Further to Debbie's #80, Rich Wales has a very good overview of dual nationality in US law.
I've had both US and Irish citizenship for over a decade now; both passports have been renewed since then. For the US passport, I simply included a signed statement affirming that I did not intend to renounce my US citizenship and that I had continued to reside, vote, and pay taxes in the US since that date. (The process I went through didn't require a renunciatory oath, though even if it had the US wouldn't recognize that alone as a renunciation.)
Looking back to Debbie's #38: are there any other EU countries you could more easily get citizenship in? Many of them, including Ireland, allow dual nationality.
albatross (#64): There's the attack on the USS Cole, for example, though security procedures when in port are much more stringent now than they were then.
candle (#8, was #7 before mod release): if the law in Florida truly does require hospitals to ignore legal power of attorney documents then the law is in violation of Art. 1, Sec. 10 of the US Constitution:"No State shall [...] pass any [...] Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts".
Despite what the "social worker" said (scare quotes because I certainly hope that there's a professional code of ethics with some teeth to it that may be applied here), I find it very hard to believe that Florida law could do so.
eric (#807): Indeed. One of my finely-honed sysadmin skills is the ability to very quickly find the details I'm looking for in a man page.
After umpty-mumble years and a similar number of Unix variants, you get really good at checking what version of a utility you have and what arguments it takes.
The classic example is the difference between the Solaris killall and the Linux killall.
For those who haven't encountered the difference: Linux killall takes an argument that's used as a match pattern for processes to kill (killall dhcpd); Solaris killall ignores the argument and kills all the processes it can.
The Linux man page for killall notes: "Be warned that typing killall name may not have the desired effect on non-Linux systems, especially when done by a privileged user." This is an understatement.
abi (#362): there's always the "Mac Box Set" which includes iLife (Garageband et al), iWork (Keynote/Pages/Numbers), and the latest Mac OS X...for about US$11 more than the OS alone would normally be. (Significantly higher this time since 10.6 is US$29, though.)
Once you have Garageband you can create a "ringtone" project which lets you select a 40 sec or less loop, then just use the "Send ringtone to iTunes" menu item.
Wesley (#63) notes the Eastern State Penitentiary.
A few years ago I was visiting Philadelphia. To get into Independence Hall I had to submit to metal detectors and bag X-rays. To get near the Liberty Bell I had to submit to metal detectors and bag X-rays. To get into the National Constitution Center I had to submit to a hand search of my bag.
To get into Eastern State Penitentiary, I just had to pay the admission charge and walk in.
Ah, the shrines of freedom.
Rob Hansen (#12): maybe they could count as 3/5ths of a person instead....
Massachusetts has amended its constitution to remove rights exactly once. (We managed to avoid doing so WRT same-sex marriage.) In 2000, a vote passed removing the right to vote from prisoners.
Ten years ago, September 11th was a Saturday...and with a cheap weekend fare, a good day to be visiting NYC from Boston. A CityPass meant we had various tickets that we wouldn't necessarily have paid full price for, so we hit a few extra tourist sites that weekend, including the observation decks of both the WTC and Empire State Building.
The view from the World Trade Center's observation deck on September 11, 1999 looked something like this.
The next day, the view from the Empire State Building's deck looking south.
That's the New York City I want to remember in September.
OtterB (#604): of course not!
If you have that many books there's no bare wall space, and who wants to get their books all bloody?
P J Evans (#798): Then there's the most likely apocryphal story of the soldiers recently transferred to Germany. They go out for a drive, get lost, and call back to the post for help.
"We're lost. How do we get back?"
"Where are you?"
"We're on Einbahnstrasse in the town of Ausfahrt."
(Bar Jnl Fgerrg va gur gbja bs Rkvg.)
Michael I (#134): King Bhumibol was, incidentally, born in the US (though I don't think anyone has asked him to show his birth certificate, there being a distinct lack of "birthers" in Thailand).
KeithS (#672): The Return of Captain Invincible was in 1983, was not (TTBOMK) ever a Broadway musical, and is definitely a musical.
In fact, it's a musical superhero movie, with Alan Arkin in the lead role (and Christopher Lee as the supervillain, because, well, Christopher Lee.)
It's utterly cracktastic, and I should bring a copy to the next Fluorospherian Gathering just to see the look on everyone's faces....
These are wonderful! For the panels I attended, they're great reminders; for the ones I missed, great summations. Thanks. (I'm also flattered that I managed to get a quote in, given how much good stuff Jo and Robert had to say during that panel.)
As I belatedly catch up on this thread...
Andrew Plotkin (#96): The sad part is that I picked the 1805 flight so that if something happened, I'd have a backup option in the 2000 flight!
I did, as my LJ entries noted, get a chance to continue the convention at the Holiday Inn, in a small way. (Before my flight was cancelled, I saw ML's own Kathryn from Sunnyvale as she headed off to her own flight, which apparently did depart....)
Since I'm flying up, I am probably not going to have as much room for game-bringing as I'd like. At this point my tentative priorities are Race for the Galaxy (with both expansions), and Battlestar Galactica (if I have room, or can get someone who's driving up from Boston to play courier for me). I'm definitely bringing Wizard, because there's always room for Wizard.
(Any requests? A partial list is on BGG.)
Patrick (#96): Teresa [...] rates Montreal as significantly less challenging than [...] Boston
It'd have to be; as Cally says, they have street signs in Montreal!
Chris Quinones (#9): If only we could get Mike Ford to attend the Krugman/Stross discussion.
I'm really looking forward[1] to Worldcon; there's so much good stuff on the schedule.
[1] (Overused pun carefully not made.)
Patrick has it nailed in #14: this stuff is way too complicated right now, unless you're willing to stay within a single walled garden (like the Kindle), and that's hurting everyone. The nearest equivalent to the MP3 format seems to be ePub, inasmuch as that's the direction that the various reader software and hardware seems to be moving in...yet it's far from universally supported the way MP3 is on pretty much any media player from the cheapest no-names up to high-end iPods.
The eBabel problem (as the TeleRead blog folks call it) is only made worse by DRM, of course.
Ken Brown (#15): I've seen a Bluetooth "virtual keyboard" that projects a keyboard image onto a flat surface. The key-feel is obviously nonexistent (and the CNET review was not exactly complimentary), but at least it'd fit in a pocket when you weren't using it. (Also, the iPhone/iPod touch don't have Bluetooth keyboard drivers yet.)
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