An eye for an eye…
29-Oct-08
Utilitarian Love Poem
29-Oct-08
You are aesthetically pleasing,
the reason for which I first noticed you.
And later I found your personality equally pleasing.
I also noted your waist to hip ratio is suitable for birthing.
Therefore, I think you should live in my house.
-alishahnovin
Solar powered balloons
27-Oct-08
…from Starfield balloons
(last picture from here)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081023/lf_nm_life/us_norway_eye
Transplanted cornea in use for record 123 years
OSLO (Reuters Life!) – Bernt Aune’s transplanted cornea has been in use for a record 123 years — since before the Eiffel Tower was built.
“This is the oldest eye in Norway — I don’t know if it’s the oldest in the world,” Aune, an 80-year-old Norwegian and former ambulance driver, told Reuters by telephone on Thursday. “But my vision’s not great any longer.”
He had a cornea transplanted into his right eye in 1958 from the body of an elderly man who was born in June 1885. The operation was carried out at Namsos Hospital, mid-Norway.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if this is the oldest living organ in the world,” eye doctor Hasan Hasanain at Namsos hospital told the Norwegian daily Verdens Gang.
(more…)
Barack the vote
26-Oct-08
Damnit, the precogs are onto me.
Via Marginal Revolution.
[Old news, but relevant to seasteading, as seasteads could be subject to similar outcry.]
Schwarzenegger Rejects LNG Terminal Off Southern California Coast (Cabrillo Port)
That’s the question commonreader asks in a recent lj post. It’s an interesting question, but not one I’m going to address yet. Instead, I’ll answer some of the other objections to seasteading that came up in the comments.
Unless you are ready to subsist on the mercurial nature of eating the opportunal fish for the rest of your life, you aren’t going to be happy.
Like cruise ships, seasteaders plan to import most of their food.
Won’t it be prohibitively expensive to live aboard a ship fulltime?
According to this study in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, the cost of living full-time for a year on a cruise ship would be around $34,000/year (in 2004). The cost of living in the San Francisco Bay Area for a single adult is $29,633/year (in 2007).
Therefore, living fulltime aboard existing cruise ships does not cost much more than the cost of living in the San Francisco Bay Area. Although the initial prototypes will cost more than cruise ships, seasteaders expect that living aboard seasteads will ultimately cost less than cruise ship living since a) seasteads will be semi-stationary, and therefore will not incur as much fuel cost as a cruise ship and b) seasteaders will provide for themselves many of the services provided on a cruise ship (maid service, cooking, etc.)
What about motion sickness?
Millions of people travel every year on cruise ships. Most passengers seem quite capable of tolerating the wave motion for those trips. Moreover, most cruises are of a short duration. The longer one is at sea, the more acclimatized you become. Finally, the seastead prototypes current under consideration are designed to minimize wave motion.
How to you plan to raise the money?
On a square foot basis, the cost is estimated to be in the $500 – $600 range. Housing costs in the Bay Area are in the $300 – $400 range. So the expectation is to pre-sell units to wealthy Bay Area nerds. Some of the units are also expected to be time shares and rentals, since the pool of people willing to live on a seastead a few weeks out of the year is probably much larger than the pool of people willing to live there full time.
Although financing is uncertain, of course, we think there will be enough of a market to raise $50 million (+-20%), given that there was enough of a market to raise the $355 million required to build the Residensea.
I don’t understand how they plan on keeping organized crime from blowing them out of the water, since they are obviously going to compete in drugs and prostitution. The Family International was muscled out of running escort services and they were a lot more realistic and unified than these people seem to be. Plus they had actual, you know, women.
Piracy is discussed in the book. (Although perhaps we need to expand upon it.) I don’t think the mafia will perceive seasteads to be much of a threat, since we’ll be on a ship floating at least 12 miles out at sea. Unless seasteads start selling drugs into the U.S. mainland, I don’t think the mafia will care much more about seasteads than they do about Burning Man.
In my opinion, the biggest threat is the U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. asset forfeiture laws. The U.S. claims the right to enforce U.S. drug laws anywhere in the world, and can seize your ship even if you’ve not been convicted of a crime.
So it may be that the first seasteads will have to forgo drugs and prostitution initially, until they’ve grown enough to have the power to successfully defend themselves against the predations of the mafia, both legal and illegal.
Thanks to the seasteading volunteers
24-Oct-08
Many volunteers helped with the seasteading conference. My thanks to everyone who helped, especially the following people:
- Justin Owings for designing the t-shirts and signs.
- Helen Lein for designing flyers. ( Helen works with a group of women who help women with breast cancer. She teaches yoga, Tai Chi, and meditation, and she provides FREE home lessons to women who are undergoing treatment. The link goes to the volunteer site. )
- Eelco Hoogendoorn, Mike Katsevman, and Andrea Fassina for setting up and tearing down the conference rooms.
- Lexi for helping to set up the conference room, and manning the reception desk.
- Wayne Gramlich for planning, reserving the hotel, and building and demonstrating seastead models (among other things that I’m probably not aware of).
- James for planning, preparing and manning the volunteer table.
- Gayle for planning the workshops, organizing the kayaking and Forbes Island dinner, moderating the workshops, and many other things.
My apologies if I’ve forgotten anyone’s contributions. If so, please let me know, and I’ll add you to the list.
Happy Halloween!
23-Oct-08
Via shanmonster. Sculpted by Ray Villafane.