More Links And Updates On Terrorist Attacks 971
psytek writes: "We have been collecting names of people that would like to volunteer and help set up computer systems and networks for the WTC companies. Go to www.webiest.com and sign up to help."
And rp44 writes: "There is a site collating offers of geek help in NYC and DC at srcdst.org. It's mainly focused on network infrastructure (came from seeing all the posts of assistance on the nanog list getting lost in the noise), but areas covered include telco circuits, space, geek help, and hardware. Last time I looked there were 50+ assistance offers there, if you can offer facilities, services or hardware, just register and enter them into the database. It's pretty functional in that you can maintain your own help offers in real time, come back later and modify/delete them etc."
caledon, volunteering in New York for the Red Cross, writes with word that "it looks from here as if the two items most desired here right now are: 1) Cash 2) Socks.
They have been swamped, but the Red Cross seems to want money more than the in-kind help. That way they can buy EXACTLY what they might need at the site or for other purposes. A lot of bandages might not help if what they need are asbestos masks. That's probably true of the tech stuff too here in the city.
About the socks, apparently these guys downtown like to change their socks as often as possible. It is wet, always wet, and they need their feet dry. Some of my socks (and, oh no, Linux T-shirts) were disposed of last night by my loving family while I was wiring together our little effort."
Drake42 writes: "This is an excellent analysis of why the terrrorists attacked the WTC." An anonymous reader pointed out this thought-provoking commentary on War and the Internet, which points out how certain hopes for the role of the Internet in promoting peace seem to have failed, at least for now.
Along with other moves to restrict freedom and privacy that many believe will follow last weeks events, darrellsilver writes: "The New York Times is running an article about the proposed, and probably little-opposed, security changes to the Manhattan area, Times Square and SoHo specifically. As the article quotes, 'A week ago, certain things would have been unheard of as safety options. But now you reassess, you reconsider.' What once stirred controversy now seems to be discussed as inevitable and welcome, such as face recognition software."
guygee also writes "Andrew Cohen , CBS legal analyst who correctly predicted key aspects of the recent ruling of the U.S. Appellate Court in the Microsoft case, has issued a warning of the coming government crackdown on civil liberties."
Rescue and recovery teams in New York are using some interesting technology: GPSguy writes: "This is still embryonic, but a friend in the broadcast RF business just had his stock of spares cleaned out. Seems that the latest approach to sub-rubble searching is to look for the security access cards all WTC employees had been issued. Excited by a low-power VLF source, they emit a response. Apparently, not the idea is to hit the pile with a much higher signal level and try to get a number of the responses and try to triangulate onto some of them. No URLs available, yet, and scant real information."
And DeathBunny writes: "According to a pair of articles at robots.net, a group of researchers from the University of South Florida are using six "shape shifting" robots to help locate survivors of the World Trade Center tragedy in NY. " They're running Linux, too.MrDelSarto writes: "From this zdnet article and this updated article author Steve Kirsch suggests a number of techniques for putting a plane in "safe mode" that auto-lands it's self in case of emergency ... hijacking or even the Payne Stuart situation. I'm sure /. readers will have a myriad of other ideas." As rackrent explains, "The article basically discusses locking out manual control of aircraft and forcing the autopilot to land them without any human control. Interesting idea, but certainly could have its problems, I say."
Liberal writes: "This article by a leading Iranian filmmaker is absolutely the deepest, most insightful thing I've ever read about that country. It was written before recent events; now that everyone is thinking about bombing Afghanistan, I think this should be required reading, to understand what the problems there really are, and to try and figure out what sort of long term solution may be possible (why it won't do just to massacre the Taliban)."
Finally, many readers submitted word of this photo album at Ars showing reactions around the world to the attacks. Sad though these pictures are, it may be one of the most encouraging things I've seen since Tuesday.
