Dispatches from Vault 23



Post apocalyptic, rockabilly, ephemera, miscellany, eclectica, curio, journal, diary, notes, scrapbook, etc.



26.1.08

I don't care where you come from!

I want to know who you work for!

Bruce Schneier link about Corporate Spying

........begin session........

The quote something I came up with that I've been saying for sometime now. It is a distillation of what I think the near future holds for us. It is globalization in the hands of the machines we call corporations.

I knew this article was coming from some of the cyberpunk I was reading in the 80's. Philip K. Dick, Robert Anton Wilson, J.G. Ballard, and Alvin Toffler are the three most influential voices in my knowledge of "things to come." The article discusses one of the reasons I gravitated toward intel. Knowledge acquisition, data mining, due diligence, investigation...regardless of what it's called, it's one of the key corporate functions of the future. Although I am one now to a certain degree, I didn't intend on being a company spook. It has long been of interest to me the mechanics of intelligence and investigations. It may stem from an acceptance that while I have a set of beliefs and opinions, without knowledge of EVERYTHING, truth is malleable therefore the best I can hope for is that my truth is better than yours.
As I had mentioned in a previous post, I've worked in intelligence and can tell you that in and of itself it's usually pretty mundane work close up, but the end product in the hands of operational people can end up fucking a lot of people up in one form or another. Aggregate knowledge can be shaped into corrupt forms by outside forces that don't want truth but to promote an agenda.

I always ask myself "who benefits?"

........end session........

If you can play on the fiddle
How's about a British jig and reel?
Speaking King's English in quotation
As railhead towns feel the steel mills rust water froze
In the generation
Clear as winter ice
This is your paradise

There ain't no need for ya
There ain't no need for ya
Go straight to Hell boys
Go straight to Hell boys

Y'wanna join in a chorus
Of the Amerasian blues?
When it's Christmas out in Ho Chi Minh City
Kiddie say papa papa papa papa papa-san take me home
See me got photo photo
Photograph of you and Mamma Mamma Mamma-san
Of you and Mamma Mamma Mamma-san
Lemme tell ya 'bout your blood bamboo kid.
It ain't Coca-Cola it's rice.

Straight to Hell, boys
Go straight to Hell, boys
Go straight to Hell, boys
Go straight to Hell, boys
Oh Papa-san
Please take me home
Oh Papa-san
Everybody they wanna go home
So Mamma-san said

You wanna play mind-crazed banjo
On the druggy-drag ragtime U.S.A.?
In Parkland International
Hey! Junkiedom U.S.A.
Where procaine proves the purest rock man groove
and rat poison
The volatile Molotov says-

PSSST...
HEY CHICO WE GOT A MESSAGE FOR YA... SI...
VAMOS VAMOS MUCHACHO
FROM ALPHABET CITY ALL THE WAY A TO Z, DEAD, HEAD

Go straight to Hell, boys
Go straight to Hell, boys
Straight to Hell

Oh Papa-San
Please take me home
There ain't no need for ya,
There ain't no need for ya

Go straight to Hell, boys
Go straight to Hell, boys

Can you cough it up loud and strong
The immigrants
They wanna sing all night long
It could be anywhere
Most likely could be any frontier
Any hemisphere
No man's land
Ain't no asylum here
King Solomon he never lived round here

Straight to Hell, boys
Go straight to Hell, boys
Go straight to Hell, boys
Go straight to Hell, boys

Oh Papa-San
Please take me home
Oh Papa-San
Everybody, they wanna go home now

FBI denies file exposing nuclear secrets theft

THE FBI has been accused of covering up a key case file detailing evidence against corrupt government officials and their dealings with a network stealing nuclear secrets.
The assertion follows allegations made in The Sunday Times two weeks ago by Sibel Edmonds, an FBI whistleblower, who worked on the agency’s investigation of the network. (Article)

Klockwerks


Klockwerks

24.1.08

Images

Detroit Public Schools Book Depository/ Roosevelt Warehouse
by sweet juniper at flickr
Let the End Times Roll
With global warming hogging the limelight, and Nostradamus predicting our impending demise, This excerpt from Radar Magazine's February issue explores the other apocalyptic scenarios threatening to do us in. (Radar Magazine)

"Rockabilly Westworld"

Rockabilly Westworld: Zombie Karaoke Elvis-bot

16.1.08

23

23 (Wikipedia)
23 (fUSION Anomaly)
23 (23 Skidoo)

Good to know

32

14.1.08

What's the matter?

Pierre Matter @ the Opera Gallery

freud's Horse

Copper and bronze
140 x 120 x 40 cm 55.1 x 47.2x 15.7 In.

Do you get it now?

For those who are new to my stuff, I'm former intelligence with the U.S. Army, so stuff like this tends to catch my attention.
Suicide Bombing Makes Sick Sense in Halo 3
I can't do those things. I haven't got enough time to practice as they do: I'm an adult, with a job and wife and kid, so I get maybe an hour with Halo on a good day. I wind up sucking far, far more than most other Halo 3 players, and despite the best attempts of Xbox Live to match me up with similarly lame players, I usually wind up at the bottom of my group's rankings -- stumbling haplessly about while getting slaughtered over and over again.
So after a few weeks of this ritual humiliation, I got sick of it. And I devised a simple technique for revenge. (More...)
This also reminds me of this:
Michael Corleone: I saw a strange thing today. Some rebels were being arrested. One of them pulled the pin on a grenade. He took himself and the captain of the command with him. Now, soldiers are paid to fight; the rebels aren't.
Hyman Roth: What does that tell you?
Michael Corleone: It means they could win.

