Hand reaching over of glass embedded in the newly-constructed Berlin wall which divides the eastern & western sectors of the city.
August 1961, Paul Schutzer
Mike Dunn's tumblelog- politics, foreign policy, photos, cycling and things.
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Nov 09
Are Hackers Essential to Resilience?
Here’s a hierarchy of resilience hacking:
- Fixers. People that can repair existing equipment to maintain its previous function. (these people are the staple of almost all disaster fiction).
- Makers. People that repurpose existing technology through the implementation of alterations to change its function. A corollary to Makers are people that improve existing products/systems (make them more powerful/better/faster).
- Creators. People that create new tools or unique systems from scratch using raw materials (think fab lab hacks).
Terror training camps smaller, harder to target
Counterterrorism officials estimate that Zazi is one of 100 to 150 westerners who have gone to the Pakistan border region for terror training in the last year. Their ability to filter in and out of the isolated camps has fueled fears that “sleeper” operatives bearing U.S. or western passports are traveling back and forth with ease to train and plot attacks destined within America’s borders.
…
“All you need is a shack or a house to learn how to fabricate explosives using homemade or commercially available ingredients,” said Bruce Hoffman, a counterterrorism expert at Georgetown University and a longtime government adviser.
Hoffman adds that in these harder-to-find camps, “they’re not training insurgents, they’re training terrorists for deployment to the west … Some of them may be deployed in the insurgency, but I think its obvious that their value to these groups is not fighting on the battlefield in South Asia but in being deployed back to their home or adopted countries as sleepers.”
[via]
Nov 06
“
In several columns, I’ve noted indignantly that we have worse health statistics than Slovenia. For example, I noted that an American child is twice as likely to die in its first year as a Slovenian child. The tone — worse than Slovenia! — gravely offended Slovenians. They resent having their fine universal health coverage compared with the notoriously dysfunctional American system.
As far as I can tell, every Slovenian has written to me. Twice. So, to all you Slovenians, I apologize profusely for the invidious comparison of our health systems. Yet I still don’t see anything wrong with us Americans aspiring for health care every bit as good as yours.
Nov 05
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
Bucket Of Rags This Year’s Must-Have Christmas Item
Sorry, Onion Radio News, but American Apparel’s reality outpaces even your parody:
Nov 04
![Swine Flu Mortality (click the picture to see bigger but suffice to say the only disease that’s killed fewer people recently is leprosy). [via]](http://20.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kslbcgX0Hb1qz605no1_500.jpg)
Swine Flu Mortality (click the picture to see bigger but suffice to say the only disease that’s killed fewer people recently is leprosy). [via]
Clive James isn't a climate change sceptic, he's a sucker - but this may be the reason
George Monbiot nails the worrying rise in climate change denial in the face of scientific evidence, before making a less convincing case for old age being the key characteristic of climate change sceptics.
“ It’s now possible for columnists and companies to hear what people are saying about them. That’s unnerving for columnists, not least because their opinions are now frequently challenged by people who know more than they do. Instead of responding like adults – correcting when they’ve made a mistake, engaging when someone raises a sensible point and defending themselves from false accusations – they are whining like children and dismissing technologies that they don’t understand.
It’s not the complaints culture on Twitter that annoys me, it’s the complaints culture among columnists that is getting tiresome.
It’s not the complaints culture on Twitter that annoys me, it’s the complaints culture among columnists that is getting tiresome.
— Shane Richmond [via jhnbrssndn]
Nov 03
Iran to get new capital?
The government is said to be reacting to calls from Iranian seismologists, who have long warned that Tehran lies on at least 100 known fault lines, and would not survive a major quake intact.
…
However, Qom is the spiritual home of Iran’s conservative Islamic establishment. Moving the capital nearer to Qom could be seen as a sign of the conservatives stamping their authority, says Mr Dudley.
'Torture flight' plane spotted in Birmingham
A Ministry of Defence source said that the meeting at Birmingham airport had nothing to do with the rendition of prisoners, whatever the allegations about the plane’s past use. “This was routine military liaison between two allies,” he said.
Sure.
Nov 02
“ The heavy, sandy-bronze Vélib’ bicycles are seen as an accoutrement of the “bobos,” or “bourgeois-bohèmes,” the trendy urban middle class, and they stir resentment and covetousness. They are often being vandalized in a socially divided Paris by resentful, angry or anarchic youth, the police and sociologists say.
