Literatures Repository
This section is dedicated to all the literatures that we consider related to our domains of expertise and those of our affiliates.
Chemistry:
- Rhodium's Chemistry Archive
Although it had been in operation since 1997, The Hive gained broader awareness in 2001 when a Dateline NBC special The "X" Files aired. This investigation into the use and production of MDMA featured the Hive and its founder, who operated under the pseudonym 'Strike' (Hobart Huson). Strike was the founder and site designer of the Hive as well as the author of several popular books (Total Synthesis I and II, and Sources) instructing readers how to synthesize a variety of amphetamines (specifically MDMA), obtain equipment and chemicals, and avoid prosecution. He remained anonymous until Dateline's investigation and interviews revealed that Hobart Huson (owner of the Strike-recommended laboratory supplier "Science Alliance") was the man behind Strike. The NBC program showed Huson/Strike at his office/chemical warehouse, complete with a stuffed bee sitting by his computer. The program led to Huson's arrest and imprisonment, but also spurred the site's growth. A person by the username 'Rhodium' and a small group of dedicated individuals actually ran the Hive and its sister site Rhodium.ws for most of the sites' lifespans.
While The Hive was a public forum for asking questions and exchanging information, Rhodium.ws hosted a collection of drug synthesis information in more condensed and organized form, much of it derived from messages posted on the Hive. It also had a large collection of articles from academic journals, plus considerable general-purpose information on practical chemistry. Rhodium's site was also taken offline shortly after the Hive. Most of the archive is hosted by Erowid. https://erowid.org/archive/rhodium/chemistry/index.html - PiHKAL - By Alexander Shulgin and Ann Shulgin
PiHKAL: A Chemical Love Story is a book by Dr. Alexander Shulgin and Ann Shulgin, published in 1991. The subject of the work is psychoactive phenethylamine chemical derivatives, notably those that act as psychedelics and/or empathogen-entactogens. The main title, PiHKAL, is an acronym that stands for "Phenethylamines I Have Known and Loved." The book is arranged into two parts, the first part being a fictionalized autobiography of the couple and the second part describing 179 different psychedelic compounds (most of which Shulgin discovered himself), including detailed synthesis instructions, bioassays, dosages, and other commentary. The second part was made freely available by Shulgin on Erowid while the first part is available only in the printed text. While the reactions described are beyond the ability of people with a basic chemistry education, some tend to emphasize techniques that do not require difficult-to-obtain chemicals. Notable among these are the use of mercury-aluminum amalgam (an unusual but easy to obtain reagent) as a reducing agent and detailed suggestions on legal plant sources of important drug precursors such as safrole.
https://www.thevespiary.org/library/Files_Uploaded_by_Users/llamabox/PiHKAL.pdf - TiHKAL - By Alexander Shulgin and Ann Shulgin
TIHKAL: The Continuation is a 1997 book written by Alexander Shulgin and Ann Shulgin about a family of psychoactive drugs known as tryptamines. A sequel to PIHKAL: A Chemical Love Story, TIHKAL is an acronym that stands for "Tryptamines I Have Known and Loved".
TIHKAL, much like its predecessor PIHKAL, is divided into two parts. The first part, for which all rights are reserved, begins with a fictionalized autobiography, picking up where the similar section of PIHKAL left off; it then continues with a collection of essays on topics ranging from psychotherapy and the Jungian mind to the prevalence of DMT in nature, ayahuasca and the War on Drugs. The second part of TIHKAL, which may be conditionally distributed for non-commercial reproduction (see external links below), is a detailed synthesis manual for 55 psychedelic compounds (many discovered by Alexander Shulgin himself), including their chemical structures, dosage recommendations, and qualitative comments. Shulgin has made the second part freely available on Erowid.org while the first part is available only in the printed text.
