poki-poki or irregular polygons

I did not realise that Japanese has a wealth of onomatopoeic words that not only mimic the sound of things but also the texture and shape of things—sort of like zig-zag in English but I imagine more evocative, and much less did I guess that they could be expressed so intuitively, in chocolate form.
Phenomimes (gitaigo 擬態語) they are technically called, those words that manage to impart this sort of directional, tactile meaning. That, however, is precisely the geometric proof given by the award-winning design studio, nendo, in the Parisian trade show annual competition, Maison et Object. At the link, you can learn more about this textured words and how their meanings ring perfectly in context.

lucas with the lid off or to speak franc

While I cannot say for certain if this studied, lucid article from Quartz transparently lays out absolutely everything one need know about the Swiss decision to untether its currency from the euro, but I believe it is a very good and accessible primer. With economic crises unsettled elsewhere in 2011, the CHF became quite an attractive berth for one’s cash—leading to weakened exports and relative, domestic inflation, and in order to hold the exchange rate at less seductive levels, the Swiss federal bank began printing more money to buy up foreign dollars, euros and roubles to keep matters in check.

That’s really the only way a nation can interview to control exchanges rights—it cannot issue a mandate for price controls but only act indirectly. Arguably, it is the same pyramid scheme that the US Federal Reserve is chancing to shore up the dollar—although America is doing so with the repurchase of its own debts rather than foreign currencies but both vehicles may fail to retain their worth meanwhile. The huge amount of Swiss wealth converted to euros, et al gives the franc grave exposure, meaning more deflation and trade problems, especially with the concession to standard operating procedures elsewhere that the European Union may allow for quantitative easing (printing money) itself in order to prevent an ailing Greece and a fit but scorned Iceland from leaving the Euro-zone.

presto-chango

Slate magazine reports on group of researchers in London that hope to gain insight in how artificial intelligence operates by letting it try its hand at prestidigitation and see how a computer algorithm might optimise a classic card trick. The thought is a little bit arresting, since it seems to allow robots into that human weakness and even yearning for deception.

Since we can be bemused and delighted by sleight-of-hand, maybe, unbeknownst to us as role-models, we’re sending the message that the appearance of sentience is good enough for us the gullible. One of the goals of this exercise, however—aside from any extraneous and unexpected findings it might yield in the fields of the human and machine psyches, is to learn and hopefully teach the difference between deliberate and unwilling deception—to not be too vague, demurring or confusing. What do you think about robotic magicians? Are we already dazzled too easily by the refined and rarefied interfaces of technology that hides the circuitry—or squirrels running in wheels?

tinseltown or economies of scale

Looking through a gallery of creative, outlandish weapons—which were mostly theoretical and not battle-tested, including a massive aircraft-carrier whose landing strip was made of ice, bat-bombs and a so-called gay-bomb that was to pheromonially encourage soldiers to make love, not war, I was reminded how I was admonished that the actress and sex-symbol known as Marilyn Monroe was first discovered in 1945 while working in a drone assembly plant in Van Nuys, California.

This hobbyist factory for radio-controlled planes was purchased by an enterprising British actor and World War I fighting ace to produce re-purposed models for the US War Department. Although these planes were initially limited to target-practise, they did already possess all the modern hallmarks of that we think of as proper to drone warfare, with the ability to deliver a payload and conduct surveillance runs—however, graciously the technology was withheld for seventy years, and at least not made available to hobbyists until recently. Los Angeles was also of course an ideal place to be discovered, with the motion picture business established there since 1912, having gone West originally to escape the jurisdiction (or to at least be as geographically separated as possible) of Thomas A. Edison’s industry-breaking patents held on distribution, film, cameras and projectors—oftentimes independent productions being halted on the East Coast with litigation and thugs. Though a different studio-system took root in Hollywood as well, creativity was allowed to flourish with new ideas and fresh-faces allowed in.