Position: 32.5N 74.8W [10PM CDT 0300 UTC].
Movement: North [010°] near 9 mph [15 kph].
Maximum sustained winds: 45 mph [ 75 kph].
Wind Gusts: 55 mph [ 90 kph].
Tropical Storm Wind Radius: 140 miles [220 km].
Minimum central pressure: 1001 mb ↓.

Currently about 305 miles [490 km] East of Charleston, South Carolina.

A Tropical Storm Warning is in effect for the coast from the Volusia-Brevard County line in Florida northward to Edisto Beach, South Carolina.

A Tropical Storm Watch is in effect for the coast from Edisto Beach northward to the Santee River in South Carolina.

This storm has been attempting to organize for days, but has been suppressed by 40-50 knot wind shear. That shear accounts for the designation ‘sub-tropical’ rather than just tropical. The shear is weakening, and the storm should be able to transition to the standard tropical form.

If the tracking forecast holds, it should come ashore around Jacksonville, Florida Sunday night. The area could use the rain.

Here’s the link for NOAA’s latest satellite images.

[For the latest information click on the storm symbol, or go to the CATEGORIES drop-down box below the CALENDAR and select “Hurricanes” for all of the posts related to storms on this site.]

Media bloggers Jim Romenesko and Anthenae started talking about changes at the New Orleans Times-Picayune yesterday.

Then Charlie Pierce chimed in:

I know the Intertoobz are the future — teach them well and let them lead the way — but this just sucks pond water in all kinds of ways. Of all the cities in the country, New Orleans should be the one most aware that a huge number of Americans don’t have access to the Toobz. (Another thing Newt Gingrich was right about, by the way.) Gutting a profitable newspaper in a city like New Orleans is the functional equivalent in an information sense of lining up to piss into a reservoir. The main reason that newspapers are failing in this country is that they are being set up to fail by publishers who think like hedge fund cowboys, and by editors who think like corporate officers. If there’s another major institution in this country that hasn’t yet gone out of its way to fail the people of New Orleans, I don’t know what it is.

WDSU [New Orleans Channel 6] : Times-Picayune to reduce print edition. The print edition will only come out on Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday. Everyone is supposed to use NOLA.com for current news.

New Orleans blogger Adrastos finishes off on the loss of the only daily newspaper in the city, and the total disaster that is NOLA.com.

I have to agree with him about NOLA.com – it isn’t as good as my Local Puppy Trainer as a newspaper site. It is more of a aggregator than an actual news site, with no attempt made to group articles based on content or area affected. As Adrastos noted, it is a lot easier to use Google to find something on the site, than the ‘tools’ of the site.

The Times-Picayune is the newspaper of record for the area. That isn’t a nickname, that is a legal term, and it involves a lot of legal proceedings. There are requirements to ‘advertise’ certain actions, to notify the public and interested/affected parties by putting notices in the local paper of record. You will often see a section labeled ‘legal notices’ in your local paper. This change is going to affect a lot of people in very annoying ways, and publishing 3 times per week may not be sufficient to qualify as a newspaper of record.

The Times-Picayune did a lot of great work on Katrina and the Gulf Gusher. It doesn’t deserve to be assaulted like this. It was profitable, paying out bonuses for the last two years, but that won’t continue. The Newhouse family deserves what is going to happen to their empire, but the people who have worked for them, and made them successful don’t.

Imagine having to be asked, and having to agree to a web site tagging you with a cookie? Well, the BBC tells me that it is the law in the UK – Cookie law: websites must seek consent from this weekend.

Apparently it only applies to new visitors to the UK web sites, and there is no mention of how exactly they are going to know who is a new visitor without a massive data base unless they just assume that anyone without their ‘cookie’ is a new visitor.

Cookies do serve a useful purpose in a lot of ways, but they have been transformed from a tool to a ‘weapon’ by marketing people. There has been a lot of that over the years – useful features transformed into annoying obstacles.

Expect some odd experiences when you visit the UK sites in the next few days [weeks … months?] as they implement this law. If they use a ‘pop-up’ to ask for permission, what happens if you block ‘pop-ups’? No one knows at this point.

Towel Day

Decisions … Decisions

Who should I annoy?

[Editor: Lucrezia ponders her next action, having just awakened from a nap.]

Friday Ark