Friday 31 December 2010
em-mex-l oder silvester
catagories: ๐ฉ๐ช, holidays and observances
Wednesday 29 December 2010
a la mash
Something a bridge further than parody or a tribute band, it is a fusion that is more creative than its constituent influences, fun, rollicking mash-ups--authorized or otherwise, have produced, not just repackaged, some outstanding vignettes: The Beestles (Beastie Boys versus the Beetles), Brokeback to the Future, the Grey Album. Classic board games, I think, would be excellent and rich fodder for mash-ups, and could be made to honour whatever character universe one wished, like Doctor Who Cluedo--it was K-9 in the Tardis with the Sonic Screwdriver, or backgammon-Jenga.
catagories: ๐️, ๐, ๐บ, networking and blogging, Star Wars
Tuesday 28 December 2010
three French hens and twelve lords a-leaping
catagories: holidays and observances, religion
honored matres or overseas telegram
Moreover, I believe it is important that technology drifts away from WiFi and "electro-smog" in general. There's not so much discussion anymore about the dangers of cell phone usage and cell towers muddling-up honey bee navigation systems, however, wireless internet is even less tried and proofed, and I cannot imagine it is exactly beneficial to have trillions of bits of data tunneling through one's body from all sides at all times. Central to the Dune series of novels by science-fiction writer Frank Herbert, was the prohibition against "thinking-machines." Though hardly luddites, humankind had to revolt against artificial intelligences in order to save themselves, and maybe in the future, there will be a similar effort to outlaw all things wireless once ill-effects are realized and cultivate such smarter alternatives.
catagories: ๐ก, ๐, graphic design
Sunday 26 December 2010
port of call
catagories: ๐ฉ๐ช, holidays and observances, lifestyle
Friday 24 December 2010
and the bells have flown to Rome
Merry Christmas, peace on Earth and goodwill toward all--and thanks to everyone for visiting our blog. Seasons greetings!
catagories: graphic design, holidays and observances
Wednesday 22 December 2010
annus miribilis or choose your own adventure
The Gulf of Mexico oil spill and its terrible environmental legacy with the industry and consumer choices and policy that perpetuate these disasters.
The Health Care Reform initiatives in the US, that showed America's strange sort of envy at odds with the true aims of the effort.
US Mid-Term Elections and reversals of power, that was harrowing for what was sometimes characterised as a weary and disappointed electorate.
The US economy and world-wide economic crisis with the bailout and contributing factors that precipitated the collapse and wherein lies the blame and the lesson.
The devastating earthquake in Haiti and the recovery effort.
The popularity of the so-called "Tea Party" movement and its influences in US politics, part appeal to libertarianism and part to militantism.
The drama, tension, technological wonder and cooperation that led to the rescue of the trapped Chilean miners.
The US government leaking like a sieve in the most sensitive areas, call and response.
The ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and the private toll war-making exacts.
catagories: ๐ก️, ๐ช️, ๐ฑ, environment, foreign policy, holidays and observances
word cloud
making a list, checking it twice
catagories: ๐ฅธ, graphic design
Tuesday 21 December 2010
gitty up, jingle horse, pick up your feet
The weather, save for all the daily headaches and tension that it is creating for commuters and travelers, is really remarkable and feels like a good and proper winter, as compared to years' past when the cold and annoyance came late. Routines are more chaotic and treacherous and spoiled plans can take on the taste of sour grapes, but for all that, an over-abundance of snow and ice should not give people license to humbug global warming and environmental initiatives.
Sunday 19 December 2010
thrones & dominions or santa claus conquers the martians
Saturday 18 December 2010
through the rude wind's wild lament and the bitter weather
Precipitation in the form of snow can be quite the contrarian for the weatherman. I suppose it seems to buck the forecast in part because it lingers and the upbuilding of the flurries, not like rain that's an event, welcome or unwelcome, that is mostly obligingly soaked up or siphoned off. Snow transfigures the landscape and the view from one's windows like quite nothing else, dark of night nor lushness of Spring in full bloom.
It is quieting, calming with its insistence, mounting and enduring, that invites one to consider all the millions, billions of particles of it, flakes buffeted and flocked or bullet-like projectiles something more cardinal than a cloud suspended or the water of rain drops, and something that seems just a bit outside of nature's cycle.
Thursday 16 December 2010
Torquemada oder keiner erwartet die spanische Inquisition
It is remarkable how the disclosure of a few uncomfortable realities, suspending plausible deniability, can spark even more surrounding an unlikely target of vitriol and sympathy. Though this lowest form of McCarthyism is left in the public’s eye to judge but certainly not to prosecute regardless of opinion and colourfastness of the case, the current theatre is by far mild compared to the private, invisible punishment that the known informants are enduring, and considering all the wrath and ire it seems that this taunt, venture, duty would have been undertaken with more contingencies.
