TSI August 2009 Newsletter
August Highlights
Awareness & Community
Fundraising & Administrative
This can be linked as http://seasteading.org/blogs/main/2009/08/31/tsi-august-2009-newsletter.
TSI Gets 501(c)3 Status From the IRS
After many months of waiting and a round of questions, we have finally received our Letter of Determination from the IRS confirming our non-profit status. Press Release here.
The Monday night cocktail reception will be at the residence of board member Peter Thiel in San Francisco, near the Palace of Fine Arts. The speaker schedule is pretty much finalized, new additions include classical architect Rodney Mims-Cook, anonymous political theory blogger Mencius Moldbug, lawyer Jorge Schmidt]. The conference will be videotaped. Unconference speaking slots are still available, so go sign up. The deadline for early registration for the conference is September 13th, at which point rates will increase, so register today. For more details on all these, see the Conference section of the newsletter.
Ticket purchases are rolling in, excitement is building, and people are starting to build their platforms! A great slew of grant applications for platforms and art has been rolling in this weekend, right before the deadline. We've got just a few short weeks until we get out there on the water and start, as a community, to take the first little baby steps towards seasteading.
Since our Membership Program was launched on April 15th, 62 pioneers have signed up! Please join them to support the long-term future of seasteading.
Ephemerisle:
The Ephemerisle Newsletter Issue 1 and Issue 2 are out. To get these regularly, subscribe to the Ephemerisle blog or announcements email list.
We think it would be a great bonding experience to have some sort of participatory activity as the climax of the event. If you have ideas, please read our criteria and examples, and add your own ideas on the wiki page!
View a video of the trailer floating on the platform below:
Camp Tipsy III: Trailer Platform from Dav Yaginuma on Vimeo.
Conference
As always, check back on the conference webpage for complete information.
August Misc
Press/Awareness
* 29 Chains To The Moon - The Seasteading Institute's Design Contest winners will be featured at the 29 Chains To The Moon: Artists' Schemes for a Fantastic Future.
Guest curated by Andrea Grover
Organized by Miller Gallery at Carnegie Mellon University>
Aug. 28 - Dec. 6, 2009
Sept. 11, Fri. 6-8pm: Reception
About the exhibit: In 1938, the visionary designer R.Buckminster Fuller wrote Nine Chains to the Moon, his radical proposal for improving the quality of life for all humankind via progressive design and maximization of the world’s finite resources. The title was a metaphor for cooperation–if all of humankind stood on each others’ shoulders we could complete nine chains to the moon. Today, the population of the planet has increased more than three times (we could now complete 29 chains to the moon), and the successful distribution of energy, food, and shelter to over 9 billion humans by 2050 requires some fantastic schemes. Like Fuller’s revelation from five decades earlier, 29 Chains to the Moon features artists who put forth radical proposals, from seasteads and micronations to floating cities, to make the world work for everyone.
Stats
Blogs:
Selected blog posts from August are linked below.
Writing intern Will Chamberlain has written almost 10,000 words of the first draft of the new version of the book, which will be typeset in LaTeX. We are targeting a full draft by the conference.
As noted above, we received our 501c3 status. Once we have hired a Director of Development, we will begin investigating and applying for grants.
We have an ongoing search for a Director of Development. We are offering a $1000 referral bonus.
TSI needs your help. We have some great ideas about how to advance the vision of seasteading, but our financial resources are limited. We can't depend on our single major donor forever, so we need to pull together as a community to independently fund important initiatives. Each of these projects will help us answer an important open question about seasteading, and the sooner we can get them funded, the sooner they can get started. The new projects are:
Oceanography Research | ||
Structure Research | ||
Residential ShipStead |