your mileage may vary

Via the forever fabulous Everlasting Blört comes this delightful promotional film from the American Petroleum Institute that illustrates the virtues of fuel-efficiency and ethical resource management through the conformist practises of the Martians in thrall to the great and powerful Ogg who pay the primitive Earthlings a visit, who despite their superior technology, don’t have infrastructure and public institutions worked out too well. This animated short by character designer Tom Oreb is from 1956 and for the time really highlights our ability to harness energy and develop new industries but it also demonstrates that we’ve all but stopped progressing, insofar as we’re still reliant on oil.

pedigree or animal fancy

Though it might be overly-charitable to describe Andrew Johnson’s kindness to mice that he found in his residence as having pets, no other occupant of the White House has not kept animals of some type—usually dogs, but sometimes a whole hobby farm and menagerie to include donkeys, horses, bears and exotic gifts from visiting heads of state. We’re unworthy of our animal companions as it is and robots have already expressed their aversion for his ilk, and while I feel it would be inhumane to force an animal on Dear Leader as a full-time commitment, since he’d probably delegate their care and attention to others, but I suppose he could be subjected to the supervised company a therapy hen—one of those acculturated to comfort the most damaged among us.

manchurian candidacy

Despite denials of the allegations that wire-tapping in any form was directed at the lair and campaign headquarters of Dear Leader and that it would have been a contravention of US law to order the surveillance of any entity by the federal government without certainty that the target were an “agent of a foreign power,” Dear Leader recognises the opportunity to further distract the public’s attention from his relations with Russia by directing the legislature to open an investigation into his paranoia before they can make any progress on launching an official inquiry into his political machine’s own inner-workings.

Besides, if there actually any snooping going on, Dear Leader could order it declassified, and if innocent as he claims, would prove instantly exculpating. Alternatively, such evidence could be damning—if it is out there. Dear Leader draws comparisons to Nixon and Watergate as well as McCarthyism but I think his metaphors are mixed in the wrong direction—unless he wishes to lead us to his own misdoings. Richard Nixon, running for president in 1968, against the vice-president Hubert Humphrey of the Johnston administration, was worried that treaties would end the conflict in Vietnam as early as 1968 and mean a sure win for his rival so candidate Nixon got in touch with the ambassador of South Vietnam, assuring him it was in his people’s best interests to hold out for better terms of peace. Johnson suspected that this “treason” was being perpetuated and even had the embassy bugged but too close to the election, never came forward with his evidence, not wanting to be accused of subversion. Nixon’s actions prolonged the war by four years and cost countless lives on both sides, with America eventually withdrawing in defeat.

data knows best or don’t forget your toothbrush

Via the globe-trekking Nag on the Lake comes an interesting experiment, practical exercise in surrendering oneself to thinking machines that’ll eventually be better planners than any of us—not for virtue of being more adventurous or resourceful but because they can best navigate and game those electronic corridors of optimising deals and schedules and vacancies with far more efficiency than we can summon—in the form of a spontaneous vacation that’s fully arranged by a robot travel agency to specified parameters.
One doesn’t have to hunt for deals oneself or do the booking, and the computer keeps the travellers in suspense about their destination until in the departures lounge of their local airport. Of course, the machine works within your given budget and allows one to exclude places where one does not what to go (having recently been there) and seemed for a brand new service to not do all that bad. The pair enjoyed a nice weekend getaway in Basel and their only complaints were economic ones—the weak pound and the strong franc, but just imagine how perfectly tailored holidays could become if the robots doing the booking and bargaining knew the likes and interests of the travellers even better than they do themselves, pouring over their social media feeds, etc. What do you think? Would you be willing to invest a not insignificant sum of money to have an algorithm dictate your agenda? It strikes me a little like when you veer off-course from what one’s satnav is directing and the device loses its cool and gets panicky instantly, and if everyone started relying on computerised vacation packages, there’d be no deals left to be scooped up.