Saturday, 30 January 2010
somnambulism
Looking through the archives of the fantastic psychology blog Mind Hacks, I came across this brief on a UK author's book about couples' sleeping positions and what that nighttime arrangement says about their relationship.Different sleeping arrangements had lovely descriptive names, named like yoga positions, but it all smacks of pseudo-science, like phrenology, dowsing or hollow-earth theory. I doubt whether someone should judge their relationship too harshly if they perfer the one-footed king pidgeon over the downward facing-dog at night. Besides I am sure no one is frozen in place while they sleep and bed size should be considered too.
padding
Contemplating how casual computer use might shift with the iPad, moving away from something you cannot keep in your pocket or clip to your belt or let it rest on the president's desk, I have images of people lugging big boom boxes on their shoulders in the mid-eighties, even though we had the Walkman. I also think about those novelty over-sized sunglasses and maybe some of the accoutrements, like 4 foot long giant pencils, that they sold at Spensers Gifts or on the New Facts of Life.
Friday, 29 January 2010
time takes a cigarette
German AP reports that the European Union is extending the push for 100% compliance for a smoke-free workplace and has issued an edict that calls for the dismantling and removal of all ashtrays mounted on building exteriors and in public parks. One already cannot purchase a new car with an ashtray or an electric cigarette lighter, and the smokers have been banished from restaurants and have been reduced to shivering, loitering in entryways. Now cigarette butts will just be strewn all over parking lots and stuffing rain gutters. I like how that's done, rather than just tossing a cigarette on the street--pushing it down the sewer grates, I am sure, keeps the CHUDS appeased and lets them get their fix without attacking humans. I hate to think of the EU dispatching bulldozers to eliminate the smokers' outposts. Ashtrays can sometimes be works of art and I think would be nice to keep around, if for nothing but the nostaglia and anachronism, like those antique metal posts sometimes by exterior doors to scrape horse poo from your boots.
Thursday, 28 January 2010
reportage

Wednesday, 27 January 2010
Tuesday, 26 January 2010
copyfight or Rhaetorian Guard
On the eve of the Davos summit, the APF reports this mystery:
Of course, I am invited to re-tweet this news item, which seems much perferred to a sloppily cited cut-and-paste and is sometimes blocked by some unknown process. I do not agree that sharing should be restricted to such conduits. Jinkies--this does sound like a case. When thinking of the Swiss and security, I can only fathom up them guarding the Pope, which seems to be working well for all involved.
deep breath
Last summer, I ordered a terrific, hopeful T-shirt adapted from a vintage British World War II poster, advocating a stiff upper-lip and moreover to not panic. "Keep Calm and Carry On." I think that this Etsy entrepeneur is espousing equally good advice. Etsy, which is a wonderful outlet for creativity and handicraft and represents those handmade gifts that are great to give and receive, is especially smart considering the sorry state of the economy and jobs market and the prospects for revival of such a monstrosity. We should all hone up on our knitting skills.
Sunday, 24 January 2010
gerrymandering
H and I just took a short trip this weekend to get out of the house and shed some of the winter detrius. Had we been traveling during 1789 in the Holy Roman Empire, however, it's boggling to think of how many international boundries we would have crossed with city-states and peculiars of the Church and Crown. How did so many separate jurisdictions cohabitate? Surely it wasn't peaceable.
we won't be pwn'd again
Hoping I am not one of these merchants of gloom or persistant naysayers (though I am very quick to criticize US policy), I cannot see there was much good news for the Obama administration during this past week. After the end of the Kennedy dynasty, the Supremes were quick to follow with another blow, relaxing campaign finance reform and reversing the goals of McCain-Feingold. Politicians are already tools of corporate interests and their cherry-picking of candidates that will support their agendas should not be made any easier, and now the opinion of a gaggle of investors, stakeholders is on equal-footing and apparently just as sacrosanct in terms of First Amendment Bill of Rights™ protection as any individual voter. That does not bode well for America's credibility or sincerity. Mixed signals are abundant with the call for taxing the bohemoth banks and tripping over healthcare reform.
Thursday, 21 January 2010
skimming with sharks

Tuesday, 19 January 2010
beating ploughshares into swords
Here's some disturbing reporting from ABC News--

