billso.com

USA: Florida got spanked by Charley. This was a big one, a freaking nightmare of a hurricane that many residents were ill-prepared to handle. It got stronger and veered inland before it could hit Tampa, and a lot of people who thought they would be safe ended up in harm’s way.

These people need help yesterday, and I hope things get better for everyone there, including my family and friends, very soon.

Charley’s path was also rough: Fort Myers to Orlando to Daytona Beach. It could have been worse, but not by much. Andrew really concentrated his wrath on Dade County and Miami in 1992, by comparison.

A cynic might say that W is piling on the favors and attention to Florida, given what happened in 1992 (Hurricane Andrew) and 2000 (Hurricane Chad :). Whoever wins Florida will win the presidential election.

Of course, this article points out that Charley’s path also covers a lot of GOP territory. Kerry was leading W by 7 points in Florida last week.

It’s hard to ignore the political damage, but the storm’s damage has been a lot worse. I’m hoping that Florida gets a pass on hurricanes for the rest of the year: Charley was enough.

Tech: Atlanta’s Creative Loafing profiles spammeister Rob Martinson, who is selling a fake spyware cleaner by spreading his own spyware. This reminds me of the Messenger spammers. See my earlier post on how to fix most of your spyware problems for free. Thanks, Spyware Warrior.

Research: I sometimes mention this research article in my courses: Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments. Incompetent people often belive they are highly competent, thus self-inflicting a double-whammy. Thanks, John Dvorak.

Tech: A timeline and discussion of WordStar, the first real word processor for early PCs. I used it in the early 1980s. How fast can your Pentium 4 run WordStar?

World: According to Boing Boing, only 25% of condoms are used “properly” in India. India has been passing a billion free condoms each year, but resourceful indians use these prophylactics for portable water storage, waterproofing roads and roofs, convenient machinery lubrication, and gun barrel dust covers. So much for protecting the public health.