Plamegate: Libby Indicted

NPR just reported Libby indicted for Obstruction of Justice, False Statements and Perjury.

BrainStream: V2V/ITS and Voice Recognition

Well, apparently I am incredibly far behind with regard to vehicle-to-vehicle communications and intelligent transportation systems. So it's not like I'm the only one thinking up these ideas.

However, it did get me thinking about using Voice Recognition with such systems. I mean, we all abhor folks talking on cell phones while driving - making use of ITS while in motion would be a nightmare.

But if you think of all the systems one could potentially use in the future, with voice recognition - one must wonder how long it would take to continually "train" these systems to understand what you're saying. That's where my idea for Voice Recognition Profiles (VRP) comes in - still looking to see who else has done it.

So when I load up a voice recognition program, I am told to read several lines or paragraphs of text so it can match the text content with my voice. For every program I try, I have to retrain it all over again. In theory, if I move from my computer to my car and try to activate my GPS system by voice, it needs to be trained. If I go to an ATM or drive-thru where one can automatically order by voice, I need to spend several minutes correcting the system until I'm connected with a human operator because the damn thing can't understand me.

Why not create a standard profile for voice recognition that all voice-recognition applications can use? That way, when I come to a new system I need to "train", I just type in my SSN or some other UID which tells the system to pull my VRP (Voice Recognition Profile), out of a centralized directory service, allowing me to immediately use the system with a peak understanding of my voice.

In theory, each time I access a new service using my VRP, whatever actions I take and corrections I make in the process, would be noted in my profile and sent back to the directory service for the next time I access a service - a live, constantly-growing, learning profile.

The futurist in me sees the next step to that being appending a subvocalization profile which would translate the subvocalization signals directly to something that could be used to access various devices around an individual, perhaps an enhanced version of Bluetooth.

Anyone heard of such efforts to develop such a voice profile?

BrainStream: Vehicle-2-Vehicle Technology

So one of my previous BrainStreams has been realized and even has had a conference around it - Vehicle-2-Vehicle communications or V2V.

However with big companies like DaimlerChrysler & GM working on products and research, it seems to me the Web 2.0 community needs to keep close watch on the development of this technology and make sure there's allowances made for people to be able tap directly into the data themselves.

There is light at the end of the tunnel. In a report on a V2V Framework, GM's Bill Ball does say an open infrastrucutre is key to success. Ball is a VP at OnStar.

I haven't read through all the documents from the conference or contacted the presenters yet but I'd really like to see an XML DTD or handful of RDF schemas specific to marking up data gleaned from V2V neworks. I think in order to ensure it won't get locked up in some proprietary or industry-only standard, the Web 2.0/Semantic Web community needs to take ownership and leadership in developing such standards.

Something to keep an eye on is the IEEE DSRC standard - Dedicated Short-Range Communications meant to augment cellular with high-bandwith connectivity for vehicle-to-roadside and vehicle-to-vehicle applications.

Chris () - this takes MeNow, FOAF and other SemWeb apps to a whole new level

Miers Withdraws

Breaking news from NPR & CNN and elsewhere - Harriet Miers has just taken her name out of consideration for the Supreme Court.

"President Bush "reluctantly" accepts Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers's request to withdraw her nomination."

ETA: I can't help but think the timing of this was to overwhelm news of Rove & Libby's impending indictment.

Red Cross Update: Wilma, Flooding, DAT

What a week for Red Crossedness. Yesterday I spent some time there cleaning up the Disaster Action Team (DAT) Ready Room with Luis Matnog, one of the ARCMB's Disaster Services logistics folks. We basically moved a bunch of "Mass Care" boxes of clothing to the basement storage cages.

I found out I can get wireless from that room and was able to do my work from there. Better than working from home as I could help the Red Cross between deliverables, phone calls and emails. I came back today and did the same thing - except I brought my own vaccuum to continue the clean-up. The Ready Room is really a mess - it looks like a decrepit teacher's lounge that hasn't been cleaned in 3 years.

I'm going to go back tomorrow with actual cleaning supplies and do some dusting, put in a trash can, get some contractor bags and bring my portable DVD player to hook up to the TV that no longer gets cable. I'm going to try and take Disaster Assessment I tomorrow night but I hear the class is full.

ARCMB is on major standby for next week. We're predicted to get anywhere from 6-9in of rain on Sunday which will not only bust the dam in Taunton, but probably at least 1 more of the 3 remaining dams, as well as cause some major flooding around the state. And the storm causing it? From the Great Lakes. Not even remotely related to Wilma. So in addition to staffing the Taunton shelter through Tuesday, there's a "Go Team" in the office from 10am-6pm on Sunday to standby for a potential need for up to 12 evacuation center locations - 5 staffers each.

I've chosen to help and hang out with Luis as well as the 3 Americorps VISTA staffers - post Undergraduate students who sign on to help the Red Cross for a year and don't get paid much to do it. They've been incredibly overworked since Katrina it and I have a soft spot for the ickle cute kids.

