taurus-littrow

Just ahead of the fortieth anniversary of mankind’s absence from the Moon, Boing Boing shared a poignant little website that exists for the sole purpose of answering the question how many people are there in space right now.

Kurz vor dem vierzigsten Jahrestag der letze Mondlandung, dargestellt einer schmerzlich Web-Seite, dass nur insoweit besteht als Anwort zu den Frage wie viel Leute sind jetzt im All.

thaw or back forty

The frigid weather and the cavalcade of snow made me wonder about the point of correspondence between the Celsius and Fahrenheit scales, having always thought that that unnaturally low but not unattainable temperature marked the threshold of one or the other measurements—that the system broke down after this point and relied on the other to carry it.

This thinking is sort of like the logic of citrus growers who douse their orchards with water before a hard frost, figuring the frozen water will shield the fruit and that cold attacks the more vulnerable first. Negative forty degrees Fahrenheit and Centigrade (Latin for hundred steps) is, however, only a spot where the two scales cross and immediately depart again, -50 °F and -50 °C being as different as 10° F and 10° C.
Mathematically, I suppose that it is not unusual that the two systems ought to match up at some point, as opposed to any other point, such as one that’s closer to everyday weather. The two scales are based on like fractions and intervals but have slightly different rationales: both are measured in degrees but the earlier Fahrenheit system takes the measurements of an angle more literally.
Knowing that there was distinct possibilities for something much colder than wintry ice, set its null point to the freezing point of salt water, and the 32° F of melting ice is separated from the boiling point of water (212° F) by 180 degrees with hopes of placing other natural phenomena at other perfect, round angles, like human body temperature at 60° from freezing, etc. but these hoped-for correspondences did not quite pan out. The more straightforward degrees, gradients of Celsius are one-one-hundredths of the way from freezing to boiling of water under standard conditions, by definition—it being worthy of noting that pressure, altitude differences have negligible effects on how water freezes (except in extreme cases like at the bottom of the ocean) but has quite a large impact in terms of boiling. Originally, the Celsius scale was inverted, based on this dismaying observation, with 100 set at the freezing point and counting down to zero where water started to boil. I image had it remained so, as the Swedish astronomer had proposed, there might be some very different match ups in the weather, but of course, cold to one person is absolutely balmy in other climes.

as plain as or party on the patio

A colleague from work and I were discussing the curious case of the Jarhesendflügelfigur (the end of the year figure with wings) which was the official term for a Christmas angel during East German times, which tolerated decorations but tried to remove the religious connotations from the holidays. My colleague shared another term that vied for acceptance first among German linguistic purists in the 1800s (and saw a bit of a revival among other purists to come later) called Gesichtserker, a face-porch, meant to replace the German word Nase for nose—though the notion that Nase was a “foreign” word was a misconception and Erker, an oriel window, was in fact a loan word from the French arquière and this group of linguists wanted to eliminate such outside influences, like popularizing other awkward words like Stelldichein over rendezvous. Such a lexical shift never took hold. I found it really unbelievable and a bit apocryphal, like I am sure future generations will view episodes of the recent past of using words as ammunition, like freedom fries for French fries, over France’s (pommes frites are a Belgian invention) refusal to join in the Iraqi invasion.

evergreen

We managed to free the old hand-me-down artificial, office Christmas tree from that storage closet that we lost the keys to just in time for the party. It did make the gathering a bit more festive and bright, but it looks positively bleak and overly contemplative there alone in the stairwell. We moved it out there from the conference room so others might enjoy it.

I felt a little sad for it, afraid it might throw itself down those four storeys. I suspect it knows it is an office tree by now, called a seasonal tree depending on the fashion and maybe during some years, not displayed at all, to be jammed unceremoniously back in the cabinet, tangled and with other junk stacked on top of it, not having been the centerpiece of any hearth or home nor focus of families, not needing to be trimmed with ornaments nor host to a gift exchange--our traditional White Elephant game has been a catered affair out of the office--just needing to be dusted off and plugged in. I will be able to enjoy it and look at it, though, when I look up from my desk into that weird and spacious breezeway over the landing on our floor, at least, and maybe the odd visitor will too. It nice how such old artefacts that need no upgrading but are rediscovered and reintroduced to their places are fast and old friends.

and/not/or/xor

There has been a strange clang of dissonance in terms of secession and admission criteria with the Catalonian versus the Scots’ independence movement. While addressing the autonomous region of Spain, political strategists seemed to want to throw cold water on the whole idea with the suggestion that Spain, as a member of the European Union with veto rights against the ascension of another member could choose to exercise that right in retaliation against the break-away region.

