Feb

Sealand

Posted by Catfish as Tech, survival

I’d never heard of Sealand before. The name makes it sound like some sort of Sea World theme park rip off, but in reality it is an old WWII gun platform about 8 miles off the coast of England that was purchased by an individual who successfully had Sealand declared a sovereign Principality. First, watch this video that will catch you up to speed on the saga of Sealand.

And with the last words of the video we learn it is up for sale! Imagine just what could be done if the right individual or group were to purchase Sealand…well, that’s exactly what the Pirate Bay, the internet based torrent portal that has been engaged in various efforts to promote file sharing, and the technology that enables it, plans to do.

Pirate Bay to buy country
January 12, 2007
Andrew Craig

Pirate Notorious file-sharing site The Pirate Bay is planning to buy its own country and turn it into a copyright-free piracy paradise.
Currently based in Sweden, The Pirate Bay uses BitTorrent technology to let visitors share videos, games, software and music - mostly without each work’s copyright holder’s permission.
The Pirate Bay remains defiant
The Pirate Bay accuses police
This week it launched Buy Sealand, a campaign to buy the former World War 2 gun platform now known as the Principality of Sealand, located six miles from the UK coast.
The island is reportedly for sale after its infrastructure was badly damaged by fire in summer 2006.
The Pirate Bay plans to fund the £100 million sale through donations from users who will automatically become citizens of the principality.
“It should be a great place for everybody, with high-speed Internets [sic] access, no copyright laws and VIP accounts to The Pirate Bay,” the group said in a statement on the buysealand.com website.
If the bid for Sealand fails, The Pirate Bay plans to look elsewhere. “We will try to buy another small island somwhere [sic] and claim it as our own country,” it stated.
The Pirate Bay is under pressure from the US government, and was raided by Swedish police last year. However attempts to close the site have so far failed.
www.buysealand.com
www.sealandgov.org

(link)

I want to donate! I want to be a citizen! I will buy a house boat and float on out there, drop anchor, and take up a new swarthy residence at sea. It’s sad that the world we live in only provides freedom int he middle of the ocean on and old gun turret. But, at least there at least this one speck of hope left for the future.

1 Comment »

Feb

Global Dimming

Posted by Catfish as enviornment, science, survival

It turns out we aren’t dealing with global warming, but also with global dimming. Wikipedia defines “global dimming” as follows:

Global dimming is the gradual reduction in the amount of global direct irradiance at the Earth’s surface that was observed for several decades after the start of systematic measurements in 1950s. It is thought to have been caused by an increase in particulates such as sulfur aerosols in the atmosphere due to human action. The effect varies by location, but worldwide it has been estimated to be of the order of a 4% reduction over the three decades from 1960-1990. The trend reversed during the past decade. Global dimming has interfered with the hydrological cycle by reducing evaporation and may have caused droughts in some areas. Global dimming also creates a cooling effect that may have partially masked the effect of greenhouse gases on global warming.

This video is scary but we need to know.

1 Comment »

Feb

Human Electric Hybrid Vehicle

Posted by Catfish as Tech, enviornment, robotics, science, survival, videos

This video is narrated by an almost sultry speak and spell female voice synthesizer. In concept I love the idea behind these vehicles, but if they look like that no one’s gonna want them. Make the technology that is going to save the world sexy, and it probably will save the world.