tatort

Using Bavaria as a pilot-site, German police forces are gauging whether adopt a software platform, with a virtual nod, wink, bow and kow-tow to the dystopia concept of pre-crime, as first suggested by writer Philip K. Dick and adapted into the disturbing film Minority Report.

Rather than directly profiling would-be criminals for a self-fulfilling recidivism, the algorithm triangulates trends in crime and crime-scene location and aims to plot the ideal beat for law enforcement to stick in order to optimise their efforts and maybe stand in between criminal and victim. An allusion to the precogs, the platform is called the Precobs, “the Pre-Crime Observation System.” Niedlich—I do hope that the authorities salivating over this new wonder realise that such big data and likelihood flow in both directions. What do you think? Other police forces have already deployed such programming but with little to show for it, yet, and field-tested I’m sure on protesters and rangy mobs, it does not seem like a particularly better kettler yet either. I am sure a few defacers of public property might be netted, though.  We’ll see how this turns out.

pilaster or ozymandias

BLDGBlog reveals an amazing resource under the guise of Archi/Maps that features designs and blueprints for familiar landmarks, alternative proposals that were ultimately abandoned (like the pyramid pictured conceived for Trafalgar Square) and many shires that were never built.

finding krampus oder knecht ruprecht

In a delightful little holiday safari called Searching for Krampus, one of Boing Boing’s happy mutants covers the slow and careful cultivation of an old Germanic tradition transported to Hollywood.
The old masters from Austria (though similar devils haunt a broad swath of Europe) that ultimately helped realise a Krampus festival were skeptical at first, worried that without proper guidance that the custom would become mere cos-play and horror-camp but there seems to be a genuine fascination for this demonic foil—that’s maybe reflective of broader laments over the over-commercialisation of the season. This is always a sore topic and all chime-in when it comes to Christmas-Creep, but I can imagine that the Celts, the ancient Germanic tribes, and the ancient Roman were feeling pretty much the same way when they saw their mistletoe, Yuletide and Saturnalia taken over by Christian rites. Knecht Ruprecht is a related but non-demonic companion of Saint Nicholas, meaning Farmhand Rupert, who threatens disobedient children and hashes out appropriately wretched presents—and although maybe not enjoying the same seasonal celebrity as the monstrous Krampus, Knecht Ruprecht is pretty famous in the Deutsche Sprachraum as the name of the Simpson family pet greyhound, Santa’s Little Helper, in the German version of the series.

double the pleasure, double the fun

Collectors’ Weekly features an engrossing profile on the rediscovery of one of the advertising world’s most influential but unknown duos, whose iconic output from the 1930s to the 1960s was the defining style and technique for airbrush art. Dorothy and Otis ‘Shep’ Shepard collaborated on a lot of marketing campaigns and employed a hallmark design that really captured that era of Americana, fusing memorable visual elements and jingles. Ann Harnett, who founded the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League as portrayed in A League of their Own, commissioned the Shepards to design the team’s new uniforms.