grace and favour or alt-nasa

Dear Leader’s unconfirmed boast that he has managed to assemble an advisory cabinet with the highest intelligence-quotients of all time (mind you, that group includes the anointed, Rick Perry and Betsy DeVos so they must be grading on the curve) smacks of the Enron executives calling themselves the smartest guys in the room.
And while he claims to have filled these positions (appointees historically don’t have the stamina to serve for entire terms as it is) with those with the conviction to disagree with him and make sure the government makes informed decisions, at the same time Dear Leader seems unwilling to defer to the true subject matter experts and agency officials, threatening and in some cases acting to censor science and research that is off-message. Already grants are being rescinded and decisions on conservation and land-use being reversed—and even if the administration relents on suppression of subversive and inconvenient truths, it’s quite chilling that it was even suggested and serves to undermine education and literacy further, just as smoke-filled room meeting with the UK’s Brexit care-taker leadership and clubby deals are not particularly well veiled overtures meant to undermine the EU and socially, civically, environmentally sound and responsible governance.

7x7

skycots: vintage photographs show how babies travelled in the 1950s on British Airways

franchissant: artificial intelligence working with composite images creates the illusion of Napoleon Crossing the Alps

fret zeppelin: a tutoring guitar that helps you learn finger placement fast


great railway journeys: tracing the new Silk Road, a train travels from China to London

c: like light, does darkness have a speed?

ЗАТО: vintage retro-future welcome signs of Soviet towns of science and industry, via Messy Nessy Chic

parfocal lens: it’s the Powers of Ten of dentistry 

alt-truths or i love a parade

Amidst all the other excitement we missed this detail that apparently Dear Leader—although the story is not fully corroborated despite respectable circulation, modelling his plans off of the military extravaganzas of Pyongyang and Moscow, had requested that the Army to parade tanks and missile launchers down Pennsylvania Avenue.
So as not to appear insubordinate, military chiefs explained the streets of Washington, DC could not bear the weight of combat vehicles. It would have been rather Red Square indeed. What do you think? It certainly seems like a plausible request and suggests a health precedence for the relationship between the Commander-in-Chief and his armies that the favour might be rebuffed, but believing in things without a tether to objective reality is what got us into this mess to begin with. I am wondering if our friends in the UK are feeling as uncomfortable over their caretaker government’s chumminess with the US regime as the American people do over the apparent closeness with the Russian leader. Another demonstration of might, a fly-over of five jets representing each of the branches of armed service, was scheduled for certain but subsequently cancelled due to poor weather conditions and would have been the first time post-9/11 that the air-space restriction over the capital was lifted. Had these alternate courses of action took place, there is still no accurate projection of how the spectacle would have impacted attendance.

doping or spider-sense

Via Marginal Revolution, we are invited to entertain the notion that we could—and are currently, could tune our bodies not just with exercise or fad diets or self-medication but with more sophisticated forms of gene therapy, whose advocates and early-adopters encourage one to try at home.
One experimental method that smacks a little of Frankenstein involves temporarily stimulating cells to produce certain proteins through electro-currents purported to stimulate longevity and overall health—but not anchored in one’s chromosomes and genetic makeup permanently and the effects only last weeks to months before a re-charge is needed. This sort of gene-regulation is radical enough in itself—especially as a DIY project, but as the technology behind gene and DNA editing called CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats), think of the potential for individuals to understand and successful tweak their biochemistry and mutate themselves to attain super-human abilities.

emoluments or tldr;

Although the president of the United States is exempt to an extent to the conflict of interest clauses that most other public officials are beholden to, the president cannot recluse himself and declare himself to be above the law and de facto de-conflicted.
It’s important and not something to just roll over for and submit to as part of the new normal or alternative truths because there’s significantly more invested in Dear Leader’s failure to divest himself of his business operations than him merely enriching his own coffers through rank-hypocrisy. Limiting my points to just a pair as this is obviously a difficult concept to grasp, firstly such a branding properties, both foreign and domestic, with the presidential label is a taunt to terrorists and thus commits all of America fiduciarily and militarily, not mentioning how it puts all tenants and guests at risk. Secondly, inasmuch as some find a target for destruction in this product line, visiting and lingering and loitering dignitaries find something to patronise and will gravitate out of obsequiousness or corporate patriotism or defeatism, others find something to patronise—and that invites lawsuit on the part of competitors side-lined because of accorded prestige. In other words, any other hotel within the beltway and beyond is at a serious disadvantage when comes to hostelling anyone. That’s not only a disservice to those expected to pony up immediately but also for the tax-paying population entire. Multi-tasking ought to have never been romanticised and these are not responsibilities that one can juggle.  With those sorts of distractions weighing heavily on one’s mind, how could one be expected to run the country?

with malice towards none

It took some time for Dear Leader’s anointing speech to resolve into context, as one might be forgiven how words at this juncture are actually tone-setting rather than writ on sand, but this consequence did eventually reveal itself, showing the incumbent being little different than the candidate.
Only addressing his electoral base, Dear Leader made very little concession to reconciliation and the monologue careened towards the ahistorical. Those not already in his constituency were given little solace.  All those former presidents and present wardens of government that shared the dais with the speaker were not just put on notice but moreover denounced and disparaged as failures that led to his elevation and mandate. Only addressing the audience assembled before him, there was no message of unity or sacrifice that credits those thinking differently or those who sacrificed before. What do you think? Read those speeches of resounding significance from Lincoln and Kennedy and the Roosevelts where the quotable lines come from—even those intermediaries or under-studies acknowledged who came before. Surely any reign without milieu cannot be judged favourably by history, which is I think another bugbear tossed out there for one’s consideration and trepidation.

fare-zone or metro-link

Back in 2013, graphic designer Mark Ovenden drafted his concept of a world connected by their existing subway systems, well before the engineers and visionaries behind Hyperloop One might make such an arrangement of swift and environmentally sustainable mass transportation possible. Inspired by Harry Beck’s iconic diagrammatic transport map of the London Underground, this work endures as a useful conversation-starter when it comes to holding a dialogue on investment in infrastructure and what a radical new mode of transportation means for the future where borders are meaningless and commutes rather tractless as well. More of the latest developments on the monumental project can be found at the link up top.

stop, collaborate and listen

I enjoyed reading about these rather timeless tunes that were sampled from elsewhere from Mental Floss.
Though most I think know that the anthems of the US are not original in their scoring and reflect a kind of awkward musical appropriation, I had never known that the carol “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,” or in Charles Wesley’s first composition Hark! how all the welkins (heavens) ring, glory to the King of kings, was set to the tune of the popular Gutenberg cantata (der Festgesang) by Felix Mendelssohn that celebrated the four hundredth anniversary of the printing-press, that’s a fitting bombastic torch-song tribute to the printed word, first performed in 1840. The carol’s lyrics were adapted to the tune fifteen years later as part of a Christmas medley.