emperor’s new clothes

Trying to understand what was driving the seeming profusion of America’s Dumbest Criminals Cornell University psychology professor David Dunning and graduate student Justin Kruger formulated what they termed the “illusion of confidence” to limn a particularly incredulous case ripped from tabloid headlines.
In 1995, a bank-robber reasoned that a liberal splash of lemon juice would render his face invisible to security-cameras—and as dumb as this seems, a quick mental review can probably conjure up other funny and tragic examples of modern day charms and talisman. This leap of hubris came to be known as the Dunning-Kruger effect—describing one’s inability to recognise his or her shortcomings despite ongoing critique and feedback. While all of have veils that were not willing to pull back and would benefit from being disabused, incompetence forever shuts out the possibility for honest self-assessment and flexibility needed for basic performance.

intensifier

Coming across the notice that the Canadian broadcasting standards council has decided that a certain explicative is perfectly acceptable to use in French language programmes because it does not carry the same sense of violence and vulgarity as it does in English parlance and thus remains subject to censorship struck me as amusing and made us recall the unusual and charming curses of the Québécois. What do you think?  Does the lingua franca still have hegemon is a truly bilingual society?

6x6

c/2017 u1: passing interstellar object receives an official designation

cut and paste: a previously unknown Waldseemüller globe gore (a two-dimensional map whose segments are to be put onto a sphere) to be auctioned off, via Nag on the Lake

görliwood: historic German town of Görlitz near the Polish border named best filming location in Europe

a crack in the sky: a cache of recently declassified material on the last time the US conducted atmosphere nuclear tests, via Paleofuture

o brave new world: on the resonances of writing and what comes of surrendered that script—even temporarily

the giving tree: two landscape photographers travel the world to showcase some choice arboreal overachievers

man bites dog

Whilst the biggest social media news of the day is one platform’s decision to abandon a rule that ostensibly required users to put thought into their rants as they had to conform to character limitations—sort of like a telegram with a cost associated for a lack of brevity and conciseness (notwithstanding ways to circumvent this), another overlooked experiment was taking place. With the proliferation of fake news seemingly impervious to any countermeasures and talk of more regulation abuzz, the other social media titan (apt as they represent the second generation in this theogony) chose to combat spurious reporting by promoting commentary, no matter what the source, that characterized the cited article as phony. How do you feel about this? Do both deliberations fail to curb disinformation and rather accomplish the opposite? The trial-run did not discern between known yellow journalism and trusted news sources and effectively sowed distrust for legitimate media for many.

bierpinsel

Via Messy Nessy Chic, we learn that after proving itself to be unviable as a commercial venue, the forty-six metre “beer brush” tower in Berlin will be on the auction block as a residential property.
The Brutalist, protected monument was originally conceived as suggestive of a tree was opened as a nightclub and restaurant in 1976 and after a succession of owners shut down finally in 2006 and remained vacant, later becoming an officially sanctioned canvas for graffiti artists. For the lucky winner, they’ll be in possession (hopefully as an actual abode and not some vanity backdrop for tourists) of a twelve thousand square metre, four room, four bath home.

army surplus

Cause certainly for alarm but no cause for surprise and not the first time that geopolitics have been used to leverage flagging economies, but just in case you we were unaware carnival barker Trump is exploiting regional and global tensions in order to bully allies into buying expensive American weapons systems.
This pitch is unoriginal, naturally, with all modern wars have been about expanding markets and fighting saturation, also known as peak missile defence shield. This arms race, however, comes at a very different time from when we were convinced of the last existential threat with data having replaced spycraft and elbow-grease and alteration far from the hallmarks of ingenuity but rather something that will violate the terms and conditions of one’s warranty, and of course statecraft a casualty of nativism and naïvism. As a collective civilisation, I think that the world cannot be put back in the mould of a military-industrial model and trying to compel others to return to this mind set and take up arms is nearly as dangerous as the incendiary posturing and unacceptable.