China hit by heavy flooding - Asia-Pacific - Al Jazeera English
Topic: Miscellaneous
7:01 pm EDT, Jun 13, 2010
At least 155 people have died in seasonal flooding in China that has also forced more than one million to flee, government officials say.
About 140,000 homes have collapsed, many of them in Hunan and Jiangxi provinces, and more than 1.3 million people have been moved to temporary shelter.
Direct economic losses total $6.5bn (24bn yuan), the office said in a statement.
I was attempting to compare the relative impact of the Atlanta and Nashville floods - it seems that Nashville was hit harder, their flood was a bigger deal - but the Atlanta flood was very bad. It would be interesting to get some information about how impacted people are recovering months later. Apparently there are a lot of abandoned homes in impacted neighborhoods, but the economy of the city was relatively uneffected, which might not be true in Nashville.
Either way, this flood in China was way - way worse that either flood here. Google news results for flooding in China: 190 Flash floods in Arkansas: 4821
Is that a reasonable comparison?
Something just doesn't seem right about that - its not as if Google news is specifically an index of American news media.
Judge limits DHS laptop border searches | Politics and Law - CNET News
Topic: Miscellaneous
10:44 am EDT, Jun 11, 2010
This court ruling is a victory for those who think that there are constitutional limits on border searches of laptops. It speaks to the concept that they can boot up a laptop at the border and dig around in it but if they keep it for a long time and do a more in depth forensic analysis they need some basis for suspicion:
Given the passage of time between the January and February searches and the fact that the February search was not conduct(ed) at the border, or its functional equivalent, the court concludes that the February search should be analyzed under the extended border search doctrine and must be justified by reasonable suspicion.
This is a good result. I agree. The question is exactly where do you draw the line between what falls in the border search doctrine and what falls into the extended border search doctrine, but the fact that a line exists is an important point to make.
The government also argues that because Officer Edwards properly seized the laptop, and because the laptop remained in law enforcement custody, she was entitled to conduct a more thorough search at a later time. However, the cases on which the government relies for this argument address the right to conduct a more thorough search of a container as a search incident to a valid arrest, another recognized exception to the warrant requirement... Hanson was not arrested on January 27, 2009, and for that reason the court finds the government's reliance on the "search incident to a valid arrest" line of cases to be inapposite. Accordingly, because the court concludes that June search required a warrant, and because it is undisputed that the search was conducted without a warrant, Hanson's motion is GRANTED IN PART on this basis.
This result is more surprising. I like it, but it seems a little vague. At what point do we cease to be operating under the "extended border search" doctrine and enter the "warrant required" arena?
This could happen if there is some sort chain of evidence problem that makes it impossible for the agents to be reasonably certain that no change had occurred to the object since it crossed the border, but I doubt this occurred in this case.
Another possibility is that reasonable suspicion expires at some point. You've seized the laptop, you performed a more in depth search, you didn't find anything. You're done. You have no further evidence of wrong doing and no further reason to be suspicious, so you've got to give the computer back.
So, its not just the search that would require a warrant but the continued seizure of the device as well - you've got to be able to justify why you are still holding on to it. The question is why did they wait so long to perform the more in depth search, and what sort of timeframes are reasonable? Certainly, six months seems too long. If they are going to perform a more indepth analysis they should be required to do it rapidly - keeping someone's laptop for six months is nearly equivalent to destroying it.
Google Wave 1.0 = RSS, the Sequel. In Other Words, DoA... for Now - The Steve Rubel Stream
Topic: Miscellaneous
7:33 am EDT, Jun 11, 2010
These prophetic comments echo a lot of my experience with MemeStreams:
Wave requires a new way of thinking. Sure, we're capable of it as humans. But... we like linearity...
RSS is one of the greatest Internet innovations of the last decade (thank you Dave!). So why did it never take off with consumers? Simple... It only solved problems that some, eg info junkies, had. And it required a new way of thinking and operating...
But what about Gmail you say? Gmail too was a complex beast when it debuted with its conversation views and interface - and it caught on. Yes, but Gmail was different. It solved problems: mail storage quotas and killer search. Thus people were willing to make the investment to master it.
A short entry - AP Photographer Charlie Riedel just filed the following images of seabirds caught in the oil slick on a beach on Louisiana's East Grand Terre Island.
YouTube - Ocean currents likely to carry oil to Atlantic
Topic: Miscellaneous
12:02 am EDT, Jun 4, 2010
A detailed computer modeling study released today indicates that oil from the massive spill in the Gulf of Mexico might soon extend along thousands of miles of the Atlantic coast and open ocean as early as this summer. The modeling results are captured in a series of dramatic animations produced by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and collaborators.
BP waited until after Obama’s news conference to announce that the operation had been halted the previous night...
BP will not announce that a “top kill” is impossible until after Obama’s photo-op “I feel your pain” tour of the Gulf coast tomorrow. That’s why the last word from BP was it will be Friday night at the earliest before they “know” if the operation is successful. They already know it won’t work. They are just timing their revelations to curry favor with Obama.
renting_for_profit says:
Nothing has changed – the oil will continue to spew, in greater or lesser amounts, until the relief well(s) are finished – with luck, before summer is over, without luck, in the beginning of 2011.
This has been the case since the BOP failed, by the way, and is based on all the other cases of deep water wells blowing out, including in the Gulf.
Vespasian says:
I’m inclined to agree with SA’s assessment. We already know that the PR-world loves to release bad news on Friday evenings … especially on a holiday weekend.
If they cannot stop the oil and it continues to gush for months, getting sucked into the loop current (which will eventually restart), it will destroy the ecosystem of the entire east coast of the United States. I hope this post looks silly in 24 hours.
Should Government Take On Facebook? - Room for Debate Blog - NYTimes.com
Topic: Miscellaneous
7:12 am EDT, May 26, 2010
What can government do to ensure that users have control of their own information, which might live on indefinitely on the Web? Would regulation work? Or should government stay out of this arena?