We had an "All Hands" meeting at the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency tonight. It's a bunker that has a giant blast door and is 40ft below ground. Pretty nifty but I wasn't remotely impressed with the equipment they had. I'm pretty miffed that they don't have as much public information on their Web site as many of the Southern state emergency management sites do. Why be so private?

Bush and Rove

To quote a friend, "Bush knew." This is ridiculous and unbelievable impeach-worthy.

Hurricane Watch: Wilma

Dr. Jeff from Weather Underground has pointed out that Wilma is the strongest hurricane on record at 884mb. It bested 1988's Gilbert at 888mb. I don't know how it happened, but it jumped from a Cat 1 at 21:00GMT yesterday to a bloody Cat 5 at 09:00 GMT this morning. Unbelievable. Current models? Send it right through the Keys and South Florida after bouncing off Quintana Roo/Cancun/Cozumel. At the moment, it is looking like it may be a Cat 4 by then but it's still way too early to tell. Let's see when it passes into the Gulf between Cuba and Mexico.

Be safe!

Red Cross Update: Flooding in New England

As I'm sure you've heard on the news, flooding in New England is horrible right now after 8 straight days of rain. You can see live flood gauges from the Army Corps of Engineers. All the red dots are rivers that are actively flooding. Not good. There's discussion of opening shelters up for possible 1000 people in Norton, MA as well as other locations in Framingham and Andover. Radar seems to be cleaning up. Hopefully this is the end of it.

Red Cross Update #5

Went to my second ARCMB Disaster Action Team (DAT) meeting tonight. Actually we went out for chinese for the Team Leader, (Mike Klau), celebrating his 50th birthday and 30 years as a Red Cross volunteer. I got to meet a lot more people and here some interesting "Fire Run" stories.

I also found out that I'm not the only one frustrated with the paperwork snafus and confusion at ARCMB either. It seems many seasoned volunteers are frustrated that despite having all sorts of experience many were not called for Katrina availability. The current "factory training" method is sending a lot of people down south unprepared to truly be as helpful as they could be. It seems they need to institute a policy that anyone wanting to volunteer for major disasters should spend some time on a DAT team getting local experience before shipping out to the big ones. Even if it's just being on call every night for a month to do fires. The amount of money it costs to train people, send them south, and handle them while they're there doesn't seem worth the ROI if people simply aren't prepared to handle what awaits them.

On the way back to the office we had an absolute ass drive up next to us in a Volvo and signal for the driver to roll down the window. He first asked what was going on and if there was a disaster in the area. Then when told we were driving back to the office, (we had the vehicles with us in case we needed to do a call), he said something to the effect of "so they give you a nice SUV to drive around in, eh? You should send that down South!". What an IDIOT.

The story behind the Dodge Durango was that it was bought with funds provided by the Yawkey Foundation with the express, strict provisions that said money be used for Red Cross vehicles. Apparently the Durango has become very handy for when some of the older trucks are in the shop and, in one case, another wouldn't start.

It seems the Red Cross has a long way to go both regarding internal communications, volunteer management, training, and most important - public relations and communications. Instead of writing them off, I'm going to continue working for them so more people will consider donating the monies needed to keep up their good works. Many don't realize that the Red Cross goes to most residential fires, gives people some initial money, helps them find food, medical treatment and a hotel for a few nights until they can get into the usual State and Federal systems.

I heard tonight that the Red Cross had to take out a $1B loan because it hasn't yet raised the full projected $2B needed for Katrina relief. The woman who I met at Otis and who eventually trained me, Dawn Snow, just got dispatched to Keene, NH where lingering rains from the tropical event Tammy burst a dam and massively flooded areas all over the east coast.

I look at it this way - the majority of the Red Cross volunteer system is made up of many retired seniors, college students at school, and even those displaced by disasters. I believe it's time for me, (as well as those in my generation), with my speaking & teaching ability, technology & project management skills, and need to volunteer - to help fix the holes in the Red Cross. It's possible - I've already done it here and there. They just need smart, skilled, intelligent, adaptive, proactive people willing to just jump in and do what needs to be done. The simple act of not only ENTERING Katrina Intake forms into the CAS system, but writing documentation with screenshots of the database, allowed me to easily train scores of Bank of America Data Entry volunteers. That was something I did of my own volition - I hope those of my peers who are even smarter and more ingenius than I can take the same action lest we find ourselves in similar situations with a Red Cross too overwhelmed to help.

From Potter to Mars

Well, Tropical event Tammy decided to change plans for all in Salem this weekend. As a city resident, I'm pretty bummed because if we had sunshine then there'd have been quite a few more people walking around shops and such. As a participant in the Potter fandom, I'm double-bummed because my fellow fans didn't really get to spend October in Salem as it was meant to be - the cool, crisp air, the crinkly, colorful leaves, the smells of woodburning smoke, kettle-cooked popcorn, and incense....alas.

