Standard Mischief

So have you ever fooled around with Google Maps, and wondered how far apart two different points are? I usually get a piece of scrap paper out and press it to the screen, make some marks and then klutz around with the scale. If you have two address, you can input them in and have Google route a path for you, but what if you don’t have an address? What if you wanted to take a different route, or you were on foot or in a boat?

Thankfully, Google made tools that let people integrate their map data into their own web applications. It’s called Google Maps API (application programming interface), and I’ve found a really handy killer app, Gmaps Pedometer.

It’s the same friendly Google interface you’re familiar with, except when you double click on the map (after you press “start recording”) it puts a point on the map. Put two or more on the page, and Gmaps Pedometer calculates the total distance. Click on the above picture to go to a sample page I made. It’s a hike from Dupont Circle to some place in Georgetown. Would hiking from Rossyln Metro station be any quicker? Try it and find out.

I’ve already wasted entirely too much time calculating exactly how far my regular walks are. You can actually zoom all the way in and trace a path on the sidewalk if you want.

There’s even a calorie counter included.

Although Logan Darrow Clements’ original idea of making supreme Justice Stouter’s private home into a hotel as just deserts and political theater for his vote on the Kelo v. New London eminent domain ruling failed, it looks like he hasn’t given up.

This time it’s an airport. It seems that any town in New Hampshire can seize land outside it’s boundaries if that land is going to be part of an airport. So all that has to happen is to get any one township in the state onboard to initiate the eminent domain proceedings.

To run the airport, he’s got a partner. Thor Solberg owns a private airport in Readington, N.J. that is currently being threatened by government takeover. He runs a hot air balloon festival every year out of his airport, but is apparently more than willing to relocate it to New Hampshire, if his current airport is bought out.

I’m of two minds about this. Although seeing anyone’s property taken for such a trifling reason such as a new shopping complex bothers me, if this is the kind of stunt it takes to get the government-critters to wake-up, it’s probably a worthy goal. Hell, it beats shooting the bastards.

Meanwhile, if Mr. Clements ultimate goal is to raise awareness of eminent domain abuse, he’s already succeeded.

Personally, I wonder if when my state low-balls everyone’s actual property value for the tax rolls, they aren’t really setting the stage for possible confiscation and compensation.

Although I can see how government may need to take property for the public good for purposes of building roads, bridges, military bases and such, I think that ?just compensation? ought to be at a premium above ?fair market value?, whenever there’s an involuntary forced sale. The extra public expense ought to work as a deterrent to abuse.

[Thanks Claire]

Logan Darrow Clements’ Freestar Media Page

Well, I didn’t find Song of the South, but a You-Tube user, “Most Offensive Video” has posted a number of interesting and historical cartoons. I recommend heading over there and taking a look before someone makes a stink over them, or You-Tube, with it’s 1999 era/slashdot-esque business plan [1] goes belly-up. Four samples are below:

DER FUEHRER’S FACE (1942)

The title tells you that this one has that song by Spike Jones. (BTW, I think Spike Jones was pretty ticked off when Viacom wanted to rename the TNN cable network “Spike TV.” [joke/]) This is very close to a cartoon I was shown in my 7th grade communications class, when we got to the “propaganda” part of the syllabus, except I think it was Donald dreaming he was working in the “workers paradise” instead of for Hitler’s war machine.

THE SPIRIT OF ‘43 (1943)

Donald duck stars in this WWII Propaganda cartoon. He dithers over the advise of two parts of his conscious. One, that sorta reminds me of Scrooge McDuck, argues that some money ought to be saved for those quarterly tax payments (you mean it wasn’t vacuumed right out of their paychecks back then?), while another alter-ego urges leisure spending. Enjoying the fruits of one’s labor is shown to be supporting the Nazis.

SOUTHERN FRIED RABBIT (1953)

Bugs Bunny in blackface. I remember this from my youth. I remember the Lincoln part, but I don’t remember the blackface part. The memory hole might be because the joke flew right over my head. Two commenters on You-Tube:

Just singing “Dixie” would be enough to get this banned today

and

I’ve seen this cartoon a million times since I was little, blackface and all. It’s not offensive, it is commenting on the time and American History as it actually occured..but hell, if we forget it ever happened, I guess we’re doomed to repeat it.

