garage mahal

Via the inestimable Things Magazine, we are treated to a delightful post-holiday holdover in the carefully juried collection of the finest submissions of confectionary architecture (see also) competing for top honours in the annual McGingerbread Hell Awards. McMansions in miniature (previously) are timid and amateurish transgressions of all the aspects of good design, mass-produced with a clashing of styles, ornament and elements meant to signal wealth and refinement. .

flexitarian or opportunistic omnivory

While we think it’s a case of moral panic on the part of the beef and dairy producers to try to outlaw calling an item almond milk or a meatless burger and no one will be duped or harmed by it, we agree with Cynical-C in finding something insidious and dishonest in the label plant-based itself.
Marketing machines are creating a false dichotomy and are on the verge of forcing consumers to choose between health and animal-welfare and the environment when we can indeed have and ought to demand both. Butter from plants is after all just a much-maligned margarine re-branded and such a diet that might have been called vegan—or aspiring in that direction, is shunted under that all-encompassing (and therefore empty) ægis to avoid past conceptions and associations. Not all food substitutes for a carnivorous entree and we shouldn’t let contentious marketers convince us otherwise.

kelpies

We very much appreciated the introduction to the decorative rarity found in Japan and northern Europe but can be cultivated and cared for at home, sort of like Sea Monkeys but a lot more genuine, I think, called a marimo moss ball. Also known as mossimo (マリモ), a Cladophora or lake ball, it’s a bit of a misnomer as it's a particular growth formation—a colony, of a fresh-water algae called Aegagropila linnæi. The organisms will assume this globular cluster particularly in Iceland, Scotland, Ukraine (see also) and colder lakes in Japan but are increasingly endangered in the wild due to poaching. Protection efforts and due diligence on the part of collectors are helping to ensure that one can purchase a kit from sustainable sources.

7x7

fintech: the Nordic country put together an artificial intelligence crash-course for its citizens and now is making the curriculum available to all—via Kottke

chirogram: a deaf student at the University of Life Sciences at Dundee, seeing a deficit in communication, invents one hundred new signs to quickly articulate complex scientific concepts—via Dave Log

the year in pictures: TIME curates one hundred iconic images that tell the stories of the past twelve months

the decade in content: Vanity Fair reviews the trends, memes and moments that defined aspects of the past ten years

dj earworm: the decade encapsulated (previously—albeit on a smaller scale) in a mashup of one hundred songs

klaviatur: a demonstration of the six-plus-six, four row Jankó keyboard—which allowed players to cover ranges impossible by a single performer on a traditional piano

headspace: the framework of current privacy protection advocacy and laws is unprepared to safeguard us from the coming mind-reading technologies 

epicenity

In recognition of the relatively new and accepted practise of declaring one’s pronouns—though they and derivatives like theirs and themselves have been employed in the English language in the singular context (see also) since the 1500s, Merriam-Webster named they as their 2019 Word of the Year, reflecting the volume of lookups on its website. Significantly, current parlance rather than referencing an unknown or unspecified antecedent instead is a term that normalises gender-neutrality or non-conformity along with gendered personal pronouns. Honourable-mentions from this past year’s lingual landscape can also be explored at the link above.

mmxxix

Though we can know one event to happen ten years from now with some certainty, A Message from Earth was beamed by a high-powered radio signal towards exoplanet Gliese 581c in 2008 will be in reception range, it bears recalling the adage, via the always engaging Things Magazine, by scifi author William Ford Gibson that “The future is already here—it’s just not evenly distributed”—with nearly a year’s worth of 2019 headlines focusing and informing how 2029’s reporting might look if we continue on this same trajectory.  While perhaps not in the expected milieu and sacred settings of blockbuster movies no epic flooding yet of New York City or London but we are on the cusps of experiencing such cinematic disasters Delhi or Jakarta and instead of delivering us to a life of leisure and a forty-minute workweek, we are instead fretting over mass robotic-redundancy and unemployment, so Gibson’s quote resounds with perspective. What do you think about these predictions? The past is good council but the present may make us all come up short.

