Archive for the 'Books' Category
Britain: £150 Cosy Cob Home
November 26th, 2013If this sort of thing calls to you, see: The Hand-Sculpted House: A Practical and Philosophical Guide to Building a Cob Cottage by Ianto Evans. Via: Daily Mail: Smallholder Michael Buck spent eight months constructing the house using the ancient technique of cob – building with a mixture of sand, clay, straw, water and earth. […]
Americans’ Personal Data Shared with CIA, IRS, Others in Security Probe
November 14th, 2013Via: McClatchy: U.S. agencies collected and shared the personal information of thousands of Americans in an attempt to root out untrustworthy federal workers that ended up scrutinizing people who had no direct ties to the U.S. government and simply had purchased certain books. Federal officials gathered the information from the customer records of two men […]
Los Angeles: Citywide Gigabit Access for Homes and Businesses
November 5th, 2013People living in shipping containers with fiber optic links to the Metaverse? *chortle* Via: Arstechnica: Los Angeles is about to unleash one of the most ambitious city-led broadband projects to date, with the goal of bringing fiber to all of its 3.5 million residents and all businesses. Next month, the city plans to issue an […]
Say Hello to Rick Ross
September 26th, 2013Via: Esquire: Back in the day, Ross would offer the same deal with crack cocaine — to start you out, he’d give you $100 worth for free and you could sell it for $300. Between 1982 and 1989, federal prosecutors estimated, Ross bought and resold three tons of cocaine. In 1980 dollars, his gross earnings […]
China’s Education Plan … From Finland’s Playbook
September 17th, 2013Via: CNBC: If you think the business competition from China is hard now, brace yourself. It will likely get tougher in about 20 years or so. And how is China doing it? By borrowing a page from Finland. At first blush, though, it would appear that China is simply lightening up. “The Ministry of Education […]
‘School Is a Prison’
September 4th, 2013I hope that everyone who sees this post clicks through and reads the whole piece. Also, here’s the book: Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life by Peter Gray Via: Salon: Parents send their children to school with the best of […]
507 Mechanical Movements: Mechanisms and Devices
August 18th, 2013There’s a website that shows animations of some of the designs: 507movements.com Book: 507 Mechanical Movements: Mechanisms and Devices by Henry T. Brown (One of the most popular books with Cryptogon readers.)
Democracy Now On Amazon and Jeff Bezos
August 14th, 2013Disclosure: I have an affiliate relationship with Amazon. The Democracy Now discussion below contains some legitimate gripes about Amazon, which I’ve covered on here in the past. The most disturbing thing about Amazon (to me) is their work with CIA to build the agency’s new cloud computing infrastructure (news circa March 2013). That’s bad. But […]
U.S. Pays Public Benefits to Suspected Nazi War Criminals
July 30th, 2013Blowback: America’s Recruitment of Nazis and Its Effects on the Cold War by Christopher Simpson America’s Nazi Secret: An Insider’s History by John Loftus Via: AP: At least 10 suspected Nazi war criminals ordered deported by the United States never left the country, according to an Associated Press review of Justice Department data – and […]
The Eye of Sauron Is the Modern Surveillance State
July 23rd, 2013Via: Slate: What can literary fiction teach us about recent revelations that the National Security Agency has aggressively been gathering massive amounts of data on American citizens? The novel one usually turns to, of course, is George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, with its terrifying vision of the Thought Police. Even President Obama, in response to questions […]
