Teh Interwebz

299 posts

War!!!!!!

116 comments

I am just opening this so people can stay in touch in the comments if Gawker goes down. I am currently hunting around for news on this. Can I ask that people not post live links in the comments? Let’s keep this place below the radar.

This is so much more interesting than doing my laundry.

Jokes are in the Alt Text.

Dance Break:

Wait, are we sure she isn’t on 4chan?

Sitting in front of the computer for long periods is bad for you…

For Adrian:

For Swifter:

Gnosis seems like a really lame name. Can’t they come up with something with a little sass.

More suspects:

Oh Christ, now we’re at this:

They Have All Our Bases!!!

The Night Watchman: O

2 comments

Numbers Stations

Numbers stations are short wave radio broadcasts that have unexplained origins and meanings. They are often associated with intelligence and espionage activities and were a staple of Cold War intrigue. Since I made a radio post earlier I thought I would put up some information about a couple of the more interesting numbers stations.

Numbers stations get there name from the encoded messages they would broadcast. Usually a station would have a signon tone, song, or phrase. This was usually followed by a series of numbers, letters, or phrases. The numbers were generally believed to be code that would be deciphered by recipients using a one-time pad to decode the messages.  No government has ever admitted to using numbers stations, but the US has accused Cuba of using numbers stations.

The stations have been picked up all over the globe, but they are difficult to track because they broadcast in short bursts. The stations have been around since WWI making them one of the earliest forms of radio communication. While it is assumed most stations are connected with governments there is also speculation that some stations may be connected with drug smuggling or other types of organized crime.

Here are a couple of sound samples from the more famous stations. If you want a more comprehensive list, visit the Conet Project archive where you can hear 150 different stations.

Atencion: A Cuban station that has been involved in US espionage cases:

The Lincolnshire Poacher is a station that is believed to be connected to British intelligence. I broadcasts from Cyprus and has an apparent sister station (called Cherry Ripe) in Australia that broadcasts the same material.

The Lincolnshire Poacher

UVB-76: A Russian station nicknamed The Buzzer because it runs a buzzing noise between broadcasts (it also uses snippets of Swan Lake). It was dormant for a number of years, but began broadcasting again earlier this year.

The Buzzer

If you have a shortwave radio, you can listen for yourself . It doesn’t take any fancy equipment and you can feel like you are on a secret spy mission behind enemy lines. Certainly more fun than listening to your average drive time DJ.

T-giving Group Gawktard Gawkwards of the Day

1 comment

In response to a post about Wikileaks causing a rift between the US and its allies, MsAndreaDworkinIsInThaHouse brings us another comment full of insight and nuance http://gawker.com/comment/33078113/

Her comments are like the call of the great wild Gawktard: shrill, stupid and without thought and they always bring the lulz. If Andrea Dworkin could see what her name hath wrought I suspect she’d be sad at the spectacle of the stupid.

Gawkward: Poor Rupert Murdoch Edition

1 comment

Gawkward is Crasstalk’s compilation of truly ridiculous/idiotic Gawker comments.

Today’s Gawkward contribution comes from the commenter MsAndreaDworkinIsInThaHouse after a nice post by Ryan Tate making the case that News Corp.’s new iPad-only news app was doomed to fail:

at least he’s trying. entrepreneurs take risks. that’s why some people are entrepreneurs and some people criticize them.

Well played, Ms. Dworkin! It’s so obvious that this Tate fellow is just some jealous pussy who’s afraid to start his own mom-and-pop multinational right-wing media death cult. Good job. Now let’s go make sure Bristol Palin doesn’t get voted off DWTS!!!1!!!

The Night Watchman: R

11 comments

The Georgia Guidestones

In an isolated spot in Elbert County Georgia stands one the most mysterious monuments in American history. The Georgia Guidestones are are an arrangement of large granite slabs that are arranged in a manner that allow them to be used as an astrological calendar and clock. This would make the structures interesting enough, but the uncertainty about who built the monument and the cryptic messages written upon it make the Guidestones the object of much speculation from the conspiracy theory community. Continue reading →

In Praise of Trolls

5 comments

A nod to 92BuickLeSabre who wrote and earlier post on anonymity online.

