vanity-plates

Ages ago, the private motor vehicles of Americas affiliated with the military stationed in Germany were plated with distinctive licenses, as if the major of American cars weren’t already conspicuous enough—with either the prefix HK for bumpers that took the short, standard US tags or AD for bumpers that could accommodate the longer, German style license plates.
These codes, which apparently did not stand for anything, were assigned since no county or city had claimed these particular combinations, e.g. KT for Landkriese Kitizen, M for Munich, S for Stuttgart, HD for Heidelberg, etc. Later, in the name of force-protection, vehicles followed the same naming-convention as their local hosts. With the devolution of the licensing and registration laws in Germany and districting reforms, a whole new slew of possibilities opened up, including the disused HK, that is now reserved for automobiles from County Heide (Landkriese Heidekrise) in Lower Saxony. We noticed this on our way back from Hamburg. The county seat of this area on the Lüneburg Heath is a town by the name of Bad Fallingbostel. The town is incidentally host to a garrison of the British Army—at least through this year, as the Ministry of Defense (MOD) plans to withdraw, as the Americans are drawing-down, all their soldiers from Germany by 2020.

oκλαχoμα, αρκανσας

Here is a pretty keen vintage map of the United States of America, printed circa 1927 from a Greek cartographer.

It is interesting to see how familiar names are transcribed into Greek script and how, for instance, Baja California is rendered Κατω (lower—reflecting the language before modern reforms that tried to reduce diglossia, the difference between between written and spoken speech—the later only imparted through academics). It is also an interesting bit of political commentary that Cuba is pigmented, perhaps, since even though the island was formally granted its independence from America back in 1902, the US retained control over most of the country’s domestic and foreign affairs until the early 1930s when the regime of Fulgencio Batista took control.

good housekeeping

Regular visitors may have noticed a few minor imrpovements and new features added to PfRC over the past few weeks. I hope that they’ve made this old blog a little better. I am happy to announce our fancy new, high-rent virtual address: one can now access this site via perfectforroquefortcheese.org (there goes the neighbourhood), but no fear, as all the old rants, postcards, post-scripts and randomness has transitioned over as well. I hope you enjoy. If you have any house-proud tips or advise, in lieu of house-warming gifts, please do not hesitate to share and thanks for stopping by.

among others

I don’t know why exactly I forsook reading science-fiction—although admittedly I did not have much of a literary foundation to spring from. I did read the Dune saga and A Canticle for Lebowitz and enjoyed them immensely—especially as the later was partially set in a post-apocalyptic Texarkana, where I was living at the time, per-apocalypse.

And although I did see the film adaptation of the former first, the story was so big and so well detailed, there was plenty of material left to explore in order to fully limn that universe. I suppose my mistake was in repairing to movies and franchise books that chronicled different aspects of a canon that was no so rich and immersive to begin with. Myth sometimes acquiesces to being frozen in carbonate—and I suppose it was a terribly snobbish attitude to take, not being willing to delve more into the genre, good or mediocre, but I harboured a dislike for the ilk I presumed to read science-fiction, and so probably condemned the whole parnassus, unfairly perceiving a tediousness like I felt for those who subscribed to the whole Che Guevara, peacenik or taoist iconography—movements that surely do not merit the disdain of a bumper-sticker. In fact, I felt a little embarassed to share some of my own proclivities as a loyal watcher of Star Trek, in all its incarnations, or the X-Files. I had, not long ago, a sort of belated wakening, however, when I was introduced to the author Jo Walton, who took my hand with allegory and direct-references through a grand gallery of sympathetic and imaginative writers. I realise that I have a lot of catching up to down, like staring down the exciting abyss of what’s undone and what’s giddily awaiting to be discovered, and began with Ursula K. Le Guin, a godmother of the genre who’s unfailing with her keen philosophic ideas and guarded allegory that’s us—but also something quite elevating.

mead hall or on tap

Via Colossal, comes a really brilliant bee-keeping set up, perfect for urban environments and for those maybe too skittish to be bee-wranglers, that harvests the honey by means of specially designed plumbing that allows it to flow, overcoming its great viscosity, from the comb under the force of gravity, like tapping maple sap for syrup production, and with minimal intrusion to the hive. I wonder if this trend of in situ condiments might spread, to something surpassingly fresh—or branch out in other directions, perhaps harnessing the natural preservative properties of nectar as a staple ingredient in for short-order items or make fresh mead (honey-wine) bars as popular as juice bars. Be sure to check out the link for more details and a demonstration of the system.

five-by-five

grand hotel paradox: a TED talk thought-puzzle on the nature of infinity

symmetry group: stunningly uniform modern architectural façades in a Turkish neighbourhood

echo parque: there is a popular attraction in Mexico that simulates the dangers of illegal border crossing

reinventing the wheel: a small collection of ingeniously useful and essential medieval apps

ramifications: happy lunar new year

barbary states

I think I must just be a little naïve, because although I never felt that the threat that the Caliphate poses was not a very real one, proved wrenchingly cruel and callous but not potent many times over, though shock and determination which can sometimes make up for other shortcomings for a little while—and when it seemed their violence had reached a sort of plateau, unspeakably gruesome reports come that ISIL may be harvesting the bodily organs of its victims to sell on the black-market—I never saw the potential for Rome and the Vatican to become prime targets, but I suppose they always were. ISIL is gaining territory in Libya—the former Italian colony on just the other side of the Mediterranean. Taking advantage of the power-vacuum created with the overthrow of strongman Qaddafi, whom had ambitions for creating a superstate across the Maghreb as well, the group is finding another staging ground in a leaderless land, like that American mandate, Iraq, that’s also proved to be vulnerable over its vacuity in leadership. They’ll be no defenders forthcoming for that past peerage of dictators, but destabilising order, especially a tyrannical one, has consequences.

five-by-five

gotham drowing: a projection of New York City under a hundred feet of water

alternate history: new serial adaptation of the Philip K. Dick classic, The Man in the High Castle, is in the making

lady liberty: Bartholdi’s iconic statue was originally intended to commemorate the opening of the Suez Canal on the Red Sea

through the looking glass: Physics Girl illustrates how mirrors work

sea monkey kingdom: the diminutive horseshoe shrimp is one of the oldest species on earth