Archibald "Harry" Tuttle - Ghost in The Machine

Harry Tuttle: My good friends call me Harry.

OK. Here's the gig. They collect and collate data that we all volunteer without actually thinking about what they can do with that data. It's your information, but they sell it to as many processors as they can who then use that data to fine tune the advertisement (rather than fine tuning the product) to convince you that you need it. They also sometimes give it or sell it to the government, who is in turn breaking no laws in acquiring the information about you. Mix that with your communications records and standard government files and THEY've got you by the balls.
I've been trying to come up with a good common name that everyone could use to confuse the data miners. A ghost in the machine. Of course we won't win, but for your own quiet amusement when you sign up for that discount card at your favorite grocery store. Then the name came to me...Archibald "Harry" Tuttle or just Harry Tuttle.
Trow all your old cards out and start over. Every time you get a discount on that loaf of bread, just image how many boxes of feminine hygiene products and beef jerky Harry's buying at the very same instant.
Central Services won't know what hit them.

NAME: ARCHIBALD TUTTLE T47/215
OCCUPATION: HEATING ENGINEER
STATUS: BELIEVED DECEASED

EYES: Brown
HAIR: Brown
DISTINGUISHING MARKS: None
SMOKES: Yes

KNOWN ALIASES: Harry Tuttle, Harold Tuttle, A. H. Tuttle, A. Harry Tuttle, A. Harold Tuttle III, Harry S Tuttle, Terry Huttle

KNOWN ACCOMPLICES: Gillian Layton (deceased), Samuel Lowry (inoperative), "Pluto," "Father Christmas" (real names unknown)

CHARGED WITH: Freelance Subversion, Deconstructive Behavior, Reckless Creation of Suspicion Among the Greater Public, Stealing Work from Qualified Personnel, Practicing Heating Engineering without a License, Failing to Complete Necessary Work Orders, Wasting Ministry Time and Paper(From Brazil@PythoNET)

Harry Tuttle: Bloody paperwork. Huh!
Sam Lowry: I suppose one has to expect a certain amount.
Harry Tuttle: Why? I came into this game for the action, the excitement. Go anywhere, travel light, get in, get out, wherever there's trouble, a man alone. Now they got the whole country sectioned off, you can't make a move without a form.

Tuttle in action


A suggested alias (each piece of data references something in Brazil):
Harry Tuttle
27 Archibald Street Apt. B6
Yourtown, ST
47215

Self sufficiency

Self sufficiency is a concept that's learned, the skills follow. Thinking more about Penn Jillette's thought that "living within your means offers an immense amount of power" and Mr. Jalopy's "if you can't open it, you don't own it" I realized that this applies to my own self. I went back to exercising (my body) this morning and it dawned on me that lifting weights and cardio is a form of hacking. It's a form of ownership. With all the crap food and the ubiquitous enticements out there destined to kill you early, one way to get back at "the man" (of whom I refer to often as THEY or THEM) is to take control of your body's health. This thinking ties in nicely with mind/body connection of the RE/DEProgramming I did on myself to quit smoking of which I'll recount my method another time.
Some thoughts I won't elaborate on. Just spitballing...

• Fast food is a form of chemical warfare. It uses carefully designed chemistry to keep you desiring the fats, sugars, and salts. Fast food is unhealthy and at the rate the average American consumes it, shortens their lifespan.
• Fast food advertisement is psyops (mil jargon for Psychological Operation). It is designed to appeal to one's conscience, sub-conscience, emotional, and psycho-chemical systems.

One drawback to quitting smoking, of which I did for 2/3's of my life is that the weight hit me pretty good. I went from about 215lbs to 245lbs. It's coming off on its own slowly, but getting back into my routine should put me back at my fighting weight of 205-210 in a couple of months.

With that, I highly recommend (and am no way affiliated with) ExRx.net - "ExRx.net (Exercise Prescription on the Net) is a free resource for the exercise professional, coach, or fitness enthusiast." ExRx.net consists of nearly 2000 pages, most of which are found in the Exercise and Muscle Directory. The content of this web site is available on CD-ROM."

On the topic of self sufficiency, I turn to termites. Now I had a guy come out and quote me $1200-$1500 to spray for the little buggers then come back every now and again to check and see how they're doing. Screw that.
Through a little research here's what I've found:
Boric Acid - I've know about this very low-tox shit for a long time as a way to kill roaches. Turns out it's effective on termites too. But how to deliver it to them???
Propylene Glycol - Low-Tox anti-freeze of which I use in the Fairlane in case it ever pukes from overheating. Animals, particularly dogs, like the sweet taste of coolant, but the regular stuff will kill them.
Heat one to two pounds of Boric Acid into one gallon of Propylene Glycol below boiling. When ready for use mix another gallon of water and spray on wood. Second treatment if needed. The wood will wick the shit right up and when the termites come for dinner, they die. Keep away from plants though.
Total cost: An afternoon and $25 for 5lbs of Boric Acid and $8 for the coolant.
Added bonus, the mix also prevents dry rot.

Electronics Tutorial

Here's a basic, no nonsense, and easy to understand tutorial/guide for the electronics beginner. I haven't gone all the way through it, but it looks as if it focuses on low voltage circuits rather than wiring the home (higher voltage AC). We should all master tech before it masters us.

