Tuesday 20 August 2019

escalator to nowhere

Having gleaned no lessons learned from other municipalities like Berlin and Barcelona—not to mention the panoply of remorseful cities in the US—who count their decision to open up their thoroughfares among their biggest miscalculations, this week Wiesbaden allowed the installation of e-scooter stations that one can rent via a smartphone platform and abandon anywhere.  It’s not so much the question of liability and the potential for bodily harm to the operator and cross-traffic that bothers me so much but rather the gimmickry of it all, the luring away of people content to walk and take mass-transit otherwise and the greenwashing that belies the considerable infrastructure and how very smart people are lapping it up. “Well sir, there’s nothing on Earth like a genuine, bonafide, electrified six-car monorail. What’d I say?” That’s one way I suppose to get your town on the map.

Sunday 28 July 2019

agronomy-om-nom-nom

Via Kottke’s Quick Links, we are helped to the realisation that the dominate trend in gaming and by extension, simulations, is your garden-variety agricultural challenge, be that in fostering plants, foraging or cultivating a victory garden for one’s own survival.
I suppose that there’s a universal theme to all computerised games that could admit of the same analogy—though some instances are more obvious than others—and a certain stress-relieving quality that is present in and and common to the stakes of all diversions, though often times progress is measured differently and in the permission to fail and try again, there’s nonetheless something in the Zeitgeist that game architects and engineers are connecting with regarding anxiety and accomplishment. I hope that this skills and rewards can translate to being better, more engaged caretakers of the natural world we increasingly find ourselves estranged from.

7x7

gotham: photographer Amey Kandalgaonkar captures Art Deco Shanghai as informed by the dark backgrounds of Batman: The Animated Series—via Nag on the Lake

east-enders: a beautiful collection of photographs from the 1920s—via Strange Company

my geode must be acknowledged: the brilliant career of Russi Taylor (RIP, *1944 – †2019), actor who voiced Minnie Mouse and Martin Prince—among many, many others

reon pocket: Sony test-markets a wearable air-conditioner

e-plein: Renault may bring back its classic beach buggy as an electric vehicle

pen and ink changes: the British Library has dozens of instructional programmes on how medieval manuscripts were made—via the Art of Darkness

daily planet: visualising how a constellation of satellites work together to create a diurnal snapshot of the Earth—previously 

Saturday 1 June 2019

off the shelf

As part of an advertising campaign that encourages people to make their own living spaces just as iconic and reflective of their signature style, IKEA in the United Arab Emirates is running a “Real Life” series showcasing famous living rooms recreated using only store furniture and accessories. Much more to explore at the links above.

Friday 24 May 2019

6x6

location scout: travel destinations that embrace the Wes Anderson (previously) aesthetic

digit-1: Ford prototypes a foldable robot that might be delivering your packages soon

homer’s phobia: a look back at the 1997 John Waters’ cameo on the Simpsons that helped shift attitudes

enhanced pat-down: the US Transportation Security Administration keeps the loose change it collects and is factored into its operating budget

wheel estate: already priced out of the housing market, Silicon Valley communities are moving to ban people living out of their cars who work supporting the industry

bodennutzung: a trove of historic photographs from WWII bombing runs over Switzerland show how the landscape has changed over the decades 

Saturday 9 March 2019

krusty gets kancelled

We’ll strive for some karmic balance again through The Simpsons but this time with a fonder portrayal of someone recently departed with the fourth season episode (1993) where the Krusty the Clown Show is upstaged by a newcomer ventriloquist act and in order to get his show reinstated on the air, Lisa and Bart Simpson arrange a comeback special with a cast of celebrity cameos.
Having lost the rights to Itchy and Scratchy to the competition, Krusty runs an Eastern European cartoon called “Worker and Parasite” as ratings drop and his show is cancelled. In response to the overtures of the Simpsons kids, Luke Perry (RIP *1966 - †2019, who helps Krusty reunite with his estranged co-host Sideshow Mel, is joined by an ensemble cast including Johnny Carson, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Hugh Hefner and Bette Midler.  

