----- Original Message -----
From: "Jack Bates" <jbates@brightok.net>
What would be really awesome (unless I've missed it) is Internet access to the emergency broadcast system and local weather services; all easily handled with multicast.
Ah, something I know something about for a change. :-) In fact, there's some work in progress on this topic, Jack; FEMA is working on replacing the EAS -- which itself replaced EBS, and earlier, Conelrad -- with a new system called iPAWS: The Integrated Public Alert and Warning System. At the moment, they're working on the "replace the EAS backbone" part of it, which work is about a year behind schedule, and everyone wants an extension, but there are other useful places to apply some effort. I'm a designer, not a coder, so I've been piddling around in the part I'm good at; thinking about design. Some of the results are here: http://www.incident.com/cookbook/index.php/Rough_consensus_and_running_code and http://www.incident.com/cookbook/index.php/Alerting_And_Readiness_Framework and I invite off-list email from anyone who has suggestions to toss in the pot. Cheers, -- jra (I would like to subject-unthread this, but my mailer is too stupid. Sorry)