot com)

This is a link to the official list of policies of Law Schools on accepting Tulane and Loyola students. Most are accepting them with tuition waived, and with pretty liberal policies.

100% of the money we make from this shirt will be going directly to the bloggers on neworleans.metblogs.com for them and their families or local charities that they think could use it. It's the best way we could think of to directly help the New Orleans members of our extended blog family.

as new orleans, now exclusively populated by a starving, parched skeleton crew of the abandoned descendants of slaves, comes apart at the seams:

the right has gotten their wish. they successfully made government ineffective. this is what happens when you take away the power of government. the point of effective government is to keep this from happening to society. and there is no better poster boy for the ineffectivity of government than the sitting president.

the literal meaning of homeland security is that you secure the land you live on, no? by now the absolute vacuum of leadership is becoming apparent even to TV viewers.

in his eerie disconnectedness to what's going on around him, isn't it starting to seem like bush is heavily medicated? he's *zonked*, right?

do they have him take these long vacations so they can change his meds? what's going on here?

he's got to go. he's got to go *now*.

Cornell University is offering admission to Tulane undergrad & graduate students, and opening it's doors to faculty members. Details are available at this link, and at the link-through to the press release. The exact # of spots is as yet undetermined, but it should be quite a few, but will unfortunately not be open to Law students.

This web site is run by Doctors Without Borders (MSF) and describes recommended guidelines for refugee camps. The site makes it painfully obvious that we're not putting enough effort or resources into dealing with Hurricane Katrina evacuees. The recommended space for refugee camps is set at 30 square meters per person. That means the 23,000 people in the Superdome will need 170 acres to meet the suggested MSF guidelines.

U of Central Florida, my school, is starting to make special accomadations for kids attending universities in Katrina's wake. A local channel interviewed our admissions president (I work part time in the admissions office) and it seems that UF and FSU are doing the same.

The University of Florida is doing the same, along with other universities across Florida, for any students displaced by the hurricane. Link

Reader comment: BB reader matt says,

I've got a mirror of a National Guard scanner stream we found up at Hurricane of Weird. It's pretty hairy stuff.

This page states that in a directive from our university president, Arizona State University has opened its dormitories and classes to (college) student victims of Katrina. This includes all of ASU's Schools, including Law. An expedited registration has been instituted. Private community individuals also are taking in some of these students. For more information, please see the website above, call (480)965-312, fax (480)965-7722, email registrar@asu.edu (or myself, kade@asu.edu).

In New Orleans, the worst-hit parishes were the lower-income ones. But the city also ignored the power of nature. More than one million acres of Louisiana's coastal wetlands, or 1,900 square miles, have been lost since 1930, due to development and the construction of levees and canals. Barrier islands and stands of tupelo and cypress also vanished. All of them absorb some of the energy and water from storm surges, which, more than the rain falling from the sky, caused the current calamity.

"If these had been in place, at least some of the energy in the storm surge would have been dissipated," says geologist Jeffrey Mount of the University of California, Davis. "This is a self-inflicted wound."

His latest hack was done to make Media Player content available to the open source VideoLAN Client (VLC) streaming media player. VLC is available for download to 12 different operating systems and Linux distributions and has seen more than six million downloads to Mac. Apple is even pre-loading VLC on some Macs destined for high schools in Florida.

Johansen told The Register he'd acted following requests for NSC support in VLC. One developer is already hard at work integrating Johansen's decoder into the VLC.

Johansen said: "Windows Media Player is not very good and Windows and Mac users should not be forced to use it to view such [NSC] streams."

The NSC file contains information about the stream, such as the name and address of the stream server. When the file is opened in Media Player, the file is decoded and then connected to the stream server specified.

Nevertheless, she plans on visiting London to host "a ‘show and tell’ style event about her work and Portland’s cultural output." This means that she needs money to pay for her son's medical care.

A group of writers and zinesters are hosting a fundraiser for her at London Colonnade's Horse Hospital on September 24th, 12-5pm. The price of admission is a book or a bag of books. The organizers will sell off the donated books for £1 each. There's also a showing of Harold and Maude and Times Square. This is a good cause and looks like a day of good fun:

Please bring your books in bags, if possible divided up into fiction and non-fiction. This is your entrance fee. If you don’t have books to bring you pay £1. You only need bring one book to get in free, but please bring as many as you can [omitting your 1993 Time Out restaurant guides and 1996 Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbooks please]. You will be able to come and go during the sale, so you can check back later on to see what else has come in, though we will be starting with some prime donations on sale. If you want to know the truth we have also been promised a very, very rare book, which will be auctioned at the start of the sale.

He introduced the design of his new controller specifically tailored for the Granny, and a picture of a cat appeared on the screen to great amusement. He explained, "the shape of the cat and the heat waves that it gives out really gets the old ladies going as they get quite cold. They like the cat shape. The cat is designed to be rested on the old ladies knees." The cat controller was met with rapture from the audience as Takahashi went on to explain the gameplay concept.

The game would begin with the family suggesting to Granny that she wear the cat because, for example, her knees looked cold. Embedded in the cat is the capability for it to communicate wirelessly with other cat controllers (on other Grannies' knees) in the neighborhood. When the cat connects to another one, "..the onboard a.i. kicks in." This causes the cat to speak, paraphrased as "meow, meow, grandma, meow". Takahashi explains that the family are required to participate in the game by pretending that they haven't heard anything, because of this – Grandma begins to build the perception that she is able to communicate directly with the cat.

As the dialogue with the cat develops, it suggests that Granny make some soup – but faster than the other granny down the street who has also received the instruction. A competitive element emerges and gradually the cat suggests more and more group activities that Grandma might engage in, culminating in trips to the park. "..So they all go outside and eventually they meet other old ladies with cats and they all become friends. So it's a game that involves the participation and love of the entire family." Takahashi ended the presentation by commenting on the possible production path of the cat, "Namco and Bandai are merging so when I get home I will submit my proposal."

I'm back in Baton Rouge, this time with all of my team. Sadly, we've had to pull out of New Orleans for now because things have gotten too dangerous.

Who would have thought that in a country like ours. not some third world place, mind you, that there would be massive amounts of people trying to inflict harm on the very people that are putting their own lives on hold to help other. It's unreal what we're seeing. The criminal looters (if that's even a strong enough word for them) have been shooting at the helicopters that are the only hope that the city has right now of saving more lives and thereby preventing many more deaths. I can tell you that there isn't a single member of the two teams I'm with that aren't ready to go back in, shooting and all, but the fear is from the higher-ups who can't risk losing the helicopters and the boats. I can't believe it Jon. people of roof tops and in attics will die tonight because sub-human thugs are shooting at the only people who can help anyone right now.

Your friend is normally right to question money that the Red Cross spends to supports itself. Right now, though, they are the only game in town. Give to them and give generously. Word is that the money they get in the next month will go directly to the shelters here in the south so that those running the shelters can buy food and water NOW. They get funds out faster than any other agency and RIGHT NOW is what matters.

If your friend is just really dead-set against giving to them, the Salvation Army is the next best thing. When you donate to them you can designate that you want the money to go to Katrina's victims. There will be much small charities that do really good work popping up in the coming weeks and months but the people down here need money now.

When things settle a bit and I can look into the smaller charities, I'll do some good research and let you know. For now, just give. give to anyone who will take it.

There are people here in Baton Rouge just handing over cash to the shelter operators and walking cash over to the office that New Orleans' mayor is working from while he can't be in his own city.

The news is on right now. Some of the team members are watching coverage for the first time since Sunday night. They're pretty fucking pissed off.

They haven't realized the lack of control that the big emergency operations people are dealing with. They follow orders of the local guys and just do the best they can to save people, save people, save people.

They are only just now seeing that once they risk their necks to save people, the next level of the system isn't in place yet and that the people have to start a whole new struggle to stay alive. Morale is getting low. These guys are tired; they've been working no-stop since we got here. They have mandatory rest breaks, but you don't really rest during them; you're too busy sharing stories and just looking around in disbelief. I can't tell you how many of these guys just come over to me at any given time that they're not in a boat or in the air, put their arms around me and cry.

There have been times on this journey I have hated being here because I can't be doing what these guys are doing, what I used to do, what I dreamed of and loved for so long. But that's not the feeling I have when I sit up against a cement wall, in filthy water, and a guy I've known for years cuddles up in me and sobs. I know that's not the way the public may want to think about their rescuers and their heroes, but that's how it is.

Swinging an axe and breaking into an attic to see if there's anyone there to save and finding a dead family of four instead will bring tears to even the most stoic of people.

- Give.org provides info about rates of donations going to programs for various groups & has a special Katrina-Relief-Orgs page. I didn't look to see who was the *most* efficient, but I did check a couple of groups I was concerned about.

- According to them, America's Second Harvest (ASH) is a foodbank and *98%* of funds donated go to program. Red Cross sends 91% to programs.

- We have chosen to donate through the Rainbow Fund -- all the Rainbow Fund's donations go directly to America's Second Harvest. The Rainbow Fund is "a gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and supportive heterosexual humanitarian service agency. Rainbow World Fund's mission is to promote LGBT philanthropy in the area of world humanitarian relief."

We are passing our donation thru Rainbow Fund for two reasons: (1) Louisiana recently passed an anti-same-sex-marriage constitutional amendment; and (2) in response to those religious fundamentalists who are trying to blame this flooding on queers, abortion providers, and New Orleans' 'sin'.

(The researchers) point out that during the 1960s and 1970s Britain imported hundreds of thousands of tonnes of whole and crushed bones and animal carcasses. These were used for fertilizer and to feed livestock.

Nearly 50% of these imports came from Bangladesh, where peasants gathering animal materials may have also picked up human remains, the researchers say....

