Kyle, I think what Chad is saying is that the amendment provides for ‘public use’ and not ‘public benefit’, which was what the 1832 judgement seemed to change to. Public benefit being more broad in scope than public use.

Yes, that’s exactly what I meant. I can certainly understand Kyle’s point, though — and his reaction.

JMB (welcome to the site), I’m not sure I understand exactly what you’re asking, can you clarify your question a bit?

I don’t think the court of 1832 could have imagined local government profiting privately from the rape and pillage of already privately held land. If somebody came to tear my house down to put in condos they’d have a second amendment issue on their hands, not a fifth.

There’s a lot of issues involved between protecting kids from their parents poor choices vs not infringing upon the freedoms of the parents and the kids. Some of that level of processing should be happening at the community voting level. Part of the problem there is making sure that the majority doesn’t impose it’s morality and choices on the few.

Oh, and I’ve been petitioning the wife to let me sign Jake up for Judo classes for ages… though he may need MMA just to defend himself from his baby sister.

I think this is a vast oversimplification of a lot of sociological, parenting, community and democratic issues. If grown men want to play Fight Club in their basement that’s one thing. I think encouraging five year olds to beat each other mercilessly is repulsive – but I defend the parents’ right to do it.

So, when are you signing Jake up for MMA?

Another problem I have is that we have an impossibly small pantry door on a full sized pantry. 30″ closet, 18″ door. You can never find anything that’s not right up front, so we waste a lot of food, and since we never seem to have the right thing at the right time we eat more poorly.

Aubrey rarely cooks (I love to cook, but I love to cook what I love to eat, which means heavy sauces, meat and starches). I know it’s an uphill battle from here but it’s one I need to wage.

Get rid of that food, man! Donate it if you can, otherwise toss it. Start fresh.

Wow.

Such a bright young man.

That’s pretty non-obvious, and is a way that some people turn a profit without even realizing that’s what they were doing.

It’s kind of hit-or-miss, of course, when you get that far into the “non-obvious”.

I remember you recently linked to something at SOB, too. Off the top of my head, I don’t recall what. Perhaps the bit about insomnia.

I seem to have some of the width of knowledge plus depth of interest problem, too. I tend to be excellent at learning principles quickly, and bad at finding time to learn the practical skills to go with the principles except when I find myself in the midst of a project that requires them. Then, of course, it’s time for cramming.

I’m working on rectifying that, though. For instance, I should be tackling *The Ruby Way* in the near future, and I plan to complete it cover to cover in a fairly short period of time, during which I hope to be writing more Ruby code more quickly than ever before in my life, followed by a refamiliarization with C via *Practical C Programming* and the K&R book, finally followed by a language-agnostic textbook I’ve acquired on the cheap called *Simple Program Design* — all in a manner of just a few months. After that, I’ll surely need a break from the dedicated cramming, to practice and let it sink in.

I did something similar in end 2006 and beginning 2007, getting through three Perl books in short order — which basically just cemented what I already knew, but it was a “cementing” that I needed. The upcoming months-long cramming will be complicated by the fact that I have to keep up my professional writing and security-related reading at the same pace as I have been, however, which is a tighter schedule for these pursuits than I dealt with during my Perl cramming.

It’ll be challenging — but also probably a lot of fun, at least until I get to *Simple Program Design* (the only book on the above list about which I’ve heard *nothing* with regard to its quality).

I’ve tried organizing some autodidactic “study group” projects of sorts via the Internet to help me keep up with cramming projects in the past, but the tendency of people to flake out in the middle has served to hinder me more than help. So much for a “best of both worlds” (the “self-taught” and “classroom” worlds) approach.

Best of luck to you in your own pursuit of knowledge. Please share any deep secrets of learnin’ you pick up along the way.

Also, factor in that about half of those miles are driven in SUVs and trucks… no wonder you can’t see downtown for the smog.

Part of the point I didn’t make in my original post up there was that my problem with my 7-4 schedule right now is that I have to get up so early that I can’t stay up late and code/write/zone. If I can really find a way to transmit that mode of work into another time and place than my old “usual” of midnight to 2 AM in the recliner with my laptop THEN I’ll be golden.

Regarding your statement that “This is one of those articles it’s good for loved ones to read so they have a little better understanding of how we (or at least our minds) work,” I think the same can be said of Sterling Camden’s article “Six steps to productivity and getting tasks completed” at TechRepublic (in addition to being my friend and a fellow hacker, he’s a writing colleague of mine at TR):

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/project-management/?p=193

I linked to it from my essay “insomnia and productivity” with the words “geek productivity”, but it’s of course possible you didn’t get around to following the link. If so, I recommend you do so — when I first read that article, my first thought was that it’s exactly the sort of thing that girlfriends/boyfriends and wives/husbands should often get a chance to read, to better understand us and our habits.

Thanks for reading “insomnia and productivity”, and for the kind words about it. I hope you’ll stick around SOB and read more in the future. Now that I know your weblog exists, I think I’ll poke around a bit and see what I find of interest.