Things are getting better each day here in New Orleans.
One problem that is still present is phone service. A lot of people I know are primarily using cellular phones as their main numbers since the landlines are not reliable / available in some areas. To BellSouth's credit, they have taken this opportunity to replace the copper wires throughout the city with fiber optics, which will provide more bandwidth. But this will take some time to do (and it does not take an inordinate amount of extra time than replacing the lines with new copper wires).
A lot of people in the city are now talking about scanning their important pictures into the computer and sending them off to relatives out of town (by CD or email).
Some of the lessons learned from Katrina in New Orleans include:
Offsite backups to other cities
While cellular voice calls were not available, cellular text messaging was possible in the days
after Katrina
Rendundant lines / methods of communications is needed with no one point of failure. Before Katrina, this lesson
was demonstrated when a large collection of fiber lines were cut accidentally, severing communications in a large
region
First responders should be able to communicate easily with each other. This was an issue after 9/11, and was still
an issue for Katrina.
It is hoped that the lessons learned here help prepare other people in other places for the next emergency.
The latest commercial about Adrian Monk (on the USA Network) came to mind.
He's in a restaurant arranging exactly 100 corn kernels in a perfect 10 x 10 square, and moving the remainder to a separate bowl.
Yeah, they also want over $1000 just for accessing their Bluetooth API, which is used in many PocketPCs. Oddly enough, Microsoft's Bluetooth stack API is free.
Okay, a mathematician brought his friend to a math convention and in one room there was a large group of people. Someone stood up and said "230" and everyone laughed for a while. Someone else said "567" and everyone really laughed.
His friend asked "What's going on?"
The mathematician said that the group had remembered the top 1000 jokes in the world, and rather than spend the time telling it, they would just call out the number to be more efficient.
The friend said "Can I try?"
The mathematician said "Sure."
The friend then called out "432."
The crowd was silent and muttering.
The friend tried "567."
More muttering.
Finally the friend asked "What's wrong?"
The mathematician said, "Well, some people just can't tell a joke...."
...the next day, the mathematician took a different friend to the convention and again they met the crowd telling jokes. This friend got permission to tell a joke and then addressed the crowd.
"-1" is what the friend said.
There was at first stunned silence. Then a murmur. Then the noise grew louder until the room exploded in side-splitting laughter.
...for you see, they never heard that one before....
I visited Tokyo in 1994 and here's what I remember.
For food, a lot of the restaurants had plastic models that I could bring the waiter to and point at it. Some of the other restaurants had English menus. And if you like the native Japanese food as I do, it's at a reasonable price. It was my favorite culinary experience, but that's another story.
The subway system was easy to get around and so was the train system to Yokohoma and other towns.
The address system is heirarchical, where you start off with district, then some division, then a particular block, then a particular building, like an IPv4 address:-). I was able to find a detailed map for the division I was in attached to some building on the street.
Shopping in different stores, I found that some of them had some English translations by the items.
So I did well with my Lonely Planet guide and I did want to visit the tourist attractions, which had enough English translations for me to get by. And I can read maps and navigate very well.
Would a PDA have helped me on this trip? Perhaps not, but if I had one I would be able to talk more to the locals. Depending on the situation that you're in, that could make all the difference.
When I read that Fox was doing 1-minute shows for cell phones, I immediately thought about how the Simpsons got started as 30-60 second clips within the Tracey Ullman show. There's a lot of potential in a small space of time.
When I first started working in a software company, Louisiana also taxed custom software. If a client was the Federal Government, the tax would not have applied.
Since then, I believe (95% sure) that the law has since been repealed, due to the hard work and lobbbying effort of our local technology companies.
While I have a large collection of cookbooks (and a "cache" of frequently used cookbooks), I have been aware that I'm hitting google for recipes that involve either a specific ingredient or a specific recipe name.
In either case I get several versions of the recipes and print them out. This is like when I look in several books for the same recipe: Determine the essential elements of the recipe and adapt it to whatever I have on hand.
What motivated me to get a PhD was that I would regret not getting it. To me, getting it was a major life accomplishment.
In terms of getting a job, the story is interesting. When I got my PhD in Computer Science in 1993, the only job I got was a Post-Doctorate. Then when that was finished, all the computer companies that I applied to said that they were looking for entry level positions, so I ended up doing accounting and tax work with my father (I've always been good with numbers:-).