Religious customs in Bangladesh and surrounding areas mean that many corpses are disposed of in rivers. People may have collected remnants from such bodies when foraging for animal carcasses, the Colchesters argue in The Lancet. Any prions in these corpses might then have caused mad cow disease.

FEMA is directing Katrina donations to none other than the Rev. Pat Robertson. FEMA has released to the media and on its Web site a list of suggested charities to help the storm's hundreds of thousands of victims. The Red Cross is first on the list. The Rev. Pat Robertson's "Operation Blessing" is next on the list.

Update: (Robertson's evangelical group is now in third place, not second, on the list)

KatrinaHelp wiki has been receiving tremendous amount of hits. Just over a million hits just today. Our server is generously hosted by Rudi Cilibrasi out of Amsterdam and he can't handle the traffic. We are in desperate need of server space and bandwidth to host our wiki. We know that we have been able to help people by putting information together in one place and it shows by the list of contributors -- about 200 of them the last I checked. If you could just post this message so that we can get somebody to help us out with the bandwidth, we would be grateful.

UPDATE: Bala Pitchandi says,

We have received a bunch of offers and are working with them. Meanwhile, in order to filter out false leads: These are the specs we need:

- Superuser (root) access on real server
- 40GB-100GB bandwidth per month allocation
- Have remote restart capability if necessary for crashes
- Box should be debian linux, >= 1GB RAM, >=256GB hard drive
- We need 256gb hard drive space.
- Just 1gb - 4gb ram is all that is needed. We are running on 1gb now.
- We need a 3-Live as well.

Thanks again

Back in June, I noticed that T-Mobile had started charging an extortionate $0.18/minute to "roam" on the Swisscom WiFi services I often used in Geneva. When I called them to ask about this, they said that they had no choice, as Swisscom was charging them that much to provide service to their customers (incidentally, that is substantially more than it costs to simply buy Swisscom access from Swisscom).

But now I've happened upon this article at WiFi Net News, which explains that T-Mobile is charging $0.18/minute to "roam" on its own WiFi networks in Europe. If a T-Mobile US customer uses a UK T-Mobile hotspot, T-Mobile charges $10.80 per hour for the privilege!

What the hell? I can understand that if Swisscom is charging T-Mobile ten bucks an hour for roaming, T-Mobile isn't going to eat that -- they'll pass it on to their customers. But if one T-Mobile division is charging another T-Mobile division $10/hour to provide WiFi for T-Mobile customers, then surely T-Mobile can fix it. By contrast, this is 33 percent more than T-Mobile US customers pay to roam on the Telecom Italia and Portugal Telecom networks -- in other words, the Italian government offers T-Mobile US customers a better deal that T-Mobile UK does!

I've finally found the excuse I need to cancel that old T-Mobile account of mine, I guess. Thanks for nothing, T-Mobile. Link

I just spoke to nelson valdes, a walking encyclopedia of knowledge about cuba, and asked him how civil defense is conducted in cuba. he ticked it off while i listened with my left hand and typed with my right. here are the notes i took:

* * *

less than 2 months ago, cuba was able to move 1.7 million people on short notice.

the whole civil defense is embedded in the community to begin with. people know ahead of time where they are to go.

they come to your door and knock, and tell you, evacuation is coming, then they come and tell you, now.

if no electricity, they have runners who communicate from a headquarters to central locations what is to be done.

the country's leaders go on TV and take charge. but not only the leaders are speaking. the TV weatherpeople are knowledgeable. and the population is well educated about hurricanes.

they not only evacuate. it's arranged beforehand where they will go, who has family where. not only pickup is organized, delivery of people is organized.

merely sticking them in a stadium is unthinkable. shelters all have medical personnel, from the neighborhood. they have family doctors in cuba (!), who evacuate together with the neighborhood, and already know who, for example, needs insulin.

if they evacuate to a countryside high school -- a last resort -- they have dormitories there.

they also have veterinarians and they evacuate animals. they begin evacuating immediately, and also evacuate TV sets and refrigerators, so that people aren't relucatant to leave because people might steal their stuff.

it's not throwing money at the problem. it's not financial capital, it's social capital. the u.s. in this sense has zero social capital.

dealing with hurricanes in cuba, as compared with how it's done in the u.s., is similar to the differences in how they deal with medicine. it's not reactive; it's proactive. they act as early as possible. the u.s. doesn't have civil defense, it has civil *reaction.*

This BBC site quotes the Red Cross on how "efficient" the Cuban authorities dealt with hurricanes: Link

Thank you for contacting PayPal.

We set up a fee free fund for victims. Whoever told you that has no idea what they're talking about.

If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact us again.

Sincerely,
Aaron
PayPal Resolution Services
PayPal, an eBay Company

Reader comment: 43rdstateblues says,

Here is paypal's free donation point. Strangely, one goes from paypal to ebay back to paypal to get there...

Regarding Paypal's response this AM what they are offering is something very different from what I wrote to you about. See this link which appears to be what Aaron is referring to. [Incidentally, could be wrong, but I don't believe this was in place when I wrote.]

I'm delighted that they are doing this, but the point I made is not addressed by a generic donation to United Way, albeit fee-free. This is something entirely different from waving fees for payments made directly to individual friends and family based in the affected areas, which is what is sorely needed (as well as facilitating the means to convert those funds from PayPal to cash). There's clearly going to be a need among evacuees for an emergency banking network, and this is where PayPal could provide an invaluable service, and where it should not be making money per transaction. It's really the only game in town. That's what I was suggesting, not merely that PayPal should set up a link to a charity!

I feel, quite frankly, that the statement made by PayPal is somewhat obfuscating and wee bit self-serving, and has no relevancy. We are talking here of two entirely different issues.

Reader comment: tor says:

Must paypal customers don't have an atm card - so there is no way to quickly turn paypal money into real money. It sucks, but that's pay pal's business model.

It may not be as hip as paypal - but there is a system to get moeny quickly to hurricane victims already set up. And it can send that money pretty much anywhere in the area that has power. Western Union has thousands of outlets throughout the area, and if you want to get money quickly to your friends and family, send it that way.

Don't waste time arguing with paypal over a service they don't really provide.

Instead, yell at Western Union for taking a $25 cut of every wire going into the affected area. This may change at some point, but as of two days ago, when my friend in Mobile desperately needed money, that's what they charged - same as any other money transfer.

I understand that they have costs and expenses, but they don't have to make a profit off of other people's misery.

Imagine if Tower Records sold you a CD, but then, a few months later, knocked on your door and replaced the CD with one that you can't play in your car. Would you still feel like you "owned" the CD? Not so much, eh?

But Apple reserves the right to change at any time what you can do with the music you purchase at the iTunes Music Store. For instance, in April 2004, Apple decided to modify the DRM so people could burn the same playlist only 7 times, down from 10. How much further will the service restrict your ability to make legal personal copies of your own music? Only Apple knows.

Another hallmark of ownership is the right to give away or sell your property. That's called "first sale," and it's explicitly protected under copyright law. Yet Apple's DRM frustrates first sale—just ask George Hotelling, who had to give away the login and password to his iTunes Music Store account in order to resell a single song.

As the table below shows, there are many other ways that Apple's DRM limits what you can do with a song you "own." Many other a la carte download services choose to impose similar restrictions. How "generous" of them.

It's said that it will protect the vulnerable young artist from predatory collectors, galleries and patrons. It won't. It won't always protect him from abusive patrons, since the right only applies to dealings other than between private individuals. If the collector sells to anyone other than a business, or as an act of business, then he won't be liable to pay the royalty.

Indeed it might even make the position of the vulnerable artist worse. When negotiating the price the buyer may say that since he will have to pay a resale royalty he must pay a lower initial price as compensation for this extra burden.

Lastly the protection will be trivial to circumvent, it only applies to art businesses in the UK. All you'd need to do to avoid the charge is assign the ownership of the painting, for a nominal consideration, to a non-EU company and have them sell it at Sotheby's in New York. Or you could sell it to a confederate at less than the 3000 Euro limit, which would avoid the provision, have them sell it for you. This works because there are no provision as to resale at a deliberate undervalue, or much other anti-circumvention language.

Police identified the man as Daniel Hoyt, 43, of 261 E. 10th St. in Manhattan.

Hoyt, who co-owns the raw-food eateries, Quintessence, allegedly exposed himself on Aug. 19 on a northbound "R" train at Cortland Street, police said. The female passenger used her camera phone to get his photo, and the man left the train at Prince Street.

For the Lunar Penguin to be a viable Moon probe, some of the prototype's features would need to be redesigned. For example, the guidance system would need to be reconfigured for navigation on the Moon rather than on Earth. It currently uses a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver, which would not work on the surface of the Moon, as it uses Earth-orbiting satellites...

(Surrey Satellites researcher Max) Meerman says the Lunar Penguin's unique approach to lunar locomotion could prove a useful way of exploring the Moon’s hostile landscape. "If it's successful, perhaps we could find astronauts on the next manned Moon mission using the same system to jump over hills," he says.

While rumen fluid itself won't be used as an energy source, some of the microorganisms found in the fluid are also found in cow dung, which may prove to be a good source for generating electricity. In fact, in a related experiment, the researchers used cow manure directly to create energy for a fuel cell...

This study represents the first time that scientists have used cellulose to help charge a fuel cell....

(The) output reached a consistent maximum of 0.58 volts. After about four days, the voltage fell to around 0.2 volts, at which time the researchers added fresh cellulose to bring the voltage back up to a higher level.

“While that's a very small amount of voltage, the results show that it is possible to create electricity from cow waste,” (bioengineerin Ann) Christy said.

When an inmate of a correctional facility is acutely suicidal, officers must remove every item that can be used for self-harm. Our smocks and bedding safely allow the inmate warmth and modesty.

