The Taste of Oil is in the Drinking

This is a comment to a news article from a Nigerian newspaper.   It is a wonderful, sarcastic, well written short story about oil corruption in Nigeria.    

The story may be written by someone named Darlington Ehondor.  It says it is.  I have no idea if this is a known person in Nigeria, a known writer, or an anonymous critic, or what.   He does not name names below when he accuses everyone of corruption, so maybe this is not so dangerous to do.

I particularly like the idiom of the "Nigerian Cake", that Nigeria is seen by its people as a big cake that everyone can and should take a slice of.  

The original is a comment at the bottom of this article:
http://www.vanguardngr.com/2012/07/only-three-million-barrels-stolen/


Darlington_Ehondor • 10 months ago THE TASTE OF OIL IS IN THE DRINKING

A lot of people wonder why the oil sector is so pathologically notorious for sweet-toothed scams and mouth-watering scandals. I used to wonder myself, and my wife wouldn’t stop gawking at the TV each time a new kettle of rotten oil bubbled over and covered our television screen in blinding mist. But when the Nollywoodesque Lawan-Otedola circus show exploded into a national pastime, I decided to find out exactly what made oil tick. What I discovered will make you drool and dry with desire.

“Can I taste some oil?” I asked Jack Rider, managing director of Rivers Of Oil In Nigeria (or ROOIN), a foreign oil prospecting company, which specializes in drilling and draining crude somewhere in Bayelsa State.

He said, “I should be glad to give you a glass or two of Bonny Light. It’s the best blend there is – better than anything the Saudis and the Venezuelans have on the market. Senators and their SUVs drink that a lot.”

I was excited at the prospect.

So he flew me on his company’s helicopter to its off-shore oil rig off the Atlantic Ocean. As soon as we touched down on the helipad, I was instantly overwhelmed by the strong, enveloping smell of raw oil, which made me feel groggy, a near feeling of drunkenness. In my mind, I reasoned that, if the smell of oil could muster such an inebriating high, then the taste of it must be in the drinking, awesomely over-powering.

Amid the deafening hums and hollering of machines and clock-working engines and sea breeze, I yelled out to Rider, “I am feeling like I just stepped out of a beer parlour! Why is that?!!”

“It’s the smell of oil! No one comes here without tipping over with the kind of psychoactive reaction you are experiencing at the moment, as a result of stepping on this rig. But wait until you taste the taste of oil.”

Before I knew it, Rider was handing me a huge transparent mug, and I stared with amazement at its thick black content. The strong aroma hit me so hard my legs wobbled a few seconds.

“Drink,” Rider said.

I took a sip and waited for it to take effect on my taste buds. Its smoothness on my tongue felt like velvet. When Rider looked away at a particularly noisy machine, I pretended to swallow.

I said, “It tastes like Wall’s ice cream. Now I know why they call it ‘sweet crude’.”

“It’s the same reason politicians and business people are losing their minds and pointing accusing fingers at each other over it. I tell you something, my friend, oil is an addictive drug. Once you taste it, you never want to leave it. People go into public service in your country because it is about the only place you can taste oil to your heart’s content. For them, it’s a contagious disease with serial infestations. You won’t believe how much they thirst for oil.”

I asked Rider, “How many politicians have come here to taste your brand of oil?”

“They don’t just taste, they cart it off in barrels and ship-loads and give some to their friends.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“If you don’t believe me, then who will you believe – the guys at the NNPC, who are the chief poisoners in the oil-drinking business?”

I interjected with disgust, “The guys at the NNPC are supposed to protect Nigerian oil from those plundering and pillaging it.”

“Well, they are up to their eyes in the plundering and pillaging business themselves. Of course, they work hand and foot with the political fat cats. ”

I said, “I don’t expect you to name names, but would that include legislators and people in the executive arm of government?”

“The people in the hallowed dome and those on the Rock. They troop in here regularly like termites and we have to fill their orders, which they write off by sneaking them into the national budget.”

Rider suddenly and instinctively motioned me over to a corner of the rig and I was sub-consciously amazed to find a stack of barrels with my name written on them in Bodoni bold. I asked him, “Whose are those?”

“As you can see, they are yours, Sir – my personal gift to you. Those barrels are your share of the proverbial national cake, your once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to strike it rich. Or don’t you want them? You might not get another chance. There is a room-full of legislators lining up to load them off.”

“Are you bribing me?”

