Visiting Social Security Administration as a native.. you would not believe what was observed; a life-journalistic effort post

After convoluted process with multiple dead ends, I secured appointment for German citizen in my employ to retrieve their Social Security Number/Card
🧵

https://twitter.com/kellen_the_man/status/1919540858686472261

After three weeks of waiting, we arrive quite punctually (10 minutes ahead) to the SSA Office. The parking lot is lawlessness in itself, but we are blessed to find an opening in the front and center

Aside from a few boutique destinations, future of The Mall is fated to acquisition and overhaul by development groups who will use the (often desirable) topological footprint to create mixed-use high-density office, retail, and residential spaces.

No teenage mecca of days past.

https://twitter.com/jonharris1989/status/1902061074809291146

The Mall is dead.
Long live The Mall.

https://twitter.com/massexpedition/status/1738453144793645350

Nikola Tesla, the incredible man he was, is a disingenuous and terrible example to evoke when advocating for the fraudulent screening debacle and indentured servitude program that is the modern H-1B program.

Here's why...

His actual immigration story.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1872774494101880982

First of all, Tesla was a dropout of Imperial-Royal Technical College in Graz in 1875 (possibly expelled for gambling and womanizing), and never finished his bachelors... totally invalidating him for this hard requirement to qualify for H-1B Visa in the first place.

Have you noticed every time you get on a plane, it’s more cramped, with more people in seats, and the aisles are getting narrower? It has been for past 50 years.

A look back at the history, conditions, airports, regulations, experience, and future of air (and space) travel.
🧵 In the early days of flight, airfare, like ocean liners was meant to be something enjoyable, not necessarily something for the extraordinarily wealthy but something that was to be an experience.

Sacked: A Completely Integrated Operation.

A dark journey into kingpins of the opioid crisis, the Sacklers, and their contribution to arts world, scientific research, high fashion, ritual practices, cosmos MagIC, and monopoly on marketing of life-altering drugs.

A Dendur🧵 This is the thirteenth installment of this Dendur Series.

If you're interested in reading more, here is the previous story, about OSS man turned Ambassador, turned Met President.. William Macomber.

Within that post is a link to the subsequent version, each post's second post.

https://twitter.com/massexpedition/status/1779931635661856875

Space Debris

The Debris Question is a timely, metastasizing issue, both in orbit and on Terra.. a blizzard of direct and second-order effects that can and will impact everyone and Earth.

🧵 on status, history, capital, layman's observations, Ballistic Missiles, and ways forward Kessler Effect

The first realization of the DQ can be traced to 1980s, when a NASA scientist, Donald J. Kessler, estimated proliferation of satellites and debris would exponential reach a climax and collision point

This theory has been proven, even beyond Kessler's predictions

https://twitter.com/longnow/status/1519141487568515072

Do you have the TIME?

Just looked through the past forty years of TIME.

Here are some of the greatest aesthetic, poignant, and prescient covers (chronologically), and some thoughts on refinement culture, psywar, creativity, and general aptitude decline.

⏳🧵 Be fruitful.

Computer Graphic generated covers in mid-80s really coming to fruition is a great starting point for this four-decade retrospective.

It is also always refreshing to see a TIME cover featuring making babies, rather than exterminating them, as in more recent years.

Final Destination: Tinian

The story of 'The Perfect Amphibious Operation', deception, sunk ships, and deployment of B-29 heavy bombers and nuclear warheads aboard a small Pacific island, and it's strategic value in the growing age of geopolitical conflict.

A 🏝🧵🥥 First, background.

Tinian (and Saipan) first sighted by Europeans, via 1521 Spanish expedition of Ferdinand Magellan.
Occupied in 1669, it was little more than a logistics stopping point for Spanish galleons en route to Mexico, and remained as such for the next three centuries.

https://twitter.com/0xalaric/status/1755086828405682528

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.

Rare footage of J.D. "Joker" Vance and fellow recruits at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island receiving their Military Occupational Specialities.

All "joking" aside (this is scene from Full Metal Jacket), here is a thread of some real photos @JDVance1 took in the Corps.

🧵 Vance was, like Joker, a Combat Correspondent... leaving a legacy of images covering the life and times of the 2nd Marine Air Wing, a few images he shot and many articles he wrote are still available online.

I have selected a few to share with you here, along with their stories.

The enemy is not a computer. The enemy is human; other Battle Mech commanders, like you!

History of the first virtual sport: THE BATTLETECH CENTER

A look at the brainchild of a USMMA drop out with the right timing, tech, & pods, DARPA, Simulation History, AI, M&A, VR, & Net

🧵 King's Point, US Merchant Marine Academy, 1979—a group of midshipmen sat through a Naval Research demo of a new state-of-the-art $50MM ship's bridge pilot simulator, groundbreaking technology for 1979.

Jordan Weisman and L. Ross Babcock sat through the demo, and saw opportunity.

A story that changed my life, never gets old to revisit, and should be standard reading for every man, young and old.
Take five minutes and read this, you will not regret it.

