a murder is announced

In commemoration of the centenary of her work and the fortieth anniversary of the great crime novelist’s death, the British postal service will be issuing a set of stamps from Studio Sutherl& and artist Neil Webb that contain embedded clues (hidden lenticular and microprinting and heat-sensitive ink) to solve Agatha Christie’s mysteries. The artwork is unique but reminds me a little of macabre styling of Edward Gorey, especially his opening animated sequence to the PBS Mystery-hour. 

pavilion or point-of-sale

Though planners pared down the aspirations for Epcot from an actual, functioning city of the future (the utopian Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow) down to a theme park with futuristic attractions.
Before the Epcot was demoted to a sort of permanent World’s Fair with any kind of opening delayed until 1982, RCA pitched ideas to Disney on how it would support the city’s infrastructure to make what went on behind the scenes as authentic and state-of-the-art as what it seemed on the surface. Revolutionary for the late 1960s, proposals included the use of debit cards almost exclusively and eschewing cash. Even more interesting was how the notion of electronic money back then already connoted eroding privacy, since the money trail was anything but anonymous and carried a permanence. Around this time, at the height of the Cold War, a Georgetown think-tank, tasked to devise the most insidious yet invisible and voluntary state surveillance were they working for enemy, dreamed up a convenient system for the KGB that essentially mirrors our current network of automated teller machines and cashless registers.

vox humana

As Nag on the Lake informs, a team of researchers in Italy have reconstructed the voice-box, wind-pipe and vocal-cords of the frozen caveman Ötzi, discovered in the Italian-Austrian Alps a quarter of a century hence (this week in 1991 by a pair of German hikers) and subjected to a battery of probing and prodding over the years—and found that, unlike Neanderthals, who were determined by a similar imaging process to be possessed of rather silly falsetto voices, our Iceman had a gravelly, masculine way of speaking. The voce umana is a resonator on a pipe organ so called because of its resemblance to the human voice.

rosencrantz and guildenstern

As a means of avoiding some of the most odious security-theatre of airline passengers, a Danish company is field-testing a smart cart of sort, a baggage trolley that takes the screening process to the queue for much greater efficiency and far less waiting time. Too bad Hamlet’s ill-fated couriers did not heed the advice of airport-security and pack their own luggage—or at least not accept a sealed missive without knowing the incriminating contents. What do you think? Could this device alleviate some of the dread the flying public faces at the airport? Be sure to check out the link above for a video demonstration of this prototype. [Hides behind an arras]

jupiter ii

Considering the train of exciting news from space, from gravitational waves to tantalising close planetary systems and much in between, the announcement that potentially revolutionary findings about the Jovian, Galilean satellite Europa will be released after the weekend is certainly something to anticipate. Astronomers have long speculated that beneath the icy crust of the planet sloshes a salty, global sea that could harbour alien life.
Perhaps the press-release will confirm the watery substrate or confirm that the outer crust is thick enough to protect supposed oceans from the harshness of space and radiation from Jupiter and thus more conducive to the development of life. Perhaps space agencies could deliver a surprise that surpasses whatever has been previously vetted. Thoughtfully, ESA (the European Space Agency) has been considerate enough to build a containment facility in case we do come back with potential contaminates (EURO-CARES it’s called). Considering how delicate our ecology is—especially from the perspective of an outsider looking at our vulnerable planet protected by only a few diffuse kilometres of gas that living things generate—I hope that regardless of the discovery that we aren’t ham-fisted about our further exploration.

mediatrix

The ever alluring Messy Nessy Chic has an engrossing vignette of the 1937 World Expo, hosted in a Parisian venue, which is striking as a moderator between the inchoate belligerents of Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany. Aside from the antagonistic pavilions, there’s plenty of other showcases to see, plus considering the motives of the creators and apolitical drives of the respective architects behind these temporary installations that makes them take on a strange permanence.

autobots, roll!

An Ankara-based research and development firm has created a range of prototype and fully operational Transformer vehicles. These BMW cars can be driven just like any car but also can take a robotic form and is fully articulated. Maybe these warriors are not quite ready for a pitched-battle but the team behind these custom Decepticons are working fervently to add more features.

rosinenbomber

Naturally, one associates the year-long blockade and subsequent airlift (Luftbrücke) in the immediate aftermath of World War II with Berlin and the Tempelhof airfield of the American Sector, and while there were serious geopolitical intrigues involved, including the Western powers propping up of the new Deutsche Mark (to make sure that a recovering West Germany was not able to completely renege on its debts, in part) that led the Soviets’ attempt to isolate West Berlin and starve the exclave into submission, in my mind it remains as a goodwill mission and those flights had to have originated from somewhere.
Two hundred thousand flights from the from the summer of 1948 until the following June formed a bucket-brigade that continuously brought food and supplies to the divided city—and I’ve never been able to quite reconcile that popular image (nothing trivial, no, but also not the stuff of a hot war either) of the airlift with the rather grim fact that all the streets on the military installation (recently named in honour of the general and deputy military governor of Germany who orchestrated the so-called Operation Vittles) are in turn named after service members who died during the operation, a moving tribute and considering the scope and complexity of the continuous runs, it is surprising how few casualties there were. Command and control for the entire mission—which was distributed over three air-corridors, in British occupied Lübeck and Celle as well as the main thrust coming from Rhein-Main airbase and Wiesbaden’s airfield—was headquartered in a townhouse at the head of Taunusstraße just off the Kurpark and Casino of Wiesbaden, since converted to apartments and a florist shop. The Soviets tolerated the stream of flights, not wanting to be accused of stoking more conflict, and supposed that the British and Americans would eventually grow weary and either surrender West Berlin or concede to Soviet demands that they stay out of German economic policy. Though the contrast of humanitarian mission so embargoed with the victory of the Allied Forces (East and West) is nonetheless still a little jarring, it’s probably far more noble and civilised for preserving the peace—mutually—in the face of frustrations that could have just as easily descended into renewed violence.