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Grifter-in-Chief and accomplished beneficiary of the rentier economic model is poised to reform regulation at the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO, which accrues more funding the more patents it grants) to be more favourable for fellow parasitic copyright trolls.
Article One, Section Eight of the US constitution vests in congress the power “to promote the progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.” Reanimating the sort of legal framework that allowed such ransoming and trouncing on creativity, playing very loose with the concepts of invention and originality—which obviously hurts all of us—is a disturbing change of course and bears more public scrutiny and intervention.

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The always engrossing Things Magazine refers us to a quite excellent essay composed by the consummate Kate Wagner (previously) on the manner in which the old grifter nostalgia is cannibalising and repackaging the old, aspirational internet and selling it back to us at a premium.
For the sake of sleekness and convenience, we’ve relinquished a lot of our agency for something that was not inevitable yet a natural consequence of the capitalist model made virtual perfect and instantaneous by ghettoization and other forms of corralling. The interregnal period between the transition from the scientific, professional internet to the interwebs of throttling and objectification is characterised as the age of Vaporware, Vaporwave—referring to items that are prototyped and test-marketed but never released—references Karl Marx’ (the thinker being the original arbiter of the free exchange of ideas—advocating that when “society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic”) other pronouncement “All that is solid melts into air.”

global hawk

Via Slashdot, we learn that a company specialising in wireless power transmission has announced it has developed an electromagnetic field generator that could permit drones to remain aloft indefinitely—never needing to idle for a recharge. Our cargo cult-like obsession with automation and seamless delivery makes me think of how the pre-Enlightenment natural scientists supposed birds of paradise had no feet and lived their entire lives in the skies.    

boy, those germans have a word for everything

Today we were introduced to the concept of Sollbruchstellen—constructive or mechanical elements—where a consumer item is predetermined to break after a period of time. While it also describes the sectionality of a bar of chocolate made easy to break into pieces, Sollenbruchstelle has come to be associated with planned obsolescence—geplanter Obsoleszenz, which the EU has sought to curtail. Incidentally, the English equivalent for Schadenfreude—taking pleasure in the misfortune of others—is epicaricacy (from the Greek ἐπιχαιρεκακία, joy upon evil) but has fallen out of common-parlance in favour of the former.

earth below us

Colossal directs our attention to the work of videographer Bruce W Berry, Jr. whose meditative montage compiles time-lapse footage of vistas taken from the International Space Station. There are extensive details on telemetry to be found at the source link above but it’s surely an intuitive and immediate experience to be in awe of the passing terrain and the impact that human habitation has had. Making nearly fifteen orbits daily, there’s no end to the views from the ISS for its crew to document and share.

gesamtkunstwerk

In order to decontextualize and decolonise the aesthetic for the movement’s centenary year (previously), a miniature clone of the Bauhaus building in Dessau is going on a world tour. Acknowledging the often overlooked power of design to influence environments and outlooks, this outreach project aims to educate and enlighten as it makes the school mobile.

5x5

barra de atención: documenting the endangered and disappearing no-frills bars of Madrid

vetrai veneziana: exploring the storied village of Murano that once held the European monopoly on glass

treasured gaze: a look at the eighteenth century obsession with eye-portraiture—via Everlasting Blört

brannock device: a deep dive into the measuring instrument found in finer shoe stores—based on the barleycorn

futurelight: a collaboration between an automotive company and an outdoor apparel manufacture produce a featherweight camper

it-tieqa żerqa

We had seen this mock-up of a steel architectural truss abutting a Maltese cliff face circulating around the internet for a week but failed to realise that the idea was proffered to repair a famous natural landmark and tourist attraction along the coast outside of Gozo.
The Azure Window (also known as the Dwerjra Window) was a limestone pillar with a stone archway over the sea that collapsed in March 2017 following a violent storm but had been under threat for some time over erosion and increased visitor traffic. In addition to its appearance in Game of Thrones, the window was also featured in the original Clash of the Titans and the Kevin Reynold version of The Count of Monte Cristo, with its last cameo in the cliff-diving Hugo Boss apparel advertising campaign.