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If you’ve ever been stuck using another email service and want to move over to Gmail, importing all of your mail is a real pain in the ass. Think Apple’s Mail client tied to, say, an exchange account. Today, Google open sourced two projects that’ll help make moving over much easier. Read More
via TechCrunch
Google Open Sources Two Tools To Import Mail Into Gmail
Watch as this skilled Japanese knife sharpener takes a rusty old kitchen knife and makes it good as new, with a little cleaning compound, some water, sharpening stones, and lots of good old elbow grease.
via The Awesomer
Restoring a Rusty Knife
Twenty years ago, construction workers in the Israeli town of Lod working under a city street came across something extraordinary: A massive mosaic, laid down almost two millennia before. Now, they’ve found another.
The Lod Mosaic has become iconic over the years: It was removed from the city street where it was found, it has traveled all over the world and has been displayed at the most important museums on Earth. It’s been the subject of volumes of academic study, spurring debates about what the perfectly-preserved Roman mosaic describes (some claim that it depicts a shipwreck that the wealthy person who commissioned it survived).
The first Lod mosaic. Image by David Silverman/Getty Images.
Lod, of course, is in Israel. But when this mosaic was made, it was a Roman colony, as the mosaic’s official website explains:
Lod is ancient Lydda, which was destroyed by the Romans in A.D. 66 during the Jewish War. Refounded by Hadrian as Diospolis, Lydda was awarded the rank of a Roman colony under Septimius Severus in A.D. 200. It remained in Roman hands until becoming a Christian city and eventually succumbing to Arab conquerors in A.D. 636… Debris covering the floors contained pottery and coins of the third and fourth centuries A.D., suggesting that the mosaics were laid in about A.D. 300.
The mosaic’s discovery in 1996 brought new attention to Lod, a downtrodden city that saw tens of thousands of new visitors, the New York Times reported in 2009. The city planned a visitor center dedicated to the ancient piece–and the process of building that structure has accidentally uncovered more treasures.
The original mosaic. Niki Davidov/IAA via Getty Images
Today, the city and the Israel Antiquities Authority announced that during the construction process, workers uncovered—yep—another Roman mosaic, as well as other fragments and details of the upper-class home where the original mosaic was discovered in 1996:
AP Photo/Ariel Schalit
The new, 42-foot-long mosaic was situated in a covered courtyard, and it depicts the kinds of pastoral scenes you’d expect of a well-bred Roman of the time: There are vases, fish, birds, and scenes like a lion-esque animal is tearing into its prey.
Officials today described this multi-mosaic house as “meticulous and luxurious,” a space that would have been *raises pinky finger* “in the best tradition of the well-born of the period.” Now, the museum will be redesigned to include the second mosaic—and it seems pretty likely that these fragments will continue to be discovered.
AP Photo/Ariel Schalit
It’s actually not that unusual for mosaics from the Roman or Byzantine era to be uncovered by modern construction, either in Israel or elsewhere. We’ve seen a rash of mosaics uncovered over the past few decades, as city streets and infrastructure are updated and as construction of new neighborhoods goes forward.
Mosaics are also extraordinarily durable: Not only are they solid and made from stone—they’re flat, which means they won’t collapse or crumble like actual three-dimensional structures and artifacts. In a way, they are the time capsule: Resistant to water and weather, and almost unbreakable.
Almost.
The first Lod Mosaic, for example, has a hole where a cesspit was dug into the ground a few hundred years later. It just goes to show: if you really want to understand a city, from its sewage to its greatest artifacts, look beneath its streets.
All images via AP Photo/Ariel Schalit unless otherwise noted.
Contact the author at kelsey@Gizmodo.com.
via Gizmodo
These Huge Roman Mosaics Were Hidden Under City Streets For 1,700 Years
Dustin Ellermann recently conducted a simple test in which he shot various firearms of varying calibers through a chronograph with and without suppressors on each, in order to test their velocity. The overall findings are that, yes suppressors will increase the velocity of a round, with the exception of the .223 in his specific test, […]
The post Suppressors affecting velocity appeared first on The Firearm Blog.
If you’re a fan of SIG’s modular P250, you’re gonna love their latest. The New Hampshire gun maker has just announced the P250-22. So if you buy one and want to go up caliber to a centerfire cartridge, you’ll … Read More
The post New From SIG SAUER: P250-22 .22LR Pistol appeared first on The Truth About Guns.
via The Truth About Guns
New From SIG SAUER: P250-22 .22LR Pistol
This looks like a fun DIY experiment for your next camping trip. All you need is a drill, 1" bit and length of firewood.
via Gear Junkie
Log + Drill = Rocket Stove!
Texas recently passed legislation that allows people with concealed carry permits to legally carry on public college campuses, just as they are allowed to carry on most of the rest of the public land in Texas, including the State Capitol. … Read More
The post More Guns, Less Crime Author John Lott’s Testimony on Campus Carry and Gun Free Zones [VIDEO] appeared first on The Truth About Guns.
via The Truth About Guns
More Guns, Less Crime Author John Lott’s Testimony on Campus Carry and Gun Free Zones [VIDEO]
The world’s most prestigious startup accelerator Y Combinator published a guide to founding companies called The Startup Playbook. Here are the top tips from YC’s president Sam Altman. Read More
via TechCrunch
62 Tips From Y Combinator’s Startup Instruction Manual
Before there was a CIA or an MI6 there was the Special Operations Executive. And, as WWII heated up, it put all of its collective tradecraft knowledge into a single training manual. And, it turns out that training spies to operate behind enemy lines is often good training for going outdoors, too.