* The Safety Smock A quilted gown designed specifically to clothe suicidal prisoners/inmates (not a restraint).

* The Safety Blanket Sturdy and quilted for safety and warmth.

# INTRODUCING: The Safe Sleeping Bag

For years, there has been chatter among online players about the coming poker bot infestation. WinHoldEm is turning those rumors into reality, and that is a serious problem for the online gambling business. Players come online seeking a "fair" shot - a contest against other humans, not robots. But an invasion of bots implies a fixed game (even though, like their mortal counterparts, they can and do lose if their hands are bad enough or opponents good enough). So the poker sites loudly proclaim that automated play is no big deal. At the same time, they are fighting back by quietly scanning for and eliminating suspicious accounts. "We're making sure we never have bots on our site," says PartyPoker marketing director Vikrant Bhargava.

That's an impossible promise to keep, says Ray E. Bornert II, WinHoldEm's elusive creator. He's trying to flood the online world with his bot - and make a killing in the process. Bornert offers an elaborate justification for what many view as outright cheating: Online poker is already rife with computer-assisted card sharks and - thanks to him - a growing number of outright bots. Players should get wise and arm themselves with the best bot available, which is, of course, WinHoldEm.

A PlayStation Portable is a strange thing. I sat next to a man on the London tube, two days after the PSP launch in Japan, and he already had one. He was playing it, it was glinting, and I couldn't help myself - I leaned over and said, "Wow! You've got yours already?" And he said, "Yes, here." And shoved it into my hands.

I had no idea what to do with it. I know how to work these things - it's just a Playstation, reflexes kick in - but oh my God, I was holding his PSP. Was he nuts? I'm a stranger! But this is what the PSP does - it makes you want to share.

You want to show people the quality of this illegal copy of The Office. You want to show that you can fit four of these episodes on a one Gigabyte chip, or eight of these slightly more pixilated episodes of Doctor Who. Superb. Like a sonic screwdriver, my PSP can do anything.

Dicky doesn't like to dance to electronica. Dicky doesn't like glo-sticks or pink cowboy hats. Dicky doesn't trust touchie-feelie strangers who want to be his best friend.

But he very much likes Burning Man's desert art, so his roommate Logan Mirto decided to turn Dicky's anxieties into an interactive sculpture that would make him more comfortable on the playa: A clear room with clean white Ikea furniture and a mail slot to accept notes, food and gifts from the community. He can mingle, on his own terms.

At a suburban hotel here, in a windowless conference room called the "Hollywood" suite, a rapt circle of geeks sings songs about spaceships.

Accompanied by acoustic guitars, clarinets and the quacking of kazoos, the group sounds much like a traditional folk ensemble. But the lyrics and rituals set the music far apart. With its heavy sci-fi themes, this isn't folk -- it's "filk," a distinctive genre that took root on folk's fringes about two decades ago and is now gaining broader attention thanks to internet radio and web downloads.

"You want minors on the moon who need a labor union? We got songs about that. You want asteroid truckers with broken-down ships? We got songs about that. If you want cats in space we got that too," explains Mary Creasey, an organizer, producer, vendor and performer of filk music with her son Richard and her husband, John.

"We write about all the great fantasy topics ... dragons, unicorns, vampires, castles, wizards, witches, what have you," she continues in a soft voice with a hint of Appalachian drawl. "All the great contemporary hard science topics, too -- computers, space, time travel, nanotechnology, you know -- this 'n' that. And then, hybrids. Vampire computers. Vampire kittens. The computer necromancer who raises your PC from the dead."

The actual estimates for insured structural damage caused by Hurricane Katrina are currently around US $25-30Bn. The current loss of life estimates are in the hundreds (although I'd be unsurprised if the eventual death toll does not eventually top 9/11 by quite a margin). But the economic damage from closing the Port of Southern Louisiana for up to three months is huge -- plausibly equal to 5% of the US balance of trade with the rest of the world. I can't put a figure on that total, but I'd be surprised if it isn't an order of magnitude more than the $25-30Bn insurance costs, and possibly even higher than the cost to date of the Iraq war and occupation ($200Bn). A couple of hundred billion here, a couple of hundred billion there -- pretty soon we're talking real money.

What are the likely consequences (locally and globally) of blowing a 5% of GDP sized hole under the waterline of the US economy?

The Louisiana coastline may have been so badly damaged by the hurricane because manmade engineering of the delta has led to erosion of natural defences, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers.

The engineering of the last 100 years that has reworked the Mississippi delta with thousands of miles of levees and flood barriers to protect communities and aid navigation, has also disturbed natural barriers which traditionally prevented storm surges and protected against hurricanes, says the society.

"Human activity, directly or indirectly, has caused 1,500 square miles of natural coastal barriers to be eroded in the past 50 years. Human activity has clearly been a significant factor in coastal Louisiana land losses, along with subsidence, saltwater intrusion, storm events, barrier island degradation, and relative sea level changes," the society said in a paper last year.

It warned that "New Orleans and surrounding areas would now experience the full force of hurricanes, including storm surges that top levee systems and cause severe flooding as well as high winds".

The damage done this time may be also linked to White House cuts in funding for hurricane defence to pay for homeland security terrorist defences.

Best bet is to go to vonage, and offer a communications center so people can reach loved ones now.

A cafe would be perceived as being elitist if basic needs hadn't been covered.

One more idea I would help support: A craigslist type system of helping people locate loved ones.

BB reader Charles Oliver Wolff says,

Getting permission to do this is going to take a few steps. First, we need to contact the federal agency coordinating disaster relief. That would probably be FEMA. Region VI includes Texas and Louisiana, so the contact person would probably be the region VI director, Gary Jones, at:

FEMA Region VI
Federal Regional Center
800 N. Loop 288
Denton, Texas 76209
(940) 898-5399

Second, we'd need to find out who the facility director is at the Astrodome. Harris County owns it, so a call to the county clerk might be a place to start there, or try

Harris County Facilities and Property Management 1310 Prairie St.
Suite 1330
Houston, TX 77002
(713) 755-5091

Lastly, enhance credibility by getting some other outside relief agency that is already involved interested, like the Salvation Army, or something like that. This shouldn't be too hard to do.

Raymond McKay, President of RAYNET Technologies, says:

Regarding earlier posts of tech geek help for a telecommunications center at the Astrodome, my company is prepared to step up if somebody can find the authorization to setup there. We have lying in wait, all the hardware to setup the network and a phone bank. We will pay whatever it costs to get Internet access into there, and I, and a team, will personally go down there and set it up. All we would need to make this reality is

> a) Permission previously stated to be allowed to set this up.
b) Low end workstations. We can probably come up with 10 personally, but more would help

If somebody can get us the information on a) we can get down there and setup in the next couple days.

I have a Katrina aid suggestion. As I write this I'm looking at a still perfectly functional 1 year old Blackberry 7230 that I forsook for the new Treo. There's also a 2 year old Nokia 6560 cell phone and probably one or two others of earlier vintage in a drawer somewhere.

My point is that I live in San Francisco and there's a lot of us here (and I'm guessing in the other metro areas) who replace our technology at a pretty alarming rate for a variety of reasons. It makes for a lot of cell phones sitting in drawers waiting to be donated, sold or tossed. It strikes me that there's a lot of people in the NOLA area that could probably use a free phone right now. They can have mine. And they could probably have every other unused phone in the city. Would you, or anyone in the community have any idea as to how we could make this happen? Might it even be possible to get one of the big providers on board?

I know there are bigger issues of providers and where the hell are those providers going to send a bill if what's left of the users address is now floating in the Gulf. All I know is I have a phone or two and I'd really like to send them to someone who has the clothes on their back, nothing else and no phone.

"We're essentially picking up a small city and inserting it into Houston," said Frank Michel, the city's communications director. Once the storm victims arrive, officials said, the challenges will be huge: identifying the sick or emotionally traumatized, helping cash checks and find ATM machines and phones to contact their families.

Additional efforts include deployment of Cisco Mobile Communication Kits to the impacted region. These briefcase-size kits contain a packaged set of Cisco technologies designed to be easily transportable and provide mobile Internet Protocol (IP)-based wired or wireless data and voice connectivity for areas that have lost or do not have a communications infrastructure. This allows rapid communications in disaster or remote locations that can be set up within minutes of arrival.

Cisco is working in concert with nongovernmental associations and government agencies to determine the best allocations for the donations(...)

BB reader Edward Ripley-Duggan says,

Great that Google's making a special effort, per your BB post.

However, PayPal has (unless very well hidden) done nothing, despite the fact that it could well play a crucial role in getting money to refugees, given the fact that the PO has bowed to the inevitable and has withdrawn service to portions of the region.

I sent a small cash donation to an online friend yesterday via PayPal -- he is safe, but with no house, no job, and a wife, daughter and babe-in-arms. PP will take their usual slice of the transfer. I strongly feel that a responsible company would make appropriate arrangements in this regard and waive fees (they have the locations of recipients in their database as "confirmed addresses" and could easily determine who is eligible), and would perhaps create a system to facilitate the recovery of funds from their system (I assume his bank is underwater, so how he can get the cash in useful form is of concern to me) -- [Ed. Note: see update below from PayPal for their response on this].

Previously:

Katrina aid idea: create cybercafe/free voip phone center at Astrodome?

Tech pros ask: how can we help with Katrina recovery?

Reader comment: Ted says,

Regarding Paypal's response this AM what they are offering is something very different from what I wrote to you about. See this link which appears to be what Aaron is referring to. [Incidentally, could be wrong, but I don't believe this was in place when I wrote.]