Monday 13 December 2010
what can you do with a vuvuzela, what can you do with a vuvuzela, what can you do with a vuvuzela
Sunday 12 December 2010
antediluvian
The tribes of the remote Andaman Islands have been living in virtual isolation for the past sixty thousand years and probably represent one of the first migrations out of the African continent, and recent excavations in South Africa reveal a sophisticated coastal society using tools and agriculture possibly for some eighty thousand years, working metal tens of thousands of years before the process was supposedly invented in Europe. The lost civilization of the Persian Gulf could have also been highly advanced. Much can happen, unrecorded and with no recoverable trace, during these intervening ages and in the billions of unpeopled years before. Just coming to terms with the shrinking of the unexplored world and the implications of the scientifically-accepted age of the Earth and the universe, science-fiction writers of the Cthulhu mythos cycle invite readers to reconsider the prevailing arrogance that nothing much was happening in the meantime, except mechanical evolution. The world’s unimaginable age could accommodate the rise and fall of countless societies, in addition to the Sea Monkey Kingdom and the Utopia of the Dinosaurs. Not all the hidden places have been tilled and there may yet be a renaissance in exploration that is not led by how far or deep or close we can look.
Friday 10 December 2010
advents calendar
Sometimes I feel that capturing the moment is not quite within photographic prowess, but decorating and the general background festoonery are great things, and the detail on mantle tops, showcased or otherwised shoe-horned into every free space is fantastic and brings the holidays into a brighter, sharper focus, like concerted dioramas every where one looks.
catagories: ๐ฉ๐ช, holidays and observances, lifestyle
Wednesday 8 December 2010
sparkle, sparkle or the trouble with tribbles
I can hardly fathom the excitement circulating daily among star-gazers and astronomers as news comes daily of new, perceptive altering discoveries and researches agree that it is only a matter of time before extraterrestrial life is discovered just through brute force. Recently, scientists discovered a star shrouded by a halo of cubic zirconium clouds. This was something unexpected.
We do not really broadcast our intentions or culture too well these days, not the least of which, over dwindling radio signals, replaced by cell-towers and encryption that offer little for listeners across the galaxy. Since we stopped talking or pursuing outreach programs, maybe aliens think we are not around any longer. The second class requires us to expand our search and definitions: maybe aliens can only manifest themselves to us as a pleasant shade of blue and their technology to us is only abstract and accessible as a mild phobia or nut allergy. Maybe the aliens, or a certain subset since the variety must be immense, believe that automobiles are the dominant form of life on earth. Or maybe, looking at earth bombarded with solar radiation with just a pitiable gaseous atmosphere to protect it from solar radiation, others assume that our planet would not be a likely candidate to harbor life. When it does happen, and I think that the later is the more likely case, I just hope it happens in a way that vilifies all the writers of science fiction and those who dreamed a little.
Tuesday 7 December 2010
sacco & vanzetti
It is strange how prophesies can become self-fulfilling, and now I can imagine a recursive, almost play-by-play account of what present and future cables entail about destroying their arch-nemesis. It is remarkable how quickly the underlying infrastructure collaborated, folded in order to tow the party line.
Financial crises and failure of statecraft precipitated by America, full-disclosure theatre to counter terror-funds and if privacy is violated then we're sorry but it's the terrorists' fault, really, had already pushed institutions in Switzerland outside of their venerable comfort-zones of secrecy and did not want any additional trouble or scrutiny--never mind the track record of minding funds for any of history's despots, wanted or otherwise. It's the same with the wire- and hosting-services that have managed to monopolize the domain but will sell out at the first hint of controversy. That should make any one feel uneasy about the control ceded and entrusted to a few, unavoidable corporations and arrangements. No one should stop talking about this, even as headlines fade or are trumped by the next sensational distraction or dwindling tolerance and attention--I think a few troglodites secured equal time over the threats to hold a very real book burning over the perceived threat of an inclusive community center. It is not really their fault (nor pardon) that their clout cannot be spared because of their levels of exposure, but there should be alternatives in place in case of freezing, stopping movement and so the public can express solidarity and/or distaste--otherwise smug and self-interested activities become targets on one and all fronts.
Monday 6 December 2010
coal in your stocking
catagories: ๐ฅธ, America, economic policy, networking and blogging
Friday 3 December 2010
life in mono or arsenic and old lace
catagories: ๐, ๐ก, ๐ญ, environment
Wednesday 1 December 2010
heat miser
Most US federal workers are handsomely compensated as it is, mostly for keeping-up-appearances. Part of the out-of-date and out-of-touch rationale, historically for around two percent annually, awarded at the beginning of the year, was as a retention bonus to compensate for the difference between public- and private-sector salaries, ad infinitum--which does not make much sense because there are few real corollaries.