prism break or needle in a haystack

Little Brother with the GCHQ (Government Communi- cations Headquarters) and fibre-optics wire-tapping programme is certainly nothing to scoff at and possibly out-does its America cousin in terms of brute invasiveness and bookkeeping, with a platform called Tempora. These examples are surely not the lone, or even principle players, in the global vying for data collection and probably one could assume that any armament exporting countries have built the same infrastructure, pawning off excess capacity and physical liabilities to importing nations as red herrings, though flawed maybe in confusing data with intelligence but petit-sophisticates in realising dominance and prosecuting wars in a tidy and more profit-saving way.
Surely Germany has a Stasi-Rebooted programme in the fight, which probably explains the dispro- portionately mild accusations and demands for explanation levied against the Americans—for fear of looking like hypocrites for having the same aspirations and no country is trusting and completely innocent. The internet is always adapting and a few steps ahead of the surveyors and here are a few professional tips and upgrades that you can use to stave off (or at least watch) the nosiness and eavesdropping—that is, if you can believe this resource is not a front thrown together to get people to load software on their communication devices to make prying them open even easier.

of malls and mosques

Writing for the Spectator, Norman Stone has an interesting primer on the developing situation in Turkey, which challenges some of the stereotypes and assumptions that pooled a lot brave and bracing defiance into a batch of plainly detrimental expectations. Maybe the Western world really wants this place to live up to their idea of an acceptably Muslim and swarthier version of Germany, and of course in Germany and anywhere else home to a diaspora, there's discomfort and a certain sort of blanket surmising and feeling of being crowded out balanced out with an imperfect logic of thinking that the immigrants (anyone vaguely Turkish-ish) weren't able to hack it back at home, so Deutschland is not recipient of the choicest of masses.

Of course, those are not matters for polite conservation and obscure the fact that activists and hardliners have their hopes and ambition—their bourgeoisie, their dogmatists, both secular and religious. Turkey's bids for inclusion in the European Union, courting its own set of proponents and dissenters alike in a sort of macroscopic rallying point, may shape protest and response to perhaps keep up appearances and maybe an allotment for reform, but such tempers cause people to stick with old attitudes and prejudices. What do you think? Is such pressure a conduit for for positive change or just fitting comfortably into a pattern?

one hand clapping or monkey see, monkey do

The science desk of the BBC features an interesting study and meta-analysis of the mentality and momentum of audiences, concluding basically that applause is a social contagion. Watching footage of hundreds of endings to live speeches and other performances showed that the catalyst was the clapping of one or two individuals, sustaining the ovation, until an equal sampling of the audience stops.

Researchers found that the immediate acclaim had no relation to the quality or reception of the show but rather stemmed from the stimulus. There is of course a lot to be said for etiquette and politeness, but I wonder how such mimicking behaviour is reflected elsewhere, like the indiscriminate sharage and championing of all causes and comers in social networks. A few years ago, sociologists revealed that in many cases guilt, an undutiful kind, rather than genuine interest, underlies civility when it comes to accepting amicable invitations or joining up to play some virtual game, when beckoned, and joining such a platform over another in the first place, I imagine. I also wonder if echo-chamber, not peer-pressure, represents something new. Are such phenomena merely easier to observe—or with the spread of the known and the knowable, easily referenced, are we loosing our ability to discriminate and judge what's deserving of cheer? Live studio-audiences used to have a scripted cue and opera-companies in France used to employ professional applause artists to encourage, and booing (though possibly just as contagious) has been relegated to snarky and mean-spirited commentary, whereas the audience used to lob rotten vegetables for bad acting. I am not sure which critique was more civilised.

vernacular

Collectors' Weekly has an excellent and engrossing article profiling the curators and collection of the smallest museum in the world, located serendipitously down an alleyway in Manhattan.

This cabinet of curiosities is installed in the space left empty (formerly occupied by a freight elevator) beneath the collectors' production studio, and aims to document the dander of society captured in changing exhibits, showing the wonders of everyday things. I suppose it's like a time capsule, keenly aware of its own irony, except it's always on display, inviting people not only to stop and look but also engage in dialogue and share their own experience with collecting and personal criteria. Although the intent differs, I see the same tiny museum reflected in these delightful lending-libraries, popping up everywhere, like these stacks housed in a surplus telephone booth at a remote campsite in Switzerland. Of course, the depository is there for sharing and leisurely reading while on vacation, but there's an aesthetic to it too—something reaching beyond the titles and choice, how they got there and what sort of forces keep books in circulation or dammed up in an unexpected spot—which is far better than anything on demand and flustered for attention.

unmoved mover

In response to Ankara's violent usurping the protesters' of their venue in Istanbul have taken a passive stance. The so-called “Standing Man” has inspired hundreds of others to keep a silent vigil, not willing to be kettled and moving for hours and refusing to budge, despite authorities waxing wise to the statement. Like the riots in Tunisia over the desperation of and empathy for a fruit-seller's dwindling prospects that went on to ignite the revolutions of the Arab Spring, the situation in Turkey is evolving, growing from a protest on environmental grounds to an expression of grave dissatisfaction with the drift of the current regime.

oh weal, oh woe or ttip—ta ta for now

Watchdog CEO (Corporate Europe Observatory) delves into the details of the US-EU trade agreement that was ratified at the G9 summit and shows how, without much imagination of an embarrassment of gullibility, public welfare is becoming a nuisance easily steamrolled by business interests, constituted in such a way as to give industry carte-blanche to flagrantly ignore established national laws and policies and give pause to governments thinking of championing the common weal.  Of course this development is vying for attention (or rather, seeking cover) with the Conference itself and the effective-date for FATCA in Germany, plus whatever distracting scandal of the day. 

When regulatory climates are seen as damaging to investor profits or acting toward the detriment of health, labour-rights, safety or the environment—depending on one's perspective, both parties are bound to submit their cases before a kangaroo court of arbitrated settlement, the commission for Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), headed by a group of lawyers with an established reputation. Lobbyists on both sides of the Atlantic are responsible for crafting these conditions, and thankful activists the world around are keenly aware of the dangers of disincentivizing de-soverigning, too. Unfortunately public service has its price, as well, demonstrated by the precursors to this treaty.

let me see you shake your tail-feathers

Science writer and teacher, Carl Zimmer, has a beautiful and provoking science video for TEDEducation (Technology, Entertainment, Design, perhaps best known for their annual conferences, brain-storming sessions and for their slogan of “ideas worth spreading,” which ponders how the evolution of feathers and flight might have evolved over the ages into the explosive variety and creativity we see in birds today.
 Nature is nothing if not resourceful and we are all witnesses to works-in-progress and not the finished-product, however it is still strange (no matter how the family resemblances surface) to re-think dinosaurs as something quirky and almost approachable, decorated with fuzz and fancy plumage like one of those off-breed prize hens or fashion pigeon, instead of something muscular and monstrous, like a Ray Harryhausen creation. It is sort of like being told all those marble sculptures of antiquity were no gleaming white and pristine as they are displayed (and copied) nowadays but rather all painted up in garish harlequin colours, with hair and eye-balls. A whole series of videos on different subjects can be found at the TEDEducation link.