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Dale has some sad news about the Shipyard in Berkeley, home to many many maker projects, he writes -
The Shipyard in Berkeley, a collection of shipping containers and a collective for artists and tinkerers, was given three days by the city of Berkeley to "vacate and abate" or face fines of $2500/day. The Shipyard has a history of conflicts with the city of Berkeley, such that the city denied them access to the electrical grid. In response, The Shipyard's Jim Mason designed a solar power system so that The Shipyard produced all the energy it consumed. Now, it appears the conflict has come to a sad end with the city of Berkeley forcing the Shipyard to move out now. This is a blow to the unique maker culture of the Bay Area as well as the Burning Man community......It doesn't make sense for the city of Berkeley to kick out a group of creative, resourceful people that they should be welcoming as such a great asset to the community. All of us at Make will be following this situation closely and doing whatever we can to support Jim and The Shipyard.
O'Reilly Radar > Save The Shipyard - Link.
That is really sad, i hope that Berkley will change their mind soon. The place should be an asset to Berkley.
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Every time I hear a story about someone getting pushed around by the city of Berkeley, I think, "well what did they expect." Sounds cynical, but if you don't want town hall all up in your business, Berkeley's not the place to be. They are all about minding other peoples' business there. It's been that way for a long time.
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Come on people.. I mean, It's cool and everything. But you can't just throw up a building within a city and NOT expect to have to comply with building codes.
When these things come tumbling down in the next earthquake, or catch fire due to adhoc electrical wiring, the city firefighters are gonna have to risk their lives saving the idiots who built it in the first place.
Seriously, stuff like this gives us makers a bad name. It makes us look like a bunch of irresponsible jerks who think the rules don't apply to us.
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