With the encouragement of the European Commission and the contribution and support of several dozen institutions to seed and sew the collection, the internet gateway, Europeana, has just gone live.
Wednesday 12 September 2012
data-set or compendium
catagories: ๐, ๐, libraries and museums
munity on the bounty
For the US (and I wonder who were the competent authorities in this decision-making process) to reward a former Swiss banking executive with a king’s ransom (some one hundred million dollars) for disclosing the apparent practices of his employer and the handling American clientele is undoubtedly incendiary and no recompense (should any materialise) can justify the damage being done to dialogue and diplomacy.
catagories: ๐จ๐ญ, ๐ฉ๐ช, ๐บ๐ธ, ๐, economic policy, foreign policy
johnny appleseed or be you and I behind an arras then
catagories: ๐ฅธ, economic policy, foreign policy, graphic design, health and medicine
Sunday 9 September 2012
funkloch
I find it remarkable how much infrastructure has been dedicated a-pace with progress to the traffic in invisible forces. Of course, not everything out of the past has become obsolete and ought to be gutted or cannibalized for spare parts—even if it has been outmoded.
I bet all those dormant telegraph wires could be revitalized and deputized for a good use too. Though television has taken the high road and almost exclusively is beamed down from beyond the atmosphere, the signal towers have been retrofitted as cellular towers. The principles behind telephony are not terribly advanced, considering that one is just glomming onto an established network. A Funkloch is a German term for the increasingly rare places out in the countryside where there is no cellular coverage—a signal-hole. Though decidedly unaesthetic but I suppose practical since most castles were built in strategic locations, on the high-ground with a commanding vantage, some historic turrets (mostly in private hands, like the tower of Burg Gรถรweinstein near Forchheim) now also host an array of communications equipment. The network of fortifications used to communicate via bonfires and smoke-signals, across the valleys and over considerable distances, and no one could foresee the same ancient brigade bearing our new-fangled wirelessness.
catagories: ๐ฉ๐ช, ๐ก, ๐, ๐บ, networking and blogging
volumetric or spelunk
Despite the economic crisis and scaling back in the programmes and ambitions of pure research projects, like SETI and NASA, I think we are still experiencing a golden age of exploration—both in terms of new-found resourcefulness and legacy. At the same time as researchers prepare to penetrate the icy depths of Antarctic lakes isolated from the rest of the world for hundreds of thousands of years, an advanced robotic embassy is probing the secrets of Mars and one veteran experiment, Voyager, is on the cusps of interstellar space, another relatively forgotten but enduring project is getting ready to observe the milestone of a quarter of a century.
Though not the longest-lived experiment under laboratory conditions (like those eternal incandescent light-bulbs or the slow drip of pitch) by any means, but hole bored near Windisch- esenbach in eastern Bavaria, among the deepest in the world at close to ten kilometers in depth and the only such feat of engineering undertaken for purely scientific purposes, was drilled in earnest from September of 1987 to 1995, at the convergence of two tectonic plates, and is still the subject of study and research. The site in the Oberpfalz was chosen for geologic reasons, the project called auf Deutsch das Kontinentales Tiefbohrprogramm der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, this area marking the sublimation of the ancient continental landmasses of Pangaea and Gondwanaland, and if not for a billion years of weathering and erosion, would boast the highest mountain range in the world. Scarcity of funding and more importantly underestimating how quickly temperature would rise—265 ° C already and short of the 10, 000 meter mark, put an end to the drilling operations. Teams of geologists have continued to conduct research in the twelve years since the boring was halted, but initially many of the villagers were opposed to have such an operation in their backyard—fearful of noxious gasses or infernal visitors. Considering that even barely penetrated this frontier just underfoot—even at this great depth, still only a fraction through the earth’s crust—and the volume of the world is much greater than its surface, there is a lot of potential for the imagination and to unearth all the treasures and bizarre secrets of Jules Verne’s journey to the centre of the Earth.
catagories: ๐ฉ๐ช, ๐ญ, environment
Saturday 8 September 2012
elucidation
Some subjects and themes, as determined by mood, rumour and the forecast, are highly popular. There are certainly a lot of creative and emboldened dioramas out there that demonstrate photographic ingenuity and that sometimes verge on silliness and hyperbole and sometimes a bit mean-spirited. I especially feel sorry for the poor stunt-money that’s afforded no respect.
catagories: ๐ฉ๐ช, ๐ช๐บ, ๐, economic policy, networking and blogging