This is a weird time of year. Here in Berkeley it's a gorgeous day, sunny, though chilly. The magnolias are already blooming. It's not spring yet, not even winter. The looming New Year makes a guy think about transitions, the passage of time, new stuff—the usual. The numeral 2005 sounds new—shiny and pristine, just out of the box, wheareas 2004 sounds (already), old, scratched, a little battered, like my camera cellphone (which I bought in 2004). This blog is one of the transitions for the new year. I've started it This is a weird time of year. Here in Berkeley it's a gorgeous day, sunny, though chilly. The magnolias are already blooming. It's not spring yet, not even winter. The looming New Year makes a guy think about transitions, the passage of time, new stuff—the usual. The numeral 2005 sounds new—shiny and pristine, just out of the box, wheareas 2004 sounds (already), old, scratched, a little battered, like my camera cellphone (which I bought in 2004). This blog is one This is a weird time of year. Here in Berkeley it's a gorgeous day, sunny, though chilly. The magnolias are already blooming. It's not spring yet, not even winter. The looming New Year makes a guy think about transitions, the passage of time, new stuff—the usual. The numeral 2005 sounds new—shiny and pristine, just out of the box, wheareas 2004 sounds (already), old, scratched, a little battered, like my camera This is a weird time of year. Here in Berkeley it's a gorgeous day, sunny, though chilly. The magnolias are already blooming. It's not spring yet, not even winter. The looming New Year makes a guy think about transitions, the passage of time, new stuff—the usual. The numeral 2005 sounds new—shiny and pristine, just out of the box, wheareas 2004

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A New Kind of Website

9:47 PM Thursday, September 15, 2005

[Volunteers with laptops could assist displaced persons]

A photographer named Brandon Stone has created a website with a very simple yet compassionate goal: it allows disaster victims to contact each other and their friends and family letting them know that they're OK. The site makes use of the telephone numbers that had been used to call the displaced persons before the disaster.

I remember the desperate phone calls I made during the Loma Prieta Earthquake of 1989. I got busy signals for hours before I reached my daughters.

In this case the site is directed towards victims of Hurricane Katrina, but I am hoping that the technology becomes available for any future disaster where large numbers of people are displaced. Of course, getting more working wi-fi routers into the area, where volunteers with laptops could assist displaced persons, would be crucial. In any case, thank you Brandon and the companies that supported his project. (A hat tip, or better yet, a hoist of the Coffeeblog Mug, to Virginia Postrel's Dynamist blog.)

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