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Thanksgiving round-up: Had dinner at the Milrose Brewery in Barrington. Pricey, but the food was good and plentiful. In the evening Dave had me play Oregon Trail. As I've mentioned a thousand times before here, I went to really crappy schools. When I was nine, I thought we were hot shit because we finally had computers in the classroom, but all we did is learn BASIC out of color-coded workbooks. There were no games on our Apple IIs and therefore, I never got to play Oregon Trail as a kid. Dave found a Apple II simulator on the web and said I had to play. I did pretty well; I got halfway through the trip before the browser crashed. Despite the graphics, the game play holds up well. Friday I went to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) deusinnomen and aimee_darling's post-Thanksgiving party. Their house is amazingly huge. I made chocolate peanut butter cupcakes that went over well. I won the unofficial award for Worst Black Friday Employment Ever-Toys R Us, the year of the Power Rangers shortage. I think that was the year I started getting cynical about Christmas. Chicago TARDIS is also going on, but I will post about that later. ETA: Ended up not watching Torchwood due to technical difficulties. We did watch an MST3K episode "Spaceship to Venus"...where people get in a spaceship and go to Venus. |
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X-posted from my own journal simply for the purpose of jump-starting conversations and postings again in this community. -------------------------------- Today and yesterday's Financial Times evidence part of why I am a subscriber. One must further monitor world news sources to acquire an accurate picture of what is really happening in the world and certainly, here at home in the United States of America. It is laughably, hypocritically sad that our US President should lecture China on "Freedom of the Press." Our major news sources are cardinal violators of this 'free press' principal by grave sins of omission. It struck me most this morning catching up from but one printed source. Here are but a few of the headlines w/ a few source article links - the rest can be easily found w/ basic keyword searches on the FT.com site. * American Eagle gold bullion coin sales suspended
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/19507efc-daf6-11de-933d-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1 * Asian heads of Goldman Sachs selling record amounts of company stock * India signals 'serious concern' over Chinese military ties with Pakistan * Abu Dhabi will not see its smaller brother fail (referencing the Dubai deleveraging/sales of the last few days) (previous articles from the week not appearing anywhere in the US press
* World banks in danger of failure (BofA, Citibank in the top 10) * The legacy of long-term unemployment effects in the USA And of course the Brits have their own state propaganda release practically scripted by George Orwell -
"UK turns corner" = The UK Treasury believes the economy has turned the corner, the recession has ended and the UK will grow in 2010. Draw your own inferences and conclusions from the above. If one isn't already visiting an outside paper, add the FT.com and the South China Morning News (out of Hong Kong) to your daily scan list beyond Lew Rockwell, Drudge and the usual Libertarian blogs. 
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A late night last night, but fun! I'm looking forward to doing my hot dog cart act tonight at Beast Women - one of my favorite shows. An all-female cabaret - singers, dancers, comedians, monologues - all really top-notch performing. I hope you can make it out! This may be your last chance to see the hot dog act before January! :) 
clicky click for details
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Please, never try to convince me our legal system is rational. I stumbled across this case all by myself, with no help of any referral, and just started reading the PDF. The Department of Housing and Urban Development sued* a condominium association on behalf of the charging party who had "significant hearing loss" in both airs. It was a charge of discrimination under the Fair Housing Act. So long as the 'charging party' allegedly discriminated against is legitimately disabled, this is a slam dunk. The condo association had a "no pets" clause, and the deaf renter needed pets to help compensate for a lack of hearing, right? So, slam dunk. Then I find:
Complainant's stepbrother, (redacted), wrote a letter to the board requesting a waiver to the "no pet" policy as a condition of purchasing the unit. The letter stated (redacted) has a severe hearing impediment, and she had two cats that would alert her to the telephone and doorbell, therefore, complainant needed a waiver to the "no pets" policy.
Telephone? Why does God need a spaceship? someone capable of using a telephone qualify as deaf enough to be disabled under the Fair Housing Act? If your hearing is such that you can't hear a ring, I'm not sure what utility you'd have in a phone, beyond dialing an emergency hotline. I guess it's possible this had merit. The document was very sloppily written. For example, "no pets" policy was written inconsistently. One would imagine it written in a uniform fashion, but I saw "no pet", "no pets", and even "no-pets" with a hyphen. Perhaps, in a document so poorly written, the detail about the telephone was just carelessly inserted through one of those brain hiccups most people experience sometimes (Here's your sign). *Actually, if my interpretation of this document is correct, there was no due process in this case. There was no legal case. There was no judge or courtroom. In the Conclusion of the document, the Department of Housing and Urban Development charged the condo association with violating the act. As far as I can tell, they represented the judge and the prosecutor. Maybe my brain had just fallen asleep, forgetting that reams of agencies exist to administer federal laws. Maybe this is just the first time I've groked what the consequences of bureaucrats "administering federal laws" actually meant to American jurisprudence. I reckon it's kinda strange that if KSM had been renting space in those office complexes, rather than demolishing them, he'd have to face that sort of tribunal, I tell you what.
/Hank Hill By the way, the same agency that determined the deaf can use telephones is the same agency that was and is in charge of overseeing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. |
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With thanks to Commander Zero: Theres a joke that goes something like this: Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are out on a camping trip. It’s the middle of the night and Holmes wakes up Watson. “Watson! Wake up, man!”
“Huh? What?”
“I just woke up and noticed the bright starry universe above me and do you know what I’ve deduced?”
”That we are all just minor players in a larger drama that we’ll never know the outcome of?”
“No.”
“That the universe is too big and too grand for the human mind to ever fully comprehend?”
“No, no.”
“Well then…what have you deduced from looking at the starry sky above us, Holmes?”
“Its rather obvious, Watson – someone has stolen our tent.” |
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http://mises.org/daily/3881 [ Error: Irreparable invalid markup ('<img [...] />i>') in entry. Owner must fix manually. Raw contents below.] <p class="ljsyndicationlink"><a href="http://mises.org/daily/3881">http://mises.org/daily/3881</a></p><img src="http://mises.org/images/DailyArticleImages/3881.jpeg" vspace="4" hspace="4" style="margin: 10px;" /><br />I got a chance to reconnect with former students and colleagues, and meet several people for the first time (even a few fans). I particularly enjoyed meeting Louis Carabini, the event's sponsor.<div class="feedflare">
<a href="http://feeds.mises.org/~ff/MisesDailyArticles?a=MM8Tli-ImBA:vfiWLPHhL-k:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/MisesDailyArticles?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.mises.org/~ff/MisesDailyArticles?a=MM8Tli-ImBA:vfiWLPHhL-k:V_sGLiPBpWU"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/MisesDailyArticles?i=MM8Tli-ImBA:vfiWLPHhL-k:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.mises.org/~ff/MisesDailyArticles?a=MM8Tli-ImBA:vfiWLPHhL-k:qj6IDK7rITs"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/MisesDailyArticles?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.mises.org/~ff/MisesDailyArticles?a=MM8Tli-ImBA:vfiWLPHhL-k:gIN9vFwOqvQ"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/MisesDailyArticles?i=MM8Tli-ImBA:vfiWLPHhL-k:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.mises.org/~ff/MisesDailyArticles?a=MM8Tli-ImBA:vfiWLPHhL-k:cGdyc7Q-1BI"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/MisesDailyArticles?d=cGdyc7Q-1BI" border="0"></img></a>
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http://mises.org/daily/3857 [ Error: Irreparable invalid markup ('<img [...] /><br>') in entry. Owner must fix manually. Raw contents below.] <p class="ljsyndicationlink"><a href="http://mises.org/daily/3857">http://mises.org/daily/3857</a></p><img src="http://mises.org/images/DailyArticleImages/3857.jpeg" vspace="4" hspace="4" style="margin: 10px;" /><br />At the YAF convention in St. Louis, I organized the draft-card burning — an event many regard as the birth of the modern libertarian movement.