“Hell, no! I am giving you oil to whet your soil so you don’t write any of what you’ve seen and heard here, or the politicians are going to confiscate our license and turn it over to our rivals over there in Prominent Petroleum, who have been working hard to match us bribe-barrel-for-bribe-barrel in the competition for the hearts and minds of politicians in hallowed places.”

“I can’t take that home! My wife has petro-phobia, a convulsive fear of petroleum. She can only stand the smell of cooking oil. Thanks, but no, thanks.”

He said, “Politicians don’t take their oil home – only the spoils of oil, the cold hard cash. For their wives, it is life’s elixir. Or why else do you think Patience Jonathan goes to Dubai every day?”

But I wanted to know something else, so I asked the managing director, “What if a politician doesn’t know where to sell the bribe oil you give him and he threatens to fry your butt in a deep fat fryer?”

“We convert his oil to cash, and we’re talking tons and oodles and gazillions of dollars, pounds, yens, and even yuans, as the Chinese have begun to swim in these oily waters increasingly. It’s our way of thanking the politicians for their magnanimity.”

“How do the politicians thank you for thanking them?”

“They double the price of petroleum products and blame it all on the global economic recession. That way, we are shielded behind a formidable wall of officialdom.”

“You mean you are helping to ruin the Nigerian economy?”

Rider was furious. He blared ferociously, “Just because my company’s acronym is ROOIN doesn’t mean that we are the ones tumbling your economy into the gutters.”

I said, “You are not worried about the environmental damage then. Look at these waters, no one can fish or swim in them anymore. The oil in the soil eats up our toil, and everywhere is the reek of sleek. What do you say about that?”

The oil company owner put in a defence. He said, “Never mind the cliché, but who ever made an omelette without cracking a few eggs? Environmental costs come with the crude business. Without it, we wouldn’t be in business. We would roll over and evaporate.”

“You are being insensitive to those whose livelihoods depend on these waters.”

“Who says we aren’t sensitive to their plight? The politicians just won’t let us do something about it because the money will come out of their bribes, and nobody wants to go home with chicken change. And, by the way, it’s not like we are the only ones damaging the environment.”

“Who else is?”

Rider said, “The pipeline raiders, who puncture holes in oil pipes in the bushes of the Niger-Delta and cart off crude in buckets and wheelbarrows. They are the ones you should be honey-punching with your jibes, not us who do honest work by drilling legally and legitimately.”

I said, “The pipeline raiders work for the politicians.”

“How did you know that?”

“I heard it from Zainab, who is a girlfriend to Senator Homeward Bound, who she says let it slip out during a particularly talkative orgasmic frenzy in a seedy motel the other night.”

Crime and Punishment: Nigerian Oil Theft

We are proud to initiate a new topic here on Global Wahrman: Criminal Activities. We hope to be a vital stop on your internet review of crime opportunities and showcase both new opportunities for crime, as well as older approaches revitalized by new technologies, and many other related topics associated with the fast moving worlds of crime.

In today's modern world, with so many people disenfranchised and impoverished by our Government's policies, designed as they are to enrich the few at the expense of the many, we believe that crime is a growth industry and that it embodies the spirit of entrepreneurial activity that America stands for.   Many of our most famous Americans have been criminals, from Carnegie to Morgan, from Astor to Mellon.  Its as American as apple pie.   The trick is to be successful enough to buy your way out of whatever trouble your entrepreneurial activities have gotten you into.

Art fraud, oil theft, poker games, money laundering, cybercrime and government bailouts, all these crimes and more will be covered in future posts.

Today we begin our series with an article on Phys.Org about Nigerian Oil Theft. Nigeria has the unusual advantage of both vast mineral wealth, in this case oil, with an incredibly poor population, combined with a government which is considered one of the most corrupt and incompetent in the world. The government and the military of Nigeria have enriched themselves at the people's expense, which is what all government's do, but Nigeria's has been extraordinarily good at it. This particular problem started when vast oil reserves were proven to exist in Nigerian territory. Could this opportunity be used to both destroy the environment, further corruption, and yet completely fail to improve the life of the people of Nigeria? The Government of Nigeria stepped up to the challenge, and worked with Shell Oil to see to it that the oil was exploited in a way that helped only a few.

An oil thief caught in the very act of committing a crime! 