I'm delighted that they are doing this, but the point I made is not addressed by a generic donation to United Way, albeit fee-free. This is something entirely different from waving fees for payments made directly to individual friends and family based in the affected areas, which is what is sorely needed (as well as facilitating the means to convert those funds from PayPal to cash). There's clearly going to be a need among evacuees for an emergency banking network, and this is where PayPal could provide an invaluable service, and where it should not be making money per transaction. It's really the only game in town. That's what I was suggesting, not merely that PayPal should set up a link to a charity!

I feel, quite frankly, that the statement made by PayPal is somewhat obfuscating and wee bit self-serving, and has no relevancy. We are talking here of two entirely different issues.

Update: Numerous readers wrote in to remind us of FedEx Furniture, the beleaguered hobbyist site that served as inspiration for this table.

Issue #9 has unleashed itself on the world. Some pretty darn amazing stuff in here if I must say so myself. Of course there's the red-not Hal Duncan with his novelette "The Chiaroscurist" to kick the issue off. Hal also sees his first novel Vellum release in the UK this month. It's pretty freaking good, too. If you're caught up in the Hal Duncan craze, don't forget to buy copies from me and not off Ebay. I'll save you at least $30, if not more.

But hey, this isn't all about Hal. Fellow Scottish writer Neil Williamson shows off his skill with "The Euonymist." This issue displays quite a international flair with rising British talent Jay Caselberg's "A Taste for Flowers," a tale sure to make your milk curdle. We continue abroad with the delightful Anna Tambour tale "Strange Incidents in Foreign Parts." The talented Kristine Ong Muslim is our last overseas contributor with two poems in the issue.

Now, don't start thinking that the United States isn't represented. You probably notice the Thom Davidsohn (of JPPN fame) cover first. Yowza! Electric Velocipede regular, Mark Rich, keeps up his stellar work with "Another Day." Mark W. Tiedemann shows us all about "Hard Time" and Jonathan Laden looks into the future through "Braids of Glass." The issue closes with the always spectacular Jason Erik Lundberg and his 'egotistical' tale of the "Solipsister." Unfortunately, on top of everything cool, this issue does mark Bill Braun's final "Attic Space" column; he will be missed.

Here's a follow-up interview with one of the company's founders in which he goes into some detail about how the service will and won't work. If this thing launches on the terms he's described here, I'll be the first in line to sign up for it! Link (Thanks, Johann and John!)

caption: President Bush plays a guitar presented to him by Country Singer Mark Wills, right, backstage following his visit to Naval Base Coronado, Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2005. Bush visited the base to deliver remarks on V-J Commemoration Day. (AP Photo/ABC News, Martha Raddatz). Link.

Meanwhile, during those same hours, in Mississippi: Volunteers rescue a family from the roof of their Suburban, which became trapped in floodwaters on US 90 in Bay St. Louis, Miss. (Ben Sklar / AP) August 30, 2005.

BB reader Phil Gross says,

Regarding use of Google Earth to overlay near-live damage photos: Satellite photos of Katrina's damage will be available through Google Earth and Google Maps in the next few days. They've scheduled time on five flyovers in the next week. Poeple will at least be able to see the damage for a large part of the area at a fair level of detail. Link

In this previous Boing Boing post, you included a link to some NASA images of flooding in New Orleans. Here is a link to high resolution images of the Mississippi gulf area from NOAA. From the main page, people should click on the "Index Map" Graphic, from there they can select which part of the state they'd like to see images for. Link

You might want to keep an eye on NASA's MODIS Rapid Response site. This is where images from TERRA and AQUA come before getting preocessed and geo-rectified. But you might be able to get some images of the NOLA area before they hit the press. You can get very high resolution images here. Link

I thought you might be interested in some NOAA aerial photography imagery to match up to Google Maps pre-Hurricane imagery. I'm not from the area, and I think having before and after shots demonstrate the impact of this distaster.

US 90 Bridge before: Link US 90 afterwards: Link.

Bay Saint Louis before: Link. Afterwards: Link.

Gulfport's Port: Link -- and after: Link.

Also, this building remained somewhat intact, while everything around it is devastated. Link one, Link two.

I whipped up a quick "mouse over to toggle between before and after satellite pics of Katrina" page just now. It makes it easier to see the (astounding) differences. It's here: Link

Previously:

New satellite images of NOLA flooding (USGS, NASA)

Using Google Earth to process Katrina flood damage data

It seems that everyone currently in the New Orleans Superdome -- plus many others -- are going to be moved to the Astrodome...estimates range from 10K to 30K people, with a possible stay of "months" mentioned. The Astrodome's schedule is being cleared through December.

Communications are going to be a serious issue for these refugees; for example, those few who might have their cell phones probably don't have their chargers. And in a month, when their bill goes to their still-underwater house and isn't paid, their service will be cut off.

Suggestion: we the geeks put together and deploy the world's largest cybercafe in the Astrodome.

Granted, Internet access isn't a panacea, but it at least would provide a way for these people to communicate. What's needed:

(a) permission from someone in a position to grant permission
(b) space+power
(c) tables
(d) chairs
(e) lots and lots of PCs and Macs
(f) at least one ISP that provision a pipe into there
(g) net infrastructure: routers, cabling, etc.
(h) sufficient geek labor to build it.

My guess is that (a) might be the most difficult to come up with. So now what?

While a VOIP center at the astrodome would be a fun thing to build, maybe cell phones and blackberries would be a better way to actually get people in touch with the people they need to get in touch with.

Someone is blogging inside New Orleans whilst camped up on the 10th floor of a highrise in a data center. There's a webcam feed out onto the street below as well as accounts of looting (people selling looted shoes out on the street) and police movements within the city.

Regarding the post about helping Katrina survivors - SANS ISC is reporting that there are a number of scams going around about this (via spam), and that these sites look very dodgy: katrinahelp.com katrinarelief.com katrinacleanup.com. They recommend only giving money to recommended charities listed here.

Reader comment: Jon Adams says,

In response to the phony Katrina aid scam websites, I found a few things via WHOIS and some Googling.

All the aid sites are registered to somebody named Demon Moon (not exactly the name of somebody looking to aid the disaster relief) located in Yulee, FL. Another site registered to this domain is bosco.us which seems to automatically forward you to rentalink.com/indexpvt.html for a brief period and then, oddly, to 32097.com.

There's also the fascinating rentalink.com where these sites seem to reside which states they "use proprietary automated techniques and software to search for and register generic domain names for websites, portals and client projects."

The email addresses associated with this person (aside from those on the aid site) are demonmoon@usa.com as well as fsbo@YuleeHome.com and FirstCoast@usa.com. I've sent a phony email to this person hoping to get a response and further identify them.

Maybe this info can be of some help to somebody with more resources or know-how than I. I'm just so disgusted that, not even after, but during such an insane tragedy, somebody would be attempting to profit off this. I would love nothing more for them to quickly be called out publicly on their actions.

Now while I don't doubt that the sites being mentioned are terrible scams perpetuated by evil people, just because someone happens to have a non-white-American name like Moon doesn't imply that people who are not white americans won't care about what's happening, and wouldn't want to help in any way they could.

I just snapped this shot of a red cross boat probably bound for New Orleans, where my parents used to live.

Correction: Doug says,

The ship shown in your latest post is the USNS Mercy, a Naval ship based out of San Diego.

Its sister ship, the Comfort, based out of Baltimore, has already been dispatched to the [US] Gulf region. Since this bridge is steaming under the bay bridge in San Francisco, I doubt it's going to the [US] Gulf. Even going through the Panama Canal, it'd be a week or more before the ship would reach the affected area.

The boat pictured is a Naval Hospital boat that was in dry dock in SF for a retrofit after returning from tsunami relief work in Indonesia. I cycle by the waterfront where the boat was in dry dock and have been checking out the work they were performing. I cannot confirm that it is heading to NOLA, but that would be a good bet.

In regards to the photo you posted about the Mercy ship, here's a link to the Wired News article about a photographer stationed on the ship. Link

Google map of the hospital ship Mercy at her home berth: Link. We stumbled on it a few months ago after having been pointed at this building: Link

...Rare video footage of the group taken at one of its Las Vegas seminars has been spun into an as-yet-unreleased documentary that brings a fresh, critical slant to the Raelians -- replete with allegations that the sect uses sex as a recruitment tool, targeting people most likely to sympathize with its message that aliens populated the world: "Trekkies and whatnot," explained Abdullah Hashem, who taped the group in May as part of a broader, personal investigation of the group.

"There are a lot of people (at these seminars) who believe in aliens, and all these beautiful women who will have sex with you even though you're a dork," he said. "And that's why most people were there..."

In an interview with Wired News, the Raelians dismissed Hashem's claims as a big misunderstanding. Spokesman Sage Ali said the group has nothing to hide, and is not ashamed of anything the team may have recorded.

Raelian theology states that aliens long ago visited the Earth and populated it through cloning. The religion also teaches that nudity and sexuality are pure and beautiful, and that if people were more in touch with their feminine sides, there would be less violence in the world.

Satellite pictures of the NOLA area are just coming out. We've put our Landsat 7 pics on our image gallery (Link).

NASA has MODIS images up (Link).

None of these are full resolution, but they might help anyone who is trying to make a flood map of the affected area.

While standing in line at the post office, I saw this new series of stamps devoted to American scientists...which is kind of ironic considering how our sciences are now under attack from all corners: from evangelicals to pharmaceutical marketing, educational declines, and funding cuts. It's like singing "Happy Birthday" to a man as he's being taken away on a gurney...

And with that we bring you an updated version of American Scientists. (We know God isn't precisely "American," but try telling that to the evangelicals...)

