code of conduct

Pounced on by the marvelous Nag on the Lake, we are treated to another gala museum exhibition by our guides at Hyperallergic, this time of New York City’s mass-transit manners mascot of the 1960s, Etti-Cat. Posters by Jo Mary McCormick-Sakurai that regaled subway cars with this proto-meme admonished commuters to act their act age ~ please ~ and to be courteous to their fellow-travelers, surrendering seats to the elderly, stepping lively and refraining from littering and vandalism. This campaign did succeed in making people behave with more civility to one another and made the trip a bit more pleasant.

cabin in the woods

Apparently just in time for Halloween, a developers are hoping to release an augmented reality game to bring monsters into one’s own homes—for those among who aren’t already enough challenged by playing life on hard-mode.
The platform will take full advantage of the surveillance powers of our smart phones to accurately plot the layout of one’s home (assuming that many of us reside in places that must be mapped out, like the Overlook Hotel) and will monitor players’ heart rates and galvanic responses to gauge how frightened they are as they are running for their lives. What do you think about that? It won’t be like those whodunnit dinner theatres I suspect and I don’t imagine well catch a reprieve. Who is needing to invite more ghouls and demons into their lives?  Announcing it so early, is this holiday-creep as well as holiday-spillage?

finally republicans are worrying about women's health

high-fructose

Via Kottke comes a comprehensive exposé by the New York Times shows how the sugar lobby bribed researchers to shift the blame of coronary disease and all the other ill-effects (real and reputed, since the findings and received-wisdom is perhaps not to be trusted) that the substance can cause to saturated-fats and other culprits.
Though we’d like to think, nearly five decades on, that as consumers and political animals we are justifiably accomplished in spotting misdirection and skeptical of the pronouncements of experts, a little nudge has great ripples and derails agency and choice as much as the discussion. We are responsible for our health and well-being, without a doubt, but plying sugar-coated inquiries have created such a dearth of selections that it’s been made nearly impossible to make informed decisions. What do you think? It’s hard to hold such behaviour to account, no matter how unconscionable it is. Even if you chose to go beyond from scratch and grow your own food from seed (if you can find a supply not tainted by a vertical monopoly), you’d be even harder pressed to find a plot of land not systemically polluted or otherwise compromised by contamination.

industrial light and magic

A few months ago, the studio behind the Star Wars franchise and ArtStation solicited the talents of some of the best concept artists in the industry, asking them to reimagine iconic scenes from the saga. Because it was a competition, technically there ought to be front-runners, but all the submissions deserve honourable-mentions. Check out the whole gallery at the link up top.