Back in 1992, I was on a project in New Jersey, and had some free time, so I took my camera-bag and my rental car and just … wandered in … to one of the big powerplants on the New Jersey side of the Hudson. There was no security at the gate, no security at the building, and the place was gigantic.
1) Wake up, grab some coffee
2) Start absorbing the usual news sources
3) See reference to many countries having military bases in close proximity in Djibouti [po]
Spook stuff fascinates me, because it’s the unwritten side of history; things that happen covertly can have huge impact, but are never publicly known. For someone like me, who is fascinated – maybe obsessed – with causality, spook stuff is a great cause of many things that we generally never know. Which means, our ability to understand the world around us is permanently compromised.
When does a lifeboat look like a Scotch Terrier? It would appear that, if you’re an AI, the difference is a few pixel-shifts, and that’s got interesting implications.
This is sort of upsetting. I’d rather be able to have precog powers that let me pick stock prices, than this.
If you ever find yourself believing that America is or was ever great, you can cure it with a dose of Howard Zinn. It won’t take much, but sometimes it aches going down. If you don’t have any Zinn handy, you can substitute Chomsky.
A friend of mine just had some open heart surgery (isn’t modern medicine amazing!?) and is recovering nicely. His wife is a great and brilliant artist with a fantastic memory, and she recalled a discussion we’d once had about Fentanyl…
Researching a bit about the Mizar, I stumbled across an account of the NR-1, written by one of its officers. [nr-1] If you’re interested in cold war exploration stories, and “going to sea in very awkward shipboats” stories, it’s pretty good.
I’m just going to quote large chunks from this piece by The Guardian [guard] and not add much commentary of my own; it’d be redundant.
Picture walking through an airport with this phone case glued to your ear.