docket or kangaroo court

Throughout the Middle Ages in Europe until the Enlightenment, it was not uncommon to see animals put on trial, often times provided with a defense counsel, and with due-process served, summarily executed.

Often the allegations levied against these barnyard creatures was for injuring their master, destruction of crops or for being barren—but sometimes the scope of the law was extended to more esoteric miscarriages, with pets charged with being familiars of certain known amici curiae, wolves along with their human avatars tried for being werewolves, and there is documentation of a rooster in Basel being burnt at the stake for the unnatural accomplishment of laying an egg, which hatched and loosed a cockatrice—a bipedal dragon with a chicken head, on the village. At least the domesticated poor beasts had a court-provided advocate in most cases.

five-by-five

vive le drone: the French have a healthier relationship with their eyes-in-the-sky

♀: the recently concluded seven year European Space Agency mission to our sister planet also looked homeward for signs of life on Earth

woongemeenschap: university students in the Netherlands can stay rent-free in retirement homes for keeping the older residents company

revisionism: wikiwashing is a thing

carbon sink: scientists found that a fern pasture carpeted the Arctic ocean millions of years ago, giving the world the stable climate we’ve enjoyed up until now 

bell-hop or pole-position

It struck me as an odd coincidence that I would be addressing the same subject about driverless cars with a co-worker on the way into work this morning—first commiserating how the lanes and the concept of right-of-way kind of get tossed aside when people are in a rush, and then moving on to the feasibility of self-driving automobiles and the question of fault for misjudgment and malfunction.

I declared, with auto-pilots already being tested in trucking, once, just like with the horseless-carriage, the infrastructure is established, human drivers won’t be street-legal for very long, operating under impulsive and unpredictable protocols. Like with those swarming insects or birds of a feather that someone manage to avoid collisions amid the chaos and guided by an instinct or perception that we cannot penetrate—in fact, the only accidents that seem to transpire end up on our windshields, the traffic of the future won’t admit any margin of operator-error. How do you feel about that? Are we being robbed of a freedom, leisure or will the idea of allowing people to maneuver lethal machinery without controls in place seem barbarically irresponsible and a dare-devil stunt that no one would voluntarily attempt? I especially liked futurist Mister Musk’s analogy to an old-fashioned elevator (lift) operator and how those bedecked and courteous engineers were replaced by push-button automation. I think this machinery behind the scenes is a good comparison for what we may be leaving behind.

shareholder value

Around a year and a half ago, while strolling through Frankfurt’s old warehouse district, I had the chance to see the new headquarters of the European Central Bank under-construction. Just now, regaled with protests to mark the occasion, the fancy and sleek building saw its grand-opening—or rather its christening, baptism with due remonstration since it’s not really an inviting place for the rabble—although I quite liked the old HQ, though I suppose it was too humble and retiring for this flag-ship role. Though the core thrust behind the Occupy and Blockupy movements is unchanged, it’s rather thought-provoking how the message has become more focused, not only targeting monumental disparities in wealth and opportunity but more specifically how this and other institutions have straitening outlays of austerity—which can translate into even greater, generational handicaps.

five-by-five

swag: a gallery of uniquely-crafted cases for one’s cellular phone

exorcist: haunted dolls command top-dollar in on-line auctions

aptitude: prospective employees of Thomas Edison were subjected to a grueling battery of questions

charlie magnetico: Jim Henson created cyborg muppets to lead seminars for Bell Telephone Systems

the dream sequence always rings twice: an unsettling short film where the protagonist is the subject of everyone’s nightmare