Armour Brand Desiccated Thyroid Bottle (c. 1900): The meatpacking empire of Philip Armour and his brilliant scions found a use for every scrap of carcass leftover from production: cheeks and trimmings became sausage; gut, bone and ligament boiled down to gelatin; redder, bloodier entrails were squeezed into cubes of bullion; even bones were burnt to [...]

“[The] single, simple, self-evident explanation is that the enormous act of defection, of betrayal, treason, is almost invariably the act of a warped, emotionally maladjusted personality. It is compelled by a fear, hatred, a deep sense of grievance, or obsession with revenge far exceeding in intensity these emotions as experienced by normal, reasonably well-integrated and [...]

From a FOIA-released WWII training manual for special officers: Cover A: General Freedom – financial – social – movement – leisure. B: Essential details Name – history – documents – clothes – behavior (money-associates-tastes-local conditions-table manners-slang-mannerisms). iv. Coming down to business – change your line of appeal to suit the case, eg for a priest, [...]

Israeli boarders would have been well advised to shield the transmissions of their targets. In 2007, against Syria, they easily scrambled signals, “injected” false information into networks – and they should have at least blocked cell and sat and ship-to-shore communications from their flotilla. Next time they will. My own ECM battle is going well [...]

All the best parties do.

A compelling takeaway I didn’t include in my post about Richard Nash‘s speech was his emphasis on how writers crave community. This was his lead into a demand-based publishing model, and had a queasy resonance for me. I applied to graduate school for this reason — I wanted to find other writers and gather a [...]

We’re supposed to do this with yarrow stalks, but “coins,” he says, “are more indicative of global currency flow.” I stand to leave. Scraping my chair back. He shakes his head and swirls his coffee: “more modern,” he says. I sit down again. Take a sip of mine. Given the swirling streams of capital – [...]

In an effort to streamline the R&D, and eventually production, we are implementing the 40 methodologies of TRIZ – designed the Altshuller Institute. More information will follow. And for my Russian, Ukrainian and Latvian friends: