Michael Dertouzos, RIP

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Wed, 29 Aug 2001 12:00:00 GMT

If you drink, don't drive. Don't even putt. -- Dean Martin

explo is a very neat visual effect, hundreds of swirling, color-morphing, triangles. Java applet. Worked for me in Opera and IE. [notsosoft]

Michael Dertouzos, the director since 1974 of the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science, left his body on Monday night. I didn't know Dr. Dertouzos personally, but I worked in the lab during the early part of his tenure there. He is the author of The Unfinished Revolution: Human-Centered Computers and What They Can Do For Us. RIP, Michael.

Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2001 12:02:18 -0400
To: all-lcs@hq.lcs.mit.edu
From: Victor Zue <zue@sls.lcs.mit.edu> (by way of Lissa Natkin)
Subject: News

Ladies and Gentlemen:

I am writing to inform you, with great sadness and utter disbelief, that Prof. Michael Dertouzos passed away last night at the Massachusetts General Hospital due to complications stemming from his recent health problems.

This is a devastating loss for all of us, as Michael has been the intellectual and spiritual leader of our lab for nearly three decades.

I will pass along further information as it becomes available. (I am actually in Hong Kong, but will return to Boston ASAP.)

Victor Zue

timothy at Slashdot - Sklyarov Indicted - it's official. For writing software, a young programmer faces 25 years in jail and over $1 million in fines. His company, Elcomsoft, was also indicted, though noone knows how they'll bring a Russian company to trial. Stories at Washington Post , Salon, and EFF. Beam me up, Scotty. There's no intelligent life on earth. [/.]

Walter Block at LewRockwell.com - Keep the Penny, Ditch the Fed - How come a penny doesn't buy anything any more? Inflation. And what's the primary cause of inflation? The federal reserve. [lew]

There used to be a TV series featuring the "T" men. Every week they would walk down a set of stairs, and attempt to bring to justice the counterfeiters who were responsible for inflating the currency. Had there been better (well, more accurate writers) they would have turned around, marched back up those steps, and arrested their bosses.

For before the advent of statist money, when people were free to choose the means to intermediate their financial affairs, they had typically resorted to gold (sometimes silver). There has been no inflation at all in terms of gold. Centuries ago one could purchase an expensive suit of clothes for an ounce or two of this metal, and the same applies today.

Thomas C Greene at The Register - Cypherpunk Bell gets ten years - A good characterization of the insane sentence given to Jim Bell for following somebody around. I especially liked the strike-through in the paragraph below.

Unfortunately, extravagant public spending on prisons needed to accommodate the war on ~~Negroes~~ drugs has made it necessary for America's penal institutions to serve as its default mental health infrastructure, the distinction between 'justice' and 'punishment' having long ago evaporated from the popular imagination.

And so once again an obviously sick man is to be 'treated' with the finest warehousing money can buy.

Basil Childers at the Christian Science Monitor - A grandma with a pistol in her purse - When Kate moved to Oregon, she decided she needed self-protection. So she got a concealed carry permit, and she now carries a .38 revolver in her purse wherever she goes. Just good common sense.

James Taranto at Opinion Journal - Zero Tolerance for Duck Sauce - Back in March, Jason Anagnos, who was nine years old at the time, made a "Swanton Bomb" out of leftovers from his family's Chinese dinner. He is still serving the year probation that he received for showing this obviously toy "bomb" to his friend at school. [market]

But a prosecutor who brings charges against a demonstrably innocent defendant is as derelict in his duty as one who lets the guilty go free. New Jersey has effectively criminalized children's play, becoming "the single most oppressive state in terms of enforcing zero-tolerance policies," according to Steven Aden of the Rutherford Institute, a Virginia-based public-interest legal group that monitors school-discipline abuses nationwide.

Gillian Flaccus of AP via Seattle Post-Intelligencer - Users of medical marijuana in Oregon rally to doctor's defense - a doctor who has signed over 900 applications for medical marijuana is being investigated by the local nazis. Definitely time to shoot the bastards. [market]

AP via Nando Times - Gasoline additive leak threatens California drinking water - Now that the MBTE that the government forced oil companies to put into gasoline is being found in wells, the oil companies are being forced to pay clean up costs. When will they ever learn? [market]

Stephen Carville at anti-state.com - We'll Never Be Rid of the State - Mr. Carville thinks that disagreement on the abortion issue guarantees the continuance of the state. I'll say again that I agree with Mr. Carville's opinion on abortion. A fetus is part of its mother's body until it is born. She owns it, just as she owns the rest of her body. As such, abortion is as much anyone else's business as cutting her toenails. Mr. Carville has a good point about the continued existence of the state, too. Very few of us actually believe in the free market. There's always some little thing for which a state is necessary. Multiply by 5 billion and you get a very large state. Unlike Mr. Carville, I don't think this makes disappearing the state hopeless. It's just a difficult training exercise. When enough people realize that the state is unnecessary, it will crumble under its own weight. [anti-state]

So what is left? The State. The periodic counting of the fists. And the side with the most fists get to beat up and rob the other side. There is no other way.