• Electronics Tutorial by Alex Pounds

Lorentz Gun

I'm still working on that wall.

Here' something that I find amusing. Not practical, but it looks like a lot of fun.
The Lorentz Gun (formerly the Taser Cannon until Taser forced them to change the name) from a member of Survival Research Laboratories (SRL).

Links - Under The Hood

One quick one, but I think it might be informative/useful.
TechOnline's Under The Hood which features teardowns of various pieces of everyday tech. I think it's an absolute must for everyone if not to know how to bend the technology, at least gaze at its guts and see that inside all that THEY had made sleek, beautiful, and inaccessible externally, often has very mortal and primitive internals that any of us can master.

• TechOnline - Under The Hood

The Yes Men

I've been of the opinion that while massive marketing campaigns can get an idea about reality into the popular consciousness, by most products very uselessness this idea is short lived. Additionally, popular culture is so easily undermined because its grip on reality is so tenuous. Built on fantasy and illusion of the consumption machine, "mainstream" culture is ripe for pranking and hoaxing. I have a particular penchant for fucking with peoples ideas about "reality" and turning their assumed truths on their head. I actually toyed with bumping over the Psyops while in the service, but it was not to be.
This leads me to the Yes Men. Some folks who have managed to present themselves a corporate types representing companies at some presentation or another, only to take it to absolute extremes to point out the inherent absurdity of the system.
An example:

At the International Payments Conference on April 28, 2005 'Dow representative' Erastus Hamm unveiled Acceptable Risk, the Acceptable Risk Calculator, and the Acceptable Risk mascot — a life-sized golden skeleton named Gilda — to an audience of about 70 banking professionals. (Yes Men at Wikipedia)

There's more videos and fun stuff at their website.

The Yes Men movie (about an hour and a half long).

If you don't have time for that right now, here's a six minute video of "Jude Finisterra of Dow Chemical" on BBC accepting responsibility for the Bhopal disaster.

Printable Cold Sores

A tip from Boing Boing

Take action!

Printable Cold Sores - Geek Grafitti
Nowhere in advertising is the gap between natural beauty and manufactured perfection more apparent than on subway posters. As we wait for transportation, we are unwillingly assaulted by larger-than-life representations of supposedly beautiful salespeople. The large scale of these ads and their extremely close proximity to the viewer offer up more than perceived intimacy, however... they give us the chance to see the mechanical flaws designed to correct their physical flaws.

Autodidacticism

Autodidacticism (also autodidactism) is self-education or self-directed learning. An autodidact, also known as an automath, is a mostly self-taught person — typically someone who has an enthusiasm for self-education and a high degree of self-motivation. (Wikipedia)

It's that damn self motivation part...

But then there's John Hutchison and the Hutchinson Effect.

Hutchison claims that in the 1980s he worked for the American and Canadian military, investigating various alleged phenomena. He refers to several of these phenomena as "the Hutchison effect".Even the most broad-minded scientists seem to doubt the reality of these phenomena. In a recent posting to sci.physics.research, Marc Millis, who ran the now defunct Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Program for NASA, wrote:

[The] Hutchison Effect has been claimed for years, without any independent verification - ever. In fact, its originator can't even replicate it on demand. This has been investigated more than once, been part of documentaries on the discovery channel, but still never seems to pass critical muster. This is in the category of folklore. In general, the "American Antigravity" web site caters to such folklore and its enthusiasts. – Marc G. Millis

Here's a link to an article and some pretty good Hutchinson resources.
John Hutchison, The Wild Scientist From Vancouver.
And a link to American Antigravity.

My take? Hutchinson is sincere, but goofy. I tend to think his effect was fabricated not faked, as faked implies a more willful and /or malicious thought process. I tend to believe his effects are possible, even though I don't think he's necessarily discovered how to create them himself.

Check out related ideas and experimentation at ZPEnergy or zero point energy. From their mission statement:

ZPEnergy is a news portal devoted to experimental research/applications in new revolutionary energy technologies . It aims to connect together people who have the same pragmatic goal: bring to the public amazing devices which can tap a seemingly unlimited supply of energy that fills the universe, the so called "Zero Point Energy" (ZPE).

Links

Hacked...
On my never ending journey to becoming an overall hacker here's some links I've come across.

The "largest underground hacking event in the world."
I couldn't be called an electronics hacker necessarily, but if taken at its conceptual meaning, then I could be a hacker of the mind, body, combustion engines, vintage automotive sheetmetal, and so on.

"We are not a "cracking" site, we are hackers. Our inquisitive nature leads us to find ways of making technology work for us."

Mind Hacks
I've been reading this book in bits and pieces lately as it's neatly partitioned and broken down in a few page description of specific functions. From the title, I guess I expected more direct action applications, but I found it to be more of a description of many different process in the mind rather than modifications to actually make. Mind Hacks is good for core knowledge and understanding of mental mechanics and systems, from which an operator can then go and find applications for.
There's also an accompanying blog.





WARNING! You have been exposed to marketing! While the source of the previous advertisements in no way means to condition your behavior, your previous experiences with ubiquitous marketing may have made you susceptible to participating in the consumer culture not entirely of free will. As with all marketing, take a moment and think about your exposure levels before proceeding.