A renaissance man for the twenty-first century!
I am not a Mormon. But as fate would have it, in both Northern California and Washington DC I was travelling by automobile and got lost, and both times I wound up at an impressive Mormon temple. This one is in Northern California,
and this one is in the Washington DC area.
Well, technically termites, not ants – and despite having lived a few years in Southern India, I still never learned much about the various species – but you can generally recognize them by the shape of their mounds. I discovered this one somewhere between Bangalore and Shravanabelagola.
I remember reading somewhere that these mounds grow on average as little as 1 cm per year – and if that’s true, these are very old mounds.
You can see my other Amazing Ants photographs here:
While travelling through Rajasthan I was able to watch the sunset from Mount Abu. I am not sure why, but watching the sunset from Mount Abu is famous, and lots of people come here to do it. I was there in high summer (temperatures over 40 C, although much cooler on the hill station), and all the haze you can see below is due to wildfires raging all over Rajasthan.
But what I really like is a photo that a family asked me to take of them. It was unplanned and unstaged and unscripted – and it was a bit unusual because they never asked me to send the picture to them, just to take it – but it makes a very nice “generations” picture:
This is known as “the shot” of the Taj Majal. Normally you’d find around 2 million tourists here, all vying for this shot. The secret to having the place to yourself: come in the middle of high summer. The temperature when I was here on this day was over 45 C.
Thionville, probably not in any tourist books, but a small and quiet town, definitely worth visiting if you are in this part of France.
Dear Mr. Tradecraft, I’m a middle-aged operator with experience now on three continents. On each of them, from older (and wiser) operators, I’ve heard rumors and speculation about something called Code 16. But nobody can tell me what it is – is this a special tactic? Perhaps a famous black operation? – Suspicious person yearning.
Dear SPY.
Neither. It’s an black-ops organization, but the details are not fully known.
Here’s what we know. Everyone’s heard of the Navy SEALS: take soldiers with world-class athletic ability, put them through insane training, and punish them in a “Hell Week” without sleep. Those that make it through become the world’s top warriors – or so they say. In 1996 an analyst in the psychology group of the Center for Naval Analysis studied all graduating SEALs and those who dropped out. She found an amazing correlation: the candidates who dropped out during Hell Week had an intelligence quota of 16 points higher than those who made it through or dropped out earlier. For non-experts, that’s the difference between average and genius. Thus was born the idea for Code 16.
Think about it: find soldiers who’ll die to carry out orders and what do you have? Super soldiers willing to follow orders and die. And of course that’s good – sometimes you need that. But find soldiers who drop out just before the end and what do you have? The same super soldiers, but those who can think, who need to see the Big Picture; those who also value their own lives and well-being. As any operator knows, those are more valuable traits for our line of work. Presumably, a select group of these “last dropouts” is handpicked to join Code 16 – probably those with skills in multiple languages.
Who runs Code 16? Nobody knows, but the current speculation is a joint U.S. / French group with a focus on Northern Africa.
Where are they based? Nobody knows, but my guess is a big city – partly for urban training opportunities. But also the best way to hide a group of men with strange body language is probably in plain sight.
How do you identify them? That’s probably the easy part. If you have access to a wire news search engine (like the newspapers use), search the obituaries for young men, early 30’s, Navy enlisted (or my guess: French Foreign Legion as well), dropped out of the program, and were killed – preferably cremated. Not all of them are Code 16 – but that’d be the place to start.
Note from Ken: I’ve known him for years, but I never know when I’ll hear from him. Gladly, he’s back, not sure for how long, and I hope he has time to start emptying his mailbox.
After many decades, Mr. Tradecraft remains a much-sought-after operator for the most demanding contracts with governments, corporations, and private parties alike. He has over 30 years of international field experience that span the whole spectrum of clandestine services, from cut-outs, snatch-and-grabs, bag jobs, surveillance, to wet work — much of it spent in red zones. His retirement increasingly near, Ask Mr. Tradecraft is the pro bono way he gives back to the community. If you’d like to ask him a question, please submit it to Ken – but due to obvious reasons there may be a wait of many months before he can respond to your question.
