walled-garden or class-war/cola-war

Just in case you missed this latest incarnation of patron-generated guerilla-marketing, one soft-drink empire is inviting consumers to craft sleek little animations of whatever “tasting the seeing” means to them—launched off the equally dubious platform of enjoying this beverage of choice from a personalised aluminium can that bears one’s name.
I would not want to dally long in this corporate, branded wall-garden but I suppose that I am missing the point then. People certainly were quick to RSVP to this call for mockery but regrets-only were limited, it seems as the company presciently censored most words and phrases that might prove disparaging. The crack investigative team at The Atlantic that tried to finagle their way through this Orwellian call for submissions attempted to create an advertisement that invoked the “late stage capitalism” meme, which is s fitting one and a prediction of Marxist thinking, holding that despite capitalism’s opportunistic nature, there comes a point of market super-saturation and a point beyond which the system cannot continue, without new buyers—most likely aliens, since we’ve already tried selling contact-anxiety and convincing everyone to be entrepreneurs in the worst, cloying ways. Other taboo subjects included politics, religion, health and medicine. It is not only the cola-warriors who’ve assayed this life-style form of suggest, however, what with a large chain of coffee houses eager to have imagined loyal loiterers share their life experiences or a fast food franchise that floated the idea of accepting paying-it-forward in lieu of actual cash-money. It seems that most venues are like this. What do you think? Would you like to play in this sort of world?

lord of the flies or standing-water

With the emergence of the Zika virus (never mind humanity’s peerless co-existence with malaria that has been symbiotic forever and other dread maladies that joined the party as we grew more bold in bending Nature to our will), some pundits are calling for the eradication of all mosquitos.
Perhaps such a feat is possible, as man has proven his destructive capacity time and time again and perhaps here is the chance to use those vicious powers to a more virtuous end—but I am not buying that we are that good at targeted-killing. Mosquitos are not the low-hanging fruit that dodos and unicorns are, and surely there will be unforeseen consequences for the ecosystem that we could not appreciate until it’s too late and perhaps make matters far, far worse. I don’t want to see anyone else suffer and we should not shy away from the effort—but the whole interest, regardless of the feasibility, smacks of a campaign-promise or unthinking slogan, like the war on drugs. One should not toy with the health and safety of others—especially the most vulnerable among us and it should make one angry that the feigned concern is more for the sponsorship dollars tied to the two big sporting events that will happen in Brazil this summer, but perhaps, quixotically, like another presidential candidate’s confirmation that he would indeed travel back in time to kill Baby Hitler and advert the Holocaust and WWII, it won’t carry much credence and perhaps even backfire before we’re dumb enough to try. What do you think?

'merica and mobile vulgus

Given the over-abundance of shrillness and inanity that we’ve been subjected to already, one could be excused for forgetting that the US presidential campaigned season has not officially kicked off yet until today.
It is a little inexcusable that I didn’t read this excellent primer from VICE—dismissing it as more strident boilerplate rather than anything with civic-value—and am certainly glad that I did, in order to better appreciate the travesty and hopefully the opportunity. The antiquated ceremony and vetting process are really highlighted in the first state caucus’ rather monolithic demographics and relative isolation—which are arguably the biggest head-start any bloc of voters is afforded for dashing away from the “real America.” The baffling complexity and the buoying media sentiment are the sleight of hand and window-dressing of democracy—rather ochlocracy (the marching protesters in Athens with their OX! signs are not identifying themselves as members of an angry mob but rather saying no to further austerity measures), pandering to the majority and dispensing with minority protection.

sometimes you feel like a nut

6x6

radio goo-goo, radio ga ga: discover songs by country and decade, via the splendiferous Everlasting Blört

subtitle: Emojini analyses images and assigns the appropriate pictorial captions

fail: the internet responds in kind when a doctored photograph is lauded by a big camera company

take me to the renaissance festival anon: report of the world’s largest medievalist congress held in Kalamazoo, Michigan, via the always interesting The Browser

lossless: long departed computer scientist David Huffman not only gave the world data-compression techniques but also applied mathematical origami to all sorts of things, like automobile air-bags

prestidigitate: despite rumours to the contrary, cartoon characters exported to Japan are not given a little finger to show that they are not affiliated with the Yazuka mafia; on The Simpsons, only the hand of God has five digits, via Reddit