We mostly take for granted the fact that we live in charted territory and that almost any route imaginable has been scouted out, the path is well-worn and clearly marked, and that the starting point and destination have fixed addresses, precise under any number of conventions, by the postal system, government and satellite telemetry. The planet’s newest nation, South Sudan, however (and with its capital Juba situated in a district called Central Equatoria, one might be excused for thinking one ought to be able to pin point whereabouts precisely), possesses a paucity of cartographical information about itself, which is a disservice to the young country in terms of understanding demographics, infrastructure and its own resources and moving forward after years of strife.
Sunday 23 December 2012
central equatoria or space-time coordinates
catagories: ๐ฉ๐ช, ๐, ๐, ๐ก, ๐บ️, environment, transportation
Saturday 22 December 2012
selected traits
I have noticed an overarching theme in portrayals of the near future, usually of the dystopian or post-apocalyptic varieties, which include as a strange, albeit convenient, deus ex machina of a human sub-species with telekinetic or telepathic powers. Cinematically, to me, this seems as troublesome as the paradoxes of time travel, and it seems terribly unlikely that such a patently useful and fulfilling trait would evolve or a mutation pedigreed. I think man has little impetus to evolve, because environmental factors and disadvantageous qualities can and should be accommodated. It’s hard to say what humans would have tended towards, left to the brute elements, had empathy and industry not converged along with natural developed, and we probably would not have liked it—especially since evolution is not a matter of wish or sophistication but practicality and claws and fur and spider-sense, I think, would return long before the debut of psychic powers.
catagories: ⚕️, ๐ฌ, ๐ก, revolution
currier & ives
catagories: ๐ถ, ๐, ๐บ, holidays and observances, language, networking and blogging, religion, Wikipedia
yule log or tron, troff
Normally, the last few days in the office before Christmas and the inter-festum week are pretty quiet and peaceful with calling on each and every colleague with season’s greetings, but there has been some ruinous and reactionary business that’s managed to sideline everything else.
catagories: ๐, holidays and observances, networking and blogging
Thursday 20 December 2012
MMXII: revue and not for prophet
March: After 244 years of publication, the Encyclopรฆdia Britannica is no longer in print—that is, in book form.
April: World stock-markets drop precipitously in reaction to talk of euro-zone debt realities and rumour. China unpegs the yuan from the US dollar and threatens the dollar’s status as a world reserve currency. The Arab Spring continues with uprisings in Bahrain and Syria. We had to say good bye to long-time Band-Stand and New Year’s Eve gala host Dick Clark—well-played, Mayans, well-played.
May: There was spate of bizarre and gory attacks in the United States that invoked both cannibalism and zombies. We had to say good bye to Vidal Sassoon and Donna Summer.
June: We had to say good bye to visionary author Ray Bradbury. Germany rejects proposals to pool EU debt, arguing it is an individual responsibility, while Greece elects an anti-austerity government.
July: CERN laboratories isolate the Higgs-Boson particle. Electricity blackouts in India leave more than a half-a-billion without power for days.
August: The rover Curiosity lands on Mars and begins exploring. We had to say good bye to astronaut Neil Armstrong.
September: A number of terrorist attacks are coordinated against Western interests overseas, including American embassies in response to outrages over contemptible portrayals of culture and religion.
December: A horrific school shooting happened in a Kindergarten in Connecticut. We had to say good bye to architect and incubator Oscar Niemeyer, sitar-man Ravi Shankar, and jazz innovator Dave Brubeck.
We will see what the close of the year and the new one to come bring. A lot of the matter of 2012 appears to be continuation of old business, only to out-do itself and be more glorious or notorious.
And though attention and tolerance usually seek out familiar shores right away, it might be that some of the incidents and accidents of the past chapter of months make their consequence known and bring about reform and inspection, like in terms of managing violence and protection or environmental stewardship, in the next.
catagories: ๐ช๐บ, ๐ฌ๐ง, ๐บ๐ธ, ๐ช️, ๐, ๐ถ, ๐, ๐บ, ๐ญ, economic policy, environment, foreign policy, holidays and observances, lifestyle
Tuesday 18 December 2012
reportage or end-user agreement
On the state level, two separate regions of Germany are calling for very different reforms whose intentions and actions wear both the sticks-and-stones persona of cyber-affairs and speak to the growing entanglement, irretrievability and dependence on connections and the synapses between people. Officials in the state of Sachsen-Anhalt want to give law-enforcement the ability to shut down telecommunication service providers unilaterally in cases of imminent threat to life and limb, and as a staunch corollary, courts in Schleswig-Holstein want a certain social-networking service to change its policy about joining under a nom de plume and is poised to impose hefty fines should the requirement or real names continue.
Currently, law enforcement can only shut down a cellular tower outside the express physical presence and permission via warrant if and only if there is bomb inside the cell tower. Opponents to the measures fear, as has been done in the US and elsewhere, that the police and government will use these martial-powers to silence dissent and hinder coordination for protests. The proposal further imposes that all infrastructure (along every point) have an easily accessible kill-switch, which can only be brought back online by competent authorities. The social network is refusing to waive the requirement on identity (I never knew that one had to use such credentials but apparently so) and is not entertaining arguments, despite the fact the rule is in violation of German and European Union privacy protections—not that people are guaranteed anonymity or pseudo-anonymity but that people are guaranteed certain protections on their personal data which no business or aggregator government can pretend to honour. Anyone who exercises freedom of speech and expression does so contractually, knowing that there is no intent to harm or befoul, but that contract is not drawn up in a vacuum, by companies or by government agencies. The right to be forgot entails that one’s footprints are not tracked without good reason and that an shadow that cannot be shed be linked to one’s name evermore. It is strange that the trade and tools of civil rights has been summarily reduced to this sort of smugness.
catagories: ๐ฉ๐ช, ๐ช๐บ, ๐บ๐ธ, ๐ฅธ, networking and blogging, revolution