intershop oder deutsch-deutsche grenze

As the twenty-fifth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall approaches, there’s an array of tributes and retrospectives worth checking out. I am reminded of one small artefact that I found a few years ago at a flea market. This cancelled East German passport is only marked with the endorsement that allows the bearer unrestricted transit into the so-called Neue Bundesländer (it is still probably a little dig to keep the distinction of a West Berlin, which was a national peculiar). It is a little sad that someone’s grandmother never got the chance for further travel, as there are no other stamps, but maybe she threw out this one for a new passport of the united Germany.

nine dragons

Via the ever-engrossing maker of fine hyper-text products, Kottke, comes an interesting glimpse at the former Chinese enclave of Kowloon Walled-City in the former British exclave of Hong Kong.

Originally purposed as a garrison to oversee salt trade, the property remained nominally under Chinese control when the territory was leased to the British but the matter of administration was disputed, with the compound by turns becoming depopulated and abandoned, and eventually transforming into a den of iniquity and refuge for thieves, beholden to no authority. Prior to its demolition in 1993, Kowloon Wall-City housed an amazing thirty-three thousand residents, living vertically stratified in an urban environment of their own design. Somewhat covertly, just before being razed, a group of architects and civil-engineers from Japan had thoroughly documented and photographed the place, including detailed cross-cut and cut-away schema, illustrating the resourcefulness of the denizens and economy of dimensions.

light-rail or calvin cycle

The intrepid Atlas Obscura shares an innovative idea from an engineering firm called the Cloud Collective, hailing from Denmark, which aims to filter the air and sequester carbon dioxide more or less at its source. Like the temporaty installation featured in Geneva, the design group hopes to mount pumps and transparent tubes to house algae in an urban setting. The scheme aims not only to clean the air but the inventors also hope to smartly utilize the by-products, spinning the algae into foodstuffs, cosmetics and even fuel.

ephemeral or fascinating rhythm

Though I am certain that this template does not apply to every individual, this short article from EarthSky, via the Presurfer, about circadian rhythms does provide a pretty insightful illustration about how one’s biological clock can get easily thrown out of whack and physiological cues could quickly start to stack-up. Although the clock is an analogy that’s constantly adjusting its time due to the give and take of one’s environment to keep everything in sync, it is not just an extended metaphor but an expression of the incredible chemistry that orients us to our daily lives.