city hopper

Though there’s not yet a projected date for the inaugural journey yet, plans are well underway for the first Hyperloop route (previously) in Europe, linking Amsterdam’s Schipol with Frankfurt am Main airport with commissions already being tendered for the design of hub city stations for the movement of people as well as goods.
Moving at nearly the speed of sound, the carriages will be able to cross the four hundred-fifty kilometre distance in under one hour with intervening stops in Bonn, Köln, Düsseldorf, Eindhoven, den Bosch and Utrecht not only offsetting a significant amount of pollution but also revolutionising business and leisure travel and our approach to commuting as the network expands across the continent.

city dreams

Hyperallergic introduces us to the utopian, Afrofuturist architecture of artist and political observer Bodys Isek Kingelez (*1948 - †2015) with an retrospective exhibition of his model buildings and urban miniatures, which are conversation pieces to prompt audiences to think about infrastructure, globalisation and the character of the megacity, socioeconomic realities that were maturing at pace with Kingelez himself and his native Democratic Republic of the Congo. On display at New York City’s Museum of Modern Art through the new year, one is also afforded the opportunity to explore the elaborate environments in an immersive fashion in a virtual reality helmet. Learn more and see a whole gallery of Kingelez’ visions at the link up top.

petard hoist much?

Howling for years how America had become the laughing-stock of the world, Donald Trump got his comeuppance in the first few lines of his ignorant and arrogant speech to the UN general assembly (previously) when his boasts of having accomplished more than any administration in history drew derisive laughter from the audience of heads of state and the diplomatic corps.
Though pretending to shrug off the response, it seemed to come as a shock to him—outside his usual insulated, self-affirming bubble of supporters who hang on his every lie at his campaign rallies—we suspect that Trump will remain determined to wipe the smiles from their faces and further isolate the US from the international community. “We reject the ideology of globalism,” Trump said, “and we embrace the doctrine of patriotism,” adding that the US will withhold aid from countries that challenge America’s agenda and fail to show respect—having only kind words for NATO partner Poland, who last week curried favour by suggesting that the proposed US permanent military installation in the country could be called Fort Trump.

how about a nice game of chess?

Undisclosed until well after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and at a time of severely deteriorated relations seeded with deep distrust and suspicion that a first-strike on the part of the United States was eminent, on this day in 1983 duty officer Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov (*1939 - †2017) correctly assessed that reports from the early warning satellite network were a false alarm and thus averted an accidental counter-attack.
Despite heightened tensions and hair-trigger attitudes, Petrov appreciated the gravity of his decision and questioned the reliability of the new system and judged that the five missile signatures detected not to be of the calibre of an offensive, which likely would have been comprised of hundreds of warheads launched simultaneously, in accordance with the policy of mutually assured destruction. Subsequent investigations showed that the system was detecting glints of sunlight reflected on high-altitude clouds.

panda, cyborg, jesus

Though the libretto to the leitmotif “Duel of the Fates” (the recurring theme from the Star Wars prequels) is reportedly a fragment of an ancient, fourteenth century Welsh poem Cad Goddeu (Battle of the Trees) about the legendary enchanter, Gwydion fab Dôn, who animates the trees of the forest to do his bidding translated and then performed in Sanskrit (unlikely), our thanks to Miss Cellania for revealing to us the true lyrics.  Follow the bouncing ball.

rubric

Like when learning there was an algorithm, a certain method to solve for Sudoku, I lost interest in it without really having given a try—dismissing it as an unworthy challenge, I think I was guilty of adopting the same attitude towards Ernő Rubik’s ingeniously engineered, elegant puzzle and could appreciate the correspondent’s initial outlook attending an educational outreach workshop ran under the auspices of the toy.
The brute numbers gave me my dénouement: there are forty three quintillion possible positions, which at a rate of trying each every second (as a computer would do) would take over a trillion years to arrive at the single solution out of those seemingly infinite possibilities. Unsure whether it could even be solved, Rubik played with his prototype for a whole month before arriving at a solution. Some of us are virtuosi while many of us just plod along but with persistence and a willingness to step outside of one’s self we can all be the cube.

i am elmer j. fudd, millionaire, i own a mansion and a yacht

During what could be characterised as the height of the Red Scare in post-war America, fearful over the brittle state of the capitalist model—executives with General Motors commissioned a trio of propaganda cartoons from the creative cast behind Looney Tunes, which marked quite a departure from the usual antics and took a decidedly classroom tone to inculcate impressionable minds.
It’s hard to say how seriously they took their assignment and perhaps only did so as to not draw undue attention to their studios. “By Word of Mouse” (1954) told the tale of a German country mouse, Hans, visiting an American city mouse cousin who lived in a fashionable department store called “Stacy’s” and mostly features Hans being dazzled by the abundance and selection of inventory available to the common worker, with a professor mouse explaining that free market competition of “Rival Department Store” drives prices down to the benefit of both producers and consumers. “Heir Conditioning” (1955) features Elmer Fudd acting as a financial advisor to Sylvester the Cat after inheriting a large sum of money, encouraging him to invest it rather than sharing it with his fellow alley cats. Learn more and watch all the cartoons on Dangerous Minds at the link above.

in order to form a more perfect album

Via Coudal Partners’ Fresh Signals, we discover the quite brilliant civics project from WNYC (the call-sign of New York’s Public Radio station) studios that curates twenty-seven songs that do a pretty spot-on job of representing each of the amendments to the long-lived and fungible constitution of the United States of America.
Yes—there are songs even about the more obscure ones (perhaps outside of the manumission and franchise clauses and the gun one, most of them are pretty obscure for most) like the Seventeenth Amendment, ratified in 1903 which provides for the direct election of senators. This working document is testament to a law of the land that can withstand the whims of the moment, yet admit growth and change and this anthology has lessons and footnote that accompany the score and make the objectives and historical milieu and legacy clear and accessible. Many talented artists have lent their voices to this collection, which is a playlist that I certainly would not object to having in my regular circulation.