a little bit country

Having noticed lately a proliferation of graffiti tags with the city prefix for the state capital where I work having popped up in various spots (the interest seems to have expired but there is always the issue of latency with street art but 0611 represent), we found this Swedish saying, nollåtta, to be particularly interesting and resonant.
Though with the predominance of mobile networks there’s no geographic discrimination or tethering, Swedish people living inside and outside metropolitan Stockholm still recognise the area code attached to the city as a mark of pride and a term of gentle (mostly) derision. Swedish for zero-eight, the dialling code for landlines in the capital region, it has become shorthand for typical Stockholmer (Stockholmsbo) and a way to comment on the real or perceived sense of disdain that city-dwellers (and vice-versâ) have for rural residents.

6x6

avoir un jour de courage: the immortals at l’Académie Française suggest a replacement for the English phrase “coming out”

notorious rbg: a leopard print camouflage homage to the Supreme Court Justice

vennbahn: a scenic bike trail following a former train track crisscrosses the border between Belgium and Germany multiple times, via Super Punch

acqua alta: tragic images of Venice drowning

mechanisms of affection: artist Maria Antelman explores how the tools of technology reflect the user

i’ve been called ruby giuliani: a drag queen entertained spectators during opening public testimony for the impeachment hearings

nevermore

Via Kottke’s Quick Links, we are treated to the versification of McSweeney’s contributor Ross Wolinsky in his piece The Millennial Raven, which is really rather on point and blast on-putting. As inviting and compelling with its galloping metre and rhythm to read to its mundane and inconsequential conclusion as the original (see also) narrative poem, we are made to choose what distresses us. Here’s a select stanza:

And the rumbles growing stronger; until I could wait no longer,
“Hey Siri,” said I, “I’m hungry, and so must gently implore;
But the fact is I was sexting, when so gently came a texting,
Slightly vexing, when it said my sushi’s waiting at my door.”
Put my shoes on, went downstairs—and here I opened wide the door;—
Just a flyer, nothing more.

fachgeschäft für ehehygiene

Born on this day in 1919, Beate Uhse (née Köstin, †2001) aviatrix and entrepreneur Beate Uhse began her career with civil aircraft becoming Germany’s first woman stunt pilot and post-war went into business for herself, opening the world’s first erotic entertainment boutique (see also) when most people strong though the topic to be taboo to the extent one thought about it at all.
Beginning in 1946 as a reference library on family-planning and then graduating to a sex shop in Flensburg in the north on the Baltic in 1962, establishing a reputation, a market and a brand fully fourteen years before pornography was decriminalised in West Germany, her eponymous shops are to be found all over Europe, and our current healthier and more informed attitude to sexuality owes a debt to these storefronts that were never pushed from public view and debate.

7x7

trick-or-treat: communities in race to best each other with increasing draconian ordinances regulating Halloween

huzzah: the utopian ideals behind Renaissance Fairs

dog whistle/bull horn: critiquing Facebook for the low quality propaganda platform it is, via Marginal Revolution

starchitecture: pairing Zodiac houses with their representative designers

your trial period has expired: how free storage drove every thing out if the archives and mandated everything be always available, via Duck Soup

world unique promotional product identity & emotion: the strange world of Vater Abraham, author of the Smurfs’ theme song among a few others

noir: Bruce McCorkindale’s Art House Muppets for Inktober

ten of dowels

Via the always excellent Nag on the Lake, we are introduced to the handiwork of a creative called Hundred-Armed Sweater (that would be for the Hecatonkherires on your gift-list) through her IKEA-inspired tarot deck, recognising that the store and experience represents “a place of transition, a journey, a source of light and comfort but also strife.” The deck includes the major and four full suites of minor arcana.

blok p

Built in the mid-1960s and finally demolished in 2012, this long resident hall in the capital Nuuk was constructed under the direction of the Folketinget’s programme to moderise its autonomous overseas territory by enticing people to move from coastal settlements, once housing one percent of the population of the world’s largest island—recalling this compound in Alaska.
Made to continental standards, however, the apartments began to prove unpopular with their occupants, finding doors and passageways too narrow for residents coming in wearing full winter gear, absent other storage space, fishing gear crowded balconies and fire-escapes and there was often problems with the plumbing, bath tubs being the only practical place to carve up their catch. One face of the building was emblazoned with the Greenlandic flag, made of discarded pieces of apparel stitched together by a local artist and photographer called Julie Edel Hardenberg with the help of school children. The last tenants were rehoused in estates elsewhere in the Qinngorput district by the airport.

