The coldest winter I ever spent
Archive for 2008
I just set up the video sitemap feature of the terrific WordPress plugin FLV Embed. With it, you and search engines can now find all the videos on my site by going to http://lee.org/blog/videofeed.xml.
Enjoy
PS, I’m a frog.
And dispair a little for getting the joke
Coreyfro and I will be making a 10 minute presentation about SWARM at the Burning Man Desert Arts Preview. Our presentation will be at 9:45 p.m. They might stream the video on the Burning Man web site but I don’t have any more information about that.
Here is the schedule…
Burning Man
2008 Desert Arts Preview
Thursday, July 17th
Burning Man Headquarters
1900 3rd St. @ 16th, San Francisco, CA
Masters of Ceremonies: $teven Ra$pa and Bettie June
6:30-7:00 Wine reception
7:00-7:15 Welcome & Overview of Burning Man 2008 Theme and Artist Grants by LadyBee and Beth Scarborough
7:20-7:30 Mike Thielvoldt and Lira Filippini — Lepidodgera
7:35-7:45 Michael Emery — You Are All So Many Of Me
7:50-8:00 Gene Cooper — Heart of Burning Man
8:05-8:15 Jared Gallardo — The Amazing Jellyfish From The Year 12,000
8:20-8:30 Philip Raiser — Babylon
8:35-8:45 Dadara — Checkpoint Dreamyourtopia
8:50-9:10 Intermission
9:15-9:25 Crimson Rose — Black Rock Arts Foundation
9:30-9:40 False Profit Labs — Pyrocardium and the Hydrogen Economy
9:45-9:55 SWARM — Lee Sonko and Coreyfro
10:00-10:10 Flaming Lotus Girls — Mutopia
10:15-10:25 TuckerTeutsch — Basura Sagrada
10:30-10:40 Questions and Answers
If your hard drive has crashed hard, IE your computer burned up in a house fire, then DriveSavers are the people to call. They are crazy expensive but they are the only company I know of that can recover a hard drive that was burned in a fire, drowned in a flood or run over by a truck. They might charge $2,500 to recover the contents of a hard drive. But they work very fast and they are very good. They have saved many businesses from disaster.
I have a $500 discount coupon off a hard-drive recovery. I will happily split the coupon with you. You send me $250 and I will mail you the coupon. If they can’t recover your hard drive, they don’t charge you. I will do the same, refunding the $250.
Sorry, this coupon expired on 12-31-08. But you can still save some money just by mentioning my reseller number, see below.
In addition, I am an authorized Drivesavers reseller, when you call them, tell them about the $500 coupon AND give them my reseller number, DS14221. That will give you a 10% discount on your order!
You can reach DriveSavers at 800-440-1904. You can reach me at 
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The Washington DC handgun ban was repealed by the US Supreme Court on June 26, 2008. Here is the ruling: (local) Supreme Court Ruling on the Washington DC handgun ban
Short Form: DC made laws making it impossible for anyone to keep or bear (own or carry…) a handgun in the city. And everyone knows how effective that has been (IE “murder capital of the United States”). A police officer wanted to keep a gun in his home so he sued for the right. He won in a 5-4 split decision in the Supreme Court.
For all you Second Amendment nay-sayers, the very first statement made on page 1 is this:
Held:
1. The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a
firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for
traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.
There is a good bit of discussion and clarification about the wording of the Second Amendment starting at the end of page 2. If there are any questions about it, I recomend you read it.
Some excerpts (this is non-inclusive, I recommend you read the whole thing)
Some have made the argument, bordering on the frivolous,
that only those arms in existence in the 18th century
are protected by the Second Amendment. We do not interpret
constitutional rights that way.
.
In numerous instances,
“bear arms” was unambiguously used to refer to
the carrying of weapons outside of an organized militia.
.
The phrase “bear Arms” also had at the time of the
founding an idiomatic meaning that was significantly
different from its natural meaning: “to serve as a soldier,
After this decision, there have been a flurry of lawsuits. One of which is in San Francisco. Take a look.
Travis wrote about the Pink Pistols last week. The news story that he quoted and my comment bears repeating here:
SAN FRANCISCO – The National Rifle Association sued the city of San Francisco on Friday to overturn its ban on handguns in public housing, a day after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a handgun ban in the nation’s capital.
The legal action follows a similar lawsuit against the city of Chicago over its handgun ban, filed within hours of Thursday’s high court ruling.
In San Francisco, the NRA was joined by the Washington state-based Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms and a gun owner who lives in the city’s Valencia Gardens housing project.
The gun owner, who is gay, says he keeps the weapon to defend himself from “sexual orientation hate crimes.” He was not identified in the complaint because he said he fears retaliation.
Mayor Gavin Newsom said the city will “vigorously fight the NRA” and defended the ban as good for public safety.
“Is there anyone out there who really believes that we need more guns in public housing?” Newsom said.
Mu.
I really believe that there should be no such thing as “public housing”.
The very phrase is a perversion – an abomination in two words like “poisoned icecream” or “abandoned dog”.
(my comment)
# Lee Says: June 28th, 2008 at 6:08 pm Quote
Putting aside the “public housing” question, I think that the best argument to eliminate the public housing ban are Newsom’s words, “Is there anyone out there who really believes that we need more guns in public housing?”
To reword, “I know that illegal handgun possession is rampant in public housing. We don’t regularly enforce the public housing handgun ban. We would rather there -only- be illegal handguns in public housing.”
On 3 of the last 3 nights I’ve been in Hunters Point (at The Box Shop art space), I’ve heard gun shots coming from the projects. While firing a weapon in San Francisco without cause is illegal, no police ever showed up.
I’ll look into getting behind this Pink Pistols initiative.
Saw WALL-E with Charlotte Friday night. Very enjoyable. Reminds me of Charlie Chaplin. :-)
I have been talking with the person who wrote “The Best Thing I Read All Day“. the project that he is working on is pretty sweet. From Sasha:
Here is our artcar project this year: http://urbanabsurd.com/reelmobile2008/ (don’t miss the “night view” :)) and the previous one, “dust2music”, several years ago: http://www.urbanachiever.com/gallery/Burning-Man-2005/aav
Trainspotting was this train station I made – http://www.urbanachiever.com/gallery/Burning-Man-2005/aaw – with sound, light and motions from the passing “phantom” trains – when the batteries that ran the whole thing were fresh, that is, which unfortunately was far from 24/7. That was my tiny BM claim to fame that was burned – apart from the laptop and the lamp with the servos that swang it – at the end.
http://www.urbanachiever.com/gallery/SashaBM2005/abqThe truck burned too – the engine ignited on the freeway – http://www.flickr.com/photos/maximbo/739460049/ – and we all took a break from BM last year, for the first time since 2000, to “mourn”.
P.S. Btw, I found this – http://lee.org/blog/2008/06/05/san-francisco-rent-strike – particularly, I guess, encouraging and refreshing? — since the views on topics like this by the majority of SF (or Berkeley, etc.) BM attendees are depressing to even think about.
Want to learn about Copyright Law? Read this: (local copy)
Copyright Law Second Edition by Robert Gorman
I found it at the Federal Judicial Center.