Tuesday 2 May 2017

pitchforks

Dangerous Minds introduces us to the genre and its primogenitor of “Disaster Capitalism” with a profile of Los Angeles-based artist Alex Schaefer, who channels his talent into images of mostly local bank branches engulfed in flames. Because of the police-state that America has embraced, charged with protecting the system that has created and sustains the huge underclass of the 99.99%, Schaefer’s works have garnered the unwelcome publicity of the Department of Homeland Security—accusing him of casing joints for robbery or arson. I am sure that many of us could keep the artist occupied for years with commissions of our friendly neighbourhood financial institutions.

i am pretending not to see them, instead i pour the milk

Boing Boing reports that after more than two decades the Frauenhofer Institute will not seek to renew its licensing programme for the revolutionary but now ubiquitous and in some senses obsolete audio format mp3.
It’s worth taking a look back at the origin story of the one-time industry standard whose encoding relied on “psychoacoustics” to achieve more compact sound files by stripping those background noises that didn’t directly contribute to the listener’s experience. Because the human ear is not so attuned to detecting changes in repetitious sound, engineers sampled a track of Suzanne Vega’s Tom’s Diner to calibrate the compression, the approximation of the soundscape and make sure that they weren’t sacrificing too much of the recording quality with their algorithm.

Monday 1 May 2017

bedtime for democracy or where’s my tab?

Dear Leader reportedly was most impressed—of all the features at his disposal in the Oval Office—with a buzzer that he can use to summon a butler to bring him his soft-drink of choice. Delighted how it makes his visitors nervous, it seems a rather pathetic squandering of resources—something that six-year-old Anthony Fremont who can wish people into the corn-field might demand or a ritual befitting (no offense) Pee-Wee’s Playhouse—I just hope it’s not remotely close to any other placebo buttons.

a tinmouse production

I have been a faithful listener of the podcast Rex Factor, whose first series examined and then rated all of the kings and queens of England, Great Britain and the United Kingdom and spin-off that looks at the Scottish monarchy with some notable, bonus departures, since I was first introduced, but after an epic effort at catching up with back episodes am forever a few weeks behind. That lag excuses my missing the Easter weekend premiere of the remastered original show presented in animated form. What a fun way to learn history and to introduce a new audience to the franchise.

oh right, crush the saboteurs

Meanwhile back at Castle Mayskull, we are witnessing almost the same level of needy paranoia as is being displayed by Dear Leader still talking about the popular vote and the size of the crowds gathered for his inauguration with the caretaker prime minister insisting on subjecting the voters of Britain to another pointless and painful run-off election in order to solidify her tautology that “Brexit means Brexit” and she has the peoples’ mandate. Calling an election is only calculated to rebuff future criticism, which should and cannot be simply silenced by decree.
Add into the mix the seemingly parallel dimensions where the expectations of the prime minister and senior EU commissioner, Jean-Claude Junckers, reside for the divorce-proceedings and for post-Brexit relations, we have a very intractable situation indeed. Last Wednesday (25 April 2017), Junckers was invited to dinner (EN/DE) at the Downing Street residence, which gave the prime minister the platform (sounds woefully familiar, like one of Dear Leader’s hollow publicity stunts) to forward her litany of demands and conditions, which were already rebuffed by the European Union in no uncertain terms. Beginning cocktail hour conversation with assurances that she would be re-elected, the prime minister seemed to slide further and further into the realm of fantasy with patently simplistic views of how re-negotiations would go forward and honestly believing that the whole matter could be sorted out quickly and cleanly and to Britain’s favour. When Junckers countered that in fact no, “Brexit cannot be a success” the prime minister seemed to think that the EU had not been sufficiently briefed on her vision and tactics. It seems that this class of politicians were earnest in their campaign pledges in so far that they are dense enough to have been duped by the lies themselves.

รคlmhult almanac

Via Kottke’s quick links, we’re given an overview of the evolution of style and expansion of its global reach (from its humble beginnings as a single home furnishings store in the town of ร„lmhult, Sweden to the point of self-awareness in the acknowledgement we have reached “peak curtains”) through the lens of every IKEA (originally Ikรฉa) catalogue cover from 1951 to 2015. It’s funny how taste is cyclical and the latest iterations don’t seem much different than the earliest annuals.


kicking the can

The gauntlet for the pitched battle of the US budget and funding priorities has been apparently granted a lengthier reprieve than we expected—with the government bankrolled mostly at last year’s levels through the end of the fiscal cycle.
Dear Leader’s armies and border security detail saw modest increases—which are sure to be claimed as a major win, but the bulk of the concessions were skimmed off his vision for America with financial support remaining in place (for now) for the Affordable Care Act exchanges, research and community development grants and even the federal government helping to defray the costs to local municipalities in order for Dear Leader to be a geographical bachelor. I fear though there’s not enough time in the world to reconcile such differing world-views and achieve true and transparent cooperation.