Jaoquin 'El Chapo' Guzman

El Chapo in prison the first time (1993-2001)

     Between 2006-2012 at least 60,000 people have been murdered due to the Mexican drug war. While during that same period 26,121 people went missing. So, let's say a conservative estimate is 80,000 people are gone off the face of the planet due to the drug cartels. The drug cartels also make an estimated $19 to $29 billion from just US drug sales alone¹. Suffice to say that this 'war' is of epidemic proportions, I still can't help but admire Jaoquin 'El Chapo' Guzman. He has escaped from Mexican prisons, not once but twice. El Chapo is the head of the Sinaloa cartel, the largest (arguably I guess) mexican cartel.

     The first time he escaped Jaoquin bribed a guard to open his electronic cell door and hopped into a laundry cart. A maintenance worker then pushed him through several doors and out the front door. Apparently 78 people have been suspected in taking part of his great escape.

     Now fast forward to 2014, El Chapo has been out of prison for 13 years when he is finally caught. A joint effort from the Mexican Navy, DEA and US Marshall Service was tracking him for quite some time. Jaoquin had evaded them using tunnels, of course, when he was finally caught on February 22, 2014. He was place in a Maximum security Mexican prison: Federal Social Readaptation Center No. 1. He escaped again on 11 July 2015 through a tunnel dug under the shower, which was the only spot that the cameras couldn't see. The tunnel had a modified motorcycle on a rail which led to a construction site 1.5 km away².

 Modified Motorcycle

Tunnel in shower stall

     Now this El Chapo fellow is most likely a mass murderer and is not someone who should be on the Wheaties box. I can't help but respect his hubris and the fact that he escaped not once but twice. I mean let's be honest that's pretty badass. If he had escaped once you can look at that as a 'one off', a fluke, but twice now that is insanity. Especially when you have a tunnel built that is 1.5km long with a custom motorcycle to propel you in style. I'm always stoked when anyone circumvents any system even if in this case he probably should still be in prison.

El Chapo Tunnel

A post about an escaped convict:

Alvin 'Creepy' Karpis


Find out about an insane musician:

GG Allin

 

The Railroad -- Crackhead

I worked at Walmart and I walked to work. It's a mighty big hassle to walk seeing as its about an hour away. Well, as much as it is a hassle walking is it gave me a chance to think and generally brainstorm new ideas. I take the railroad tracks because as well as saving time they are a detour from busy streets. I mean those are the reasons I tell normal folk but, to be honest, the main reason is to meet the gang of crazies that use it as their highway to nowheres-ville. I've always, not only identified with the underdogs of society but, also sympathized with them. People can get a shit roll of the dice in this life. They could be born into poverty, violence, drug-addiction or some combination of all three with sprinklings of other abuses. So, I walk the tracks to work, we've established that and for the most part it was a pretty solemn walk especially during the day but, there is those exciting walks. I am going to start with a chance meeting of a crackhead.

It was and ordinary night a month or so back, except tonight I got off work at 11 o'clock instead of 10. The tracks are surrounded by a piece of a greenbelt in in between two main streets but, it seems as though they are a darker shade of night than any other place in town. This night was like any other I sped down the hill from Walmart and just kept that same pace straight onto the railroad tracks. I crossed the trestle with no hiccups because it wasn't icy this night. I just kept at my quick stride and nothing seemed out of the ordinary. I got past the path that I've seen bears go down before and the same one that connects to the hobo bridge across the creek. I kept walking and got to the point in the walk that your vision is the worst because you round the corner and are about a football field away from the street so, the lights blind you. These lights are too bright for your night vision to work worth a damn and too dim for you to see a damn thing. I've seen two people lighting up a crack pipe in the trees to the right so maybe I'm a little on edge just from past experience. I just keep moving though, better to get through this point at a good speed. I think I see someone on their cellphone I just brush it off as the street light shining off the tracks. I just keep walking, I tell myself I'll be on the road soon and in bed too. I get within four feet of the light from the cellphone before I realize shit it is someone on their phone. They're hunched over on their cellphone facing the other direction; I'm so close that I have to say something, "Hey, how's it going". Obviously in my toughest scared voice I could muster up. He jumps up spins off of the tracks and mid-spin begins singing at the top of his lungs "Ccccaaannnncerrrrrrr" in the most cigarette dipped voice you've ever heard. I just keep my pace as his rasp fades into the distance I turn my head slightly and glance back to see him still spinning.




