del.icio.us links for 2005-09-30

• Haunted Memories Changing Portraits: The World's Spookiest Changing Portraits (art weird)

del.icio.us links for 2005-09-29

• The Elements of Meaningful XHTML: Presentation from Web Essentials 05 (css html markup web xhtml)

del.icio.us links for 2005-09-28

• MySQL Activity Report: The MySQL Activity Report package is a tool to help MySQL database administrators to collect several database parameters and variables. These collected values can be used for server monitoring or performance tuning purposes. (administration mysql)

del.icio.us links for 2005-09-27

• biopython.org -- Main page: The Biopython Project is an international association of developers of freely available Python tools for computational molecular biology. (biology programming python science software)
• Ten Recurring Economic Fallacies, 1774–2004 - Mises Institute: "As an American historian who knows something of economic law, having learned from the Austrians, I became intrigued with how the United States had remained prosperous, its economy still so dynamic and productive..." (culture economics history liberty politics social war)
• Puree Soiree - Complaint letter of the year: "I have made 9 calls on my mobile to your no-help line, and have been unhelpfully transferred to a variety of disinterested individuals, who are it seems also highly skilled bollock jugglers." (funny rant)
• 020 - EchoMp3 v1.4 - MMC/SD Card MP3 Player: The EchoMp3 is a small DIY* MP3 player. It's cheap and of excellent quality. (hardware howto mp3 music)

del.icio.us links for 2005-09-26

• The Trac Project - Trac: Trac is an enhanced wiki and issue tracking system for software development projects. Trac uses a minimalistic approach to web-based software project management. Our mission; to help developers write great software while staying out of the way. (bugs cms database design gpl productivity programming python wiki)
• The Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 1999 [via Politech]: Declan McCullagh writes: here's a cogent argument against "hate crime" legislation. (evil liberty politics)
• Microsoft Windows Is Offically Broken: and Microsoft has admitted it. In an unprecedented attempt to explain its Longhorn problems and how it abandoned its traditional way of working, the normally secretive software giant has given unparalleled access to The Wall Street Journal... (design microsoft news programming security)
• rest2web: Autogenerating Websites with Docutils (markup python restructuredtext web)

del.icio.us links for 2005-09-23

• Model-view-controller - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Model-View-Controller (MVC) is a software architecture that separates an application's data model, user interface, and control logic into three distinct components so that modifications to one component can be made with minimal impact to the others. (design mvc programming reference)

del.icio.us links for 2005-09-22

• ボーボボ・ドットコム: ボボボーボ・ボーボボ (Bobobo-bo Bo-Bobo) and his magical nose hair attack (anime flash japan manga weird)

del.icio.us links for 2005-09-21

• Anime News Network - Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo (TV): Bo Bobo is a man with the incredible power of hearing the voices of hair and using his own to fight. He uses his power to fight off the Margarita Empire and the minions who are stealing the hair off of anyone they find to power up their emperor. (anime manga weird)
• XHTML Character Entity Reference: This page contains the 252 allowed entities in HTML 4 and XHTML 1.0, as outlined in section 24 of the official HTML 4 specifications, published by the W3C. (markup reference unicode w3c xhtml xml)
• He Man does 4-non-blondes: What's going on?! Don't cry out loud, now it's time for CAKE! (cartoon humor mashup music quicktime video)

del.icio.us links for 2005-09-20

• CNN.com - Athens, Georgia's rock history draws tourists - Sep 19, 2005: The rusty, tin roof is still standing, but not much else remains of the so-called Love Shack, made famous by the B-52s' 1980s pop music hit. (athensga culture georgia history music news us)
• How To: Asterisk Answering Machine : TomsNetworking :: (hardware howto software voip)

del.icio.us links for 2005-09-18

• The Flying Mobulas of the Sea of Cortez: Flying Black Devil-Fish! (photo science weird)
• TurboGears: Front-to-Back Web Development: TurboGears takes the best components available and combines them into one easy-to-install, documented whole. TurboGears includes parts that join the pieces together and make them work together seamlessly, but doesn't obscure each included project. (ajax framework mvc programming python software web)

del.icio.us links for 2005-09-15

• Indeed | one search. all jobs.: Search engine for jobs (search tool)

del.icio.us links for 2005-09-14

• Tab Mix Plus: Improved tab support for Firefox (extension firefox)
• How to Go From Introvert to Extrovert: (culture howto social)
• Wondermark.com: Sweat, blood, tears, ink and occasionally urine combine on the illustrative page, ripping creative gashes in the creator's soul that only burn greater with the acrid exposure of public consciousness. (comic humor)