As with PIHKAL, the Shulgins were motivated to release the synthesis information as a way to protect the public's access to information about psychedelic compounds, a goal Alexander Shulgin has noted many times.[1] Following a raid of his laboratory in 1994 by the United States DEA,[2] Richard Meyer, spokesman for DEA's San Francisco Field Division, stated that "It is our opinion that those books [referring to the previous work, PIHKAL] are pretty much cookbooks on how to make illegal drugs. Agents tell me that in clandestine labs that they have raided, they have found copies of those books."
https://www.thevespiary.org/rhodium/Rhodium/hive/hiveboard/picproxie_docs/000532880-Alexander_Shulgin_and_Ann_Shulgin_-_TiHKAL.pdfPharmacology:
- Rhodium's Pharmacology Archive
Although it had been in operation since 1997, The Hive gained broader awareness in 2001 when a Dateline NBC special The "X" Files aired. This investigation into the use and production of MDMA featured the Hive and its founder, who operated under the pseudonym 'Strike' (Hobart Huson). Strike was the founder and site designer of the Hive as well as the author of several popular books (Total Synthesis I and II, and Sources) instructing readers how to synthesize a variety of amphetamines (specifically MDMA), obtain equipment and chemicals, and avoid prosecution. He remained anonymous until Dateline's investigation and interviews revealed that Hobart Huson (owner of the Strike-recommended laboratory supplier "Science Alliance") was the man behind Strike. The NBC program showed Huson/Strike at his office/chemical warehouse, complete with a stuffed bee sitting by his computer. The program led to Huson's arrest and imprisonment, but also spurred the site's growth. A person by the username 'Rhodium' and a small group of dedicated individuals actually ran the Hive and its sister site Rhodium.ws for most of the sites' lifespans.
While The Hive was a public forum for asking questions and exchanging information, Rhodium.ws hosted a collection of drug synthesis information in more condensed and organized form, much of it derived from messages posted on the Hive. It also had a large collection of articles from academic journals, plus considerable general-purpose information on practical chemistry. Rhodium's site was also taken offline shortly after the Hive. Most of the archive is hosted by Erowid. https://erowid.org/archive/rhodium/pharmacology/index.htmlBiology:
- The Case Against Reality - Why Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes
Can we trust our senses to tell us the truth? Challenging leading scientific theories that claim that our senses report back objective reality, cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman argues that while we should take our perceptions seriously, we should not take them literally. How can it be possible that the world we see is not objective reality? And how can our senses be useful if they are not communicating the truth? Hoffman grapples with these questions and more over the course of this eye-opening work. Ever since Homo sapiens has walked the earth, natural selection has favored perception that hides the truth and guides us toward useful action, shaping our senses to keep us alive and reproducing. We observe a speeding car and do not walk in front of it; we see mold growing on bread and do not eat it. These impressions, though, are not objective reality. Just like a file icon on a desktop screen is a useful symbol rather than a genuine representation of what a computer file looks like, the objects we see every day are merely icons, allowing us to navigate the world safely and with ease. The real-world implications for this discovery are huge. From examining why fashion designers create clothes that give the illusion of a more “attractive” body shape to studying how companies use color to elicit specific emotions in consumers, and even dismantling the very notion that spacetime is objective reality, The Case Against Reality dares us to question everything we thought we knew about the world we see.
MagnetBiometrics:
- Fingerprint Alteration Jianjiang Feng, Anil K. Jain, and Arun Ross
The widespread deployment of Automated Fingerprint Identification Systems (AFIS) in law enforcement and border control applications has heightened the need for ensuring that
the security afforded by these systems is not compromised. While
several issues related to fingerprint system security have been
investigated in the past, including the use of fake fingerprints for
masquerading identity, the problem of fingerprint alteration or
obfuscation has received no attention in the biometric literature.
Fingerprint obfuscation refers to the deliberate alteration of the
fingerprint pattern by an individual for the purpose of masking
his or her identity. Several cases of fingerprint obfuscation have
been described in the media. Existing image quality assessment
software cannot detect such altered fingerprints since the implicit
image quality during alteration may not change significantly.
The goal of this paper is to understand the problem of altered
fingerprints and to design solutions that can be used to detect these images.
Electronics:
- Passive RFID Basics
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) systems use radio frequency to identify, locate and track people, assets, and animals. Passive RFID systems are composed of three components – an interrogator (reader), a passive tag, and a host computer. The tag is composed of an antenna coil and a silicon chip that includes basic modulation circuitry and non-volatile memory. The tag is energized by a time-varying electromagnetic radio frequency (RF) wave that is transmitted by the reader. This RF signal is called a carrier signal. When the RF field passes through an antenna coil, there is an AC voltage generated across the coil. This voltage is rectified to supply power to the tag. The information stored in the tag is transmitted back to the reader. This is often called backscattering. By detecting the backscattering signal, the information stored in the tag can be fully identified.
https://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/en/AppNotes/00680b.pdf