semaphore or wonka-vision

A few days ago, the Universal Aggregator Mashable (via the equally swank Neat-o-Rama) celebrated the anniversary of the Universal Product Code--UPC or barcode (Strichcode). In June of 1974, the first commercial product sold to bear the mark was a pack of chewing-gun. It was pretty keen to read the history and development from inventory management, proof-of-purchase, identity verification, to access- and movement-control of the first configuration, arrangement that was legible to machines, blurring for the first time the border between the electronic and physical worlds.
I thought about this milestone again when challenged with a new gadget from the bank: on-line banking is very prevalent in Germany as well but there is an extra level of security attached to every transaction. Customers were issued by post a TAN list (Transaktionsnummer) with a unique series of numbers to accompany a wire-transfer to be entered by the sender. I like this second-verification process though that meant banking was usually done from home where the TAN list was, and I thought there was nothing wrong with receiving a list by mail. The banks in Germany, however, have replaced the list with a new TAN generator, a little calculator that reads the chip on one's bank card. The bank's website directed me to use the machine last time I signed in order to disassociate my account with the paper list of numbers

I thought at first the pulsing bars on the screen were just decorative, but the little machine is also equipped to read this signal-- sort of bar-code like those two-dimensional fingerprints on tickets--and couples all the details of the transaction together. That was pretty keen but maybe a bit too much concentrated and acquainted, befriended information. Maybe there's an unseen element of theatre to it all and maybe we have become too reliant on and accepting of such a branding because nothing is really digitized or beamed away yet there is no arguing with coding.

good humor man or insular empire

The electronic edition of Der Spiegel (auf deutsch) picked up on a an overlooked interview on National Public Radio with a retired military commander about the grand reckoning of war costs. War is expensive all around and there are untold costs in human life and livelihood, but the economic price at least ought to be a knowable factor and bear semblance to reason and mission. It was established since years that the biggest single expense in waging wars in Iraq and Afghanistan was fuel, transportation of huge amounts of it even to oil-rich lands and keeping the mammoth fleet and patrols in operation, but the NPR interview expounded on the profane detail that maintaining air-conditioning in the desert heat across America's hundreds of camps costs forty billion dollars annually.

This sort of budgeting represents more than the annual allotment for NASA, and certainly more monetary support Public Radio has seen in its life time. It is astounding what other programmes for health and well-being are being defunded in the face of a budget crisis and diverted to dubious battles. I wonder what company is realizing profits with some sham comforts-of-home argument rather than working to bring soldiers actually back to their homes. Moreover, I am sure that all the logistics are contracted out to agents that wouldn't relinquish the job without a fight and let the military do its own terraforming--or choose to forego some measure of luxury. It makes me wonder what the value of forty-billion dollars is in the end, when the Greek Tragedy and the Tea Party Budget Impasse have erupted over less and that much can just be blown out as exhaust. Dollars, given freely and without stint, are not automatically something ennobled.

mneme

A lot of study and philosophical musing goes into the definition and broader significance of what is a parasitic and viral form of shorthand--the internet meme. Many examples are very humourous, and though maybe imitation sometimes lacks depth--it is that very ability to suggest or germinate a whole idea from just a particle thereof. The term transmits ideas in the same way as genes propagate life, ancestry and evolution and is the smallest, discrete unit of lingual intelligibility, outside of art. Here is a blank, pinwheel background as a template to make up your own. Furthermore, Grammar Angel (who could possibly help with my translations) admonishes that Spell-Check is not a substitute for functional literacy: "aloud" is not the same as "allowed," despite the number of times it appears in postings.  What would your meme say?

