About 5 people will think this is funny…

July 14th, 2008

Today I opened my email from Clint to find the ad shown above. Priceless. GOOGLE KNOWS!

by Lach

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Everybody has to see this. Please watch this video.

July 9th, 2008

Please see this video, so you can know what’s happening to the constitution right now. This is extremely terrifying.

Thanks firedoglake.

UPDATE: More information on the FISA fiasco is here. RIP 4th Amendment, 1791-2008.

by Lach

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Extremely informative product video… not

July 9th, 2008

This is brilliant.

I usually try to have some witty or smarmy comment to make about my links, but just… wow. Wow.

Link

by Lach

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Fires R Hot

July 4th, 2008

The team here in Redding is well equipped to help with this response, and I’ve had a great time working with them. Here’s some background on NIMS (National Incident Management System) and ICS (Incident Command System) for those of you who are not familiar (most) and why its an honor to be here:

  • ICS was born out of wildfire response. It was developed out of the need to communicate response activity and centrally control efforts. Before ICS was developed, you would run into a situation where team A was using controlled burn to slow a fire, and inadvertently run the controlled burn into team B, who was also running a controlled burn in the opposite direction from another fire. The two teams would end up back to back battling blazes they had started, and there were many fatalities.
    As a result of the fire-focus of ICS, and the fact that these folks have been using it for decades, this is a very well run UC (Unified Command) and JIC (Joint Information Center).
  • PIER was made for this crap. It’s great to see it working so well. The age of the product is showing through, the UI’s a little crusty (something Geoff’s addressing already) and out old-as-dirt version of TinyMCE is aggravating at best.
  • As usual with incidents where PIER is used, this is a bit of a love-fest for the product. People are using and it’s clicking. Encouraging to us folks who typically only deal with customers once something’s broken.
  • This place has some col toys. Sure, the internet connection SUCKS (really lame state and federal firewalls, between the two it’s hard for people to pass stuff back and forth), but who needs good internet when there’s fire-dumper airplanes reloading and refueling 100 feet from you?

I’m having a really good time here, posted below are some pics from here in the JIC and around the complex as well. Cheers!

Crew Bus
Crew Buses and Watch Tower
USFS logo on truck

Fire plane
Tom and Jeff

by Lach

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Flying to Redding

July 2nd, 2008

haze

I’m off, last-minute style, to help with the JIC in Redding for the California Wildfire response. The PIER site they’re using is here.

I’ll try to post pics and updates while I’m there.

I’m excited to be working with the department that invented the Incident Command System, it should be enlightening and exciting.

More to follow…

by Lach

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