Veteran's Day

An Outpost in Afghanistan’s Borderland

via roo

Russian Federal Tax Police

image source unknown
found here

This is a tax collection team from the FSNP, Russia's tax police. If you give the ordinary collectors the slip and they want you bad enough, these are the people they send looking for you. You think the IRS is bad? How would you like these guys barking down your snorkel?

Years ago, I saw another photo of one of these units in a magazine, but I couldn't locate it on the net. From what I remember the general composition of the team is an officer with clipboard and pistol, a big guy with a Stihl saw and as many submachine gun wielding goons as needed. The saw is used to cut through walls or around door frames.

Not much info on this bureau of the Russian government out there, but here's what I could find:

Russia's Tax Police Press Media Message: Pay Up (NYT, 1998)
Military school for Russia's child tax cadets (CNN, 2001)
Federal service of RF tax police (FSNP)
Russian language profile of FSNP (scroll down for loads of uniform/patch images)
Flag of federal bodies of tax police of the Russian Federation, 1997—2003

Alert! Alert!

A Strategic Air Command missile alert from the Cold War: "Delivery in 30 minutes or less or your money back."

Air Force's Postmodern Art Collection

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Pentagon plans ‘spaceplane’ to reach hotspots fast The American military is planning a “spaceplane” designed to fly a crack squad of heavily armed marines to trouble spots anywhere in the world within four hours.

The History of the India-China Border There is no territorial dispute which has been, and still is, more susceptible to a solution than India’s boundary dispute with China. Each side has its non-negotiable vital interest securely under its control. India has the McMahon Line; China has Aksai Chin. Only a political approach, climaxed by a decision at the highest level, can settle the matter. In a couple of months it will be half a century since the issues were joined. (via)

Debt Collection, Outsourced to India With her flowing, hot-pink Indian suit, jangly silver bangles and perky voice, Bhumika Chaturvedi, 24, doesn't fit the stereotype of a thuggish, heard-it-all-before debt collector. But lately, she has had no problem making American debtors cry. (via)

Biology in Science Fiction: Big Giant Heads Before transhumanism became all the fashion, science fictional depictions of far future often gave our human descendants fantastic mental powers along with giant brains. But there is a serious problem with that idea: human brain size at birth is limited by the size of the opening in the pelvis, and those far future women never seem to have extra-wide hips to go along with their giant heads. (excellent post)

also:
Stone Age man took drugs, say scientists
NASA sends probe to study edge of solar system
Books: Umberto Eco - Turning Back the Clock
Britain to get first glance at author Burroughs' paintings
Showcasing 'Hidden Treasures' from Afghanistan
Eight Reasons Why You Can't Pay Attention (via)
How to Stay Awake at Work (via)
In the computer age, handwriting is a lost art
20 Places Where Bookworms Go to Read and Socialize Online (via)
Idea Generation (visual arts) (via)
Complete Spy Cam Smaller Than an Eyeball
Open Yale Courses: Introduction to Ancient Greek History with Professor Donald Kagan (via)
Photo Gallery: Hackers delight - A history of MIT pranks (via)
List of common misconceptions (via)

viddy:
17 months and 14'000 km away from technology Swiss adventurer Sarah Marquis, who travels by foot around Europe, Australia and America, explains what happen when you reconnect with nature and try to be autonomous, finding water, getting some electrical energy, collecting food were some of the topics discussed during her presentation.
Ivo Niehe Meets Frank Zappa (’91) (narration in Dutch, interview in English)
Presenting the instrument of the moment (beautiful music on the kora)
Brainwave Synthesis With Percussa AudioCubes
D.W. Griffith's Abraham Lincoln
Insane Train Stunt (completely nuts)
Carl Sagan's "Pale Blue Dot" (montage)
Order of the Knights of Malta
Boring Books
The Ruts - Babylon's Burning
Run DMC on Reading Rainbow (via)
Do the Hustle

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At Home With Wayne Coyne
When trees grew in Antarctica (via)
Emily Dickinson's Secret Lover! (via)
Historical Fiction for Teenage Girls
Historical Fiction for Teens
Create your own search engine
FM 100-30 Nuclear Operations (via)
Make Your Own Hard Cider (via)

viddy:
Daedelus Talks Vinyl And Culture (crate-digging)
Jack Kerouac - American Haikus
Laptop Orchestra
Che - Steven Soderbergh @ NYFF Q&A
How cocaine is made
Motoman: Robot Bartender