Friday 8 March 2019

stark raving dad

While not supportive of a biblioclasm or revision history in any sense, the production team behind The Simpsons has decided to pull from regular rotation a season three episode (1991) from the programme’s rotation in syndication—claiming their right as creators of the long-running series and as descent and upstanding human beings their right to choose what chapters of their story they share.
Some radio stations are taking Jackson’s songs out of circulation.  In the bottle-episode, Homer Simpson, Bart’s father, was confined to a mental institution on suspicion of being an anarchist and has a roommate named Leon Kompowsky who claims to be the pop star Michael Jackson—whose actual cameo was not disclosed until many years afterwards. A sequel was scripted but went unproduced over creative differences that had the character of Kompowsky reprised—but this time claiming to be Prince.

Thursday 10 January 2019

boy, those germans have a word for everything

Today we were introduced to the concept of Sollbruchstellen—constructive or mechanical elements—where a consumer item is predetermined to break after a period of time. While it also describes the sectionality of a bar of chocolate made easy to break into pieces, Sollenbruchstelle has come to be associated with planned obsolescence—geplanter Obsoleszenz, which the EU has sought to curtail. Incidentally, the English equivalent for Schadenfreude—taking pleasure in the misfortune of others—is epicaricacy (from the Greek แผฯ€ฮนฯ‡ฮฑฮนฯฮตฮบฮฑฮบฮฏฮฑ, joy upon evil) but has fallen out of common-parlance in favour of the former.

Tuesday 13 November 2018

there is no emoticon for what i’m feeling

Courtesy of Boing Boing, we are having far too much fun with this custom emoji-builder that allows one to mix elements from different glyphs into something new and with a degree of specificity that might be otherwise lacking.
We’re especially enthralled with the randomised feature that generates expressive chimera that rather defy a straightforward definition. What occasions would the pictured suit?  Give it a try and show us what you come up with.

Tuesday 11 September 2018

miss simpson, do you find something funny about the word tromboner?

For this year’s International Trombone Festival, the talented Christopher Bill brought together a big ensemble of fellow players to produce an epic brass cover of the Queen song “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Learn more at Laughing Squid about the organiser, contributors and the fest.

Monday 10 September 2018

well fiddle!

Our faithful chronicler, Doctor Caligari’s Cabinet, reminds that among many other things that occurred on this day, a quarter of a century hence saw the pilot of The X-Files, whose reboot didn’t seem to fare so well in a post-truth world, aired. Thirty eight years before that, CBS broadcast the first episode of Gunsmoke (imagine that mash-up), which ran until 1975, making it the longest running scripted television series of continuing characters in American primetime television until that honour was taken by The Simpsons just in April of this year.

Friday 20 July 2018

the fix is in

Via an engrossing discussion on the word like gaining the status of a tmesis, from the Greek for “I cut,” as in parsed phrases “fan-f’ing-tastic” or “un-f’ing-believable,” with its premiere as a milder way to express shock and hyperbole—“un-like-sympathetic”—we learn more about the parts of speech categorised as affixes.

An infix, inserted within a word, is a pretty rare occurrence in English outside of chemistry jargon, but some colloquial examples include hizouse and edumacation, affecting an air of sophistication with the superfluous syllable. Another category is the linking element the interfix, like the s or z appearing in many German compound words like Arbeitszimmer (office) or the connecting o of pedometer and odometer.

Monday 16 July 2018

test audience

Having recently indulged the imagination by envisioning how iconic film directors might stage a meal presentation in their signature styles, we appreciated Open Culture’s showcasing of the very non-hypothetical compilation of television commercials (previously) created by David Lynch. Some were targeted for specific markets only, like advertisements for a very early incarnation of canned coffee in Japan featuring the cast of Twin Peaks (including the Log Lady) and a duly disturbing anti-litter public service announcement for New York City, but there are also some pretty anodyne and universal ones as well.

Wednesday 6 June 2018

hifi

On the thirty-fifth anniversary since its debut with Return of the Jedi on 25 May, 1983, THX released the score of its “Deep Note” audio trademark for the first time, prompting a talented vocalist named Mach Kobayashi to intone the thirty voices across three octaves to recreate to signature choral strike to perfection.

