deep end

A luxury high-rise complex in Houston Texas has at its fortieth storey a large outdoor swimming pool—which is impressive in itself. This “cantilevered” pool, however, has a unique, transparent overhanging section that’s not for anyone with a fear of heights that lets one float forty floors above street traffic. View more images and video footage of the Sky Pool of Houston’s Market Square at the link above.

digital hinterland or postcards from veles

Reporting for the Calvert Journal, Lalage Harris and Duncan Harvey present a portrait of one Macedonian town that became rather infamous as an exporter of disinformation that helped change the course of the US presidential election.
Once a booming factory town in Tito’s Yugoslavia, the place became rather bleak once industry went away with most everything that fills the economic void being one of king-making. While it does seem to be highly dissonant that we’re so easily persuaded and perhaps the social-engineering potential was incidental (both campaigns were explored but Dear Leader’s caucus proved to be more profitable), we are the dog and not just subject to the caprices of the tail. Influential agents exist and enjoy the level of power they do because we deny it, but choice and responsibility still have truck in our behaviours and decisions and attention naturally leads to actions, as little as we’d like to think what we regard is what is issuing the marching-orders.

sacrilicious

Hearing of this bit of reporting, via Super Punch, from Thailand regarding how a strawberry flavoured soda has overtaken the traditional blood sacrifice offer to appease household spirts (culturally ingrained to the point where human consumption of this soft-drink is considered a taboo, like raiding the sacramental wine) made me think of the strange battlefront of the cola-wars where the stakes have been elevated to the purity of one’s immortal soul. What do you think? Both articles treat belief in the supernatural and ritualistic behaviour with respect—and the hands-off approach to marketing seems more mature in the former than in the latter, but the lens of a manufactured commodity—however appropriated by the spirit world—seems to make it inauthentic.

жж

LiveJournal (LJ) or in Russian Живой Журнал (Zhe Zhe) as it’s known is a blogging platform with some social media add-ons like creating forums and inviting friends (the English word is employed rather than the term droog, друг) that was created in 1999 and quietly acquired by a Moscow-based international on-line media conglomerate nearly a decade ago.
Having completed the process of relocating its servers to Russia just this month, the service is announcing that its content policies (a reminder that these hosts are private companies and not public institutions) must be aligned with the law of the land, including the protection of minors by supressing discussions or acknowledgement of sexual deviancy—that is, gay propaganda. Many who had been using the platform form for decades were caught off guard and (those with the luxury) are migrating their blogs elsewhere.