heirloom variety

Indeed a thing we would not know if they did not blog intermittently, the distinction of open-pollination explained succinctly:
allowing crops to breed naturally, either assisted by resident pollinators, the wind or self-pollinating to produce offspring consistent with the desired traits of the parent plant.  We became impatient in the name of efficiency and the resultant, sustainable population explosion that came with the discovery of the Haber process at the turn of the century, which also ushered in the decline of open-pollinators. Monocultures and hybridisation have meant that the resultant seeds (a hybrid inbred) will not germinate or at least not in a predictable way, which is why modern agriculture has become reliant on a handful of seed providers—and the pesticides designed for them. At least one group is actively working to establish seed banks and a cooperative to educate consumers and farmers and give them a viable alternative.

butterfly in the sky

Regardless whether or not Reading Rainbow or Star Trek: The Next Generation registers on your nostalgia spectrum, you should do yourself the favour of checking out the new podcast series called LeVar Burton Reads. Drawing from different authors and a variety of genres (but with an emphasis, I suspect, on sci-fi), Mister Burton reads short fiction to his audience in a very engaging fashion. But don’t take my word for it.

grammatologie

To the dismay of some orthographic purist, the German Spelling Council (Rat für detsche Rechtschreibung oder RdR) the Eszett—ß will finally be given a proper capital (majuscule) form.
Instead of the rare but possibly confusing representation of a double S for the upper case letter, now people can officially exercise the option of using ẞ—großes Eszett. The pictured example is from sixty years ago but was an unofficial, unsanctioned capital glyph that the East German dictionary publisher designed for its own use, and there were other antecedents as well—going back nearly a century. STRASSE or STRAẞE now are both accepted but the same council session also decreed that certain Teutonicisms of foreign words like Joga or Ketschup are Verboten and the native spelling (more on spelling reform here and here) should be retained.

port sunlight

We really enjoyed the guided tour from Amusing Planet of the model villages (company towns) of the UK planned and constructed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in the trailing years of the Industrial Revolution to house workers and their families.
Corporate barons in all trades from locomotion to mining, soap and chocolate created accom- modations and amenities that was far superior to the relative squalor of crowded working class neighbourhoods in urban centres. Although these pursuits weren’t entirely altruistic with landowners wanting to rid themselves of the eye-sores of cottages of the poor interrupting their views and some arguing the whole scheme was just the latest incarnation of feudalism with workers rather trapped and indentured (or indoctrinated) and with no choice other than patronising the company store, these settlements nonetheless pioneered retirement, medical benefits and union representation and helped enshrine and solidify the notion of labour rights. These purpose built villages were eventually integrated as regular towns and many contain listed-structures of historical significance.

standing order sixty-six

With the Trumpian effects of time distortion already punching holes in the fabric of reality, it’s scarcely possible to believe that this week marks a year since Theresa May ascended to the post of Prime Minister and leader of the UK’s Conservative Party after the passage of the Brexit referendum.
May’s professed political world view is rooted in the paternal and pragmatic philosophy of Benjamin Disraeli whose leadership informed what’s called One-Nation conservatism that while retaining the class system strongly advocated noblesse oblige and social justice for the disadvantaged and that indifference and apathy for inequities would result in violent revolution. Nonetheless, Disraeli’s agenda was oriented towards expanding the Empire and inspired fierce ideological battles from fellow populist William Ewart Gladstone who coined the term “Little England” to refer to the metropolitan Britain without its colonies beyond the seas. We’ll see what the future brings for incumbent and country.

6x6

sidebar conversation: company releases custom cellular phone to commemorate the meeting of US-Russo leadership on the sidelines of the G-20 summit

bucket-list: holding more than ten billion photographs, a hosting website is extorting uploaders by changing exorbitant fees to link to old images, effectively erasing great, historic swaths of the internet, via Super Punch

your daily donald: Iranian website sponsors a Dear Leader caricature contest, via Everlasting Blört

acme corporation: Chicago graffiti artist creates a Wile E Coyote and Road-Runner storyboard

sacré dépanneur: Nag on the Lake shares an appreciation of the Québécois neighbourhood corner shop—which comes from the verb “to troubleshoot”

better with the broom complicate: a neural network (previously here, here, here and here) tries to write titles and synopsises for Harry Potter fan fiction

around the horn

We’ve known for some time that the fall of the Byzantine Empire—precipitated by the Ottomans’ taking of Constantinople—in May of the year 1453 was an event chronically adjacent to the dawn of the age of exploration with Christopher Columbus’ voyages in 1492 and Vasco da Gama’s five years later (preceding both and inspiring the success of his fellow countryman subsequently was Bartlolomew Diaz). We, however, failed to recognise the collapse of the Eastern Roman Empire and the blockade of overland routes to Asia directly, like the series of Crusades to recapture the Holy Land of Middle Ages and safeguard caravans of pilgrims, was aimed to re-establish trade-routes severed by Muslim occupation.

Unlike what Marco Polo had done a century prior, one could no longer walk to India and China and so a sea-route was sought in order to satiate those willing to spend exorbitant amounts of wealth on exotic spices and silks. Exchanges of goods and culture still continued by the Venetians, with whom the Ottomans had developed a business-relationship, but no one else thought that that maritime empire should enjoy a monopoly on supply. Betting that the globe was in fact smaller than Greek geomancers calculated, Columbus first embarked on a route to the East by going west and never realised that his progress had been arrested by two intervening continents, it was da Gama that actually reached the Orient first by sailing around the southern horn of Africa and on to Asia—prompting the Pope to negotiate a treaty decreeing all lands outside of Europe belong to one of the two Iberian kingdoms. The line of demarcation was the Cape Verde Islands (Repùblica de Cabo Verde) and everything to the West belonged to Spain, whilst (inclusive their colony on the archipelago) belonged to Portugal—stopping at Cuba and Hispaniola, and while repudiated many times over the centuries basically held until colonial ambitions for all of the European powers erupted. Though the Byzantine capital was subject to many sieges in over a milleuium until its fall—it took the Ottoman forces’ knowledge of gunpowder from the Chinese to breach the city’s defences, it had resisted capture until the fifteenth century and kept open the lines of communication between the West and East. One wonders if that if the old logistical network hadn’t become a less than ideal option, then would there have been an impetus for exploration.

resting rich face

A rather wide-spread study has revealed that our default, neutral facial posture can reflect a lot about our socio-economic well-being.
So far results are only slightly better than random but as discerning glances become more sophisticated (and ethnographers do think that there is some subtly in expression that human intuit) this will become another factor for algorithms to exploit as a gauge for credit-worthiness or even if it’s worth the return on investment for you to be in this or that particular store or be allowed to take a holiday as planned as an under-contributor. What do you think? If we are to trust technology to help us improve our lot and be willing to work collaboratively with it, the process should be a transparent one—even if we’re growing too dumb to have it explained in terms we can understand. If our expressions do carry artefacts of our past and class upbringing, those shouldn’t be leveraged against us.