Another quick story:

Bird's Eye


A Documentary you have to check out:

The Wonderful Whites of West Virginia

Cicada 3301 - The Beginning 2012

Well, much has been written about Cicada 3301 and I'm sure I will reveal nothing else. I just discovered it due to this youtube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_RPNI-QMIE it is generally about the 4chan message board but the part about Cicada 3301 surfacing is at 12:30. Cicada began with this image posted on the message board:

Through opening this file in a text editor they found another clue which lead folks to a url with this image:

Further investigation lead to seekers using a program named Outguess to uncover another message:

Here is a book code.  To find the book, and more information, 

go to http://www.reddit.com/r/a2e7j6ic78h0j/

1:20, 2:3, 3:5, 4:20, 5:5, 6:53, 7:1, 8:8, 9:2, 10:4, 11:8, 12:4, 

13:13, 14:4, 15:8, 16:4, 17:5, 18:14, 19:7, 20:31, 21:12, 22:36, 

23:2, 24:3, 25:5, 26:65, 27:5, 28:1, 29:2, 30:18, 31:32, 32:10,

 33:3, 34:25, 35:10, 36:7, 37:20, 38:10, 39:32, 40:4, 41:40, 

42:11, 43:9, 44:13, 45:6, 46:3, 47:5, 48:43, 49:17, 50:13, 51:4,

 52:2, 53:18, 54:4, 55:6, 56:4, 57:24, 58:64, 59:5, 60:37, 61:60, 

62:12, 63:6, 64:8, 65:5, 66:18, 67:45, 68:10, 69:2, 70:17, 71:9, 

72:20, 73:2, 74:34, 75:13, 76:21

Good luck.

3301

This subreddit had two images, with two messages found through Outguess again:

Hash: SHA1

- From here on out, we will cryptographically sign all messages with this key.

It is available on the mit keyservers.  Key ID 7A35090F, as posted in a2e7j6ic78h0j.

Patience is a virtue.

Good luck.

3301

Hash: SHA1

The key has always been right in front of your eyes.

This isn't the quest for the Holy Grail.  Stop making 
it more difficult than it is. 

Good luck.

3301 

A code in the original message was a book code... this gets a little hazy on my part
but basically people figured out applying this code to a text(I'm not sure if it was
the story found on the reddit page or not) gave them this:
 

Call us at us tele phone numBer two one four three nine oh nine six oh eight

Which people did phone and did at one point(it is now disconnected) contained a message:

The original image's dimensions were multiplied with 3301 provided searchers with this web address: http://845145127.com (now contains nothing). This website contained a Cicada image and countdown, again the image contained a message:

Hash: SHA1
 
You have done well to come this far.
 
Patience is a virtue.
 
Check back at 17:00 on Monday, 9 January 2012 UTC.
 
3301

On that date the image was checked again and revealed a new message:

52.216802, 21.018334
48.85057059876962, 2.406892329454422
48.85030144151387,2.407538741827011
47.664196,  -122.313301
47.637520, -122.346277
47.622993, -122.312576
37.5196666666667, 126.995
33.966808, -117.650488
29.909098706850486 -89.99312818050384
25.684702, -80.441289
21.584069, -158.104211
- -33.90281, 151.18421
36.0665472222222, -94.1726416666667
37.577070, 126.813122 

Which corresponded with locations across the globe, where these were found:

This was followed by an e-mail after which all the people who had received the e-mail went silent and no more is known for sure about what happened in 2012.

Here is the public key used to encrypt it. Note that it has a low bit modulus 

and is therefore breakable:

Hello.

We have now found the individuals we sought. Thus our month-long journey ends.

For now.

Thank you for your dedication and effort. If you were unable to complete the

 test, or did not recieve an email, do not despair.

There will be more opportunities like this one.

Thank you all.

3301

P.S. 1041279065891998535982789873959431895640\
442510695567564373922695237268242385295908173\
9834390370374475764863415203423499357108713631

The group then went silent until 2013. I will not summarize that year as it seems things become much more murky. I have summarized most of this information from the Uncovering Cicada Wikia --I wanted to create a record more readable for those of us with a less than perfect understanding of cryptography. I found this article about Cicada pretty interesting for further reading: Meet the Man who Solved the Mysterious Cicada 3301 Puzzle



Check out some other interesting things I have found through the interwebz:

Alvin 'Creepy' Karpis
Rich Kids of Instagram

Terunobu Fujimori

Terunobu was for years an architecture historian and in 1991 he started practicing architecture. I love his work because it is so whimsical and reminds me of something Hayao Miyazaki would come up with.

This is from Hayao Miyazaki's movie Howl's Moving Castle

Well, I hope you enjoy his buildings as much as I do.

Hope over to these other posts and get some more inspiration:

Andy Goldsworthy and Surreal Art in Nature

Max Schaaf, Living the Dream

Moebius

When I first saw Moebius' artwork I was impressed but maybe not as impressed as I am now. Probably because his artwork is so effortless. Anyways just always looking for more inspiration.

I also uploaded a couple of his comics that partially inspired Heavy Metal .

Arzach

Arzak

I snaggle-toothed them from this website but put them in an easier to read layout.

Andy Goldsworthy

I really love this man's work. Andy takes this he finds in nature and arranges them in extraordinary ways. He takes great photographs of them as well. I would recommend you take a look at his shit as it is awesome and he also has a documentary Rivers and Tides ( which is a great look into his process).

If you think these photos are rad, check out these other folks:

Max Schaaf
Terunobu Fujimori