Help Haiti Recover via The Red Cross

1/12/10 Earthquake in Haiti Map - Courtesy of BBC.co.uk

1/12/10 Earthquake in Haiti Map - Courtesy of BBC News (http://news.BBC.co.uk)

As you may already know, Haiti has suffered a completely devastating earthquake that rated a whopping 7.3 on the Rictor Scale. The earthquake was centered only a few miles from Haiti’s capital city of Port-au-Prince. The earthquake hit yesterday (Tuesday January 12, 2010) and was followed by multiple aftershocks. The end result of the earthquake is the entire city and surrounding area is completely destroyed.

An estimated 100,000 people are dead already. Another 3 million people hae been injured. The survivors and wounded are left to attempt to survive in a completely crumbled city with little medical facilities and even less fresh food or water. The scope of this natural disaster is unprecedented for this century. In fact, you would have to go back some two centuries to find another earthquake of this magnitude occurring in Haiti.

Haiti is a highly impoverished country to begin with. They have suffered mass outbreak of HIV, a civil war that ravaged the country, and a series of hurricanes– all in the last five years. This event, however, eclipses those previous tragedies and has only escalated the suffering amongst the Haitian people. The average person in Haiti lives on $2 a day (or around $60 a month). Compare that to where I live in Warwick, NY where the average person lives on $62,000 a year (or roughly $5,167 a month) and you can see how little the people of Haiti have to start out with. Lump something of this size on their backs and there is no way Haiti can recover on its own.

Thus, digitalflood.com will be running for the next month a banner on the site pointing you to the American Red Cross donation web portal  where you can select the “International Response Fund” and directly send money to Haitian relief efforts. We ask that you please send whatever you can whether it be a dollar or a hundred dollars. Every cent literally counts and time is of the absolute essence. We thank you for both your generosity and support in advance. The people of Haiti will appreciate any effort you can make to assist them.

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Classic DF – 12/18/01

December 18, 2001: [•] Ramadan is over (BTW: I hope that all my Muslim viewers had a joyous Ramadan) and 90% of the war in Afghanistan has been won. However, Mohammed Omar and Osama bin Laden are both still missing. [•] US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warns all US citizens to be vigilant against terrorism as the nutjobs of the world begin to embrace new techniques of inflicting pain on others. [•] US Marines injured by a landmine encourage the world to worry about bigger problems instead of their wounds. [•] The Yemeni military has attacked an al Qaeda camp in its country. [•] Even though al Qaeda appears to have been beaten the US government continues to warn US citizens about the possibility of a terrorist attack. [•] US President Bush had several lesions removed from his face. None were cancerous. [•] Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is asking Arab leaders to meet him in Mecca to discuss Israel and Palestine. Go nutjob leader! [•] Siena Heights University has added a philosophy class that examines how The Simpsons handle theology. [•] India is mulling over its response to a terrorist attack on its government. [•] Arctic weather hits Europe. [•] Somali warlords are attempting to convince the US to attack their country’s government in hopes of achieving power. [•] Ebola continues to ravage Gabon. [•] The ousted government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide attempted to regain control of Haiti, but failed. [•] Oh those crazy civil liberty loving Canadians and their crazy civil liberty loving Canadian ways! [•] Thailand will only issue 17 visas this year in an attempt to stop illegal activities. [•] A heavy earthquake hit Japan and Taiwan creating a small tsunami. [•] Spain has arrested 7 suspected ETA members. [•] Princess Buniah al-Saud, the niece of King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, has been arrested on charges of beating her maid. [•] A sewerage spill has closed a portion of Laguna Beach, California. [•] A first-grader who dresses as Santa Claus and distributes small toys in a local mall was kicked out by mall owners since (get this) he’s competition to the official mall’s Santa LOL. [•] The Space Shuttle Endeavour has landed. [•] Serious crime fell in the first 6 months of 2001, but murder went up. [•] An equipment failure has stopped progress in clearing anthrax from the Hart Senate Building. [•] Vivendi Universal has bought USA Networks. [•] Be careful, you could end up buying fake FDNY or PDNY goods. [•] Intel is sponsoring an open source code called OpenCV that they hope will allow computers to see in three dimensions. [•] A Japanese zoo’s panda gave birth to a male cub. [•] Utah has introduced the US’s first voice-recognition based travel information service for telephone users. [•] A genetically engineered mouse has been developed who’s milk contains the malaria vaccine. [•] Chicken feces and diesel fuel: What a mix! [•] CERT is warning UNIX administrators who are running Secure Shell on their systems to make sure that they are using SSH2 (full install not upgrade) with no SSH daemons running and all exploits patched. [•] Microsoft has released Service Pack 1 for Office XP. [•] RSA Security Inc. has developed the Wireless Equivalent Privacy protocol to encrypt individual data packets sent over 802.11 wireless networks thus fixing current security issue. [•] A new drug reduces cold symptoms within a day and knocks one day of the actual disease off. FDA approval is about a year away at best. [•] 3/4 of new HIV cases are resisting treatment. [•] Autism seems to be higher in Silicon Valley. Could tech savvy genes be responsible? [•] Google will allow you to now browse 600 catalogues online. [•] Universal Music Group’s new CDs won’t play in a PC. Their solution: Buy another copy in digital format for the PC through the Net. Hey, why not pay a third time just for fun! Hell, let’s go for four! [•] An ISP is claiming the FBI wants the e-mail logs for data logged by the BadTrans.B worm and sent to one of several e-mail addresses including one hosted by the ISP. Why would they want it? Well, they assert that BadTrans.B is actually the Magic Lantern virus developed by the FBI reported on earlier last week. [•] A captured al Qaeda member turned informant claims that Windows XP has backdoors inserted by the terrorist group. [•] Christmas may be here, but thoughts of September 11th still haunt Americans. [•] Everyone’s favorite anti-CVS group, It’s Our Town, has been sponsoring a gift drive for needy families of Warwick, NY. [•] The US Postal Service switches into high gear to meet last minute mail demands. [•] Will a correction officer who is charged with trash compacting a box of contraband kittens face jail time? [•] Newburgh, NY City Comptroller Ed Weber resigns because City Manager Harry Porr was fired. [•] Cory Jones is found dead in New Windsor, NY and police are ruling it suspicious. [•] Local Catholic school teachers are still on strike, a textile union pickets an employer over a wage dispute, a woman is charged after she crashes her auto with a young child unbelted, ’tis the season for ice, the Milford-Montague bridge toll gets raised, an elderly woman is killed crossing a highway, a high speed chase keeps things interesting for the Ulster County Sheriffs, robbers are defeated by a soda machine, the Sullivan County Family Violence Response Team arrested a man on charges of molesting a toddler, and Wurtsboro Police arrest John Kallajian stemming from charges in Connecticut. [•] Hank Williams Jr. and Kid Rock will appear together on CMT Crossroads. [•] Weezer has begun working on their new album. [•] Charlie Clouser has left NIN, but formed a new band called Revenge of the Triads that includes guitarist Troy Van Leeuwen and bassist Jason Slater from A Perfect Circle. [•] The Chevrolet Corvette Z06 rules, but then again you already know that don’t you? [•] Can’t afford the Corvette? Try the Ford Focus; it rules. [•] The 2002 Maserati Spyder is so damn kick ass that I don’t even have a wise ass comment to get you to click on the link. Just do it. [•] Intel has announced an official Pentium 4 chipset using DDR SDRAM. The new AMD Duron mobile ratchets cheap laptop speeds up to 1GHz. And Toshiba has quit the memory business. [•] Viisage Technology licenses its face recognition technology to the US Army. [•] Apple has released a PowerBook with a CD/DVD burner and more memory. [•] Adobe is putting the final touches on multimedia creation software for Mac OS X. [•] Azazel and I had an excellent time at my company’s Christmas party. The food was great and a good time was had by all! [•] C0il is home for Christmas vacation! [•] Sometimes a song can say it all. [•] Note that there is no planned updates for the next three days as I will be attending a three day seminar on VDSL. The next update will be this Saturday. Talk to you then.

