Tuesday 13 September 2016

cognitive inference

Perhaps avert your eyes if you find such optical effects to be headache or vertigo inducing, but Jacques Ninio’s classic Extinction Illusion has twelve fleeting dots on the grid that dash away when you try to focus on them is really worth a spare moment or two. Hardly anyone can see all the dots at once due to poor peripheral vision and the mind’s eye tends to generate solid crossings over the scintillating, contrasting gaps. I wonder how someone manages to design an optical illusion that’s meant to be evasive and dazzling in the first place.

beautifish or rub-a-dub

The UK government made a laudable decision last week, in favour of the environment, mostly unnoticed and quite unilaterally (which kind of makes me wonder if Britain were still in the EU if it could have done so without extensive consultation—and regardless, it would surely be better if the whole bloc enacted this ban) pledging to prohibit the use of plastic microbeads in cosmetics.
In response to a petition championed by several environmental organisations and voluntary-industry action, the tiny plastic beads which for whatever reason were introduced to toothpaste, soaps and facial scrubs (instead of salt or diatoms, I suppose—microscopic fossils of plankton that used to do the scrubbing) will be totally phased out by next year. Although it is disturbing enough that one’s morning shower eventually floods the oceans with billions of tiny particles that enter into the food-chain and never go away, there’s an even more dismaying aspect to consider: though far from inconsequential, the plastic beads are rather harmless in themselves (at least relatively less so for marine life that macro-sized plastic pollution) being inert. That characteristic makes the beads a magnet for the other nasty things that man puts in the seas. Most artificial toxins are hydrophobic and could latch on to the beads and bring more chemicals into the ecosystem. I hope Britain’s stance goes global.

Monday 12 September 2016

the league of extravagant grannies

Via the fabulous Messy Nessy Chic, we learn about the design duo of Osbourne Macharia and Kevin Abraham who invent, lavishly embellished, and then document fictional scenes and sub-cultures in their native Kenya. Check out more of their uplifting and fun work here.

a halo darkly

Via the always interesting Kottke (who’s sporting a spiffy new look) we learn that tiny, dwarf galaxies as they age can attain a higher concentration of dark matter than the apparent universal constant of one part to five (in favour of the weakly reacting sort of matter rather than the one, baryonic, that we experience) because normal matter is much more flightly and prone to erosion by more massive galactic neighbours.
As counterintuitive as it seems, that much was at least expected and could be a sort of lens for getting to better understand the unidentified nature of dark matter, but astronomers were astounded to detect a wholly new class of galaxies—first spotted in the faint and shy wall-flower called Dragonfly 44. The galaxy appears to be almost entirely composed of dark matter (whether there’s a totality of dark energy as well in the mix is not mentioned) but it’s roughly the same size as the Milky Way. Imagine a galaxy our size but instead of four-hundred billion, there’s only a paltry four to eight billion stars knocking together out there—suggesting that there is something very flawed in the way we think galaxies coalesce and evolve, since those lonely stars ought to be pulled apart and absorbed into other star systems. Researchers are hoping to find more of these big, “empty” galaxies looming closer to home and perhaps observe dark matter and its properties directly.

Sunday 11 September 2016

arraignment or computer says no

Thanks to the discerning eye of Nag on the Lake, we are directed to very important back-pocket thought that’s really in the forefront of things, presented in a quite clever and accessible way. First reading the title of this offensive called “Weapons of Math Destruction,” I took it initially as a needed critique on the poor state of mathematical literacy and how easily people can be manipulated by bald statistics that someone along the telephone-tree didn’t understand or made up altogether—which was not the thesis—but I think a part of it does fall to us as the creators of, contributors to Big Data to take a responsibility for our own leavings and to try to dispel confirmation-bias (which comes honesty to machines by end-users’ trust in incomplete scenarios). The responsibility is ours no matter how powerless and misused we might feel since it is our measureable actions and reactions that school our trial by algorithm.  Naturally, as we feel the stare of prying eyes that have reduced privacy and disengagement as a potential customer to a rare commodity, we can anticipate the next level when we potential face condemnation and punishment for our actions before we do them. 
While it is certainly a mixed-bag of results and hard to gauge the true benefits we’ve gotten by bearing our souls and movements and preferences to a human moderated internet, there is good to be had out there, not forgetting we are responsible and heir to any and all outcome.  As machines learn at a rate that outstrips our ability to react, the formulรฆ that govern our credit-worthiness and interest will unfold into something larger to affect notions of free-will and executive-agency. It is unacceptable surely that anyone is judged and sentenced for pre-crime, but it may come in forms more unintentionally insidious than that, if we’re not careful. Without ill-will, the Internet of Things may conspire against you to discourage you from pursing that job-application, ballot or travel plans, thinking it is doing you a favour by sparing you the disappointment. What sort of strength of character does it take to survive in a world where not only that corrects one’s spelling or makes recommendations based on one’s purchasing history but to face a systematic and coordinated battery of disengagement and discouragement?  Or alternately, support and cheerleading?  One’s history could just as easily suggest that one is not worth the effort medically or won’t be buying anything anyway and ought to be banned transit as facilitating pathways to success, and I think that that takes a critical eye, just like dharma and motivation in the real-cum-virtual world. Are we prepared to have that built into our infrastructure, as we might experience the Universe as sending us messages? What do you think? 

cassis

Though not persuaded to go out and “taste the rainbow” and draw the comparison myself, I found it pretty interesting to learn that whereas purple coloured candies and drinks for American palettes might be conditioned to expect a grape taste (natural and artificial flavouring), for Europe and elsewhere, purple signals blackcurrant, as Atlas Obscura informs.
Although I had only ever heard of it as a fancy infusion for imported vodka, I think they are delicious—I might be a bit partial since it is called (Schwarze) Johannisbeere in Germany—and are kind of a super-food. The shrubs were kept out of the Americas for a long time because it was thought that they carried botanical disease agents, but the moratorium is being relaxed because there’s little scientific evidence of this correlation. “Grape-Drank” might no longer be the default for those in the States.

fahrradtour: baderland

H and I took a little bike trip from Bad Karma, our fair city, through Bad Kissingen to Bad Bocklet to have a drink and rest for a minute before heading back in the twelfth century palace, Schloss Aschach.
Biking along the flood plain of the Frรคnkische Saale, a tributary of the River Main, we got to see Bad Kissingen from a new point of view and saw sites that we didn’t know where there, like a regional airport, mainly for hobby-gliders, and this fascinating Salien, a saltern—that is an installation constructed for extracting salt by evaporation, and has been in operation since before the year 800.
It was a pleasant day and not too hot but the blast of cool, salty air emanating from the was more amazing than the best, optimised air-conditioning system.
A bit further on, we passed the bore-fountain (Bohrbrunnen) called Luitpoldsprudel. Named after the Bavarian Prince-Regent of the early 1900s, it produced naturally carbonated water (Sprudel) for decades.

open-house

As part of a European-wide Heritage Days, this weekend in Germany marks der Tag des offenen Denkmals (Day of Open Monuments), when historic attractions which are not normally open for public inspection (due to lack of funds, etc.) are made accessible and often special exhibitions and excursions are included. Sometimes parts of museums and great houses usually off limits are open as well and is also a vehicle to highlight and promote little known histories. If you are out and about this weekend, be sure to pay special heed to local lore to support this movement and the conservation of heritage.