Friday, October 28, 2005

FEMA: Safe Rooms - Mitigation - Safe Room:

Tornado Safe Rooms Take Center Stage


Lite-Form workers lift the lightweight pre-assembled wall section into place over the cement slab foundation. The cement-filled, foam-formed walls are reinforced with steel rebar and may be built into new housing or added inside or outside to existing structures at a relatively low cost. Its construction is simple enough that it can be built by do-it-yourselfers. For more information and images, see Tornado Safe Rooms Take Center Stage. read more »

Thursday, October 13, 2005

Food For Thought

To laugh is to risk appearing a fool….




To weep is to risk appearing sentimental….




To reach out for another is to risk involvement….




To expose feelings is to risk rejection….




To place your dreams before a crowd is to risk ridicule….




To love is to risk not being loved in return….




To go forward in the face of overwhelming odds is to risk failure….












But risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.




The person who risks nothing does nothing, has nothing, is nothing.




He may avoid suffering and sorrows, but he cannot learn, feel, change, grow, or love.




Chained by his certitudes, he is a slave - he has forfeited his freedom.










Only a person who takes risks is FREE!

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

Iraq attacks kill scores

Aljazeera.net - 3 hours ago
Up to 50 people have been killed and dozens wounded in a series of attacks in Iraq, including a car bomb that ripped apart a crowded market in a town near the Syrian border. In the deadliest attack in Iraq ... read more »

Two things Navy SEALS are always taught:

Keep your priorities in order

Know when to act without hesitation

A college professor, an avowed atheist and active in the ACLU, was
teaching his class. He shocked several of his students when he flatly
stated that once and for all he was going to prove there was no God.
Addressing the ceiling he shouted:

"GOD, if you are real, then I want you to knock me off this platform.
I'll give you exactly 15 minutes!!!!!"

The lecture room fell silent. You could hear a pin drop. Ten minutes
went by.

" I'm waiting God, if you're real knock me off this platform!!!!"

Again after 4 minutes, the professor taunted God saying,
"Here I am, God!!! I'm still waiting!!!"

His count down got down to the last couple of minutes when a SEAL, just
released from the Navy after serving in Afghanistan and Iraq and newly
registered in the class, walked up to the Professor.

The SEAL hit him full force in the face, and sent the Professor tumbling
from his lofty platform. The Professor was out cold!! The students were
stunned and shocked. They
began to babble in confusion. The SEAL nonchalantly took his seat in the
front row and sat silent. The class looked at him and fell
silent.....waiting. Eventually, the professor came to and was noticeably
shaken. He looked at the SEAL in the front row. When the professor
regained his senses and could speak he asked:

"What the hell is the matter with you?! Why did you do that!?"

"God was really busy protecting America's soldiers, who are protecting
your right to say stupid shit and act like an ass!!! So he sent me!!"
ONE NATION UNDER GOD, INDIVISIBLE

Jesus wants A Few Good Men! Living A Life You Always Wanted!:

Jack Nicholson (Col. Jessup) (marine cornel) YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH ….Son, we live a world that has walls and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Whose gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinburg? I have more responsibility here than you could possibly fathom. You curse the marines. You have that luxury. You have that luxury of not knowing what I know. And that my existence as grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives. I know down deep in places you don't want to talk about, you don't want me on that wall, you need me on that wall. We use words like HONOR, CODE, and LOYALTY. We use these words as the very backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punch line. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom I provide. I prefer you to just say thank you and go on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon, and stand to post. Either way, I don't give a crap what you think you are entitled to!" (end of scene) more »

fallout shelter

A fallout shelter is a civil defense measure intended to reduce casualties in a nuclear war. Nuclear fallout is radioactive dust created when a nuclear weapon explodes. The explosion vaporizes any material within the fireball, including the ground if it is nearby. Much of this material is exposed to neutrons from the explosion, absorbs them, and becomes radioactive. When this material condenses in the cloud, it forms dust and light sandy material that resembles ground pumice. The fallout emits gamma rays as if each particle were a tiny x-ray machine. Much of this highly radioactive material then falls to earth, subjecting anything within the line of sight to gamma radiation, a significant hazard. A fallout shelter is designed to allow its occupants to avoid exposure to harmful fallout until radioactivity has lowered to a safer level. read more »

Wanted: A Few Good Men

In life we shall find many men that are great, and some that are good,
but very few men that are both great and good.

- Charles Caleb Colton

Sunday, October 09, 2005

Google goes to Washington

Posted by Andrew McLaughlin, Senior Policy Counsel


It seems that policymaking and regulatory activity in Washington, D.C. affect Google and our users more every day. It’s important to be involved - to participate in the policy process and contribute to the debates that inform it. So we’ve opened up a shop there. The first member of our Washington team is Alan Davidson, a veteran thinker and advocate for issues we care about.


Our mission in Washington boils down to this: Defend the Internet as a free and open platform for information, communication and innovation. OK, that sounds a little high and mighty, so let me break it down into something a bit wonkier with a sampling of the U.S. policy issues we’re working on:


Net neutrality. As voice, video, and data rapidly converge, Congress is rewriting U.S. telecommunications laws and deregulating broadband connectivity, which is largely a good thing. But in a country where most citizens have only one or two viable broadband options, there are real dangers for the Internet: Should network operators be able to block their customers from reaching competing websites and services (such as Internet voice calls and video-on-demand)? Should they be able to speed up their own sites and services, while degrading those offered by competitors? Should an innovator with a new online service or application be forced to get permission from each broadband cable and DSL provider before rolling it out? Or, if that’s not blunt enough for you, what’s better: [a] Centralized control by network operators, or [b] free user choice on the decentralized, open, and astoundingly successful end-to-end Internet? (Hint: It’s not [a].)


Copyrights and fair use. Google believes in protecting copyrights while maintaining strong, viable fair use rights in this new digital age. We support efforts by the U.S. Copyright Office to facilitate the use of orphan works (works whose rights-holders can’t be found), while fully respecting the interests of creators. We applauded the Supreme Court’s carefully calibrated decision in the Grokster case, but worked to defeat legislation that would have created new forms of liability for neutral technologies and services like Google.
read more »

Technology Quotes and Proverbs:

In a few hundred years, when the history of our time will be written from a long-term perspective, it is likely that the most important event historians will see is not technology, not the Internet, not e-commerce. It is an unprecedented change in the human condition. For the first time - literally - substantial and rapidly growing numbers of people have choices. For the first time, they will have to manage themselves. And society is totally unprepared for it.



Peter Drucker


read more »

150 computer one-liners

Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will use it.


Computers can never replace human stupidity.



It works! Now if only I could remember what I did...


read more »