Sadly the camera never quite captures the reality.
Why do people refuse to learn from history???
Some feller name of Dave Hall has a bucket of cash and a dream: to build planned utopian town-like properties based on some “vision” that Mormon church founder Joseph Smith imagined nearly 200 years ago. These would be square “plats,” with a square “ring wall” made up of buildings with farm-like area in the middle, and surrounded by a narrow bit of “nature.”
Hal wants to build a thousand of these sites in Vermont, moving 20 million people into a state with a current population well under one million. Oddly enough, the people in the area where he’s buying up property have a problem with this.
Some of the “features” of this planned community:
each person will be allotted just 200 square feet of living space
No.
A plat, says Hall, will be subject to state and regional laws, but will also be overseen by a board and hierarchies of leaders with, it appears, strong Mormon family values. “Each [multi-family] house has house captains, which are a team of one man and one woman,”
NO.
Families and individuals who wish to join must invest their net worth and be employed either outside the communities or by a NewVistas company, or Vista Biz. Those who start Vista Bizzes will be given startup funds by the community but must surrender their IP rights. They also must agree to put nearly all their profits back into the community in exchange for what Hall calls “dividends”—payouts from overall wealth earned by the plat businesses.
AW HELL NO.
To make all this work, some as-yet unavailable or generally unused technologies are needed. Robots that rearrange your furniture. Storage containers that rise us out of the floor. Small elevators. Toilets with built-in medical tricorders. But over all of this is the fact that since the basic plan of this “plat” was produced by Joseph Smith, it thus has the taint of prophesy and divine inspiration. And we’ve all seen how successful communities built on religious ideas can be.
The goofiest notion of all is that he’s buying up properties that are already happily occupied. Why not set up shop where people *aren’t*? I’m sure Detroit has some room for something like this. The Midwest has *single* farms bigger than his whole planned community. So why build right where you know you’re going to annoy the locals by changing *their* environment?
All that said… there’s something about this idea that makes me nervous in a very real sense. Not about the “plats” themselves… if they are roaring successes or the first generation born there tears the place apart during Festival, I don’t really care as such. But what does this sort of thing say about space colonies?
Initial small colonies – say, a few dozen people on Mars – will be run like military establishments. They’ll pretty much have to be. But what about town-sized orbital habitats? Here, the territory is strictly limited. An inhabitants options will necessarily be somewhat limited… a good terrorist could shut off the sun or evacuate all the air. So will such settlements need to be run in the soul-crushing collectivist manner suggested for the “plats?” A horrifying thought.
This is sad, but not altogether surprising:
On its third test flight it took off normally, but suddenly banked to the left and crashed nose-first. The Bugatti 100p was a remarkable design… and remarkable designs have a history of being rather finicky.
As yet no news on the cause. But given that there were likely a number of cameras operating on the aircraft, and numerous cameras on chase aircraft and hand-held by ground observers, the cause probably won’t stay a mystery.
The third flight was apparently to be the last. After this it was to go to a museum in Britain.
Probably nothing here really new to anyone, but it’s still a good reminder that every now and again people think big. A Flickr collection of color concept art from the 1970s illustrating NASA-Ames ideas for space colonies.
About two months ago I mentioned this monster collection of 20 Blue Rays, scheduled to be released in early September. At the time the price had not yet been announced. I just wandered on over to Amazon and checked it out, and it is now available for pre-order… for a bit more than I’d hoped: $208.99.
If that’s a bit much, there are a few other options on Amazon. The three seasons of the original series are available on Blu-Ray for about $60. The movies (1 through 6) are available used from $40 to $60. The animated series doesn’t seem to be available on Blu-Ray, though.
If you’re going to get this, feel free to buy it through the links above… if you do so, a small smidgeon of a royalty makes it back to me. Similarly with the Amazon search box, anything bought after using the search box on my site sends a pittance to my account.
Finally coming out in October. Pre-order at Amazon for $29.95.
It is by modern standards a goofy flick, very much an early 1950’s Hollywood movie. But never mind the characters or the plot… the beauty of “SAC” has always been the footage of the aircraft, the B-36 and B-47. Should look spectacular in hi def.
The past couple days have been reasonably apocalyptic out here in rural Utah. A wildfire broke out Wednesday morning west of Plymouth, Utah (last I heard it was “human caused,” but no definition further than that), maybe twenty or so miles north of here. As Wednesday progressed I watched the plume of smoke get bigger and bigger, until later in the afternoon I drove off to go take a look. After nightfall the smoke cloud continued to progress, so that by Thursday 6:30 AM I woke up not being able to see my neighbors house. The wind shifted a bit and the air cleared some, but the smell of fire remains. This has done my lungs no good. So far, at least, no bronchitis has yet broken out, but wow do I have a headache.
I’ve taken a number of photos that might be of interest.
Two photos taken early 8/5 showing how a light down the way is scattered off the junk in the air. It’s got that “starry wisdom/gateway to somewhere you don’t want there to be a gateway to” look going on.
Early 8/4, low smoke cloud to the north lit by the fire.
Early 8/5, smoke cloud to the north and a light plume from lights illuminating a flag pole:
Panorama on the evening of 8/3 showing the smoke cloud working its way south
Panorama early 8/4
Panorama early 8/4 showing smoke cloud lit by fire
Evening 8/4, near Plymouth
Evening 8/3 showing smoke cloud to the north
Afternoon 8/3 near Plymouth