Category: People

Categories
People Web Weblogging

It’s a mountain Mohammed thing

“So I have a blog” the words read, as I scrolled down the entries at Planet RDF. And then I noticed the author: Tim Berners-Lee.

In his first weblog entry, Sir Tim wrote:

…it is nice to have a machine to the administrative work of handling the navigation bars and comment buttons and so on, and it is nice to edit in a mode in which you can to limited damage to the site. So I am going to try this blog thing using blog tools. So this is for all the people who have been saying I ought to have a blog.

For all those who claim to be first, there is no doubt who was first, though late to this particularly party. Probably all that Web 2.0 stuff floating around.

I do believe that Sir Tim is also the first weblogger to hold Knight Commander, Order of the British Empire. Mind the language, children. Mind the language. No more of this informal lower-case ’s’, ‘w’ when talking about the Semantic Web now.

Categories
Events of note People Political Weather

Bye Brown

As expected Michael Brown has resigned as head of FEMA. However, though a move in the right direction, it’s not enough. As the article mentions, the government needs to move FEMA back out into a department of its own, and, contrary to some who may believe otherwise, return it to dealing with natural disasters rather than this obsession with terrorists:

“When you have orders that go down the rung, people interpret them by putting a very tight box around them,” said Bob Freitag, director of the University of Washington’s Institute for Hazard Mitigation Planning and Research.

Freitag said the reorganization in Homeland Security had a trickle-down effect in state emergency management as well. For example, emergency management officials from Washington, a state where earthquakes are the likeliest threat, will be devoting their entire annual meeting next week to terrorism instead, he said.

“The locals need more money and we have to get it from grants, and the money that’s available is for terrorism,” said Freitag, who worked at FEMA for about 25 years. “It’s not driven by national hazards. That leadership is not there.”

The Department of Homeland Security has enough resources to deal with terrorists. Life must go on, yellow alert or not.

Replacing Brown is David Paulison currently U.S. Fire Director. I didn’t know we had a U.S. Fire Director. Regardless, this is a man who headed up the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Department, as well as overseeing the county’s emergency services. He also attended the Kennedy School of Management at Harvard, but we won’t hold that against him. He is qualified, and with his Florida background, particularly so when it comes to hurricane management.

I have to ask: why was this man reporting to Brown? He is so much more qualified, it’s almost painful to see.

One incidental impact of Katrina and the government mismanagement: states potentially impacted by an earthquake in the New Madrid fault are now taking it a lot more seriously.

Categories
People

My annual Dear Jan letter

Everyone should have a Jan Sundberg.

A nice bit of normalcy did rear it’s head — I’ve had my annual, “F**k you!” from Jan Sundberg. Ever since I first published my four-part articles on the giant squid and cryptozoology and mentioned his rather, shall we say, ‘dubious’ adventures, I’ve had an email once a year, regular as clock work with barely coherent English telling me to go to hell. Or worse.

A bit of humor with this year’s email: he signed it Frida and made it sound like a supporter of his was sending it. Too bad no one ever told him that his name is in the ‘reply-to’ section of the email.

This is a nice break: do a search engine lookup on Jan Sundberg and then sit back and enjoy the results. Just be aware that not all Jan Sundbergs are alike.

I love the cryptozoologists — they are never boring.

Categories
Critters People

Shout out to the squid people

Let’s hear it for the Squid People! Fans of all things invertebrate!

Martin Wisse is a squid fan or at least a family member is.

And PZ Meyers at Pharyngula, my favorite BioMan, points to a great video that gives one pause when expressing a wish to meet a live Architeuthis Dux or Architeuthis Colossal in person someday.

Categories
outdoors People Photography

Festival of Nations

A storm blew in tonight and took with it the heat that has oppressed our state. We have broken records right and left, including a heat index of 121 degrees on Saturday, and several days straight with over 100 degree real temperatures.

Now I can go outside, and I need to as my daily level of stress has increased beyond comfort or even good health. I was so desperate that I did go to the Festival of Nations for a few hours on Sunday — with a heat index of only 106.

The poor dancers — especially those in more elaborate costumes. I was so hot that sweat poured into my eyes, burning them, as I surreptitiously wiped my brow with my shirt (having forgotten a handkerchief, and desperate enough to conveniently forget everything my mother taught me when I was young). But at least I was in light and loose cotton — some of these people were in woven silks and satins. The only groups that seemed truly comfortable were the ones from Haiti and the Ivory Coast and South Africa. Their outfits fit the intolerable heat.

But the dancers never showed anything but love of the dance.

The Festival had food from so many countries, including Eritrea, a first for me. Vegetarians would have been delighted as most of the stands had meat free dishes. The Greeks had Baklava sundaes having hastily converted their offerings into something with more appeal on a hot day.

One stage provided the dancers, another music, and other areas provided craftspeople and individual performers. An Irish fiddler roamed through the trees. The crowds were light, and whether it was because everyone was suffering together, everyone was in good spirits.

But it was too bloody hot and I could only stay for a few hours, which was disappointing. Still, there was much to see in those few hours. The time was richly spent.