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Slashback: Justice, Settlement, Cosmos
"It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution in those entrusted with its administration ..." zarathud writes "Logan Darrow Clements has begun the application process to build a hotel on land owned by Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter. This could be allowed under Eminent Domain after the controversial 5-4 Kelo vs. New London ruling which Souter voted for. Justice Souter's home currently occupies the land. The planned hotel, to be called 'The Lost Liberty Hotel,' will include a public exhibit on the loss of American Freedom. 'This is not a prank,' said Clements, 'The Towne of Weare has five people on the Board of Selectmen. If three of them vote to use the power of eminent domain to take this land from Mr. Souter we can begin our hotel development.'"
Call everyone Sir, just to be safe. Yesterday we posted an item about the first self-proclaimed Jedi in Parliament; here are two updates to the already-updated story. Americans (like me!) may still be baffled by the complications of the honorifics involved.
Stefan Magdalinski writes "If you want to link to the actual speech, then can I suggest you use our volunteer-run, open source, reimplementation of parliament's awful website?"
And reader Russell Dewhurst writes "All MPs (Members of Parliament) are called the Hon. Member for X... If the MP for Copeland were a Privy Councillor he would be the _Rt_ Hon (Right Honourable) Member for Copeland. So the original article was correct, and the correction was wrong, I'm afraid!"Thanks to everyone who's weighed in on this.
MozNews interviews Daniel Glazman, NVu Lead Dev bluephone writes "Now that NVu 1.0 has been officially released, we at MozillaNews asked Daniel Glazman to take some time to give us another interview to book-end our first interview with him, early in NVu's development. He was gracious as always, and fast! Read the interview for unavoidable laws, plans for the future of NVu and Daniel, and even news about his company's upcoming release."
Tom Clancy, eat my shorts. hydraa16 writes "The Cosmos 1 Solar Sail failed to reach orbit. This video shows its loading in a Russian Delta III Submarine, and its launch in the cold Barents Sea!"
If you accidentally blew up your DeskStar, the Empire will repay you. hardreset writes "Remember the day when the IBM 75GXP was the hot new drive? Then ... do you remember the day(s) it bit the dust? If you still have the serial number(s), you may be eligible for a $100/drive settlement from IBM. The settlement page is over here, claim form is here, and the Inquirer article is here. For those of you wearing tinfoil hats, you don't have to send in your drive. For those of you who work for IBM or live overseas, don't bother. If you're hoarding these drives, it might be a good payday!"
You'd have to pay me a lot to listen to the results. Kethinov writes "Because Trent Reznor's release of The Hand That Feeds was a spectacular success, he's decided to release more free musical source material for remixing and listening delight. The new release is another track off his new album With Teeth entitled Only. Interestingly, now he's offering multiple formats for the material instead of just Apple's Garageband format. So now non Apple users too can join the fun."
Damn! Where do I invest? Sure sounds like poetic justice to me!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Hell yeah, build a hotel on his land, this is america and those in power should be held to at least the same level as those they enforce the law upon!
) Human Kind Vs Human Creation
) It'd be interesting to see how many humans would survive to serve us.
Your town may vary, but in many towns, the Board of Selectmen is elected. And if you didn't know that, neither do 99% of your fellow citizens.
What this means is that if three of them (or even if all five of 'em) don't vote to use the power of eminent domain (either because they think the planned redevelopment is a crock, or because they just don't care for Objectivists), it's entirely up to the citizens of Weare can choose whether or not their Selectmen are (or are not) worthy of re-election in a year or two.
I don't live in Weare. None of my business either way. But the Just Desserts Cafe sure sounds like a nice place for a bite to eat, should I be passing through the neighborhood.
Would be even better if they made a chain of hotels with locations in five cities.
Glenn Reynolds (i.e. the Instapundit) recently wrote a piece for Tech Central Station on the failure of the Planetary Society's Cosmos 1, which I thought was quite well-said. Here's a quote:
http://techcentralstation.com/062905J.html
Some might accuse [Planetary Society directory] Friedman of putting a Pollyannaish spin on things, but I'd say he's learned the most important lesson of all: It's hard to accomplish much if you're afraid to fail.
The history of success in all sorts of endeavors -- including the early days of space travel, when we were making rapid progress -- is a history of repeated failures. I don't think it's a coincidence that when the failure rate declined, so did our rate of progress. You learn from failure, and you learn from trying lots of different things. Unfortunately, fear of failure -- like fear in general -- is contagious. But fortunately, so is bravery. When people act unafraid of failure, other people may pick up on the message.
The Planetary Society's mission was, really, a failure: It was supposed to test solar sails, and it never got the chance. But, simply by happening, and by having the Planetary Society emerge with its head bloody, but unbowed, it accomplished something useful by opening up (metaphorical) space for others to try risky but low-cost approaches without worrying too much about the fallout. And that's good.
Because, as I've noted before, when you're not afraid of failure you can try lots of different things and figure out what works best. If you're afraid of failing, on the other hand, you build huge, process-laden, documentation-heavy, behemoths that -- in a way -- are already failures before they ever start because they're too hard to change and improve, and because they don't generate enough useful knowledge to allow further progress. (See, e.g., the Space Shuttle program).
The Planetary Society's launch, despite Lou Friedman's views, failed. But the approach it embodied is the only approach that's likely to achieve substantial success in the long run. And that's a kind of success in itself. Let's hope that we'll see more of this sort of thing in the future.
I had the idea that we should found a small community and then declare copyrighted works public domain. Now of course you couldn't do that for everything, since major corps like Disney would shit lawyers on you, but you could declare eminent domain on all copyrighted works over 20 years-old. if anyone complains, you "reinstate" their copyright. For a fee.
The economic claim is not only simple, but real. Imagine now you can scan and digitally print those old photos of your grandparents, you can archive old books and movie, and you can adapt and derive with impunity. That's one magnificent cottage industry just waiting to be formed.
So maybe this USC decision will actually have a silver lining. Without doing anything quite so ridculous and doomed to failure as traing to seize a Supreme Court justice's house.
www.eissq.com/BandP.html Ball and Plate System. Amuse your friends. Crush your enemies.
Many people do not realize that supream court justices can be impeached.
Section. 2.
Section. 3
Section. 1.
Amendment V
Since clearly those 5 justices cannot read, congress has a duty to remove them from their office. I know many of you don't like the idea of Bush choosing 5 justices (perhaps more, there are rumors of retirement), but that is better than letting these 5 sit on then court. Write your congressmen and make it so.
Actually they don't need to be removed from office, just a reminder that the constitution governs this land may be enough.