IRON AND THE SOUL
by Henry Rollins
🧵 I believe that the definition of definition is reinvention. To not be like your parents. To not be like your friends. To be yourself.

Completely.

When I was young I had no sense of myself. All I was, was a product of all the fear and humiliation I suffered. Fear of my parents. The humiliation of teachers calling me “garbage can” and telling me I’d be mowing lawns for a living. And the very real terror of my fellow students. I was threatened and beaten up for the color of my skin and my size. I was skinny and clumsy, and when others would tease me I didn’t run home crying, wondering why.

Technically Speaking: from Vedic Chariots to War Toyotas

Improvised, non-standard, and expeditiously modified light mobility tactical vehicles in battle across history; The Technical.

A thread.🧵 Since man invented wheel, we have been using it to find more effective ways to wage war.

Shortly afterwards, we fixed wheels to an axle andcart. Not long after, an animal train was yoked...

Naturally this lead to the development of a mobile projectile launching platform.
🐎⚙️

661 Blocks

The transporting, storing, and rebuilding of the Temple of Dendur, blockbuster tactics, an architectural megafirm, and dirty money.

A brief 🧵 on temple logistics. The previous installment of this series on Dendur explored the lobbying efforts of the world to save ancient Egyptian monuments, the gift of one of them to America, and the peculiar connections of it all to Jackie-O (QT).

This is a brief description of its Transatlantic voyage.

https://twitter.com/MASSExpedition/status/1749142182076768579

The Past Twenty-Two Years

Big budget contracts, geopolitical back channels, the CIA, refugees, Civil War, murder cover-ups, covert operations, and an outpost in a desert wasteland

The conclusion of a three-part contextual series leading to the attack on Tower 22

XXII.3🧵 Recap, a three-part analysis of events leading up to the 28 January attack in Northeastern Jordan:

1️⃣ XXII.1; time immemorial to WW2

2️⃣ XXII.2; post-War to turn of millennium (QT)

3️⃣ XXII.3 will close out this series examining the events of the past quarter century👇🏻👇🏻

https://twitter.com/MASSExpedition/status/1760334705314926769

The Enemy of My Enemy

Revolutionaries, massacres, Messerschmitts, nationalism, alt 9/11s, infamous prisons, deals, exploding planes, and a line in the sand.

A continuation of contextual primer events leading to attack on the joint outpost, Tower 22

Second of series; XXII.2
🧵 Jordan is both ancient and new.

Ancient, as it has existed since time immemorial.

New, as it only gained it's nationhood in the past 77 years.

This is a brief analysis of the latter, and its relation with Syria.

Much will not be covered, please share deeper context if I miss.

https://twitter.com/MASSExpedition/status/1755698950516924820

لتصنع كنافة من الصفر، عليك أولاً أن تخترع الكون.

A contextual primer of events leading to attack on the joint outpost, Tower 22

First of series; XXII.1
🧵 To better understand events leading up to 28 January in Northeastern Jordan, one must first seek to understand Jordan

This is obviously an overwhelmingly complex process full of subjective presuppositions, emotions, and a strategic tug-o-war

Here are a couple key considerations

Deadlines, Dams, Drones, Detention Centers, the Derby, and a Debutante

How the Temple of Dendur ended up on the island of Manhattan, with a focus on Jacqueline Kennedy

A continuation of the Dendur series..
🧵 Previously we discussed damming of Nile at Aswan; not only a modern marvel of engineering but also a humanitarian crisis, due to large amounts of villages, antiquities, ruins, and cultural resources that would be lost underwater forever.

Now we discuss origins of their rescue..

https://twitter.com/MASSExpedition/status/1738402409678872707

Re-Imagining Sherwood

Pulling a memory out of the quiver to send a nostalgia arrow of the most underrated children's action figure playset of the 1991 Kenner's Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves

A quest for max profits, cultural revision, and a glimpse inside a 90's toy aisle.
🏹
🧵 In 1991 a star-studded cast brought a new iteration to the beloved tale of Robin Hood to the silver screen.

The movie has sustained mixed critical reviews (absolute gem) and is still worth viewing

However, this is not about the film; this is about the toys.

2023 - 𝙼𝙰𝚂𝚂' 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚜𝚝 𝙷𝚒𝚝𝚜

Cars, conflict, & chronicles

A 🧵of year's most well-received posts, with a few honorable mentions, thrown in

Mostly doing this for future reference, but also earnestly hope you find something you may enjoy reading/haven't seen, yet.. January:

"Social Imagineering" thought experiment and history revolving around concept of Disney replacing Franklin on the $100 bill
💵

https://twitter.com/massexpedition/status/1617653015812636672

Nile Be Dammed

Hydro-terraforming, the lost Labyrinth of Egypt, extreme engineering, Cold War Geopolitics, the Ziggurat of Ur, and the flooding of tens of thousands of years of history.

A thread about the Aswan Dams.🧵

Part of the #DendurNovember series. For thousands of years, man attempted to harness the Nile near Aswan

It's geographic location makes it not only a critical node on the renowned waterway, but a hub for holy sites and unparalleled structures from human history, and of course the Temple of Dendur.