webcamS blog

NOLA.com blogs and forums help save lives after Katrina
Online Journalism Review Wed, 14 Sep 2005 06:28:54 GMT
Here’s an inside look at how the website for the Times-Picayune helped guide rescuers and provided in-depth news for evacuees. >> Click Here To Read The Full Article < <

Here's an excerp that seems to really cover the overall vibe of the issue:

"As the water finally starts to recede in New Orleans, the watershed for online journalism has been laid bare. Hurricane Katrina brought forth a mature, multi-layered online response that built on the sense of community after 9/11, the amateur video of the Southeast Asian tsunami disaster and July 7 London bombings, and the on-the-scene blogging of the Iraq War....

NOLA.com is known more for its MardiGras.com site and its live webcam, but now has become Exhibit A in the importance of the Internet for newspaper companies during a disaster. When the newspaper couldn't possibly be printed or distributed, the NOLA.com news blog became the source for news on hurricane damage and recovery efforts -- including updates from various reporters on the ground and even full columns and news stories.

The blog actually became the paper, and it had to, because the newspaper's readership was in diaspora, spread around the country in shelters and homes of families and friends...."

The wonder of the Internet is amazing, I just hope that the US Congress doesn't legislate it into oblivion. You wonder why I even bring this up, well wired.com had an interesting article on it today. It seems the more we allow the US Congress and it's courts to legislate the Internet the more functionality and freedom on it will diminish greatly and I fear within 5-10 years will more resemble the major TV network dulldrums that we had to endure prior to the wonder we call the InterWeb

Here's that article from wired that reminded me of the danger the US legal system is to our beloved Internet: Open Internet, We Hardly Knew Ye

Ok, so you’ve been on game servers or internet chat message boards?

If so you’ll love this animated gif… or at least I think you will.

**** WARNING *****
Some of the images in the animation are a big on the gorey side, it’s basically hacked up humours compilation of that Tom Hanks war movie, that I forget the name of

http://www.funzor.net/upl/sep/9.12/rulez/image.gif

type-atcha-later, WebcamsGuru

Ok, I know I said I’d post something about Katrina, but before I do I thought we could use another day of some humor I found on a message board / forum. If any of you know of one bashing Kerry or some other liberal please let me know I’d love to post it. I’m an equal opportunity politician mocker….

The Kennebunkport Hillbilly
(tune of The Beverly Hillbillies Theme Song)
Come and listen to my story ’bout a boy name Bush.
His IQ was zero and his head was up his tush.
He drank like a fish while he drove all about.
But that didn’t matter ‘cuz his daddy bailed him out.
DUI, that is. Criminal record. Cover-up.

Well, the first thing you know little Georgie goes to Yale.
He can’t spell his name but they never let him fail.
He spends all his time hangin’ out with student folk.
And that’s when he learns how to snort a line of coke.
Blow, that is. White gold. Nose candy.

The next thing you know there’s a war in Vietnam.
Kin folks say, “George, stay at home with Mom.”
Let the common people get maimed and scarred.
We’ll buy you a spot in the Texas Air Guard.
Cushy, that is. Country clubs. Nose candy.

Twenty years later George gets a little bored.
He trades in the booze, says that Jesus is his Lord.
He said, “Now the White House is the place I wanna be.”
So he called his daddy’s friends and they called the GOP.
Gun owners, that is. Falwell. Jesse Helms.

Come November 7, the election ran late.
Kin folks said “Jeb, give the boy your state!”
“Don’t let those colored folks get into the polls.”
So they put up barricades so they couldn’t punch their holes.
Chads, that is. Duval County. Miami-Dade.

Before the votes were counted five Supremes stepped in.
Told all the voters “Hey, we want George to win.”
“Stop counting votes!” was their solemn invocation.
And that’s how George finally got his coronation.
Rigged, that is. Illegitimate. No moral authority.
Y’all come vote now. Ya hear?

type-atcha-later, WebcamsGuru

Ok, I know this has nothing to do with webcams or internet technology, but I DID find it on a messageboard / forum so it kinda fits. And with all the drama in the world lately I figured we could use some humor. I will post some things on Hurricane Katrina either later today or this week.

