The Seasteading Institute

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/03/09/floating.cities.seasteading/index.html

This is embarrassing. "City floating on the sea could be just 3 years away... Cermelli, who is part of a team of designers creating a blueprint for the first seastead, said it's unclear if construction is possible -- or what it would cost. Still, a prototype for the idea may be finished in as little as three years, he said."

In other words, "It could be real within three years, but we have so little idea of what we're doing, we have no idea how." By the same token you could say you "could" have flying cities in three years.

Lesson: Don't encourage the media to make claims you're not ready to back up.

Spotted: Two interesting pictures, here and here, showing a futuristic sea platform.

As the weather turns warmer, it's time to have some fun with our socials. Fabulous TSI volunteer Na'ama Moran has graciously agreed to host a BBQ party for our June meetup, so come out, grill yourself some burgers and chat about seasteading.

We'll have some grilling stuff on hand, but please bring anything in particular you'd like to grill/eat. We'll also have a display of the recent seasteading design contest winners, and we'll be doing a Q&A about some of TSI's new initiatives like Cruise Ship Condos, the Grant Program, Ephemerisle and more.

This will be a great social to introduce new people to the ideas and ideals of TSI, so bring your friends! We look forward to seeing all of you soon. If you plan to attend, please RSVP on our meetup page.

Many of you on the mailing list will already have seen this, but The Seasteading Institute officially turns 1-year old today.

Happy Birthday To Us,
Happy Birthday To Us,
Happy Birthday Dear TSI,
Happy Birthday To Us!

In celebration of our first year, we have announced our new membership program. I hope that some of our supporters will sign up to be members, it's a great way to lend your support to the organization.

We've also released our Annual Report, which is a detailed view of our first year and a peek at our plans for the future, along with a financial statement from an independent accounting firm. If you're interested in more specific details on our future plans, we've also made our Organizational Strategy Document available to the public. This document is designed to grow with the organization, we hope our community will give us their thoughts on our strategy and help us continue its evolution.

Thanks to all who made it out to the February Social! Always good to get together with our fellow seasteaders and have some good conversation.

For our next social, we're looking to possibly use an East Bay location (we like to move them around a bit, so that people from different areas have an easier time getting to the events). If anyone has a suggestion for a good location that's convenient to public transit and not too crowded, please let me know. Private residences are a possibility if someone would be interested in hosting.

Thanks!

Slashdot highlighted a concept for turning oil rigs into "eco-resorts." The article itself is fluff with neat concept art.

I'd be all for it, for the sake of promoting seasteading and developing technology.

I know how much everyone likes answering questions, so we've dreamed up some new ones! We're in the early planning stages for both the 2009 Conference and Ephemerisle, and we could use some feedback from people who are planning to or considering attending on dates. We've got a survey set up on SurveyMonkey, so please take a moment to fill it out and give us your opinions.

Thanks!

If you haven't seen it yet, be sure to RSVP for the February Social at Red Rock Cafe in Mountain View.

Full details available on our Meetup Page.

We're planning our next social, and we would really appreciate some feedback from those of you who have, or are planning on attending socials. I've constructed a quick poll on Survey Monkey (not using LJ poll so that non-LJ people can still fill it out), it's just four questions, so if you have a moment, please give us your thoughts!

Thanks to all of you who made it out to the social last night! I had a really interesting time talking to many of you, and to anybody I missed I hope to get more of a chance to chat at the next one. We'll be announcing our next social sometime soon, so if you have any feedback on venue or anything else, please let us know.

Also, if you were at the social and are active here on LJ, say hi, it's nice to connect names and faces to usernames.

Sci-fi author David Brin has a new story called "Shoresteading," available for free at Baen's Universe.

Brin is already known for his novel "Earth," which includes a "Sea State" and seabed mining, not to mention his dolphin-themed Uplift series. (Skip "Sundiver.") His dolphin-uplift short story "The Aficionado," aka. "Life In the Extreme," is available on his site.

Our January social is tomorrow night, at Jillian's in San Francisco. If you're local, we hope you'll come out. We'll have copies of the Wired article, and Jillian's is a great place for a drink, some pool and video games. Come and meet your fellow seasteaders!

In case you haven't seen it yet, the February edition of Wired Magazine has a great piece on The Seasteading Institute. Take a look and tell your friends!

As we expand our online outreach, TSI needs some feedback on the best way to stay in contact with all of our wonderful supporters. Please take a quick minute to fill out this poll, your help is greatly appreciated!

Poll #1326582 TSI Contact Poll
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Which sites do you use regularly?

How would you prefer to receive TSI updates?

Do you use Google Calendar?

What best describes your level of involvement in TSI?

Thanks for taking the time. If you have any further feedback or questions, please comment!

Happy New Year! We here at The Seasteading Institute have been working hard over the holidays to ensure that future years have more hope and possibility for innovative societies than past ones. Here's what we did in December:

( Read more... )

If you're a local, or will be in the San Francisco on January 27th, please join us for our first TSI social of 2009!

We hope to get a good bunch of people out to this event. We'll be meeting at Jillian's in the Metreon, so the event will mostly be focused around socializing and playing games.

If you're interested in joining us, you can get all the details at our meetup page.

Welcome to the newly opened Seasteading community on livejournal. This community is designed for people who want to keep up with seasteading news and information, discuss the possibilities that seasteading provides, and explore alternative forms of government. We welcome people to join this community whether they're already dreaming of a seastead of their own, just starting to get curious about the idea, or merely interested in spectating and participating in the discussion.

Members of all kinds are encouraged to participate, we know that seasteading attracts people from all different backgrounds and we ask only that you are courteous in your discourse. Our aim is to discuss and debate the world of seasteading and that is impossible without dissenting opinions. We look forward to hearing from skeptics and cheerleaders alike.