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HIV/AIDS Emerged as Early as 1880s Until now it was thought that HIV-1 Group M, the strain of HIV that causes the most infections worldwide, originated in 1930 in Cameroon. Epidemic levels of AIDS and HIV-1 infections started appearing in Leopoldville, Belgian Congo (now Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo), around 1960. Findings from the new study, however, suggest that the virus most likely started circulating among humans in sub-Saharan Africa sometime between 1884 and 1924.

John Le Carré: The Madness of Spies The gun was indeed part of me: so much so that I had ceased to notice its presence on my hip. Stooping to address the ball, I was startled by the clang of a heavy metal object striking the tiled floor, and looked around to identify the source. Finally, I saw the Browning lying at my feet, but by then the inn had emptied itself of customers and landlord. I retrieved it, returned it to my waistband, and picked up the briefcase. “Abort,” the A.I.O. ordered, pausing only to finish his beer. Le Carré shares some personal history.

The Secret of How the Titanic Sank New evidence has experts rethinking how the luxury passenger liner sank (via)

A mannequin on a toilet and dry porridge – it's the Turner Prize The Turner Prize, the annual award for artists that never ceases to raise furious debate on what constitutes art and what should be dismissed as nonsense, yesterday proved it was not about to change the habit of a lifetime.

also:
Russian rap video soldier sent to Siberia
The Essays of Francis Bacon
The Speech Accent Archive (audio - very useful for actors) (via)

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India’s Novel Use of Brain Scans in Courts Is Debated The new technology is, to its critics, Orwellian. Others view it as a silver bullet against terrorism that could render waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods obsolete. Some scientists predict the end of lying as we know it. Now, well before any consensus on the technology’s readiness, India has become the first country to convict someone of a crime relying on evidence from this controversial machine: a brain scanner that produces images of the human mind in action and is said to reveal signs that a suspect remembers details of the crime in question. (via)

The Internet -- A Private Eye's Best Friend For private investigator Steven Rambam, the Internet is his most valuable tool in helping to find missing persons, cheating husbands, and your competitor's dirty secrets.... "Anything you put on the Internet will be grabbed, indexed, cataloged, and out of your control before you know it," he told CNET News after the July 19 session. "The genie is out of the bottle. Data doesn't stay in one location. It migrates to hundreds of places."...."I used to pay the police $500 for a driver's license photo. Now I just have to go to MySpace," he said. "I can find your location without leaving my desk." (via)

also:
Dog dials 911 to save owner's life
Autonomic NanoTechnology Swarm (ANTS) (via)
The Savants of Napoleon's Egyptian Expedition

viddy:
Orson Welles on the Merv Griffin Show - 1985 (He died two hours after the taping of this interview.) (via)
18 covers of "Earache My Eye" (prev)
An Introduction to Early Musical Instruments (via)
People Who Do Noise - Trailer (via)
Ultravox - My Sex (1977) (classic)

PSYOPS merchandise

PSYOP merchandise

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A New Addiction: Internet Junkies While compulsive gambling is only beginning to be addressed by mental health professionals, they must now face a new affliction: Internet addiction. This is news?

Judge: Copyright owners must consider 'fair use' A federal judge on Wednesday gave more weight to the concept of "fair use" when he threw a lifeline to a Pennsylvania mother's lawsuit against Universal Music. The judge refused to dismiss Stephanie Lenz's suit claiming that Universal abused the Digital Millennium Copyright Act when it issued a takedown notice to YouTube over a 30-second video of Lenz's baby dancing to a Prince song. Right on. (via)

Brightest gamma-ray burst was aimed at Earth Astronomers think they know what caused the brightest ever gamma-ray burst, which was observed in March: a tightly beamed jet of matter that happened to be aimed almost directly at Earth. Kinda strange.