Everybody hates trolls. They are the boogyman who terrorize children in the dark forest of the internet and who ruin the comments section of daily newspapers. Part of the creation of this blog was the desire to escape the trolls and jackasses who seem to be invading Gawker. However, I would argue that trolling, when done right, can be a force for good in the uglier places on the internet. Let’s face it, there are plenty of people who will say and advocate completely reprehensible things online. Trolling is a way of saying no to terrible ideas on forums and sites where bad people are encouraging awful ideas and it is a way to punish individuals and people who break online etiquette. Here’s a couple of examples. Continue reading →

The Night Watchman

7 comments

Warning: Author is dweeb academic type who does not normally do “creative writing.” She apologizes in advance for any tedium. Thanks Mr. Meat, this is great.

I don’t sleep. Even when I was a kid I was up at three in the morning staring at the ceiling. During the summer I stayed with my grandparents on an isolated farm in the Western Nebraska scrub. My grandmother didn’t sleep either. We would lay on her bed in the still hours and she would read the comics to me while my grandfather slept in the recliner he passed out in at eight o’clock. Continue reading →

In Defense of Anonymity*

11 comments

*Not of “Anonymous”

Anonymity is getting a bad reputation on the internet.  Synonymous with trolling and cybervandalism, the obvious negatives have come to define the concept.  But allowing that to happen ignores the internet’s initial promise.  When combined with actual rational discourse (a stretch, I know), anonymity actually does allow us to engage in a public version of private discourse in ways that were never possible before.

Remember when we all lived in villages?  Anonymity was impossible.

It wasn’t even a word until the early 17th century.

Sure, those villages were able to raise children.  But everything about those kids’  futures were planned out for them before they were born.  Just ask John Butcher, William Baker, and Robert Candlestickmakerson.  Want to stretch your wings or think your own thoughts?  Try migration or exile.  Oh, but watch out for slavery and xenophobia while you are out on the road!  Want to branch out here at home?  I’ve picked out a nice jail cell for you.

The modern world? It finally promised us anonymity.  Sure, Debbie Downer Durkheim liked to point out the negatives, but it also allowed us to create new personas, be new people.  If we didn’t like country values, then we could try on city values.  Durkheim meet Draper.

The anonymity of the city did require us to regulate these new public personas – thank god – but it gave us some freedom for the private persona.  Sure, I have to pretend to respect you from M-F, 9-5, but when I get home I have my own little village.  Where my old provincial or new radical thoughts can run free.

Free but necessarily private, and therefore still a domain of tied up and unchallenged thoughts and ideals.

Now, here we are with the internet.  Finally, a world where one can maintain an acceptably professional public persona (that we are relatively able to choose), but where we can also open some of our private self.  Because we are able to do it through an anonymous persona.  A universe of the nom de plume!

And this is great!  Because we do all have our own progressive and regressive thoughts and concerns about controversial matters.  Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll, politics, race, gender and religion.  Thoughts that we want to have challenged, but are afraid to talk about. (Yes, even you.)

For, arguably the first time, we have a way to express them and open them up for discourse, to have them challenged.  To freely develop our private personas.  Even to exaggerate them and try on new ideas that we might not have even been willing to try before.

So what do we do with this freedom?  (Aside from abuse it through irrational trolling.) First step, voluntarily eliminate it!  We tag our online discourse to our facebook profiles.  Which takes us right back to where we were.  Either living in the modern world, of regulated professional conduct and hidden unchallenged private personas.  Or the pre-modern world, where our entire life becomes one big village, merging our personal and private personas in one big oversharey mess.

Well, that, my friends, gets us nowhere.

So here is to defending anonymity.  Use it as a chance to engage in a public discourse without fear of public repercussion.  Say what you really think and see if it holds up to public scrutiny.

Because the world might learn something from your radical new plan for combining the legalization of marijuana and prostitution, but that doesn’t mean you should have to ruin your career as a Catholic pre-school teacher just to find out.