February 9, 2011
St. Matthew Island is a remote island in the Bering Sea in Alaska. The island has a land area of 138 sq mi, making it the 43rd largest island in the United States. In 1944, 29 reindeer were introduced to the island by the United States Coast Guard to provide an emergency food source. The coast guard abandoned the island a few years later, leaving the reindeer. Subsequently, the reindeer population rose to about 6,000 by 1963 and then died off in the next two years to 43 animals.
A scientific study attributed the population crash to the limited food supply in interaction with climatic factors (the winter of 1963-64 was exceptionally severe in the region). By the 1980s, the reindeer population had completely died out. American ecologist, Garrett Hardin cited the ‘natural experiment’ of St. Matthew Island of the reindeer population explosion and collapse as a paradigmatic example of the consequences of overpopulation.
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February 9, 2011
The Nuclear Football (also called ‘The Button’) is a black briefcase, the contents of which are to be used by the President of the United States of America to authorize a nuclear attack while away from fixed command centers, such as the White House Situation Room. It functions as a mobile hub in the strategic defense system. Russia and the United Kingdom have similar briefcases. Reputedly, there are four things in the Football: the ‘Black Book’ containing the retaliatory options, a book listing classified site locations, a manila folder with eight or ten pages stapled together giving a description of procedures for the Emergency Broadcast System, and a three-by-five inch card with authentication codes.
The ‘Black Book’ is 9 by 12 inches and has 75 loose-leaf pages printed in black and red. On the ‘vital’ page listing possible responses to a nuclear attack, retaliatory options appear in red and were labeled: ‘Rare, Medium or Well Done.’ The book with classified site locations was about the same size as the Black Book, and was black. It contained information on sites around the country where the president could be taken in an emergency.
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February 8, 2011
A secure telephone is a telephone that provides voice security in the form of end-to-end encryption for the telephone call, and in some cases also the mutual authentication of the call parties, protecting them against a man-in-the-middle attack. Concerns about massive growth of telephone tapping incidents lead to growing demand for secure telephones. Additionally, as the popularity of VoIP grows, secure telephony is becoming more of commonplace and less the lonely domain of spies and civil libertarians.
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February 6, 2011
Time Banking refers to an economic system that uses units of time as currency. A Time Bank, also known as a Service Exchange, is a community which practices time banking. The unit of currency, always valued at an hour’s worth of any person’s labor, used by these groups has various names, but is generally known as a Time Dollar in the U.S. and a Time Credit in the U.K. Time Banking is primarily used to provide incentives and rewards for work such as mentoring children, caring for the elderly, being neighborly—work usually done on a volunteer basis—which a pure market system devalues.
Essentially, the ‘time’ one spends providing these types of community services earns ‘time’ that one can spend to receive services. Time Banking had its intellectual genesis in the U.S. in the early 1980s. Today, 26 countries have active Time Banks. There are 108 Time Banks active in the U.K. and 53 officially recognized Time Banks in the U.S.
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February 6, 2011
The Liberty Dollar (ALD) was a private currency produced in the United States from 1998 – 2009. The currency was available in coins, gold and silver certificates, and as an electronic currency (eLD). ALD certificates are warehouse receipts for real gold and silver formerly owned by ALD certificate holders. The metal was warehoused at Sunshine Minting in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho prior to a November 2007 raid by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Secret Service.
Until July 2009, the Liberty Dollar was distributed by Liberty Services (formerly known as NORFED), based in Evansville, Indiana. It was created by Bernard von NotHaus, the co-founder of the Royal Hawaiian Mint Company. In May 2009, von NotHaus and others were charged with federal crimes in connection with the Liberty Dollar and, on July 31, 2009, von NotHaus announced that he had closed the Liberty Dollar operation, pending resolution of the criminal charges.
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January 31, 2011
The Wire is an American television drama series set and produced in and around Baltimore, Maryland. Created and primarily written by author and former police reporter David Simon. The series was broadcast by HBO from 2002 – 2008, comprising sixty episodes over five seasons. The show is recognized for its realistic portrayal of urban life, its literary ambitions, and its uncommonly deep exploration of sociopolitical themes. Each season focuses on a different facet of the city of Baltimore. They are, in chronological order: the illegal drug trade, the seaport system, the city government and bureaucracy, the school system, and the print news media.
The large cast consists mainly of character actors who are little known for their other roles. Simon has said that despite its presentation as a crime drama, the show is ‘really about the American city, and about how we live together. It’s about how institutions have an effect on individuals. Whether one is a cop, a longshoreman, a drug dealer, a politician, a judge or a lawyer, all are ultimately compromised and must contend with whatever institution they are committed to.’