Benjamin Franklin: City Slicker So when Franklin, at 17, ran out on his printing indentures (a serious felony) and fled from Boston to Philadelphia, he was hardly the “poor ignorant boy” he purported to be. (via)

also:
The Billboard Hot 100 All-Time Top Songs
The uncanny valley: why almost-human-looking robots scare people more than mechanical-looking robots
H.P. Lovecraft Vintage Fonts (via)
World Names Profiler (enter your surname) (via)

viddy:
Secret Military Technology On 60 Minutes, in an interview with Scott Pelley, reporter Bob Woodward claimed that the U.S. military has a new secret technique that's so revolutionary, it's on par with the tank and the airplane. Schneier takes a stab and the commenters take the piss.
Large Hadron Collider: Peter Higgs interview
William S. Burroughs demonstrates his famous literary "cut-ups"
Early demonstration of the Mellotron
Chinese Popeye (via Nick's Brown Bag)

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Out There: People Who Live Without TV For many Americans the thought of life without TV is akin to forgoing food, shelter or, God forbid, the Internet. But about 1 to 2 percent of Americans do abstain from the boob tube, and they might seem like strange bedfellows. A recent study of those who live without found that about two-thirds fall into either the "crunchy granola set" or the "religious right, ultraconservative" camp... I guess I'm in the other one-third. I haven't had cable or air television since 2005. To be honest, I didn't get rid of the TV because I hated it, I got rid of it because I liked it too much. I needed to get some things done and I figured losing it would eliminate a distraction. It worked. I'm far more productive than I was then. I do watch movies and whatnot on the computer, but I practically have to force myself to sit down for one. I have nothing against people who watch TV. Not everyone can sit at home and write a novel or read Shakespeare after a long hard day of work. It's a matter of preference. I was a bit surprised that it was only 1-2 percent that abstain.

It’s Likely That Times Are Changing A century ago, mathematician Hermann Minkowski famously merged space with time, establishing a new foundation for physics; 
today physicists are rethinking how the two should fit together... In a lab, time is simple. You can watch experiments and record what happens as time passes simply by referring to the clock on the wall (or the computerized timers on the lab bench). But suppose you are studying the universe as a whole, attempting to formulate the laws of quantum gravity that rule the cosmos. There is no wall enclosing the universe on which to hang a clock, no external timekeeper to gauge the whenness of being. Yet quantum physics requires time to tell the universe what to do — time is necessary for things to happen. Or, as the famous restroom graffito puts it, time is nature’s way of keeping everything from happening at once. (via)

Heroin addicted elephant clean after rehab Referred to as 'Big Brother' or 'Xiguang' in Chinese media reports, the elephant was captured in 2005 in southwest China by illegal traders who fed him heroin-laced bananas. The traders used the spiked bananas for several months to control him before they were arrested by police. Xiguang was released back into the wild but was soon sent to animal protection centre after his behaviour appeared to suggest he was suffering withdrawal symptoms from heroin, Xinhua news agency reported.

Robot builders seek a little help from sci-fi "It's surprising how often people make nervous jokes about robots taking over the world. I don't want to make too much of that, but I think there's something there." So says one roboticist who thinks finding out exactly how fictional robots influence people can help engineers build real ones.

Bach fan thrills to discovery of lost 1724 pages For 25 years, Teri Noel Towe has deeply treasured a slim volume bound in red morocco that he acquired at an auction house, a volume containing six handwritten pages of a musical manuscript. Pages three and four, containing the last measures of the opening choral movement and all of the following bass aria, cover the front and back of a music sheet presumed lost. Until now. (via)

Digitizing Archives From The 17th Century A researcher on a short trip to a foreign country, with little money, but a digital camera in hand has devised a novel approach to digitizing foreign archives that could speed up research.

also:
The 11 Kinds of Insomnia (via)
How to Read an FBI File (via)
The 100 Oldest Companies in the World (via)
The heaviest and biggest tanks in history (via)

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Has anyone noticed that oil has dropped below $106 a barrel? Crude oil and gold led a decline in commodities in London as Hurricane Gustav spared the U.S. Gulf states the destruction caused by Katrina and Rita in 2005.

How books changed Mafia man's life For the first time in his life he started reading books, looking deeper into himself and searching for some answers. He set himself the challenge to read the entire prison library. "Prison was the greatest thing that happened to me, because it gave me time to look inside myself, the solitude that I needed to take a closer look at everything around me; to analyse myself."