Wednesday 16 May 2018

the betterment of well people

Fresh Air host Terry Gross interviews food ethnographer Michael Pollen (known for the adage “eat food, not too much, mostly plants”) on the history, experimentation, therapeutic application, social impact, suppression and current revival of psychedelic drugs—both natural and synthetic—with some first-hand anecdotal evidence.
Not only do clinical trials seem promising in providing patients and the non-remarkable a way to step outside of their repetitive narrative and re-write it, the general view of society is shifting to one more willing to take the potentially scary step towards self-reflection and dissolving one’s ego. Do listen to the entire programme and check out the author’s book, but one of my favourite take-aways (of several) that can help explain why this once broadly accepted and praised method became so demonised: the rite of passage of young people during the Counter-Culture was in part drug-laced and an experience that the elders had not shared and thus felt threatened by it. Timothy Leary earned the appellation The Most Dangerous Man in America by Richard Nixon for saying that these kids taking LSD aren’t going to be the ones to fight your wars and wholly outlawed all consciousness expanding expedients as having no pharmacological merit and other jurisdictions quickly followed that example.

Wednesday 25 April 2018

6x6

the fable of the dragon-tyrant: a parable from philosopher Nick Bostrom—humans have many perched on the mountaintops

as was the fashion at the time: ร  la mode is one of the last remnants on American menus of a once rich Francophone culinary code, via Nag on the Lake

we are the laughing morticians of the present: Dangerous Minds takes a look at the short-lived satirical magazine Americana that lampooned geopolitics of the early 1930s

great glavin in a glass: Simpsons’ meme generator, the Frinkiac (previously), has a random-feature

patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel: Trump regime challenges dissenters to love their country more than they hate the leadership

stellar cartography: the European Space Agency’s on-going Gaia project updates its map of the Cosmos

Tuesday 27 March 2018

homer, i can honestly say that was the best episode of impy & chimpy i’ve ever seen

New to the Maximum Fun network of podcasts is the show Everything’s Coming Up Simpsons with weekly panel reminiscences among hosts Allie Goertz and Julia Prescott and writers, animators, voice-artists or generally Springfield-adjacent guests talk about the favourite episodes.
It’s always a funny and literate appreciation of the culture moments and influences both on stage and behind the scenes, and I would recommend, as an introduction, first listening to a March 2016 podcast (caution: autoplay) with television writer Josh Weinstein when they review The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show (which is twenty-one years old at the time of this taping), which debuted among other catch-phrases and tropes Comic Book Guy’s “Worse. Episode. Ever.”

Friday 2 March 2018

director’s cut or the selfish gene

We enjoyed this gallery of the past year’s Academy Award-nominated films (plus a few non-canon contenders) presented memetically.
Though this gauge of cultural influence is not among the twenty-four categories of artistic and technical merit that the organisation holds this gala to recognise annually (once there were prizes for novelty and uniqueness but those have been since discontinued), we’d love to know your picks from the previous year in motion pictures. The model for the coveted gold-plated statuette incidentally was the prolific and pioneering Mexican cinema producer and director Emilio Fernรกndez Romo, who was persuaded to pose nude to be stylised as an Art Deco knight.

Saturday 11 November 2017

all the glory to hypnotoad

It’s a little astounding to consider what the cultural touchstone with a cult-following that the animated science fiction sitcom Futurama has garnered despite its cancellation after an initial four-season run—later revived and drawn out with three additional non-consecutive ones, especially against the creators’ other series, The Simpsons, which is quickly approaching its third decade on television. We especially enjoyed this primer from the Daily Dot on the outsized number of internet memes (which seem resistant to being coopted by danker, darker agents) that the series inspired and suspect that you will as well.

Sunday 22 October 2017

face value

Via the always brilliant Nag on the Lake, we are treated to a rather metaphysical look at identity politics and the notion of a trustworthy, relatable visage in a series of permutations on the composite face of the US legislative branch. The resulting blended persona includes the facial characteristics of female senators and representatives—as well as the minority ones—though the congressional Everyman is not very androgynous and appears pretty white due to unbalanced representation, notwithstanding recent gains in better mirroring the makeup of America’s population.
I know we don’t elect averages and we are not wanting to confuse appearance for ability (though that goes both ways and we all just mostly muddle through as it is) no matter what the jurisdiction but it is debatable to say that we aren’t governed by algorithms, and aspirationally I wonder what it means that we’re not at equilibrium while we can articulate our shortcomings with great specificity. What do you think?  The most effective influencing factors (not to be mistaken with inspirations) are those whom most resemble us and the company we keep. I think it might be interesting to consider a composite of my circle of friends and professional network.