seal of approval or there—i fixed it for you

While describing the incident as an unfortunate A/V error reminds me of the furore over a Saudi Arabian textbook that showed Yoda with King Faisal, some one really upstaged Donald Trump whilst he held another one of his tedious Nürnberger Rallies with a doctored presidential seal as a backdrop. 
To the keen observer, one notices that instead of a bundle of arrows, the bald eagle is clutching golf clubs and is conspicuously double-headed, like the coat of arms of the Russian Federation.  It’s a popular misconception that unlike this circumspect symbol that looks to the past and future, the bald eagle does not turn its gaze from peacetimewhen on a war footing. The myth is rooted in an anecdote involving Harry Truman and Winston Churchill (often quoted for things he did not say), when the US president asked the UK prime minister what he thought of the new seal’s recent redesign and Churchill recommended that the head ought to be on a swivel, ready for anything as occasion might demand. The story was repeated and spread by film and television. 

tears in the rain

Veteran Dutch actor Rutger Hauer passed away at the age of seventy-five. Among numerous credits to his name over a career that spanned decades, his portrayal of rogue Replicant Roy Batty in 1982’s Blade Runner is probably his most iconic and memorable—especially so for the self-scripted soliloquy his character, cornered, delivered from a wet rooftop before powering down, the android (see also) aware of his imminent mortality built into his programming: “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I’ve watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time like tears in the rain. Time... to die.” Batty expires (the film itself set in the year 2019) having just rescued the Special Agent Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) from a fall, hunting Batty down so he can “retire” him.

ditto

Via Slashdot, we learn that the software engineer behind Twitter’s re-tweet button has a lot of remorse about his endowment to civilisation, comparing the feature that was originally installed to facilitate news in a natural disaster, which was indeed a force-multiplier in terms of virality, to having “headed a loaded weapon to a four-year-old.” Other social media sites developed their own form of push-button sharing soon afterwards. There are doubts whether the genie can be put back in the bottle.

418 u.s. 643 (1974)

It’s a quirk of history to be savoured that Special Council Robert Mueller’s testimony before the US Congress was delayed and coincides with the forty-fifth anniversary of the Supreme Court handing down its unanimous decision on The United States v. Nixon.
Even the president’s own attorney, requesting that the authorities drop their request to subpoena the incriminating tapes by dint of executive privilege, stated that, “The president wants me to argue that he is as powerful a monarch as Louis XIV, only four years at a time, and is not subject to the processes of any court in the land except the court of impeachment.” The Supreme Court held, however, that Nixon could be compelled to hand over evidence in a criminal trial that is demonstrably relevant and that no person is above the law. In lieu of impeachment, Nixon resigned two weeks later, ultimately pardoned for his wrongdoings by his vice-president and successor Gerald Ford in September of the same year.

tc-50

Previously we’ve looked at some of the artefacts that accompanied the astronauts on their mission to the Moon, and now on the anniversary of their splashdown and safe return, we’re reminded how the crew beta-tested new technologies—and not just the obvious ones or Tang—but also the prototype for Sony’s Walkman, the rather revolutionary cassette player becoming commercially available a decade later. Though not quite the soundtrack from Guardians of the Galaxy (I wonder if the plot device was an homage), the best part of learning about this is that the playlist is available and includes Spinning Wheel, Everyday People and Angel of the Morning by Merrilee Rush and the Turnabouts, charting in the previous year
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camera obscura

Via Boing Boing, we learn about the creative outreach effort on the part of Exeter educator and photographer Brendan Barry, who has transformed a cordite shipping container into a functioning, large format demonstration camera, gallery and dark room. A mobile operation, the touring learning laboratory invites the curious to make portraits of their community while discovering the elements of photography (using technology that is rooted in Antiquity, the title refers to the technique of a darkened chamber originally the focus of a projected image) in an engaging and hands-on way. Much more to explore at the links above.