Danish artists create life-size walking house With oil prices rocketing and mortgages plummeting, visionary Danish artist collective N55 has solved the joint problems of transport and housing by building a home that can walk. A new twist on the mobile home, although I have a feeling it wouldn't fly in this country unless it could do around 75mph. (via)

Dennis Hopper's life: a hell of a ride Hopper’s description sums up his career. He’s part of Hollywood history as the man who in 1969 made independent movie-making a serious business by directing and starring in Easy Rider alongside Jack Nicholson and Peter Fonda. The result was a winning hand that’s kept him in the game ever since, even though he’s run low on chips. But somehow he’s never quite managed to establish himself as a big winner. For a good chunk of his 50-year acting career he has been sidelined by film studios, nervous about his reputation for drink, drugs and wild behaviour and for speaking his mind. I think he's done just fine, all in all.

Seven Eight Things To Do When You Don’t Feel Like Writing 8. Write.

also:
Six Ways to Fix the CIA
People Who Lose Jobs Become Hermits
US army has laser guns in its sights
20 Things You Didn't Know About... Telescopes
Art games and not-games (really good ones, too)
EnglishScholar.com - A compendium of electronic resources

viddy:
Welcome to My Study 4 (prev)
The Prisoner: Video Exclusive - Building The Village
The World of Anathem (via)
The 50 greatest arts videos on YouTube
Kurt Vonnegut documentary
UbuWeb - Christian Marclay

Snipers, 1971

Photographer's Notes: "Vietnam....Specialist. 4 Richard Champion, squad leader, Company B, 4th Battalion, 21st Infantry, 11th Light Infantry Brigade, shouts instructions to his squad after receiving sniper fire while on patrol on Hill 56, 70 miles southeast of Chu Lai. January 19, 1971"

Images Of War Combat Photography 1918-1971

USAF Staff Sgt. Stacy Pearsall, Combat Camera Photographer

Before going on patrol, a U.S. Army soldier smokes a cigarette on his cot at a remote combat outpost in Buhriz, Iraq, on Feb. 15, 2007. DoD photo by Stacy Pearsall

A Conversation with Stacy Pearsall:

Combat photojournalist Stacy Pearsall was named the Military Photographer of the Year recently for the second time. One of only two women to take home the honor, she is the first woman to take it twice.

see also:
View from the front lines
Military Photographers on the Frontlines
USAF 1st Combat Camera Squadron
Combat Photographers Risk All to Document War

via [EV +/-] Exposure Compensation

Brewster body armor c. 1917

finnb's photostream

Helmets and Body Armor in Modern Warfare By Bashford Dean, Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.)

via dirty.ru

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Texters hurt as they walk, ride — even cook ER docs warn of serious injuries, deaths from text-message mishaps. I've seen people walk into phone poles and out in front of moving vehicles while texting. (via)

More Performance and cognitive enhancement “Within the next few years, we’ll see the second generation of these drugs,” says Mark Gordon, an endocrinologist in Los Angeles. “Like all second-generation drugs, they will be stronger, longer-lasting, and have fewer side effects.” (via)

Floatation tank horror A 30-year-old became the first person ever to drown in a floatation tank, an inquest heard yesterday. James Richardson, of Woodley, died in Floatnation in Oxford Road after taking the drug ketamine – used to tranquillise horses. Well, I can scratch that off my list of things to do before I die. (via)

also:
How to build a free computer from spare parts
76-year-old experimental music legend Pauline Oliveros on WFMU
Are figs really full of baby wasps?
19 Portrait Photography Tutorials (via)
The 7 Biggest Asshole Computers in Science Fiction (via)
Montana Meth Project does not pull any punches. (via)

viddy:
Intriguing Bigfoot video (real or hoax, it's pretty good)
Social engineering: How to Get Into Any Club (this method probably won't work forever, but it is worth a look) (via)
419 - the Nigerian Scam trailer (via)
Iran Missile Test (yeah, that one)
Darth Vader Meets Wolfman Jack!

