minshara class

Subject to confirmation when the patch of sky occupied by the star system undergoes detailed inspection by the TESS programme later in November, exoplanet hunting astronomers believe that they have found a rocky, terrestrial world (M-Class, spelled out from the Vulcan term above, in Star Trek parlance but not a scientific designation) approximately seventeen light years away from Earth orbiting a triennial star called 40 Eridani (in the Southern constellation Eridanus—a river in Hades that is thought to correspond with the Po or the Rhône) or properly Keid (from the Arabic qayd for eggshells) that matches the canonical location of the Vulcan home world.
There’s quite some range of possibilities for the planet and surely reality will prove more fantastic than fiction but it is within reason to believe that 40 Eridani A β (there was already one other planet found there before this suspected Super Earth) might have similar conditions to those imaged for Vulcan, arid and higher gravity. Long before Star Trek, Vulcan was the designation for the planet that astronomy needed to be subaltern of Mercury to explain its anomalous orbit, until Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity dispensed with that hypothetical world.

saffir-simpson

At the same time as Hurricane Florence was bearing down on the North American eastern seaboard, the deadly Typhoon Mangkhut was roiling in the Pacific with both areas still dealing with the consequences. The latter refers to the Thai form of the purple citrus-like exotic fruit the mangosteen—as we learn from Oxford Words blog, native to the Malaysia and anticyclones do not share the naming conventions that the World Meteorological Organisation has established for storms in the Atlantic, alternating alphabetically between boys’ and girls’ names, like Irma, Katrina, Maria and Harvey.
This tradition started in the US in September 1950 when three hurricanes made landfall simultaneously and there was confusion within the public and weather centres, using exclusively female names at first (male names were added in 1979) derived from the Air Force’s phonetic alphabet. And while member nations are not required in the context of local reporting and coverage to keep to the assigned designation (the WMO is the final arbiter one whether particular names should be retired after a particularly disastrous event, ninety so far so I guess by necessity we’ll have to start including more non-traditional ones soon), in the West where personal names are employed, we are generally at a consensus and use the one standard. In Asia, however, different jurisdictions modify the storms’ designation to fit local language and customs. Quite sensibly, in the Philippines, they taunted it with the name Omlong (the toothless, the feckless one) in hopes it would crumple from the insult—rather than giving a common name that might potentially stigmatise later on.

survivery 101

Over at the labs of AI Weirdness (previously) with the academic year just beginning, researcher and handler Janelle Shane wondered how a neutral network might interpret a college course catalogue and the major and minor courses of study that this virtual institution might have on offer.
While I am not sure I’d take any of these electives (though many sound pretty metaphysical and part of the core-curriculum) many of the titles have my curiosity piqued. We especially liked:

Language of Circus Processing
Werestory
Marine Writing
The Sun Programpineerstance and Development

It’s well worth reviewing the whole list and see if you can figure out what human conventions the artificial intelligence is drawing from and check out Shane’s past experiments.

bioshock

Though on first reading it struck me as a little bit like those gimmicky techniques touted to cure male-pattern baldness or maybe Frankenstein’s Monster jolted back to life apparently, via Slashdot, it’s sound and proven that one can accelerate coral growth and hasten the rebuilding of the ecosystems that they support by stimulating them with electricity.
The matrices of surviving coral in areas that have been ravaged by cyclones, heat-waves and other destructive acts are scaffolded with galvanised steel frame in order to rehabilitate the colonies, having previously shown that re-growth occurs at a rate three to four times faster than normal due to the current attracting free floating minerals which the coral incorporate. Even with this rapid growth, however, it will take decades for the reefs to fully heal. Visit the links above to learn more and for a video demonstration of divers constructing the underwater frames.

no hypnosis like a mass hypnosis because a mass hypnosis isn’t happening

Part of their growing Dial-a-Song repertoire, “Lake Monsters” by They Might be Giants is set to a cute music video crafted by artist Hiné Mizushima with stop-motion needlepoint and embroidery. The song reminded me of MST3K’s Kaiju Rap. Learn more about the band’s projects and the artist at Laughing Squid and at the links above

offred

More tone-deaf than the spec-script for an all female version of Lord of the Flies, this predictably sexist Sexy Handmaiden Brave Red Maiden Costume really does project the message “I am aware of popular culture, but I don’t understand it” (as one commented) or worse doesn’t care. I’m a bit nauseated and I think it’s in awfully bad taste. What do you think? I recall reading that a cosmetic company pulled its witchcraft starter kits after backlash from the Wiccan community. Maybe together we rally for more refinement from businesses that peddle crudeness.

8x8

deuterocanonical: ranking depictions of Judith beheading Holofernes, via Things Magazine

miami vice: a look inside the Mutiny Hotel where Scarface was filmed

stylite: an investigation into the doctored photograph of an ancient ruin reveals an ascetic tradition

knight industries two thousand: a banjo version of the Knight Rider theme

second skin: special membrane that transforms inanimate objects into multifunctional robots

plosive fricative: in English, counting from zero upwards, one’s lips won’t touch before one million, via Kottke’s Quick Links

biggs is right, i’m never getting out of here: animator Dmitry Grozov creates a brilliant anime trailer for Star Wars: A New Hope

pigpen: researchers isolate the chemical, microbial shadow that accompanies all of us

game of optional goals

Had I not learned otherwise, I would have thought that this alternative reality version, meritocratic of the board game Monopoly was some sort of commission from some No Such Agency to communicate with its field agents but Careers from Parker Brothers was introduced in 1955. In addition to the outer track, there are several internal loops, career paths to try and many more regular opportunities to draw cards of chance and a rather involved scoring system (recorded on a Magic Slate Paper Saver pad) to monitor progress and achieve a sort of work-life balance with a Success Formula of money, fame and happiness. Designed by sociologist, ethnographer and author James Cooke Brown (*1921 - †2000), players could aspire to be an astronaut, farmer or a uranium prospector among other things and landing on the same square as another knocked the first player to “the park bench”—intimating that they were out of work and fallen on hard times. Later versions of the game were adapted to better reflect the cultural milieu.