stairwell of the quarter

We had a similar response when first encountering this architectural conceit called an alternating tread stairway—that the designer had a flair for the MC Escheresque. Then I realised what an elegant solution to a practical problem of staircases either taking up too much floor space or needing too much clearance when room is at a premium. By having these dual treads to climb up (which I would imagine negotiating confidently might take some practice), each step does not have to be incredibly steep and narrow or—without this design element, the construction would extend out twice as far into the hallway. Be sure to visit the source up top to find out more.

slaolie stil

Commissioning the talents of artist Jan Toorop in 1894, the Nederlandse Olie Fabriek (the Dutch Oil Company) inadvertently launched a sub-genre to the Dutch Art Nouveau when the resulting advertising poster for Delftsche Slaolie (Delft Salad Oil) resonated with the public for its unique flowing iconography. Born in colonial Java, Toorop had repatriated himself and studied art in Amsterdam and was informed by the burgeoning Impressionist movement but one could detect Indonesian design influences in the repeating geometry of his works. See more examples of Toorop’s salad oil style posters at the link above.

articulating the popular rage

The Japanese buzzword of the year is sontaku (世にも)—a heretofore under-utilised term that describes people who undertake offensive and strategic actions to ingratiate themselves with their superiors, the placatory following of an unspoken order. This newly found appreciation for what we’d call a brown-noser or a lickspittle is a reflection of the country’s political Zeitgeist and unease over the prime minister accruing more power beats out the less controversial (Japanese society generally isn’t openly critical of its leadership and are usually pretty astute at surmising wishes or “self-censorship”) neologism insuta-bae which, converting Instagram into a verb, refers to those chasing down admiration.

7x7

stellar cartography: Google Maps venture out into our Solar System and chart the planets and natural satellites

circling the drain: research suggests that all the antidepressant medications flushed away are making fish antisocial and withdrawn

musical instrument digital interface: what the virtuosity of plant life can say about consciousness

festtage: a humourous and insightful primer for German Christmas season—for the uninitiated

neutralidade da rede: to imagine the US without protections against blocking and throttling, one need only look to the situation in Portugal

low earth orbit: Russian cosmonaut claims to have sampled extra-terrestrial bacteria from the hull of the International Space Station

in praise of air: a four stanza poem printed on an oversized panel at the University of Sheffield campus purifies the air it extols

pot to kettle or goldwater rule

Though giving free publicity to the crusade and culture war of Trump and his loyal supporters is always ill-advised and I think contributes to the divisiveness that these individuals thrive on, his latest twitter fugue is very hard to ignore—not that doing so is necessarily an endorsement or a pass and it seems that not acknowledging his antics make them go away. We can’t quite figure what set off this particularly awful conniption fit but it may be a combination of his uncharacteristic constraint in reacting to North Korea’s latest ballistic missile test or being chided by Democratic legislators who declined his invitation to huddle on tax policy by saying he ought to stop tweeting and start leading.

Not only did this children’s treasury of unhinged tantrums promote three Islamophobic videos of garbage provenance and when challenged by Theresa May (a bit milquetoasty as she ought to cancel his state visit and owes her candidacy in part to a voter-base that harbour the same sentiments) told her that she would do better to direct her attention to combating terrorism in the UK, Trump also rehashed some old, disproven conspiracy theories that I think were on the radar of no one and denying his own well-documented lifelong career as a sexual predator feted the downfall of another journalist. Facing the spectre of Brexit and desperately needing a favourable trade deal with America to stave off economic collapse, I suspect that May and company will not allow this disgusting outburst (which is only picking up momentum) to cast lasting, public aspersions, but Trump’s actions nonetheless strain the “special relationship” between the US and the UK and his amplification of hate and intolerance emboldens those extremists view and further divides communities and makes peaceful integration impossible—which of course is perfectly allied to his nihilistic agenda.

mumblety-peg

Ginglymoid and ginglyform are infrequently invoked anatomical terms that derive from the Greek γίγγλυμος for a hinge. These skeletal structures refer and describe specifically to the type of joint that permits movement along one plane only—like the knees and elbow, differentiated from the ball-and-socket joints of the hips and shoulders, which were dubbed synovial by Paracelsus, most likely arbitrarily.

crypto-currency

Well before the stellar—and perhaps ultimately not unlike the ascent of Icarus—rise of one form of trusted electronic money that we are presently witnessing, there were quite a few antecedents including the primogenitor, DigiCash, invented by computer scientist and cryptographer David Chaum back in 1989.
Very much ahead of its time, Chaum’s idea evolved from a need he recognised in 1982 to protect the privacy of individuals conducting online transactions and devised a way to digitally commit to a deal by negotiating between public- and private-key security that was selective about the exposure of details and terms. The early form of electronic payments and exchange was wholly anonymous thanks to a system of protocols maintained across a network, much like its descendants. Though Deutsche Bank was one of the currency’s early-adopters, DigiCash went bankrupt in 1998 having come to the market prematurely, before the integration of the internet with electronic transactions which lagged behind. E-commerce is older of course than on-line shopping with clearing houses for bank transfers, automated teller machines and credit card infrastructure but it’s really amazing to think how different our relation to money and trade was back then and how little the underpinnings have changed.

four of pentacles

Well prior to digital image editing, art student Bea Nettles undertook in the early 1970s the project of creating the first complete tarot card deck in photographic form. The Mountain Dream Tarot was an inspired vision and the resulting suits, not just the trump cards of the major arcana—improvised, intuitive and idiosyncratic but following the standard, established iconography—evoke a haunting feeling in keeping with the esoteric nature of cartomancy and employ models, props and backdrops from Appalachia.
The fifty six cards of the minor arcana (whose production must have been painstaking and required dedication and planning) are the wands symbolising the peasant class and the faculties of creativity and willpower, the coins or pentacles representing the merchants and material possessions and physical health, the cups or chalices of the clergy for emotion and love and finally the swords of the nobility or the executive that represent reason.  Be sure to check out the link up top for more information and to see a whole gallery of the cards.