Among the interviewed, at least, the threat of being kept out of the EU made some people rethink the proposition of separating from Spain. In the case of devolved Scotland’s bid for nationhood, however, there is a bit of a double-standard. The suggestion that a top-level Scotland might have to reapply for membership in the EU is summarily dismissed as an exercise in bureaucracy and form, though the United Kingdom as a whole is by turns only a member on the periphery and is deeply entrenched against a lot of Euro-policy and many are calling to leave that association. It was admitted as a united kingdom and with one duchy less, I am not sure if the same conditions apply. Belabouring particulars makes the argument sound a bit like the hold-outs against common consensus at the United Nations, though reprisals are sometimes imposed outside of any prescribed lines of ill-will. While I doubt that England and the remaining Home Counties would begrudge Scotland her republican aspirations, be it would seem that the same options would be in play. I have to wonder if the EU courtship of the British Isles is not more highly valued than a visibly struggling and divided Spain or keeping members making only marginal contributions, but selectivity and this breed of nepotism ought not interfere with the attachments of membership, lest one gets dazzled by pretense and aloofness.

gaslight or don't step on the mollraths

Quite by accident, I stumbled across an affair that seems fit for treatment as a thriller by Alfred Hitchcock: some seven years ago, an employee of one of Germany’s beleaguered big bad banks was remanded to the custody of a high-security psychiatric hospital after being diagnosed as having chronic paranoid personality disorder. I missed any coverage of this story in the local media but the UK Guardian featured a pretty frightening and unflattering article.

Herr Gustl Mollrath was consigned to incarceration because he insisted that his former employers and co-workers (including his then-wife) were involved in money laundering operations, including smuggling of enormous amounts of euro to Switzerland. Mollrath’s case was cinched once his spouse alleged he was becoming violent towards her, gaslighted, as he grew more and more obsessed with his “conspiracy theories.” Maybe Mollrath’s only crime was being too visionary, realizing not all was above board in the financial sector some three years before everything started imploding and before one had reason to question the integrity of these institutions. While there seems to be holes in the story on both sides, I think it is amazingly chilling that a bank could disappear an inconvenient person or whistle-blower in a dungeon and hold him there for years. Mollrath has been released but probably won’t be vindicated, because the institution is likely to dig in against any admission of wrong-doing, despite mounting evidence to the contrary, and the implication of governors who have since taken up some high position in the German government. What a nightmare to be discredited and have one’s sanity question for daring to question the conduct of banksters. I am sure that this gentleman is not searching for continuing intrigues and further adventures, but I would like to see how this plays out and who else might be tossed in an oubliette.

tl;dr or loving spoonful

I have seen quite a lot of weird and wonderful through-the-looking-glass homages of art imitating digital life, but something about the tribal makeup of this woman, inspired to pose as Grumpy Internet Meme Cat really just struck me as the be-all, end-all, sort of like a Faberge Egg, Busby Berkley choreography, or some amazingly executed Rube Goldberg bucket-brigade of customer service teamwork to make a wish come true. Now with that spoonful of sugar, there is, however, much too much cowardly incivility and trolling, bullying on the internet.

There have been far worse tragedies that ended with consequences more dire and as undoable as the meanness and careless comments and mobbing that have been indelibly commented to the narrative, but one recent and unrelenting attack on a German politician who entered regional service with a seat on the Pirate Party for merely speaking really is a disheartening reminder of how cruel and childish and uncensored people can be. It was not the content of her words but tenor of her speech, as someone who is hearing-impaired, that brought on a barrage of cold and ugly commentary, channeled through one social networking forum, that stirred feelings of self-consciousness and insecurity about how she talked that maybe she had long ago over come or did not know to be anything other than confident about before. This woman was propelled to celebrity and politics for her ability to read lips and shared the unheard conversations between coaches and players and provided some interesting insights during the soccer championships with her play-by-play feed, but she is now thinking of resigning over this harsh and unreasonable treatment. Celebrity and public-service invites criticism, of course, and an audience of any size draws spite and nastiness—if for nothing else, out of the mirage of anonymity and distance. I hope @pontifex will not have to deal with this kind of abuse or disrespect, but such forums deflate inhibitions and encourage something other than courage, making it sometimes hard to forgive what is never truly forgot. Words are as shattering as sticks and stones, and I hope that people could move forward with a little compassion and empathy so the really terrible and permanent things don’t happen again. There ought to be a penance for those who don’t have the restraint to resist nasty, unhelpful comments, like posting enough funny cat memes or inspirational quotes (and say it like they mean it, though no amount really equals sorry) to smooth the situation over.

picture-picture or ei-dee-o-lo, o-lo, o-lo

A few observant photographers captured some good chance occurrences of pareidolia and it made me wonder whether computer could see such thing, even were something designed for those ends, like a facial-recognition programme. Would Curiosity have picked out the Face on Mars—and either way, what does that say about us? The more I thought about the mind’s ability and need to bridge the gaps and summon up patterns or semblance, unmotivated, bidden or otherwise, I realize that there is a lot more than cuteness happening here when this and similar but unexpected configurations would impart the same exact thing to everybody.
The more I thought about it, I also realized that my digital camera does in fact sometimes alert me as having detected closed eyes when taking a picture of a statue or of a painting or the robot Johnny 5 from Short Circuit who saw a butterfly in a coffee spill, however, those are not examples of the mind’s eye, apophenia, I think. It is very remarkable for something to have a subjective meaningfulness, and not just seeing a shape in the clouds but also in coincidence, clustering, shadows, synchronicity, a lucky-streak, that is still something that can be communicated and perpetuated, no matter how delicate or specious the connections.