ghost run

Not only does Atlas Obscura deliver postcards from the world's curious and esoteric locales, they also have a pretty nifty blog, which is celebrating thirty-one days of Halloween by featuring its creepiest and most haunting places. It is ghoulish--especially the tales of catacombs that ring of urban legend and highlighting the other consecrated sites that have a reciprocal relationship, a ceded and imparted spell-binding, with their visitors--and certainly worth investigating for raising holiday spirits.

mainframe

I consider myself fortunate to be of an age where my first exposure to computers was mediated by film (War Games, Ferris Buhler, TRON) and then in the classroom and was not prejudiced with the idea that off-line, a computer was not much use or conditioned to necessarily conform questions and answers the way programmers wanted them phrased. I remember in grade school, in Mister K-'s computer science class sitting with others at a bank of Apple IIE computers, writing simple programs but learning that one can set the rules and parameters—and not just cosmetically. I was never a serious programmer but I did pursue that as a hobby later on, and later on I can remember being enamoured with the range of sound-effects (and the graphics) that Apple computers were capable of when we used them to publish a student newspaper and yearbooks in journalism class. In addition to the genius and accessibility that Steve Jobs (EN/DE) brought to the world, we owe a great debt of gratitude to his unwavering vision of an interface that is determined by the user, aesthetic and functional and serving up the intangibles of electronic-data in a way that allows people a coordinated creativity and to accessorize. I have never felt that an Apple’s full potential went unrealized, a victim of some systemic fault or jingoistic jargon that a non-native could ever hope to penetrate (not discounting the real and valuable contributions of other innovators)--and do feel a great compunction to become smarter, not for the sake of better navigation and to become more attuned with the computers, so that the next generation's convergent evolution has something to greet and not only strive to make a better extension, a wetsuit, a pseudopod that encourages more virtual living rather than participating in limning all landscapes. I want to thank the team that Jobs brought together for this vision and freedom and I feel confident that his inspiration will go on.

whack fol de turalura ladie, whack fol de turalureley

You can see Dublin City and the fine groves of Blarney,

The Baun, Boyne, and Liffey, and the lakes of Killarney,

You can ride on the tide o'er the broad Majestic Shannon,

You can sail round Loch Neagh and see storied Dungannon.

Will you come, will you, will you, will you come to the bower?

PfRC will be will be taking a short hiatus, while we take are engaged with adventures in one of our favourite destinations--Ireland.  In the past we have enjoyed exploring the Dingle Peninsula and the Ring of Kerry, seen the savage beauty of Connemara, and this time we will be traveling to County Cork to visit Bantry Bay and the Ring of Beara on the southernmost peninsula. 

I am very excited--and surely all the while narrate our doings to the tune of the Edmund Fitzgerald or some other forgiving Irish folk song--and be sure to check back with our little travel blog for updates. 

speakeasy or agent 99

Another criticism of the groups gathered in cities across the United States to protest the culture of kleptocracy and loss of meaningful government advocacy is that the 99th percentile is mostly represented by the technocrati, and not the working poor and families overcome by want. I think that is an unfair characterization and implies that computer geeks and more subversive hacktavists have the luxury and leisure to groan about the state of the economy. Despite all the barbs traded over whether or not this rally needs clearer direction and what is glaringly obvious or otherwise, this movement still needed a catalyst and broad support that's not the piggy-backing that will be ultimately levied against the protesters by critics. With the timing of legislation that would aggravate trade-sanctions and diminish US stature further, the protests will be blamed for frustrating the elusive recovery, whose main measure is jobs though productivity is rather lost in credit and liquidity and improved savings--now called hording. The high-visibility media will do all it can to disparage these growing protests as clashes accelerate into theatre and grand-distraction, but beyond awareness, I think these occupations will secure more protections for the average worker, regardless of background, that have gone all out of balance in favour of profit and gain at any other cost.

hashtags

While I do not believe that the American people are an apathetic lot, I do believe there has been an institutionalization of the mechanisms that rob people's appetite for protest and a general swath of demotivation.

That said, I do not want to lose hope for the sit-ins going on across the country (EN/DE)--although the same dismissive mechanisms are certainly a extinguishing factor. There has been violence, police brutality, kettling, and worse yet either total disregard by the media or a high moralizing tone: most reporting comes through the lens of British journalism whose civil unrest, in the eye of the public, went from student tuition rallies to rioting and destruction--though Britain's protesters are more experienced with kettling and entrapment, and those you do deign to notice these unwashed masses take a paternal tone. Calling the movement unfocussed and without specific demands, some commentators sigh with regret that such behaviour is unbecoming and does not seem like promising deportment for a generation struggling with unemployment and staying the course in higher education. Editors might as well throw in the over-sold dream of home ownership for all and just compound the frustrations of the organizers and occupiers: the problems are so big and systemic that anyone could intuit them, without further explanation. It is ironic that this has become more scolding about responsibility, when the apex of success in money-matters is portrayed by the cavalier day-trader who beats the trends and bets against his better interests and patience. No one is dissecting this short-fused punchline, and the protesters are not drop-outs but are rather trying to make the rules more inclusive.