hov lane

Via Design Boom, we learn about a simple but effective intervention that the city of Utrecht has instigated to create sanctuaries—bees stops (Bijstopt), for urban insects by planting grasses and wildflowers on top of bus shelters, some three hundred of them throughout the city. This is a step we could all encourage where we live. Much more to explore at the link above.

okjökull

Via My Modern Met, we learn that a group of scientists and activists from Rice University in the course of producing a documentary called “Not Ok” chronicling the loss of Iceland’s first glacier (Ok for short) in Borgarfjörður have created a memorial plaque and missive to the future, our judges whether we did what was needed to save the others.
Not only does it eulogise this tragic first slippage for the island that won’t be its last and the consequences of a catastrophic, runaway climate change. The plaque is to be installed 18 August and makes note of the atmospheric CO₂ count in parts per million, which might become a novel way to date events.

see you later alligator

From a round-up on Kaiju and Kaiju-adjacent packaging and logos curated by Super Punch, we stumble across perhaps the greatest, retired mascot (see also) ever—the able Alligator for Mitsui O.S.K. Lines (Osaka-Shōsen-Kobe, MOL), one of the largest shipping companies in the world. For all the container cargo we see passing through, I am really surprised we’ve never noticed or at least registered this one before. Do you have any other nominees aligned with this theme?

hairball

Delightfully, we learn that from a candid picture of their cat regaled with its shed fur as a jaunty head-dress—the subjects might be humiliated but not distressed by it since it’s their own fur—has developed into a minor movement and phenomenon known as Nukege (猫 抜け毛, shed or dander) Hats. I’m sure it takes some practise and patience to get good at it—and a cooperative model—but the medium seems to be pretty pliable. See a whole gallery and learn more about the originators at the link above.

closing the loop

Previously we’ve discussed how the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games are to make a statement on sustainability by salvaging precious metals for the placing athletes from electronic waste, and now courtesy of Dezeen, we see the committee has revealed their gold, silver and bronze medals.
Designed and conceived by Junichi Kawanishi, the medals and their cases are alloyed from substances recovered from old electronic devices donated by the public. All told, this netted—mostly from obsolete smart phones, some six million of them over the course of two years—thirty-two kilogrammes of gold, thirty-five hundred kilogrammes of silver and twenty-two hundred kilogrammes of bronze. Much more at the links above.

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.