Kiki the Nanobot and Zipcar
"A drug is neither moral nor immoral - it's a chemical compound. The compound itself is not a menace to society until a human being treats it as if consumption bestowed a temporary license to act like an asshole." -- Frank Zappa
From The Black Tea Society's
Propaganda page. Click on image for full-sized version (144K):
# Pinton by Pavel - Smart Gun - FuturePig discovers the reason an advanced civilisation was destroyed. Cartoon commentary. More FuturePig adventures here. [clairefiles]
# Barry Krusch - The $64,000 Question - an introduction to Mr. Krusch'es on-line book, Would the Real First Amendment Please Stand Up. Scroll to the end of the third page for the link to the book. [root]
When all is said and done, we have one of the most sterling examples of clear and unambiguous constitutional writing extant, so clear that we can break analysis down into three decision points, or nodes. With regard to directives regulating speech, the First Amendment tells us to ask three questions:
1) Is the directive a law?If the answer to all three questions is "yes", the law is unconstitutional with respect to the First Amendment. If the answer to any of the questions is "no", then the law may or may not be unconstitutional on other grounds, but is definitely constitutional with respect to the First Amendment. (As stated before, the speech and press portions of the Amendment, the exclusive focus of this book).
2) Did Congress make the law?
3) Does the law abridge the freedom of speech or press?
# Claire Wolfe at Loompanics - Communities for Cats - an introduction to gulching. [loompanics]
Gulching is the act of physically retreating from the mainstream world in company with other freedom seekers. In a gulch, you trade freely with free people, live quietly, and preserve your values in hopes of bringing them back to the outside world later. As a community, you practice as much self-sufficiency as possible.
# Eric S. Raymond - The Final Virus: A Science-Fiction Story - how Windoze could be killed, causing the FedGov to kill the entire computer industry by doing one better Orin Hatch'es INDUCE Act (which has been in the news of late). Though the excerpt below is fiction, it is also plausible near-future fact. [eric]
Yesterday Senator Orrin Hatch issued a statement that Final highlights the need to make so-called "Digital Rights Management" hardware mandatory on all new computers. INDUCE II is backed by Microsoft, the Motion Picture Industry of America, and other anti-open-source groups; it would require software to have a cryptographic signature issued by a Federal security-certification authority before it could run on new hardware, and make circumvention of a computer's onboard DRM a felony offense.
# Brian Micklethwait at samizdata.net From English danger to Texan safety - commentary on Alice in Texas' realization that the American way (in Texas at any rate), encouraging people to shoot burglars when necessary, works a lot better than the British way, encouraging burglars to sue people who defend themselves. [samizdata]
# Ted Rall - Democrats for Guns - if John Kerry changed his tune, truly believed in the right of the people to keep and bear arms, and could convince gun owners of that belief, he would be unstoppable. Indeed. Unfortunately, there's nothing he could do that would convince us he wasn't lying. [survivalarts]
# Kiki the Nanobot is a neat little 3D first-person "shooter" puzzle, only there's not much shooting. It's mostly figuring out how to maneuver a little bot around in a world where gravity is always "down" from whatever your perspective is. It took me a while to figure out how to get out of the "Jump" level. "Gold" was interesting, too. I'm currently stuck at "Captured". [mathpuzzle]
# Zipcar has a bunch of cars parked around Boston, New York City, Washington DC, and Chapel Hill, NC. You buy a zipcard, find and reserve online a car near you, and open and drive it with your zipcard. Rates: $8.50-12.50 / hour or $65 / day. Not cheap, but transportation now. Neat business model. I wish them luck. [root]