The problem comes from those plucky little people, trying to find a way to make a living, who, by stealing tiny amounts of this oil, also cause environmental problems. "Its all the poor people's fault," said Shell Oil executive Rancid "Randy" Smerlow. "We have worked very hard to steal the oil and make a lot of money which we use to destroy the environment globally and corrupt local officials, but its these damn poor people who are stealing oil, they cause all the environmental damage! Blame them!"

Of course this brings up the much larger issues of "big crime" vs "little crime". In America, there is no issue. We always favor big crime. But this is less clear in other parts of the world and we will explore this cultural diversity in depth in future articles on Global Wahrman.

Read the article on "Nigeria Oil Theft Soars to Feed Underground Industry" below and be sure to click on the links at the bottom of the article.

http://phys.org/news/2013-04-nigerian-oil-theft-soars-underground.html

or see:

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/50466485/ns/us_news-environment/t/nigerias-oil-thieves-say-government-leaves-them-no-choice/#.UXSW-qLZ4W4

or

http://www.english.rfi.fr/africa/20121120-nigeria-struggles-stop-billion-dollar-oil-theft

Advertising and the Rights of Paranoid People on the Internet

[This essay is slowly being rewritten ... the topic is the relationship between targeted internet ads and big data machine learning of customer preferences and being slightly paranoid as you review the ads it selects for you ... which are so weird.   Several countermeasures are proposed ... ]

You know and I know that the ads we see on Google are targeted for and at us. Billions and billions of cookies and multiply/add instructions have been dedicated to determining, through expert systems and big data, what to sell to the biped, typing mammal at the other end of the line.

How many times have you waited for a web page to come up only to notice that the browser is waiting on a response from "www.double-click-and-steal-information-to-make-money.com" ? This all is part of an elaborate plot by left-wing health care supporters to gather data on our buying habits or is it?  How do we know what the data is really used for?   What if Proctor and Gamble is part of larger plot to enact gun control?   

Whenever you look at a web site today, it is trying to sell you something based on the conclusions its advanced machine-learning algorithms have selected from your interests on the internet.   But it seems there are still a few bugs in the algorithm because they are not always quite on target. 

Consider the following ads I recently recently experienced while trying to use Google Mail:

       PUBLIC ARREST RECORDS
       ARREST RECORDS NOW POSTED ONLINE

       BECAME A PERSONAL TRAINER

       U.S. MILITARY STORE

       AVOID BEING LIED TO

       SOFTBALL RECRUITING

I mean, pardon me, but what the fuck ? (1) Do they know something that I don't know? Am I about to be arrested, do I need a lawyer?  Am I about to join a softball team?   Are they lying to me about joining a softball team?  What do they really mean by asking me if I want to be a personal trainer?  Why am I always the last to know?

The biggest puzzle of all is why advertisers believe that by interfering with our ability to get work done on the Internet, that we are going to be predisposed to buying from them. Watching their stupid advertisement for the latest online dating service ("Liz!  Meet Brad !!!  6 feet of handsome !") while I am trying to download the latest horror movie trailer does not make me more likely to buy their product.

Here are two ideas to throw a wrench into their sales campaign:

The first suggestion uses good old American capitalism and micro economics.  The Googles of the world are making money selling ads, the ad agencies are making money designing the ads, the companies themselves must be making money selling product, right ? So why not just put a 10th of a penny in my Paypal account for every discreet little ad, up to maybe a nickle in my Paypal account for an obnoxious full flash multimedia ad? Then, as the mafia supposedly says, I get to dip my beak in the well and everyone is happy because although worried about what the ads really mean, our advertising victim is at least getting paid for his trouble and can buy himself an antidepressant or a stiff drink with the profits.

The second idea is a little more passive aggressive.  It would not be hard to generate internet marketing countermeasures that used their weapons against them.   A program could be written that accessed the Internet and left cookies around that implied a profile that you wanted them to see.  You could be an intellectual, or very interested in beach volleyball, or even an intellectual with a very serious interest in beach volleyball, or any of a number of other interests.  Or we could be even more devious and do big data analysis of the latest marketing trends and make you either fit in, or deliberately hide your real interests by overwhelming them with fake accesses designed to hide your real marketing preferences in a mountain of carefully selected spurious data.

I hope that all Americans will unite against this conspiracy to waste our time with stupid ads that are supposedly based on our interests.

Thank you.

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1. Probably stolen from Charlie Wilson's War (2007)

A Message From Our Sponsors

I have been trying to maintain a steady stream of posts to this blog, about 20 - 25 a month, but I have slacked off recently.

