I remember thinking when I was a kid, if I dug a hole deep enough, I’d get to China. In reality, I’d end up in the middle of the Indian ocean.
Category: Cool
Google Launches Blog Search
As usual, it’s in beta. More info here.
Donate Your Vacation Time To Katrina Relief
Like many overworked individuals, I have a pile of vacation hours I’ll probably never use. Thanks to the IRS, I can donate some of those hours to Katrina relief as charitable donations (assuming my employer plays nice, but they appear they will). More information from the IRS.
The Zoom Quilt
This would be a great screensaver. Thanks sunrise3j for the link.
Overclocking Yourself
Leave it up so a caffeine-crazed geek, who has probably overclocked his computer as well, to test the various ways to speed yourself up.
More New Orleans Links: Lousy Gov’t Response, Heroes, Volunteers, and More
I apologize for all the Katrina links lately, but this is a massive story that is not going to stop developing any time soon (especially once we get official death numbers).
I do I wish I could make it down south right now — I’d love to help out with this in the best way I could, and this would be my cup of tea: A group of volunteers (with some help from some major corporations) is trying to wire up Houston and New Orleans so that they can get communication systems back up and going. Part of the community effort is getting documented here, and more on BoingBoing. So any of you with Wireless network, mesh network, VoIP, low-power FM radio, etc… , be sure to donate your time.
Note for geeks out there with Internet2 access (which means you’re probably in college), your traffic might be suffering a tad.
On a side note, I won’t get into my feelings about the government’s piss-poor response to all this (stories like this, this, this, this, this, this and this sicken me), but I do get very angry when I see stories like this of very valuable resources going mostly unused.
But on a brighter note, PayPal allows you to setup a fee-free donation page for Katrina victims, and there are a pile of colleges helping out students. Also, here’s a flickr photo collection from a volunteer who’s wiring up the Astrodome.
On a totally random note, here’s a nutjob that thinks Hurricane Katrina was a guided weapon (with more conspiracy theories here).
Thanks to Waxy and BoingBoing and many others for all these links.
My Next Vacation Destination
I’m going to F**king, Austria, man! Thanks Barn for the link
Colleges Accepting New Orleans Refugee Students
For college students affected by the disaster, other colleges around the country are opening their doors to you, some offering free tuition. There’s a blog that is maintaining a list of schools that are opening their doors to affected students.
I have to say, while it would suck to have this happen to your home and your life utterly destroyed, it would be nice to get free tuition and room at Duke.
Google Maps Ain’t Got Nothing on The City of Bend
These satellite images, published by the City of Bend, are far superior to the ones that Google has (though it only works in Internet Explorer, which sucks). Link via Chuggnutt.