From the sublime to the ridiculous. This comes from a funny post about a dwarf stumbling upon some hot P2P action in World of Warcraft.

Out of sheer boredom and the need to do a little PvP research, I recently found myself exploring the Deeprun Tram on a local roleplaying server. With exploration under way, I trekked deep within the confines of the tram and found something rather unusual. What was this standing before me? Two naked night elves of course.

Katrina People Finder Voluteer page:

Look, if you can make a post on (e:strip), you can help with the Katrina People Finder Volunteer effort. The goal of the project is to consolidate postings on disparate disucssion forums all over the web into a single database of people affected by the hurricane. This project is working to standardize the data people post on these discussion boards so that it can be integrated with the FEMA and Red Cross databases.

Im a real skeptic at heart, but I think this is a good way to be effective from the Internet. Aside from giving cash to one of the aid agencies involved in relief efforts, this is probably the best thing you can do from your computer. Go to the Katrina People Finder Volunteer homepage and follow the directions to claim and start converting a chunk of discussion group postings. The project is based on a Wiki, so all you have to do is sign up for an account and then mark an assignment as CLAIMED.

Once you've claimed your chunk of raw data, you'll have to read through the posts, often left by obviously frantic loved ones, and dilligently enter data about people -- missing, found and otherwise. Without the efforts of loads of individuals converting this stuff into a standardized database, lots of folks will be left wondering about their loved ones until who knows when. Being able to match people up with friends and family is probably one of the best things relief agencies can do to get people started rebuilding their lives. And I'm not even mentioning the various utilities of just making a record of known people affected by the hurricane -- who knows when or if access to public records is going to be restored. And companies like Dell and SUN are setting up computer banks in relief shelters this week to allow survivors Internet access.

I just did a page full of entries in an hour. I plan to do more as I get time. Give up a couple hours of web browsing to help out and we can insure that there will be a functional data supply when the computer banks go live.



I'm looking at you, (e:DCoffee) and (e:Jason) and (e:Paul) and (e:MetalPeter) and (e:UncutSaniflush)

The extreme abstraction show.

::DOWNLOAD MEDIA::

Hey, GF! has some rad new shirts available. Check out the Gift Shop link, or just go directly here:

I made them all myself. Like this one:




And this one:




What do you think? They're A+ quality. Checkitout.

Just to prove to Paul that people will still [inlink]paul,3796[/inlink] to other journal posts in spite of comments being enabled....

hehe

OK, the whole credit cards on campus thing is no joke. But that's the most expensive card table you ever saw, (e:Paul). Those folks pay SO much money to get into schools. When I was at Idaho I did a unit in my comp courses on the rhetorical tactics of college -- how people sold you credit cards and phone service etc. Those "Campus Life" packs... Some schools even co-brand the card and receive a fraction of a percent on EVERY PURCHASE YOU MAKE. Now, c'mon...

I remember one day I was so hungry coming home from class that I filled out a credit card app in exchange for a free sandwich and a pack of Twizzlers. I was weak. A few years later I had like four credit cards and owed some $8K in debt. I had mean people calling me on the phone followed up by "nice" people offering to help me dig myself deeper. It was nuts.

Sarah and I worked real hard, paid off all the debt, and got rid of credit cards for like 7 years. We got a credit card after we moved to Buffalo and had issue getting hotel rooms on the move because our bank debit card wouldn't work to secure the room. We have one card, which I found by looking at www.bizrate.com and other online credit card deal evaluation sites. It's got an 8.9% APR and NO ANNUAL FEE!!!!!!11!!!11 We pay it off every month, which puts us in the category of "freeloader" according to credit card company slang (and according to Ben Stein). Oh, and I get 1% of my purchases back for my car insurance. Now that's a perk -- I run everything I can through the card, pay it off within 30 days with no interest or fees, and get about $200 per year off my $600/year insurance. Not bad.

So, kids, don't get credit cards. And when you do, find a really actual good deal.