There are about a half dozen or so typically sarcastic posts that have been written and which are ready to be posted, and I may get around to them eventually.  But the reality is that I thought it was time for me to get a little more serious here and get around to discussing some of the themes that this Blog was started to discuss.   There is enough material here already that it makes sense to refocus and get back on theme.

We have good and bad news on the career front.  The good news is that I have a small, but amusing, project that will take about 1/2 my time for about 6 months.   It is enough so that I can pay my bills without going further in debt and that is terrific.  And it is fun and will no doubt result in my learning a lot.  If nothing else I am already relearning Java which I haven't used in many years, not seriously.  (1)

But at the same time, the bigger issues are all left unresolved and as time passes, these issues become more and more critical.  Not that they were not critical to begin with.

Thanks again to all who have kept in touch with me and to those of you who read this blog.  I appreciate it and I hope you find it entertaining and occasionally informative.

A final special note to my recent sponsors: Dave Coons, Josh Pines, Mike Deering, Nick Palevsky and Ken Perlin.  Without you guys, things would be much, much worse.   I appreciate your help.

__________________________________

1. As an aside, I find that reading a programming language like Java or Python is much easier than writing in it.   I always find that surprising, but I don't know why, its pretty obvious why this should be so.

Espionage, Reality, Smiley's People and Constitutional Law

If Hollywood holds one principle above all others, that principle would probably be "There is nothing in the world more important than making a fast buck and if in order to do that we compromise reality, history, truth, or ethics, even egregiously, then that is what we will do."

It is wrong to think therefore that when Hollywood distorts something that this indicates a lack of integrity or a failure in character or even a criminal misrepresentation of the facts. In fact, it is evidence of the most sincere devotion to the highest principles on which Hollywood was founded.

When it comes to the subgenre of espionage and the Cold War, Hollywood is pathetically out of its league. Off the top of my head, I can not think of a single American film that comes close to describing or portraying American intelligence in anything close to reality, (1) but they always revert to the lowest level of stereotype and vulgar misrepresentation. The latest in this proud tradition of stupidity is Zero Dark Thirty, but we will not dwell on it beyond making the following observation. The filmmakers claim that what they present is real, e.g. the facts. It isn't. Even Argo misrepresents important details of the situation in Iran and that portrayal had diplomatic blowback in the real world.

But thats OK.

One must set realistic expectations in life and expecting Hollywood to act responsibly or knowlegably in this area is clearly not realistic.

But hard as it may be to believe, there are other countries that make films, and one of them is the UK. They are also famously not realistic by the way, but they are perhaps more amusing while they are not realistic. After all, James Bond is a British creation with almost no basis in reality. Another author whose work is apparently a bit closer to reality is the work of David Cornwell, aka John LeCarre, and it is in reference to one of his novels, Smiley's People (1992), that this post is written. The BBC made a six episode teleplay out of it, and someone has put it on Youttube.

You can find the first episode here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Dh4tnvx2b8

Is it totally realistic? Probably not. But it does go over in some colorful detail the role of emigres in the Cold War, the time scale of the work (e.g. years and decades), how individuals in the emigre community were used by both sides, the role of blackmail in turning agents, and how certain kinds of operations are done, or perhaps are done. The turning of the Soviet diplomat, Grigoriev is particularly interesting, as is the interview of the psychiatric patient, Tatiana, who may or may not be the daughter of the head of a special directorate of Moscow Center.

The former and current heads of foreign intelligence review a confession of a Soviet Spy

A Russian emigre meets a representative of the Riga Group and General Vladimir

I was surprised at how well this was done.  I have watched it several times since finding it on Youtube.

The story is the third in a series, but pretty much all you need to know of the backstory is (a) that Smiley used to be head of the British Foreign Intelligence, (b) that Karla is the bad guy, and (c) that Smiley's wife, Ann, famously cheated on him. A lot.

For those of you who think, as many American's probably do, that espionage agencies act outside the law and are guilty of the most heinous crimes, I refer you to the following paper I found on the Internet by a Georgetown Professor of Law who wrote a 56 page paper on the legality of certain espionage "deals" as found in Smiley's People in American constitutional law.