Meanwhile, Chez DeLong was filled with the sound of good friends playing with The Little Man (tm), () and relaxing from their hectic lives. Kirky, (), made some awesome 3-Cheese Baked Italian Pasta that actually got devoured instead of ordering out Indian. Same with the Cooks Illustrated Congo Bars she made for Jon, () - good thing she made extra just in case.

As you may recall, I was supposed to go to two days of Red Cross Disaster Instructor Specialty Training. The person I was working with to sign up for the course didn't realize I had Adobe Acrobat and a digital scan of my signature. She was waiting me to come in and had her the form. I had also expressed uncertainty in my experience to her as I haven't done much Disaster Services. She took it to mean I wasn't doing the training and had no clue I was coming. I showed up and started following instructions but when they started to pair us up, THAT is when I found out I wasn't on the list. It was very embarassing - yet another example of how overwhelmed the Red Cross is. Drives me crazy. They're planning on offering it again next month. However I'm not sure I'll have time once the new company gets launched as we secured our first contract last week(!).

They'll offer the course next month and it was a mixed blessing because it actually let me spend the weekend with my friends visiting - Melissa (), Arabella (), Mrsronweasley (), Spinjock1978 (), and prettyannamoon (). Others stopped by - from nearby at The Witching Hour (TWH) including Leaky Lounge moderator Darcey , and her husband, Lisa Bunker & Belinda Hobbs from The HP Lexicon, along with Belinda's daughter, and AleonInc ().

Being a TiVo-heavy house, we watched a bunch of House and a Little Britain episode. Then we headed out to Best Buy to pick up some mics for the live Pottercast at Finz Restaurant. Does anyone else find the concept of a live podcast odd? I suppose it's like "being filmed before a live studio audience" for later broadcast. TLCer Heidi Tandy (), Jeff from HPANA.com, and Chris Rankin were on the Pottercast. I poked my head in but felt like a fish-out-of-water :)

Darcey and Lisa did a Leaky Lounge Modcast, and we had MIT Professor and chair of the Comparitive Media Studies department, Dr. Henry Jenkins as a guest. He and Kirky worked together on the Virtual Screening Room project at the MIT Center for Educational Computing Initiatives. Anyway, I kept sneaking off to grab bites of my late-lunch, missed-breakfast, early-dinner - so I wasn't as engaged as I should have been.

Upon our return, Tammy poured on and we decided to watch one episode of Veronica Mars. That, as they say, was the end of that. We were all exposed yet-another-addictive-fandom. Melissa, (, brought Season 1 with her courtesy of one of our favorite Slytherins and Hogwarts Gallery curator Milly, (). 12 episodes later, I'm hunting for the rest of Season 1 and setting the TiVo for Season 2. It's part Nancy Drew and part Buffy the Vampire Slayer though strangely addicting.

The house has emptied out so now it's time to clean up, play with the boy, lounge around, find more Veronica and prepare for beginning the first contract of my new job - details to be announced soon. ;)

Haunted Happening Parade/Witching Hour Sightings

Kirky () and I noticed a great number of cars and traffic headed into Salem tonight so I looked up the local calendar and noticed they moved the Grand Opening of the Salem Haunted Happenings events to tonight. We fed Will () and hurried down the street. Kirky wore her "You Know Who, We Know Where" TLC shirt and Will & I sported our matching "Sirius Lives! (No really, Shut UP!)", shirts from "The Summit Formerly Known As Prince".

We took turns with The Man on our shoulders and apparently people noticed his shirt but not while he was with me. I spotted a handful of authoritative TWH staffers wearing telltale acid-green on black t-shirts hanging out at the brick walkway at Essex St. and Washington St., until the realized they could sit at the median. Frankly, I thought our spot at the corner of Rockafellas was perfect.

The parade had a great contrast of old and new with the woman who played Tabitha Stevens, (Erin Murphy), from Bewitched as the Grand Marshall and Chris Rankin - Percy from the Harry Potter movies. That was a nice touch.

I have Will tomorrow morning until lunch and then I may go into town to see who I can find. It's nice to have the show in my own town - I can blend in as a local and point & laugh at the tourists. ;) I doubt anyone will recognize me unless they've done their homework - I dont think anyone CARES.

My guests, (, , , , and maybe even ), arrive tomorrow evening. I think another Serenity viewing is due this weekend as well in between all day Red Cross training Sat & Sun.

ETA: You can track the LJ entries on TWH at Google Blogs.

Starbucks Working Day

Had to drop the car off at the dealership today for it's 60k servicing and rather than drag car #2 in, I'm at the nearby Starbucks getting work done. I'm not sure how much food/drink I should purchase so they'll let me stay here from 8:30am - 1:30pm. ;) Maybe I'll go next door to the Bagel Shop just so I don't seem too bad. I started out with a Chocolate Croissant and a Caramel Apple Cider. I've sinced moved onto a Cheddar Brioche and Fruit/Cheese plate.

We're getting close to launching the Web site for the new company and I'm really excited about some of the clients we may be working with. Looks like I'll be going back to ApacheCon for the first time in two years as well. Here's to new things.