For more than I year I’ve been a big fan and user of the Swiss postal system’s electronic portal for snail mail. Any snail mail you get is not delivered to you directly, but instead it is re-routed to a special post office where it is opened and scanned. You are notified about any new snail mail via email – and you can look at your mail, delete it, or chose to have it snail mailed to you or anyone else.
Just when you think it can’t get any more innovative: MyPost24! This is an automated post office. It is a standalone collection of lockers – and with this system, you can receive packages or snail mail, or you can send packages or snail mail.
I can imagine they have systems like this in other countries . . . but it is wonderful to see how the Swiss are among the first adopters of new and innovative technologies!
I’ve lived in countries like India with an older history – but I’ve never lived in any country with more history than Switzerland. There is an historical artifact or monument or place on every corner.
So I was hardly surprised to see this historical plaque just a few kilometers from where I live, at the train station in Kempthal.
Everyone takes instant soups for granted these days, but this is the factory in Winterthur where Mr. Maggi, a Swiss entrepreneur, invented them:
Even today, and far more than in any other country in Europe, that spirit of invention and entrepreneurship pervades Switzerland – and it is a big reason I enjoy living here so much!
A stunning art display just outside of Las Vegas, from Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone.
Just outside of Las Vegas, the Ivanpah Solar Facility is the closest thing to pure science fiction that I’ve ever seen.
The town of Orléans north of the Loire Valley in France is where New Orleans got its name!
Terrific view next to an old-but-not-abandoned inclined railway in Locarno.
It’s a bit off the beaten path, but if UNESCO says it’s worth a visit then it usually is.
What was really impressive is their museum dedicated to salt mining and salt production around the world.
The Thyssen Krupp test tower is just amazing.
The importance of elevators takes on a whole new meaning when you read the blurb from Thyssen Krupp’s website,
Over 70 percent of the world’s population will live in cities by 2050. . . . A report from the McKinsey Global Institute estimates that cities will need to construct floor space equivalent to 85 percent of all of today’s residential and commercial building stock by 2025, making this one of the greatest challenges of our time.
I was here to visit das Haus der Wannsee-Konferenz but this sign was the only thing I felt like photographing.
I recently visited Washington DC, which I had not visited in many years. I thought some areas (particularly north of the White House) seemed much safer and cleaner than I remember. I saw the White House:
And there is a whole building dedicated to the guy on the 5-dollar-bill:
It makes sense he would get his own building, because the guy on the 1-dollar-bill only got a big concrete stick:
The Smithsonian museums are worth seeing. Their Natural History Museum, for example, has tiny little elephants:
Now, this building looks like a spaceship or an attraction at Disneyland, so you could not be blamed for guessing this is in fact a Mormon temple:
Finally, I visited the NSA in Ft. Meade, Maryland. There is an interesting slogan I saw on a T-Shirt for sale in their gift store: “The NSA: the only government agency that actually listens to you.”
In their museum they have a large collection of Enigma machines, an old Cray supercomputer you can sit on, and other stuff:
A real unexpected surprise was to see a real BOMBE machine, which was used to decrypt devices like the Enigma. The UK apparently junked all of their BOMBE machines, so I was not aware that some were still in existence:
As I previously reported here and here, during the last crises in Gaza, I took a trip to Jerusalem. On the one hand I wanted to see and experience for myself what life was really like in this country at this time — but on the other hand, I am not completely stupid, and a hotel within rocket distance of Gaza was out of the question for me. I Jerusalem I saw this sign hanging in my hotel:
There was a rocket warning just the day before I arrived, but the local folks I spoke with seemed used to taking this in stride. It’s really quite amazing, and it just to goes show you amazing how adaptable we humans are.
This is the Western Wall, one of Judaism’s holiest sites.
