The BBC’s Nuclear Bunker
November 1st, 2010Via: Independent:
It all makes sense, once you know what you’re looking at. The 200 acres of thickly wooded hillside, inaccessible by public footpath; the radio mast strategically poking out on top; the hidden entrance, just off the A44 near Evesham, in Worcestershire, surrounded by CCTV cameras and a high-security barrier. But to the passing motorist, there is nothing about Wood Norton Hall to identify it as the site of the BBC’s secret nuclear bunker.
Who knew there even was such a thing? The BBC would certainly rather we didn’t. It emerged recently that, from tomorrow, the continuity announcers at Radio 4 will decamp there for three weeks while a £1bn refurbishment is finished at Broadcasting House, London. However, a corporation source declined to confirm or deny the story. They would rather not discuss what goes on at Wood Norton, she said, and no, The Independent on Sunday was certainly not welcome to come and visit.
So, what don’t they want us to see?
According to the official line, Wood Norton is a training camp, where sound engineers are sent for residential weekends. That is certainly one function: zoom in on Google Earth and you see a compound of modern buildings nestled in the woods which, according to engineers who have visited the site, are equipped with the latest high-tech facilities. Other blocks house accommodation and a canteen. But it’s what you can’t see from above the ground that is intriguing.
Buried 10 storeys into the hillside is a fully functioning nuclear bunker, built at great expense in 1966, at the height of the Cold War. So few people knew of its existence that, even when it was being built, visiting trainees were told not to ask why all that concrete was being mixed. Those involved in its construction were obliged to sign the Official Secrets Act, and even now you won’t get a peep out of the BBC press office to acknowledge the reality.
3D Building Projection
November 1st, 2010This will definitely be old news to many of you, but I just randomly stumbled across this tonight.
3D animated scenes are projected onto building exteriors. The computer generated imagery incorporates the building’s architecture. The effect can be pretty astonishing.
Here are several clips of work done by a company called NuFormer.
I’ll include one I happened to watch:
There are dozens of these clips around. Just search for “building projection” if you want to see more.
Anyway, if this type of thing is being used to peddle big screen TVs and footwear, I wonder what .mil’s capability is along these lines?
“Starting tomorrow, we’re going to start searching your crotchal area”
November 1st, 2010Via: The Atlantic:
At BWI, I told the officer who directed me to the back-scatter that I preferred a pat-down. I did this in order to see how effective the manual search would be. When I made this request, a number of TSA officers, to my surprise, began laughing. I asked why. One of them — the one who would eventually conduct my pat-down — said that the rules were changing shortly, and that I would soon understand why the back-scatter was preferable to the manual search. I asked him if the new guidelines included a cavity search. “No way. You think Congress would allow that?”
I answered, “If you’re a terrorist, you’re going to hide your weapons in your anus or your vagina.” He blushed when I said “vagina.”
“Yes, but starting tomorrow, we’re going to start searching your crotchal area” — this is the word he used, “crotchal” — and you’re not going to like it.”
“What am I not going to like?” I asked.
“We have to search up your thighs and between your legs until we meet resistance,” he explained.
“Resistance?” I asked.
“Your testicles,” he explained.
‘That’s funny,” I said, “because ‘The Resistance’ is the actual name I’ve given to my testicles.”
He answered, “Like ‘The Situation,’ that guy from ‘Jersey Shore?'”
Yes, exactly, I said. (I used to call my testicles “The Insurgency,” but those assholes in Iraq ruined the term.)
I pointed out to the security officer that 50 percent of the American population has no balls (90 percent in Washington, D.C., where I live), so what is going to happen when the pat-down officer meets no resistance in the crotchal area of women? “If there’s no resistance, then there’s nothing there.”
“But what about people who hide weapons in their cavities? I asked. I actually said “vagina” again, just to see him blush. “We’re just not going there,” he reiterated.
I asked him if he was looking forward to conducting the full-on pat-downs. “Nobody’s going to do it,” he said, “once they find out that we’re going to do.”
In other words, people, when faced with a choice, will inevitably choose the Dick-Measuring Device over molestation? “That’s what we’re hoping for. We’re trying to get everyone into the machine.” He called over a colleague. “Tell him what you call the back-scatter,” he said. “The Dick-Measuring Device,” I said. “That’s the truth,” the other officer responded.
The pat-down at BWI was fairly vigorous, by the usual tame standards of the TSA, but it was nothing like the one I received the next day at T.F. Green in Providence. Apparently, I was the very first passenger to ask to opt-out of back-scatter imaging. Several TSA officers heard me choose the pat-down, and they reacted in a way meant to make the ordinary passenger feel very badly about his decision. One officer said to a colleague who was obviously going to be assigned to me, “Get new gloves, man, you’re going to need them where you’re going.”
The agent snapped on his blue gloves, and patiently explained exactly where he was going to touch me. I felt like a sophomore at Oberlin.
