fantastic planet

With some 1800 confirmed and strongly suspected extrasolar planets discovered and more coming into focus nearly every day, it really is a revolution like when van Leeuwenhoek first peered into a microscope and a whole, unseen universe of tiny beasties came into sharp resolution. The cache of discoveries is much more than can be committed to memory, like the pantheon of our possibly not-so-unique Solar System, more already than the catalogue of ships that stormed the beaches at Troy and maybe soon the whole of the story-telling tradition of the Iliad. Though most have not been substantiated beyond radar ghosts, astronomers have found some truly bizarre specimens (or relationships) that both rival and parallel imagination and science-fiction.

In addition to a slew of bulked-up terrestrial planets, there has been worlds battered by x-rays, worlds blacker than midnight, ones with two suns like Tatooine, ones gassy and disperse, and possibly orphaned worlds wandering interstellar space with no host star. It is hard to comprehend, minus even the number-count or superlative, extreme examples, that each of these worlds are actually worlds with at minimum a richness of geology with weathered and cultivated landscapes. In anticipation of a new golden age of exploration, clever people have even devised clocks and calendars for the Martian day (Sol) and year. If such detailed and idiosyncratic knowledge can be applied to a world that is by turns tantalizing and rather mundane, it is hard to imagine what's to become of our earthling standards.

grading on the curve or trivial pursuit

According to a study (EN/DE) just released by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), trends suggest that Germany is on track to make less significant contributions of highly skilled and literate individuals into the workforce. Such talents are of course hard to quantify, and I think it is more troublesome that the brute ignorance and general surrender of the American education system (and the dominant attitudes of a post-education populace) are being underestimated by making light comparisons.

The cautionary tale of the American education system, dissected honestly and fearlessly, should be enough to scare any student to work-harder and collectively retain that cutting-edge. The OECD may be just trying to frighten Germany back in line too with its prognosis. Though to feel over-secure in any critique, especially on teaching, is done at one's own peril, I do wonder if the change has less to do with the rigour of instruction than shifts in the way people reason and remember. There was another study concluded a few months ago from a university neurology department (the fact that I don't need to really say which university or when, exactly, sort of illustrates my point) that suggested internet search engines, the miscellany of everything, have transformed the way people try to retrieve information. Subjects were asked quiz questions, like: name a national flag that consists of only one colour. I thought that one was easy, since there is/was only one: Libya's green flag. For many subjects, however, the process of formulating an answer had turned (as far as such things can be seen and measured) from searching ones memory and extrapolating a guess to rather thinking of where and how they could find the answer, presumably what search parameters to use on the internet and where they could look, and regarded that space as an extension of his or her own mind. Recalling facts and figures and precedent is certainly different than appreciable skill or artistic talent, but maybe there is a similar phenomena in play: that engineers, tinkerers and doctors are too part of a continuum, requiring a different approach and metric.

bing bang or urknall

The ever-splendid Boing Boing (a directory of wonderful things) featured a pretty neat infographic illustrating the cosmological unfolding of the Big Bang model from Omid Kashan. It is really captivating, and intuitive without reading the impossibly small text, that show abstracted phases of development, like umbrage on the Moon, and reminiscent of the glorious and psychedelic ordinal counting exercising from the Children's Television Workshop, the pilfered map of the holes in the fabric of the Universe in Time Bandits, or some astral space-pirate treasure map all at once. Another outstanding venue for such reinterpretations and celebrating knowledge and discovery is the magazine Mental Floss. I've been monitoring that site more frequently, and I really enjoy their self-proclaimed science-ish and trivia sections--in addition to the daily exploration.

cogitative bias

The waves of panic in European banking stocks and in the overall American market over EU fiscal discipline and future of the currency-bloc seems to me a bit disingenuous. Battering the creditworthiness of certain big banks or the ability of some member states to adhere to their imposed self-improvement plans. After all, it is in America's interest to promote this particular sort of torment and agony, since it masks its own regulatory and supply-side shortcomings and, moreover, it is in the better interest of the USA to keep the euro over-valued and the dollar weak. Should the euro wane, the American export market would suffer from cheaper European competition, and resources, priced in dollars, would become more dear. Defaults and the perception of defaults might hurt business profit in the short-term but not people, productivity and the marketplace in the long-term, and the policies and mechanisms that will be developed to redress bankruptcy will ultimately translate to a strong and stable European economy.

try to remember that kind of september

Pausing to reflect on the events of 11 September and recalling the sorrow shared over the fact that the perpetrators, whomever they might be, felt that what they were doing would result in a greater good, however that might be measured. The events and the reverberating response, magnfied and rippling through the years, are tragic and with little solace.

