BLDGBLOG shares and expands on an interesting proposal by the London Economist that suggests that the extant array of antennae and satellite dishes and other shadow-casting receivers and transmitters could be used as a passive, supplemental radar to track aircraft and light up the run-way.
Such auroral imaging is like earlier snap-shots focused by WiFi signals or radio-telescopes, augmenting and translating what is visible to the human-eye. The discussion makes me think of another development, which although less of a technical challenge for the pilots, is nonetheless representative of a bigger technical divide: a number of systems, on a common platform, are coming into place to alleviate a very democratic and local problem, that of finding a parking-space. Some very creative and clever solutions are on offer, but I am wary over another common and unaccommodating layer of haves and have-nots, not redressed by leveraging the conditions that created it.
Monday 8 April 2013
hertzian photography
catagories: ๐ฌ๐ง, ๐ก, transportation
by hades’ handbag
Of all the gifts—pandora—of the gods of mythology, all the humanizing deifications, it strikes me as strange that the only “professional” endowment that has not be stricken from common-parlance is a plutocrat—though, unlike for the aristocracy, probably not a badge proudly proclaimed.
catagories: ๐ฌ๐ท, ๐, economic policy, labour
Sunday 7 April 2013
moog or ham-and-eggs, hammond organs
The other day, I ventured to a flea-market advertized beyond the former border dividing East and West Germany, which turned out to be more like a party held at a abandoned aircraft hangar crammed full of personal Ostalogie, random items from DDR times.
It was neat to wonder around aisles of piles, but after hearing a radio retrospective of East Germany’s part not only in electronic music, like Kraftwerk who were early-adopters, but in electronic instruments, as well, I wish I had been paying more attention. It turns out that the electronic keyboard, the organ with the basso-nova beat, had its origins (building on some earlier, native discoveries) in the factories of the VEB Klingenthaler Harmonikawerke, by Plauen, in 1972 as the VERMONA, the ET-6. Of course, these factories made other iconic and traditional instruments, like Weltmeister accordions, juke-boxes, and pianos, but the VERMONA and later incarnations really spiked a revolution in sound and how music was made. I am sure there was such an innovative electric organ warehoused there, and although I don’t believe we have the immediate talent to contribute to the retro-legacy musically, I would like to be able to tickle the ivories that oversaw so much change.
catagories: ๐ฉ๐ช, ๐ถ, ๐ก, lifestyle, revolution
happy camper
Preparing for vacation season, H was looking where we might take the Silver Lady this summer.
catagories: ๐ฉ๐ช, ๐️, lifestyle, transportation, travel
hari kuyo or last honours
Via the emporium of curiosities, Oddity Central, I learnt that the Japanese reserve the last day of the Lunar New Year’s celebration with a sweetly touching ceremony that’s a final tattoo for lives of long and dedicated service for pins and other such small and disposable things.
catagories: ๐ฏ๐ต, holidays and observances, philosophy, religion
Saturday 6 April 2013
smarch und mapril
I like how the trappings of Easter, unlike with other holidays, are compelled to be taken down and stowed away for next year—or replaced by the commercial creep and anticipation of the next batch of observances around the corner, right away. I guess that’s partially owing to the fact that the customs associated with Easter, partially, are a mixed-metaphor, with all notions of promise, renewal and rebirth celebrated and borrowing from one another, and something to be savoured.
Most decorations are such eggs hanging from willow switches or displayed on a village well, but I also appreciated this last interpretation, which seems a custom in itself, exchanging the Christmas lights for plastic edges on these sculpted hedges. It feels like a weird, inverted interlude, barreling towards Winter rather than Summer. I hope keeping these charms on exhibit do us a better turn.
catagories: ๐ฉ๐ช, ✝️, ๐, ๐ฑ, environment, food and drink, foreign policy, holidays and observances
Friday 5 April 2013
diorama or microcosmos
Bremen Public Radio features a collection of photographs from local artist Nikolai Keller posing tee-tiny people in the greatly magnified details of everyday surroundings. The article (the link does not seem to work) includes a video segment documenting his technique and patience with these model train scale figures and a link to the gallery of the artist.