Akademiker und Wissenschaftler haben sich bei viral, stichwortartigen Internet Meme sehr viele Gedanken gemacht. Zahlreichen Beispielen sind humorvoll--zugänglich, obwohl offenbar oberflächliches. Diese Fähigkeit wird derjenige Kraft (parasitisch und viral) ermittelt, zu stellen eine vollständige Idee aus ein Pünktchen unter. Meme vermitteln die Ideen, und werden auf die gleiche Weise wie teilt die Gene (als kleinste übersetzbare Einheit erkennt) das Leben, die Herkunft und die Nachkommen mit. Nur bei Kunst ist ein kleinerer Teilchen möglich. Hier ist eine Vorlage, um deine eigenen Meme zu gestalten. Vielleicht kann mein Grammatik Engel auch helfen, meine Übersetzungen zu steigern.  Was hältst du davon?

artful dodger

There has been a rash of headlines from all over the United States, disturbing yet fascinating, about metal thieves poaching copper and other scrap from all sources, without discrimination or regard for safety or cost to the public. There have been multiple reports of gangs dismantling rail road tracks causing trains to derail, stripping utility poles, antique fittings and fixtures or unthreading the copper condensing tubing from air-conditioning units. To replace this old infrastructure will certainly be expensive, not even beginning to consider the hardships individuals and municipalities are facing to find support systems taken for granted have been pulled out from underneath them. These crimes are desperate, with gold and silver already priced out of the market for most--and melting pennies is not a productive activity since the copper content of cents has been replaced with zinc, and the US Secret Service, as part of its original task to prevent counterfeiting and protect the money supply's integrity, have made it illegal to deface bills and coins. I wonder what the composition of these gangs are: a pick-pocket band of Dickensian street urchins, a swarm of nano-sized robots picking things clean like termites or a plague of locusts, copper hungry Vogons, or a mad-scientist trying to build a Voltron. I wonder what this junkyard trend forebodes for the economy.

Amerikanischen Metalldiebe sind in jüngster Zeit in die Schlagzeilen geraten. Ohne Rücksicht auf die Gefahr oder öffentlichen Preis, abwerben die Bande aus allen Quellen: Bahngleise, Leitungsmasten, antik Einbau, oder Rohre vom Klimaanlagen. Das Ersetzen dieser Infrastruktur wird teuer sein, und Gemeinschaften leiden den Verlust des Unterstützungs-systemen. Diese Verbrechen sind verzweifelt versuchte. Gold und Silber halten für die meisten Leute zu kostspielig, und das Schmelzen von Pennies für Kupfer geht auch nicht--denn das Hauptmetall Zink ist. In der ursprünglichen Tagesordnung sollten die US Geheimdienst der Geldmenge wahrnehmen. Es ist strafbar, Geld zu ändern oder zerstören. Wer sind die Mitglieder dieser Rotten? Taschendiebe aus der Zeit von Charles Dickens, schwärmenden Nanotechnologie, Metall-hungrig außerirdischen Leben, oder ein verrückte Wissenschaftler mit einem grossen Projekt? Ich muss mich fragen, was genau diese Schrottplatz Entwicklung für die Wirtschaft bedeutet.

PET project or post-consumer comment

The big ideas blog, the Big Think, features an article about a new concept, inclusive grocery store scheduled to open soon in Austin, Texas that will be among the first of its kind—mainstream and not a farmers’ market or cooperative, to sell a range of products without packaging. Shoppers would be encouraged to bring in their own containers and top off however much of whatever product they need. Moreover, produce, in addition to loosing that wasteful veil of packaging, would only be offered in season and promote local sources. Even in places with fully-ingrained recycling programmes, it is shocking how much packaging goes immediately after purchase to separate bins and how quickly it accumulates. I think it lessens environmental impact and any and every effort is important, but there are more consequences, I think, to reduction on the outset. Recycling is noble but it’s prohibitively expensive to reincarnate a bit of plastic wrap back into a new bit of plastic wrap and instead there’s some devolution. Another really shocking thing, aside from all the decorations that go on to throw-away card-board boxes and drinks containers, is that statutory scheme of deposits on bottles (Pfand). The bottles are not cleaned, even the glass ones, and re-issued sparkly new but are shredded and shipped away for processing like everything else. Driving around ones trash to return it to the place of purchase probably negates any net gain. I hope this idea of a food-filling station, where one not only brings one’s own bag, takes off internationally.

