Though it is a challenge to find a non-moribund version that complements the original science project—and it's sad to think how precariously curated some brilliant things were handled just a few scant years ago, aping at this strange sort of premature immortality only to be displaced and neglected, looking back from an age just a few years later with the threat that most mundane and uninteresting things will ever be forgot—a clever student basically downloaded the growing database of Wikipedia and developed a route to allow users to enter queries on two desperate and random topics through his server and find the distance (the Kevin Bacon number, the connections, steps it takes to bridge both items) between them in the Wikipedia universe. Six Degrees of Wikipedia, it was called and was introduced in 2007, although it appears there has been no one to maintain the programme. Surely still educational and serendipitous, one sees latter day incarnations as a game with a certain frame work, which I think makes the search more of a trivial pursuit. Research, triangulation and abstraction, however, cannot be replaced by any amount of brute force or compendious collection, nor a sense of anticipation or urgency that spoils the surprise.
I wonder how the project's inventor thinks about browsers and engines, without stint or bias, almost without fail direct questions that have no resale value toward their Wikipedia articles. Since the first speech broadcast to those within ear-shot, the speed of communications has been dangerously out-stripping the speed of comprehension. One writer for Der Spiegel's Eines Tages lost-and-found bureau, invites readers on a monthly adventure with a daisy-chain of nodes and relays from the universal encyclopedia to bring together two topics in seven, possibly specious but always interesting, steps. The latest installment (liediglich nur auf Deustch) by Danny Kringiel links the history and development of rail-transport in Japan with the current state of affairs and exposure with the spying apparatuses of the United States. I am sure such a thesis accepts tangents as well.
Saturday 24 August 2013
kevin bacon number or seven-league boots
catagories: ๐ฏ๐ต, ๐️, ๐ฅธ, networking and blogging, philosophy, revolution, transportation, Wikipedia
Wednesday 21 August 2013
seven against thebes
The amazing fresco depicts the martyrdom of the Theban Legion, a Roman garrison in Egypt,who were converted and condemned en masse under the leadership of St. Moritz, patron of many places in Germany and beyond—other members are venerated as well, including San Fedele (Saint Felix) who ended up in Como, when dispatched to the French-Swiss border to quell an (im)pious uprising and refused to do so.
catagories: ๐จ๐ญ, ๐ฉ๐ช, ๐ฎ๐น, ✝️, revolution
fiat geld or straw into gold
In response to the growing interest and esteem of the Bitcoin, Der Spiegel reports, the German
catagories: ๐ฉ๐ช, economic policy, networking and blogging
pirate bay or the 13 hongs of scooby doo
Not that contemporary events are not not engaging enough and the roots of greed and corruption are ever so shallow, happening to read a bit of an article on the Fugitive (he kind of reminds me of Shaggy, better get back to the Mystery Machine) while waiting to get a haircut (I am thankful that some places still have a selection of magazines to pass the time and not assume that everyone has or has the compunction to stare at a telephone) read that the place he first sought refuge in Hong Kong was specifically in the district of Kowloon, a pretty posh area in places but also formerly host to one of the strangest, seediest underworlds of history: Kowloon Walled-City.
The British Empire was granted the ninety-nine year lease of the important port city as a result of the Treaty of Nanking that brought a temporary peace to the Opium Wars. Already unhappy with the tariffs and strictures imposed on foreign merchants (transaction were indirect and handled through mediators called hongs and restricted to thirteen factories, industrial parks) by the Chinese Empire, the dissatisfaction was exacerbated for the main player, the royally chartered British East India Company, by having its profitable cotton trade displaced by production in Egypt. To make up for this loss, the corporation turned its focus in the Bengali region to poppy-harvesting and aggressively flooding the market with opium. Chinese objections to this tactic were countered with war that created a rather unbalanced legacy.
catagories: ๐จ๐ณ, ๐ฌ๐ง, ๐ฅธ, foreign policy, revolution
Monday 19 August 2013
the pillars of hercules or non plus ultra
The European Union is dispatching a committee to possibly mediate the strife between the UK territory of Gibraltar and the surrounding Kingdom of Spain. Although this contention is nothing new, the promontory ceded to the United Kingdom in perpetuity by the Treaty of Utrecht that settled the Wars of the Spanish Succession in the early eighteenth century and residence of the Rock have roundly rejected measures for devolution. The latest escalating episode that has attracted the attention of the EU is over increased border checks that the Spanish government has imposed. Spain argues that autonomous Gibraltar, whose economy is largely based on financial services and internet-gambling is not doing enough to control smuggling and black-market activities, though employing a lot of Spanish day-labourers besides.
Britain argues it is in retribution for the sinking of several concrete blocks off-shore to create an artificial reef in waters that Spain claims, ostensibly to promote sea-life and the haul in this disputed area. From a mythological point of view, it is interesting that the landmark is interpreted as both an act of ditch-digging to reach open-waters quicker, connecting the Mediterranean with the Atlantic and as an act of narrowing the straits to prevent the ingress of sea-monsters by Hercules. Whether inviting or foreboding, what lie beyond the strait represented uncharted territory. Some contend too that the symbolism of the columns regaled with sash became the dollar sign, $ with two vertical bars from the glyph for pesos. Whatever the real reason behind this dispute and arbitration, whether it be a stance against colonialism or for self-determination and open-borders, is unclear, as British warships enter as they have done some weeks ago in the Falklands, no one is mentioning Spain's own contentious exclaves, the port cities of Ceuta, considered the southern pole of Hercules, and Melilla in Morocco. We will see what happens.
catagories: ๐ช๐ธ, ๐ฌ๐ง, ๐, foreign policy, labour
Sunday 18 August 2013
rink-a-dink or bed-and-board
Though far from forthcoming and most deflectionary with their motives, administrators for the city of Berlin (not used as a metonym for the government of Germany entire) are making arguments against service-providers that help connect tourists with residents who have a spare room, sofa or air-mattress to offer, saying that the entrepreneurs are contributing to the shortage of affordable housing through speculative by encouraging speculation and holding onto surplus space, awaiting a turn in the properties market.
That hardly seems like a valid accusation to those who have managed to spin a meagre sum of gold by offering the extra space to visitors to the city at a discount and with the bonus of very personable accommodations and native knowledge. For the price, one does not usually find this at traditional hotels and surely the aggressions against the industry and short-term renters is at the behest of the hotel lobby, who stand to lose profits to more flexible and hospitable individuals and probably also sore that private subleters don't have restrict regulations and a tax regime to adhere to. I've often thought about making my work-week flat available for a song (or my car during the week) on the weekends and know I have the means and infrastructure to do so. People caught renting out their homes or parts of it to vacationers could face fines, but that would do nothing to improve the housing situation, since few to none of the participants are hording space, only offering an alternative to regular billeting.
It is happening in other tourist-destinations as well and the ire of municipalities is running counter to consumer-demand. Hopefully in the end, the service-providers will prevail, but this battle-royale seems like the whinging in the States that introduced internet sales-tax or the bemoaning of the postal service and telephone companies over lost revenue due to more expedient and cheaper alternatives. Though we are happy campers ourselves, to pass such a regulation, I think, would be a dangerous assault against sharing, moonlighting and freelancing in general. What is your opinion? Is this like Ma Bell going after Skype or a legitimate way to ease the housing-crunch in big cities?
catagories: ๐ฉ๐ช, ๐บ๐ธ, ๐️, transportation, travel