But it’s helpful to look at Putin’s military interventions abroad in the context of Russian leaders’ longstanding attempts to deal with geography. What if Putin’s motives aren’t so mysterious after all? What if you can read them clearly on a map?
Earlier that year he had held a fake class for about 60 undergrads at the University of Georgia, in front of whom he placed either a photo of a Caucasian professor or a Chinese professor. In both of these photos, the professors were dressed similarly, with matching hairdos, and were seen standing in front of identical chalkboard backdrops. Each was accompanied by the same voice, which was a woman from Ohio reciting two articles in The New York Times. The only difference between the two professors was their face, which gave away their nationality.
A US space expert, Brian Weeden, tracked the Luch satellite and said it moved to a position in June where there were no other Russian satellites, but which put it “right in between two operational Intelsat satellites… where it remained until mid-September”.
“The Unicode Consortium” may sound like the dark cabal of villains in a James Bond movie. And though they aren’t plotting world domination in a volcano lair, they do hold a lot of power — over your text messages.
Two decades after NYC sought to relocate its infamous tunnel-dwelling denizens, a years-long investigation reveals a few hardy souls still toiling and thriving beneath the city streets. They insist they wouldn’t live anywhere else.
A few years ago, some computer gamers based in Havana strung a small web of ethernet cables from house to house so they could play video games together. The network continued to grow quietly, and today it’s called StreetNet: a bootleg internet for Havana with more than 10,000 users. It was an innovation forged by necessity in a country where only 5 percent of citizens have access to the uncensored internet.
Smuggled hard drives. Satellite dishes hidden in fake rooftop water tanks. Market-driven distribution methods. A 26-year-old kingpin. It’s only a matter of time before this is the subject of a TV series – and distributed in the same way of course to complete the circle.
