Thursday, 19 November 2015

fakery and fraudulence

I’ve finally received my long-awaited love letter from the Office of Personnel Management informing me that the totality of personal information has been compromised in a targeted cyber-attack, with the private details of my family and associates as well.
“Our records also indicate that your fingerprints were likely compromised during the cyber intrusion. Federal experts believe the ability to misuse fingerprint data is currently limited. However, this could change over time as technology evolves…” As recompense, the correspondence encourages me to register in a sort of identity-theft monitoring and protection programme, but I don’t know if I’ll be signing up as there’s not much there to instil a sense of confidence in their stewardship of any more individual data. When bits and pieces are stolen, it seems that something so easily lost isn’t worth protecting to begin with but it’s getting really intimate when a whole comprehensive profile is exposed.

docomo or the queen’s english

As is my wont, I must have glossed over this rather disturbing announcement and I truly appreciate Bob Canada for reviving this discussion—thinking that the Word of the Year as nominated and elevated by the venerable institution of Oxford University Press was “emoji,” which I thought to be pedantically behind the times, and not an emoji.
Albeit their flagship OED aims to capture language as it is actually used and not prescribe how it ought to be—despite the authority that it enjoys, I am not sure what to make our language and lexicon when “Face with Tears of Joy”—which sounds like a title museum curators would give to distinguish a work with no name, is celebrated. What do you think? I certainly use the glyphs for punctuation, I guess at the expense of full-stops, but in general not for a whole thought. Maybe Oxford’s contender was chosen too because of the ambiguity that can be substituted and encoded and be assigned different signals and meanings—like the suggestive eggplant or nail-polish representing some hollow accomplishment or indifference or the agony of being pepper-sprayed here pictured.

5x5

eddie are you okay: catchy barrel-organ version of Smooth Criminal 

lol: ukiyo artists from Edo-era Japan also liked animal memes

planchette: a Ouija board furniture ensemble 

d³ฦฉx²: dedicated Whovian reveals the Doctor’s true name

octave: gallery of very large musical instruments

Wednesday, 18 November 2015

the bees’ knees or honeycomb hideout

As if humans weren’t already enough of a plague for the bees and their business, I learnt recently of a newly discovered component that might tease out a bit more about why bees as a real ecological keystone are vanishing and well as the wildlife they support.
Although diesel emissions are very much a contentious subject right now, it would serve one well to realise despite the increase in traffic and that our driving is leaving a much bigger footprint than we’ve been led to believe, three decades ago, the situation was far more dire with trees growing along the Autobahn covered in black soot and at least know, slowly, we are paying greater attention to the important things, diesel—specifically the nitrous oxide (NOx) which probably isn’t good for any living thing in any amount—has a measurable cognitive detriment for the pollinators. Vehicle exhaust affects the subtle aromatic chemistry of the flowers that bees seek and even a tiny change in the scent environment means that bees can’t form a mental map of the desired nectar and can’t communicate with their interpretive dance to others in the hive. Possibly this signals interference does not spread far from the shoulder of the road and may not be the chief pathogen working against the colonies (as there are several other candidates—habitat loss, pesticides, genetically modified crops, electrosmog from cellular masts, etc.), this is yet another reason to clean up our obsession with fossil fuels and the internal combustion engine, which seems quite antiquated and steam-punk no matter how it’s packaged.

Tuesday, 17 November 2015

la solidaritรฉ

Just down the street, the Henkell Fabrik is also illuminated with the Tricolore. Visible from the Autobahn as well, it is a very fine gesture on behalf of this storied institution, purveyors of German sparkling wine white (Sekt), housed in this grand Grรผnderzeit hall, to mark the tragic occasion with a show, a beacon of hope and solidarity.