Second Guessing the Spymasters with a Judicial Role in Espionage Deals by John Radsan, Wm. Mitchell School of Law, Georgetown University.

http://apps.law.georgetown.edu/state-secrets-archive/resourcedocuments/Radsan_67.pdf

Radsan makes several points in his paper, including first and foremost that the ending of Smiley's People may be the most unrealistic part.   George makes an offer to Karla in writing without any help from the Circus's legal staff.   I thought that was a very funny thing of Radsan to say, in reality, in the CIA at least, there would have been lawyers everywhere.

The bulk of the paper is taken up with the various rulings by our legal system of whether the courts can be used to enforce an agreement between an agency like the CIA and an agent.  The short answer seems to be no, they can not.  The agent either has to trust the agency or they have to get their cash up front as it were.

Among other anecdotes we learn that Pres. Abraham Lincoln personally hired a spy and then failed to pay him.

I am not the least bit surprised.

David Cornwell, aka John LeCarre on Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_le_Carr%C3%A9

Smiley's People on Youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Dh4tnvx2b8

Smiley's People on IMDB

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083480/

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1. Now that I think of it, there is one sequence in Patriot Games (1992) that seems pretty accurate, up to a point, and that is sequence in the basement where they watch a special operation by live satellite.  Accurate?  Maybe not.  But definitely amusing.

Modern Design for the Homeless

In the face of poverty and homelessness caused by our Government's economic and trade policies, (1), an important new market has opened up and designers are scrambling to be a part of it. This is the market created by the new class of homeless: the well-educated and professional members of society who have been disenfranchised by the "new economy". These new homeless may not have a $100 to call their own, but they have a tremendous desire for good design in their otherwise pointless, impoverished and worthless lives.

Although it is not clear who exactly would pay for these, that is a detail that everyone agrees can be worked out later. In the meantime, it is necessary and appropriate to create the designs and show the world that it can be done. That people can be poor and without hope, and still have a measure of elegance in their lives.

Presented here are some concepts in the critical areas of shelter, transportation, shopping, personal hygiene, the work environment, and self-defense in a credit economy.

1. The Portable Hotel Room

The prospective customer of this concept is someone who is taking advantage of available space, whether an abandoned or unused warehouse, factory or other covered area but wishes to feel as though he were living in a hotel. It is a reminiscence of his or her days as a successful executive when he or she flew around the country and stayed at expensive hotel rooms. Thus a tiny amount of personal dignity is preserved.

Portable Hotel Room

http://www.tuvie.com/hotello-portable-hotel-room-for-daskonzept/

2. The Personal Travel and Shoppng Cart

Many have noticed that the homeless seem quite fond of shopping carts for hauling their pathetic valuables, usually rags and trash and rotting food, around. What you may not realize without having tried it, as I have, that the shopping cart is actually quite well suited for this. It is a well-balanced, sturdy, highly mobile device with many separate compartments to hold items big and small, that is easily transportable, and yet can be reduced in size and readily available in the urban and suburban environment. The design of the classic shopping cart is superb with minimalist lines and a retro feel.

But different aesthetics are certainly possible to achieve this mission of transport and storage, and here is a more modern consumer gadget-oriented approach which combines the shopping cart with portable electric transit for short distance travel. Of course the homeless person would need to find an electric outlet to plug it into, but one can invisage public charging stations for the homeless in community areas. Besides, the homeless are going to have other items they will need to charge besides this.

Travel Shopping Cart

http://www.tuvie.com/short-distance-travel-shopping-cart-design-by-flora-zhu/

3. Feminine Personal Hygiene

I don't feel qualified to say much about this innovation except to say that it makes good use of previously used soda bottle to provide a clean and european solution to one part of the homeless personal hygiene problem. Male users of this system may be able to use the soda bottle directly without the appliance.

Portable Bidet

http://www.tuvie.com/hygienna-solo-transforms-a-plastic-water-bottle-to-portable-bidet/

4. The Portable Work Environment

As many people have pointed out, the homeless deserve their misery because they do not pick themselves up by their bootstraps and become successful just like Jerry Ford, or George Bush, or Bill Gates. (2). One way to encourage the homeless to be productive and do work is to give them a portable work area, which is one of the things that this creative design is intended for. Now the poor will have even less excuse for their circumstances.

