monkeyshines or pearls before swine

Before entering his illustrious Star Fleet career as helmsman, LTC Geordi La Forge served in the civilian world as chief librarian at the universal database of Memory Alpha. La Forge was tragically blinded by the incorporeal luminous beings known as the Lights of Zetar, but the potential handicap became a great asset for this future officer. But don’t take my word for it. In the evenings for the past few weeks, rather than watch television—which for me has become too much of a backdrop to properly hold my attention in most cases and is too conducive of darting off to other things, or try to scourer the internet for something novel, I have been absorbed in reading and returned to one of my all-time favourite authors, Mister Kurt Vonnegut, JRand finding while it’s not some lost art to process words on paper in ways both imaginative and respectful of the intended message, it really did strike me as surprising and dandy how with a minimal amount of resolve, that reading a story like “God Bless You, Mister Rosewater” with its clever language and relevant message was far outstripping any other form of entertainment or nicety that passes for interaction and engagement.
The back-drop of gross wealth disparity, the nature of altruism and what we’d I suppose now call poverty porn, salaciousness to illicit attention, sympathy or outrage, fits contemporary times just as well—plus the author makes his signature cameo appearance in that universe as science-fiction writer Kilgore Trout. LTC La Forge never sternly shushed the hapless red-suit ensigns, but seeing him on an away-mission always made me think of his earlier gig with Reading Rainbow, a public service provided by the United Federation of Planets.  I was also pleased to be informed that the author gives this work high-marks himself.  I don’t want to unleash any spoilers, so I’d highly recommend you check out the books of Vonnegut yourself.

five-by-five

la brea: a fascinating look at seeping tar and pitch in Los Angeles county

self-published: disastrously awesome pastiche of electronic-book jackets

shoegazing: new wave pop stars portrayed as comic book super-heroes

rip van winkle: a fun map from 1946 by artist and folklorist William Gropper that illustrates many of America’s mythological figures

don’t much trigonometry: World renown Finnish schools are experimenting with overhauling education, getting rid of disciplines in favour of phenomenology

motor-city or monobrow

Via the superbly inscrutable Everlasting Blort comes a splendidly curated gallery of the impressions of artists Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera when they sojourned to the city of Detriot together during the height of the Great Depression. This enriching visit that was able to capture the spirit of the times in a manner that was happily preserved for prosperity has provided a unique retrospective that has tragically come full circle has another sort of poverty and desperation has been descending slowly on America’s Rust-Belt for decades, culminating in a nostalgic revival of the town’s cultural and industrial heritage. Hope there is a revival to follow in the vibrance of the region. 

five-by-five

first-flight: Slovakian Aeromobile will begin selling flying cars in 2017

look it up: bitchy resting face is a legitimate diagnosis, embodied by this cat

bikini-bottoms: fun map plots the location of cartoons characters around the world

hi-brow: museum-goers fawn over the artistry of a mass-produced print

spoil the broth: CNN lampoons the over-crowded incubator of political candidates

there ain’t no harm in that

The Reeperbahn, a strip in the Hanseatic City of Hamburg is sort of like that Island of the Donkey Boys where Pinocchio goes to carouse and behave badly but it looks rather cleansed and tamed on cold, bright mornings.
The neighbourhood is named for the rope-weavers, surely an important component of the shipping-business who traditionally lived in this quarter. I didn’t notice until afterwards, sorting through pictures, that the motto of the polished and modern Keese hotel and casino, visible through the middling tree is honi soit qui mal y pense, old French for shame on him who thinks ill of it and the motto of the venerable and chivalrous Order of the Garter. It’s a badge that bears repeating in heraldic contexts all over and was quite delighted to find it hidden there too.

sock-puppet or radio free europe

The Economist confronts readers with some notions to ponder seriously about the nature of bias and disinformation and how there’s a definite learning-curve when it comes to challenging the asymmetries of perception and reception. When a charm-offensive appears one’s greatest, enduring peril is it sophistical to argue that one can counter propaganda without restoring to louder and more persuasive counter-propaganda? Truth really is the first causality and sadly I think that is act of expiation is rather expected.

cottage industry

The Financial Times reports on a collaborative robotic-human experiment in the workplace. Unlike the industrial manufacturing application that one usually imagines when thinking about automation, these so-called co-bots are small and portable and can be mounted on a desktop to work alongside its human mentor, and assail tasks that benefit from nimbler and faster performance than human dexterity and can deliver.
Smaller factories and crafters would be able to produce items more efficiently by collapsing the concept of the assembly line upon itself, with an affordable alternative to contracting out production with adaptable, modular machines that can even be easily taught new moves by example and not reprogramming. I suppose though counterfeiters and sweat-shops would be equally able to churn out crap of more consistent quality faster and without a bothersome, exploited staff. What do you think? Could you share your space with a co-bot, looking eagerly over your shoulder so as to imitate and improve upon your techniques and work-ethic?

five-by-five

píratar: Iceland’s dominant Pirate Party may extend shelter and citizenship to the Fugitive

kinematografii: a collection of vintage Czechoslovakian film posters

3 quarks for muster mark: some of the invented words of author James Joyce

birds’ eye: an eagle presents Dubai as he descends to his trainer below

be mine: camera embedded in a ring box captures marriage proposals from a face-forward perspective