Friday 10 January 2014
hieroglyph or non verbis, sed rebus
Thursday 9 January 2014
ne pas รชtre un vide-poche ร l'origine
Via the intrepid and inquiring Nag on the Lake, a single one of Intel's latest batch of innovations introduced at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas has captivated the public above others. This so called smart-bowl is basically a vide-poche, a place to deposit the contents of one's pockets at the end of the day, which generates an electric field to transfer energy from the bowl to a cellular phone or some other battery-operated gadget within via induction and without wires. Though inductive charging is not the most efficient method and only works at a very close range, the idea is pretty clever and maybe will led to improvements in the technology, particularly for something like electric cars that could charge passively without plugs and cables.
catagories: lifestyle, networking and blogging, technology and innovation, transportation
Wednesday 8 January 2014
currents and gyres
Despite the headlines, Germany, like America has far from a monolithic climate, but nonetheless the weather reports on opposite sides of the Atlantic could not be further apart. While in Germany, we have been spoilt by a series of glorious, balmy days that seems more like an extremely early Spring than a lingering Autumn, in contrast parts of the US have been dealing with unprecedented lows. Birds are confused and flowers are blooming.
catagories: ๐, ๐, ๐ช️, ๐ฑ, environment
Tuesday 7 January 2014
mercator projection
simulacra
A skeuomorph (from the Greek for vessel or tool and shape) is a derivative embellishment that cues an operator to a function by invoking some older physical, mechanical element. The icons of graphic interfaces are vast arrays of skeuomorphs—like the symbol of a paper envelope for e-mail, a pad-lock, a waste-bin. None of these representations exist within the computer—like the orientation of PLAY pointing to the right and REWIND to the left, there being no direction but rather an allusion to mechanism of older video and cassette players, but skeoumorphism is not limited to the quiver of familiar icons.
There's quite a range of abstractions that fall into this category—I think, to include gestures and gesticulations like widely recognized pantomime for call me or for what time is it, though the instruments likely to be used are quite other in form, not to mention things like vestigial cross-beams or pockets or Ersatz books in the office or buttons and the rendering of busyness over the hull of a star-ship that's more decorative than functional—like the Borg Cube or the trench of the Death Star (greebling is the word). There's also the subtler touches, like having a digital camera click its shutter for a satisfying and familiar sound. There has even been proposed legislation that a such devices retain this feature so people know if they are being photographed at close range—and I suppose, so the photographer is making a more conscience decision to take a picture too. Slight and flimsy gadgets are also routinely weighted down with some added metal purely to give the object a feeling of heft and thus better quality.
Monday 6 January 2014
priam's daughter or hegemony
The UK Guardian features a rather sobering assessment for what this new year might hold, a refrain of hostilities a hundred years ago hence, which would mean that the season of commemorations assay something surpassingly ironic in their keeping, rather than the chance for honest reflection on the frailty of the human condition and wisdom, as it should be—if the warnings of this Cambridge history professor prove prescient by any degree.
Sunday 5 January 2014
sunday drive: idstein
On the way to Kรถln for New Year's celebrations, we noticed a Turistic-Tafel, one of those brown and white illustrated signs that offer what historic or cultural attractions one can find at the next exit, and since it was just at the start of our journey and it was another fair and sunny afternoon, I decided to investigate.
The town hosted a palatial Renaissance residence for the counts of Nassau, which is now used as a boarding school—including for one in the line, Adolf, King of Germany, who was once on the short-list to become the Holy and Roman Emperor of the Germans but was unceremoniously displaced by the Hapsburg family. Looking at this finely preserved city-centre, one wonders how history would be changed by the detail of that time-line.
This view is from the steps of Hexenturm, whose turret appears behind the ensemble of the old Rathaus below, which means witches' tower, though no witches ever endured an unfortunate incarceration there, the town did have quite a few victims of a series of witch-hunts in the seventeenth century and a plaque at the base of the tower is dedicated to their memories.
Behind the collection of signature Fachwerk (half-timbered) buildings, one can make out the steeple of the now consecrated Unionskirche, originally a Gothic edifice built on the ruins of an earlier Romanesque—the town lying directly on the Limes with quite a bit of revival and other remnants of the far-reaches of the Roman Empire in Germany. The building does seem a bit plain from the outside, but the interior is very ornate, replete with a ceiling of panels from the Gospels. It was a very nice place for a windshield-tour but certainly worthy of more and I am excited to go back someday soon.
what's the word? thunderbird! what's the price? a dollar twice!
catagories: ๐, antiques, lifestyle, networking and blogging