Portable Desk

http://www.tuvie.com/envol-portable-desk-with-a-substantial-storage-area-by-thibaut-rouganne/

5. Personal Defense in a Credit Economy

The cashless society is a reality for everyone, both rich and poor, and it is important for everyone to carry their credit cards safely. Since the homeless is going to be out on the street and mingling with people of all sorts, not all the same good people as you and me, one could imagine needing a personal defense solution for awkward situations.   Here we have one proposed solution in a nice knife which you can keep with your credit card. And best of all, this design is available today.

Credit Card with Knife

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0001WOKWQ/?tag=tuvie-20

In conclusion, I hope we have demonstrated that being homeless does not mean that one must give up all aesthetics, but that one can have a degree of good design around you no matter what your station in life. We at Global Wahrman wish to encourage this design movement and hope that it is just the beginning, a new dawn, of good design for the disenfranchised.

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Notes

1. Consider: legislation to encourage Globalization, destruction of the trade unions, a legal system designed for the rich, taxes on the middle class but tax breaks for the wealthy, all of these are positive actions taken by our elected representatives which have the result of impoverishing most Americans while enriching the wealthy few.

2. The fact that these three icons of the American Dream all came from fabulously wealthy families is irrelevant.

The Mexican Suitcase

In 1979, the brother of a famous photographer wrote a note about his late brother's work on the occassion of that work being featured in the Venice Bienalle, arguably the world's most famous art show, held every two years in Venice, Italy.

He said

In 1940, before the advance of the German army, my brother gave to one of his friends a suitcase full of documents and negatives. En route to Marseilles, he entrusted the suitcase to a former Spanish Civil War soldier, who was to hide it in the cellar of a Latin-American consulate. The story ends here. The suitcase has never been found despite the searches undertaken. Of course a miracle is possible. Anyone who has information regarding the suitcase should contact me and will be blessed in advance.

Four years earlier, in 1975, a colleague of the photographer wrote the brother and explained that he had taken the negatives out of Paris in advance of the Germans and had entrusted it to a Chilean he had met in the street in Bordeaux who promised to take it to a Latin American consulate. Nothing more was ever heard. It was assumed that the photographs were lost forever and presumably destroyed.

But it turns out that somehow, no one knows how, the suitcase, unopened, ended up in the possession of a the Mexican ambassador to Vichy France in 1941, General Francisco Aguilar Gonzalez. General Gonzalez returned to Mexico with the suitcase in his possession and passed away 30 years later, in 1971, possibly without having ever opened it. The suitcase was in the possessions of a woman who was the aunt of a Mexican documentary filmmaker. He inherited the suitcase, opened it, and reviewed the negatives. He realized that they were of the Spanish Civil War and contacted a professor at Queens College who studied the history of the conflict. The professor realized whose photographs these were, and contacted the brother of the late photographer.

The brother was Cornell Capa, founder of the International Center for Photography, and these were the rumored missing negatives of his brother, Robert Capa, arguably the most famous photographer of war in the history of photography.

But Capa was unable to contact the filmmaker who had found the negative and they were never received. Finally in 2004 a special effort was made to locate the person who had inherited the negatives and in 2007,  at the age of 89, Cornell Capa finally received the contents of the suitcase his brother had packed in Paris when the Germans attacked in 1940.

The 126 rolls of black and white negative are still being scanned and the ICP will hold an exhibition for them when they are prepared.

The guy in the center is a journalist named Ernest Hemingway

We must all be grateful that Capa and his friends had used film, of course. Had they been digital, no doubt they would not have survived. The storage media would have completely disintegrated over 60 years, it would be like trying to read a 1,000 miles of punched paper tape.

The complete story of the history of the Mexican suitcase can be found at the following link, at the International Center of Photography website:  http://museum.icp.org/mexican_suitcase/

Magnum Photos, the famous international photography agency, has a discussion of Capa at

http://www.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP3=CMS3&VF=MAGO31_10_VForm&ERID=24KL535353

Imaging Resource Article on the Suitcase:
http://www.imaging-resource.com/news/2013/04/05/famed-photojournalist-robert-capa-and-the-mystery-of-his-mexican-suitcase

Transmongolian Railroad and the Diorama Illusion

Two people have made a 4 minute "travelogue" of their 7,500 mile train trip from Beijing to Moscow using the video capability of one of the DSLRs.    A large part of this journey is on the Trans Siberian Railroad of course.