Merging his interests in physical computing and electronic music, artist and composer Tristan Perich will give a presentation on his recent project, One Bit Music. Electronics programmed and packaged in a standard CD jewel case by Perich play minimal glitch/dance music when headphones are plugged in. The device is meant to fit into the standard album-based method of music distribution: you will find it along other CDs in a record store and it has different tracks; it will be released by Cantaloupe Music in the upcoming months.

In the popular mind, d-lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) research in psychiatry has long been associated with the CIA-funded experiments conducted by Ewen Cameron at the Allen Memorial Institute in Montreal, Quebec. Despite this reputation, a host of medical researchers in the post–World War II era explored LSD for its potential therapeutic value. Some of the most widespread trials in the Western world occurred in Saskatchewan, under the direction of psychiatrists Humphry Osmond (in Weyburn) and Abram Hoffer (in Saskatoon). These medical researchers were first drawn to LSD because of its ability to produce a “model psychosis.” Their experiments with the drug that Osmond was to famously describe as a “psychedelic” led them to hypothesize and promote the biochemical nature of schizophrenia. This brief paper examines the early trials in Saskatchewan, drawing on hospital records, interviews with former research subjects, and the private papers of Hoffer and Osmond. It demonstrates that, far from being fringe medical research, these LSD trials represented a fruitful, and indeed encouraging, branch of psychiatric research occurring alongside more famous and successful trials of the first generation of psychopharmacological agents, such as chlropromazine and imipramine. Ultimately, these LSD experiments failed for 2 reasons, one scientific and the other cultural. First, in the 1950s and early 1960s, the scientific parameters of clinical trials shifted to necessitate randomized controlled trials, which the Saskatchewan researchers had failed to construct. Second, as LSD became increasingly associated with student riots, antiwar demonstrations, and the counterculture, governments intervened to criminalize the drug, restricting and then terminating formal medical research into its potential therapeutic effects.

Millions of residents have been displaced, countless dead or injured, incalculable property damage.

Those who got out safely don't know when they can return, what they'll return to, or what they'll do next. NOLA friends I've spoken to who sought shelter in nearby towns say that's the hardest part -- not knowing anything.

There is little functioning communications; gas, power, water, and other basic systems are also non functional throughout much of the region. The most basic services that hold urban societies together -- from banking to hospitals to law enforcement -- are in disarray.

A number of engineers and tech-minded types have written in to BB to ask how they can help with technical expertise. Some have unsuccessfully attempted to contact groups like the Red Cross and Salvation Army, both of which are overwhelmed.

Reader Ignatz Sol is among them:

I know that you're not a volunteer organization, but maybe you can help direct me. I'm trying to find an organization who needs people on the ground in any of the affected areas. I live in Atlanta, but can go directly to any location. I can't get through to the Red Cross or Salvation Army and some other aid groups I have talked to will be helping after rescue is over. I'm a mechanical engineer with tools and I know that someone must need people there to help now. Can you help me? (flyingrobot at gmail.com)

Some companies are sorting out ways to assist, via public agencies and aid groups. Larry Williamson says:

My employer (F4W) has been called upon to provide a satellite uplink with voip capabilities in the vacinity of New Orleans (we are still waiting on exact deployment instructions). We utilize network hardware from various vendors and have a suite of mesh networking enabled software and hardware setups, including video surveillance and incident communication tools. We provided relief to the authorities during the aftermath of hurricane Charley ( Link ) and now we are going to lend a helping hand with that of Katrina.

Reader comment: Erik V. Olson says,

People want to help. That's good. The problem is they often can, but they think they can. And, in the end, all they really do is get in the way.

The single best thing Joe Geek can do is give cash. Not stuff, cash. Cash is portable, fast, and useful. Everything else has problems -- even if it is something they really and truly need, because it isn't there, and people and resources are needed to get it there.

The canonical example: Bottled water. Something otherwise useless that is critical in this sort of emergency. So you give a few flats to the ARC. Well, you bought them at retail, and now, the ARC has to put them on a truck (which costs money) and ship them down there (which cost money, and time.)

Let's say you give them $20 instead. The ARC notes that they need water. So, they call a bottler in a city close to, but not affected by, the storm. They get wholesale or cost prices, as opposed to retail. For the same amount of money, they get far more water, far closer to where they need to be. In six hours, you're delivering your flats to the local ARC office. In six hours with cash, they're handing water to people who desperately need it.

Finally, of course, if what they really need is food, your flats of water aren't helpful, but your cash is. So, the lesson:

1) Give cash. That's the best thing you can do from your home.

2) Stay the hell away from New Orleans. Seriously. They're ordering everyone out, that includes you. Do not go.

3) If you are trained to do rescue work, they have almost certainly called you by now. If not, check in with your local org -- records and such get lost, and they may have missed you.

4) If you really insist, go to your *local* American Red Cross office and talk to them. If, in fact, they do need a skill you have, they'll put you with the people you need to know, and start the wheels moving. The single biggest thing the ARC does in disasters is routing solutions to problems.

5) If you have supplies, not cash, you can talk to the local office, but realize that the cost of shipping your supplies may make them worse off then just buying them closer. If you have supplies *and* shipping -- and we're talking trucks, not FedEx, -- then call the local ARC, and talk to them, and if they need what they have, they'll put you in touch with the people who need it, who can arrange how to get it to them.

In general, when they need something, they need lots of it, either in one place or put into one place so they can easily distribute at need. One satellite phone isn't that helpful, esp. if they have to figure out how to make it work. A thousand phones, ready to go, however, is.

6) If they really need what you have to offer, and you are one of the few who can provided it, they've probably called you by now.

7) If you want to help in the future, start working with rescue orgs now. If you haven't been trained in general rescue procedures, your not nearly as helpful. Think of it as backups -- you can't help New Orleans now, but there will be other bad days, and if you've done the classwork and drills, and kept in touch, then you will be one of the people they need -- and they'll call you when they need you. It may not be as elegant as network support -- but right now, they don't care about TCP/IP. They care about getting people out of the floodwaters, and plugging the holes in the levees.

As this WaPo story suggests, FEMA is no longer in the natural disaster business. And while I've heard reports on the MSM about a government "response" that appears to be mostly related to search and rescue. I think it will be important to watch and see if there is any response from FEMA beyond rescuing survivors. Questions to ask: Are only state and private resources involved in rescue and later, in cleanup and rebuilding? All I hear is talk about making refief funds available. When we had flooding in Fargo/Grand Forks a few years ago, FEMA set up trailers for those made homeless from the floods. To evacuate thousands of people why weren't rail lines used before Katrina hit? Could they be used to transport survivors to those now empty military bases in the south? They'd make excellent refugee camps. Where are the military helicopters? Perhaps I missed seeing them on TV. Surely not every single one is in Iraq? What exactly are the parameters that FEMA operates under now? In the future, what can we can expect in the way of help from the government? Are the states on they're own now when it comes to natural disasters? Why?

NPR has a list of organizations that need funds and volunteers for hurricane relief. I'd also recommend checking VolunteerMatch if a volunteer has a specific location in mind they want to help.

Members of the TsunamiHelp blog & wiki and other noble people around the world have assembled to put together the KatrinaHelp Wiki where we are gathering information about the aid agencies, helpline numbers and disaster related information. More importantly, people are pouring us with information about how they can help. We also have received requests from people who need help.

This site might be what you were looking for in terms of tech pros. Some sites in the sidebar to the right are looking for nerds to help get them off the ground for Katrina, and the main site is taking donations as well.

Craigslist seems to be playing a very important role as information clearinghouse, connecting the missing with the searching, and it becomes more valuable the more people who are made aware of it.

[My school,] Georgia Tech, is hosting many refugees from Tulane. We've got the Student Center packed with students and from what I was able to glean, we're giving them food coupons to use on campus. Students are rising and beginning to work on fundraisers and other ways to help them.

The school president sent out an email about it saying that we'd be hosting them until they contacted their family and figured out when and how they could get home. He also noted some of them may be here for a while considering international travel and such.

I wish I could go and offer manual labor or something but I know for now that's not possible until the situations calm down.

I live in Santa Cruz, which went thru the bad earthquake in 89. People here HATE the Red Cross, they scoff at them, because there were so many scandals and corruptions involved with their "efforts." It's like the whole county hates their guts. There's a great desire to help an organizaiton with integrity, and I wonder if you can figure out who that is.

This page directs people to UU (Unitarian Universalist) churches in the affected areas. Here's the list for Lousiana. Specific help is being asked for, such as food & water donations, and also for workers to help in the cleanup efforts. The Baton Rouge church site is one example: Link. In general, in answer to the question "how do I find out how to help?" I recommend surfing for church-related resources (not limited just to UU).

For the most part what's needed right now is not tech help, but raw labor. Anyone wanting to help out can just show up at the Red Cross here or at [Louisiana State University]'s Pete Maravich center [in Baton Rouge] and they'll be put to work. Here's a link from the local newspaper's website.

It seems that everyone currently in the New Orleans Superdome plus many others are going to be moved to the Astrodome...estimates range from 10K to 30K people, with a possible stay of "months" mentioned. (The Astrodome's scheduled is being cleared through December.)

Communications are going to be a serious issue for these refugees; for example, even those that have their cell phones probably don't have their chargers. And in a month, when their bill goes to their still-underwater house and isn't paid, their service will be cut off.

Suggestion: we the geeks put together and deploy the world's largest cybercafe ...in the Astrodome. Granted, Internet access isn't a panacea, but it at least would provide a way for these people to communicate.

What's needed: (a) permission from someone in a position to grant permission (b) space+power (c) tables (d) chairs (e) lots and lots of PCs and Macs (f) at least one ISP that provision a pipe into there (g) net infrastructure: routers, cabling, etc. (h) sufficient geek labor to build it. My guess is that (a) might be the most difficult to come up with. So now what?