Rick Gee at anti-state.com - A Political Metamorphosis - one man's four year journey from Republican to small "l" libertarian. [anti-state]

John Lettice at The Register - Unique ID is built into WinXP final build - Naughty Microsoft. Naughty. [register]

Bob Lewis at InfoWorld - Go Linux desktop now - Mr. Lewis recommends switching to Linux instead of upgrading to Windows XP. Good idea.

JOrbis "is a pure Java Ogg Vorbis decoder". The download includes JOrbisPlayer, a free pure Java Ogg Vorbis player. It worked for me, though I won't be using it to replace FreeAmp any time soon. [meat]

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Government doesn't work. Never did. Never will. Can't. But there are lots of good people. Love them.

-- Bill St. Clair

The Atlanta Declaration

Every man, woman, and responsible child has an unalienable individual, civil, Constitutional, and human right to obtain, own, and carry, openly or concealed, any weapon -- rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- any time, any place, without asking anyone's permission.

-- L. Neil Smith

Reread that pesky first clause of the Second Amendment. It doesn't say what any of us thought it said. What it says is that infringing the right of the people to keep and bear arms is treason. What else do you call an act that endangers "the security of a free state"? And if it's treason, then it's punishable by death. I suggest due process, speedy trials, and public hangings.

-- L. Neil Smith

A Penalty Clause for the Bill of Rights

Any official, appointed or elected, at any level of government, who attempts, through legislative act or other means, to nullify, evade, or avoid the provisions of the first ten amendments to this Constitution, or of the Thirteenth Amendment, shall be summarily removed from office, and, upon conviction, deprived of all pay and benefits including pension, and sentenced to imprisonment for life.

-- L. Neil Smith

Based on 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, and some of its own empirical work, the panel couldn't identify a single gun control regulation that reduced violent crime, suicide or accidents.

-- John Lott, commenting on the National Academy of Sciences report on gun control laws.

Who is a libertarian?

Zero Aggression Principle ("Zap")

"A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being, or to advocate or delegate its initiation. Those who act consistently with this principle are libertarians, whether they realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are not libertarians, regardless of what they may claim."

-- L. Neil Smith

(Formerly called the "Non-Aggression Principle", or "NAP")

Why Did It Have to be... Guns?

Make no mistake: all politicians -- even those ostensibly on the side of guns and gun ownership -- hate the issue and anyone, like me, who insists on bringing it up. They hate it because it's an X-ray machine. It's a Vulcan mind-meld. It's the ultimate test to which any politician -- or political philosophy -- can be put.

If a politician isn't perfectly comfortable with the idea of his average constituent, any man, woman, or responsible child, walking into a hardware store and paying cash -- for any rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- without producing ID or signing one scrap of paper, he isn't your friend no matter what he tells you.

If he isn't genuinely enthusiastic about his average constituent stuffing that weapon into a purse or pocket or tucking it under a coat and walking home without asking anybody's permission, he's a four-flusher, no matter what he claims.

What his attitude -- toward your ownership and use of weapons -- conveys is his real attitude about you. And if he doesn't trust you, then why in the name of John Moses Browning should you trust him?

-- L. Neil Smith

Concise

"Tell me," I was once asked, "What do you think about gun control? Give me the short answer." To which I replied, "If you try to take our firearms we will kill you."

-- Mike Vanderboegh

Also from The Atlanta Declaration:

... like going to the bathroom, breathing, eating, sleeping, or making love, it turns out that self-defense is a bodily function one cannot safely or effectively delegate to a second party.

-- L. Neil Smith

This does not mean that "Marijuana should be available by prescription." It means that morphine sulfate should be available in five pound bags at the supermarket for a couple of bucks, like sugar... but probably in a different aisle, to avoid confusion.

-- Vin Suprynowicz

If you refuse to pay unjust taxes, your property will be confiscated. If you attempt to defend your property, you will be arrested. If you resist arrest, you will be clubbed. If you defend yourself against clubbing, you will be shot dead. These procedures are known as the Rule of Law.

-- Edward Abbey

The state can only survive as long as a majority is programmed to believe that theft isn't wrong if it's called taxation or asset forfeiture or eminent domain, that assault and kidnapping isn't wrong if it's called arrest, that mass murder isn't wrong if it's called war.

-- Bill St. Clair