A few things struck me when I visited it. First, it was much smaller than I had expected.
Second, it was interesting to look at the various pilgrims and visitors. Some were tourists, like me. Some were extremely pious people for whom this was a once-in-a-lifetime event. And others seemed to be “regulars” who came here often.
The small town of Como is located on Lake Como in northern Italy, just across the border with Switzerland. With a car it’s less than a three hour drive from Zürich, so while you’ll find some Swiss residents here on the weekend, it is quite surprising you don’t find more of them.
This shot is pretty but not remarkable:
And this snap is also pretty but not remarkable:
But now to compensate this boredom, here are two remarkable things! First, this is a building whose purpose I cannot fathom. The arches seem much too small to bear any weight, so it’s not clear to me what purpose they served. Second, there is a BUG in the content management system I am using. The picture is not rotated in any way, as you’ll see if you click on it. But the media import module in WordPress – for whatever reason – has created a rotated thumbnail!
So, as is the theme for my website, sometimes you can find the most remarkable of things in the least remarkable places!
Here’s why I find canals so fascinating: they were massive, transformational public works projects, still visible today, but whose need and impact to society have all but left our cultural awareness.
And here’s why I find hidden canals so fascinating: out-of-sight, out-of-mind. Dismantling sections of a canal, or covering them over, or filling them in, is the the first step in their disappearance from public knowledge and their relegation to archeology. Ask anyone about a hidden canal, and they will tell you they vaguely remember something but usually can’t quite put their finger on what they remember.
Continuing the series, this is a section of the Canal du Rhône au Rhin in village of Mulhouse, in the eastern part of France:
And here is the bit that is now hidden, covered over by a park and a busstop:
Just to prove a canal is truly hidden here, I simply turn 180-degrees to get this view:
And here is a historical photograph. Next time I get to Mulhouse I’ll have a look if I can find any of these old buildings. But you’ll see immediately from this picture how prominently this canal was incorporated into the landscape architecture : the city was proud the canal ran through it, and the integration (both landscape and cultural) was tight.
Continuing the series, is it just me or does everything containing the word “KEN” have extraordinary talent, exquisite design, and unsurpassable quality? At least, the Kenwood HB724 hand blender is no exception.
After boiling some potatoes it was time to put the “Potato Puree” attachment to work.
No ordinary attachment this, it would more aptly be named “potato auger:” it contains a reduction gear and a black plastic paddle, and the potatoes are lifted upwards and pressed through the holes.
Here you can see the potatoes as they are squeezed through the holes, helping to puree them.
Here you can better see the effect of the potatoes angered through the holes:
Finally, although I am not showing it here, cleanup is a snap. The plastic auger blade detaches from the assembly, and you clean everything up with just a gentle rinsing with warm running water.
Overall comments and feedback
The reduction gear ensures the auger blade turns at the perfect speed to puree potatoes. The size of the holes through which the potato puree passes are perfectly designed. And I was pleasantly surprised: this device worked very well with the very small number of potatoes I cooked (some devices really only work when you have a large amount of potatoes).
Was it worth it?
Yes, absolutely!
Negatives & Suggestions to Kenwood for improvement?
Nothing.
Further reviews on this topic needed?
No. I didn’t mention it here because I didn’t use it or describe it above – because I think nobody would believe it – but something happened that I myself can hardly believe. I cooked my potatoes without peeling the skin. After multiple cycles of the potato auger the skins were all filtered out from the potato puree and kept within the auger housing – in effect, the Kenwood acted as a potato skin filter! This is an added bonus – but it is so wonderful, I think it would almost be straining credibility for me to mention this!
Would I do this again?
No fuss no muss – I’d use the Kenwood for freshly mashed potatoes every day of the week and twice on Sundays! Here I want to re-iterate, for the second time, the philosophy of use, or PoU: I kept the Kenwood power unit permanently plugged in and sitting on my kitchen countertop, ready for action. So at a moment’s notice and without any effort at all, I could bring out the attachments I needed.