Tag: undead

A short history of the Chinese hopping vampires

And more…

And now for some amusing history. I like to believe that the world is full of interesting tales, histories, people and events. Yet many of these things are hidden from view. It’s treated as just some arcane knowledge that lies hidden in an attic trunk, or the garage of a long dead relative. Just waiting there, so that one day, an inquisitive young ten year old (boy or girl) would venture into that dusty realm and explore and discover treasures worth appreciation.

My curiosity was sparked by this vintage advertisement. Which makes me wonder if future historians will believe that everyone in the 1970’s wore swimming clothes when they operated a computer.

Computing in the 1970’s.

And speaking of the past. Have you ever wondered what modern Russian people think of the KGB and the days of the fading Soviet Union? We, it’s interesting, they think about it a lot. And there are some interesting meme’s floating around. Like this one…

Russian starter pack 1980s

An Anzio 20mm rifle. They’re legal to own in the US

For when you really need to take down an armored vehicle. Legal to own in most States.

An Anzio 20mm rifle. They’re legal to own in the US.

Good Debt vs. Bad Debt

Good debt: you buy a house. You now own the bank $300,000 and after your loan term you end up paying the bank $400,000 after interest. It took 30 years to pay that debt but since houses went up in price your initial $400k spent is now worth $500k.

Bad debt: you see this nice new TV at best buy. It costs $3k, but its top of the line. Now, you don’t have $3k to drop on a TV, so you put it on the credit card. It takes you ~3 years to pay it off @ 20% interest. In the end you will pay about $4k for the TV, and in 3 years time that TV will most likely be worth 1/10 of what was paid.

The idea that you need to avoid all debts is not practical to most people and not really good financial advice. The exception are people who can’t handle the responsibility of credit (which tend to be the people who get this advice, and tend to be younger people) or people who have jobs that are too inconsistent to keep up with regular payments (which tend to be poorer people).

Johnny Depp was in a wedding band back in 1982

Well, we all have to start somewhere.

Johnny Depp

What I really wanted when I was a boy

I didn’t get it though. Sigh.

A totally cool floor

Well, at least I think so. Anyways.

Cool floor

Married with Children

One of my favorite television shows of the 1980’s.

A Stop at Willoughby

The Twilight Zone is known for the weird, the macabe and the dark. However, this episode isn’t so black and white. Well, the show’s physically still in black and white, but in the case of Gart Williams, a tired and overworked advertising executive, life is a nightmare and The Twilight Zone offers relief every evening on his train ride home. Williams pictures an idyllic society, one that he feels at ease in. “A Stop at Willoughby” is about man’s search for paradise. Some call it heaven, Williams calls it Willoughby.

“A Stop at Willoughby”

The OTS-135 12.7mm Revolver: For when you need to blow a hole through Neptune’s rings

A bit over-kill. I would like to see the holster fro this monster.

Enjoy this little adventure.

From HERE.

The Hopping Vampires (jiang shi) are a type of undead creature found in Chinese folklore. Although its Chinese name is often translated as ‘Chinese hopping vampire / zombie / ghost), its literal meaning is ‘stiff corpse’. These creatures may be identified by their attire – the uniform of a Qing Dynasty official. Additionally, the jiang shi is recognizable by its posture and movement. The arms of these creatures are permanently outstretched, apparently due to rigor mortis, and they hop, rather than walk.

As a result of the stiffness in their bodies, there are many ways to turn a corpse into a jiang shi, and as many ways to defeat them. These undead creatures appear in quite a number of Chinese films.

What are Jiang Shi?

While most jiang shi share the same type of attire, bodily posture, and mode of movement, variations also exist among these creatures. For example, some of these beings look like normal humans, while others are a little more decomposed as a result of being dead for a longer period of time. Yet others have been depicted with sharp teeth, long nails, and emitting a green phosphorescent glow. In some versions of the story, jiang shi are said to be able to grow stronger, thus allowing them to acquire skills such as flying and transforming into wolves.

How a Jiang Shi is Created

There are apparently many ways for a dead body to turn into a jiang shi. For instance, according to one version of the myth, a jiang shi is created when a person suffers a violent death, for instance, suicide, hanging or drowning. Such deaths cause the soul to be unable to leave the body, thus resulting in a reanimated corpse.

