Charlie Huston's Blog, page 93

The Ecuadorian Library

The Ecuadorian Library:

Back in distant, halcyon 2010, I was asked to write something about Wikileaks and its Cablegate scandal. So, I wrote a rather melancholy ess…

You don’t have to know a thing or give a shit about Edward Snowden, the NSA, cyber security or global digital society to enjoy writing like this. It is a high pitched, arm waving, table pounding piece of rhetorical text that is as searingly funny as it is numbingly depressing.

An application of Tiger Balm to the brain and the priv...

todf:gentlemanlosergentlemanjunkie:Space Western Comics, no....

todf:

gentlemanlosergentlemanjunkie:

Space Western Comics, no. 44, June 1953; cover art by Stan Campbell.

(via Atomic Pulp & Other Meltdowns: Wednesday Cover: Space Western!)

SOLD.

Clear evidence that my imagination is a stunted and pitiful thing. I need to start thinking bigger.

A Day�s Toil in the Suicide Bombers� Graveyard

A Day�s Toil in the Suicide Bombers� Graveyard:

Khwaja Naqib Ahmad lays claim to one of the toughest jobs in the Afghan capital � burying the unclaimed dead, including suicide bombers.

One of the characters in SKINNER is interested in a problem he describes as “corpse load," all the dead bodies left following a disaster. Something, after all, must be done about them.

Humanity is a remarkable quality. The word implies that it is universal within our species. A ubiquitous trait. But it is...

Warrantless Cellphone Tracking Is Upheld

Warrantless Cellphone Tracking Is Upheld:

The ruling is the first to address the constitutionality of warrantless searches of historical location data stored by cellphone service providers.

So the telecoms own the locative data gleaned from your phone’s pings to cell towers, but do you own your own right to privacy? Time will tell I suppose.

"[Tobias Wolff] was the first great writer I ever met and what the meeting did for me was disabuse me..."

“[Tobias Wolff] was the first great writer I ever met and what the meeting did for me was disabuse me of the idea that a writer had to be a dysfunctional crazy person. Toby was loving, gentle, funny, kind, wise — yet he was producing these works of great (sometimes dark) genius. It was invigorating to be reminded that great writing was (1) mysterious and (2) not linked, in any reductive, linear way, to the way one lived: wild writing could come from a life that was beautifully under control....

"In the past few decades, the United States and the Soviet Union have accomplished something that —..."

“In the past few decades, the United States and the Soviet Union have accomplished something that — unless we destroy ourselves first — will be remembered a thousand years from now: the first close-up exploration of dozens of other worlds. Together we have found much out there that is magnificent, instructive and of practical value. But we have found no trace, no hint of life. The Earth is an anomaly. In all the solar system, it is, so far as we know, the only inhabited planet.



We humans are o...

That is one nice temporary Russian refugee document that is.As...

That is one nice temporary Russian refugee document that is.

As reported in the NY Times, Edward Snowden has left the building.

hollyhocksandtulips:This rocks…hard.theboysandghouls:Lee,...

hollyhocksandtulips:

This rocks…hard.

theboysandghouls:

Lee, Davis Jr, Cushing… dig it.

People to whom this gives joy, and people with whom I am not certain I could share a drink.

Mail from the (Velvet) Cybercrime Underground — Krebs on Security

Mail from the (Velvet) Cybercrime Underground — Krebs on Security:

"On July 14, Flycracker posted a new forum discussion thread titled, “Krebs Fund,” in which he laid out his plan: He’d created abitcoin walletfor the exclusive purpose of accepting donations from other members. The goal: purchase heroin in my name and address from a seller on theSilk Road,an online black market that is only reachable via theTor network."

Read to believe.

As first seen at Boing Boing.

mares-nest-x:Moleskine 13x21 cmMore mares-nest art I’d...

photo

mares-nest-x:

Moleskine 13x21cm

More mares-nest art I’d like on my daughter’s wall.