rorschacht or pareidolia

Via Laughing Squid comes this growing Twitter gallery of objects of objects that appear to have anthropomorphic faces, whether by chance or accident, like the mesa that became the Face on Mars due to the camera angle and the human tendency for identification. There are a lot of really good ones but among my favourites is this hungry, hungry helicopter with an appetite for soldiers at the link and the more abstract extensions of the occurrence. It was really weird when an alien face appeared in my beer glass and was quite persistent or the montage of the three wise men on our freshly painted wall, though I do not have convincing photographic evidence. What examples do you have?

pro bono publico

The Washington Post has a sweet article on the evolving efforts of the Holy See to expand its charitable works. Confident of Pope John Paul II in his later years, Francis I appointed Archbishop Konrad Krajewski as his chief almoner, responsible for acting as the pope's giving-ombudsman, both raising and distributing contributions, including with far nobler indulgences.

Formerly the position had become a relatively sinecure office awarded to retiring bishops, but the Pope has given the archbishop his blessing to take license which should not seem so extraordinary but is inspired nonetheless. Krajewski is attended by an off-duty cadre of Swiss Guards and go out into the streets of Rome on a nightly basis to help the homeless and offer what relief from plight that they can. It's pretty powerful what's being done by this papacy to colour the invisible with the hues that they deserve, and nothing pale or superficial, but the crux of his duties probably lies in Krajewski's observation that rather than a moral band-aid for himself to feel better and sleep better at night, he hopes to provide first-aid and that charity has to cost something so it can change the giver for the better. A small donation may not be without meaning and effect, but charged as the chief almoner of the Vatican, a simple tithing does not do to achieve a greater balance of equality.

this day in PfRC history

I have managed, sometimes more prolific than others, to keep this blog up and running for more than five years now. It began as a travelogue and some of the earliest entries are pretty embarrassing and disjointed (meant to be my own private mySpace sphere, I guess)--and that's certainly not to say that I've matured or picked a theme or that the latest entries are not embarrassing in their own time or from some future perspective.

Looking back at the chronicles: one year ago today: Good Saint Nick with a short biography about the life and legend of the saint and his patronages.


Two years ago today: the Other Shoe recounting internet censorship efforts through fairy-tale idylls.

Five years ago today: in former communist East Germany, the Government works for You with Thanksgiving dinner at the army mess-hall and experiences, impressions from my first trip to Leipzig.

les cigales or call for submissions

For the past two years, a mysterious and tantalizing puzzle has been intriguing internet users and the next installment of the scavenger-hunt is expected to appear within a few weeks. A computer analyst from Sweden stumbled upon an irresistible invitation from an organisation calling itself Cicada 3301. The call to find the others and to R.S.V.P. (regrets only) by teasing the hidden message out of the invite.
The clues led across a daisy-chain of increasingly challenging riddles, requiring novel and creative minds to resolve. Interest quickly spread with thousands participating and Cicada 3301 responded in kind with more and more esoteric subjects (involving obscure poetry, alchemy, rare music and even detours into the physical world) and rabbit-holes—that has brought many of the new initiates to the uncharted territories of the world-wide web, called the Darknet, that are not normally accessible to the public via search engines, the massive mantle under the surface of unindexed data that's multitudes bigger by volume that the visible internet world. Despite the great scrutiny and speculation of the hive-mind, no one has fully solved the puzzle or identified who is behind Cicada 3301. What do you think? Could it really be a recruitment tool, a push to gather the world's prodigies like in This Island Earth or The Last Starfighter? Could it be an experimental sandbox for the world's colluding intelligence networks to cull the best and brightest among cryptographers or to arrest their development? Is it just a game? Or worse, is it some publicity stunt that will lead up to the announcement of some new crap cyborg gadget? I personally think it might be a sentient internet's attempt at reaching out to its creators. Watch for the next clue to appear on 4. January 2014.