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Wednesday, October 9, 2019

Gather Files Script, Random Stuff, and More

- wanted to create a script to gather up files of a particular type. Download it here:
- description is as follows:
# Sometimes you want a scripted way to gather up types of files of a 
# particular type for a given filesystem. This obviously has computer
# forensic/security purposes, general administration, and other purposes.
#
# As this is the very first version of the program it may be VERY buggy. 
# Please test prior to deployment in a production environment.

Random Stuff:
- as usual thanks to all of the individuals and groups who purchase and use my goods and services
- it's actually really expensive to strip gold from electronics? Only way you can make some profit from it if you have a lot of free junk and cheap leftover chemicals around the home?
removing gold plate
- latest in science and technology
- latest in finance and politics
- latest in defense and intelligence
- latest in animal news
Panda base caps number of visitors during holiday
- latest in music and entertainment

Random Quotes:
- The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reportedly declassified dozens of files from its cold-war era tests. It appears that the agency was betting not only on humans.

The declassified documents, cited by AFP, reveal that the CIA attempted to train cats, dogs, dolphins, and even birds - from pigeons to crows - as field operatives.

In particular, one "high-flying CIA agent" was a raven called Do Da who would become a top "operative" in the espionage class. The bird - a central figure in a decade-long secret CIA program to train animals as agents - disappeared, however, in the middle of his spy school test in early 1974.

For the bird's program, the agency reportedly enlisted professional ornithologists in a bid to determine which birds regularly spent part of the year in the area of Shikhany in the Volga River Basin southeast of Moscow region.

According to the documents, the CIA saw the migratory birds as "living sensors" which - based on their feeding - would reveal what kinds of substances the Russians were testing by examining their flesh.

In the early 1970s, the CIA turned to birds of prey and ravens, hoping they could be trained for "emplacement" missions like dropping a listening device on a windowsill, and photo missions.

Raven Do Da was the most promising candidate for the Soviet mission, the "star of this project", AFP reported, ciiting declassified documents. But on a training mission, he was reportedly attacked by "the usual pair" of ravens - and was not seen again.

Later, the agency reportedly acquired hundreds of pigeons, testing them with attached cameras in areas around the United States to see if they could be trained on specific paths. Their ultimate target was shipyards in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg). Some birds during the training managed to make perfect photos. The majority of them, however, flew away with their expensive test equipment still attached. The declassified documents, however, do not reveal if the Leningrad operation was attempted.

Not only birds were "enrolled" in the clandestine espionage training program. The agency also reportedly studied and tested cats as possible "audio surveillance vehicles". According to the files, dogs with electrical brain implants - to facilitate their remote control - were also not fiction.  

The most effort was concentrated on training "combat dolphins" to be potential saboteurs in a bid to deter the Soviet Union's development of a nuclear submarine fleet. In particular, these animals would have sneaked into Soviet harbors, depositing acoustic buoys or missile detection units, or even swim alongside underwater vessels to collect acoustic data.

According to the CIA documents, neither of those programs succeeded.
- Are there 'useless' species on our planet?
'What I am here for?'

It might come as a shock to anyone who loves pandas, but these lumbering black and white creatures are not the most practical for the ecosystem. Nothing and nobody eats them, they barely interact with other species and have a hard time reproducing. On a more positive note, they help spread the seeds of the bamboo they spend many hours a day chewing, and have become a public face for conservation.
- The issues being discussed couldn’t be more urgent. Over 2 million Americans are in prison, 30 million don’t have health insurance, 40 million live in poverty, millions more are overworked and one disaster away from total destitution. But you don’t hear that anxiety or that sense of anger from the “mainstream” candidates. What you hear is the sound of people trying hard not to lose.
- “Russia is talking about the necessity to construct a multipolar world,” said Victor Kheyfets, a professor of international relations at St. Petersburg State University, referring to the country’s efforts to decentralize global power. “Latin American countries are doing the same. But I’m not sure if their visions of a multipolar world are the same.”
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Market Consolidation/Neo-Feudalism, Random Stuff, and More

- it never occured to me until recently how consolidated things in the world were in the global market place. In this post we'll take a ...