pomade ou les moustaches de l’oiseau

First spotted by erstwhile bird-watcher Mademoiselle Titam (l’article est disponible uniquement en français), I was delighted to discover these dapper little moustachioed seabirds called Inca terns (Larosterna inca), native to Chile and Peru, cleaving to the Humboldt current that drives the South Pacific like the dynamo Gulf Stream that warms Europe. What I found really striking—given our human biases, was that for what we’d consider a very masculine trait, there’s very little dimorphism between the males and the females in terms of plumage, and all the terns sport the same look, unlike for those with antlers, manes or the birds-of-paradise. I suppose other sea-going fowl, gulls and penguins, do look quite uniform across the genders.

мобильность

In order to confront and discourage able-bodied drivers who may not think twice about taking a handicapped parking space, one organisation in Russia (where figures run as high as thirty percent) that advocates for the rights of the disabled (эта функция доступна только на русском языке) has launched an awareness campaign in a busy parking garage. If no special permit is detected, the installation will present the would-be claim-jumping driver with the spectre of a wheel-chair bound individual who shares their personal stories of hardship. Acclaim to Davelog 3.0 for sharing this, and I normally don’t like posting videos as they’re quick to disappear, I’ll make an exception for this powerful demonstration that I think could have further applications in making people think twice.

mason-dixon or white-sale

I always considered the US federal holiday, known as Presidents’ Day, to be a pretty anodyne concession to something akin to the monarch’s birthday (usually shifted to the summer months, irrespective of the actual date of birth of the reigning royal to increase the chances of nicer weather) but it’s actually quite politically and grammatically contentious, rather than the monolithic excuse for discounts for towels and bedding that bespeak patriotism.
Originally celebrated as George Washington’s birthday only, Abraham Lincoln—also born in February—was added later, though many jurisdictions did not get as far as adopting the correct orthography in moving from president’s to presidents’ and many States, especially those that suffered under the War of Northern Aggression still honour Thomas Jefferson (born in April) instead of Lincoln or choose it as a day to honour the office and no specific office-holder. Uniquely, Arkansas chooses to toast Washington and a civil rights activist, Daisy Lee Gatson Bates (born and passed away in the month of November) on this day for her pivotal actions during the Little Rock schools integration crisis on the late 1950s. Yet other states do their own thing entirely to supplement that national mandate. Ironically, with the passage of the act that moved all federal holidays to Mondays in the early 1970s, proclamation Presidents’ Day to be held on the third Monday of February, the observance can never fall on Washington’s actually birth date of 22 February.

sweded or my angel is a centerfold

Reminding me of the story about how Tom’s Diner by Susanne Vega became the first .mp3, I enjoyed reading this essay in The Atlantic about the unwitting and for quite a long time unknown contribution and legacy of a Miss Lena Sjööblom (all very safe-for-work) of Sweden, the Playmate of the Month for November 1972 toward the .jpeg digital photographic processing and compression format.
Researchers working on the project to create portable images of manageable sizes yet without perceptible loss in visual quality for the agency that would become DARPA, the team grabbed the first clipping handy that might fit on the small surface of their drum-scanner and began trying different techniques on the cropped centerfold. Not to dismiss the objectifying nature of the team’s subject which speaks of the barriers to entry for women in computer-sciences, I suppose having a test-pattern such as this helped them monitor when different mathematical models degraded the image’s quality beyond an acceptable threshold, not wanting it to get too pixilated. Although the standard is usually something taken for granted now, it allows for quick transfer through the æther (even telemetry from space) and across devices and the ability to store massive amounts of images—and not only the kind these researchers might have kept under their mattresses.

infructescense

Thanks to Swiss Miss’ Friday link rodeo, we learn that pineapples and mulberries—among others—are not single fruits but rather an aggregate or collective fruit—a cluster of individual berries fused together. I suppose, however, when one considers the whole spectrum of the cornucopia from a shaft of wheat, an ear of maize, a bunch of grapes to a lone budding apple or cherry—and is around to watch one’s orchard grow—it ought not be all that strange to think about, but still I was a little overwhelmed to find out about the assorted strategies of produce.

topiary

I first encountered those beautiful wool rugs whose landscaped pile evokes pastures and soft clumps of hearty grass on the fabulous Everlasting Blört, but then I began noticing the same sort of floor-covering by artist Alexandra Keyayoglou all over the place, and not just on-line. I am not sure if it’s incident to the very mild Winter and tepid thaw that’s been quite confusing for Nature, but there’s a lot of mossy patches on cobble-stones and roof tiles—more than usually, I think—that form the same contrasted and topographic. I know it’s the exact opposite phenomena, carpeting imitating Nature, but it makes me think of those coordinated yarn-bombing events when a brigade of knitters decide to decorate urban trees. I bet Keyayoglou’s rugs feel better between the toes, for the moment.