putting your money where your mouth is

Ingeniously, designer Tomo Kihara is offering these Street Debater kits that allow a person between engagements to radically change the reaction of passers-by to pan-handling.
Once soliciting donations becomes a challenge and a conversation starter, people on the streets might become more aware of social inequities and more willing to discuss the big issues that drive them—and perhaps even tip the scales of fortune for those who might need a little extra luck and exposure at the moment. What do you think? It’s fair to question whether such opinion-polling might not invite even more polarisation and divisiveness but we think it’s insightful that voices other than social media influencers and shrillest among us deserve to be heard and benefit from honest debate.

turn-down service

As if it were some heroic, historic re-enactment of the evacuation of the US Embassy in Saigon, a team of hotel executives at a Trump-branded property in Panama (which was surely disparaged as a less than optimal place of origin for migration) are apparently barricaded in an office and are shredding files, as Super Punch reports, refusing to concede defeat in an ownership dispute with another developer that has a controlling-share of the dismally unutilised building.
The squabbling continues—including turf-battles which include cutting off the power and communications to the opposing side—amid ongoing litigations between the two parties. The Panamanian courts have not yet interceded, though their hand may be forced so, with this room-to-room threatening to escalate and Trump’s backers apparently destroying records. If Trump is not recognised as the legitimate ruler (it looks like he is not) of this one building and will go to these extremes over a hotel where no one is staying, one wonders what kind of dangerous tantrum might ensue over a real territorial dispute and constitutional crisis. Arguably, we’re already soaking in it.

courage under fire

Noted sophist and US Federal Communications Commission industry shill who is amazingly foremost contender for individual with the most punchable face (and that says a lot) out of a corrupt, nihilistic regime including Trump and his wastrel spawn, Ajit Pai, was just awarded a prize firearm by the National Rifle Association for doing the organisation’s bidding and permitting them to forward their agenda with his repeal of the protections of afforded under Net Neutrality.
How allowing the propaganda of the highest bidder outshout the rest of the internet increases America’s freedom is a bit of a mystery but as US domestic policy is a domestic issue, I guess we don’t need to wade too far into the fray even though this signals something far more sinister that slower, more expensive internet access where prolefeed is only content on offer. Of course, this is not the most heinous thing that the commissioner nor the NRA has done today surely and others in the administration have earned and been bestowed with such prizes—which by their acceptance, tacit or otherwise, demonstrate that the only thing easier to buy than a gun in America is an elected politician and the political appointees meant to uphold the public value of the agencies that they chair.

fairy lamp

Researchers in Japan, as Slashdot reports, have developed tiny electronic diodes that float in the air, riding ultrasonic sound waves. The darting points of light, because of their resemblance to fireflies, have been named Luciola after the native family of flashing insects and their quiet agility masks some serious decibels of sound holding them aloft and orchestrating their movement—albeit above the range of the human ear and could in the near future appear in applications from mobile holographic displays to projection mapping.

demographics

Via Coudal Partners, we’re shown what the state flags of America ought to look like based on the cardinal points of Big Data: a sliding, evolving representation of the categories of population, housing, economy and education. Olivia Johnson’s experiment in True Colors produce banners that are static symbols (nor are they uniquely American) and will change with improving or declining relative socio-economic conditions and are made to be viewed comparatively and not in isolation. Learn about the design decisions and methodology that went into this project and discover more of Ms Johnson’s portfolio at the links above.

daisy, daisy give me your answer do

Though we may be acquainted with tandem variety of a bicycle built for two where the cyclists are positioned fore and aft but we were hitherto unfamiliar with an alternative configuration known as the Sociable or the Side-by-Side (das Nebeneinandem).
Historically employed as a courtship vehicle, the design is credited by some to Australian sportsman, engineer and politician Sir Hubert Ferdinand Opperman, who incidentally was the object of international disdain after garnering the reputation as a cheater for doping for his trials in the Tour la France and other feats of endurance, heralded in the press with the saying “un beau mentir qui vient de loin,” a good lie comes from a great distance. Though always maintaining that “there is no sporting prize worth the use of drugs or stimulants,” Opperman competed at a time when the practise was endemic and an assist for a truly heroic effort was generally a forgivable offense. One’s intent could also be misconstrued when sporting such a contraption. I wonder if it was possible for some cad to going cruising and operate the craft solo—or if a willing partner was required to propel it.