inherit the wind or john henry was a steel-driving man

Though polls placing the United States between Latvia and Turkey when it came to tolerance for the concept of evolution and natural selection—simple scientific curiosity with or without decrying that it’s only a theory, were sampled well before the farce of democracy that was the US election, I am sure that the vice-president elect inserting his sanctimonious nose into the halls of academia and reaffirming his beliefs (unbidden by the scientific community) only goes to reinforce the incuriousness of his constituency, secure in having their foundations unrattled.
This does not bode well for the state of American education, nor for those institutions that drive progress, no matter how support might be spun to curry favour with certain parts of the industry. One’s rose-tinted convictions have little to do with mastery of the extant, rentier economy—that of branding, trademarks and profits gleaned off the friction of moving assets around, and these models are easily given over to machines that would indubitably conspire to out-perform humans. I wonder how it feels to encourage and reach out to those with the world view that is in danger of becoming redundant. I’m wagering that when manufacturing returns to America, it won’t be with the attendant jobs as expected but rather with more automation. Artificial intelligence will surely be innovative as well in ways we cannot imagine or possibly understand (and robots are not surrogates for gods and angels) but I do not think we could factor in at all unless scientifically literate.  Not only might business-driven science be more reckless with trying the untested, public health and environmental degradation globally will pass the tipping point and become unsalvageable as we’ve known it. It’s going to be a long, painful regime, with the swapping of titles, à la russe to skirt or trounce term limits. Even though entering his fifth term Trump will be in his nineties, he be as spry as ever, having regenerated and taken a donor body.

tømmermænd

Amsterdam can proudly boast the world’s first hangover recovery bar—that requires patrons fail a breathalyser test to get inside, as Dangerous Minds informs.
Once granted entry, to separate those nursing a bad night out from those who’d simply like a bit of quiet pampering—though I can’t imagine that they are that strict and one has to make an absolute wreck of themselves to go inside, patrons are triaged and put into comfy beds—the whole arrangement conceived by an enterprising mattress salesman, to rehydrate and sleep it off and later enjoy some traditional and proven remedies—including an oxygen bar. I am glad that we didn’t require such services during our recent visit—although it would have been nice to be brought a nice, late breakfast in bed.

headgear

Honoured with the James Dyson Award for innovative design, Isis Shiffer’s EcoHelmet is a fully recyclable, collapsing bicycle helmet made of paper that folds flat for easy transport. An elegant solution to an obvious problem, these helmets are cheap to produce so riders wouldn’t be put off in donning one (especially for urban bike-sharing schemes or ad-hoc, unexpected jaunts) but durable and robust enough to provide real protection.  Be sure to visit the link up top to find out more about Shiffer’s design and review other Dyson Award laureates from years past.

archival quality

While there’s certainly something worthy in the slower (see how impatient we’ve become even though we’re on the cusps of a virtual utopia by any standards of the past) methods of conservation and reinvigorating pre-digital albums of photographs, this new application that allows one scan old pictures effortlessly seems pretty revolutionary. One is not taking a picture of a picture precisely but rather an enhanced image scan that finds the edges automatically and corrects for distortion and blur. I detect a weekend project that we’ve been meaning to get to for some time.

eye-spy

The uncanny visual acuity of our friend the Mantis Shrimp (who’ve been blessed with a whole range of super powers including battle claws whose joust can create a sonic boom) could teach scientists how to make more advanced polarised lenses that could discriminate between the signatures of diseased and healthy tissue. Their compound eyes, described as hexnocular, allow the shrimp to communicate and flirt at a spectrum that no other creatures are privy to are inspiring engineers to replicate the optics which may lead to remarkable early detection of cancer and dementia, able to study what goes on in organs and neurons just with a superficial glance.

helen van patterson patton

From Nellie Oleson of Little House on the Prairie fame to Peanuts’ Lucy van Pelt, Rebecca Jennings (via Kottke) presents an interesting examination and appreciation in defense of the oft maligned and neglected “Little Fancy Bitch Æsthetic.”
Usually inserted as foils to highlight how good and noble the protagonist is in comparison—without necessarily being a true villain and antagonising the main character—and never as a character to emulate. But there’s certainly more going on than just this surface prissiness or manipulative scheming and one has to wonder how it feels, beyond the fourth wall, to have been created and introduced as a plot device of deflected glory, like a sidekick that embodies the author’s repressed frilliness that’s really anything but frivolous. Can you name any more Little Fancy Bitch role-models?

time and tide

Via Colossal, we are treated to wonderful, modern and almost brutalist at times sandcastles of sculptor Calvin Seibert. Spending part of the summer beachcombing at Rockaway in New York, Seibert reflected on the nature of his temporary edifices and how their construction is a race against time that defies advanced planning and develops rather organically. Explore more of Seibert’s amazing geometric sculptures at the link above.

google doodle or quick draw mcgraw

We learn of another novel mentorship opportunity of machine-learning that we can all interact with the form of the experiment called Quick Draw from the search engine’s labs—thanks to the Presurfer. It’s a challenging few rounds of play with assignments that aren’t quite the easiest concepts to limn with a mouse but you should really give it a try—with the Control Voice shouting out guesses as you sketch like celebrity contestants on that television game show Win, Lose or Draw.
It always strikes me as a little strange to consider how—when engaging in this sort of crowd-sourced science, that we might be ultimately outwitting ourselves, but then again, one wouldn’t withhold wisdom from a fellow human. It’s quite a dilemma that were stumbling into. Relatedly, I noticed recently that the image search of Google has become a bit more literate of late: often I use it to search PfRC for pictures I can vaguely recall but have no idea what I saved them under and found if I typed in a colour—even if that had nothing to do with the filename but remembered that the background was purple, the query would yield what I was looking for. Also, I noticed without nudging that on my mobile device I could set not a temporal but rather a spatial reminder—like a shopping list that would go off when one’s in the supermarket. I wonder if those features, those talents came about all without the intervention of programmers and were the fruits of artificial intelligence. When that does happen, would we even realise it?