Axodys

I forgot to mention that “Bazaar-NG”:http://www.bazaar-ng.org/ 0.7 was “officially released”:http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.bazaar-ng.general/2293 a few days ago. I haven’t played with this python powered VCS(Version Control System) in a “while”:http://axodys.com/2005/05/06/bazaar-ng, but I’m looking forward to taking this release for a spin sometime soon. I really liked the early development versions and it sounds like the merge capabilities have come a long ways since the initial releases. I subscribed to the development email list for a few months and it was quite impressive to see the sizable community of contributors that sprang up.

“Brendan Loy”:http://brendanloy.com got some “coverage in tomorrow’s New York Times”:http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/05/technology/05blog.html?ex=1126584000&en=df6a0af6dc68b39f&ei=5070 for his excellent blogging efforts leading up to and during the arrival of Hurricane Katrina.

Brendan was also interviewed here in Spokane for a local morning radio show last week and it turns out that he’s been a Zag fan since their first NCAA tournament appearance back in the early 90s. Definitely a quality guy, I just wish I’d discovered his weblog under less catastrophic circumstances.

In light of recent events a meme that seems to be spreading across the blogosphere is that of personal disaster preparation. While I’m not advocating going into full on _holed up in a remote cabin survivalist mode_, I think it’s an excellent idea to take a look at how well prepared you are to handle unexpected situations that would require you to leave your home for an unknown period of time.

“Accordion Guy”:http://accordionguy.blogware.com has put together a great post on this topic called “Pop Quiz Hotshot”:http://accordionguy.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2005/9/2/1192494.html that has a great series of questions to ask yourself. I could definitely do a lot better in all the areas that Joey covers in his quiz.

“Damien Barrett”:http://www.mrbarrett.com/ just wrote “Be Prepared”:http://www.mrbarrett.com/archives/2005/09/be_prepared.html and points to a couple places with useful prepartion information.

If you know of any more good disaster preparation information please feel free to post them in the comments.

“Rafe Colburn”:http://rc3.org has put together an “extensive list of post Katrina satellite imagers”:http://rc3.org/2005/09/satelliteaerial_photos_of_katr_1.php. If you’re looking for information about the current state of your home or that of friends and loved ones this is a great place to start.

“Google Rumors”:http://googlerumors.com just pointed out that Google has added a “Katrina button”:http://maps.google.com/maps?q=new+orleans&t=e in “Google Maps”:http://maps.google.com that show the damage and flooding throughout a good portion of New Orleans.

!http://axodys.com/images/neworleansrepairs.jpg(New Orleans floodwall breach and temporary repairs.)!
[Image created using "Google Maps":http://maps.google.com and "Flysketch":flyingmeat.com/flysketch/.]

After exploring the map a little bit it appears that a good portion of New Orleans to the northwest of downtown and west of Orpheum Ave (which runs along the canal that was breached) is actually dry and largely intact which is promising. The canal flood wall breach is roughly 500 feet long based on the image scale, so it’s no wonder that the Corps of Engineers couldn’t throw a quick patch on it. The image above shows that they were able to block off the canal successfully a little bit further north by a bridge.

Apparently cloud cover was too great to get decent images south of that area though, so it’s impossible to tell what kind of shape the area around Tulane University is in. The majority of the city east of the breach appears to be completely flooded.

I emailed my friend Steve today (who I last talked to a week ago just before he evacuated) and found out that he and his family are doing fine. He hasn’t been able to get back to his house yet, but he was able to get recent satellite imagery and the roof appears intact. It looks like their fence might have blown over and I would be surprised if their windows escaped damage, but otherwise their house looks to be mostly intact which is great news.

I wish he’d arrived there a few days ago, but I definitely like the sound of Lt. General Russel Honore, the commander of the relief effort, who took charge Thursday evening “according to CNN”:http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/02/honore.profile/index.html.

bq. “He came off the doggone chopper, and he started cussing and people started moving,” Nagin said in an interview Thursday night with a local radio station.

Besides being a John Wayne style leader it sounds like he’s a Louisiana native who actually had family that lived in New Orleans before Hurricane Katrina. But area connections aside it, he’s clearly focused on the problem at hand and sounds like exactly the kind of man I’d want leading there:

bq. “Our number one task is to deal with the concentration of people in New Orleans, as well as those that are isolated. And we’re going to get after it,” he said.

“Tonight’s WSU Idaho football game”:http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/football/ncaa/recaps/2005/09/01/33450_recap.html seemed all too familiar to this Cougar fan. “WSU”:http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/football/ncaa/teams/washst jumped all over “Idaho”:http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/football/ncaa/teams/idaho at the beginning of the first quarter and quickly built a 14 point lead. Then they roughed up the Idaho punter while going for the kill after holding the Vandals to a 3 and out situation and played mediocre football the rest of the half.

The Vandals did a great job of shutting down the run for a lot of the game and were pretty efficient on offense as well. They also put together some good drives against a Cougar defense that should be better than average. There were a ton of plays where the Cougars would nearly get to the Vandal quarterback and he would dump the ball off to the open man in the nick of time for a nice gain.

In the end WSU’s superior receiver talent finally asserted itself in the second half and made enough plays to push the score out of reach at 38 points, but Nick Holt’s Vandals are clearly on the rise. Brink was okay at quarterback (3 td, 2 int, 17-29 for 230 yds) for the Cougars, but not great. I don’t think Swogger would be any better necessarily, but I’d like to see a lot more consistant play from the quarterback position going into PAC-10 play.

The New York Times has a “set of four very informative maps”:http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/national/2005_HURRICANEKATRINA_GRAPHIC/index.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1125583614-BXw/VX9sAcriKSF8unJgAQ displaying the impact of Hurricane Katrina.

The oil industry map was particularly surprising because I had no idea that there were so many oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. It looks like a lot of them were outside the path that directly travelled by Katrina, but I’ve heard “confirmed reports of 20 oil rigs being completely gone”:http://theoildrum.com/story/2005/8/31/83553/8973#more at “theoildrum.com”:http://theoildrum.com. Not good news there at all.

The map showing the levee system and flooding (as of Tuesday) was also pretty informative and it helped me realize how the canal system in New Orleans works. The canals run from Lake Pontchatrain to pumps located more centrally in New Orleans.