The conditioning (the "new-normal"), posturing and policy that came about through loss and fear projected should not be coddled and commemorated like the endless state of war and blind vigilance these prevailing attitudes have inspired. For those who suffered personal loss on 11 September or in the decade of conflict and incarceration that followed should never be expected to forget or move on and should be allowed to grieve in their own ways, but no matter how sadness is screwed up into revenge, hate, vitriol and unthinking, I do not believe that the legacy of those losses of that day and of the days and years that followed should be transmuted into practices and protocol that have radically changed things for the worse, bred intolerance and curtailed liberties.

That's the other shared sorrow, and that is no tribute and a grave dishonour. Too many words already lost their meaning in theatre and farce.  If anything the solidarity and the recognition that we all belong to one another, should be the point-of-departure of 11 September and not what's been sown.

green thumb or fait accompli

Considering the jungle of plants that have invaded our house, sometimes I think there’s something a little bit sinister in all of it. I wonder if plants are not really the intelligent-designers, exceedingly patient, and having selectively-bred human, their caretakers, to do their bidding. Millennia ago, plants got the means to realize agriculture, worship and veneration, lumberjacks, then coffee and tobacco and other medicinal uses, florists, victory gardens, earned a place in our homes and many industries and then even genetic engineering to augment their own evolution. That’s a clever possibility and none too innocent, even if humans have gotten to be rather neglectful of forests and surely not part of the master-plan… I for one welcome our leafy-overlords.

confabulation, conflagration

The unprecedented scope of the wild-fires ravaging central Texas is a frightening thing, already in superlative year for natural and man-assisted disasters, though recent record-holders are quickly outdone and not allowed to bask in their glory or infamy for very long. The latest in the series of governors from that state have invited scorn and courted wrath and maybe there is a parallel, close relationship--the ability to peer into his soul, between the current sitting governor and presidential aspirant and the Russian leadership.

About a year ago, unquenchable wildfires were also threatening the Russian countryside, and the administration was criticized for its crisis-management and possibly handicapping the whole process of response and prevention by cutting back on support for firefighters. To what degree that criticism was warranted remains unclear, though the Russians who suffered lost because of the fires were cared for and the fire crews are fully-funded. It is however less of a question and more substantiated fact that the Texan leadership has shut down firehouses and curtailed support for voluntary (Freiwillig) firefighters, and so many Americans resist evacuation in the States because they have very little faith that their losses will be restored. It is a bit ironic that the aspirations of the Texas governor are built on the shaky principles that federalism is the cause of all woes and is loath to ask for its aid during the crisis. To some extent, this purging by fire sweeping through the forests and grasslands is a natural cycle, unavoidable and necessary, but poor stewardship and response fuels its destructive power. I hope that those affected survive this disaster and re-emerge with refreshed strength to guide policy and priorities in a sensible and not superficial direction.

meritocrazia

Threatened with municipal redundancy, an ambitious local government council from the village of Filettino are drawing up articles of cession from Italy and declaring themselves an independent principality. Part of the austerity measures of the Italian government propose that small villages be annexed by their larger parent commune, in order to save on administrative expenses. Outraged at facing the end of their village as a separate political entity, Filettino has anointed its mayor, are seeking a prince, and has even issued its own currency. Villagers are very enthralled with how this will go, citing Italy's long, divided history of enclaves and city-states and the fact that San Marino has survived for centuries in its own right. The most serene republic, as opposed to a principality, is however not quite the same animal as a toy kingdom with shifting alliances, having endured as a democracy since the third century. I for one wish Filettino well, in whatever form it takes, and think that it would be pretty neat to be king or even subject there and it is a very creative tact to take in protest to what may be misdirected hardships.