The strange business of protesting jobs that may be better than yours

Curious story of a group of picketers. They are being paid by a union to protest a new WalMart -- with worse pay and worse conditions than the WalMart employees are enjoying. While the Union's position is fairly familiar, their actual behavior does not look particularly good.

Las Vegas Weekly

Here’s a good paper from HP Labs that analyzes tagging patterns on del.icio.us: The Structure of Collaborative Tagging Systems. Lots of interesting stuff on tagging behaviour, frequency, semantics and categories.

You’re It! � Blog Archive � Paper: The Structure of Collaborative Tagging Systems

President George W. Bush took responsibility on Tuesday for any failures in the federal response to Hurricane Katrina and acknowledged the storm exposed serious deficiencies at all levels of government four years after the September 11 attacks.

The Daily Show response to this last night was great. I think they said something along the lines of "And the most important part of Katrina was found on Tuesday morning..." and went to the clip. And then John Stewart just stared. Played it again. Stared. Totally unexpected behavior by Mr. President.

Not that it means anything. It is such a meaningless statement that it is surprising he doesn't do more of it. He's a lame duck. His supporters and detractors will continue to believe whatever they believe about him and his culpability. Until we have something like "When I did (concrete thing), I did the wrong thing. It was a mistake and I take responsibility", it is still just empty. "If a mistake was made..." -- fine. Duh. The buck stops with you, at least on paper. You're not running for reelection, so as long as it isn't an impeachable offense, why NOT take the blame? History will remember you for consequences regardless of what you acknowledged as yours.

Bush - I am responsible.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Energy Department said Wednesday it accepted bids from energy companies to buy 11 million barrels of crude oil to help replace supplies cut by Hurricane Katrina.

The amount accounts for about one-third of the amount offered for sale from the government's emergency stockpile.

Govt sells 11M barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve - Sep. 14, 2005

On top of the nice firewall protection there is also virus protection software, advanced packet filtering, small enough to fit in hand and uses no computer resources and doesn’t even need to be configured or have regular maintenance done. This is a nice firewall with a bunch of nice extras and for a decent price of $79.

For John, Dave, Geoff and Mike.

Stingray Hardware Firewall : Gizmodo

3G Americas reports that as of August 2005, there are 1.5 billion GSM customers according to the latest subscriber data from Informa Telecoms & Media. Remarkably, it was just in Q1 2004 that the GSM technology reached the one billion customer milestone and with a robust and unrivaled growth, GSM already totaled 1.46 billion customers worldwide at the end of Q2 2005, passing the 1.5 billion milestone in August.

“It took the industry over 12 years to reach one billion GSM customers,” stated Kester Mann, Senior Research Analyst, Informa Telecoms & Media, “but sustained growth from rapidly expanding markets such as China, India, Russia and USA will ensure that the second billion is achieved in little over three and a half years, forecast for Q3 2007.”

BlackBerry Cool » 1.5 Billion GSM Customers

BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 12, 2005--Yankee Group today revealed that wireless substitution thrives, substantially displacing wireline services and leaving fixed-mobile convergence far behind in an embryonic state of development. According to Yankee Group's wireless global practice leader Keith Mallinson--who will include the commercial impact of fixed-mobile convergence versus wireless substitution in a panel session at the 3G CDMA Americas Conference on September 13--low prices, in-network calling and family plans all influence the rising number of people hanging up on landlines. They are using home phones less frequently and many are "cutting the cord" entirely.

In the past 5 years, wireless subscribers and wireless minutes used have grown enormously to a penetration level of 65.4% and 754 minutes per month per subscriber, respectively, by the second quarter of 2005. With more than 95% of the US population exposed to broad wireless network coverage, wireless substitution is the easiest implementation of seamless mobility, influencing consumer decisions to completely displace wireline services. The high saturation of wireless service offerings by the nation's six leading wireless carriers has also contributed to the trend of displacing traditional wireline services.

I haven't had a landline for more than a month since early 2000, and then only because one was in my dorm room. 65.4% penetration is still below a lot of the world.

Yankee Group Finds that Wireless Calling Surpasses Wireline Calling; Exponential Growth of Wireless Service Adoption Leads to Imminent Wireline Displacement across the Entire US Population

If you go to the FEMA website's Claims area and scroll down to the bottom of the page, can only support claims submitted via the Internet Explorer Web browser. Plus, you have to be running Internet Explorer 6, which, as I noted in a post I made on the political-oriented Huffington Post site yesterday, "isn't compatible with some older computer operating systems that may be in place at already cash-strapped public assistance agencies or in homes of relatives who are providing shelter to evacuees."

"Perhaps more annoying," I wrote, "the FEMA Claims site is not compatible with the wirleess Web browser interfaces of BlackBerry and Palm Personal Digital Assistants. Given that some of the relief workers who may be helping untold thousands with claims are sure to use these devices, the fact that these sets are technically disenfranchised from displaying and relaying FEMA Claims is inexcusable.

Based on how well Blackberries performed in the first couple of days of disaster -- you have 3 different text message routes that requires only a small slice of cell-tower availability -- it sounds like they will become more and more "standard issue" for disaster recovery teams.

Why would FEMA make a site that didn't work with everything? It would seem like for a FEMA form:

Step 1. Basic standard HTML, not sexy flashy fancy or even stylized
Step 2. Compliant HTML with some style
Step 3. Maybe some optional javascript for form assistance
Step 4. Maybe some DHTML for realtime form assistance through verification

If you need to do something in a claim form that can't be done in HTML 2.0, you've started on the wrong track.

BBHub

Troops inside the trucks were given malaria tablets and vaccinations against diseases like Hepatitis, Cholera and Tetanus -- ironically the same shots wary American tourists might get before visiting parts of Mexico.

Heads turn as Mexican troops roll into US with aid | Reuters.com

Set a realistic "Ideal Weight" goal for your body,
Try to Feel Good about yourself even if you are overweight.

Did you know:
Almost all "ideal body weight" websites use obsolete formulas or tables created in 1979 or earlier.

A fascinating calculator that provides a series of comparative calculating functions. Each formula or table is rigorously documented, and the limitations considered. "People's Choice"
and the MetLife tables are particularly illuminating.

Better Ideal Weight Body Calculations