green grow the rushes ho, tell us of your GOOG-O

It is already been noted how the mass surveillance and spreading confessionals of intelligence agencies could well have a disastrous chilling effect when it comes to the early adoption of the latest gadgets and our understanding, relationship with mobility and convenience. Though by nature, equally as gimmicky and peripheral to the architecture of the internet, which ought not be co-opted and re-worked as a for-profit enterprise exclusively, I wonder what opportunities and threats will come if the mood of the surveyed is extended further, making seeking out advertising-space and market-intelligence more difficult, if not an anathema, with the public retreating into closed systems, forgoing the ability to triangulate.
If one does not look at them, do they go away?  Certainly the profit-motive and the creation of niche-markets has done much in the name of progress and ease of propagating ideas, even for those panhandlers that collect the crumbs of the advertising industry and including those Great-Souled individuals who expect nothing. What do you think? Targeted ads, when they hit the mark, can be disturbing in their own right, without considering the full dossier that others may have—and considering those tangential commercials that are laughably off-target, one has to wonder what computer-driven assumptions might be conspiring to form one's persona of record.

adult literacy

A happy mutant reader of Boing Boing shares the artwork from an Russian illustrator (a bit risque for workplace viewing, take caution since what is seen cannot be unseen and the art is sort of reminiscent of Aubrey Beardsley) active during the 1920s and 1930s which is basically a primer, an alphabet book, to encourage literacy in adults through erotic images by making Cyrillic letters memorable. It reminds me of the exploration of cognition and mind-hacks presented in Moonwalking with Einstein, advising that one of the chief rules of curating one's galleries of memory is with exhibitions too violent and obscene to share with polite company and always illicit at least a blush. Though it is not a hard and fast rule for every constitution, one probably cannot argue with the efficacy of such an approach, however.

sunday drive: bad homburg von der höhe

Not discouraged by a sprawling but terrible flea-market (I did however resolve to note these particular organisers that have disappointed before and avoid them in the future) I drove a few kilometers further on the path to explore the town of Bad Homburg, a bedroom community and the wealthiest in Germany due to its proximity to the financial centre but away from the hectic pace, just beyond the city limits of Frankfurt am Main.
 There was a lot of things to see besides, but I focused my windshield tour first at the Schloss and surrounding park that was chosen late in its long and storied career as a summer residence for Emperor Wilhelm II. This designation at the beginning of the twentieth century afforded the town a lot of acclaim, which grew its spa (Kur) and casino—whose directors went on to manage the casino of Monte Carlo in Monaco.
I enjoyed walking through the park, peopled with classic and modern art sculptures. I especially like the stretched motor-scooter, an East Germany NSU model, that looked like it got too close to a blackhole or neutron star, and the Red Boy by comtemporary artist Kenny Hunter.
Among the imperial influences, the Protestant Church of Christ the Redeemer (Erlöserkirche, the problem-solver) was built in 1901, that is resoundingly Art Nouveau in style and a very distinctive fusion of Celtic symbols and mosaics that are reminiscent of the Near East. I enjoyed exploring this building as well, which reminded me of the lobby of the Empire State Building too—finished in 1908, the positive public reception initiated the Wiesbadner Programme, which saw other churches build in this style.
The Altstadt was comprised of grand avenues and narrow alleyways of half-timbered homes.
 A little lost, I regret not having ventured into the spa part of the town, with an equally large public park in the style of English Garden and its own ensemble of stories and historic buildings. 
I admit, I was a little turned- off to exploring further by the Kurhaus and Rathaus that resembled shopping centres more than civic institutions, but what lays beyond that one street ist something for H and I to see together for ourselves, next time.

jam yesterday, jam tomorrow

Bloomberg has thoughtful editorial critiquing the calls of one US senator, who urges de-vamping the financial sector by portraying it as the utility company it ought to be, as something dull and dutiful to discourage risky behaviour and swash-buckling.
While certainly individuals should not be lured into the industry over false-idols and misguided perceptions—rather than providers of a basic service, but the business of banking is inherently a gamble, and always has been, and corporate captains were able to transform something mundane and reliable, like the Electric Company, into the aphrodisiac called Enron, and it is an easy matter to portray banking, to fellow loan-officers and the public alike, as something sexy and promising. It would be an improvement, definitely, if there was just the aversion of boredom and not much chance to reap profits to be realised here, causing people to move along, but being boring may just be another institutional veil and a reform in image that does not go far enough. Using concrete examples, the Bloomberg piece suggests that people should not be shielded from the native terrors and hazards on trying to skim an honest transaction fee off the differentials between savings and loans. Industry collusion for cheap and easy credit and governmental assurances, depositor-insurance, the American-Dream, bail-outs and monetary policy have not mitigated the peril of tight margins but rather made people forget about how really frightening the consequences of this pyramid-scheme can be when it does not work out.

