distinguishing signs of vehicles in international traffic

For the old Lady, the T-3 Transporter, we never made good on designs to decorate her with those luggage-label bumper-stickers of places we’ve traveled to with her. And with Silver Lady, the California T-5, we were wavering on the idea.

Touring around Norway and seeing the moose icon on campers and motor-homes (på norsk, Bobil), we tried to find a small, discrete version for ourselves, but we were unsuccessful. There isn’t so much real-estate along the roof on this one. Instead, we thought we could do something subtle to frame the rear window, maybe, with little symbols, where some families display their children’s names in Germany or advertise the fact that they graduated in 2009 (Abi— for Abitur or Schulabschluss), of the places we’ve been.

One often sees an image of the German North Frisian island of Sylt or Usedom in the Baltic (pictured), which look for all things like a peeled banana or graceful yoga pose and a marauding shark, respectively, until one is told what they are. How’s that for a Rorschach test? It would be relatively easy to print out transparencies and stickers be creative with how one represents his travel destinations.

In somewhat related news, the German Minister of Transportation announced his support to permit municipalities within a county (Gemeinde unter einer Landkreis) to break from tradition and issue their own license plates (Kraftfahrzeugkennzeichen), not with the prefix of the surrounding county but personalized for their locality with whatever letter combination, not already claimed, they see fit. For instance, the village of Markt Unteroberbergburgmühlebach-an-der-Strasse would be no longer under the tyranny of parent East Allgäu county with its non-specific OAL affix but could try UOB or NBG, etc. Police officials, on the other hand, warned of absolute chaos and if politicians want to appeal to local patriotism, they’d be better off with bumper stickers. 

blacklisted or clutter-free: a cautionary tale

I did not notice that the four year anniversary for PfRC came and went without ceremony on my part but it did not pass without acknowledgement and observation. I received a message from the advertising platform notifying me that my account had been suspended over suspect or fraudulent click-activity. This was an unfortunate condemnation and I was more than a bit taken aback. I agree with the characterisation of wanting to maintain integrity all around for the advertising environment, and understand their inability to provide more details, since disclosure about how clicks are policed would give real fraudsters a work-around.

A few errant but curious clicks on my part to billboards on my own site (generally for products and services that I found interesting or ironic, and I would naturally be presented with ads tailored to my taste) or family and friends throwing some support and a known case of one irresistibly mocking political campaign that choose to establish residence on my site that was tagged daily—out of righteous vengeance, begrudging the party a few pennies—or even legitimate case of illegitimate redirecting of traffic—studying statistics and the internet chains of causality (which is another interesting aspect our blogging, aside from the fun of sharing and learning something in the process—knowing what drives traffic and who visits, as well as what ads are posted and how well they can match up to ones content)—since quite a few shady detour-services do stop by, I see, could be the source of this non-compliance with stated policy but of course I can’t know for sure. Maybe I had racked up just one too many penalties or tabs were kept from the beginning, however, I don’t think it was all ballot-stuffing. Like I said, I understand the importance of integrity and legitimacy, and I think that it is a losing proposition all around, should a publisher’s account go dark—not over the revenue, but over the opportunities lost to marketers and perhaps lost chances to enrich the place called the internet. It’s not like a struggling and bankrupt postal service loving junk-mail since it gives them something to deliver. The search engine achieved and maintains dominance and real utility for its complex search algorithms and I’m sure works the publicity programme with the same expertise. The service does offer an appeals process, which I completed—trying to be contrite and honest, but ultimately they notified me that my request for reinstatement was disapproved. It’s not so nice to be permanently punished, but as I said, the important factor for me is the sharing and discovery (while surely that’s cold comfort for those who earn a significant income from it) and of course will continue to blog, though it does feel at the moment a little diminished without that little extra element. I’ve been more preachy than usual and no one asked for an essay on why I am being punished but if I am to be made an example of, I wanted to stress to others the importance of keeping things wholly above-board and in as far as possibly policing one’s blog for violations.

frost giants or manheimr steamroller

Here’s a clever and cute depiction of the nine worlds of Norse mythology, linked together by the cosmic tree of life, Yggdrasill. The legend of the map is accepted by most, the populations of each planet, like Manheimr home world to the humans or Jötunheimr for the Giants and with the same cast of characters, like the Squirrel, Ratatoskr, a mercurial figure that spreads gossips and carries insult from world to world, the different creatures assaulting the tree and the Eagle perched high above and stirring the winds on Earth with its wings. There is quite a bit of disagreement, apparently, on how these realms are arranged and relate to one another.

Were there supposed to be three levels, triads grouped together and clinging to the tree, like the chthonic, mundane and Olympian hierarchies of Greek mythology—or something completely different?