YOU’RE A SAP, MR. JAP (1942)

This is a sample of the propaganda put out during WW2. Popeye is in this one and the Nipponese stereotype is parodied. I think the goods Japan made that were flooding the US market preceding Pearl Harbor had a reputation for being as poor quality as China does nowadays (although the Chinese stuff keeps getting better).

The predator-drone-ish [2] part of me thinks that stuff like this is suppressed because a healthy dose of some of the WWII propaganda stuff with a knowledge of history might help people ?deprogram?, and notice some of the propaganda that’s out there today.

Footnotes:

[1] Such as:

1. Get a huge chunk of storage and bandwidth.
2. Create a really cool site where people upload your content for free and do the trendy social networking online thingy.
3. Don’t bother to sell ads or generate revenue, concentrate on getting market share. [3]
4. ????
5. Profit!

[2] You know, because ?Black Helicopters? are so very 1994.

[3] A last minute check turns up some evidence of doubleclick.net ads, but if you are not blocking doubleclick, you just ain’t even trying. I’d be very surprised if ads covered bandwidth costs.

Sorry, I’m a bit of a stickler for paperwork. Where would we be if we didn’t follow the correct procedures? -Sam Lowry, from Brazil (1985)

A librarian is in administrative trouble for demanding that the police actually follow procedure and get (gasp!) a warrant before she released private information about a patron to the police.

From the North Jersey Media Group website:

Reutty says she was only doing her job and maintaining the privacy of library patrons. But the mayor called it “a blatant disregard for the Police Department,” which needed her help to identify a man who allegedly threatened a child.

Read that again, “a blatant disregard for the Police Department”. Looks like she’s in some hot water:

Reutty, the director for 17 years, now faces possible discipline by the library board. Members of the Borough Council have suggested she receive punishment ranging from a letter of reprimand in her personnel file to a 30-day unpaid suspension. But the Library Board of Trustees said it would reserve judgment until a closed-door hearing next month.

Police received a report May 10 that a 12-year-old borough girl was allegedly sexually threatened by a man outside the municipal building. The library is on the second floor. The girl told her parents, who called police.

…

The girl told police the man was carrying a library book with a certain title. The next day, borough police detectives asked Reutty to tell them who took out that book.

Reutty said she refused to give the information to police without a subpoena — in accordance with New Jersey state statutes governing access of private information from libraries, she said.

So she was insisting that the police get a warrant before releasing personal data. She insisted that the police also follow the law. Shame on her for not licking the boots of the state.

Police came back with a subpoena later that day. Reutty conducted the search and told police she could not find a book with that title.

So, police asked her to show them all the records of everyone who took out or renewed a book for the previous 10 days. Reutty asked for another subpoena because those records are computerized and not kept at the library.

Here’s where we get a little borderline. There was likely a small mix-up, probably in the exact title of the book. Perhaps there was a choice made by Ms. Reutty to not be as flexible based on the pressure previously placed on her to break the law by the police. I might have felt the same way. Perhaps the curiously unnamed officer that pressured Michele Reutty needs to work on some people-skills. Regardless, she refused.

So, police asked her to show them all the records of everyone who took out or renewed a book for the previous 10 days. Reutty asked for another subpoena because those records are computerized and not kept at the library.

On May 12, Reutty said, she complied with the second subpoena — which required a special computer program by the Bergen County Cooperative Library System. Police found the information right away, which helped them to identify the suspect, according to Colaneri.

But borough officials say Reutty intentionally stonewalled the police investigation by putting the library first.

Err, or the Constitution, or patron’s privacy rights, or whatever.

They also charged that she did not follow procedure by contacting the borough’s attorney when she received the subpoena. Instead, she called a lawyer from the state library association.

Whoops, she got herself legal advice from the non-bootlicking lawyer.

The whole episode is “shocking,” Reutty said Wednesday. “I followed the law. And because I followed the law, at the end of the day, the policemen’s case is going to hold strong. Nobody is going to sue the library and nobody is going to sue the municipality of Hasbrouck Heights because information was given out illegally.”

The exclusionary rule, it’s there for a reason.

Thank you Michele Reutty.

[via hack-a-day]

Here’s something neat. Using the sound of an air pellet passing through a sheet of paper, a few microphones, a PC with a soundcard, and Audacity, (an open source, cross platform sound program), someone came up with a pretty dandy airgun chronograph.

I wonder if I could adapt this for centerfire firearms?