drunk shimoda

Recently, at the recommendation (or rather a shared-affinity for pebble ice amongst the hosts, having now heard both episodes where the shows intersect) of another fine podcast in the Maximum Fun network, I found myself tuning on to a show called The Greatest Generation—a review, critique of the series Star Trek: The Next Generation that’s smart and paralysingly funny. I think one could pick up at any point and work one’s way back and acquaint oneself with the running gags and regular segments but a good episode to begin with would be You Don’t Name the Cow on the episode I-Borg (series five, episode twenty-three).

5x5

ærodrome: Kottke wonders if the circular aircraft runway might ever take off

no mister bond, i expect you to die: movie villain dermatological trends

my beautiful launderette: the Pope opens a free laundromat for the poor and homeless of Rome with plans for expansion

nakkaşhane: scenes from cult films depicted in Ottoman miniature style by Murat Palta, whom we’ve admired previously

bring a whistle to a knife fight and pretend you’re the referee: Texas is tendering legislation to name an official state gun—with the Bowie knife being a top-contender, via Weird Universe 

pleasure barge

Acting on tips from local fishermen, archæologists are returning to Lake Nemi (known as Diana’s Mirror, speculum Dianæ, for its circular shape, owing to its volcanic origin) hoping to salvage the sunken wreck of Emperor Caligula’s third lost leisure boat.
Although the body of water on the outskirts of Rome was considered sacred and nothing was to pollute it (the grove of Diana Nemorensis, usually translated as Diana of the Wood), that did not stop Caligula extravagant parties—though to what extent he lived up to his reputation is somewhat debatable—on three cruise ships that were out-fitted with functional baths and climate control and decorated with marble and gold. After Caligula was assassinated, the ships were ballasted and sunk to the bottom of the lake, forgotten until Benito Mussolini, having consulted a fifteenth century manuscript, commissioned that the lake be drained in 1927 and recovered two of the ships two years later. The remains were housed in a specially built museum but the building and most of the artefacts were destroyed during World War II. The search efforts by divers for the third site in a different part of the lake are on-going.

deep end

A luxury high-rise complex in Houston Texas has at its fortieth storey a large outdoor swimming pool—which is impressive in itself. This “cantilevered” pool, however, has a unique, transparent overhanging section that’s not for anyone with a fear of heights that lets one float forty floors above street traffic. View more images and video footage of the Sky Pool of Houston’s Market Square at the link above.

digital hinterland or postcards from veles

Reporting for the Calvert Journal, Lalage Harris and Duncan Harvey present a portrait of one Macedonian town that became rather infamous as an exporter of disinformation that helped change the course of the US presidential election.
Once a booming factory town in Tito’s Yugoslavia, the place became rather bleak once industry went away with most everything that fills the economic void being one of king-making. While it does seem to be highly dissonant that we’re so easily persuaded and perhaps the social-engineering potential was incidental (both campaigns were explored but Dear Leader’s caucus proved to be more profitable), we are the dog and not just subject to the caprices of the tail. Influential agents exist and enjoy the level of power they do because we deny it, but choice and responsibility still have truck in our behaviours and decisions and attention naturally leads to actions, as little as we’d like to think what we regard is what is issuing the marching-orders.

sacrilicious

Hearing of this bit of reporting, via Super Punch, from Thailand regarding how a strawberry flavoured soda has overtaken the traditional blood sacrifice offer to appease household spirts (culturally ingrained to the point where human consumption of this soft-drink is considered a taboo, like raiding the sacramental wine) made me think of the strange battlefront of the cola-wars where the stakes have been elevated to the purity of one’s immortal soul. What do you think? Both articles treat belief in the supernatural and ritualistic behaviour with respect—and the hands-off approach to marketing seems more mature in the former than in the latter, but the lens of a manufactured commodity—however appropriated by the spirit world—seems to make it inauthentic.