Quotulatiousness

March 11, 2014

Surveillance game – Nothing to Hide

Filed under: Gaming, Government, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 10:50

If you’re not worried about the government (or other governments) watching your every move — because you’ve “got nothing to hide” — you might be interested in this game:

The tongue-in-cheek game Nothing to Hide was born out of creator Nicky Case’s dedication to privacy rights. Using the game, he intends to chip away at confidence in National Security Agency (NSA) procedures and give advocates something to think about.

The “anti-stealth” framework is an “inversion” of more familiar stealth-based video games. In the Panopticon-inspired environment, players must control behavior to please monitoring powers. Rather than avoid surveillance equipment, players actively work to remain in sight of yellow, triangle cyclops-eyed cameras. If a player walks outside the view of the camera, he or she risks death by summary, trial-free execution — because clearly he or she is a criminal with something to hide.

The name Nothing to Hide is, of course, taken from a common blasé reaction to state surveillance: “Well, I’ve got nothing to hide.” The game confronts this attitude by drawing attention to the unpleasantness of being constantly monitored. Players are thrust into a dystopian environment devoid of privacy. Digital posters with creepy comments like “Smile for the camera” and “Thank you for participating in your own surveillance” cover the walls.

QotD: “Moderates”, the Tea Party, and partisanship

Filed under: Politics, Quotations, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 08:34

This difference in outlook may be why the Republican leadership hates the Tea Party. The Tea Party gets pissed when folks they elect punt on the ideological goals they got elected to pursue. They have no tribal loyalty, only loyalty to a set of policy goals. The key marker in fact of many groups now disparagingly called “extremists” is that they do not blindly support “their guy” in office when “their guy” sells out on the things they want.

I have friends I like and respect — smart and worldly people — who are involved in a series of activities to promote political moderation. What I have written in this post is the core of my fear about moderation — that in real life calls for moderation are actually calls for loyalty to maintaining our current two major parties (and keeping current incumbents in office) over ideas and principles.

Which leads me to an honest question that many of you may take as insulting — can one be a principled moderate? I am honestly undecided on this. But note that by moderate I do not mean “someone who is neither Republican or Democrat,” because I fit that description and most would call me pretty extreme. So “fiscally conservative and socially liberal” is not in my mind inherently “moderate”. That is a non-moderate ideological position that is sometimes called “moderate” because it is a mix of Republican and Democrat positions. But I would argue that anyone striving to intellectual consistency cannot be a Republican or Democrat because neither have an internally consistent ideology, and in fact their ideology tends to flip back and forth on certain issues (look at how Republican and Democrat ideology on Presidential power, for example, or drone strikes changes depending on whose guy is in the Oval Office).

Warren Meyer, “Can One Be A Principled Moderate? And What the Hell Is A Moderate, Anyway?”, Coyote Blog, 2014-03-07.

“Orange army” to restore Cornwall rail line by early April

Filed under: Britain, Railways — Tags: — Nicholas @ 08:21

Remember the rather dramatic photos of the storm that hit the Cornish coast and took out part of the main railway line at Dawlish?


DAWLISH, UNITED KINGDOM – FEBRUARY 05: Railway workers inspect the main Exeter to Plymouth railway line that has been closed due to parts of it being washed away by the sea at Dawlish on February 5, 2014 in Devon, England. With high tides combined with gale force winds and further heavy rain, some parts of the UK are bracing themselves for more flooding. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images)

The effort to restore the sea wall and the railway line is going well, with a hoped-for re-opening date of 4 April:

Haberfield reckons there are two premier construction jobs in the world at the moment – the race to finish the football World Cup stadiums in Brazil and this one, the repairs to the train line that hugs the Devon coast at Dawlish after the devastation of the great storm of 4 and 5 February. “You’ll always be able to look back at this and say you were there and you helped fix it,” he says.

