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FCC Seeks Tech Donations for Katrina Aid
An anonymous reader writes "BoingBoing is reporting on the FCC accepting donations of tech services and equipment: 'Lack of communications systems has been identified as a critical issue holding back aid, missing persons, law enforcement, etc. in crisis areas.
FCC personnel are working throughout the weekend to coordinate these efforts with private industry, with wireless technology groups, FEMA, and state governments in Mississippi, Louisiana, etc.' Efforts are being organized through PART-15.ORG."
Find it disgusting that emergency aid workers have to beg for money to provide vital equipment to people who are dying?
This in a country that has spent nearly 200 Billion on an unnecessary war in a far off land.
My pics.
I'm all for private donations.. and will make some when I get some free funds on my credit cards.. But I'd much prefer to see larger orginizations, read gas companies, step in. Their preemtive price gouging becuase demand will go up because of this should be making them enough money to help out the victims.
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To be honest.. all of the people using this opportunity to take political pot-shots, attacks on the US, etc are doing something very similar to those looters and criminals taking advantage of the situation in New Orleans. Using a tragedy to push your own polital agenda or beliefs is disrespectful. Spend your energy on something positive instead.
.plan!! what plan?
Here you go! /. collectively has resources, experience, and sufficient assets to band together and work on a finding a solution to a real problem, rather than debating about what Ballmer is saying about Google.
Webcams? What? There's a 24 hour curfew. They're evacuating everyone. National Guard should be patrolling with orders to detain anyone and get them to evacuation centers, and if they get shot at- give a warning, and then shoot to kill and move on. Policing New Orleans is probably simpler than it ever was- and it will only get easier as they finish the evacuation.
Once order is established, take all that money for wireless access points, webcams...take all those consultants etc...and hand them wader boots. Have them cart water, food, and medicine to people. Go door to door searching for survivors. Go to the relief centers to help there. Because THAT is what we need. A simple radio network will suffice for short term communications (National Guard and HAM operators can probably help there more than anyone else) and should be easy given the lack of interference. Cell service would be a luxury, and suggesting ANYONE needs 802.11b is absolutely stupid. This is a bunch of vendors saying "hey, we'll help, but only if you let us use our most expensive, fancy, unnecessary equipment". You don't deploy a VoIP network, when the cost of one VoIP router will buy you a dozen hand-held radios. You don't give one person a nice big steak with roasted potatoes when you can give 1000 people rice.
PEOPLE NEED FOOD, WATER, AND MEDICINE. THEY NEED TO BE EVACUATED STILL. THEY DO NOT NEED LAPTOPS WITH INTERNET ACCESS. THEY NEED VOLUNTEERS MOVING THAT FOOD, WATER, AND MEDICINE- NOT SETTING UP #$@!ING WEBCAMS. The Mayor of New Orleans has been pretty clear about what he needs. Food, water, medicine, and busses to get people out so they stop rioting and looting. I believe the quote was "the president was talking about getting some school bus drivers down here. Thats' a joke. Get every greyhound bus in the country down here."
Please help metamoderate.
People killed, property destroyed, mass reverted at "Lord of the Flyes" level. And people talking about WiMax and Ham radio.
Jesus, here's this bullshit again. MY GOD MAN, PEOPLE ARE DROWNING AND HERE YOU ARE POSTING ON INTERNET MESSAGE BOARD! GOOD GOD MAN, GET SOME PERSPECTIVE!
Here's the thing, though I realize this message will be missed by all of the pseudo morally righteous as they continue their campaign to post "Good god, won't anyone think of the..." messages to every message board: We, as a generalization of the Slashdot community, are in the technology arena.
We do not produce food, filter water, or build dikes. We do technology. You get that? Does every "Why won't someone thing of the..." moron understand this very simple point? This is our domain. Maybe it isn't the most important necessity of life, but it's what we know (and other people are taking care of the other areas, and there is NOTHING WE CAN DO to help get food or water there quicker, or to restore law and order).
As such, in the grand composite intermix that is modern society, the people who do technology ponder how they can leverage their knowledge and skills to get society up and running. Because, as I'm sure you're aware, the goal isn't just to setup a third-world state in New Orleans, but to get society running again there so people can live and work and play, and not just sit on their stacks of water and food because that's all that LkDotCom thought mattered.
It's not disgusting that they have to ask for donations...it's a friggin' disaster area down here! Aid agencies and emergency workers ask for money all year round, disaster or not. Is that begging? Some people in this country living under a rock have just realized how bad it is down here within the last day or two. A desparate plea for help is often times heard louder than a mild mannered dude coming on and asking to open up your purse strings.
Besides, this isn't an online game, equipment and supplies don't just appear because you have the money. You can't dupe plat. You can't copy ones and zeros and come up with a new uber weapon of doom. This is real life and people have really died!
