Alternate Seat of TYR

Michael Hodges’s new book on the history of the Kalashnikov assault rifle is clearly a work that fits in with this blog. And we can say that it’s also well worth reading; not just for the knockabout, although there are some good stories (the brothel in the Izhevsk arsenal; Mikhail Kalashnikov’s special elk soup).
As history, [...]

This is interesting; apparently one of the problems with Iraq’s electricity supply is that the original control centre was looted back in 2003, with the result that local switching stations were instead given instructions on the phone. Over time, however, these sites have come under the control of whoever has the most guns; and they [...]

The clock is ticking ever faster on British withdrawal from Iraq. This is of course nothing but a good thing. However, as I’ve said before, this is also a reason to hold the Government’s feet to the fire; the more time passes, the harder it is going to be to get people out. Nobody wants [...]

Disturbing Search Request of the decade: 213.42.21.150, searching Google for “who would handle a commercial shipment of arms and ammunitions from Sharjah to Baghdad”. That’ll be someone downstream of AS5384, or Etisalat (Emirates Telecom), the UAE’s fun-loving national telco monopoly, best known for blocking more websites than China.
Ha. But there is some actual substance in [...]

There’s something about this, that I’m not sure if I find intensely cool or deeply disturbing; that is, of course, a neat definition of anything worth writing about. (It’s certainly the sci-fi project; thrilling wonder and uncanny menace.) So, a ski resort is short of snow due to the gradually warming winters; they make snow, [...]

Disturbing Search Request of the decade: 213.42.21.150, searching Google for “who would handle a commercial shipment of arms and ammunitions from Sharjah to Baghdad”. That’ll be someone downstream of AS5384, or Etisalat (Emirates Telecom), the UAE’s fun-loving national telco monopoly, best known for blocking more websites than China.
Ha. But there is some actual substance in [...]

The Government is trying to define down the Iraqi employees it is under pressure to accept as refugees after the forthcoming UK withdrawal from Basra. With the Murdoch press, it is signalling that some 91 interpreters might be accepted, but at the same time that there are as many as 20,000 people involved. That figure [...]

The Government is trying to define down the Iraqi employees it is under pressure to accept as refugees after the forthcoming UK withdrawal from Basra. With the Murdoch press, it is signalling that some 91 interpreters might be accepted, but at the same time that there are as many as 20,000 people involved. That figure [...]

A prerequisite for good alternate-history is good history; as Ken MacLeod says, the trade secret of sci-fi is history. So I wasn’t too impressed by this, of James Nicoll’s, who really ought to know better.
Would it be funny to do an AH where WWI never happened and the old order never fell, one in [...]

We don’t just moan about today’s government surveillance projects and fiddle with other people’s webcams here. No. Sometimes we can offer you better things; like the solution to a huge mass-surveillance IT disaster that hasn’t even happened yet.
Spyblog reports that even before Alastair Darling’s deranged scheme to monitor all motor vehicles by GPS has made [...]