Few rail lines can compete historically with the Trans Siberian Railroad. (1) It was built starting in 1891 and started from both ends to meet in the middle. Started by the Czars and completed just before the Bolshevik Revolution, the railroad connects Petrograd (St. Petersburg, Leningrad) and Vladisvostok, the longest railroad in existence.   Of course, St Petersburg was the capital of Imperial Russia at the time and Vladivostok was their relatively ice free port on the Pacific Ocean.

You can start to see the diorama effect / illusion in this picture

The Trans Siberian Railroad is famous for opening up Siberia, for the role it played in the Russian Revolution and the Civil War, in World War 1 and World War 2.  If you saw the movie Reds (1981) with Warren Beatty, it features prominently in that.     When Moscow nearly fell to the Germans in the winter of 1941, it was the secret transfer of the armies of Siberia to Moscow in a triumph of logistics that stopped the Germans and threw them back in one of the great battles of history.

With John Reed on the Trans Siberian Railroad 

For those who are considering a trip on the Trans Siberian Railroad, here is a humorous link in something called "Wikitravel":
http://wikitravel.org/en/Trans-Siberian_Railway

A friend of mine who has been on this train says that by the end of trip you realize that train travel is not all that romantic if they do not clean out the latrine cars often enough.

At Chita, one can turn south and connect to a train that goes to Beijing.

Its 4 minutes long, its very interesting, and the music is great.

http://www.factoria.me/transmongolian/

But what I find very interesting is that I keep seeing the so-called diorama illusion when I watch it.  The diorama illusion is the illusion that something that is life size when photographed a certain way looks as though it is a model.   The classic examples of these were Viewmaster photographs of something small.   It has to do with a shallow depth of field.

Here is a Wikipedia page on the topic:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miniature_faking

In general the digital cameras have a more shallow depth of field because they are using lenses that have smaller focal lengths.  Why it is we associate the shallow depth of field with the illusion of a model I do not know.

An article about the film (use Google Chrome and it will translate it for you):

http://www.quesabesde.com/noticias/video-pekin-moscu-transiberiano-transmongoliano-factoria,1_9637

Wikipedia on the Trans Siberian Railway

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Siberian_Railway

Reds (1981) on IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082979/

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Notes:

1. Perhaps one of the very few that might compete with the Trans Siberian is the legendary Berlin -Baghdad Railway which played a role in WW1 and is no longer operational.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baghdad_Railway

Rudyard Kipling, Language Change and the Case of "Gentlemen-Rankers"

[in progress, I just cant get this right]

This is a post about a particular poem by Rudyard Kipling which is the origin of about 14 very recognizable idioms in the English language, yet is also, on its own, somewhat incomprehensible to a modern reader.

Every once in a while I come across the source of a commonly known idiom or saying in its original form or context, and it is usually an amusing surprise. Maybe I knew it came from that (whatever that is, book, play, short story) and maybe I had just forgotten. But then all of a sudden there it is and it is all the more amusing because it is in situ, in its place.

For example, it turns out that "its Greek to me" is a throw-away line from The Tragedy of Julius Caesar by Wm. Shakespeare in which a fellow conspirator tells Brutus what happened at the Senate that day. Someone was speaking from Greece. What did he say, asked Brutus. I have no idea, said the conspirator, it was Greek to me.

So in a typical Internet binge that covered the usual related topics of philosophy, optics, cosmology and the concept of echelon in military service (e.g. company, regiment, brigade, division, corps, etc), I came across a poem by Rudyard Kipling (1865 - 1936) where about 26% of the 56 lines are immediately recognizable. Not only are they recognizable, but they are used individually, so its not just one turn of phrase out in the real world, its something like 14 of them, each standing on its own. (Note: "standing on its own" is a good example of an idiom in modern use).

Here is a stanza from the poem in question, called "Gentlemen Rankers"

               We have done with Hope and Honour, we are lost to Love and Truth,
                       We are dropping down the ladder rung by rung,
               And the measure of our torment is the measure of our youth.
                       God help us, for we knew the worst too young!
               Our shame is clean repentance for the crime that brought the sentence,
                       Our pride it is to know no spur of pride,
               And the Curse of Reuben holds us till an alien turf enfolds us
                      And we die, and none can tell Them where we died.

I had not realized until now that Rudyard Kipling lived in the 20th century.    He died right before the start of World War 2 in 1936. He was born in Mumbai to British parents in the year our Civil War ended (e.g. 1865). 

And yet the language of his poems seem much more archaic, or at least filled with unrecognizable idiom, then your average late 19th century essay or poem.   For example, Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven was first published in 1845, or 20 years before Kipling was even born, and yet The Raven is very readable today with very few archaic uses that are a problem.   Well, as they say, the US and England are separated by a common language, and apparently this is even more so when you use a lot of idiom and slang.

This fabulous off-center photograph of Kipling is throwing off the symmetry of my blog.  Stop that!

Here is a partial list of such phrases: run his own six horses, and faith he went, he held the ready tin, machinely crammed, sweet to, blowzy, regimental hop, out on the spree (1), cock-a-hoop, Tommy, worsted, blacks your boots, Curse of Reuben, knew the worst, and of course Gentlemen-Rankers, the very title of the poem is incomprehensible, at least to me.

A "Gentleman-Ranker" is a soldier in the British Army who is from the upper classes but finds himself an enlisted soldier (e.g. below his station in life).  This would happen because of misfortune, a mistake, or a flaw in his character.  But in any case, he has the education and manners of a member of the ruling class, but he is living the life of a common soldier.  Hence, a "gentleman" who is a "ranker".

Other idiom in this poem which are still in common use include: something less than kind, black sheep, troop, thrash, down the ladder.

Here are six lines in particular that I found very recognizable but had not realized had come from this poem: "To the legion of the lost ones, to the cohort of the damned", "Its the home we never write to, and the oaths we never keep", "We have done with Hope and Honor, we are lost to Love and Truth", "We're poor little lambs who've lost our way", "And we die, and none can tell Them where we died", "Damned from here to eternity".

Notice the eccentric punctuation, its not mere love and honor we are done with, no, its Love and Honor that we are talking about.

When researching this I came across the following image of Mickey, Donald and Pluto as the Three Musketeers, but some Internet wit had them labeled as "Gentlemen-Rankers", fallen from the upper classes to a mere soldier, but still showing here a certain spirit and elan.

Gentlemen-rankers of a different period?

Read the entire poem here:

http://www.kipling.org.uk/poems_gentlemen.htm

The poem has been adapted as a famous drinking song, and numerous other topics in popular culture. It is practically the anthem of those who are in despair about their lives and position in life.

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References

Rudyard Kipling on Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudyard_Kipling

Military Rank

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_rank

Marian Reforms of the Roman Army:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marian_reforms

The Man Who Would Be King (1975) on IMDB

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073341/

Gunga Din (1939) on IMDB

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0031398/

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Notes:

1. A spree is an archaic term for cattle raid. Its more common usage is someone who is out on a drinking binge, or spree.

2. For those of you not up on the organization of the Roman Army after the Marian reforms of the 2nd century BC, the cohort was a standard unit of the Roman Legion, each legion had ten cohorts, each cohort was about 500 fighting men.

3. From Here to Eternity (1953) which of course we now realize is short for "Damned from here to eternity".

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0045793/

Linux Enhanced Precision Firearm Experience: Sniper Rifle Goes Open Source

Now open source operating systems, lasers, image processing and firearms are combined into a single consumer product: Tracking Point has a new rifle that integrates various techniques to increase the accuracy of your average sniper / long range rifle user.

What I want to know is whether this will run Ubuntu and whether one will always have to constantly upgrade the OS or "be left behind". I would hate to update the OS on this thing and have a problem, you know what I mean? Ooops, sorry, didnt mean to shoot you!   Ha ha.  Sorry about your dog.

Whats the upgrade system on this distribution?  Yum ?  Apt ?   How do I know if the file system is reliable, is it journaling or using ZFS ?   Has GLUT been ported to this platform?  What kind of boot loader does it use?   Are we talking LILO or GRUB here?   How can I get to the shell?  I wouldnt want to have a sniper rifle for which I could not get to the shell.

Does Open Source Software have a role to play in homeland security and national defense?  I would hope that surveillance cameras, unmanned drones and personal nuclear weapons would all run Linux and presumably Apache.   That should teach a lesson to those liberal do-gooders who thought that Open Source was going to change the world.

Read about it at Ammoland

http://www.ammoland.com/2013/01/trackingpoint-launches-worlds-first-precision-guided-firearms/#axzz2PJzFgmce

Here is the video which describes what they are doing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvbyAcYjzlc

And of course, each rifle comes with a WIFI hotspot to foster communication between itself and other weapons peripherals.   

Editorial

http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/02/a-precision-guided-firearm-powered-by-linux/

The Manufacturer

http://tracking-point.com/