Responding to a comment about military helicopters. I'm currently at Naval Station Ingleside, in South Texas. Over the weekend the amphibious assault ship, USS Bataan, was in route to our base for a port call. Instead, they were diverted to ride out Katrina in the gulf, standing by for possible relief efforts. Early Monday morning as Katrina was hitting, HM-15, a mine-countermeasures helicopter Squadron from Naval Air Station, Corpus Christi, flew personnel and relief supplies out the Bataan and immediately started assisting in rescue operations. Currently there are 3 other large ships from the east coast en route to the Gulf area for relief operations. They may not be on television, but the Navy is actively involved.

Updates:

watch out for Katrina aid scam websites.

Katrina aid idea: create cybercafe/free voip phone center at Astrodome?

Still no reports that the water has stopped rising in much of New Orleans, although I've heard things are draining outside of the "bowl" on the West Bank, as well as around Algiers Point. Gov. Blanco said all refugees in N.O. shelters are definately going to be evacuated, and the Superdome will be evacuated within the next two days. That's at least 20,000 people, with pretty wild estimates ranging from 30,000 to 60,000. Nobody's officially said it, but after failing to patch the breached levee once and losing more water pumps, that's a terrible sign - they may be preparing to abandon the entire city, at least for several weeks.

The word I've been hearing on ideas and plans to patch the levees: choppers dropping huge concrete barriers into the breach, then topping them with 50 2,000-to-3,000 pound sandbags; weighted cargo containers dropped into the breach; and, I'm assuming the last idea, sinking one of those big barges up against the levee wall.

Tulane Univ. Hospital is evacuating by air, using 20 helicopters from their parent company and lifting one or two patients with some staff each trip and carrying them to triage centers outside of the city.

Several hundred patients and staff remain in the hospital at last word; the water's much faster rise, somewhere between 2-to-4 feet per hour, has knocked out their fixed generators, and they're running essential equipment on portable generators.

Here in Lake Charles, our main shelter is full at between 1,700-to-2,000 evacuees. 400 are on their way from Houston after being booted from hotels, either for lack of money or - unconfirmed, but overheard - to make room for people with reservations. A lot of plans, from before the storm hit but after the evacuation orders were made, called for gradually moving evacuees closer to New Orleans as time passed. However, many of our evacuees here aren't just looking for shelter – they're asking for jobs. Those mostly lived paycheck-to-paycheck, and with N.O. gone, there's no more paychecks.

These people may never go back, no matter what's done to rebuild.

It seems that the Tulane University website has essentially turned into a blog that has been running since August 26th. As you will see their links to their "normal" homepage no longer work and the emergency.tulane.edu address is a replica of the homepage. Its incredible to see how affected "the grid" really is.

I am a longtime reader of boingboing and a student employee at the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, where I work as a dispatcher.

If anybody feels they can contribute some help towards the Katrina recovery efforts, including use of boats, etc, please call the Office of Emergency Preparedness at 225-925-7500.

Also if you're in the Baton Rouge Metro area and can lend some assistance, please stop by the Pete Maravich Assembly Center, which has been converted into a triage for refugees. If you feel you can lend a helping hand here, please call 225-219-0821. Thanks to all those who can assist.

Snip from a NetworkWorld story on incoming tech aid:

The Red Cross tomorrow expects to begin deploying a host of systems it will need, including satellite telephones, portable satellite dishes, specially equipped communications trucks, high- and low-band radio systems, and generator-powered wireless computer networks, said Jason Wiltrout, a Red Cross network engineer.

Nine specially designed Ford Excursion sport utility trucks, dubbed Emergency Communications Response Vehicles (ECRV), include various radio systems that allow communications on a wide range of frequencies across disaster areas, Wiltrout said. The vehicles haveVery Small Aperture Terminal generator-equipped satellite dishes that can help establish communications in the absence of working phone lines and cell phone towers.

Each of the ECRVs also has 10 VoIP satellite phones and at least 10 wireless laptops, as well as a selection of portable, tripod-mounted satellite dishes used for communications after the storm's winds have eased.

Snip from an Orlando Sentinel article about damage to two NASA sites:

Hurricane Katrina damaged two NASA facilities on the Gulf Coast Monday, casting doubt on the space shuttle's chances of launching in March. The Michoud Assembly Facility east of New Orleans and the Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Miss., both were located along the main swath of the storm's devastation. No casualties were reported and no buildings were destroyed at either site.

Snip from a PC World story about cellular service failure and recovery efforts:

Patrick Kimball, a spokesman for Verizon Wireless, said the floodwaters now pouring into the city from nearby Lake Pontchartrain have made a bad situation worse. (...) Flooding in New Orleans is what's having the most disruptive effects on cell phone network repairs, because the hardware is still submerged under feet of water, Kimball said. Power for the cellular service would not be as big an issue because some 90 percent of the cell phone towers and other equipment in the area have their own backup generators. The floodwaters are also affecting land-based fiber-optic telephone lines and systems used by other companies, further complicating efforts to get communications back into service, he said.

Here's an NPR story about ham radio operators helping in rescue and recovery efforts: Link (streaming radio segment in Real and Windows)

A Hollywood Reporter story looks at tech challenges for news reporters covering the story on site: Link.

This New York Times story examines efforts to keep newspaper production going in affected locales, by turning to the web: Link

Reader comment: Mike says,

The latest news would seem to indicate that the Michoud Assembly plant, where they build the big booster tanks, is fine.

When FBI supervisors in Miami met with new interim U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta last month, they wondered what the top enforcement priority for Acosta and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales would be.

Would it be terrorism? Organized crime? Narcotics trafficking? Immigration? Or maybe public corruption?

The agents were stunned to learn that a top prosecutorial priority of Acosta and the Department of Justice was none of the above. Instead, Acosta told them, it's obscenity. Not pornography involving children, but pornographic material featuring consenting adults.

The Jack Kirby Museum and Research Center is organized exclusively for educational purposes; more specifically, to promote and encourage the study, understanding, preservation and appreciation of the work of Jack Kirby by:

* illustrating the scope of Kirby's multi-faceted career,
* communicating the stories, inspirations and influences of Jack Kirby,
* celebrating the life of Jack Kirby and his creations, and
* building understanding of comicbooks and comicbook creators.

To this end, the Museum will sponsor and otherwise support study, teaching, conferences, discussion groups, exhibitions, displays, publications and cinematic, theatrical or multimedia productions....

The Kirby Museum's long-term plans include a major travelling retrospective in 2007, a documentary, and more.

The poorest 20% (you can argue with the number -- 10%? 18%? no one knows) of the city was left behind to drown. This was the plan. Forget the sanctimonious bullshit about the bullheaded people who wouldn't leave. The evacuation plan was strictly laissez-faire. It depended on privately owned vehicles, and on having ready cash to fund an evacuation. The planners knew full well that the poor, who in new orleans are overwhelmingly black, wouldn't be able to get out. The resources -- meaning, the political will -- weren't there to get them out.

White per capita income in Orleans parish, 2000 census: $31,971. Black per capita: $11,332. Median *household* income in B.W. Cooper (Calliope) Housing Projects, 2000: $13,263.

There are dead animals floating in the water, pets left behind. Surely people thought they would be back to collect the pets. Not so. The rescuers smell like gas when they come back in; there's gas in all of the water that consumes the area. Fires are burning all over the place. Our teams are tired and they are thirsty and they are hungry. And they have a place to sleep and water to drink and food to eat. I can only imagine how the people without these "luxuries" are feeling right now.

Each night will be a race against time. When night falls, people can't get picked up from roofs, the rescuers can't chop into people's roofs to check the attics for anyone alive or for anyone dead (sadly, there are dead). At night we can't see power lines we can't see obstacles, we can't see any of the things that will bring down a helicopter or pose a danger to boats rescuers.

One of the teams came in today after having been out for hours at a time. One particular rescuer went straight to a corner and collapsed into tears. I went directly to him and just held his hand. What else could I do? I said nothing. He said it all. They lowered him 26 times and he pulled 26 people to safety. He wants to be back out there but there are mandatory rest periods. His tears are tears of frustration.

Entire teams are working on nothing but evacuating the hospitals. All four of the major hospitals are beginning to flood. Critical patients have to get out or surely they will be lost. Generators cannot run forever; that's just the way it is. There are limited facilities to take those that are rescued and those that need to be evacuated. Anything that leaves by air leaves by helicopter. There are no runways for planes that aren't under water. Only one drivable way in and out.

Water everywhere and more keeps coming. Until they can do something about the three levees that are broken, more water will come and more water will kill. The water poses major health threats. Anyone with even a small open cut is prone to infection. Anyone who touches this water and touches his eyes, nose or mouth without find a way to "clean" himself first will be sick with stomach problems before long. It's bad and it's getting worse. It's not going to be anything better than devastating for days or weeks at best.

I wish I could tell you that I'll check in again soon. I can't. I don't know when my next message will get out. We'll be leaving where we are within just an hour or so.

Flickr user dustin3000 uploads two similar news photos that show flood victims in New Orleans wading in chest-deep water. In each, a person appears to be dragging a bag or box or two of food or beverages.

The images were shot by different photographers, and captioned by different photo wire services. The Associated Press caption accompanying the image with a black person says he's just finished "looting" a grocery store. The AFP/Getty Images caption describes lighter skinned people "finding" bread and soda from a grocery store. No stores are open to sell these goods.

Perhaps there's more factual substantiation behind each copywriter's choice of words than we know. But to some, the difference in tone suggests racial bias, implicit or otherwise.

Link to comparison, and here are the originals: one, two. (Thanks, Howard)

Reader comment: oboreruhito says, "1.) AP has consistently named all people stealing items as looters.

2.) Some grocery stores had been occupied by police, who were taking food, drinks and essentials and distributing them to people. Then again, some cops were looting outright, as well, and others were trying to stop it all."

