pavilion or point-of-sale

Though planners pared down the aspirations for Epcot from an actual, functioning city of the future (the utopian Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow) down to a theme park with futuristic attractions.
Before the Epcot was demoted to a sort of permanent World’s Fair with any kind of opening delayed until 1982, RCA pitched ideas to Disney on how it would support the city’s infrastructure to make what went on behind the scenes as authentic and state-of-the-art as what it seemed on the surface. Revolutionary for the late 1960s, proposals included the use of debit cards almost exclusively and eschewing cash. Even more interesting was how the notion of electronic money back then already connoted eroding privacy, since the money trail was anything but anonymous and carried a permanence. Around this time, at the height of the Cold War, a Georgetown think-tank, tasked to devise the most insidious yet invisible and voluntary state surveillance were they working for enemy, dreamed up a convenient system for the KGB that essentially mirrors our current network of automated teller machines and cashless registers.

vox humana

As Nag on the Lake informs, a team of researchers in Italy have reconstructed the voice-box, wind-pipe and vocal-cords of the frozen caveman Ötzi, discovered in the Italian-Austrian Alps a quarter of a century hence (this week in 1991 by a pair of German hikers) and subjected to a battery of probing and prodding over the years—and found that, unlike Neanderthals, who were determined by a similar imaging process to be possessed of rather silly falsetto voices, our Iceman had a gravelly, masculine way of speaking. The voce umana is a resonator on a pipe organ so called because of its resemblance to the human voice.

rosencrantz and guildenstern

As a means of avoiding some of the most odious security-theatre of airline passengers, a Danish company is field-testing a smart cart of sort, a baggage trolley that takes the screening process to the queue for much greater efficiency and far less waiting time. Too bad Hamlet’s ill-fated couriers did not heed the advice of airport-security and pack their own luggage—or at least not accept a sealed missive without knowing the incriminating contents. What do you think? Could this device alleviate some of the dread the flying public faces at the airport? Be sure to check out the link above for a video demonstration of this prototype. [Hides behind an arras]

jupiter ii

Considering the train of exciting news from space, from gravitational waves to tantalising close planetary systems and much in between, the announcement that potentially revolutionary findings about the Jovian, Galilean satellite Europa will be released after the weekend is certainly something to anticipate. Astronomers have long speculated that beneath the icy crust of the planet sloshes a salty, global sea that could harbour alien life.
Perhaps the press-release will confirm the watery substrate or confirm that the outer crust is thick enough to protect supposed oceans from the harshness of space and radiation from Jupiter and thus more conducive to the development of life. Perhaps space agencies could deliver a surprise that surpasses whatever has been previously vetted. Thoughtfully, ESA (the European Space Agency) has been considerate enough to build a containment facility in case we do come back with potential contaminates (EURO-CARES it’s called). Considering how delicate our ecology is—especially from the perspective of an outsider looking at our vulnerable planet protected by only a few diffuse kilometres of gas that living things generate—I hope that regardless of the discovery that we aren’t ham-fisted about our further exploration.

mediatrix

The ever alluring Messy Nessy Chic has an engrossing vignette of the 1937 World Expo, hosted in a Parisian venue, which is striking as a moderator between the inchoate belligerents of Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany. Aside from the antagonistic pavilions, there’s plenty of other showcases to see, plus considering the motives of the creators and apolitical drives of the respective architects behind these temporary installations that makes them take on a strange permanence.

autobots, roll!

An Ankara-based research and development firm has created a range of prototype and fully operational Transformer vehicles. These BMW cars can be driven just like any car but also can take a robotic form and is fully articulated. Maybe these warriors are not quite ready for a pitched-battle but the team behind these custom Decepticons are working fervently to add more features.