bertillonage or unfortunate incarceration

Forensic science and data-collection began in response to reforms in French law in 1832, which prevented the branding of criminals (like cattle). First-time offenders were given an indelible mark heretofore and the practise was followed in much of the world (a scarlet letter or compare the punishment of dismembering of some parts of the world).

Absent these visible signs, there was no way to identify a criminal—and likely recidivist, so copyist for the Paris police Alphonse Bertillon, out of frustration and a calling to contain especially anarchists, political hot-heads, conceived of the idea of profiling and a registry (French, fiche) of transgressors and invented the field of biometrics. Adopted world-wide, Bertillon's methods involved the newly invented photographic-documentation with a rigourous regime of weights and measures of different body parts, like the elaboration of the ears and length of the forearm, which projected points of chakras (useful for the police) to remember. Although contributing significantly to the burgeoning industry of photography with the establishment of mug-shots and unending galleries of those to look out for, the method for identity verification was overtaken by the technique of dactyloscopy, finger-printing, for practical reasons as the demands of Bertillon's way were too high, and it was not until the advent of closed-circuit television and facial-recognition software that could automate the cataloging of distinguishing markers that this kind of attention to detail is becoming en vogue again.

billy-goat's gruff oder when there's trouble, you call d-w

Though better known right now for the its bishop being a bad custodian of tithes and negligent of his vows, Limburg an der Lahn (on the river—like Stratford-upon-Avon) is a pretty dynamic city, situated halfway between the megalopolises of Frankfurt and Köln. Recently civic planners and architects secured the permission to redistrict the arches and concrete pylons of the old valley Autobahn bridge, scheduled for decommissioning in 2016 due to age while a new span is being constructed for apartments, office-space and hotel. Historically, bridges were so zoned.  It looks like a pretty cool concept, if the realty firm involved can pull it off without squashing the vision, and think it would make the perfect lair for a brooding, reclusive super-hero—or a villain, like T-Bartz.

seismograph or triple-witching

A certain breed of a meme has been circulating the internet since around last November, superimposing the contemporary US stock-market erratic-pulse with those of 1928 and 1929 in the period that led up to the crash and following world-wide Great Depression.

A market-watcher originally drew these parallels for entertainment, reportedly, but the analogy has held since. Projections often find their point-of-departure and yield something more surprising but it is nevertheless frightening what such a trend pre-supposes. This correlation and foreshadowing is especially interesting, as the announcement that the US House of Representatives support a capitulation that will raise, without conditions or visible trade-offs, the borrowing ability of the US government—the debt-ceiling. While it is money that America owes itself, the investors did not flinch, neither bombasting nor blanching at this development, and there are fictions about what this policy means at both extremes of the spectrum, it does seem like a delay of the inevitable, which is due in May of this year, according to the charts.

study-hall oder archetype

One forgets, sometimes, how Wikipedia, and earlier with bibliomancy at the library or with encyclopedia articles, can be a digest for the curious.
Recently, one of its featured entries invited visitors to learn more about an auditorium, an art deco masterpiece, and research centre called the Atlantis House (Atlantis Haus, more historical photographs hier) in Bremen built during the interbellum years by an accomplished architect at the behest of a wealthy coffee-magnate.  The businessman was himself entranced by the theories of the ethnographer who would go on to found the Ahnenerbe Society. This group conducted expeditions, sponsored by the Nazi regime, to explore mythological and ideological links, mostly constructing specious and affirming connections. The function of this institution was to promote the theory that the Germanic race issued from a now sunken continent in the North Sea and were responsible for creating the continuum of civilisation that we've inherited from Mesopotamia. I wonder what sort of lectures were delivered there. I still recall vividly the feeling on learning that Hollywood treatments like the sagas of Indiana Jones and Hellboy were not without some basis in reality. That's a strange sort of legitimising to assume for one's posture.