Mitch Swenson
Verified
As seen in:
The Daily Beast,
Medium,
The New York Times,
New York Post,
Thought Catalog,
Guernica Mag,
War is Boring
Covers:
Innovation, technology, gaming, science, defense, national security, Iraq & Middle East, East Africa, Syrian Civil War, North Africa, global conflict, cybersecurity, intelligence
Journalist, game designer, conservationist, aquanaut, button-pusher ♡
Articles by Mitch Swenson
This Deep Sea Haptic Robot Helps Scientists Rescue Ancient Artifacts
More than 330 meters below the surface of the Mediterranean Sea, OceanOneK, a humanoid submersible developed by Stanford University’s Robotics Lab, closed in on its target: the Aléria, a 2nd-Century Roman shipwreck that held ancient treasure. For a moment, the sub hovered just above the seabed in the silent darkness. A smaller helper robot nearby readjusted its spotlight, illuminating the ground.
Ukrainian mud has a special kind of stickiness to it. There’s even a word for that time of the year when traveling through Ukraine is at its toughest moment: “bezdorizhzhya”, meaning “when the roads stop existing.” This is the point in the spring when the snow melts and everything turns to mud. It’s been infamously championed as “Ukraine’s secret weapon” against Russia’s tanks. Mud aside, it’s getting harder to move through Ukraine anyway.
Innovation - The Daily Beast
The only vehicle in the world that can transition from water to ice.
What Will the Metaverse Look Like When It Dies and How to Keep It Alive
Whether we like it or not, metaverse fever is rising. From flaming Travis Scott towering over players in Fortnite, to suit-clad avatars arguing spreadsheets on Teams, to Facebook swapping its face for Meta—it seems there’s been an onslaught of new virtual playgrounds brought to life every day. But for every new virtual world being born, there’s a digital graveyard of realms that have already died. Today, “The Metaverse” is actually less definitive than it sounds.
Mitch Swenson - The Daily Beast
Over 25 years of emptied servers remind us digital worlds have come and gone.
Anarchists Are Killing Neo-Nazis in Greece
Greek Anarchist in Athens. Greekriots.com photo Anarchists Are Killing Neo-Nazis in Greece Weapon stashes, press crackdowns, militant manifestos and more riots The decline of... Greek Anarchist in Athens. Greekriots.com photo Anarchists Are Killing Neo-Nazis in Greece Weapon stashes, press crackdowns, militant manifestos and more riots The decline of the Greek economy has had polarizing effects on the nation’s political system—and tensions are running high.
How a Small Force of Finnish Ski Troops Fought Off a Massive Soviet Army
In one instance, a Finnish ski trooper sledded close enough to pry the treads off one T-28, demobilizing the tank and allowing other Finnish skiers to plunk explosives inside. Finnish ski troopers, quick and agile in the forests, wove through the trees, using their white uniforms to remain concealed in the snow. The skiers tossed Molotov cocktails and satchel charges through the exhaust opening into the tanks’ bellows, causing the vehicles to explode from the inside out.
Get to Know Your War Smugglers! – War Is Boring – Medium
The nearly three-year-old Syrian civil war has hugely boosted demand for a highly specialized service. Smugglers. Skilled at sneaking people and goods across the border between Syria and Turkey, these traffickers—many of them just teenagers—are actually humanitarians by another name. Without them, many Syrian refugees would be stuck in the war zone and others wouldn’t be able to afford food and medicine.
The Tracking of a Russian Spy
The Tracking of A Russian Spy exhibits the harrowing consequences that can emerge when love, or something like it, intersects with modern-day espionage. Swenson details the perplexing set of events that follow his encounter with a beautiful stranger in a dusky New York City nightclub. The woman in question is Katya and as the two grow closer Swenson wonders whether there might be more to this woman than she lets on.
How To Come Home
I walked through border control in the Seattle-Tacoma airport at the end of summer 2011, I hadn’t been home in a year. I handed my passport to the agent with a mustache. (All Border Patrol agents have mustaches. Even the women.) He flipped through it. I couldn’t tell if he was asleep or was just totally ignoring me – his only vital sign being that of his thumb moving through the book.
Teaching a Medieval Russian Martial Art in a Flatiron Basement (Published 2016)
Neighborhood Joint Feb. 5, 2016 The desert boot of the instructor weighed heavily on the sternum of a student lying on a thin layer of industrial carpeting. In this low-slung and windowless room, five others were on the ground, awaiting their turn under the boot of their teacher, Sergei Maslikhov. The man under his heel grimaced but bore Mr. Maslikhov’s weight stoically.
1000 Days of Syria
Trailer for the newsgame 1000 Days of Syria. Available to play for free at: 1000daysofsyria.com
Faces of the Free Syrian Army
by MITCH SWENSON The Syrian civil war is being waged by a complex mosaic of governments, rebel factions, civil councils and religious sects. The opposition is made up of volunteer militias from across Syria and the region. Many of them started as neighborhood security forces - in essence, civilians with guns defending their own homes. Others, such as the Islamic States of Iraq and Syria, are largely ideological bodies populated mostly by foreign fighters.
Show More
loading
Actions
Get in touch with Mitch
Contact Mitch, search articles and posts on X, monitor coverage, and track replies from one place.
Learn more about Muck Rack