The Uses of Disaster

/ Rick

Interesting essay, especially when you look at the failure of authority in New Orleans.

Luke Mitchell of Harpers says: “We have excerpts from a great essay by Rebecca Solnit up at Harper’s right now, about how authorities deal with disaster, and I am hoping I can get it as well distributed as humanly possible, because it might help to build a counter-narrative to the story that is being constructed this very minute about what is going on in New Orleans. Rebecca’s argument is that disaster always calls authority into question, and when authority is in question, the powers that be will often attempt to create a narrative of human behavior that calls for (surprise) even greater authority.

“It’s a great essay, and the postscript (written yesterday, for the Web only) plugs it into what is going in New Orleans (in terms of mythical race riots and cannibalism) more directly. (Also, if we get lots of traffic, the powers that be here at the magazine will let me do more of these sorts of things.) The amazing thing is, Rebecca wrote the essay before Katrina hit. Indeed, we were printing the piece that Monday. Thanks to Harper’s

The Uses of Disaster

New Orleans and Outpost Crystal

/ Rick

I have been following the LiveJounal Blog of Michael Barnett and his WebCam Feed since Monday. Michael Barnett and the staff of Intercosmos Media Group and directNIC are a web company holed up in their 10th floor Data Center in a 27 story skyscraper since Sunday Morning. They are located in the Central Business District in Downtown New Orleans and are fighting to keep their Data Center live and the 800,000 customer web sites that would go down if they surrendered the position. They are surviving on food that the company brought in for employee lunches before the storm and a diesel generator. You can subscribe to the feed or click on any of the links I added under “Interdictor” in the right column of Boggled. Digital Pictures can be found here and here. It is absolutely amazing to see and read what is going on live in New Orleans. Michael has added more recent picture links here

That being said, please give to the Red Cross or any of the other charities listed here. You can also click on the Red Cross Banner in the sidebar to go to the Red Cross donation pages.

You can also see complete coverage by The Times-Picayune who for the first time in their history are publishing exclusively on the web.

Here are photos being uploaded by people to Flickr and tagged hurricanekatrina and katrina, some are beyond my imagination.

Remember also that the most important thing in life is the health and safety of our loved ones. My heart goes out to all the people of the Gulf Coast that are living, and dying, through this catastrophe as I type this. It’s sobering. Please donate. I did.

ecto Rocks!

/ Rick

This all started out of my frustration that everything in my life never seemed to work as advertised, I was Boggled why everything was harder than it needed to be, I was Boggled that nothing ever worked together, I was Boggled that Companies and People didn’t “Get It” and I was Boggled that even my blog software was a daily dose of frustration. It was convoluted and exasperated me at every turn and it was GOOD compared to some others I had looked at. Doing a text post was easy, adding a picture to it took work. If I was a true geek none of this would have been a problem. I am not, just a guy that likes to take pictures and learn new things. Then I discovered ecto, it is an absolute joy to use. It works intuitively and quickly. I can work on or off line. I can post just a photo or I can add a photo and text to a post by clicking a single button. No more resizing and saving, no more exasperation, no more planning ahead to do a post. It works beautifully with TypePad and iPhoto. It delivers more than it promises, which is rare in anything these days. The few times I needed any help Adriaan the developer was great and willing to help. It is one of the few programs I have used that sells itself and should cost more than it does. For the first time in a long time I am not Boggled. If you use TypePad or Bloggger or a host of others, go take ecto for a spin. You will be happy that you did. Also a big Thank you to Adriaan for improving the quality of my life and for making it easier to do what I want. Finally, somebody gets it.

Open Pandora’s Music Box and Google Talk

/ Rick / 1 Comment

I have been playing with Pandora while installing Google Talk on the PowerBook and the old ThinkPad tonight. Both have been ridiculously easy to use. Pandora helps you to discover music based on the Music Genome Project. You will need to request an invitation to join from Pandora during the invitation only period. It only takes a day to get it. I have been playing with it for a few days and it has already introduced me to more good new music than I expected. Take it for a spin.

Discover New Music – Pandora.

As for Google Talk you need a Gmail account to join and it is a one click install. To easy. Bummer that the VOIP only works on a PC. If you need a Gmail account email me and I will send you one. I have a ton of invites since I signed everyone in our family up with an account. Really, how many Gmail invites are a 5 and 3 1/2 year old going to send to their friends? Wait, I take the part about Dain back. He may have already sent all of his out even if he is only 5. Anyway with Google Talk, maybe Google will finally open up Gmail to the public on Wednesday and you won’t need one of mine and I can hoard them forever then. Or sell them on eBay.

Google Talk.