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Today we’re thrilled to announce the addition of our 12th...

Wed, 30 May 2012 13:45:03 -0400

Today we’re thrilled to announce the addition of our 12th supported language on Tumblr: Dutch!

You can change your language settings on your Dutch Staff Blog.

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cjchivers: Beginning to Trace the Weapons of Bashar...

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 01:30:58 -0500

cjchivers:

Beginning to Trace the Weapons of Bashar al-Assad.

If the photographs and witness accounts traveling out of Syria in recent days are authentic, then forces loyal to Bashar al-Assad have been firing 107-millimeter ground-to-ground rockets into populated areas. One of the duds said to be fired is in the frame at the top of this post. Its warhead is clearly visible, though its fuze appears to be missing.

These weapons are high-explosive, area-coverage weapons, typically fired from towed mobile launchers. By any reasonable standard, firing barrages of them into populated neighborhoods would constitute an indiscriminate attack. The use of this particular weapon in the conflict should not surprise anyone who has followed the war or even casually observed the Syrian military over the years. Its presence matches some of the witness accounts, aligns with the photographic and video record, and matches as well the history of Syrian arms procurement, with its long emphasis on weapons compatible with those of the former Eastern bloc.

(The 107 is an old-timer. If you would like background and information on some of its other recent uses, go here, here and here, in order. If you’re caught up already, or don’t want a head full of history and weapons detail, just keep reading.)

All of this has led to a natural run of questions that today I was pulled into via email, the telephone and Twitter. You know the questions before they get typed: Where did these rockets come from? When and how did they arrive in Syria?

These are good questions. The answers will matter. So it is important to get the answers right — something that cannot necessarily be done by identifying the nation that manufactured any individual unexploded 107-millimeter rocket found on the Syrian street and declaring the case closed.

Why? Let’s just say, theoretically, that the rocket at the top of this post was manufactured in China. Several people have told me it was; I have not seen a clear image of its markings, so I will defer judgment on that for now. But for the sake of argument, let’s say it is in fact of Chinese provenance. Does that mean China sold it to Syria? No. Why not? The reasons are simple. The 107 is one of the world’s more abundant ground-to-ground rockets. China has made its contribution to this class, the Type 63, for several decades, and exported its stock widely. And this leaves open the possibility that third-party nations that received Chinese rockets long ago might have shipped rockets on to other purchasers, including the rockets fired into neighborhoods of late.

Here is an example of this game at work. We have documented “Chinese” munitions in Afghanistan, for example, that actually had passed many years in the possession of the People’s Socialist Republic of Albania. These munitions were inherited by the post-Communist Republic of Albania, which in turn sold them by the planeload as an easy arms-for-cash commodity to Pentagon-sponsored arms dealers. The dealers then dumped them into Afghan hands, where, at a glance, a passing investigator might say they came from China. Well, sort of. Once upon a time. But certainly not directly.

Back to the uprisings and crackdowns in the Middle East. One feature of the recent coverage of the war in Syria has been the apparently high interest, even fascination, with identifying what weapons the pro-Assad forces have been bringing to bear on Syria’s population. It cheers everyone who helps out on this blog to see this. But as the weapons do get identified — which they will — the next step will be to walk them back to their sources. This will be done in part through documents, whether through analysis of publicly-disclosed arms transfers and licenses or, in the field, via the examination of ordnance remnants, duds, abandoned stock and shipping containers and the papers and labels thereon and therein.

The lower photographs at the top of this post show an unfired Type 63 107-millimeter rocket beside its shipping and storage crate. The stenciling on the rocket body and warhead, and the sticker on the crate, show these to be of Chinese manufacture. A look within the box might turn up more papers still.

These are the types of records that can assist field researchers in identifying and tracing arms. They can be imperfect, to be sure. They are often incomplete. Sometimes the stenciling is deliberately false. (More on that in another post). Sometimes the records are misread. (There was a prominent example of that last year — the excitedly made claims that SA-24 MANPADS had been found in Libya.) But on balance these are a type of record that can allow careful researchers to flesh out a weapon’s journey, and point to its origins, its time and means of travel, and to information such as contract numbers, ports of embarkation and quantities shipped alongside a given crate.

All of this can help sketch out how a nation, in this case a nation that is firing high-explosive rockets into its own neighborhoods, acquired its killing tools.

As the violence intensifies, the questions will become more presssing. It will not be enough to know that a given weapon was manufactured in a given year in a given place during the Cold War. That kind of information will be interesting, at least to people like me. Much more important and of much broader use will be identifying exactly who provided it to Syria, and when. Imagine this: It would be one thing to show that a 107-millimeter rocket that hit a house in which civilians died was made in China. But what if it was shipped to Syria 25 years ago? It would be another to discover that it was shipped to Syria in recent months, after the bloody crackdown was under way.

All of this can be done. And yes, China is certainly a suspect in arming Syria, as are many other states. The trick now lies, as always, in the facts and details, to be assembled over time, one by one.

ABOUT THE PHOTOGRAPHS

Top, sent here today from Syria, via Twitter. Bottom: Three views of a 107-millimeter rocket and its packaging. By the author. 2011. Libya.

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staff: Name Lincoln CenterLocation New York, NY News and...