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<a href="http://feeds.mises.org/~ff/MisesDailyArticles?a=ugwN90Ku0B4:UauMyyG3M_o:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/MisesDailyArticles?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.mises.org/~ff/MisesDailyArticles?a=ugwN90Ku0B4:UauMyyG3M_o:V_sGLiPBpWU"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/MisesDailyArticles?i=ugwN90Ku0B4:UauMyyG3M_o:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.mises.org/~ff/MisesDailyArticles?a=ugwN90Ku0B4:UauMyyG3M_o:qj6IDK7rITs"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/MisesDailyArticles?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.mises.org/~ff/MisesDailyArticles?a=ugwN90Ku0B4:UauMyyG3M_o:gIN9vFwOqvQ"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/MisesDailyArticles?i=ugwN90Ku0B4:UauMyyG3M_o:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.mises.org/~ff/MisesDailyArticles?a=ugwN90Ku0B4:UauMyyG3M_o:cGdyc7Q-1BI"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/MisesDailyArticles?d=cGdyc7Q-1BI" border="0"></img></a>
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http://mises.org/daily/3788 [ Error: Irreparable invalid markup ('<img [...] /><br>') in entry. Owner must fix manually. Raw contents below.] <p class="ljsyndicationlink"><a href="http://mises.org/daily/3788">http://mises.org/daily/3788</a></p><img src="http://mises.org/images/DailyArticleImages/3788.jpeg" vspace="4" hspace="4" style="margin: 10px;" /><br />Harding cut the budget nearly in half between 1920 and 1922. Tax rates were slashed for all income groups. The national debt was reduced by one-third. The depression ended quickly. <div class="feedflare">
<a href="http://feeds.mises.org/~ff/MisesDailyArticles?a=pbkJ_yGrPg0:IoFiNxq6bro:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/MisesDailyArticles?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.mises.org/~ff/MisesDailyArticles?a=pbkJ_yGrPg0:IoFiNxq6bro:V_sGLiPBpWU"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/MisesDailyArticles?i=pbkJ_yGrPg0:IoFiNxq6bro:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.mises.org/~ff/MisesDailyArticles?a=pbkJ_yGrPg0:IoFiNxq6bro:qj6IDK7rITs"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/MisesDailyArticles?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.mises.org/~ff/MisesDailyArticles?a=pbkJ_yGrPg0:IoFiNxq6bro:gIN9vFwOqvQ"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/MisesDailyArticles?i=pbkJ_yGrPg0:IoFiNxq6bro:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.mises.org/~ff/MisesDailyArticles?a=pbkJ_yGrPg0:IoFiNxq6bro:cGdyc7Q-1BI"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/MisesDailyArticles?d=cGdyc7Q-1BI" border="0"></img></a>
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I don't want to take my goddamned vitamins today.
There is nothing more daunting when nauseous than the thought of keeping a bunch of vitamins down. |
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1. We ate well at my in-laws house. The pumpkin cheesecake was the best. 2. We showed two episodes of "The Sarah Jane Adventures" to said in-laws. The episodes we showed involved a huge "Doctor Who" guest star, which had my father-in-law staring at the TV in disbelief. 3. We just heard Josh McDaniels drop the "MF-bomb" while on the sidelines of the Giants/Broncos game. If it were live, then all well and good. But this was a replay of what hapened during the TV Time Out after the Broncos went into the red zone... then committed three false-start penalites. When the NFL Network returned from the kick-off commercial, Bob Papa started to apologize profusely. We had to rewind to hear what was said. It's starting to take over Twitter. Happy Thanksgiving! |
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Original: craschworks - comments The amount of work and engineering skill that goes into making movies often astonishes me. Via The Perfect Storm: Gimball Madness
Petersen scouted the film world to find the ideal spot to shoot his actors swarming on the Andrea Gail. One by one, the Malta tank, Universal Lake, and the Baja facility where Titanic was made, were shot down. Petersen and Frazier decided instead to dig the largest soundstage tank in the world-a 95′ square, 22′ deep hole in the floor of Warner’s legendary Stage 16.