Posted in Art, Drugs, Politics |
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January 29, 2011
Islamism is a set of ideologies holding that Islam is not only a religion but also a political system; that modern Muslims must return to the roots of their religion, and unite politically. It is a controversial term and definitions sometimes vary. Leading Islamist thinkers emphasized the enforcement of sharia (Islamic law) on Muslims; of pan-Islamic political unity; and of the elimination of non-Muslim, particularly western military, economic, political, social, or cultural influences in the Muslim world, which they believe to be incompatible with Islam.
Some observers suggest Islamism’s tenets are less strict and can be defined as a form of identity politics or support for Muslim authenticity, broader regionalism, and revivalism. Still others define it as an Islamic militant, anti-democratic movement, bearing a holistic vision of Islam whose final aim is the restoration of the ‘caliphate.’ Many described as ‘Islamists’ disfavor the term, and claim their political beliefs and goals are simply an expression of Islamic religious belief. Similarly, some scholars favor the term activist ‘Political Islam’ instead.
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January 28, 2011
Cabinet noir (French for ‘black room’) was the name given in France to the office where the letters of suspected persons were opened and read by public officials before being forwarded to their destination. This practice had been in use since the establishment of posts, and was frequently used by the ministers of Louis XIII and Louis XIV; but it was not until the reign of Louis XV that a separate office for this purpose was created. Although declaimed against at the time of the French Revolution, it was used both by the revolutionary leaders and by Napoleon.
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January 28, 2011
Room 641A is an intercept facility operated by AT&T for the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), beginning in 2003. It is fed by fiber optic lines from beam splitters installed in fiber optic trunks carrying Internet backbone traffic and, therefore, presumably has access to all Internet traffic that passes through the building.The existence of the room was revealed by a former AT&T technician, Mark Klein, and was the subject of a 2006 class action lawsuit by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) against AT&T. Klein claims he was told that similar black rooms are operated at other facilities around the country.
The EFF suit accused the telecommunication company of violating the law and the privacy of its customers by collaborating with the NSA in a massive, illegal program to wiretap and data-mine Americans’ communications. Room 641A is located in the SBC Communications building at 611 Folsom Street, San Francisco, three floors of which were occupied by AT&T before SBC purchased AT&T. The room was referred to in internal AT&T documents as the SG3 (Study Group 3) Secure Room. The room measures about 24 by 48 feet (7.3 by 15 m) and contains several racks of equipment, including a Narus STA 6400, a device designed to intercept and analyze Internet communications at very high speeds.
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January 26, 2011
The Plus 15 or +15 Skyway network in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, is the world’s most extensive pedestrian skywalk system with a total length of 16 kilometers (10 mi) and 59 bridges. The system is so named because the skywalks are approximately 15 feet (approximately 4.5 metres) above street level. (Some Plus 15 skywalks are multi-level, with higher levels being referred to as +30’s and +45’s.)
Opening in 1970, the +15 network has expanded to include dozens of downtown Calgary buildings. The central core of the system is a series of enclosed shopping centers, and the city’s flagship department stores. Although there are currently no plans to remove bridges or to discontinue building new ones, the system has been subject to criticism in recent years. It has been identified with a decline in street life in the Downtown Commercial Core. Street life is instead concentrated on streets (such as Stephen Avenue) or in neighbourhoods where there are no bridges (such as Eau Claire and the Beltline).
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January 26, 2011
The term black fax refers to a prank fax transmission, consisting of one or more pages entirely filled with a uniform black tone and often made into a loop the sending machine will transmit endlessly. The sender’s intention is typically to consume as much of the recipient’s fax ink, toner or thermal paper or disk space as possible, thus costing the recipient money and/or denying the recipient the use of their machine (this is similar to computer-based denial of service attacks).
Black faxes can be particularly effective as the fax algorithm compresses the solid black image very well, so a very short fax call can produce many pages. They have been used to harass large institutions or government departments, to retaliate against the senders of junk faxes, or merely as simple pranks. In a black fax attack, one or more sheets are fed halfway through the sender’s fax machine and taped end to end, forming an endless loop that cycles through the machine. Not only can solid black be used, but also images which will repeat endlessly on the receiver’s machine until his or her toner runs out.
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January 25, 2011
Prole drift, short for proletarian drift, is a trend in which products, styles or other aspects of culture previously considered to be upscale or upper class become popular among working class people. Prole drift can also go the other way, as when things that were once the purview of the working class become fashionable in the middle or upper classes. The term was coined by, American literary historian, Paul Fussell in 1983 to describe the phenomenon of most aspects of high culture eventually joining the lowest common denominator.
Examples include sales of premium coffee, Burberry clothing or Coach Inc. handbags to working class people. Examples of reverse prole drift include Mockney, the skinhead and punk subcultures, hip hop, rockabilly, dressing down, slumming it (e.g. going to a working class bar) and NASCAR. BMW cars (particularly the 3 series) have also suffered from this phenomenon, in some instances the 3 series outselling more mainstream cars such as the Ford Mondeo and Vauxhall Vectra.
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