adobe flash

Via Dangerous Minds’ Dangerous Finds comes a fantastic demonstration of a giant three-dimensional printer, inspired by the hives of wasps and hornets and architectural techniques from time immemorial, that can cheaply construct shelters out of clay or any other in situ building material, on Earth and for the off-world colonies as well. This fusion of ancient and cutting-edge still requires logistics and capital to bring it to the construction site, but 3-D printing is really starting to shine and come into its own as a cottage-industry in creative ways.

kalends oder guthaben

Finally having a telephone contract with all calls being free, I’ve graduated somewhat from being miserly about returning calls and reached a new plateau of parsimony, I’m afraid, with one’s monthly data allotment. I’ve adjusted to rationing my browsing and usually don’t deplete it until the end of the month (Kalends, as it was known to the Romans, and hence the calendar that counted backwards from the end, the Ides and the Nones from the month prior), but also lacking a land-line, wary to enter into a commitment for what’s a temporary housing situation—during the work-week, it can get a bit frustrating when there’s something interesting to research and investigate and particularly when it comes to posting something fun. There’s no real opportunities to poach a Wi-Fi connection—unless one is willing to loiter at a pay-phone converted into a hot-spot. It’s a strange, trifling dilemma to traffic in such abstract limitations. Slow I don’t mind but sometimes things just time-out and I think there’s plenty of incentives for decelerators, and I suppose I could always top-up but with just a few days remaining in the cycle, I try to avoid this little luxury.

noxious

On first hearing of the scandal over a major German automotive manufacturer falsifying emissions trials to make their fleet of diesel vehicles appear cleaner than they were, I was naturally disappointed but I thought it was little more than the third installment of a series of bidden character-assassinations of German institutions of late.

Drawing sparse attention off the Autobahn, first a German driving club, which provides roadside assistance, was discovered to have auctioned off its accolades and awards for the most roadworthy cars to the highest bidder. Next, there was the FIFA football corruption case—which struck me as another rather open-secret that although it had certainly outlived it’s tolerability probably came to light through zealotry rather than necessity—the collapse of something corrupt and rotten and distractions from more serious affairs. Some people fall on their swords with a flair for the dramatic and others simply trip. I felt the same way about this latest sensation until, courtesy of Super Punch, I learnt that the amount of greenwashing, the phantom sustainability and good-stewardship could be measured in enormous terms, equated with the gross annual contribution of whole countries to air pollution and greenhouse gases.

5x5

sword and sandal: jazzy Italian cinematic score to enjoy

cogwheel: insects had evolved gears long before humans discovered mechanical advantage

rubbing elbows: any and every New Yorker cartoon wants you to join them on LinkedIn

potus: obscure, offensive 1967 “Super President” cartoon pilot

pig-pen: each human has a distinctive cloud of germs that shadows us

primary packaging

Via the ineffably fascinating Mental Floss comes the innovative news that a design company in the UK is poised to revolutionise the way people transport, store and imbibe their beverages.
Called the Ooho, liquid is stored in a transparent membrane made mostly of algæ, completely biodegradable and even edible. Now one can stay hydrated like the astronauts that get to chase down floating blobs of water. Sloshing sacks that resemble silicone implants may not immediately strike the market as the intuitive alternative but, like wine skins, the small portions could be bundled to be delivered in larger containers and the idea confronts one immediately with unadulterated sustainability, using completely natural substances and forgoing the plastic bottle altogether.

choose your poison or balance of trade

Not terribly keen on Western goods and for the most part self-sufficient, for European naval powers—especially the British with their particular weakness for Asian luxuries and tea—Imperial China from the early nineteenth century became known as the Silver Bone Yard. This comparison to a gilded grave was employed as the only enticement for the Chinese—the only reserve-currency that they’d accept, not wanting truck with pelts, flagons of beer, bales of wool, missionaries or whatever else was a typical European export at the time which was not derivative of what the Chinese culture had already perfected, like gunpowder and the printed word—was silver dollars minted from bouillon from the colonies in North and South America.
The discovery of New World silver had initially glutted the market and the commodity temporarily lost some of its shine. The Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch and British were willing to part with huge sums of specie in exchange for keeping up the trade in tea, silk and porcelain. As more and more silver went into China and none came out, however, a market-correction was due and again prices rose and the demand for precious metal grew, especially with wars to finance at home. In order to reverse the outflows of hard currency, merchants (with support of Parliament) plied the Chinese market with opium culled from poppy fields in Turkey and British-held India—which was an acceptable swap for a spot of tea, in lieu of coinage. Although used recreationally and for medicinal purposes—reintroduced to Western medicine as laudanum—use of opium as a war with drugs does strike me as rather unique, to flood one market to secure cheaper access to another, ostensibly equally habit-forming and ritualised item. Faced with a growing drug problem and traders flagrantly overstepping the bounds that had been proscribed for them, China capitulated (and the degree to which China was compromised is a matter of debate) by expanding access to British merchants that extended beyond a few select entrepôts and granting leases in perpetuity to foreign traders. Though of strategic importance and to modern eyes a serious territorial incursion, China had a standing practise of ceding land in the name of peace-keeping and appeasement, and in addition to the special administrative areas of Hong Kong (UK) and Macau (Portugal)—there was also Tsingtau (Prussia), Tianjin (Italy), Shanghai (Japan) and Shantou (jointly controlled by the English, French and Americans).

5x5: acoustic edition

nature sounds: meditative woodland megaphones in Estonia

milk-drop: the gorgeous music visualisation scheme called Panoramical

white-noise: addressing the Fermi Paradox, Edward Snowden suggests that highly encrypted communication becomes indis- tinguishable from cosmic background radiation

two-man band: the fabulous myriophone that mimics the effects of a full string orchestra section, via the resplendent Nag on the Lake

transduction: in addition to perceiving sounds, one’s ears also produce them

mountain high, valley-valley low

One of these days, we ought to sit down and plot all the routes we’ve taken to cross the Alps, as each time has seemed different and unique and taking the Splüngen Pass was certainly a memorable first. Not navigable during Winter, the roads took a zig-zag ascent up the steep mountain face, whose sharp curves were populated with serene looking cows that gazed at the passing cars unbothered by blind-corners and hairpin-turns.
The sentry-station at the summit was unmanned and seemed long-abandoned though not in ruin and lay at a nice geographical pocket of flatness to admire the peaks of the Bergamont Alps. We descended into the estuary of Lake Como, fed by the run-off waters of River Mera to return to a comfortable and picturesque campsite near the village of Sorico. I learnt that this terminus of the mountain range represents the easiest point for migratory animals to ford the Alps and there were scores of exotic birds to be seen at this cross-roads of African and Asian pathways.
I also learnt that the River Mera was named in honour of a wandering monk who roamed the hill tops over Sorico and venerated as a sort of miraculous rain-maker in times of drought for Lake Como below. Perhaps Hermit Mera was a little over-zealous at the moment as the deluge was unrelenting and the forecast did not bode any better. As a result, we decided to respectfully depart for sunnier weather on Lake Garda.