Snip from Times-Picayune news story:

Law enforcement efforts to contain the emergency left by Katrina slipped into chaos in parts of New Orleans Tuesday with some police officers and firefighters joining looters in picking stores clean. At the Wal-Mart on Tchoupitoulas Street, an initial effort to hand out provisions to stranded citizens quickly disintegrated into mass looting. Authorities at the scene said bedlam erupted after the giveaway was announced over the radio.

Reader comment: Amid says,

I'd like to refute the reader comment that AP has consistently named everybody stealing items "looters." This is an AP photo of a white guy "looking through his shopping bag." ...coming out of a store with a broken window.

Something else to remember about the Associated Press: A lot of what comes out of the AP is from its member news organizations. Bill Feig (who took this photo), is a photographer for the Baton Rouge Advocate. Dave Martin (who took this AP photo) is an actual AP employee. I don't know how much editing the AP does of cutlines (captions) before they're sent over the wire, but that could explain any inconsistencies in language about looters.

I've heard a number of friends -- including displaced pals -- say that the story unfolding in New Orleans feels to them a lot like 9/11. This was the largest national disaster we'd ever seen in America. It changed New York, and the country, forever. In both, great human suffering. But on 9/11, two buildings that had become an iconic part of a great American city disappeared. Now, it's as if an entire city is disappearing.

Snip:

As Jerry Rayes piloted his boat down St. Claude Avenue, just past the Industrial Canal, the eerie screams that could barely be heard from the roadway grew louder as, one by one, faces of desperate families appeared on rooftops, on balconies and in windows, some of them waving white flags.

(...) A woman screamed as Rayes boated by: "Hey! Damn! Hey!" "You can’t save everybody," he said, as he passed street signs barely visible above the water along with scores of felled trees and downed power lines. "That’s all we heard for hours this morning."

As he motored toward St. Claude Avenue, which looked like a bayou rather than a thoroughfare, his boat passed Fats Domino’s pink-and-yellow-trimmed house on Caffin Avenue. About a half a dozen men screamed from the balcony, flailing their hands for help. He passed them by.

"What am I going to do? I got to go to the parish," he said. "There’s way too many people out there and to few boats."

Reader comment: oboreruhito says,

You were absolutely right about the Times-Picayune. The last time they didn't publish a regular edition was during the Civil War. Here's an AP story on what media outlets did to respond: Link

Part of the idea here is to help residents who've been displaced. They want to know if their homes are flooded, but can't get direct ground survey reports because, well, there is no ground in a lot of places right now. Only water.

Shawn says:

I'm trying to get people who use Google Earth to start making image overlays of all the flood images that are out there.

Here's one that I did earlier to demonstrate: Link. The one I did isn't great, but it works. If enough people do these, a better understanding of the damage is in New Orleans could be reached. Making an overlay in Google Earth is pretty easy:

File
> Add
> Image Overlay

Enter a URL of a Filename of the image.

It will load, then you just drag and drop, reshape and mold, the image over the top of the picture Google earth has of the object.

If these folks put it on the keyhole bbs, other google earth users can add them together, and peer edit the others.

Blogger and BB reader Kathryn Cramer has an interesting post on her blog exploring this same topic: Link (there are many updates on her post since this morning, when I linked to it from BB).

Another reader points to GoogleEarthHacks.com for a file with a number of flood image overlays all in one, with updates coming.

About three years ago I remember watching Bill Moyer's NOW on PBS and listening to a facinating piece on the threat New Orleans faced from a major hurricane. Then, last year Ivan had a near miss and I was reminded of the program.

Now that Katrina has hit, I went back and read the transcript. It is eeriely prophetic. The most interesting piece is near the end, where they link the increased exposure to major storms to the levees designed to protect.

The Mississippi delta has for years been a major buffer to storms as it quickly reduces the power of most storms. However, as levees are built to protect the city from flooding, they have funneled water away that is essential in keeping the delta healthy. In the past decade the delta has been reduced significantly in size. Thus major storms have a mouch larger impact when they hit the land.

Mr Krol, who said he was inspired by a similar scheme in Sweden, has already filled many of his volunteer slots, and hopes to launch the project next month.

He said: "I've got several gay men, a couple of lesbian women, a couple of Islamic volunteers, I've got a physically handicapped woman, and a woman who has been living on social security benefits for many years in real poverty. "

Mr Krol said he was especially keen to find members of Holland's small Roma gipsy community after a recent attack on two gipsy families in the city of Enschede.

Under the scheme, photographs and short biographies of the volunteers will appear in the library, and on its website. Library users who wish to take a person out can apply for an appointment. Mr Krol said he had not cleared the scheme with his municipal bosses.

Snip from the Boston Globe article "Kids get new weapon against predators using Internet":

Maine children are being offered new protections from Internet predators through a program called NetSmartz, which was introduced Tuesday by state law enforcement and education officials -- and an animated figure called "Clicky." NetSmartz is being offered to schools at no cost to taxpayers through a partnership between the state and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Attorney General Steven Rowe said.

NetSmartz, which is available to all elementary, middle and high schools in the state, features the animated figure Clicky rapping and offering advice on how to spot Web users who use foul language, try to get strangers to meet them, send pornographic pictures or ask personal questions.

Clicky's Stolen Song: A Lesson in Digital Ethics. Captain Bootleg, an Internet pirate, has stolen Clicky's hit song. Nettie and Webster learn why it is wrong to steal music from others!

(robot, stuttering): a fearless pirate has slipped in... it's not right to steal like a pirate!

(pirate, yarrr) shiver me timbers, lads and lassies, i got me files, they should fetch a pretty penny!

(kid with blue, deformed, football-shaped head) a pirate is what we call someone who steals stuff online, including songs... pirates nowadays don't have to look like pirates, it's just what we call people who steal stuff online. Let's go ask Cookie what to do, come on!

In the LA Times, news that intelligent design evangelists are buying up kitch roadside dinosaur landmarks around the country, then co-opting them to promote creationism. Won't someone please think of the pteradactyls?!?!

Dinosaurs lived in the Garden of Eden, and Noah's Ark? Give me a break," said Kevin Padian, curator at the University of California Museum of Paleontology in Berkeley and president of National Center for Science Education, an Oakland group that supports teaching evolution. "For them, 'The Flintstones' is a documentary."

The Association of Christian Schools International, which represents more than 800 schools, filed a federal lawsuit Thursday claiming UC admissions officials have refused to certify high school science courses that use textbooks challenging Darwin's theory of evolution. Other rejected courses include "Christianity's Influence in American History."

According to the lawsuit, the Calvary Chapel Christian School in Murrieta was told its courses were rejected because they use textbooks printed by two Christian publishers, Bob Jones University Press and A Beka Books.

Image: Pastafarians don't need to sue universities -- they already know that 99% of undergrads in the USA subsist on a diet comprised largely of 10/$0.99 ramen packets. His Noodliness is amply represented in American academia.

(Thanks, Jason Schultz, via IP list)

Meanwhile, the NY Times reports that 20% of Americans think the sun revolves around the earth. Link (Thanks, TomorrowYesterday)

John Brockman's EDGE.org just published the full text of philosopher Daniel Dennett's NYT op-ed from August 28. In the article, Dennett examines why the notion of so-called Intelligent Design has become so popular, in spite of the fact it cannot be substantiated by science.

"Is 'intelligent design' a legitimate school of scientific thought? Is there something to it, or have these people been taken in by one of the most ingenious hoaxes in the history of science? Wouldn't such a hoax be impossible? No. Here's how it has been done."

Image: a devotional chalk icon of the Flying Spaghetti Monster -- the only truly intelligent alternative -- on a university campus in Georgia. (Thanks, Graham)

In New Orleans, the Times-Picayune and WWL TV, two local news organizations who've held out longest, are evacuating.

The Times-Picayune is evacuating it's New Orleans building. Water continues to rise around our building, as it is throughout the region. We want to evaucate our employees and families while we are still able to safely leave our building.

Our plan is to head across the Mississippi River on the Pontchartrain Expressway to the west bank of New Orleans and Jefferson Parish. From there, we'll try to head to Houma.

Our plan, obviously, is to resume providing news to our readers ASAP. Please refer back to this site for continuing information as soon as we are able to provide it.

# 9:35 A.M. Marshal Law in effect in Jefferson Parish and Plaquemines Parish. 60 percent of homes in Plaquemines Parish under water.

# 8:39 A.M. WWL-TV studios are being evacuated as rising water is coming into the station. The French Quarter is taking on water and water is expected to rise in the city for the next few days.

Throughout NOLA, water is rising in the streets this morning. The suspected cause: a levee break (update: reports now of three separate breaks) along a canal leading to Lake Pontchartrain. The city lies below sea level, and the complex system of pumps, canals and levees that protects it no longer functions. Electrical, gas, and telecommunications grids are equally devastated -- and the lack of even the most basic communications technology is making rescue efforts all the more difficult. Snip:

As the sun set over a still-churning Lake Pontchartrain, the smoldering ruins of the Southern Yacht Club were still burning, and smoke streamed out over the lake. Nobody knew the cause of the fire because nobody could get anywhere near it to find out what happened. (...)

Firefighters who saved [a group of people] tried to request an RTA bus to come for the refugees, but said there was no working communications to do so.

(...) At around 5 p.m., almost as if on cue, the battery power of all the house alarms in the neighborhood seemed to reach a critical level all at once, and they all went off, making it sound as if the area was under an air-raid warning.

Two men surviving on generator power in the Lake Terrace neighborhood near the Lake Pontchartrain levee still had a dry house, but they were eyeing the rising water in the yard nervously. They were planning to head back out to the levee to retrieve a vast stash of beer, champagne and hard liquor they found washed onto the levee.