It is interesting, I think, how there are nine distinct regions and the Earth is acknowledged as just one among these—like the ninish planets of the Solar System, and that the Sun and Moon are not figured into the cosmology. Here is also an illustration from Carl Gustav Jung’s Red Book (Liber Novus) representing a similar archetype but perhaps as a tree of self-actualization. Having devoted sixteen years of work and reflection to this tome in order to better understand and explore his own theories on the collective unconsciousness and myth-making, I am sure that Jung also wondered about the ways we could map the universe and firmly believed in the importance of imagery and imagination.

voracious or conqueror worm

Something with a voracious appetite has unfortunately been snacking on our geraniums, which is a little surprising since they’re supposedly odious things to eat and even release chemicals that create a fire-wall for mosquitoes that the pests will avoid. That’s why they’re grown in window boxes, to keep intruders out. Examining the holes, we first wanted to blame a snail but then wondered how a snail would manage to reach the balcony. After some more investigation, we found the culprit feasting away, a poisonously green Hawk Moth caterpillar (Pappelschwärmer).

Gently, humanely, it was displaced to another buffet to complete its metamorphisis into that strange humming bird-like insect.  The flowers are surviving as well. This would also account for those mysterious microscopic pellets—caterpoo.

frühstücken oder morgen post

I really liked this tableau by Danish artist Laurits Andersen Ring, recently featured on the English Wikipedia home-page as a featured image.
Productive from the fin d’siècle until the 1930s, Ring’s style and subject matter helped define the Socio-Realism movement, which embraces such iconographic works as Grant Wood’s American Gothic, the anonymous and evocative profiles of the Great Depression in America (like the photograph of Migrant Mother [DE]) and the cavalcades of propaganda art from different confessions and persuasions yet all with common ways of portraying, lensing society. Focusing on the craftsmanship of the furnishings and small details really complete the scene, which is also pregnant with symbolism that slowly emerges. The allegorical is a subtle thing and can tell stories that are inexhaustible, noting the way the way shadows dapple, the copy of the page, the halo of greenery at the woman’s head, the intention of the palette and so on. Taking a moment to appreciate the unfolding reminds one that links do not allegory make.

energie wende

There are curious trees and reefs being cultivated across the plains of Germany, planted in response to the country’s plans to wean an energy hungry public and industrial sector off nuclear power.

Tilting at these gigantic windmills that form well-landscaped corridors that line the Autobahnen or at the expansive arrays of solar panels that are spreading across hill and field, I find the scale of substitution, replacing the smoke-stacks and cooling towers with alternative and passive means, quite impressive works of engineering—chasing and harnessing forces of nature that wouldn’t otherwise go unused and unappreciated but still without robbing its intended, but seeing this infrastructure grow still does excite some seeds of doubt and skepticism.

I believe that we are moving in the right direction, of course, but I do wonder what sort of green-washing might be undue distractions and skewed motivators: bio-fuels, depending on the source, do not ultimately affect less environmental impact, taking into account resources diverted for raising crops, destined for the tank and not the plate plus the extra kilometers potentially driven due to the cheaper price or false-comfort of being more ecologically friendly at the pump or residential insulation and energy-efficiency modernization programmes that are a boon to the construction and home appliance sectors but may yield diminishing returns for the environment and consumers.

Some very clever people, I am sure, have mulled and processed these returns but the effectiveness rings somehow less than expert. I suppose that the sleek and clean housing and the installation of windmills are quickly off-set and solar arrays are on fallow fields and are rotated, rather than taking up agricultural land and produce enough power to negate the impact, but one does have to wonder about the notion of risk-free, renewable power. Being human is a dirty-business that’s very taxing on space and resources and consumers and providers ought to work always towards innovation and break-through, but yet mindful that making do with less is ultimately the most efficient use of resources.

abstract-concrete

Via the always splendiferous Neatorama, artist Fuchsia Macaree (the link is no longer) shares a brilliant visual logographic alphabet of a treasury of poetic foreign words that have no equivalents in English, like T for the Scottish term Tartle, the act of hesitation upon forgetting someone’s name, or P for the Russian Pashlost, which is a self-satisfied vulgarity masquerading as high morality—plus more to learn with everything else from Age-Tori to Zhaghzhagh.

There a lot of novel, neat words that are pretty lyrical and that I had not heard before, but this is not an exhaustive presentation of things that defy translation. What would you include in an alphabetical format?

Idiosyncratic and family pet-names names for things and concepts or a how about list of the weird jingo and abbreviations of concepts hard to visualize thrown around freely at the office, those words that would be completely foreign sounding and unassailable to a non-native speaker?