Developer Offers Plan to Buy Belle Isle for $1 Billion, Secede from Michigan
January 20th, 2013If you can’t get your burbclave built in Honduras, maybe Detroit will work? Or Idaho or Texas…
My guess is that the Seasteading guys will fire something up before it happens on land. And when they’re through effing around with half ass solutions (cruise ships???), there’s always Rapture… Or Elysium.
In all seriousness, a Rapture-on-the-Surface in international waters would be the easiest way to go in terms of getting out from under the laws of the various states. Physically dealing with the power of the ocean, which would be working to break the “city” into toothpicks 24/7 is… not going to be easy. But if guys are willing to part with billions of dollars to get something done, who knows?
Via: Motor City Muckraker:
Prominent Republicans in Michigan will gather soon to hear a plan for investors to buy Belle Isle from the city of Detroit for $1 billion and turn the island park into a semi-independent city-state of 35,000 people with its own laws, government and currency.
Never mind that the proposed libertarian experiment, supported by prominent free-enterprise supporters like the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, retired Chrysler President Al Sperlich and Clark Durant, co-founder of Detroit’s Cornerstone Schools, likely will go nowhere.
The sale of Belle Isle requires the approval of Mayor Dave Bing and Detroit City Council and neither would give the proposal a serious look. It’s also very unlikely the island could secede from Michigan.
Research Credit: latitude38
Shocker: House G.O.P. Agrees to Lift Debt Limit
January 19th, 2013Endless can kicking.
Via: New York Times:
Backing down from their hard-line stance, House Republicans said Friday that they would agree to lift the federal government’s statutory borrowing limit for three months, with a requirement that both chambers of Congress pass a budget in that time to clear the way for negotiations on long-term deficit reduction.
The Next Big Thing in Technocrack Pipes: Oculus Rift
January 19th, 2013Via: Tom’s Hardware:
“Holy $#!+,” I blurted after the Oculus Rift VR goggles were slapped on my face. It had nothing to do with the device’s physical aspect – the Oculus Rift was surprisingly light on my head despite its bulky appearance. I just didn’t expect to see what my eyes were sending to my brain, and everyone in the dark room laughed at my sudden outburst.
I would have said more, but I found myself a little speechless thereafter, lost wandering the streets of the Epic Citadel demo. I knew the experience would be awesomely cool, but I didn’t expect to still be talking about it a week later to everyone I know.
MacOS Logs All Downloads Regardless of Application
January 19th, 2013Via: OSXDaily:
Whether it’s for troubleshooting, personal interest, or forensics, the following command will show you everything that you’ve downloaded to a Mac regardless of the application that it came from…
…
For those who would rather not have an all-inclusive historical list of downloaded files, you can run the following command to delete the contents of the quarantine database:
sqlite3 ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices.QuarantineEventsV* ‘delete from LSQuarantineEvent’
You can run that individually, or place it into .bash_profile or .profile to clear the database automatically when a new terminal window is launched.
Thailand: Former Protest Leader Jailed for Gesturing About Censorship
January 18th, 2013Via: New York Times:
It has become almost routine in Thailand for judges to hand down jail sentences to those convicted of offending the country’s king. But an unusual ruling issued on Thursday appears to considerably broaden the interpretation of Thailand’s already restrictive lèse-majesté law.
In sentencing a former protest leader to two years in prison, a court ruled that the defendant was liable not only for what he said, but also for what he left unsaid.
The criminal court’s ruling said the defendant, Yossawarit Chuklom, had not specifically mentioned the king when he gave a speech in 2010 to a large group of people protesting the military-backed government then in power.
But by making a gesture of being muzzled — placing his hands over his mouth — Mr. Yossawarit had insinuated that he was talking about the king, the court ruled.
“Even though the defendant did not identify His Majesty the king directly,” the court ruled, Mr. Yossawarit’s speech “cannot be interpreted any other way.”
Ex-Treasurer of Spain’s PP Had €22m in Swiss Bank
January 18th, 2013Via: Irish Times:
The beleaguered government of Mariano Rajoy has been embarrassed by revelations that its party’s former treasurer had a bank account in Switzerland containing up to €22 million.