As night fell, the sirens of house alarms were finally silent, and the air filled with a different, deafening and unfamiliar sound: the extraordinary din of thousands of croaking frogs.

Islands of red ants floated in the gasoline-fouled waters through downtown. (...) And once the floodwaters go down, "it's going to be incredibly dangerous" because of structural damage to homes, diseases from animal carcasses and chemicals in homes....

BB reader Andy proposes that someone generate a "New Orleans damage finder":

It would be great if there were a site or application where people could find pictures of hurricane damage by zip code. That way, all the folks who are evacuated check in to see conditions in their neighborhood. I was thinking Google Earth might be a good place for this, but it looks like there isn't much so far.

Previously:
Katrina: things get worse in New Orleans
BB pal in NOLA says: consider a Red Cross donation
Katrina approaches New Orleans, US Gulf Coast

Reader comment: David says,

Slidell LA resident Brian Oberkirch (evacuated to Dallas since Sunday) created the Slidell Hurricane Damage Blog to collect any and all information, pictures, stories about what's going on in the disaster zone. So far news from Slidell hasn't been good but it's been hard separating fact from rumor. Link

You can't get a damage assement from these sea level maps of New Orleans, but it sure helps to get a idea of what's probably underwater. Link one, Link Two, Link 3

Reader comment: Marc Nathan says,

My soon-to-be sister-in-law works for Tulane University and she has gotten preliminary reports that the damage on campus is so extensive after a second levee broke last night that school may not open until next *year*. She has been fielding calls about the process for students to transfer to nearby schools, namely the University of Texas at Austin. School was scheduled to start tomorrow.

I've been told by an insider that the RIAA lawsuits are self-sustaining: that is, the cost of running their shakedown operation was less than the settlements it generated, so there was no reason to expect an end to the legal attacks on thousands of Internet users.

Patricia Santangelo's defense shifts those economics. By defending herself in court, Santangelo is causing the RIAA to fork over for attorneys to argue (albeit ineptly) that she should be forced to pay up to $150,000 per act of infringement that she is alleged to have committed.

How can Santangelo afford to defend herself? She has an attorney who believes that she is innocent, and that when she is found innocent that she will be able to recoup his fees from the RIAA.

This attorney (Ray Beckerman of Beldock Levine & Hoffman) believes that he can do this for lots of RIAA defendants. If he and other attorneys make good on this, kiss the RIAA's profitable legal shakedown goodbye: once the long-term suicide of suing customers becomes unprofitable in the short term as well, no way are the shareholders in these corporations let them go on.

We expect Ms Santangelo's costs to be picked up by the RIAA, since (a) the copyright statute permits the Court to shift the attorneys fees to the losing party, (b) these cases were clearly frivolous and brought in bad faith, and (c) it is a matter of public interest that the RIAA be deterred from bringing more such meritless cases...

We will fight to the end. Anyone who knows me knows that I don't take on something unless I am prepared to fight to the end. Also, anyone who knows me knows that the one thing I can't stand is a bully. The RIAA will give up long before we do, because sooner or later it will dawn upon them that their attorneys are taking them for a ride...

As far as I am concerned there should be no limit to how many people we can represent. If we have too many cases we can hire more lawyers.

Exhibit B: # of pictures tagged "bar," by day of week

Sun: 2917 (21.0203934568%) [896]
Mon: 2803 (20.1988902501%) [795]
Tue: 2949 (21.2509908482%) [780]
Wed: 2690 (19.3845932118%) [840]
Thu: 4196 (30.237082943%) [941]
Fri: 5101 (36.7586654176%) [1185]
Sat: 5540 (39.9221733804%) [1301]

(Square brackets show number of unique users who posted images.)

Now at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Austin, Texas, Davis reached both pessimistic and optimistic conclusions in his study. On one hand, he concluded that "Star Trek"-style teleportation faces enormous obstacles, partly because it would require the development of extraordinarily high-speed computers and would consume mind-boggling amounts of energy. Also, it would encounter all kinds of physics headaches generated by the principles of quantum physics...

However, Davis expressed great enthusiasm for research allegedly conducted by Chinese scientists who, he says, have conducted "psychic" experiments in which humans used mental powers to teleport matter through solid walls. He claims their research shows "gifted children were able to cause the apparent teleportation of small objects (radio micro-transmitters, photosensitive paper, mechanical watches, horseflies, other insects, etc.)..."

Michio Kaku, a noted physicist and author at City University of New York, said "the only way to use (teleportation) as a secret weapon is to allow our enemies to bankrupt themselves thinking they can produce a teleportation machine."

"The Air Force is to be applauded for investigating technologies that may have value for national security," Kaku added. "But wormholes, negative energies, warped space-time, etc., require futuristic technologies centuries to millions of years ahead of ours. The only thing going down the wormhole is taxpayers' money."

During the 1950s, government officials were very concerned that, in the event of an atomic attack, law and order would break down irrevocably as the nation dissolved into widespread panic and hysteria. In its publicity campaigns the Federal Civil Defense Administration wanted to frighten people sufficiently to encourage them to take part in drills, but not to incapacitate them with fear. The following government-sponsored quiz appeared in the August 21, 1953 issue of Collier's magazine as a supplement to an article about human behavior during nuclear attack. It was intended to help readers from becoming "victims of panic."

Microsoft is cutting its throat here. There isn't a single Windows user who wants a version of Windows that lets her do less with her music and movies.

Microsoft is also subverting copyright. Fair use and other public rights in copyright hinge on factors that can't be modelled in software. For example, people engaged in parody have a lot more flexibility in terms of how they use copyrighted works than people who are engaged in satire. The difference between parody and satire is pretty fine -- it's the kind of thing courts rule on, not the kind of thing that you get a computer to detect.

DRM apologists claim that DRM can be used to model the preponderance of fair uses, but this is completely untrue. Fair use almost always hinges on intention -- there isn't any software that is capable of reading a user's mind and determining intention.

So here come Microsoft, the great defenders of copyright, selling out both their business and copyright: creating devices that no one wants that models a copyright law that doesn't exist.

What's the use of having a swaggering bully of a monopolist if it can't muster the intestinal fortitude that Sony displayed from 1976-1984 when it battled in Congress and all the way to the Supreme Court for the right to manufacture VCRs despite Hollywood's insistence that these were tools of piracy?

In short, the company is bending over backward--and investing considerable technological resources--to make sure Hollywood studios are happy with the next version of Windows, which is expected to ship on new PCs by late 2006. Microsoft believes it has to make nice with the entertainment industry if the PC is going to form the center of new digital home networks, which could allow such new features as streaming high-definition movies around the home.

PCs won't be the only ones with reinforced pirate-proofing. Other new consumer electronics devices will have to play by a similar set of rules in order to play back the studios' most valuable content, Microsoft executives say. Indeed, assuring studios that content will have extremely strong protection is the only way any device will be able to support the studios' planned high-definition content, the software company says.

Update: The Don'ts are distributing their latest CD this way. (Thanks, Denise!)

Update 2: ...as did the Evolution Control Committee (Thanks, James!)

Update 3: ...as did Gridlock (Thanks, chris242!)

Update 4: I hereby officially close the list of bands and CDs that use 5.25" floppies as CD cases. Others may have done so, but my attention span has been exhausted!

David Perry, an enterprising engineering student, took it upon himself to build this rubegoldberg, and he's posted some photos and his build-notes:

I grabbed a cordless drill motor/gearbox, some aluminium tubing/sheet/rod, nuts and bolts, transistors, resistors, diodes, an old parallel port cable and a protoboard. I also grabbed my notebook computer, an IBM PIII 700, running Slackware Linux 10.1. I determined that the only other parts I would need to buy would be three relays, two 3 amp for two vibrate speeds, and one 5 amp for 'thrust'.

All this stuff was brought back to TEAM ENG headquarters on campus, while I figured out what to do. The simplest way to make something computer controlled is using the parallel port. Use three data lines to operate three relays, with the coils switched using a PN2222 transistor, 1k resistor, and 1N4004 diode to prevent voltage spikes. Those three datalines can be controlled with a couple of lines of code.

First task was making the vibrator remotely switchable. I disabled the speed control adjust in the base, and brought a pair of wires out which were connected between the batteries in the vibrator - connect them, and the vibrator would turn on.

A built the circuit on the protoboard so that the parallel port could control the three relays. An old computer power supply was used to provide the +12V necessary for switching the relays.

Now the Motion Picture Assocation is using general warrants in India:

Stepping up its fight against motion picture piracy in Delhi, the Motion Picture Association (MPA) has obtained a general search and seizure warrants order covering the entire city. The order permits police to search any premises suspected of containing pirated products, and permits officers to open locked premises without delay.

"We should accept that most research findings will be refuted. Some will be replicated and validated. The replication process is more important than the first discovery," Ioannidis says...

Traditionally a study is said to be "statistically significant" if the odds are only 1 in 20 that the result could be pure chance. But in a complicated field where there are many potential hypotheses to sift through - such as whether a particular gene influences a particular disease - it is easy to reach false conclusions using this standard. If you test 20 false hypotheses, one of them is likely to show up as true, on average.

English is essentially any other language spoken with a very hot potato in one's mouth. --Ivan Derzhanski (based on Alain LaBonté on Swiss French)

English is essentially Low German plus even lower French minus any sense of culture. --Danny Weir

English is what you get from Normans trying to pick up Saxon girls. --Bryan Maloney

English is essentially French converted to 7-bit ASCII. --Christophe Pierret [for Alain LaBonté]

Inglish iz issenshali a langwidje dhat, wen rittun fonetkli, iz ilejibul tu netiv spikerz. --Peter Bleackley