13.1.08

Social weaponizing of my phone

"Grup, grup" this you little shit.

I heard this piece on NPR:
Teens Turn 'Repeller' into Adult-Proof Ringtone
and thought "Hey, I've got a phone that'll play mp3's!" If I can't hear the noise, then I can purpose the tone to its original use.
Great for clearing a space on a noisy train as school lets out.

Brainwave Generator

Moderately hack your brain by modifying your brain state.

Theory Behind BrainWave Generator

EEG and the brain's state EEG (Electroencephalography) technology is used to measure brain's electrical vibrations from the surface of the scalp. The resulting EEG pattern will contain frequency elements mainly below 30Hz. The frequencies are categorized into four states as follows:

State Frequency range State of mind
Delta 0.5Hz - 4Hz Deep sleep
Theta 4Hz - 8Hz Drowsiness (also first stage of sleep)
Alpha 8Hz - 14Hz Relaxed but alert
Beta 14Hz - 30Hz Highly alert and focused

The dominant frequency in the EEG pattern determines what shall be called the current state of the brain. If the amplitude of the alpha range frequencies is highest, then the brain is said to be in the alpha stage. Note, that other frequencies still exist and it is impossible to give any "exact frequency your brain is operating on". However, later references to the brain states use the simplification of assuming that such a single frequency exists.


Brainwave Generator

10.1.08

Gone with the Blastwave

Fairly entertaining, disturbed, gallows humor, post-apocalyptic/red-vs-blue comic.
Click to zoom

Gone with the Blastwave

9.1.08

Quicksilver

While I customize considerably larger machines, like my modified, custom, rat-rodded '63 Fairlane, I thought there might be some lessons here I can apply.

"Quicksilver" Retro-Future Scooter from appliances and scrap metal

Read Polish?


Outpost

Brass Goggles


Brass Goggles
The lighter side of Steampunk

Andrew Severynko


Andrew Severynko
Contemporary sculpture artist

7.1.08

Body Hacking - Exercise

exrx.net

Excellent exercise instruction site and it's free. No hard sell of supplements and the rest of the bullshit. Clear instructions, detailed programs, theory behind the exercises. Created by sports medicine folks.

Plagues & Pleasures on the Salton Sea

Those that have followed me down the rabbit hole may remember that I had mentioned this documentary narrated by John Waters before. I still haven't had a chance to see it, but I really like the idea and I hope some day to visit the Salton Sea.



Plagues & Pleasures on the Salton Sea

6.1.08

Survival in the Wasteland - Dog (Cat) Food


Will eating pet food kill me?
The answer at LiveScience.com

From the article I also learned that a good deal of fire retardant is made of piss. (Actually urea can be synthesized, which is not quite as humorous.)

Survival in the Wasteland - General

You wake up late because the radio does not come on. Outside there is only the sound of the wind, and of the birds in the trees. The roar of jumbo jets coming into land is absent.

And, most shockingly, so is the everpresent rumble of traffic. As the day wears on, the full, horrible, bizarre truth dawns: you are completely, utterly alone.
Article inspired by the recent release of "I am Legend."
What would really happen if you were the last person on Earth?

5.1.08

Joe Strummer - London Calling (BBC World Service)


"Mid 1960s and in the heat of an African night a teenage boy fiddles with the dial on his father’s short-wave radio in a desperate bid to find the sound of home. Through the crackle of reception he picks up the UK chart run down and is amazed that even in the middle of the night, in the middle of Africa he is receiving radio form Britain. This was Joe Strummer’s introduction to BBC World Service radio. He had been visiting his father who was working in Malawi and as he recalls:‘It was fantastic to be undeniably receiving radio from Britain. Ever since then I've always wanted to spin records on the World Service’"

Playlists and links to the archived shows here.

Stormy weather


PRAGUE, Czech Republic (AP) -- Members of a Czech art group who hacked into television broadcasting with images of a hoax nuclear explosion were charged and will have to stand trial, a state prosecutor said Thursday...

...In December, the project was awarded the NG 333 prize for young artists by Prague's National Gallery together with a cash prize of 333,000 koruna (US$18,350). (Article)

4.1.08

Local Boys


Dropkicks

Post Apocalyptic Rockabilly

3.1.08

Spiced Ham

As long as the SPAM holds out, you won't have to go after the slow and sick ones.

SPAM

Abandoned But Not Forgotten

"ABANDONED, HISTORICAL and UNUSUAL locations throughout various states and countries."
Link

BackyardMetalcasting.com

BackyardMetalcasting.com
...Melting and casting metal yourself.

2.1.08

Lady Wasteland

Good stuff
This is the adventure of Lady Wasteland. A story rooted in the misfortune of individuals left to scour a vast wasteland in search of their own private destiny. Each character: a fragment, a survivor, a wanderer. In a god-forsaken landscape after the collapse of civilized society, we find a generation left for dead, fueled by revenge, apathy, absurdity, and the need to find a piece of food.




Lady Wasteland Homepage

The "Tiny Tim" Welder

A homemade micro welder from junk around the house.
(Link)