Another belief is that a corpse may become a jiang shi if it is not given a proper burial. For instance, if a burial was postponed after death, a dead body may become restless, and return to haunt the living. Another supposed way of a corpse turning into a jiang shi is that it fails to decompose even after burial. Corpses that have been struck by a bolt of lightning or hopped over by an animal (particularly cats) are also said to turn into this undead creature.

Some Truth to the Story?

Stories about the jiang shi are not entirely without basis in fact. During the Qing Dynasty, efforts were made to return the bodies of Chinese workers who died far away from home back to their place of birth. This was done so that their spirits would not grow homesick.

It seems that there were those who specialized in this trade and handled the transportation of the corpses back to their ancestral homes. These ‘corpse drivers’, as they are called, are said to have transported the dead at night. The coffins were attached to bamboo poles that rested on the shoulders of two men. As they went on their journey, the bamboo poles would flex. Viewed from afar, this would look as is the dead were bouncing on their own accord.

It is from here that rumors about reanimated corpses began. Initially, it was speculated that the ‘corpse drivers’ were necromancers who were able to magically reanimate the corpses of the dead. Under the supervision of the ‘corpse drivers’, the dead would hop back home.

This was done overnight to minimize the decay of the body. Additionally, travelling at night meant that there would be a lower chance of encountering the living, and meeting the dead is considered bad luck. For added measure, a priest with a bell is said to lead the procession, thus warning people of their approach.

How to Defeat a Hopping Vampire

The jiang shi are commonly said to come out at night. To sustain themselves, as well as to grow more powerful, the jiang shi would steal the qi (life force) of living victims. The living, however, are not entirely defenseless against these creatures. There seems to be several ways to defeat a jiang shi, these include:

  • the blood of a black dog
  • glutinous rice
  • showing it a mirror because it fears its reflection
  • chicken eggs
  • throwing money on the floor (they’ll stop to count it)
  • the urine of a virgin boy
  • holding one’s breath
  • sticking a Taoist talisman on its forehead
  • a rooster’s crowing

During the 1980s, the jiang shi was a popular subject in the film industry of Hong Kong. While these undead were often featured as antagonists, they have sometimes been depicted as more human-like, and at times even served as comic relief!

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Now that was fun huh? Well, we’re on a roll. Let’s keep a rolling.

Selected Alternative Media

The art of Electronics (full PDF – FREE)

This is the complete PDF of chapter 9 of the amazing work “The art of electronics”.  It is provided free with no encumbrances. No registration. No credit card “to verify if you are human” and other bullshit methods to squeeze money from you. It’s presented here for fellow geeks and mad scientists to enjoy.

PDF of Chapter 9 ; VOLTAGE REGULATION AND
POWER CONVERSION. HERE.

Thoughts In The Middle Of An Economic Collapse?

From Busted Knuckles…

It’s being done intentionally in case anyone was wondering.

I see Gold and Silver are trying to break out.

There’s a sign all is not well in Koo Koo land right there.

Inflation is killing us, eating at our buying power.

I saw an article last night that I am too lazy to find at the moment showing that Shadow Stats compared what the official inflation rate is compared to how they used to calculate it back in the 80’s and it would be right about 15%.

Anyone who has recently bought groceries or fuel of any kind has seen that with their own eyes.

I also saw where Homeland Security is still pushing the Domestic Terrorism button.

Standing on it actually.

TPTB would love nothing better for someone to snap and start shooting the place up so they could start with the Purge they already have unwrapped and sitting on the table waiting.

People are quitting and getting fired left and right over the horse shit OSHA enforced Vaxx Mandate that we are all waiting to see some Black Robed Nazgul’s say is perfectly legal when anyone with a lick of sense can see through like cellophane.

It’s either because [1] the Government is incompetent beyond rational understanding, or [2] they are criminally complicit in trying to destroy the lives and families of Americans. Either way, the USA is very toxic right now.

Other comments…

Just seeing a few holes in the grocery shelves, but nothing serious.  Gas is just under $4/gal (premium), and ammunition is outrageous when you can find it.  Help wanted signs everywhere with some restaurants short-staffed to the point of drive-thru only.  If Waffle House can only have one server and one cook, shit is baaad.  Same staffing shortages in retail as well.  It’s like 10% of the population just left the planet.  Just wish our local government retards would vanish.   New residential developments left and right.  Wondering who is going to pay those high prices for a house.  I’m hoping the asshole turning a corn field into a subdivision about 1/2 mile from me loses his ass.  Life seems to be normal, but even the wife senses “tension” (her word) when she’s out and about for provisioning.  I’m too old to wait too long, so whatever is going to happen I wish it would pop so I can have a little fun with it.