“I’m going to run my hands up your thighs, and then feel your buttocks, then I’m going to reach under you until I meet –”
“Resistance?” I interrupted.
“Yes, resistance. Do you want to go into a private room?” he asked.
“Are you asking me into a private room?” I said. He looked confused. I said, “No, here is fine.”
…
The obvious goal of the TSA is to make the pat-down embarrassing enough for the average passenger that the vast majority of people will choose high-tech humiliation over the low-tech ball check.
Randy Quaid Speaks Directly to Press
November 1st, 2010I avoided posting this story, initially, but it has become somewhat interesting, from a Beware-Of-Crooked-Lawyers perspective, and maybe other perspectives.
Sodas, Other Sugary Beverages Linked to Increased Risk of Type 2 Diabetes, Metabolic Syndrome
October 31st, 2010Update: “Sugar-Sweetened” Means…
Via: Sugar-Sweetened Beverages and Risk of Metabolic Syndrome and Type 2 Diabetes:
SSBs, which are now the primary source of added sugars in the U.S. diet, are composed of energy-containing sweeteners such as sucrose, high-fructose corn syrup, or fruit juice concentrates, all of which have essentially similar metabolic effects.
—End Update—
I guess this means sugar, as in sugar, and not “corn sugar” as in high fructose corn syrup.
Via: Science Daily:
A new study has found that regular consumption of soda and other sugar-sweetened beverages is associated with a clear and consistently greater risk of metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes. According to the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researchers, the study provides empirical evidence that intake of sugary beverages should be limited to reduce risk of these conditions.
…
Consumption of sugary drinks, the majority of which are sodas, has increased substantially in the U.S. and across the globe and previous scientific studies have shown consistent associations with weight gain and risk of obesity. However, this study is the first meta-analysis to quantitatively review the evidence linking sugar-sweetened beverages with type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome.
Research Credit: JC
Cryptogon Readers Send Contributions
October 31st, 2010Thanks to these Cryptogon readers for sending contributions. All of these people expressed appreciation for the backchannel.
MO $200
VC €40
SP $10
South Africa Plans World’s Biggest Solar Power Project
October 31st, 2010Via: AFP:
South Africa’s plan to build what could become the world’s biggest solar project has drawn keen interest from investors even though it is still in its infancy, an official said Friday.
More than 400 investors and solar industry insiders from around the world converged on the town of Upington in South Africa’s arid Northern Cape province this week for a two-day conference aimed at generating investor interest in plans for a 5,000-Megawatt solar park at the edge of the Kalahari Desert.
The park, whose estimated price tag is 150 billion rands (21.3 billion dollars, 15.4 billion euros), would provide one-eighth of South Africa’s current generation capacity, helping end the country’s reliance on coal and the power shortages that pummelled its economy in 2008.
Police Running Security Screening to Enter London Park?
October 30th, 2010A Cryptogon reader emailed to say that he encountered the police running a security checkpoint at one of the entrances to one of London’s main parks. According to the reader, “There was a metal detector, many police officers, a little tent, and officers with wands if necessary. They asked if I had any ‘sharp objects’ and explained they wanted to keep the park safe.” He adds that there was no public event underway that would necessitate additional security.
There was more detail, but I’m holding it back just because I want to see if any other Cryptogon readers in London have encountered this at parks. I am not able to find any mention of this in the media.
So, is this actually happening? Are their airport style security screenings (minus the x-ray) being set up to enter parks in London?
Fraudclosure: ‘When you save broken companies from their own incompetence, this is what you get.’
October 29th, 2010Via: The Big Picture:
The banks have gotten the Big Lie technique down to a science: State a lie so colossal that no one could believe anyone “has the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.” In practice, adding factually accurate, but irrelevant or misleading color, helps push the lie on unsuspecting rubes.
The banks and their many supplicants have been successful in doing just that in the robosigning issue. Any discussion about property rights, due process, or criminal investigations into perjury are thwarted; instead, the focus is on deadbeat homeowners…
The misdirection is successful, and the average reader/viewer/listener has no idea how badly they are being misinformed.
…
We have no record of how many people have been erroneously foreclosed — the banks themselves are the only centralized source of that data, and they ain’t talking — but we have lots of anecdotal evidence.
The plural of anecdote is not data; what is needed is a central collection of all the anecdotal errors of false or erroneous foreclosure — someone with a national office, say a US Attorney’s or Congressman’s office.
Halliburton Knew Cement it Mixed for BP’s Well Was Unstable
October 29th, 2010Via: Bloomberg:
Halliburton Co. may face increased liability in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill after the staff of a U.S. presidential panel said the contractor knew cement it mixed for BP Plc’s well was unstable.
The staff of the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill said documents provided by Halliburton showed at least three tests of the mixture, in February and April, found the recipe wasn’t stable. Halliburton disputed the findings, saying in a statement the formulas tested differed from the final recipe used in the doomed Macondo well.
