"If I lead will you follow?"

"It's embarrassing when you try to overthrow the government and you wind up on the Best Seller's List." - Hoffman

In the spirit of Abbie Hoffman's Steal this Book comes StealThisWiki. I'm not necessarily that kind of radical, but there are some useful and/or interesting tips in there.

Dr. Steel is more my type of culture jamming.

Damnation Alley

The Ten Best Post-Apocalyptic Survival Vehicles

I don't know if I fully agree with their list, but it makes for some good discussion material.

Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men

I work with CCTV a lot so I know its reach.

Here's a translated German how to:
IR ASC - infrared light against surveillance cameras
and a couple from from Make:
Temporarily blind surveillance cameras
Building an (IR) infrared-veil

4...8...15...16...23...42

Yeah, I watch it. Even though most of the character interaction/development is complete tripe, a lot of the ideas incorporated are fun.

Lost

My man is Locke.

Looks good

The Signal

Spell with flickr

The Spies Who Love You

The Spies Who Love You
A work by by Mark Fiore

Another music memory

Until I have time to dig deeper and publish something more interesting, here's singly the biggest, most influential hardcore band from my past:
The Exploited

Dogs of War!

G.B.H.

Another blast from the past. I'm reacquiring a taste for my old hardcore bands, maybe becuase things look as shitty as they did under that shithead, Ray Gun.
I have a fond recollection of standing around a bonfire in the middle of a Kansas cornfield, drinking beers and bullshitting with the lead singer Colin. I remember busting his chops over how I thought it sounded too influenced by heavy metal.

Lori Nix

"...Lori Nix who photographs epic scenes of destruction and grandeur, natural wonders and glittering metropolises, magnificent architecture and heroic landscapes that all have one thing in common—they're all fake." (Cool Hunting article)

Heavy duty mind hacks

History of psychological interrogation and torture
McCoy discusses how these techniques were researched and developed by some of the most distinguished cognitive scientists of the time and were reflected in now uncovered CIA documents, including the 1961 'Manipulation of Human Behavior' research summary, the 1963 KUBARK interrogation manual, and the 1983 'Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual'.

(Post at Boing Boing with further links)

No Fly List

I've done this word gag in other lives before, but it amuses me so here it is again.
From Terry Gilliam's Brazil. More poignant now than ever.

Poor Mr. Buttle.

"Oh no, not me."

Isn't it a little crazy that we can all agree that companies spend a lot of money every year on advertising yet we think that we're not susceptible to its power?
If advertisements aren't an effective form of brainwashing then why would anyone want to drone them at children to and from school?

The school district that approved McDonald's-sponsored report cards has a hot new partnership with Bus Radio, a friendly company that advertises to kids as they ride to school! (Article)

It's too bad that schools are so strapped for cash that they'd remotely consider this a good idea. It goes to our weird fetus worship cult..."Save the Infant, Sacrifice the Child."

Scott Listfield

An astronaut in every painting.
Article at Wired

Tazer Glove

"From simple everyday parts you can make this glove which has two modes. Mode 1 is a constant output of slightly over 300 v. while Mode 2 takes a few seconds to charge, but gives off a much more painful shock. All that voltage from a simple AA battery, Yay science."
Instructables

Music from the Past - Conflict

One of the more influential albums from my youth, Conflict's Ungovernable Force.
From Wikipedia: "The Ungovernable Force is an album by the U.K punk rock band Conflict. It was released in 1986 by Mortarhate Records. Considered by many to be the band's most coherent and complete representation of their politics and aesthetic, it has become an enduring classic in anarchist punk music culture."

One of the most important songs on that album for me was the acerbic humor of Force or Service. I try to keep it in mind as what not to be when carrying out my duties. While I'm not a police officer, my job does often require me to use police powers. Funny how this shit winds up.

Apologies to a friend across the water, but I'm sure he gets it.


Force or Service
A quiet sunny day, the scene is suburban
Not much going off, in fact it's a boring one
Ready and waiting in Bristol fashion
For my radio to bleep and I will jump into action
PC Caring's off duty for a while
A right prat he is, always helpful and a smile
Nineteen, well hard, DM's and truncheon
Headcase 'ere and I've got some lunch

'Headcase' fuck me there goes me radio
It must be a riot if they're calling for backup
I'm at the scene Sarge, what's going down?
There's a darkie in defiance, get that nigger off me, kill 'im
Don't do it in the open, kick his teeth in later
I thought I'd taught you police operations
Take him away out the eyes of the media
Then kill the bastard kill 'im
Make sure you don't bruise him
Oh, doesn't matter you won't see the bruises anyway
He's in the van, pile in everyone, c'mon, c'mon
That's it lads
Ha, ha, ha, I love it, let me have him
Let me kill him, yeah, nice one lads
Now if you wanna get overtime, you better take my advice
Promotion or demotion? Just never step out of line
You want to make sure? Sure we can discuss a price
But keep it shut, keep the image nice
We nick the unemployed, for they are just lazy
Scrounging off us taxpayers, it must be crazy
Join the force and give a helping hand
Because the rules of the force are the laws of the land

(Police Policy)
The CND are communists, we're sick of petty pacifists,
Greenham dykes, Trotskyites, Greenpeace and the rest of it
Rioters, muggers, looters, shooters, niggers are the cause of it
Repatriation for the nation, the simple way to deal with shit
Rastas, punks, mods and hippies, students, queers and dirty pakis
Demanding more than nothing less, but never want to work for it
Miners, printers, paddies, pickets, givin' it all the demo bit
We'll smash them back with our attack, because we're the guys to deal with it

You're here to serve? Protect the nation?
Stop all the foreigners' illegal immigration
You help old ladies across the road
Even if she has got a face like a toad
You re-assure, protect the rich from the poor
To hell with muggings, rapists and the whores
Maintain law and order, keep the public at large
The police is your profession: that's right, eh Sarge?

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

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

23

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

Good to know

32

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.

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

The Men Who Fell

This looks promising.

The Men Who Fell
"Prisoners Explore Industrial Underground City in Scifi Indie" at io9

Vintage Future

Vintage Future
Retro-futuristic resources for Carnegear

Read Finnish?
Carnegear

Gone with the Blastwave

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

Click to zoom

Gone with the Blastwave

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

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

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?

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)

Local Boys

Dropkicks

Post Apocalyptic Rockabilly