snakes and ladders

In 1971, a company decided it might be a good idea to release a Monopoly-style board game knock-off called Beat the Border, reports Dangerous Minds. The objective of trafficking in the game was far less fraught with danger and intrigues—and less rewarding, although one’s friendly neighbourhood pusher was careful to put out the disclaimer that it was all in good fun and reinforce the message that drugs are bad and the “dope” peddled was left up to imagination—though handy conversion charts were included. In these times, rather than exploring one’s hidden fantasies of being the head of a Mexican drug cartel—which does not strike me as particularly wholesome family-fun for the 1970s, in the same rather vicious spirit, I detect “Run for the Border” to be a new gladiatorial reality television franchise for the presidential-pretender.

vertical monopoly or bad robot

As with the footage showing the reaction of a robotic dog’s encounter with a biological one, we tend to cheer for the underdog and focus on the abusive human obstacle.
What strikes me, however, with a tinge of anxiety is how the machine adapts to warehouse architecture and shows promise for acquiring a new skill faster than its creators could anticipate. While we look to distribution centres as employment boons for the communities that courted them with tax-breaks and other incentives, I think a lot of workers could quickly be made redundant with tireless, unwhinging sentries patrolling the corridors (or even redesigning them totally in more efficient configurations that we can’t understand) and filling orders. Many jurisdictions are counting on such job-security.  What do you think? No matter what one’s job is, I think the economic effects would creep upwards. Would a warehouse android be potentially as disruptive as having a fleet of driverless trucks for the livelihoods of families or are we being neo-luddites with our trepidation?

baud or random-access memory

Back in August of 1991, two astronauts sent the first email from a shuttle mission, via the AppleLink platform and a prototype “portable” Macintosh—weighing in at seven kilograms and boasting 256 kilobytes of Read-Only Memory. Since that first correspondence, astronauts on later flights and aboard the International Space Station have been equipped with email and internet capabilities—and now wireless networks that connect to the Earth at speeds comparable to high-end domestic telephony. Go to the story from The Atlantic to see an appreciation of this momentous dispatch, plus some bonus footage of a floppy disk being ejected in micro-gravity.

hermit kingdom or thirty-eighth parallel

With North Korea in the headlines again over ballistic missile testing and general aggressive behaviour towards its neighbours and the mounting calls for sanctions in response, I had been engaging in a little bit of research into the matter and came across a really astounding relic of bureaucracy in a presidential commission in South Korea charged with the administration of the five provinces of the North.
Although this powerless (as those lands are governed already by North Korea) shadow-government, called the Committee for the Five Northern Korean Provinces (이북5도위원회) and established in 1949, seems today like a sinecure posting, I suppose following the aftermath of the Korean War, hopes for reunification and reconciliation seemed within reach and uniting the Koreas remains a goal for both sides—although the prospects for that seem to be receding. The constitutions of both states define their countries as the whole, undivided Korean peninsula. I wonder what these conscientious bureaucrats do all day, with no access to the provinces in their respective areas of responsibility, and having no jurisdiction in the arena of foreign relations, as that role is handled exclusively by the Ministry of Unification. The situation and perhaps the hope too is in some ways similar to the state of affairs for the divided Germanys but there was never such a government-in-exile, as it were, operating jenseits the border.

palm springs 92264

Via location-scout Mess Nessy Chic we find another luxurious time-capsule in a California estate that essentially went untouched since the interior decorators finished in 1969 and was consigned to the ages. The details of all the swag are just astounding—dust-ruffles, the wall-paper, the wainscoting, the shag carpeting, the walk-in-shower and sunken-tub, the chandeliers. It’s certainly dated and not a timeless look, a little removed from Mid-Century Modern, but very transporting and evocative of those times.

the drys or thank you for your interest in democracy

Thanks to a serendipitous intersection between two of my favourite blogs, Atlas Obscura and Nag on the Lake, I feel I have been roundly educated on the subject of prohibition. Though the temperance movement was not mandated on a nation-wide level and the thirteen year span in America where the manufacture, sale and distribution of alcohol was prohibited tends to outshine all others, Canada too had a robust anti-drink league and provinces voted individual whether to suffer or permit. Many other jurisdictions repeated this social-experiment, as well.
(It’s sort of like saying “the Civil War”—that time when Oliver Cromwell did battle with V for Vendetta, you mean?) The beacon that the US once was for tee-totalling is somewhat dimmed (depending on whom one asks, I suppose) but the Prohibition Party, whose rolls included the first elected female officer-holder in America, still exists and on a few ballots. Both entries made me think how although most would assume that the outsider party has a narrow scope and spent its clout decades ago (most supporters fled once Prohibition was repealed)—and the candidate prefaces his correspondence with “thanks for noticing the Prohibition Party,” their platform is in reality a broad and progressive one and not just for a pocket-constituency. Though health debate, decent, dialogue are hallmarks—and no one would deny them holding their position—I think that the majority can agree that “Make America Dry Again” is not a campaign slogan that most of us would rally behind.

le fromage, la légende

Via the ever-inspiring and inspired Nag on the Lake, we are treated to a very fine monograph on the limestone caverns of Roquefort-sur-Soulzon in the Aveyron region where the legitimate and right-honourable king of cheeses is cured, in accordance with age-old methods.

A particular mould that thrives in the soil of these caves—Penicillium roqueforti—creates the blue veins and imbues the distinctive taste, and prior to the isolation and understanding of penicillin, the cheese was used as a salve by local shepherds to promote the healing of wounds and stave off infections. Although remarked upon by Roman naturalist and historian Pliny the Elder and prehistoric cheesemakers’ sieves have been found in the caves, local lore has it that a young shepherd enjoying a repast of bread and sheep cheese was beguiled by the sight of a beautiful maiden, and stashing his meal in a cave (and apparently abandoning his flock for the requisite months it takes to transform plain ewe-cheese into Roquefort) and pursued her. The shepherd returned empty-handed and retrieved his remembered lunch, eating it in spite of the mould. Reading the article reminded me how back in 1999, le Roi de Fromage was embroiled in a heated-tariff war when the US imposed an impossibly high “Roquefort tax,” duties on French exports in retaliation for the country’s stance against hormonally beefed-up beef and against malbouffe—fast-food culture, in general.

here there be robots

I am pouring over this highly detailed map of the topography of Mars, deftly executed by hand by the graphic artist Eleanor Lutz, in the style of late Middle Ages surveyors—like the Mappa Mundi of Hereford Cathedral.
“Here there be robots” refers to the landing sites (or ranges) for the various probes sent to explore the Red Planet, echoing the phrases “here there be Dragons” (hic sunt dracones—which only appears once and on a globe) or the more common “here there be Tygers” and the widespread practise of fulling in terra incognito with sea serpents and other terrible beasts, though the surface of Mars seems to be a place relatively accessible to us. The map even includes histories on the place names and a table of geographic terrestrial equivalents, off-world features generally taking Latin nomenclature.