Thursday 30 May 2013
ab in den urlaub
PfRC will be on hiatus shortly for an over-due vacation through Switzerland on to the borderlands of Italy and Lake Como, plus where ever the road takes us. Please stay tuned for on-going adventures.
alchemie oder mayence
An international team of alchemists have proven their metal and have explained in a repeatable and applicable way how liquid cement (Beton) can be magicked into a liquid glass-like conductive material.
cock-eyed optimist or oil can
Though I had given up hope, more or less dismissing stories of friends of friends' computers spontaneously reviving themselves after an accidental spill as the stuff of urban legend, I tried again earlier today, absently and without expectation. But lo and behold, after the sixth day, which seemed to be a common experience and I had tried repeatedly in the interim, it came on.
catagories: networking and blogging, religion, technology and innovation
Wednesday 29 May 2013
seaquest 2013
More statutory notifications of intent to furlough (beurlaubt) US federal works are being distributed within hard and fast guidelines, though some agencies have chosen to be proactive instead of reactive in meeting this mandate.
Monday 27 May 2013
the pump don't work because vandals broke the handle
hard-currency
catagories: ๐ฉ๐ช, ๐ฎ๐น, ๐ง, economic policy
picture-picture or long, lost weekend
Over the past several weeks, there have been a series of ninnying events though while far from spoiling our time together away from work, that grey immanence not having undue influence after hours, have presented challenges or bluffs that we not the choicest. First, I thought I had lost all my keys entirely—though I later found after a lot of bother that I had in fact had them with me the entire time, packed away in advance. Now, I've ruined a perfectly good computer (read: on its last legs, although functional and ironically lamented nearly on a delay basis that it was due for an upgrade) by sloshing a glass of wine over it and most of the entire dining table.
catagories: lifestyle, networking and blogging, technology and innovation
Saturday 25 May 2013
carrot and stick: world war one centennial coverage
Mental Floss guest blogger Erik Sass is continuing his excellent and engrossing day-by-day accounts of events one hundred years ago, leading up to the outbreak of the Great War. Sass’ 70th installment recounts the shocking and consequential spy scandal that shook confidence in Austro-Hungary’s intelligence service and may have compromised the Empire’s defensive strategies and offensive contingencies to the Russians and their allies—potentially provocative triggers to know how one’s enemy might react to a given set of circumstances.
The espionage affair centred around Colonel Alfred Redl, chief of the military spy programme, and though one may never know his exact motives or to what extent fretful extortion and blackmail was pressured upon him, and his private life, which would have destroyed his career on its own if he were outed. Industrious and innovative, Redl quickly ingratiated himself up in the ranks of the army, through a series of post usually reserved for aristocrats and titled-elite and plied tools of quite progressive techniques in intelligence-gathering, like wire-tapping, covert photography and hand-writing analysis. Whether simply motivated to kept rather open-secrets subdued or sell real secrets to promote an increasingly extravagant and bold lifestyle, we may never know for certain—and probably nothing at all about this intrigue were it not for the confessions of the woman engaged as Redl’s beard, his alibi, who expressed concerns about his involvement with the Russia military. In apparently a carrot-and-stick approach, Redl was encouraged to sell Austrian and German plans to the Russians, in exchange for large sums money, delivered anonymously by post. Hoisted by his own petard while stationed in Prague, it was one of Redl’s early suggestions of data-mining and triangulation that lead to suspicions of his loyalty and his eventual capture. A search of his apartment and interviews with liaisons uncovered (implicating many others in the army) the lifestyle that he struggled to keep hidden.