Canadian Red Cross (Score:3, Informative)
Military Draft (Score:1, Informative)
Links: Hope, Reason and Senselessness (Score:3, Informative)
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Usman Farman [editthispage.com]
This is a voice of reason that needs to be listened to:- Letter from an Afghani-American [craigslist.org]
This Op-Ed piece at Yahoo is one of the most frightening things I've come across, the fact that someone like this can get published on such a major site shows that something is wrong with America:-
This is War [yahoo.com]
A Sikh gas station owner was murdered. It was not known if this was motivated by hatred of Muslims but it is suspected (the victim had received threats). Sikhs are not Muslims, but Sikh men wear turbans and beards and are mistaken as Muslims:-
Man questioned in shooting death of Sikh [cnn.com]
Curiously, Sikhs in India are calling for the U.S. government to educated Americans on how to distinguish Sikhs and Muslims. Why? So the racists can know who to shoot? How about toning down the hateful hysteria?- Sikh leaders angry and stunned over attacks [timesofindia.com]
In general The Times of India [timesofindia.com] has been giving much better coverage of the events than I've seen in American media.terrorist or suicide cult ? (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, I know, sounds wacky. However, considering the planning and fanaticism behind last tuesday's acts
Here are some links on the subject. Decide for yourself.
Chronology of Suicide Cults [csj.org]
Doomsday, Destructive Religious Cults [religioustolerance.org]
Suicide Makes Ten Deaths Among Guru's Followers [watchman.org]
More Than 200 Die in Uganda Cult Mass Suicide [rickross.com]
Aum and Terrorism [gospelcom.net]
Suicide Cults The End Of The Century [tamu.edu]
AUM SUPREME TRUTH [geocities.com]
A party, prayers, then mass suicide [rickross.com]
Lessons to be Learned: Heaven's Gate Tragedy [watchman.org]
Cults [leaderu.com]
uh, minor problem people (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Iran... How Ironic... (Score:1, Informative)
(ps: reading the last line of your post, I realize I'm maybe making the same point you are. Whatever; I like hearing the keys on my keyboard go clackety-clack.)
(pps: No, I won't provide any citations to substantiate anything I say; I'm just an AC, and probably a troll to boot, so I know I'm just going to be ignored anyway.)
Re:A 100 Megaton bomb does surprisingly little dam (Score:2, Informative)
I admire the rest of your sentiments, but you're really wrong about the above.
I've read several of the UN reports on the effects of Nuclear Weapons, which tend to use a 1Mt (ONE. Not One hundred.) device as an example. Even with a single 1Mt airburst, "immediate" fallout can deliver a lethal dose of radiation for something like a hundred miles, depending on prevailing winds. This effect is directly proportional to the size of the blast. That means that we're talking about an uncontrollable swathe of lethal windborne dirt hundreds of miles in length.
This is NOT "surprisingly little damage".
For weapons of this size, most of the immediate deaths in a desert detonation will be from blast and heat. The lethal range for direct radiation exposure would be well inside the lethal blast radius.
The "standard" fallout (much smaller particles) will tend not to be radioactive enough to kill people in the short term, but a detonation of a 100Mt device would have effects that are, quite simply, incalculable - increased cancer risks, birth defects, increased infection rates for just about everything - you name it. The fallout will darken skies in the region for days.
While we're in a happy mood, it is also possible for the explosion to trigger spontaneous precipitation, called a "rain out", which would happily kill anyone that got wet.
Now, the war-guys will be talking about tac-nukes, in the few hundred kiloton range. They'll ask you to believe that the damage will be localised. The truth is that they have no idea, and the independant research strongly suggests otherwise.
Believe me - the damage from a nuclear detonation cannot be contained in either time or space, and it's infeasible that the damage could be restricted to military target. Hell, it's infeasible that it could be restricted to one COUNTRY, in that region.
Please, please. Do not think about nukes.
Comments from Bruce Schneier (Score:3, Informative)
Bruce Schneier comments on this and also includes good quotes from others in his latest Crypto-Gram newsletter, which can be found here [counterpane.com].
Why are Sikhs being targeted? (Score:1, Informative)