And…

Great vid that explains quite a bit fer the simple minded like me:

https://rumble.com/vn7lf5-monopoly-who-owns-the-world-must-see.html

Absurd

But cool.

Some Geo-politic stuff

From HERE. Interesting website.

The fight in Donbass is one of the major world’s flash points alongside Syria and Taiwan—where U.S. provocations threaten a major war with China.

If the West forces a military confrontation with Russia in Ukraine, it can be sure it will face one with China over Taiwan simultaneously, neither of which it has any chance of winning.

The Russians and Chinese have forged a partnership against Western, primarily U.S. aggression in the political, economic, and military spheres.

“Idiots in the Pentagon Are Pushing the U.S. into a Military Confrontation with China over Nothing,” Says Former Top Policy Adviser

From HERE.

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley claimed last week that China was close to a “sputnik moment” due to its successful test of a hypersonic missile. 

However, U.S. space-based early warning systems can detect hypersonic missiles, marking them as no threat at all.

General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff warned on Wednesday, October 27th, that China’s development of a hypersonic missile system is “very concerning,” calling it “very close” to a “sputnik moment” that triggered the space race during the Cold War.

“What we saw was a very significant event of a test of a hypersonic weapon system. And it is very concerning,” Milley said during an interview with “The David Rubenstein Show: Peer-to-Peer Conversations” on Bloomberg Television. “I don’t know if it’s quite a Sputnik moment, but I think it’s very close to that. It has all of our attention.” 

Sputnik was the first artificial satellite launched into low Earth orbit in 1957 by the Soviet Union, which sparked the space race between the U.S. and USSR.

Theodore Postol, professor emeritus of Science, Technology, and International Security at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a former top policy adviser to the Chief of Naval Operations, says that the Sputnik analogy advanced by General Milley is off base.

“The launching of Sputnik,” Postol said in an interview with CAM, “signaled at the time that the Soviet Union was able to compete with the U.S. in space and had been a surprise.” However, in the case of China and the testing of a hypersonic missile, U.S. intelligence agencies were “already aware about it and knew that China is very advanced in science and technology.”

The hypersonic missile, furthermore, “does not threaten the U.S. population in any way or provide China any military-technological edge.”

This is because the U.S. has “extraordinary space-based early warning infrared systems with the ability to detect hypersonic vehicles as they descend into the atmosphere and become heated to very high temperatures.”

General Milley’s statement, according to Postol, reflects how “idiots in the Pentagon” and political appointees are trying to “push us [the U.S.] into military confrontation with China over nothing.”

“Pushing us into military confrontation over nothing”

Launched via rocket, the hypersonic missile can travel over 6,000 miles at five times the speed of sound (3,836 mph). It runs parallel to the earth’s surface and can skip off it like a rock before reaching its destination after heating up to a very high temperature.

The space-based early warning system can see the hot spots of the hypersonic missile that’s moving when it dips into the boundary between space and the upper atmosphere. The exhaust from the hypersonic vehicle would also be recognizable.

According to Postol, a more real threat to U.S. national security are ballistic missiles—that Russia and China both possess—which are more accurate and launch balloons in space that radar cannot peer through and detect. The balloons are decoys which in frictionless outer space are very hard to distinguish from the actual warhead.

The U.S. military also cannot defend against cruise missiles that the Russians and Chinese have in their arsenals.

Testing the hypersonic missile, according to Postol, may provide “a statement from China that they are a technological competitor to the U.S.,” but it will “have little or no meaning in terms of adding significant nuclear-strike capabilities.”

“Someone gave Milley false information”

Postol says that he “does not think that Milley is a liar, but believes that he was provided false information from someone within the U.S. military or intelligence agencies and didn’t know any better.”

According to Postol, “Milley is both an unsophisticated consumer of intelligence and someone who is easily manipulated.”

In October, “when a drone strike in Kabul killed ten civilians, Milley stated that the attack was just”—though later acknowledged it had been a mistake.

