Tuesday 26 July 2016

cozy bear, fancy bear

US intelligence agencies are lending credence, BoingBoing informs, to the suggestion that the Russian government contracted hackers to leak Democratic National Committee internal emails that would besmirch Clinton’s candidacy and throw the presidential election in Trump’s favour.
Given the mogul’s disdain for institutions like NATO and attested admiration for the Russian leader (not to mention business connections), the conspiracy seems more and more plausible. Yet this development might be a double-bluff to bury an even more diabolical plot. Asked what the bureau’s next move might be in the investigation, experts owed that their scope could be quite restricted and outside of their jurisdiction, as while bypassing computer security is a crime (even white hat hacking) trying to influence the outcome of a vote is not, and, unlike the unabashed media, the government would not want to risk fowling the waters—poisoning their own wells. What do you think? Being frank and forthright is a rare commodity in politics.

montasir

Dangerous Minds has a nice appreciation and curation of the kinetic work of French-Hungarian design pioneer Victor Vasarely, acknowledged as the founder of the op art movement, whose formal apex came some three decades later on the cusps of the Midcentury Modern style—and revival. The panels and the henges of psychedelic monoliths are pretty amazing, and though artistry is maybe lost to the dazzling and dizzying the principles of teasing the perception lives on in optical illusions and Gestalt frameworks.

rikki-tikki-tavi

Primarily referring to weasel or stoat society (from the Greek word for ferrets and minks), galeanthropy can also be used to define the mental delusion that one is becoming a cat, replete with feline mannerisms. Well, what do you know about that? I wonder if there’s a special term specifically for the way cats and kittens are anthropomorphised on the internet.

bell, book and candle

Having just recently made the acquaintance of Marginal Revolution and reading the blog with some regularity, I was intrigued to learn of an upcoming book by its caretaker, Tyler Cowen.
Titled The Complacent Class, the work examines how relentlessness and insistent perseverance (first observed by Alexis de Tocqueville in his travelogue Democracy in America) that once characterised American gumption or at least framed the American Dream—with due caution for the dangers of exceptionalism and appreciating that such phenomena carry with them a Manifest Destiny that does not respect borders, is being eroded into a sort of smugness that’s cushioned by apathy and disengagement by what Tyler identifies as the “matching culture.” Just as there are fewer and fewer of Noah’s Arks of apartment buildings, no menageries from all walks of life housed together, and people self-segregate—much of our thinking, choices, loving is governed by algorithm that while delivering the kindred and the resonant also threatens to isolate and insulate. Of course demagogues, media and marketing have always been instruments of manipulation but we have not been able to so exclusively people our world’s—thus limiting our horizons—with like-minded and reaffirming furniture. I was excited to see the preview of this publication and think it will be a very worth-while read.

Monday 25 July 2016

ancinne rรฉgime

At first I thought that the high concentration of chรขteaux along the Loire, some three hundred and each more picturesque than the last, was at first something like a competition among the favoured and bourgeoisie, like the skyscrapers of San Gimignano that were built taller and taller to try to keep up with and out-do the Joneses, but I quickly realised that side-by-side comparisons of grand-opulence were not possible as the stately homes were located on vast, landscaped estates—well away from any prying neighbours. Once I thought there was another palace within view but found out that that was just the carriage house.
The monarch of France throughout the Middle Ages until the dawn of the Renaissance only ruled a very small kingdom—confined to the region around Paris, the รŽle de France, but consolidating power in the capital caused the landed-gentry to shift their power-base as well but rather than abandon their beloved countryside in Central France for the city, ancient fortifications were transformed into outstanding summer residences, maintained at great expense but keeping the fertile river valley (the Loire being the longest river in the country) in the hands of the aristocracy.
The walls, moats and high-ground locations betray their defensive roots but the structural elements of castle and keep were civilised after a fashion and converted into quite luxurious accommodations. Each rich with heritage and history, the three chรขteaux we visited were (from top to bottom) Azay-le-Rideau, Chambord and Chenonceau but we know we must return soon for more exploration.