del.icio.us links for 2005-09-13

• Comixpedia :: Covering the Digital Frontier of Comics Online: Comixpedia is a monthly magazine and online portal dedicated to covering the digital frontier of comics online. (art comic web)

del.icio.us links for 2005-09-12

• PARAMETERS, US Army War College Quarterly - Winter 1992: Speculative fiction from 1992 about a US military coup in 2012 (politics war)

del.icio.us links for 2005-09-09

• Armed and Dangerous » Microsoft tries to recruit me: "I’d thank you for your offer of employment at Microsoft, except that it indicates that either you or your research team (or both) couldn’t get a clue if it were pounded into you with baseball bats." (esr funny microsoft rant)
• Guide to Japanese Castles: (art history japan)

del.icio.us links for 2005-09-08

• Neohapsis Archives - Full Disclosure List - #0157 - [Full-disclosure] Secuirty Hole Found In Dave's Sock: Description of Vulnerability: This morning while putting my socks on I found a small (1/4 inch) hole by my big toe. This could be exploited by a virus through the bottom of the foot or under the toe nail. Could be used to compromise Dave's entire system. (fashion humor security)

del.icio.us links for 2005-09-07

• The Chronicles of George: George is, quite simply, the worst helpdesk technician ever. (funny rant)
• Creating Passionate Users: Conversational writing kicks formal writing's ass: If you want people to learn and remember what you write, say it conversationally. This isn't just for short informal blog entries and articles, either. We're talking books. (reference writing)
• Comparison of different SQL implementations: The goal of this page — which is a work in progress — is to gather information relevant for people who are porting SQL from one product to another and/or are interested in possibilities and limits of 'cross-product' SQL. (database mysql postgresql reference sql)
• Boing Boing: Oh, Keith Olbermann, how I love thee.: A searing opinion piece from MSNBC's Keith Olbermann that captures the sentiments of many this week regarding the Great American Clusterfuck of Katrina. (bush katrina neworleans politics rant security video)

del.icio.us links for 2005-09-06

• space_comparison_chart_huge.jpeg (JPEG Image, 2000x2000 pixels): Starship comparision chart (babylon5 battlestargalactica culture farscape image lexx scifi startrek starwars)
• LIVEWRONG!!!!!: The Bracelet for the rest of us. We still love Lance, but we need to be recognized as well. Regardless what you ride,a MTB, cruiser, a fine lady. Enjoy. Live to Ride, Wear it proudly. What does it stand for, you decide. (fashion funny)
• Why talk like a pirate - and how: Why do we need an International Talk Like a Pirate Day? Make no mistake. We do. But it's a little hard to articulate why, especially when you've made the mistake of referring to your wife as a scurvy bilge rat and tried to order her back into the galley. (humor pirate)

del.icio.us links for 2005-09-04

• Grokking the GIMP - Learning Advanced Image Editing Techniques: (art design gimp howto image reference)

del.icio.us links for 2005-09-03

• How to Write More Clearly, Think More Clearly, and Learn Complex Material More Easily: (howto productivity reference writing)

del.icio.us links for 2005-09-01

• The Interdictor: This journal has become the Survival of New Orleans blog. In less perilous times it was simply a blog for me to talk smack and chat with friends. Now this journal exists to share firsthand experience of the disaster and its aftermath with anyone intereste (katrina neworleans news)

A little now or a lot later

From the Guardian (via BoingBoing):

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.

The original article has a lot more interesting points, such as:

• lack of planning for how to evacuate poor people and others without cars
• shifting money for levee maintenance to anti-terrorism
• lack of National Guard personnel due to war in Iraq

Basically, the Feds decided to save $60 million or so by not reinforcing levees, and now we've lost how many billions? Of course, one should question why it's the Federal government's problem at all, and not just the state of Louisiana, or New Orleans, but at some point, they did take responsibility for protecting the city.

No one yet knows the death toll from Katrina, but it has been estimated to be in the thousands just for New Orleans. It's probably comparable to 9/11, but with much, much more damage. Wind damage was unavoidable, of course, but the flooding is turning out to be much worse, and that is looking like it was largely avoidable. The whole city is going to have to be abandoned for months. It would not surprise me if it had to be abandoned completely. Let's face it, building a city between a large lake, the biggest river in North America, and the Gulf of Mexico on land that is below sea level seems like an exceptionally bad idea.