Not content with having nudged public sentiment sufficiently for a pivot towards isolationism and fascism, reportedly the data-analyst company that scrapped data from untold millions of social-media users to spin those attitudes into a concerted, targeted campaigns that appealed to our insecurities and vanities did so with the ulterior motive of wading into the crypto-currency market, arguably a murkier place due to the slapdash competition than their initial, creepy harvest of personal information, with plans to launch an initial coin offering, eminent until a whistleblower came forward.
The blockchain architecture that frees electronic currency of traditional financial institutions was to be touted as a means of safeguarding one’s personal data, though it was unsurprisingly unclear how that would have exactly worked or whether the firm would disclose the fact that it had built dossiers on us all already. As chilling as this abuse of trust and opaqueness is and each of us should take action to signal that this sort of behaviour is not acceptable, it also strikes me as ultimately comforting and hopefully to know that society, both polite and impolite, does not quite descend into tribalism without a lot of help and manipulation—still easily duped are we.
Wednesday 18 April 2018
ico or vires in numeris
the worst view in the world
In collaboration with local artists, Banksy has introduced a line of keepsakes, we learn via Colossal, available at the gift-shop of his Bethlehem hotel (previously here and here) that are inversions of the normal tourist tchotchkes of famous landmarks with the West Bank barrier wall depicted in various stages of crumbling. The hotel has also recently released an album by several Palestinian and international performers and has hosted several other events that you can read more about at the links up top.
imagine a man of my stature being given away as a prize
Though semi-retired from the programme since 2014 and leaving a legacy that goes beyond the some two-thousand answering-machine and voicemail greetings recorded (I wonder what kind of exclusive club those lucky recipients have formed, the format only recently changed to expand to give winners the choice of any of the panelists’ or hosts’ voices), the passing of veteran National Public Radio reporter, anchor and score-keeper emeritus Carl Kasell is hard to reconcile, as he’s been a familiar voice that’s accompanied us for a long time.
Beginning as a news announcer for the weekend edition of All Thing’s Considered in 1975, Kasell hosted Morning Edition since its inception in 1979 until 2009. For nearly a decade, there was overlap for the radio personality as news presenter and his role as judge and arbiter on the weekly news quiz show Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!—a move which some might question given Kasell’s newscaster’s bearing and the comedic playfulness of the show but his deadpan humour not only worked but was sustaining for the long-running show, entering its third decade this year. Thanks for delivering developments of events great and small and thanks for all the laughs. Rest in peace, Mr Kasell.