Haberfield is a member of the 1,000-strong “orange army” that has been working night and day to fix the hole, the 100-metre breach in a section of sea wall that supported the mainline track from London to the far south-west of Britain — and dozens of other less spectacular but nonetheless tricky breaks along a 3.7-mile stretch.

Network Rail (NR), the owner and operator of Britain’s railway infrastructure, has announced that it is expecting the line to re-open on 4 April — a huge relief to residents and business people whose lives have been disrupted by the break in the line and a vital boost for the region’s tourism industry before the Easter holidays.

The repair work to the line, which is costing around £15m, has been a triumph for imaginative thinking and teamwork. In the early days the first job was making sure that another Atlantic storm heading Devon’s way did not cause more damage to the main breach. One early idea was to rush in a rail-mounted concrete spraying machine that had been specially built to repair a tunnel in Devon and was standing idle. It shored up the sea wall, prevent further devastation and may have helped save houses that were teetering on the edge.

Another was the decision to drop a row of shipping containers in front of the seawall, each filled with 70 tonnes of rubble, to act as a temporary breakwater as more bad weather came in.


DAWLISH, UNITED KINGDOM – FEBRUARY 05: Waves crash against the seafront and the railway station that has been closed due to storm damage at Dawlish on February 5, 2014 in Devon, England. With high tides combined with gale force winds and further heavy rain, some parts of the UK are bracing themselves for more flooding. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images)

New Zealand considering changing the national flag

Filed under: Pacific — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 07:51

The current PM’s choice would be the silver fern on a black field, which is the symbol used by the national sports teams, especially the All Blacks:

New Zealand flag 320pxNew Zealand is to hold a referendum on whether to change the national flag, Prime Minister John Key has announced.

Mr Key, who on Monday called an election for 20 September, said the vote would be held within three years.

The current flag shows the Southern Cross constellation and includes the Union Jack – the UK’s national flag – in one corner.

Mr Key said the flag represented a period of history from which New Zealand had moved on.

“It’s my belief… that the design of the New Zealand flag symbolises a colonial and post-colonial era whose time has passed,” he said in a speech at Victoria University.

New Zealand All Black Silver Fern flag 324px“The flag remains dominated by the Union Jack in a way that we ourselves are no longer dominated by the United Kingdom.”

“I am proposing that we take one more step in the evolution of modern New Zealand by acknowledging our independence through a new flag.”

Mr Key said that he liked the silver fern — popularised by national teams including the All Blacks — as an option, saying efforts by New Zealand’s athletes gave “the silver fern on a black background a distinctive and uniquely New Zealand identity”.

Stop That Tank!

Filed under: Cancon, History, Military, Weapons, WW2 — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 00:01

Published on 31 May 2013

During World War II, the Disney company joined in the Allied war effort by producing animated movie material at cost for the US government (they also created insignia mascots for hundreds of aircraft and warships by request). These films number well over one hundred – although most are only partially created by Disney – and cover topics from antenna tuning to Beechcraft airplane maintenance to anti-German and Japanese propaganda. However, one piece in particular is of interest to us here at Forgotten Weapons: Stop That Tank!

Produced in 1942 for the Canadian military, it is a training film on the operation and maintenance of the Boys anti-tank rifle. The Disney contribution is in animated x-ray views of the various parts of the gun, and about 3 minutes of introduction featuring a section of Nazi tanks (the lead one driven by none other than Adolf Hitler) being surprised and driven back by a bunch of plucky doughboys hiding Boys AT rifles in bushes, outhouses, and horses.

The intro is pretty hilarious, but the meat of the film is actually a very informative piece on how the Boys works and how to use it. There are a couple copies of this already on YouTube, but thanks to reader Frank, we have this nice high-quality version.

Just one thing: if it was a Canadian film, there wouldn’t be any “doughboys” involved…

H/T to Think Defence for the link. They’ve also got a video of a modern shooter firing the Boys ATR (not using the original ammunition, this has been refitted to fire .50 BMG).

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