Wider Angle: Links for 08.29.06

This is what New Orleans looks like one year after Katrina. The city that became and island that became a catastrophe. See the full-resolution image and more of Derek's New Orleans photos.

Our hero, the one who helped make all this possible, wanted to close the carpool lane on I-395 in Virginia during rush hour last Tuesday and divert 22,000 people from their routes so he could get to a Republican fundraiser efficiently. Virginian officials told the President he could go fuck himself with a pinecone.

More than anything or anyone, I share the President's concern for Trent Lott's porch. "United States Senator Trent Lott had a fantastic house overlooking the bay. I know because I sat in it with he and his wife. And now it's completely obliterated. There's nothing. And I remember coming down here -- these giant piles of debris were here."

Fortunately, not everyone is an asshole. [via reddit]

A whistleblower at Lockheed Martin who was stonewalled by the government and fired from the company has made a video and posted it to YouTube. Power to the people! [via Rachel Maddow]

The Yes Men strike again, this time to highlight affordable housing. Activists like these guys make me feel a little better about our country.

Noah K. took a photo of himself every day for six years and compiled them into a short film called everyday. [via kottke]

Netflix went from start-up to sensation to superpower in a few short years. They now operate 41 warehouses around the country where employees sort returns in the morning and stuff envelopes in the afternoon with a speed and accuracy that is staggering. "One associate’s hands move so quickly that she seems to be a fan operating at highest speed. She is among the fastest workers, with a stuffing rate of about a thousand per hour. In fifty-seven seconds, she stuffed “Oyster Farmer,” “Elizabethtown,” “Where the Buffalo Roam,” two copies of “Brokeback Mountain,” “Hill Street Blues: Season 2: Disc 6,” “Picture Perfect,” “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants,” two copies of “Firewall,” “The Ice Harvest,” “Elfen Lied: Volume 1: Vector One,” “Best Motoring: Rotary Reborn,” two copies of “16 Blocks,” “Rumor Has It,” “24: Season 3: Disc 2,” and “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.”

A nifty history of the Graphical User Interface.

Brian Eno explained in 2003 how our governments' propaganda is the most subversive, effective, and manipulative in human history. They don't just change our opinions, they dictate what we think about every hour of every day. "[T]he new American approach to social control is so much more sophisticated and pervasive that it really deserves a new name. It isn't just propaganda any more, it's 'prop-agenda'. It's not so much the control of what we think, but the control of what we think about. When our governments want to sell us a course of action, they do it by making sure it's the only thing on the agenda, the only thing everyone's talking about. And they pre-load the ensuing discussion with highly selected images, devious and prejudicial language, dubious linkages, weak or false 'intelligence' and selected 'leaks'... With the ground thus prepared, governments are happy if you then 'use the democratic process' to agree or disagree - for, after all, their intention is to mobilise enough headlines and conversation to make the whole thing seem real and urgent. The more emotional the debate, the better. Emotion creates reality, reality demands action." [via reddit]

The Path to 9/11, a mini-series to be aired on ABC, seems to be, in military terms, fubar. "[The program] makes it clear that most of the conspiracy leading up to 9/11 was hatched during the seven years of the Clinton administration, and that since Bush was in power for only eight months when 9/11 occurred, he can hardly be blamed for the entire disaster."

A cell has been discovered that makes cancer cells commit suicide while leaving healthy cells unharmed.

The more homework a kid has to do, the less he wants to learn about the material and participate in the culture of curiosity. From my personal experience, this analysis could not be more accurate. I had hours of homework a night throughout my school experience and I hated school because of it. Now that I'm not forced, I feel as if I'm letting myself down if I'm not constantly learning.

The housing market is overvalued and retardedly bubble-like. How this will turn out is anyone's guess, but it sure makes it damned hard to get a place to live.

Getting around censorware and making your Internet experience safer and more secure, from BoingBoing.

Links for 08.29.06 - One Year Later