7x7

alltid öppet: McDonald’s franchises in Sweden (previously) install insect hotels in their signage and billboards

.xlsx: a concerning amount of scientific research contains data misinterpreted by spreadsheet software

glory to hong kong: protestors create their own anthem and rallying cry

metallic wood: researchers create a porous nickel-based matrix (see also) as strong as titanium though exceedingly light

schism: Pope Francis unafraid of conservative groups calling his leadership too progressive

k2-18β: astronomers detect water vapour in the atmosphere of a distant super earth that could harbour life as we know it

gravy train: bug-based pet food better for canine and feline companions and for the environment

6x6

cheese whey wine: this proposal does not exact merit the enthusiasm of either turophiles nor œnologists

nessie: DNA evidence suggest that the monster of Loch Ness might be a colony of giant eels

mensch-maschine: watch limber, articulate but abstract robots mimic human motion

an englishman in new york: a biographical look at the life and times of Quentin Crisp (previously)

cloverleaf: a gallery of freeway interchanges (previously), via Present /&/ Correct

formaggio ubriaco: bringing it full circle, this delicacy from Treviso sounds more palatable

fire and i.c.e.

Though ultimately denied her alibi to skip out on a visit with Trump’s viceroy but not because liberal-Green prime minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir changed her itinerary and rather the US mission did shift their schedule from today to tomorrow rather than perpetuate another diplomatic gaffe, the Reykjavík Grapevine reports, Pence coming to Iceland following additional investment does yet put the country in an awkward position, the understudy being rather antithetical to everything that Iceland has come to embrace and stands for and steals the spotlight and upstages Trump himself regarding some issues. There’s sure to be protests whether the US is successful in making vassals out of Europe’s fringes or not, so stay tuned.

Δ9

The local farmers have really done an outstanding job with creating refuges for bees and other pollinators, going above and beyond the usual fallow fields of crop rotation and cultivating verges of sunflowers and wild flowers—re-wilded to include anything that will take root among which somewhat incongruously is industry-grade hemp. I am told on good authority that because they’re male plants, they would not elicit the most enjoyable experience, though they make a novel sight to behold nonetheless.

kind of blue

Released this week in 1959, Miles Davis’ studio album counts amongst not only the most iconic and influential jazz sessions of all time but the certified quadruple platinum selling record ranks as one of the most important contributions and collaborations of any genre.  Not that the trappings of superlatives and analysis are needed intermediaries we did enjoy listening through the lens of this appreciation from Open Culture that explores the modalities of the sextet‘s performance. We were also pleasantly reminded, via Kottke’s Quick Links, of the chip-tuned tribute from Andy Baio, Kind of Bloop.

immense reddit.com/r/rmalelivingspace energy

Via the always engaging Boing Boing, we are updated on the property scouting of Kate Wagner who brings her signature McMansion take-down (previously) to the gated-communities of Campbell County, Wyoming edition.  These horrendous, rambling homes on the range are ripe for criticism and full of special architectural features and elements like divorce-lawyer foyer. Visit and subscribe for regular real estate round-ups from all fifty states (not that America has the exclusive monopoly) of the union.

photo booth

Nearly spanning the whole history of photography with the first coin-op unit being installed in Hamburg in 1890, photo booths carry ethnographic and sociological currency as much as technical achievement with the popular Japanese activity known as purikura (プリクラ) being no exception.
Even before there was a chance for the ceremony to evoke a sense of nostalgia, the allure was there. The social photos (not group pictures but rather always as a avatar to be shared on social networks) offer insight on the way forms of self-expression are manifested and perpetuated—with the creation of sub-genre and sub-culture, purikura not staying within the polite and sacarrine bounds of kawaii, the cute aesthetic, with filters and post-production effects that are opposite of flattering and some assumptions and architecture of choice to be aware of.  The term comes from the English words print club.