Luis Bárcenas held the treasury post in the conservative Partido Popular (PP) from 2008 until 2009, when he resigned because of an investigation into his part in a massive fraud network. He stepped down from the party in 2010. The inquiry into that case continues and information a Spanish judge has requested from Swiss authorities shows details of an account held under the politician’s name which coincides with the time he was managing the PP’s finances.
The data shows Mr Bárcenas kept an average of €15 million in the account, which was open between 2005 and 2009. In 2007 it contained just over €22 million.
Hearing Loss Partially Reversed in Noise-Damaged Ears of Mice
January 18th, 2013Via: Los Angeles Times:
Anyone who’s gone to too many rock concerts or worked with loud machinery for too long (or listened to too many kazillion-decibel advertisements at a movie theater) may eventually pay the price: hearing loss caused by damage to tiny, sound-transmitting cells in the inner ear.
Researchers now report they can regenerate some of these crucial “hair cells” in the inner ears of mice and restore noise-induced damage to some extent. It’s something that hearing scientists have been hoping for ages (though we will avoid using the term “holy grail”). The experiments, by Albert Edge of Harvard Medical School and his colleagues, were published in the Jan. 10 issue of the journal Neuron.
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The drug, which goes by the natty name of LY41175, allows other cells in the inner ear to change into hair cells. Normally, these cells are inhibited from making the switch. LY41175 releases that inhibition by interfering with the activity of a protein called Notch.
In mice with noise damage, scientists found putting the drug into the middle ear and allowing it to diffuse into the inner ear increased numbers of hair cells in parts of the inner ear and, in step with that, increased the rodents’ ability to detect sounds that matched up to those parts of the inner ear. The effects lasted for at least three months, the longest period of time that the scientists tested.
Research Credit: conceptualdecay
JPMorgan European Equity Sales Trader Candillier Dies at 37
January 18th, 2013Via: Bloomberg:
Thomas Candillier, the Paris-based head of European cash equity sales at JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), has died at the age of 37.
JPMorgan declined to comment on the cause of death. Candillier is survived by his wife and children.
Brian Marchiony, a JPMorgan spokesman in London, said Candillier will be “dearly missed.” The trader joined JPMorgan in 2001 after starting his financial career in energy derivative sales at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in 1999. Candillier, who rose in the ranks at JPMorgan’s cash equity sales unit in Europe, was educated at France’s ESSEC Business School, according to his LinkedIn profile.
White House Raises Petition Signature Threshold to 100K
January 18th, 2013Readers are pointing out that the article has the website wrong. The correct address is petitions.whitehouse.gov.
Via: Cnet:
Future petitions to the White House to build a Death Star, have Piers Morgan deported, or fire Aaron Swartz’s prosecutor will have to attract more support to merit the White House’s attention.
Beginning today, petitions filed on WhiteHouse.org’s We the People platform will need to log 100,000 signatures in 30 days to receive an official response from the Obama Administration, quadrupling the previous minimum of 25,000.
Fed Needs Seven Years to Deliver Germany’s 300 Tons of Gold
January 18th, 2013Via: ZeroHedge:
But the biggest news of the day comes from the official Buba announcement that, in its official capacity as a prudent central bank, it – as first of many – is looking to repatriate some 300 tons of gold from the New York Fed. That, however, is not today’s news – that was Monday’s news.
What is news is that courtesy of the supplied calendar of events in the Buba statement, it will take the Fed some seven years to procure Germany’s 300 tons of gold. This is the same Fed that, in its own words, holds some “216 million troy ounces of gold” or some 6720 tons, in its vault 80 feet below ground level.
Putting the above in perspective, the amount of gold that Germany will have to wait 7 years for is shown in red. The amount of gold the Fed supposedly holds, is shown in yellow with a shade of tungsten. Why it will take the Fed 7 years to part with an amount of gold that is less than 5% of its total holdings is anyone’s guess…
Research Credit: alvinroasting
