evolving symmetries

The ever-intriguing Kottke features a mesmerising little tutorial on the several species of recursive, space-filling fractals (not pictured), a cultivar of which is known as Hilbert’s curves.  Developed by the same German mathematician who explored the paradoxical, counter-intuitive nature of infinity with his resort-hotels that always have a vacancy, these inward-folding routines come to occupy the bounded infinity of a finite space, much in the same way (only visualised differently, although I bet it would be a way for switchboard operators to map the shifting room assignments of n+1 guests) of the accommodating hoteliers above.

editrice

It is really a grave challenge to try to eulogise great authors and thinkers, more acute than other forms of celebrity or political gravitas, as it’s almost as if not enough could be said that's not their canon-entire and what went unsaid, we'll of course never have that privilege and no one's—even those closest to great minds, like Oliver Sacks that passed away not too long ago or Harper Lee whose death only happened on the cusp of the day prior—qualified to speak on their behalf, that is until there's a tacit but agreed-upon mourning-period that's almost akin to copyright expiry after which it’s again seemly to ply footnotes.
Maybe because there’s too much to say about cultural influences, that we shy away from saying anything altogether, and it’s no time to parade out some obscure facts because either one knew his or her work or did not. Among many other heartfelt retrospectives for one of my favourite philosophers was BLDGBlog’s (ever a go-to resource) encomium (not an obituary) of Professor Umberto Eco. I’ve read many of Eco’s fiction publications and especially what Mister Manaugh commented about the general disdainful reception of Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum about the need for deeper conspiracy that will revise, manifest and assert itself despite a notable connection to reality, really resonated with me (I was an angsty teenager when I read it and without the benefit of mass-media cabals and ought to revisit it). In academics, Eco taught semiotics—which is the study of imparting meaning to things, but which no one can really say what it is, especially after the professor quipped that every phenomenon ought to be dissected as form of communication. I guess if no one understands it (though I think we all intuit it) one is perfectly right and free to invent one’s calling and occupation independently.

white-collar or unfortunate incarceration

The duo of guerrilla artists and activities that previously erected a bust of the fugitive intelligence agency whistle-blower contracted a slew of talented prison inmates to create portraits of the biggest international corporate chief executive officers who are above the law—despite their crimes against humanity and the environment, and are more deserving to be behind bars. The pictures of these scoff-laws will be auctioned off with proceeds going to the reformist US presidential candidate, whose platform might erode some of their immunity to prosecution.

wireless or not to scale

From the prolific and always interesting antiquarian JF Ptak comes this interesting cartographical representation of the US that graced the cover of a door-to-door salesman's guide from 1937.
The states (and poor Canada up there like some lost vestige of a listening-audience) are depicted proportionately according to radio-ownership, so the sales force better understands their prospects and potential leads. While we like to fancy such remapping regions to different scales to be something very modern and original, here it is during the high of the Dust Bowl and waning years of the Great Depression (threatened to return by successive recessions and joblessness), with some places already awash in the electronic smog of the airwaves capturing one aspect of the times. Be sure to visit the website for more finds and ephemera that reveal the escaping past.

terza rima or remote-sensing

One of BLDGBlog’s latest brilliant postings celebrates the endless capacity for curiosity by way of the site’s trademark speculation and triangulation to arrive back at the momentous bleep and bloop that heralded our first encounter with gravitational waves and the new, unimagined frontiers that that discover opens up for astronomy.
Like radio telescopes limning a whole heretofore invisible spectrum of the heavens and pushing our sight further than the aided eye could do, gravitational astronomy might transform that relatively static backdrop of the stars into something dynamic and constantly churning. But I digress from the original digression which was the author’s own awe and wonder compared to the formative efforts of Galileo to understand the cosmology and meteorology of Dante’s vision of the Underworld. This serious and infernal undertaking supplied the applied-sciences quiver of ideas for the Renaissance Man more mundane inventory of innovations. As alchemy anticipated chemistry and the pharmaceutical disciplines, I wonder if this sort of devoted dissection on the part of one’s readership and fanbase is what's needed to help us find the edges, as it were, and forward the cause of progress.

boot-strap or res publica

Despite the highly contentious levy—often described as the death tax and going by several other dread monikers depending on the jurisdiction and particular gentry of the society in question—not generating much revenue for any particular host government, most seem to want to cleave to this particular regime, regardless of the benefits. Undoubtably the greatest inheritance that one can receive from his or her parents is in one’s genes and in not expected wind-fall, but complaints about the system seem to not go wholly unfounded when some launch arguments about expectations to pass along some of those earnings to successor generations without contest.
Perhaps—albeit inviting a logistical and actuarial nightmare—wealth bequeathed ought to be assized by age, progressively, and not by amount. The beneficiaries of the nouveau riche surely attain a different perspective than the impoverished aristocratic class, and this egalitarian-thinking does not always yield classlessness, nor perhaps should it. Despite the flaunting of the middle-class (and its academic nature) as something that ought to be upheld, American society remains averse to this sort of social structures and even the term class—though it's the most vocal and venomous and it's punishing effects. However inheritance tax might be assessed and collected, it seems that it provides little for government coffers in return for the debate and heartache that come with the discussion and at best ought to be used as a softer way to peddle equality. For good or for ill, no one ought to be held to account on the success or failure of the preceding generations but perhaps a little social-purchase could be engineered drawing off the capital of old-money and dynasty, if inheritance tax is something to be pursued at all. What do you think? Is it a lot of fuss and bombast about nothing or really a way of ensuring the established lines of aristocracy remain in power?