double-détendre

Writing for The Atlantic, correspondent and former member of the US National Security Council Jan M Lodal recalls a pledge shared between Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev and Gerald Ford (who as Nixon’s second vice-president took office once Nixon resigned in lieu of impeachment and served out the term until the next election—also having the pleasure of exonerating Nixon of all wrong doing by pardoning him) of the USSR’s support to ensure Ford’s re-election. The exchange took place during the Helsinki Accords—the formal settlement that marked peace in Europe after World War II and helped to limn the rules of engagement for the Cold War—in 1975 during a private moment with only the interpreter present. Some snooping and quick thinking on the part of Lodal, who was part of the presidential entourage during the summit, confirmed that this promise was extended—though the expressed outcome didn’t materialise with the election of Jimmy Carter.

7x7

master of the pan-flute: Tedium looks at those compilation albums and other musical genres hocked on late-night television commercials

goldwater rule: the American Psychiatric Association is relaxing its tradition against making comments on the mental stability of public figures

pet sounds: there’s a German-based internet radio stationed designed to keep canine companions company whilst their humans are away

disenchantment: Simpsons’ creator developing new animated series set in medieval times, including elves, wizards and demons

algebraic topography: neuroscientists determine that the brain can cogitate in mental frameworks of up to eleven dimensions

openluchtrecreatie: experimental tiny shelters spring up in Amsterdam

memphis group: an exhibition of Ettore Sottsass’ designs placed in context beside the artefacts the pieces reference or inspired

shutter-bug

Researchers have trained a neural network to scour Google Street View (which of course is not limited to urban environs) and frame what it believes to be æsthetic scenes, applying algorithms on cropping, lighting and composition that its acquired in the learning process. The coda to this experiment was to subject the photographs to a sort of human-juried “Turing test.” The judges were not told that a machine had selected and perfected the images and rated nearly half of them to be the work of a professional. Chew more of the scenery over at Twisted Sifter at the link up top and learn more about the exercise in deep learning and wonder about its implications.

sacré-cœur

From the stacks of Public Domain Review, we are presented with an English translation of an 1812 illustrated treatise from church author and philanthropist Johannes Evangelista Goßner called Geistlicher Sitten-Spiegel (the Spiritual Mirror of Morality) that was probably derived from earlier Enlightenment works and was given the explanatory subtitle for export audiences The Heart of Man: Either a Temple of God, or a Habitation of Satan: Represented in Ten Emblematical Figures, Calculated to Awaken and Promote a Christian Disposition. Goßner was a reformed minister at a Berlin simultaneum, a shared sacred building where different denominations worshipped, albeit with separate clergy at different times. The administration of such congregations is known as status quo. The guide’s graphical representation is pretty striking with its incrementally increasing facial grief-scale and recalls (or rather previsions) to me the stylings of Edward Gorey and offers explanations of much of the iconography.

dustbin, doxbin

Though generally only perceived as a vaguely threatening presence by pets, it turns out that for the past few years robotic vacuums, in their quest to optimise navigating the terrain of one’s home, have also been collecting that telemetry and reporting back to the mother-ship in order for those maps to be sold on to marketers to formulate better-focused furniture advertisements (or scare families into investing in security services) and model virtual smart-houses. Or simply to judge our taste in décor. These domestic double-agents that we welcome into our lives highlights one way that technologies are no longer ours to exploit and benefit from as tools, but rather the merchants of attention undermine our relationship with computers and machines by supplanting it with some Pavlovian bond of button-mashing and push-notifications. What do you think? Albeit arguably robot vacuums are a time-saving convenience but coordination and connectedness come with a cost and perhaps the autonomous appliance market is reaching its true economical zenith—again, not as an instrument or amusement but as pusher, staking out its beat, like that craze with augmented reality games which helped plot out previously uncharted demographics.

la guerre des étoiles

While much of the epic space opera’s influences and homages have been studied and extolled in great detail, including Joseph Campbell’s monomyth and the comic Flash Gordon, there’s been little  acknowledgement for a French series of comics from the early 1970s, as Messy Nessy Chic helps us to uncover, that informed the arch of the story almost scene for scene at points. Artist Jean-Claude Mézières’ creation Valerian and Laureline is now starting to be accredited for its plot and stylistic contributions—including ice, desert and marsh planets, a Millennium Falcon-type ship, a hero encased in a resin and another held hostage by an overweight mobster who is forced to wear a metal bikini—after the characters are getting their own cinematic adaptation with Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets.  Though perhaps four decades overdue, Mézières’ role in establishing the saga is beginning to garner recognition.