Knew WCK was active in WNC, but I didn't realize chef Andres was IN Asheville.
"By Tuesday night, more than 60,000 meals had been served by WCK between North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia and Florida"
#Helene
https://www.newsobserver.com/living/food-drink/article293362404.html

Ah, no thanks, I would not like a Special Weather Statement.
#weather

Who's reading Murderbot Diaries and can I borrow your copies? They're so fun and so checked out; I'm 60th in line at the library. #murderbot #books #autismActually

Lightweight web site with the same goal. Better chance of loading on a low bandwidth connection.

http://avllite.com/

Sorry for the longass URL. Google doc for responders in Western NC, interesting way to coordinate (provided Internet access...)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ReiRLo5_ELxH86XWjj-vGGywB0QAe4hOWPeublaWKPM/edit

Interstates 26 and 40 south and east of Asheville can be used by people trying to evacuate the area.

Westbound I-40 is expected to reopen sometime Oct. 1

U.S. 421 is open through Boone

That's gonna help folks get out of there, which is a good idea given the water plants are fubar.
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/state/north-carolina/article293302279.html

Progress on natural language processing (NLP) is a cool sort of side effect of all the LLM (e.g. ChatGPT) activity. The opensource community has run the ball way down the field(s) and for example lyric transcription is relatively easy to pull off on a laptop. YMMV, ain't perfect, etc. But neat. (see below - Words are color-coded by confidence measure of whisper -- the software that extracted them.)
#LLM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpy9OGVFJ1I

(weirdness, I put three links in that last post but see two -- one is white on white)

local #Helene Disaster relief resources
Diaper Bank (non-profit) Amazon wishlist:
https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/3BGBPLS35F96P/

Animal rescues/humane soc./foster homes: https://www.instagram.com/p/DAi3IXCgpYX/

(Not a fan of Red Cross but the rest of these links look good IMO): https://appvoices.org/helene-relief/

/nosanitize

Broke a tool handle and no stores nearby have it. Shipping for this kind of thing costs more than the item. #grousing #capitalism #needCoffee #probablyJustMakeOne

Finally got my NC mountain area people on the actual telephone. They're fine, at the public library by day (7:30pm curfew). They have enough solar/battery hacked together to run a small fridge and they think they have enough water until FEMA hook up (maybe Friday). Non-perishable grocery supplies are good. They in turn had contact with other scattered folks. I offered to 4x4 in beer and chainsaws and they declined (for now). #NC #Helene

Oh good I wanted a way to combine #AI #bitcoin and #BOINC. This feels really icky for a lot of reasons before I even get to the Skynet birthing vibes

https://www.getgrass.io/

Ford F550 upgraded by #ukraine per field conditions. Novator II attn @Render https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wx9jdcD4DSE

Stories that get zero press coverage and actually impact the existence of humankind:

Academic Journal Publishers Antitrust Litigation

"Third, the publisher defendants agreed to prohibit scholars from freely sharing the scientific advancements described in submitted manuscripts while those manuscripts are under peer review, a process that often takes over a year. " (And for which the publishers collude to pay zero dollars)

#boringButImportant
https://www.lieffcabraser.com/antitrust/academic-journals/

speaking of which, @sjvn are you high and dry or...

Don't follow the links to save f*king legend Paul Watson of Sea Shepherd

(kidding, click away!)

https://youtu.be/QqzOAyXSJMI

@MLClark Dictionary Wars:
"If Noah Webster had had his way, the spelling divide would have been as it is with color and colour, theater and theatre, and draft and draught: he defined ax in his 1828 An American Dictionary of the English Language and included the note “improperly written as axe.” This was in direct defiance of Samuel Johnson’s 1755 A Dictionary of the English Language, which wasted no ink on the shorter form but included only axe."
#ax #axe #fight
https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/ax-vs-axe-difference

Nantahala river's getting 8-12 inches of rain if anyone wants to drop in and experience class XXVI rapids

Coming apart nicely. Not so tough over dry land ya big bully