Sun, 18 Dec 2011 10:46:46 -0500

staff:

Name Lincoln Center
Location New York, NY

News and culture from the world’s leading performing arts center. Located in the heart of New York City on a 16-acre campus, Lincoln Center houses 12 prestigious cultural organizations including the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Film Society of Lincoln Center, Jazz at Lincoln Center, The Juilliard School, Lincoln Center Theater, the Metropolitan Opera, the New York City Ballet, the New York Philharmonic, the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, the School of American Ballet, and Lincoln Center itself. Each year, Lincoln Center welcomes 5 million visitors, 3.6 million performance attendees, and thousands of artists.

Also check out…

Movies and Food
An exhibition of food as depicted in cinema.

On Tap
A blog about games for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad.

Oh, Pioneer!
Dedicated in all sincerity to every lover of the true and beautiful.

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Tumblr Staff: Tumblr Android 2.0.2 is ready to download on the Android Market! For...

Tue, 06 Sep 2011 10:34:29 -0400

Tumblr Staff: Tumblr Android 2.0.2 is ready to download on the Android Market! For...:

staff:

Tumblr Android 2.0.2 is ready to download on the Android Market!

For those of you on older phones who couldn’t upload photos, that should now be working.

There were also cases where the Reblog screen wouldn’t switch to landscape mode. That’s also now fixed.

We’ve heard a few reports of folks…

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staff: Name Josh RushingLocation Afghanistan, Iraq, Mexico,...

Tue, 23 Aug 2011 11:45:42 -0400

staff:

Name Josh Rushing
Location Afghanistan, Iraq, Mexico, Columbia, US

Journalist, presenter, author, and photographer Josh Rushing co-hosts Fault Lines on Al Jazeera English. Rushing enlisted in the US Marine Corps in 1990, and was assigned to CENTCOM in Doha, Qatar during Operation Iraqi Freedom, where he served as spokesman to General Tommy Franks. An independent documentary about Al Jazeera, Control Room, captured his efforts to communicate the American message on Al Jazeera Arabic, which eventually led to him resigning his commission and later helping launch Al Jazeera English. He’s the author of Mission Al-Jazeera: Build a Bridge, Seek the Truth, Change the World.

Also check out…

Pale Horse Design
Hailing from Tampa Bay, Pale Horse is the moniker and studio space of visual artist Chris Parks.

ReCraft
Web magazine dedicated to modern style, culture, arts, and more.

Fuck You Yelper
An exploration of what happens when you combine an internet connection, money for a meal, and a sense of entitlement.

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bilalr: #AlJazeera staff and correspondents update you on...

Mon, 22 Aug 2011 22:00:42 -0400

bilalr:

#AlJazeera staff and correspondents update you on important developments in the #Libya uprising, as Tripoli comes under rebel attack.

realcleverscience: jamessteiner: unconsumption:...

Sat, 20 Aug 2011 20:20:19 -0400

realcleverscience:

jamessteiner: unconsumption: gardensinunexpectedplaces: contained:

Localize It: PodPonics Grows High-Tech Organic Produce In Shipping Containers — Fast Company

As fuel prices go up, the cost of shipping produce thousands of miles away rises accordingly. In the past few years, a number of companies have attempted to capitalize on the increasing hunger for locally produced food…

[Atlanta-based] PodPonics started in 2010 when founder Matt Liotta… “If you wanted to produce fresh produce at the point of consumption in a way that was economically viable, what would you have to invent to do it?”

Liotta decided to use recycled shipping containers as “grow pods,” which are outfitted with organic hydroponic nutrient solutions; computer-controlled environmental systems… In a 320 square foot area, PodPonics can produce an acre’s worth of produce. The pods can be stacked on top of each other for more efficient use of space.

Full story: Fast Company. Photo via PodPonics.

See also: Earlier Unconsumption posts on repurposed shipping containers (here) and urban farming (here).

Relevant to my recent posts here and (a rebuttal) here about PlantLab.

Also, this makes me wonder if in a few years we’ll all have another kind of kitchen appliance: A mini-grow room? Like a refrigerator, it could be tucked into one of the walls or floor or whatever, where it would automatically grow organic, fresh, produce available right in your kitchen. The idea seems very do-able, once some of these technologies get a bit more common and therefore cheaper; and it would also address many of the popular ‘produce issues’: e.g. firstly, having produce (e.g. new article from today); secondly, helping address the obesity crisis; thirdly, growing organically; fourthly, reducing emissions associated with shipping. And it would also be extremely convenient, and consumers could always visit the market for more exotic species or any which they happen to have run out of. (Oh, and bonus points if it integrates a composting system into it!)

I’m also interested in what the effects of such ‘personalized agriculture’ might be. Will it encourage people to experiment with different growing strategies? Will it teach urban kids some rural ideas, and rural kids some urban ones? Will people have a better ‘relationship’ with produce, growing those which they’ve found they love, or perhaps even encourage a diversity in the types of produce people eat and grow, as opposed to simply buying the monotonous varieties commonly available?

Could potentially be awesome.

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nysci:

If you’re going to be in NY around Sept 17th, then you better be going to the MakerFaire, hosted by my old ‘alma mata’, the NY Hall of Science.

Seriously, it’s reaaaally fun. There are awesome lectures, exciting shows and demonstrations, and you can play with some of the craziest and inspiring and fun home-made tech innovations around.

Be there! (And by helping them advertise a bit, you can get some free tickets! Click the link above to find out more… You’re welcome :)