In addition to Stage 16’s huge motion base, the project demanded a whopping seven gimbals. Frazier had his hands full insuring that the full-scale prop boats could weather the rough ride. He says that although the real Andrea Gail was all steel, the film’s construction team initially wanted to work in wood. “We said, ‘Forget it! The first time we turn this gimbal on, it’s going to come apart’,” Frazier recalls. “So our Andrea Gail’s all steel too. Anything else wouldn’t have held up under the g-force we were pulling.”
Meanwhile, Frazier and company set to work building what he says is the most complex gimbal ever designed for a feature film, a six-axis hydraulic motion base measuring 25′ in diameter and 15′ high. “Most gimbals have a universal pivot joint in the middle which gives us two axes of movement,” Frazier explains. “Instead, this one has six intersecting rams on a 15-degree angle arranged in a circle. Each ram looks like an inverted ‘V’, and all six rams supported the Andrea Gail, which weighed 150,000 pounds. Each ram was capable of picking up 25,000 pounds. It’s a take-off of flight simulator technology, but I don’t think anyone ever thought 150,000 pounds would be sitting on top of one!”
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For anyone on GoogleWave who wants to connect with me there, I am (as you might have guessed!) "frank.p.purcell" -- of course without the quotes. |
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 Peter I Island usually considered as difficult of access. This is mainly due to the difficulties of landing on the island as approaches to it barred by the sludge ice. In addition, the lack of convenient bays and precipitous banks almost throughout the coastline do not allow a large ship to drop anchor directly by the island. That is why it was thought until now that the best opportunity to land on the island was using helicopter from the main deck of the ship. But we have another variant. For the landing on the island we can use a small hovercraft. Internal combustion engine sets the hovercraft's screw in motion. The screw pushes air under the bottom of the vessel and thus forms the so-called air cushion. Hovercraft can run on the water and on land, on marshes, on sand, on the ice and ice sludge and on the snow. Christy Hovercraft 6132L produced by Christy Hovercraft (Russia) has the following technical characteristics: Payload - 6 persons, 600 kg Speed - 60-100 km /h on ice, -50-85 km /h packed snow Limiting conditions - wind 10-15 m /s, temperature from -30 ° C to +40 ° C, Hovercraft PIONEER MK3 produced by Airlift Hovercraft (Australia) has even more powerful parameters. But Christy Hovercraft would be quite suitable for our purposes. It costs only $ 62 500 while PIONEER MK3 price is about $ 965 000. Christy Hovercraft occupies one 20-foot container and can be easily transported on a ship. Thus, we have to transport to Antarctica at least two 20-foot containers (one hovercraft and equipment of the expedition camp). According to preliminary calculations, the number of participants must be at least 10 people. The expedition’s terms. Given the weather conditions the expedition should be organized in the summer in the Southern Hemisphere (i.e. December-March). Of course, we will do our best but it seems problematic to organize such a complex expedition in two to three months. Therefore, a more realistic launch date of the expedition is December 2010. The main question is not how to land on the island. It is not even the issue of possible opposition from the Norwegian authorities. The main issue is financial one. According to preliminary calculations, the expedition takes minimal budget which amounts to $ 100 000. Exchequer of the Republic is currently empty. It is difficult to estimate at the moment, how much money the scheduled revenues will bring to the budget of The Republic of Sunland. But we have now at least four variants for funding the expedition. This work has already begun. All who really wants to participate in the preparations to the expedition (even if he/she does not want for some reasons to take a direct part in the expedition itself) may receive relevant information from us. There is a great and responsible cause in front of us and we gladly invite all true men and women to participate in this cause to the extent of their forces and abilities. The Headquarters of the Sunland Antarctic expedition.http://new-libertalia.co.cc/ |
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The Obama administration is seeking to reverse a federal appeals court decision that dramatically narrows the government’s search-and-seizure powers in the digital age. Solicitor General Elena Kagan and Justice Department officials are asking the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider its August ruling that federal prosecutors went too far when seizing 104 professional baseball players’ drug results when they had a warrant for just 10. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ 9-2 decision offered Miranda-style guidelines to prosecutors and judges on how to protect Fourth Amendment privacy rights while conducting computer searches. ( Read more... ) Source Thoughts? Concerns? There's a discussion going on at ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) ontd_political. The link to the post is here. Please participate in the discussion and up-vote the article on reddit while you're at it. |
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http://mises.org/daily/3882 [ Error: Irreparable invalid markup ('<img [...] society,>') in entry. Owner must fix manually. Raw contents below.] <p class="ljsyndicationlink"><a href="http://mises.org/daily/3882">http://mises.org/daily/3882</a></p><img src="http://mises.org/images/DailyArticleImages/3882.jpeg" vspace="4" hspace="4" style="margin: 10px;" /><br />When the state is recognized to be the enemy of society, then only will freedom come, and the citadel of power collapse.<div class="feedflare">
<a href="http://feeds.mises.org/~ff/MisesDailyArticles?a=Xb4q7AL8yK4:Cd20RdfZIJ8:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/MisesDailyArticles?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.mises.org/~ff/MisesDailyArticles?a=Xb4q7AL8yK4:Cd20RdfZIJ8:V_sGLiPBpWU"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/MisesDailyArticles?i=Xb4q7AL8yK4:Cd20RdfZIJ8:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.mises.org/~ff/MisesDailyArticles?a=Xb4q7AL8yK4:Cd20RdfZIJ8:qj6IDK7rITs"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/MisesDailyArticles?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.mises.org/~ff/MisesDailyArticles?a=Xb4q7AL8yK4:Cd20RdfZIJ8:gIN9vFwOqvQ"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/MisesDailyArticles?i=Xb4q7AL8yK4:Cd20RdfZIJ8:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.mises.org/~ff/MisesDailyArticles?a=Xb4q7AL8yK4:Cd20RdfZIJ8:cGdyc7Q-1BI"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/MisesDailyArticles?d=cGdyc7Q-1BI" border="0"></img></a>
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http://mises.org/daily/3871 [ Error: Irreparable invalid markup ('<img [...] /><br>') in entry. Owner must fix manually. Raw contents below.] <p class="ljsyndicationlink"><a href="http://mises.org/daily/3871">http://mises.org/daily/3871</a></p><img src="http://mises.org/images/DailyArticleImages/3871.jpeg" vspace="4" hspace="4" style="margin: 10px;" /><br />Rothbard's detailed review of the many specific actors in the debate of the early 1800s, when the banking system was in its formative stage, suggests that policy discussions back then were more sophisticated than now.<div class="feedflare">
<a href="http://feeds.mises.org/~ff/MisesDailyArticles?a=eyU1k7ykxPA:HTofcUyGaDY:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/MisesDailyArticles?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.mises.org/~ff/MisesDailyArticles?a=eyU1k7ykxPA:HTofcUyGaDY:V_sGLiPBpWU"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/MisesDailyArticles?i=eyU1k7ykxPA:HTofcUyGaDY:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.mises.org/~ff/MisesDailyArticles?a=eyU1k7ykxPA:HTofcUyGaDY:qj6IDK7rITs"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/MisesDailyArticles?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.mises.org/~ff/MisesDailyArticles?a=eyU1k7ykxPA:HTofcUyGaDY:gIN9vFwOqvQ"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/MisesDailyArticles?i=eyU1k7ykxPA:HTofcUyGaDY:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.mises.org/~ff/MisesDailyArticles?a=eyU1k7ykxPA:HTofcUyGaDY:cGdyc7Q-1BI"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/MisesDailyArticles?d=cGdyc7Q-1BI" border="0"></img></a>
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