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Classic DF – 10/20/01

October 20, 2001: [•] The Taliban claim to have shot down a US helicopter, but the US military says no one was hurt during military operations. Officials did say however that 2 soldiers were killed in a non-combat accident. War is Hell, people. [•] Germany has issued a warrant for Moroccan Zakariya Essabar who they believe helped create a terrorist ring related to the September 11th attacks. [•] Palestinians clashed with Israeli troops leaving 4 people dead. [•] The UK is mulling over whether or not to resume direct rule over Northern Ireland again. [•] An unidentified person left a bomb in a Pakistan airport, but a bomb squad managed to place the device in an area where it could safely explode. [•] An Omaha, Nebraska student died from injuries incurred during a bus crash. [•] A New York Times reporter in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil received a letter tainted with anthrax. [•] Robert Durst, a wealthy real estate owner, has been arrested and charged with murdering a neighbor. [•] A suitcase full of explosives is found after no one claimed the suitcase it was stored from a bus station locker. [•] Would-be anthrax jokesters find out what is really funny– watching their facial expressions when they are sentenced to life in prison for being asswipes! [•] Do you really think that children of people killed by an airplane ramming into a building want to fly? I don’t think so. [•] Halloween is on the way… oh joy. [•] Oakland International Airport in California will begin scanning faces in crowds and using a database to match them up with known criminals. [•] Who let the lemurs out? [•] A second New Jersey US Postal worker tests positive for anthrax exposure. [•] Apple joins that latest trend of MP3 devices that stream data to stereos without wires. [•] IBM wants to make computers take care of themselves. [•] It is really unlikely that anyone in Smalltown Anywhere, USA will be targeted with anthrax. These nutjobs are after the big dogs, if you know what I mean. [•] A woman is stabbed and strangled in Port Jervis, NY. [•] Highland Falls will hold its Fall Foliage Festival today, the City of Kingston celebrates 350 years of existence, Republican Orange County Executive nominee Edward Diana will not be able to attend an environmental forum since he was never formally invited, Laura Fox gets sentenced to 32 days-23 months in Pike County Jail for being caught DWI 3 times in 3 hours, and West Point hosts a display on historic military pieces. [•] Ozzie and Zombie talk to MTV’s Curly want-to-be. [•] Macromedia is suing Adobe for patent infringement. [•] UK police close off an area for a serious situation. [•] A UK soldier is killed in Sierra Leone. [•] Pocket rocket shoot out. [•] The Lexus IS300 Sport Cross rules. [•] A Mazda Miata on Slim Fast. [•] Microsoft’s Digital Rights Management software has been hacked. Microsoft claims it’s no big deal and that they can correct the issue. [•] MP3.com has split into 2 companies. [•] Once copper runs hit their maximum potential speed in PCs fiber may be the only hope to increase computing speeds. [•] Li’l Pooh has gotten her first tooth! [•] Mervernation.com’s server is getting a new case. [•] Bored? Well, it isn’t going to get any better. In fact, it gets worse: Check out “bizarre pictures”. I personally like the baby flipping me off. It reminds me of my own sweet Li’l Pooh 🙂

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