dsandler.org

The Army Corps has given up trying to sandbag the levee breaks:

****ALL RESIDENTS ON THE EAST BANK OF ORLEANS AND JEFFERSON REMAINING IN THE METRO AREA ARE BEING TOLD TO EVACUATE AS EFFORTS TO SANDBAG THE LEVEE BREAK HAVE ENDED. THE PUMPS IN THAT AREA ARE EXPECTED TO FAIL SOON AND 9 FEET OF WATER IS EXPECTED IN THE ENTIRE EAST BANK. WITHIN THE NEXT 12-15 HOURS****
Jeff Parish President. Residents will probably be allowed back in town in a week, with identification only, but only to get essentials and clothing. You will then be asked to leave and not come back for one month.

WWL-TV also has a Katrina blog.

Going Under: A Description of a Potential New Orleans Hurricane Disaster by brainwidth: “From the Times-Picayune, published shortly after New Orleans was narrowly missed by Georges.”

See also the Times-Picayune’s flooding infographic for Katrina, which is obviously based on the same artwork but has been updated for the new storm.

“my local butcher’s sign” by ratterrell.

(Surfing photos tagged “katrina”.)

From NOLA.com:

French Quarter Cam (seems to still be updating every minute). Other webcams that are apparently still alive: Streetcar, Bridge, Street, River.

See also NOLA.com’s weblog (and their other one).

Got Jason here for a day while, while he’s on the run from Katrina.

Darryl attempts to uncover the mystery of the Jamba Juice Secret Menu.

So my coworkers have discovered that Jamba Juice has a secret menu, not unlike In-N-Out’s Secret Menu. The problem? They’re ordering these items, but have no idea what is actually in them. Crazies. So hey, Jamba workers of the world: give us the scoop! What is actually in these drinks:

• Starburst
• Push Pop
• White Gummy Bear
• Strawberry Shortcake
• Skittles (?)

Will the J-J equivalent of Ask The Barista please step forward?

The aptly-named Overlawyered blog breaks down the many sticky legal points in “Batman Begins”. Exempli gratia:

Bruce Wayne has other securities law problems. By using front buyers to purchase more than 5% of the publicly-traded Wayne Inustries without disclosing his controlling role as a beneficial owner, and then taking over the corporation, he has violated multiple provisions of the Williams Act, the only securities law named after a convicted felon, and is subject to federal criminal penalties, as well as civil lawsuits.

The Computer Security Lab at Rice just released the first public version of the Trackback Validator plugin for WordPress blogs. Since I’ve been using it, I’ve had 100% classification accuracy on Trackbacks (read: every legit Trackback makes it through, not a single spam Trackback). Maybe Trackback isn’t quite so dead after all.

So Google Talk is live. It appears to be a Jabber service at talk.google.com for GMail users (try it! your Jabber ID is you@gmail.com) with some VoIP extensions for you if you use the Google Brand™ Jabber client (Windows only).

[If you want to talk to me, my JID (and therefore my GMail address) is my first name (short version), dot, last name, at, gmail dot com.]

Also be sure to check out their Developers FAQ, which offers some slightly deeper details on the app:

4. Do you plan to support other real-time communication protocols?

Google Talk supports XMPP with the beta release. We plan to support SIP in a future release. Additionally, we will evaluate other protocols as appropriate, to continue to deliver on our commitment to open communications.

5. What protocols are used for voice calls?

Google Talk supports a custom XMPP-based signaling protocol and peer-to-peer communication mechanism. We will fully document this protocol. In the near future, we plan to support SIP signaling.