House Sititng

I am spending this week house sitting for a friend in western North Carolina. Up in the mountains. It is quite nice. I haven't been doing much except playing my newest old computer game, (Hearts of Iron) and watching movies on TV. My friend and his wife took their kids to Disney World and asked me to watch their dog and their salt water aquarium. The dog and I got off to a rough start as he bit me about 1 minute after I got out of the car. I told him that was his freebie and the next time my boot was going doing his throat. I guess he believed me as we haven't had any more trouble. He is a small dog that seems to have swallowed a large dog some time in the past. Or maybe an amplifier. He does not have a small dog bark. His bark is at least twice, maybe three times his size. After 2 days he began to freak out a bit. He would come into the house, go look in the kitchen, the office, downstairs where the kids room is and then come back and look at me with this "What did you do with them?" expression his face.
Today I did manage to lock myself out of the house but luckily for me my nefarious skills are still up and I was able to break in and get the key I left on the counter. then I went to Sylva where I wandered into a little auction/antique shop that just happens to also be the Republican party headquarters. It was great. I bought a whole stack of books, all published in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century for a grand total of $10. I am a happy camper.

Mad Science!

Awhile back I got a link in my email from an old friend, you know him as Anonymous, to an article about some Pentagon non lethal weapons systems. The one that was REALLY interesting was one called Microwave Hearing. In this buzzing, clicking, or knocking noises are heard within or immediately behind the subjects head. When microwaves are beamed at a person with just the right frequency a phenomena called thermoelastic expansion takes place in the brain which our cochlear system picks up as sound. Since the phenomena was first discovered over thirty years ago much research has been done to discover how it works, why it works and what side effects there may be. Also of course to see if it could be made useful somehow. Exact details of how it works involved math so I am not going to go into it. Why it works is obvious, temperature changes cause expansion and things make noise when they move. The scientist who did the studies say that the amount of energy used to produce the effect is so small that there are no side effects. As for useful? Well there was work done on tuning the microwaves so as to transmit understandable words. In one experiment mentioned in the Freedom of Information release the sounds of a person counting from 1 to 10 were beamed to a subject who heard them while microphones placed around the subject picked up no sounds. They say it has an effective range of hundreds of meters. Possible uses include sending instructions to someone or disrupting or confusing others by putting voices in their head. the effect is almost instantaneous so it is feasible. I am not sure how man portable such a system would be. I suspect it would take a fair amount of poser to work so I suspect not very. but who knows, we keep coming up with better batteries all the time. So the next time someone says "The voices in my head told me to do it!" Perhaps, just perhaps, they really did.

The article that my friend linked to me was written by Lisa Zyga on Physorg.com. I was less than impressed by her reporting since she describes this and other projects mentioned as "non lethal torture" Now I personally don't think non lethal weapon systems are torture. Given a choice between making someone very uncomfortable or killing them I vote for uncomfortable in most cases. Ms Zyga should rein in her biases just a bit.
Here is the link to her article. Article

And here is the link to the D.O.A. Freedom of Information release dated Dec 13, 2006.
It is a PDF file. F.O.I. pdf file

There are several other non lethal systems mentioned in the file including using microwaves to raise body temp to simulate a fever. (I hate to walk around with a fever, let alone riot.) Using electromagnetic pulses to scramble the nervous system, sort of like inducing an epileptic fit. (that one was still strictly theoretical as of 2006) Using sound to induce nausea. And some talk of using lasers to induce temporary blindness. I still think the voices in your head is the coolest though.

One thing I did notice is a mention in the part about inducing a fever like state via microwaves of something called the Pound Proposal in which it is proposed that instead of heating the air in our houses we should just use microwaves to heat us instead. Interesting no?


As long as were are talking about "Mad Science" I would like to direct you to the Web Comic Girl Genius by Phil and Kaja Foglio. Pretty much anyone who played Dungeons and Dragons in the 80's should recognize that name from the comic strip he rna in Dragon magazine. Girl Genius is not at all related but is instead a "gaslamp fantasy" which is defines by the authors as "The genre is popularly called "steampunk." Expect big, clanking Victorian-style tech, old-fashioned clothes, Frankenstein monsters and airships. Lots and lots of airships. Is it magic? Is it science? A little of both, I suppose–it's Mad Science."

It is quite fun. Go, and read it from the beginning.

My apologies

To the few readers I have left out there. (and fewer now than before)I have been exceptionally lazy and distracted and not posting.
My apologies again.
I have a few things that need to be written about though. Today let us discuss the riots in Kosovo. Serbs (for some unknown reason)seem to be unhappy that they have been ripped out of their country and thrown into this new statelet of Kosovo. (you do recall that when we went in we specifically said we were not going to create an independent Kosovo don't you?)So they are protesting and rioting.
And the government of Kosovo says “There can be no compromise when it comes to the rule of law,”. I find that a bit ironic considering Kosovo got it's independence by launching a terrorist campaign of destruction and assassination that provoked a crackdown byt eh Serbian government. A crackdown that went to extremes and provoked a response by NATO and the US. this response wouldn't have happened except that there was a sort of universal guilt for not having stepped in earlier in Bosnia. So for the Kosovar Albanians it is okay to rebel and kill government officials to get what you want but not for the Kosovar Serbs.
Frankly I don't think the US should have recognized Kosovo. I think this is setting a very dangerous precedent as is recognized by Spain and other nations where there are ethnic minority groups that agitate for an independent state.

coming up next "thermoelastic expansion of the brain" and rabidly biased reporting all in one fell swoop.

Somthing interesting to read

Ultimate War Simulation

It is satire but it is oh so true.


On a different front.....

Anyone but me wondering why someone in a hotel room in Las Vegas would be making Ricin if not for some sort of terrorist type attack? Even if you are just whacking your boss bio-weapons tend to fall under the "terrorist" label.

They mention that the man had "Anarchist literature" in his hotel room too. Want to bet THIS is what he had?