“A dysfunctional system” and culture that “hypes threats”

Trained as a nuclear engineer at MIT, Postol said that his experience as a scientific policy adviser to the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Jim Watkins, from 1982 to 1984, “left him with a low regard for the accuracy of information provided by high-level government employees.”

This low regard has only intensified with time.

When Colin Powell gave his infamous speech at the UN in February 2003 about Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) in Iraq, Postol—then a Pentagon adviser—knew right away that every line in the speech was wrong and that Powell himself knew this.

Recipient of the Leo Szilard Prize in 1990 from the American Physical Society for “incisive technical analysis of national security issues that [have] been vital for informing the public policy debate” and Norbert Weiner Award from Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility for “uncovering numerous and important false claims about missile defenses,” Postol earned the ire of the Bush I administration when he challenged the efficacy of the Patriot missile system—which had reputedly intercepted Scud missiles launched against Israel by Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein during the first Persian Gulf War.

Since that time, Postol has been highly critical of the tearing up of arms control agreements like the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with Russia reducing cruise missiles, and U.S. government investment in ineffective weapons systems that waste taxpayer dollars.

In Postol’s view, the intelligence agencies have some good people working for them, but have developed into “rigid, dysfunctional bureaucracies with weak leaders who are often politicized.”

Those who gain promotion “have their own motivations” and “do not always provide the best information.” They are “part of a culture that hypes threats,” and “provides higher ups with a storyline that is useful to the larger agenda which is to get more money from Congress.”

By amplifying threats, the intelligence agencies want to “scare people” so they will “sanction huge military budgets” and big-ticket “defense projects that often add little to national security.”

Syrian chemical gas hoax

According to Postol, the intelligence agencies deliberately deceived the American public when they claimed that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad carried out chemical weapon attacks against his own people—a claim that was adopted as a pretext for military strikes against Syria.

Postol reviewed key evidence about alleged attacks in August 2013 in the Ghouta district of Damascus and in April 2017 in the town of Khan Shaykhun in the Idlib Governate of Syria.

In the case of Ghouta, Postol said that the Obama White House presented a false intelligence report like in the Gulf of Tonkin incident that could have caused the nation to go to war.

According to Postol, what shows that the White House was lying is simple: The rockets that delivered the Sarin gas had a range of about two kilometers, roughly four to five times shorter than what was needed to execute the attack from Syrian-government controlled areas according to the White House map.

In the case of the attack on Khan Shaykhun, Postol said that the Syrian air force bombed a building—a meeting place for extremist leaders—with a supply store in its basement that stored pesticides and other chemicals which released toxic materials when it was struck.

The crater in the building had to have been caused by artillery rockets, and the scene was later staged to make it look like it was the target of a sarin nerve gas attack by Assad.

Jeffrey St. Clair wrote in Counterpunch that “China’s successful hypersonic missile test insures that over the next decade trillions will be diverted from health care, climate change, education and infrastructure budgets into a bottomless Pentagon slush fund for developing, testing and deploying missiles that by definition (or at least according to the logic of MAD theory) can never be used.”

This is how much food you can get for the cost of a pack of cigarettes in Australia

Part of Australian social engineering.

Australian cost for cigarettes

This all-female football tournament in Pakistan might have the best backdrop in the world

Pakistan is truly a beautiful place.

A cabbage farm kinda looks like a field of alien pods waiting to hatch

It does, doesn’t it?

Some video time

I would like to throw forth some videos now…

Show some love… video

Come on, ya gotta give out some love if you are ever going to expect to receive any. video

In China, people work together. In China, people take the time to make the world a better place. I like to believe that this aspect of the Chinese people is very much a human aspect that has been bleached out of many people because their societies have become evil, corrupted by the greedy. Start now. Take charge of your life. Start now, clean up your little part of the world. Start now and make the difference.

Stop waiting on others to do things. Instead, you go forth and do them yourself. video.

Please be the Rufus. Help others. Take action when it is needed. Do not fear anything. Go forth and go great things. Video

Show some humanity. Show some understanding. Show some kindness. Be the Rufus. Make a difference in the world around you. VIDEO.

Help others. Be kind. Go out of your way to do nice and helpful things. Do not be afraid about being late for work, or getting sued, or what others will think. Take the initiative and be the Rufus… video

Be the Rufus. Seriously. Be the Rufus. Like this cab driver does… video

Or like this cab driver does…

Video

Do you want more?

I have more posts like this in my Happiness Index here…

Life & Happiness

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