Although not without historical precedence, the more reflection dedicated to the Pope’s resolve to resign his post enlivens some interesting repercussions. It seems that one cannot simply retire from the office, and his intentions to repair to a Roman monastery make me wonder if Benedikt will be a mentor, a shadow pope, inviting a second succession of schisms for the Church Universal.
And does his decision open up an expectation, the option for all predecessors to gracefully bow out, whether a divine directive or public perception of being outmoded, like some old and tired politician. With some providence, we will not be overcome by such intrigues.
Monday 25 February 2013
conclave
autodidactic or natural interface
A team from the University of Karlsruhe has been awarded an honourarium from an internet giant for having developed an “air-writing” system to make using touch-screens easier and more intuitive.
catagories: ๐ฉ๐ช, ๐ก, networking and blogging
horse-feathers
There is due cause for revulsion and concern when it comes to food-security and integrity—and I don’t think that this strange phenomena is polluting clinical studies but it is something to consider when one has everything under the microscope and genetic makeup is something writ-large like a rancher’s brand—but Nature periodically orchestrates a very elaborate waltz between genomes, in ways not fully understood though more and more bizarre examples are being discovered.
catagories: environment
Sunday 24 February 2013
shoo fly
Experimentation is possibly demonstrating the waning efficacy of pesticides, namely in tests involving the pervasive chemical DEET. Mosquitoes that are spreading the scourges of mankind that defy overcoming on first exposure avoid the active ingredient, developed by the US military to make jungle warfare more tolerable, but upon their second encounter, seem inured to the taste and don’t seem to mind it so much, like acquiring a taste for coffee or beer and maybe even a liking for it.
catagories: environment, health and medicine
bottleneck
Spielgel’s Eines Tages has a fascinating little article about a short-lived micro-nation that came into being in the Rhine Valley due to cartographical errors in dividing up occupied Prussia after WWI among the British, French and American area-of-responsibility. A gap resulting in dividing control which left the region containing the monastic town of Lorch, Kaub and Limburg isolated and able to claim a quasi-independence.
Trains and barges had to avoid this isolated territory, but pirate operations and black-market trading became quite sophisticated rather quickly. This place is really a picture-postcard idyll, not very far away at all. We’ve been through the area a few times but never knew about this history before, and on our next trip, we’ll have to see what traces we can find about this curiosity.