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All Streets All of the streets in the lower 48 United States: an image of 26 million individual road segments. (via)

also:
The Bureau of the Centre for the Study of Surrealism and its Legacy
Sweden's Underground Naval Base at Muskö
Musicovery Mood Music (via)

viddy:
Dog Years Ben 39, Leo, castrated mongrel needs love, G.S.O.H essential. (via)
Orson Scott Card Interview Ender's Game is fine and dandy, but Speaker for the Dead is one of the greatest novels ever written. I have a hard time getting my non-sci-fi friends to read it because I have to get them to read Ender's Game first. (via)
Tesla Coil Guitar Amp
Spoilsbury Toast Boy 2 Warning: Do not watch this if you are easily depressed, easily offended, moderately easy to offend, at work, or a kid. Truly some of the most bizarre shit I've ever witnessed. Spoilsbury Toast Boy 1 (they run in reverse order) Spoilsbury Toast Boy (I loved it.) (via)

Double Failed IED Attack At US Marines Convoy In Ramadi - Iraq

A little (sur)reality from Iraq.

We have two large military base in this area, Hunter Army Air Field and Fort Stewart, homes to, amongst others, the 75th Ranger Regiment and the Third Infantry Division. Both units have seen extensive action in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I take a lot of military families out on tours. They often come to party and have some fun on the town with their families before they leave or right after they come back. I've had some pretty rowdy Rangers coming back from Afghanistan, letting off some serious steam. One group was so wound up I thought they were going to tear the hearse apart, literally. They were actually really nice guys and were apologetic about the damage, but I was sweating it for a while.

Not too long ago, I had a group from the 3rd ID, just back from Iraq. At a certain point of my tour there's a pretty serious scare. Some have lost bodily control. I guess I wasn't really thinking about it, but when I scared these guys they started freaking out worse than any girl-scout troop. (of course, without the Beatles concert-style screaming, but pretty close.) I was a bit amazed. We all had a good laugh over it, but I became acutely aware of how affected these guys were. The ones shipping out don't react like that.

Cyberspace Operator Badge

*Proposed Cyberspace Operator Badge (USAF). Awaiting wear criteria approval.

via Strategy Page

"You will change course..."

masterplansweden:

This low budget commercial was shot on 16mm during one day on location in the control tower of the old Swedish destroyer "Småland", nowadays a museum. The exterior shots are archive material. Result: lots of fun and a bronze lion in Cannes Lions advertising festival 2004.

thanks John and Elizabeth

Sunday Excursions: All over the place

Whenever I go through my Sunday Excursions folder, a loose theme often presents itself. No such luck this week. We're all over the place.

First, we'll try to start off on sound footing with some grooming advice from Joel and the bots:



Man, I miss that show. In 1994 I was injured in a car accident and spent most of six months on my back. MST3K saved my sanity.

mst3kinfo.com
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My stepmother lives in Vermont and is a fine and accomplished artist. Lately, she's been creating sculpture with wood. Her primary tool is a chainsaw. She weighs all of 110 pounds and handles that saw like it was a toothbrush. She has some nice metalwork, too.

LooSeeArt
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Some links:

150 Things You Didn’t Know About The Human World

Don't know how accurate these are, but they're fun anyway.

via The Presurfer
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Colin Wilson World

An appreciation of Colin Wilson - philosopher, critic and novelist.
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Real Military Flix

The world's largest on-line military film and video site.

via Cryptome
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Gene Ween's photography

via linkfilter.net
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Gerry Canavan:

The SITE intelligence group, which monitors terrorist Web sites, recently had a big find: images from a terrorist simulation of Washington, D.C. destroyed by a nuclear bomb.

Turns out the image was from Fallout 3.
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This made the rounds a while back, but some of you might not have seen Animator vs. Animation. Clever and revised.

thanks, Dad
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This is funny:


















WWII history as an internet game

via LedgerGermane
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Wedding of the Vampires



















Mia Mäkilä - Lowbrow and Horror Art

via MINDFVCK
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John Cage - 4' 33"



This is one of the best interpretations I've heard and unlike other video versions, there's a welcome lack of some dweeb trying to explain it all to you. Sorry about the missing second. I guess it was cut off.
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Be seeing you.