Monday 15 May 2017

v’ger or codified likeness utility

Clever musician and filmmaker Patrick Collins has rescored Star Trek: The Motion Picture with Daft Punk’s soundscape for Tron: Legacy and the result is really satisfying. Thematically similar on some levels, I think both Star Trek’s premiere on the big screen—which was ultimately not the story first-pitched to the studios—and the original Tron (not even considered for an Academy Award since using computerised generated landscapes were considered cheating in 1982—1979’s release was also panned for its over-reliance on special effects) were both really ahead of their time but received lack-lustre acclaim from contemporaries.

Sunday 14 May 2017

denial-of-access

The consensus seems to suggest that for all the potentially dangerous disruption unleashed—and not to financial institutions or social networks—but to hospitals and transportation support systems, and for the risks involved if caught, the group behind a global tranche of ransom-ware cyber-attacks have little ill-gotten Geld to show for it.
Even when weighing the risks of how it might encourage further extortion, security experts are tacitly suggesting that they paid this pittance—though doing so isn’t just send a nuisance away, should one consider the shuddering scope of the kidnapped data that they could release, resell or delete if their demands weren’t met, not to mention the real risk to life and limb. The groups behind these attacks, which capitalised on exploitative techniques that the US National Security Agency believed that as the guys in the white hats would only work for them, perhaps wanted industry to finally patch all these flaws to bother hackers and snooping governments—as this attack surely can no longer be carried out with the same quiver of tactics. What do you think? As small amounts continue to flow in, it strikes me as their demands probably fail to exceed some threshold for authorities to act on and they could possibly just bilk their victims with ransom becoming a protection-racket. Maybe it’s too increase the value of the cyber-currency that they’re demanding remuneration in—which would appear especially safe if they’re never apprehended. Whatever the outcome, I don’t think we’ve heard the last of it.

sunday drive: bad bocklet

We’ve visited Bad Bocklet previously but I hadn’t before taken the time for a stroll through the Kurpark (Spa) until now and gather a virtual bouquet for Mother’s Day.
                                                           The thermal baths and the surrounding gardens were first landscaped in the back in the seventeen hundreds by the Bishop Electors of Wรผrzburg—and those familiar with the other properties of that diocese would certainly recognise their style and influence.
During the Napoleonic Wars, however, the lands of Wรผrzburg were awarded to the Duke of Tuscany which also the look of the place, I think. Unfortunately, I did not have a cup handy to sample the spring waters, but I’m sure we’ll get another chance.

buying the farm or food pyramid

In ongoing, serial efforts to install individuals who are inexperienced and antithetical to what department is charged with protecting, Dear Leader’s pick in conservative radio talk-show host, failed state senator and noted maize-maze Minotaur, Sam Clovis, as the “chief scientist” for the US Department of Agriculture is no exception.
Despite vehement criticisms of Dear Leader during the campaign for not being a model Christian and praising Rick Perry for calling Dear Leader a “cancer on conservativism,” Clovis seems to have come around and will be able to his wilful ignorance and incuriousness to the field and to the dinner table. Nutrition policy and food security are fundamental in any society and to steer away from health and sustainability in the name of profit has never ended well.

Saturday 13 May 2017

einladung

Clearing out a storage container at work, we chanced upon—among a lot of miscellaneous garbage—this nifty artefact from when the US President and the Chancellor of West Germany met one another and held a general audience with all the soldiers and airmen stationed in Wiesbaden.
Someone back then framed their invitation, which reads (should you be encoding the text with your biological sight): “You are invited to see President Jimmy Carter and Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany Helmut Schmidt Saturday, 15. July 1978 – 0845 Hours Wiesbaden Air Base – German-American Military Family Day (0845 until 1500 Hours).” Guests will be entertained with a Broadway musical revue by the 12th Panzer Division Band plus a parachute and military working dog demonstration. Carter would be visiting Wiesbaden on another occasion a few years later to welcome the freed captives of the US-Iran Hostage Crisis who were evacuated to the air field.

Friday 12 May 2017

justice served or benedict donald

In case one needs further reminders that elections have consequences no matter how bleakly the opposition is presented and another scolding lesson in civics, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III has taken a break from conducting job interviews for the next (interim) FBI director (and I thought the US Attorney General had recused himself from all aspects touching Russia, so I suppose that diminishes the applicant pool considerably) to issue instructions to the Justice Department and the federal court system to ratchet up sentencing for criminal offenses to the highest magnitude that the law allows.

This means throwing the book at young people for truly victimless charges of drug-possession and ruining lives needlessly and growing the population of people incarcerated—one that already surpasses the rest of the world’s jails combined. Relaxed, mature cultural attitudes are pushed to the fringes, protest rendered inviable and loyalties gauged. Many are anticipating the American mid-term elections of 2018 and the chance for the Democrats to wrest back control of the legislative branch and the backlash against the Republican collaborators, but that date is a long way away and I don’t think that America, under Dear Leader, will survive such a long assault. Let us hope that the Attorney General will one come to rue giving such a directive once he and his cronies are on the receiving end of the law.