Rumble Strips|You have been warned!

Can you see Hurricane Gustav on this map:

Gustav is a tiny speck and except for the photograph itself evidence of the existence of humanity is not even visible. We are reduced to grabbing what we can carry and running away like a bunch a frightened microscopic rats when a small weather disturbance moves inland. That’s our cumulative, state-of-the-art power over climate.

Now consider the photograph again and then take a minute and think about man-made global warming.  If we are kicking in anything at all, it ain’t very much. Insignificant even. Man-made Global Warming is indeed man-made in that it was made up by a man.

“Your boy Diddy right now is on American Airlines. Look, gas prices is too mother f-ing  high!”

Watch it.

Improvements at the Texas City TWIC Enrollment Center

There have been some recent improvements at the Texas City TWIC Enrollment Center, including the elimination of the 10-week wait for an appointment and the establishing of a procedure to address the fingerprint activation problem which some Applicants have experienced.

There have been some personnel changes at the Enrollment Center, and there are now three computer stations.  One station is dedicated completely to TWIC card activations.

• The 10-week waiting period for an appointment at the Enrollment Center has been eliminated.  You can now make an appointment within a few days or a week.  Walk-ins are also accepted before approximately 3:00 pm each Monday through Friday.
• A software fix has been installed to enhance the fingerprint scanner’s ability to read your fingerprints during the card activation process.  If you have already attempted to activate your card, but were turned away due to a fingerprint problem, you should go back to the Enrollment Center and attempt another activation.  If the “Trusted Agent” (employee) at the Enrollment Center is still unable to get a match on your fingerprints, do not leave until he or she has created a “Ticket” for you in the TWIC Help Desk system explaining the “1:1 mismatch”.  Here is what happens next:
• The Ticket is forwarded by the Help Desk to their Engineering Group, who then adds your name to a list of Applicants experiencing the “1:1 mismatch” activation problem.
• The list of names is reviewed by a TWIC “Control Board” every two weeks to see if there are any Applicants who should not receive a TWIC card without a fingerprint match.
• The list of names is then forwarded to the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), who then conducts another review to determine the final status of each Applicant who experienced the “1:1 mismatch”.
• All Applicants on the list who have been granted permission to activate their TWIC cards without a fingerprint match will be automatically notified by email or telephone, depending on the method selected by the Applicant during the on-line pre-enrollment process.  The notification will contain further instructions.

After you receive your TWIC card, please remember to stop by the Main Gate to show it to Security so that they may update your TWIC card status in our database.

There have been so many times that I was fed up with the TTLB Ecosystem (mainly because it illustrates how many people will not link to me) and was going to trash it from my site but always wound up not doing it because it wasn’t hurting anything and was kinda fun every now and then, especially when trolling for a new blog to add to my blogroll. But man, this is not good:

I think NZ’s database has been compromised. It seems most every entry is a blogspot account, not that there’s anything wrong with that, and a statistically significant portion have the root “mom” somewhere in the name. Very strange. And also notice that none of the Higher Beings are including in the Higher Beings category. Considering that the UPDATE is from six months ago I am thinking maybe there are some fundamental problems at the Ecosystem..

I don’t much care for the heavy handedness of targeting specific users, e.g., BitTorrent, but limiting bandwidth hogs without prejudice I don’t have a problem with. If someone needs that much bandwidth, they need to pay for it on a system that can handle their needs without penalizing the rest of the users on the system.

Comcast’s problem must be that they don’t have an alternative network to provide premium service to those who need the extra bandwidth. They risk losing customer’s either way so they are sacrificing the few for the many.

I am not sure what the Hell Putin is up to but it sure seems like he is over playing his hand. Putin’s latest story is ridiculous.

One thing is for certain, we are getting a taste of what will be coming our way from Russia if Obama is elected.

The tracking models are spreading out a little but still seem to agree on Louisiana.

Gustav is not moving very fast so it is still way too far out to call. Do NOT think you are safe based on these models or anything that any weather forecaster says. The track leading off to the bottom left corner might be as accurate as any of the others.

Regarding technology based education that I recently wrote about: The technology to provide a more robust, effective and economical system to deliver curriculum is readily available and getting better all the time. A lot better. As Jen-Hsun Huang says Let the era of visual computing begin

Astronauts, film makers and celebrities joined software savants, engineers and gamers in the heart of Silicon Valley this week for a first-ever NVision conference devoted to computer imagery advances changing the way people and machines interact.

“Visual computing is transforming the videogame industry; transforming the film industry, and has all kinds of potential for how we view real-time television,” NVIDIA co-founder Jen-Hsun Huang told those gathered at the event.

“We solve some of the most challenging problems for more and more companies around the world. Let the era of visual computing begin.”

And let’s let it begin for everybody, not just super rich corporations.

David Duchovny in rehab for sex addiction.  Poor bastard.

…and it doesn’t look very good for Louisiana.