The abridged history of this manual is that, as America’s participation in WWII became more and more inevitable, the British and American militaries identified the need to train a corps of spies who could operate behind enemy lines, leading groups of partisans, or conducting their own intelligence gathering or sabotage. Spying, as it’s understood in the modern context, was a very limited profession at the time, so a method had to be found to impart the knowledge of a few to many students, across multiple training camps. That was achieved in part by enlisting specialists to train students in specific skills, and these camps had incredibly high instructor-to-student ratios as a result. But, the basic program and its knowledge base also had to be written down. So, the SOE did just that, creating its own training syllabus.
The best surviving copy of that syllabus happens to be the one used at Special Training School 103, or “Camp X” which opened to train American spies two days before Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. It now resides in the United Kingdom’s National Archives in Kew, a suburb of London. Quotes from it are used in this article.
The pre-war approach of Camp X scaled quickly as America went to war. While only 760 Americans ever received the training detailed in this manual, it formed the basis for the training program implemented by America’s new Central Intelligence Agency when that was formed the next year.
That original manual was unearthed by Denis Rigden, and is re-printed in its entirety in his book, “How To Be A Spy.”
What makes it particularly interesting to us outdoors types is that this knowledge is drawn from a time before modern technology invaded the battlefield. A time before exploding cigars or microfilm cameras or night vision goggles. Its shared knowledge is what proved successful in the field, during wartime and its presentation here is ruthlessly efficient. It’s not politically correct or the kind of advice that’s been run past lawyer’s to absolve its authors of liability. It’s what enabled early spies to parachute into enemy held territory, blow shit up, then make their escape.
Let’s go through the manual, pull out the knowledge that’s applicable to us hikers, sportsmen and nature lovers and discuss how it’s still relevant to us in the modern world.
This is as true of climbing, hunting or simply crossing challenging terrain or dealing with a dangerous situation as it is plotting enemy movements. The syllabus also emphasizes the importance of ensuring your information is up to date. A detailed assessment achieved the day before is invaluable for forward planning, but take some time to ensure that what you saw before remains the case before you move.
Not just for hunters. Anyone who wants to observe wildlife or who may need to ascertain the motives of a strange group of people in the middle of nowhere can benefit from these general practices. And, the syllabus emphasizes that you can quickly adopt the principles of camouflage on the fly by using terrain or brush to mask your silhouette. It also identifies motion as the thing that will give you away. Simply remaining still will prevent people or animals from detecting you nine times out of ten.
Understand the different kinds of camouflage, as defined by the syllabus, is key to successfully hiding from observation. This is a great example of how these different types can be used together, enabling you to totally disappear into your environment while remaining ready to act.
Light, shadows and movement are how effective camouflage works. Actual color matching is far less important.
After those are achieved, worry about making your outline with disruptive patterns, eliminate your shadow by pressing yourself closely to the ground or an object, then consider the overall tone of your background and attempt to match it.
The syllabus goes onto recommend you cover yourself in natural vegetation to achieve the above goals, but cautions against using this method in hot sun as the plucked branches and whatnot will quickly wither and become, “worse than useless.”
Using natural features, vegetation or manmade materials to mask your silhouette is an easy, immediate way to disguise yourself.
This is as good a description of what binoculars do as I’ve seen.
And, the syllabus includes basic binocular buying advice that is still relevant today.
Basic observation techniques using binoculars.
This remains the basic principle for carrying less weight outdoors. Know what you need and take only that.
And aside from clothing, here’s their packing list. Don’t need much more than that!
Need to move undetected? This is one of the best descriptions of how to do that I’ve ever seen.
The syllabus going into the importance of reading animal movements at length. I’ll spare you the couple hundred words by simply saying: become familiar with the behavior of birds and other small animals in your area, they’re frequently a dead giveaway to the presence of humans or large predators.
This is great advice. Basic earth tones always work best: grey and brown. And sound control becomes even more important, for reasons you’ll read below.
I didn’t know that! I’m going to go pull out all my binoculars and see which ones should work, then give it a try.
Crossing moving water is dangerous. But probably less dangerous than jumping between wet rocks. The potential for a fall injuring you or knocking you unconscious, then dumping you into moving water, just has very serious ramifications. Any river crossings need to be calculated, planned and conducted with extreme care.
The priority in any first aid situation is to first assess the person’s airway, breathing, and circulation. Understandably, the syllabus deals mostly with injuries causing blood loss.
Tourniquets are a controversial first aid technique and should not be attempted without training.
The syllabus goes into much more detail, but it’s largely oriented around killing, so we won’t reprint that here.
A lot of this stuff, like the camouflage or silent movement techniques, may at first seen overwhelming. The title of this paper is a giveaway though. As a syllabus, it’s an overview of training, not the complete package. The concepts and techniques identified would have been taught and practiced in classes. And you can do pretty much the same thing, applying what you read about here to your next outdoors adventures.
A nighttime dog walk, for instance, is a great time to practice your night vision techniques. A hike is a great time to practice silent moving. Basic camouflage can be applied any time you’re outside, simply by dressing in earth tones and using natural features to disguise your silhouette. Work up to it, then find a deer or other wary animal and try to sneak up on it. I bet you’ll be surprised at not only how achievable that can be, but how effective all this stuff combined is at improving your experience outside. Minimizing your presence outdoors is the best way to observe nature.
Top photo: Getty Images
IndefinitelyWild is a new publication about adventure travel in the outdoors, the vehicles and gear that get us there and the people we meet along the way. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
via Gizmodo
What WWII’s Top Secret Spy Manual Can Teach You About Wilderness Survival