zing, zing, zing went my heart-strings or grey hat

Although the technical capability to unduly deputize one's electronic cachet into accessories of snitching and surveillance has probably been with consumers since the beginning, in one form or another. Now, however, it does not sound so hare-brained or paranoid to think that one's mobile device, which makes one constantly reachable is forever reached and pinged—by professionals and not stalkers or opportunists to listen to whatever ambient conversion is within earshot, or that the cameras embedded in everything else are not surreptitiously switched-on, to record from the other side of the looking-glass. Unresolved and disputed as it is, the fact that technology manufacturers have been complicit in making their networks and devices privy to prying eyes and ears can be roundly accepted.
It's amazing how the pitch of marketing to embrace the latest versions, like there's no looking back, has this extravagant fervor, choreographed like a Busby Berkeley musical number, something unbridled and detestable as a tactic in the advertising world, in which a single product—much less an awkward operating system, can make someone alive with pleasure and depict someone having more fun and more at ease than is possible. Maybe such a ploy, besides encouraging people to flock to the latest de-bugged edition and not have to operate in troublesome compatibility- or legacy-mode, is enough to dissuade end-users from putting a band-aid, fig-leaf over the cameras on their computers and phones or keeping said phones in the refrigerator or tin-foil wrappers when not being actively used. What do you think? Is that court-stenography in your pocket a little bit disconcerting? Or are such worries still the egotism of conspiracy theorists?

imago dei

The superb and thought-provoking blog about neuroscience and psychiatry, Mind Hacks, makes an interesting observation on the process to sainthood that John-Paul the Great is currently undergoing:
the requisite pair of miracles investigated and countered by the Devil's Advocate attributed to the pope both had to do with neurological conditions—healed without explanation, other than prayers of intercession to the recently departed pope. Considering that in times past, such ailments would have been treated as the handiwork of demons, and not diagnosable diseases, the pope was interested in neuroscience himself, the heuristics of the brain and metaphysics of the mind, and reversed the advance of Parkinson’s Disease for one nun—a condition the pope himself suffered from, shows, I think, not just John-Paul's qualifications for sainthood, giving hope to other sufferers, but also signals the maturity of the Church to work within a scientific and clinical framework.

fe-fi-furlough or a series of tubes

The last time the majority of federal workers in the US were made to take unpaid leave was back in late 1995 when a divided congress withheld funding for environmental, healthcare and social support programs and refused to raise the US government's statutory debt-ceiling, prompting a shutdown of non-essential services. Though the United States has come close to the same situation several times in between and there was never any true deal reached or pledge that rescued or at least deferred budget crises in between, there is certainly an inharmonious legacy to that and future jousting matches.
One tragic charter, article of association that while not enduring in itself, the Contract with America, did set a certain tone of uncompromising loyalty and culling, hollowing out independent institutions. One such bureau that was a casualty of the prevailing attitudes biases of the time was the congressional Office of Technology Assessment, created in 1976 as a non-partisan body to advise the legislature and the public on emergent issues and help politicians build adequate frameworks of regulation to keep apace with innovation and change, free from business lobbies and the jargon of rocket-surgeons.
It was a repository, much like the Library of Congress, to keep knowledge accessible and transparent, and read and research bills before passage—bridging technocracy and democracy. Such institutions and consumer advocacy, inspired by this office, still exist for the parliaments of Europe and other countries to try to gives politics the means to make informed decisions and there is growing reason, evidenced by some willful ignorance, omissions and support for bad science in specious programmes, with assurances from the sectors vying to secure government contracts, like fracking, infatuations with drones and broad surveillance, scuttling the space shuttle, ineffective porno-scanners, the digital rights management cabal, genetic manipulation, and the like, to reinstate an organisation that worked to make science accessible to the public, championed by private experts and some US politicians.