In die große Ideen Blog, Big Think, findet sich ein Artikel über eine neue Lebensmittelgeschäft in Texas, verpackungsfrei Ware anbieten für Verbraucher. Einkäufer werden ermutigt, um ihre eigenen Behälter zu verwenden. Wie an einer Tankstelle, sie können sich damit füllen, was sie brauchen. Neben die Verringerung der Verpackungen, fördert das Lebensmittel den Gebrauch Produkten der Saison und lokal angebauten Nahrungsmitteln. Trotz fester Wiederverwertungsprogramme gibt es viel Verschwendung. Das Recycling ist wichtig, aber die Verminderung hat mehr Wirkung. Recyclingmaterialien sich einer Abbau unterzieht, und Kunststoff-Mehrwegflaschen (oder einer aus Glas) sind nicht wiedergeboren bei Rücklauf. Pfand macht Flasche brandneu nicht, und der Extratransport verneint wahrscheinlich jeden Streben. Ich hoffe, dass diese Vorstellung startet durch, und Einkäufer werden mehr wiederverwenden als nur ihre Tragtaschen.

galvanized

Score another point for Science. Researchers and smithies from the University of Minnesota, according to Popular Science, have developed an alloy (Ni45Co5Mn40Sn10, Nickel, Cobalt, Manganese and Tin) that has both magnetic and ferroelectric properties—maybe something like a piezoelectric element in a cigarette lighter but do see the excellent primer and video of the magnet in action in the magazine—which has the ability to convert heat directly into electricity. When warmed, the alloy oscillates between physical phases actually turning it from something nonconductive into something highly magnetized. Personally, I can recall being a bit disappointed to learn how nuclear reactors work—that they are glorious cathedrals of steam, that the nuclear energy source is just a means of heating up water to turn a turbine, the same for the massive solar collectors in the Spanish desert or solar panels that provide hot water. These things are certainly accomplishments but the bother does not result—at least to my mind, in something as keen and imaginative as producing electricity directly through what is generally a by-product. There are plenty of heat sources that could be contenders, from the recently reviled and outlawed incandescent light bulb, to the heat from automotive exhaust and combustion—hybrid cars could capture the heat generated when running off of gasoline to recharge an empty battery—smoke-stacks, factories and cooling towers could recycle the heat and put it in the supply as well

quadragesimal

Today is the feast of Corpus Christi, which is rather a unique holiday, as it does not mark a specific event but rather a thanksgiving for the sacrament of communion. In Germany, recognized as a national holiday, it is called Fronleichnam--which does not mean "happy corpse," like the German words sound but rather it comes from Middle German vrône lîcham--des Herren Leib (The Lord's body)--and that sounds to me reflective of the origins of the holiday with a nunnery in Belgium that rallied the Pope to add this singular feast to the liturgical calendar. Fronleichnam, with the village streets paved with petals and a last sunny day off after a long and quick succession of them, also makes me think of Robert Schumann's "Happy Farmer" (Der Fröhlicher Landmann) which is probably most recognizable as the leitmotif from the opening scenes of the Wizard of Oz on Aunt Em's farm--a little jaunty but relaxed and diligent, like the churches using their best monstrance (Monstranz) and silver on this day.

Also, not being a day meant to commemorate a specific event, the holiday does not roll with the cycle of forty (like the forty days of Noah's Flood, the forty days of Lent corresponding to Jesus' time in the wilderness, the Ascension forty days after Resurrection, forty days of mourning, etc). Corpus Christi is fifty days after Easter. No one is quite sure why the number forty is a recurring value or a seemingly significant digit--perhaps, some theorize, it represents a generation (in years), the term of human pregnancy (in weeks), or the apparent motion of Venus in the skies, transcribing a pentagram and returning to its original position after that same generation.