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.

As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5 year phase-in plan that would become known as “Euro-English”.

In the first year, “s” will replace the soft “c”.

Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy.

The hard “c” will be dropped in favour of “k”.

This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome “ph” will be replaced with “f”.

This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.

Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.

Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent “e” in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.

By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing “th” with “z” and “w” with “v”.

During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary “o” kan be dropd from vords kontaining “ou” and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensibl riten styl.

Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.

Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.

http://www.internethumorsucks.com/2005/09/07/euro-english-to-become-the-official-language-of-the-european-union-rather-than-german/

I recently found out on a forum that I frequent that google has plans to launch it’s own instant messenger software! It’s about time is what I say. They have a great search engine, a fledgling ‘groups’ area that needs to be more modeled after yahoo and msn, but hey it’s a start. They have a great free email service, next I’m guessing chat & an expanded ‘directory’ of their own would rock. Dmoz is fine but it’s not google google now is it?

Anyways, I’ll try to post more often with the latest goings on in the interactive online world. My excuse is that I’ve been tied up trying to develop a health portal, planning for a potential move to Arizona so the wife can finish her school and I can get back to it.

Here’s the link for the article on google’s plan to start it’s own IM service: http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/internet/08/23/google.messaging.reut/index.html

Is it because the UK is heavily wired with webcams everywhere you go in public? I asked myself this question after reading a message board online where a few UK webmasters chimed in on their thoughts as to how the British intelligence found the suspects so fast… Here’s a few excerpts from those discussions online:

“They have video cameras everywhere.” - JJ Gold

“Yeah…I think that Americans would have much more problem with having government cameras taping them everywhere they go…” - sperbonzo

“Yeah, the power of CCTV (close circuit television) - they have them everywhere in the UK.
Helps with vandalism and crime and whatnot. ” - WEGRuth

“Totally true. I’ve lived and traveled in the UK. There are Cameras all OVER the place… People have even been convicted of crimes in their own homes because outside cameras happened to see them through the windows.

I”m sure that George Orwell would have started putting up “Oceana” signs all over the UK if he was still alive… ” - sperbonzo

“If you are in central London you are on a camera somewhere. It has been used many times to solve murder cases, etc. I get so used to it here that when I went home and didn’t see cameras that often it felt odd.” - sarah_webinc

Anyways I thought it was nice to be able to find someone so fast, BUT scary as hell to think that most of a country is being watched on camera, that’s just totally 1984 scary! Can you imagine when the US government sells it to us that we MUST have cameras in public 24/7 on every street corner to KEEP US SAFE!? I seriously believe it will happen within the next 5-15 years at the rate we’re going lately in being willing to give up freedoms for security.

Here’s a link to some of the, apparently 1000s, of webcams in the UK:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/england/webcams/

that’s all for now

Hey there,

I created a yahoo group yesterday so that any of you that want to subscribe to the newsletter that I’ll be working on in the future (I promise to NEVER spam anyone)… Feel free to go over to
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/webcamsblog/

or you can signup on this form here

The cool thing about yahoo groups is that other people interested in this topic can signup there and find this blog. You can post messages to eachother, upload files, photos, post links, etc… It’s really a pretty nice setup, and I will monitory to keep the spam down. Only members that have joined and posted a few times will be able to post messages without eview or moderation, this is to help keep the spammers out of our yahoo group.

Anyways, I hope yall enjoy it. I’ll work on some cool webcamsblog newsletter and keep you posted here when it’s ready to go.

What will I post or send out in it? Right now I’m thinking updates that occur here, the interesting ones, anything else webcam related or related to chat, instant messengers, etc…

If you have any suggestions feel free to drop me a line.

type-atcha-later…