astra firma

Earlier this month, Earth’s first space-faring micronation launched its first nano-satellite into orbit. The Kingdom of Asgardia—clearly a nod to the city in the sky of Norse cosmology, may have humble beginnings with a precarious satellite no bigger than a breadbox but it has ambition and organisation to match and hope to soon expand into manned space station and orbital dock for further exploration.
As with most micronations there’s a slightly off-putting air with the want to relieve oneself of burdensome regulations and taxes and secrecy surrounding the privy council (more mundane examples here, here, here, here, and here) but I think anything that smacks as problematic is neutralised by the fact that it’s passing overhead every hour and a half and its provisional charter: (1) to ensure the peaceful use of Space (2) to protect the planet from space-based threats (coronal mass ejections, space junk and asteroids) and (3) and to provide unfettered and direct scientific knowledge and access to space to all. Find out more about the project at the link above and at Asgardia’s home page.

shockeye of the quanwncing grig

Having recently learned that a shelved Whovian mini-series had been completed after decades of neglect, called Shada, focusing on the inmates of a maximum security prison planet, we were understandably excited that the first villain in this rogues’ gallery of poorly costumed bad guys was none other than the Cambridge bon-vivant Skagra whose campy uniform consisted of a floppy hat and silver cape with disco pants. From the Monarch to the Movellans (adversarial to the Darleks so I suppose an ally), there’s plenty of nemeses to call to mind as they try to thwart the Doctor and his companions and whose greater crimes may have been against fashion than the balance of power in the Cosmos. Who is your favourite?

roiling-stock

As if Christmas weren’t already coming early for many industry titans with the planned repeal of net neutrality consumer protections which is to include removing the burden of fair disclosure, it seems that the US kakistocracy has also expressed a willingness to ease the regulatory onus on the airlines by no longer requiring them to be upfront about fees for baggage and handling, seat-selection, boarding-priority and other services described as optional. These rollbacks would make it much harder for consumers to compare fares and would eliminate the reporting requirement that stipulates that the airlines publish what profit they make from these ancillary fees for things that used to be a courtesy. I wonder what affronts are to follow.

dig dug

Stock-market traders leveraged a design weakness in bitcoin and other virtual, sometimes-cryptocurrencies by treating what was meant to replace money as an investment vehicle and that greedy impulse has created potential obstacles in becoming the better stewards of the environment that we absolutely have to become, as Things Magazine explores from several angles.
As the speculative value of the electronic currency goes up, the computing power needed to maintain the protocols of the network increases exponentially and thus the power needed to run the platforms and despite vanishingly small returns, the computing power needed to “mine” for new coins. It’s hard to keep one’s sights on savings and efficiency and reducing one’s carbon footprint while carpet-baggers are willing to spend presently a day’s worth of the electricity needed to power nine Western households on virtual spelunking. There’s still a profit to be made and there have been examples of calculated efforts to use greener sources of energy—like geothermal sources in Iceland to power server farms but that’s after plane-loads of cargo were dispatched there. What do you think? It strikes me as demoralising and I don’t trust this scheme to drive us toward innovation. If we continue on the same trajectory mining for virtual currency will soon surpass the energy needs of the entire industrialised world and that could in no way be a sustainable situation.

spomenik

From the Serbo-Croatian word for monument, we discover via Calvert Journal, there’s a well-curated, well- researched catalogue of the thousands of memorials to World War II erected under the direction of Josip Broz Tito’s regime in Yugoslavia from the 1960s to 1990. We only encountered a few during our trip to Croatia but then again we were not equipped with a map to seek them out, nor did we appreciate their historical context and intent to unify an amalgam of people through large scale community art project. Uniquely, the abstract geometric objects (previously) were proposed as a means to decontextualize conflict and remembrance and a departure from the usual monuments of Soviet heroes—which more than a quarter of a century after the fall of the Iron Curtain, still elicit discussion and debate in all forms.

truth in advertising*

Any industry could be accused of extorting its customers with hidden fees and fine print and internet service providers are probably already among the worst culprits and if the Federal Communications Commission chooses to award the telecoms the gift of repealing the restrictions and consumer protections afforded under net neutrality, we learn via Slashdot, ISPs won’t be required to disclose what sort of extra costs individuals might incur should they exceed their data caps and terms of their monthly plans. Companies also won’t be required to be forthcoming about penalties for switching plans or providers nor about promotional and introductory rates and how quickly that trial period might lapse.