e.o. 9835

In 1974, Richard Nixon ordered the abolishment of the running compilation of groups considered as subversive and threats to the American way of life referred to as the Attorney General’s List of Subversive Organisations (AGLOSO) that was created in 1947 at the behest of the Harry S Truman administration to deflect increasingly vocal criticism by Republicans that the Democrats were tolerant of communists. One prong of the programme and image-campaign, it was drawn up after Truman issued an executive order that established a national litmus test for the leanings and loyalties of federal employees. Another tine provided for the establishment of a Loyalty Review Board to counter the reflex for a witch-hunt or purge by those deputised with the power of confirming and conferring allegiance. Screening could be conducted in the background and netted three hundred certifiable security risks out of three million workers. Though the decree was repealed by Eisenhower six years later—in deed but perhaps not in spirit—it’s immediate successor was the House Un-American Activities Committee and the impugning investigations that the original intent sought to avoid, recognising the danger of staffing a government from top to bottom with those with undeviating political views.

solve for x

With the exception of noted jerks like Edison and Ford, we’d like to think that our forward-looking titans of physics are above reproach and honest-brokers that give credit where credit is due, but I was rather deflated and despondent to learn how Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen rather brazenly took all the praise and recognition away from a fellow physicist for the discovery of x-rays.  Ivan Puluj (who did not win the Nobel prize and does not have a chemical element and a mountain in Antarctica named after him) taught with Röntgen at the University of Vienna, and Puluj’s focus was on research into the nature of beams of electrons (cathode rays) and how those might be harnessed and designed what was dubbed a Puluj lamp (tube) to produce and direct them. Recognising the potential for medical imaging, Puluj even produced photographs of skeletal structures—at a higher qualities than those that Röntgen exhibited—not with electrons but rather with a collateral, hitherto unknown ray and apparently his inability to couch his discovery in the latest terminology cost him the honours.

6x6

нова нада: the Star Wars saga posters of Soviet Europe (plus a notable knock-off)

treemaps: classic oil paintings pixelated algorithmically

turbofolk: Serbia’s kitschy pop-folk music scene runs counter to  Western stereotypes about alternative lifestyles acceptance in the former Yugoslavia

lunchbox on wheels: former Google engineers create a driverless delivery vehicle to counter the last-mile problem

reasonable accommodation: a US airline declines to allow an emotional support peacock to board a flight

lexical gap: a jury of linguists declare “influencer” to be the German import of the year

middleman

Possibly inspired by the SURROGATE willing to be an understudy for a wealthy man facing jail time as imagined a decade ago for in the television series Arrested Development, Super Punch introduces us to the ChameleonMask—billed as the Human Uber—from an emerging technologies showcase in Japan. A body-double takes a stint as an avatar for a tele-presence, scrapping a screen to their face. According to developers, their pilot studies confirm that that users are willing to suspend their disbelief and not see beyond the mask and accept the stand-in as the person that they are engaging with and not at all a dissociative nightmare. As the costume is refined, I wonder what repercussions that this might have for the gig economy with humans themselves as peripheral devices and what our standards become for communication and interaction.