darling, it’s better down where it’s wetter

Via Boing Boing, we are treated to a rather remarkable demonstration video from Marine Imaging Technologies’ new HYDRUS camera. An array of eight underwater cameras whose perspectives are selectable as if the footage were in real time surveys a reef off the Cayman Islands under natural, low light conditions, giving one a taste of what live-cams undersea could offer.

vemödalen

Being introduced by Coudal Partners’ Fresh Signals to the social media property whose motto of déjà (or presque) vu ambiance and directive to wander, roam and replicate struck us as immediately relatable and perhaps our own mugging for the camera, which we’d fancy as unique though signs indicate the opposite and also recalled the perfectly cromulent but made-up German-sounding word above.  
Vemödalen is the frustration experienced upon the realisation that’s one’s photograph has already been captured millions of times before and therefore less worthy of esteem or admiration. Naturally there’s a degree of the cliché in holiday photos and posing for the perfect shot that one should recognise and reconcile oneself to but it also doesn’t mean that one should stop (civilly, politely) taking and sharing one’s vacation slides.

the very model of a modern-age millennial

Here is the first stanza by award-winning writer Meg Elison whose verse is a clever adaptation of the Gilbert and Sullivan standard, the “Major-General’s Song,” which if you don’t know, please look it up so one can better appreciate how the author captures the hesitation, scansion and spirit of the satirical song.  I am older but have been known to caucus with this group.

I am the very model of a modern-age millennial,
I’ve got no cash, no house, no kids, and student debt perennial,
I know the rules of Tinder, and I’m not sold on monogamy
(For what it’s worth I think that stems from trouble ‘tween my mom and me)
I’m very well acquainted, too, with matters on the gender front
Myself, I am nonbinary; your labels I so do not want
Been disillusioned by my expectations with a lot o’ stuff,
The skills with which I am equipped for life are frankly not enough

Go to McSweeney’s and check out the whole rhyme and refrain.

twitterati

Diplomatic relations between Canada and Saudi Arabia are in complete disarray after the kingdom’s asymmetrical response to what it characterises as meddling in internal affairs after the Canadian foreign minister and other diplomats expressed concern over the arrest of human rights activist, Samar Badawi who had recently spurred reform that confers more independence for women in allowing them to drive and to conduct some business without a chaperone—prompting a youth organisation to respond rather threatening for its trading and educational partner to mind its own business.
The medium is the message, as Marshall McLuhan says.  Official government measures from the kingdom included the suspension of all trade and investment (part of this feud may be sourced back to a weapons deal arranged by the previous Canadian administration which the Trudeau government rescinded out of concerns of backing oppressive, authoritarian regimes), recalling its ambassadors, expelling the Canadian mission, ordering Saudi citizens being treated in Canadian hospitals to request discharges and transfers to facilities in another nation and for sixteen thousand students sponsored by scholarships studying at Canadian schools relocate at the risk of losing financial assistance. Other countries in the region joined Saudi Arabia in denouncing Canada for politicising human rights, which seems to me one of the chief if not the primary purposes of government. The US refused to weigh in on this affair, urging Canada and Saudi Arabia to work it together.