As most of you know by now, Hurricane Rita is now a Category 5 hurricane. It has been for the last 24 hours or so. Looking at the coordinate map, it’s slowed down a bit this morning, but not by much. Last night, the hurricane had winds of 175 mph and the pressure was at 897 mb. This morning, the winds are down to 165 mph with the pressure at 907 mb. The forecasters are (hoping and) predicting that Rita could be a Category 3 before it hits Texas. I still urge anyone near the coast of the Gulf of Mexico to not take any chances….go somewhere safe. Here are some interesting links on hurricanes:

Hurricane Rita – MSN Virtual Earth
Hurricane Rita – Tracking Coordinates
Hurricane Tracker
WRAL Stormtracker
NOAA National Hurricane Center

While reading Robert Scoble‘s blog, I saw this entry about the College Puzzle Challenge. A quick glance at the puzzles from last year’s event proves that I would have no chance to get one right. This particular one (5AMU3L 5AY5) is very interesting, and even though I know how to do the conversions, I would have never guessed that. The problem with the puzzles is that they give you no hints on where to start. When you see a large sequence of numbers, that appear to be in base 3, you really have what seems like an infinite number of possibilites. Maybe that’s why I didn’t go to MIT, Columbia, or Cornell.

This has been out for almost a week now, but as usual, I’m just now sharing it with you all. If any of you have been reading about the Microsoft Professional Developer’s Conference (PDC), you probably already know about this. Bill Gates teamed up with Napoleon Dynamite to make a funny spoof video…you should check it out:

View: IFILM – Viral Videos: Bill Gates Goes to College (2005)