Later, my old university called me up and asked me to teach part-time. Then a friend of mine I worked with during my PhD years called me up and asked me to work with him writing software in a small firm. (It has been very odd that I never got a job I applied for; people contacted me for all my jobs.)
I have no regrets about getting a PhD. I feel a great sense of accomplishment from it, and I have gotten jobs because of the contacts I have made through my academic career.
Slashdot Mirror
Things are getting better each day here in New Orleans.
One problem that is still present is phone service. A lot of people I know are primarily using cellular phones as their main numbers since the landlines are not reliable / available in some areas. To BellSouth's credit, they have taken this opportunity to replace the copper wires throughout the city with fiber optics, which will provide more bandwidth. But this will take some time to do (and it does not take an inordinate amount of extra time than replacing the lines with new copper wires).
A lot of people in the city are now talking about scanning their important pictures into the computer and sending them off to relatives out of town (by CD or email).
Some of the lessons learned from Katrina in New Orleans include:
It is hoped that the lessons learned here help prepare other people in other places for the next emergency.
The latest commercial about Adrian Monk (on the USA Network) came to mind. He's in a restaurant arranging exactly 100 corn kernels in a perfect 10 x 10 square, and moving the remainder to a separate bowl.
Yeah, they also want over $1000 just for accessing their Bluetooth API, which is used in many PocketPCs. Oddly enough, Microsoft's Bluetooth stack API is free.
Okay, a mathematician brought his friend to a math convention and in one room there was a large group of people. Someone stood up and said "230" and everyone laughed for a while. Someone else said "567" and everyone really laughed.
His friend asked "What's going on?"
The mathematician said that the group had remembered the top 1000 jokes in the world, and rather than spend the time telling it, they would just call out the number to be more efficient.
The friend said "Can I try?"
The mathematician said "Sure."
The friend then called out "432."
The crowd was silent and muttering.
The friend tried "567."
More muttering.
Finally the friend asked "What's wrong?"
The mathematician said, "Well, some people just can't tell a joke...."
...the next day, the mathematician took a different friend to the convention and again they met the crowd telling jokes. This friend got permission to tell a joke and then addressed the crowd.
"-1" is what the friend said.
There was at first stunned silence. Then a murmur. Then the noise grew louder until the room exploded in side-splitting laughter.
...for you see, they never heard that one before....
I visited Tokyo in 1994 and here's what I remember.
So I did well with my Lonely Planet guide and I did want to visit the tourist attractions, which had enough English translations for me to get by. And I can read maps and navigate very well.
Would a PDA have helped me on this trip? Perhaps not, but if I had one I would be able to talk more to the locals. Depending on the situation that you're in, that could make all the difference.
When I read that Fox was doing 1-minute shows for cell phones, I immediately thought about how the Simpsons got started as 30-60 second clips within the Tracey Ullman show. There's a lot of potential in a small space of time.
When I first started working in a software company, Louisiana also taxed custom software. If a client was the Federal Government, the tax would not have applied. Since then, I believe (95% sure) that the law has since been repealed, due to the hard work and lobbbying effort of our local technology companies.
While I have a large collection of cookbooks (and a "cache" of frequently used cookbooks), I have been aware that I'm hitting google for recipes that involve either a specific ingredient or a specific recipe name. In either case I get several versions of the recipes and print them out. This is like when I look in several books for the same recipe: Determine the essential elements of the recipe and adapt it to whatever I have on hand.
What motivated me to get a PhD was that I would regret not getting it. To me, getting it was a major life accomplishment.
:-).
In terms of getting a job, the story is interesting. When I got my PhD in Computer Science in 1993, the only job I got was a Post-Doctorate. Then when that was finished, all the computer companies that I applied to said that they were looking for entry level positions, so I ended up doing accounting and tax work with my father (I've always been good with numbers
Later, my old university called me up and asked me to teach part-time. Then a friend of mine I worked with during my PhD years called me up and asked me to work with him writing software in a small firm. (It has been very odd that I never got a job I applied for; people contacted me for all my jobs.)
I have no regrets about getting a PhD. I feel a great sense of accomplishment from it, and I have gotten jobs because of the contacts I have made through my academic career.