bad bank or off-shoring

While international agreements have framed regulations to persecute and burden smallholders and the domestic business entities and financial houses have employed in order to institution willing to accommodate the routine banking needs of US expatriates or those accidental Yanks, like the Lord Mayor of London, for example, who perhaps has not sufficiently renounced his dual-citizenship (due to being born in America to diplomatic parents) to the satisfaction of the tax-man and competent authorities to be able to forego the reporting requirements, unrequited as they may be, precious little attention has been paid to the lengths and loopholes that they will go to in order to mask their corporate citizenship. Via Boing Boing, here is a very thorough and interactive illustration to show the convoluted network, business apparently not subject to the same kind of scrutiny as the public when it comes to AMT usage or grocery shopping. Maybe a better stress-test (applied to banks operating in the EU exclusively) would be to subject them to a theoretical insolvency and time how long it took to them to make themselves whole, what kind of collateral would take to back up the mortgage against their demur pseudopodia. Such behaviour, faking right and left, is enshrined and even encouraged, not by business culture alone but also by omission on the part of the US government.

green grow the rushes ho, tell us of your GOOG-O

It is already been noted how the mass surveillance and spreading confessionals of intelligence agencies could well have a disastrous chilling effect when it comes to the early adoption of the latest gadgets and our understanding, relationship with mobility and convenience. Though by nature, equally as gimmicky and peripheral to the architecture of the internet, which ought not be co-opted and re-worked as a for-profit enterprise exclusively, I wonder what opportunities and threats will come if the mood of the surveyed is extended further, making seeking out advertising-space and market-intelligence more difficult, if not an anathema, with the public retreating into closed systems, forgoing the ability to triangulate.
If one does not look at them, do they go away?  Certainly the profit-motive and the creation of niche-markets has done much in the name of progress and ease of propagating ideas, even for those panhandlers that collect the crumbs of the advertising industry and including those Great-Souled individuals who expect nothing. What do you think? Targeted ads, when they hit the mark, can be disturbing in their own right, without considering the full dossier that others may have—and considering those tangential commercials that are laughably off-target, one has to wonder what computer-driven assumptions might be conspiring to form one's persona of record.

adult literacy

A happy mutant reader of Boing Boing shares the artwork from an Russian illustrator (a bit risque for workplace viewing, take caution since what is seen cannot be unseen and the art is sort of reminiscent of Aubrey Beardsley) active during the 1920s and 1930s which is basically a primer, an alphabet book, to encourage literacy in adults through erotic images by making Cyrillic letters memorable. It reminds me of the exploration of cognition and mind-hacks presented in Moonwalking with Einstein, advising that one of the chief rules of curating one's galleries of memory is with exhibitions too violent and obscene to share with polite company and always illicit at least a blush. Though it is not a hard and fast rule for every constitution, one probably cannot argue with the efficacy of such an approach, however.

sunday drive: bad homburg von der höhe

Not discouraged by a sprawling but terrible flea-market (I did however resolve to note these particular organisers that have disappointed before and avoid them in the future) I drove a few kilometers further on the path to explore the town of Bad Homburg, a bedroom community and the wealthiest in Germany due to its proximity to the financial centre but away from the hectic pace, just beyond the city limits of Frankfurt am Main.
 There was a lot of things to see besides, but I focused my windshield tour first at the Schloss and surrounding park that was chosen late in its long and storied career as a summer residence for Emperor Wilhelm II. This designation at the beginning of the twentieth century afforded the town a lot of acclaim, which grew its spa (Kur) and casino—whose directors went on to manage the casino of Monte Carlo in Monaco.
I enjoyed walking through the park, peopled with classic and modern art sculptures. I especially like the stretched motor-scooter, an East Germany NSU model, that looked like it got too close to a blackhole or neutron star, and the Red Boy by comtemporary artist Kenny Hunter.
Among the imperial influences, the Protestant Church of Christ the Redeemer (Erlöserkirche, the problem-solver) was built in 1901, that is resoundingly Art Nouveau in style and a very distinctive fusion of Celtic symbols and mosaics that are reminiscent of the Near East. I enjoyed exploring this building as well, which reminded me of the lobby of the Empire State Building too—finished in 1908, the positive public reception initiated the Wiesbadner Programme, which saw other churches build in this style.
The Altstadt was comprised of grand avenues and narrow alleyways of half-timbered homes.
 A little lost, I regret not having ventured into the spa part of the town, with an equally large public park in the style of English Garden and its own ensemble of stories and historic buildings. 
I admit, I was a little turned- off to exploring further by the Kurhaus and Rathaus that resembled shopping centres more than civic institutions, but what lays beyond that one street ist something for H and I to see together for ourselves, next time.