Saturday, 16 January 2010
capricorn
I've noticed, that either through intent or accident, we have a lot of goat-themed decor about the house--from the Picasso to the great-horned lamp.
Friday, 15 January 2010
jamming good with Weird & Gilly
Last week NASA released some photographs of the Martian terrain on sand dunes that look like they are covered with sagebrush. This, however, is the result of shadows of sublimating crystalline pillars of dry ice frost now that it is spring time on Mars. Even if it is sort of an optical illusion, it far surpasses the shadow that looks like a human face on Mars or a contrived Virgin Mary in a grilled cheese sandwich. It seems a shame that there is all that unused real estate, by man or beast or sometging unimaginable on the other planets. The only news on Mars, we would say, is when we send out rockets and robots there, or when those comets hurled into Jupiter.
Wednesday, 13 January 2010
Tuesday, 12 January 2010
baden baden
On these cold winter weekends, nothing could be finer than an afternoon spent at the spas. Bad Kissingen, Bad Neustadt, Bad Bocklet, Bad Karma. For the brave or the fool-hardy, some even have a chute from the inside to the outside pool, thick with a bank of lazy steam tampt down by the cold, cold air. From the envelope of warmth, the fragile currents above the waters look deceptively inviting.
catagories: Bavaria
Monday, 11 January 2010
nomenclature
The wintery storm was not a total bust, as we await early dismissal, but the Germans seem to have developed a sort of naming-envy, American-style. The weather men have called this depression Daisy, as one would name hurricanes or cyclones. H says they used to just call it winter. I am afraid they might take it to a further extreme and pop the suffix -gate on it, like the US has done with every political scandal or hissy-fit since Watergate. Monica-gate, Finance-gate, Climate-gate. Giving something a name has become more than just short-hand for the weather system that made a mess of the roads during a certain time, it gives it a personality like El Nino or La Nina, which one does not hear so much about these days--possibly non-compliant with global warming.
Friday, 8 January 2010
pnw'd
The creation of the US Department of Homeland Security and other various agencies of angst have succeeded in deputizing an army of untrained goons with a dangerous sense of authority. Such organizations too have dismal track records when it comes to implementing new technologies that mean to keep us safe. I am sick to death of seeing pervy and gross pictures of people in x-ray vision. The unlucky models for the body-scanners all look like that creature from Pan's Labyrinth. I wonder what fly-by-night contractor threw these together and stand to make a tidy profit. It is like the electronic voting machines that supposedly make democracy better or taking away our USB drives at work and giving us something called "data armour" that seizes up at random and requires eight minutes to open an email--or the $2 500 toliet seats that the Pentagon is wont to purchase. What is worse is that some believe that such flashy contraptions are more than show and could actually prevent an attack. Nothing's gained, expect maybe a false sense of safety, and we'll never get back are thumb-drives, cigarette lights, paper chads, potable water.
Thursday, 7 January 2010
these kids today with their y2k...
The millenial bug after dire predictions a decade ago has reared itself again in some 30 million automatic teller machines, bank cards and point-of-sales registers all across Germany, leaving vacation-goers without access to cash and causing undue embarassment and worry in checkout lines. A mistake in programming causes an error when the card or device processes the 2010 date. YYMMDD--100101, DDMMYY--010110. Computers don't make mistakes; people do. I wonder if all the focus and patchwork that went into preventing the crash in the year 2000 contributed to this. Technicians are being deployed to fix the problem and replacement ATM cards being issued, but it makes me wonder what else might not be Y2KX compliant--I don't think I've turned on TomTom since New Years, and who can say what other surprises might be in store when one finally gets around to one project or another after the holidays.
catagories: ๐พ
Wednesday, 6 January 2010
i'm a little flake-y
So far this season there have not been any snow days yet. Snow days are always more objective that calling it in because one is sick, although there is more potential for getting myself in trouble on snow days, when one is excused on account of the weather and not for feeling generally lousy, which is a subjective matter. Today is Ephiphany, Drei Koenigs Tag, and I wish I felt better to enjoy the day off with H but I suppose that had I felt better, I would have gone to work. I still get a little stir-crazy when confined to bed, and I guess that same potential for mischief is there, as on snow days. I have been monitoring the weather, expectant of the front that has got the rest of the northern hemisphere in its grips--surely Mother Nature's retribution for Nopenhagen and is turning the UK into a panic-state and spoiled my boss's Florida vacation, to roll in any time now.
Monday, 4 January 2010
finery

catagories: holidays and observances
Saturday, 2 January 2010
MMX
Remember how feisty John McLaughlin would get with his guests, especially for the predictions segments? "Elinor Gee-I-think-You're-Swelinor Cliff, political forecast for next year?" "..." "Wrong!" Let's see how well my prognostication fares.
The Virus who Cried Wolf and Related Matters:
Just when amateurs felt it was safe to loiter in the stock-markets, the world wide economy will take another culling swipe, though this time, fuel and commodity costs will be artifically buoyed up. Some markets will implode because there's no cheapness in manufacturing to offset unemployment and other financial strains. This second blow may lead to calls for cesession and repartitioning and reorganization of tax revenues in America.
Astronomers and researchers will be free to provide hard evidence of extra-terrestial life. Interestingly enough, the discovery will be made and PR handled through the Specola Vaticana (the pope's observatory in Castle Gandolfo). The resulting shift in people's priorities will almost be overwhelming--though people are very resilient when it comes to pursuing petty hang-ups.
Politically, the past decade was hardly predictable, at least from an American point-of-view, but I think those manouevers, even a resulting Republican renaissance, will appear less and less relevant, on the global and universal scale, as India begins to determine world policy.
Developments in the scientific arena, especially with the infusion of alien technology, will present some risky, ethically challenges, as it always does, but humanity's gentle introduction and prep-work through sci-fi and escapism turns out to serve us well.