Oh...and the money spent in the war is another issue. Let's wait until the people are being taken care of properly before we mix these two together. I'm on your side when it's time to talk about this. But in the meantime, donate money, time, and equipment, and STFU!
"I've considered myself a socially libertarian, fiscally conservative Republican for a very long time. I got along with the idea that I wasn't going to get a whole lot of help. College wouldn't be free. Job training would cost money and time. And I'm probably a decent example of up-from-not-much.
But after watching what's happening in New Orleans-an American city that I've loved, visited and have always wanted to return to - I can't ever vote for these people again.
Being a Republican means that you expect the government to do just a couple things for you and nothing else. Build a road. Defend us from enemies, foreign and domestic. Stuff that would be a lot less organized if we all had to do it ourselves. Everything else is just gravy.
And as we poured money into Department of Homeland Security, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, I thought, "Right on," because some of that money's bound to fall on my head.
Well, something else would fall on my head first.
I work for the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. And that means that if something really catastrophic happens in MY city, and they ask me to stick around, that's the job. We have A and B teams and I'm a disaster recovery specialist on Team A. I've drawn up plans with names like Drawbridge and Smoldering Crater.
Here's what these people would do for me.
They would leave me there to die.
Look at the facts. There's no coordination on the ground right now. The city has no fresh water, no electricity, no services. The floodwater has so much oil and toxins in it that it's flammable.
In psychology they have what is called a fight-or-flight response. When faced with danger, do you subdue it or do you flee? Some of it has to do with risk assessment, but in this case, there is no flight. There is nowhere to run. So flight means die. If my choice was to pull a pistol on a truck driver or Nat, Jarren, Jayson, or any of you dies, that's no choice at all.
I'm not talking about the looters grabbing big-screen televisions and basketball hoops. I'm talking about the ones that are chest-deep in water carrying bottled water and diapers. You can't tell me for three days to be patient, the bus is coming, and they're piling up bodies in the street median.
We have known that this sort of disaster could occur for a century. Hell, the tour bus driver told me about it on the plantation tour. This means that we have been able to envision the stark reality of this occurring for a week-the newspapers all said the storm would hit New Orleans last Thursday.
A week to get buses? A week to get fishing boats? Trucks? This is the United States! I read someone who said, "All the people who weren't bedridden, or had money, or had cars left. The people that are left had none of those things."
There are people tonight who are going to sleep on overpasses for the fourth straight night. There are prisoners who will do the same. There are people dying at a convention center because no one will tell them that no one is coming for them, and the National Guard is protecting the kitchens. There are police officers who are turning in their badges because they've lost everything, have no guidance, and don't want to be shot by a looter.
There are people tonight inside a concrete domed stadium with holes in the roof and no air conditioning who were told the buses are coming today, and they might, or they might not. There is no food. There is no water. There are bodies floating through the
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
FTA:
"A federal official said the department's Office for Domestic Preparedness reminded the Louisiana and Mississippi governors' offices about the stockpiles on Wednesday and Thursday, but neither governor had requested it."
Again...WTF are the governors doing?
Fema is aware that there are supplies there, so I assume the Fema manager for Louisiana is aware of it also as it is his/her job to know such things and it is his/her duty to make sure the governor's office is aware that there are first responder gear available for them. Of course this assumes the managers in place are competent and not political cronnies...
The governors ARE aware.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
Actually, the original question is not as dumb as it sounds. (And no, I'm not going to bring up anti-scientific bullshit like Idiotic Design.) One might as readily ask, is strength hereditary? The answer is, somewhat-but-mostly-not. The capacity for strength (and possible limits) are hereditary, but strength itself is developed through exercise. Within the ranges allowed by heredity, one can develop a magnificent physique or turn into a lard-butt. And, unlike muscle, the brain does most of its growth in the very early years; thus early stimulus is far more important to the development of intelligence.
Secondly, "intelligence" is not really a thing. It's a combination of a number of brain functions. We've reified it into a single thing, but it's not. Even something as simple as running speed is actually a combination of factors: leg length (hereditary), muscle tone (developed), lung capacity (some of both), etc. And what we call "intelligence" is far more complicated than that.
There is a sort of myth that genes map to traits, but nature is rarely that simple or straightforward. Most of what we would recognize as traits are tied to combinations of genes. And on top of that, what we might call "capacity-for-intelligence" is based on a large number of traits. And individual genes are far more widely spread through our gene pool than most people realize.
Clearly there are genetic components to intelligence, but at the same time, the simplistic, eugenic "solutions" this suggest are, frankly, idiotic. As is the thread-starter--evolution takes place on a timescale of millions of years, not hundreds or even thousands. The so-called "Darwin Awards", for example, are sadly misleading and sadly misnnamed. Killing a few thousand idiots may increase the average IQ of our species, but is highly unlikely to "improve the gene pool". (Even assuming that we were smart enough to quantify such "improvement", which is highly doubtful.)