jetzt sind wir voller energie

We enjoyed reading this bit of suspicious speculation on Angela Merkel’s good rapport with robots (something she shares with Justin Trudeau and Emmanuel Macron, incidentally) and how that might indicate the Chancellor is better attuned to what’s in store, these encounters seeming especially meaningful contrasted with the abjectly awkward record that bad politicians have with machines, animals and other people.

zwischenstopp: stockheim

On the old path in between Ostheim and Mellrichstadt lies the village of Stockheim, which was party to much the same intrigues and exchanges of ownership as other places in this region, but is particularly noted for its vernacular architecture.
The old, gabled and half-timbered Rathaus—the city hall whose administrative functions are now finding themselves displaced, is presently a restaurant and pension but was formerly known as an Amthaus, an administrative centre for a feudal bureaucracy and later as a Zehnthof, a repository of tithes, a tenth of one’s income or harvest rendered to the church. Formerly protected by a wall with watchtowers (Warte), one of these was also designated as a Darre or a Darrhaus, a place, usually silo-like where hops were dried as part of the beer-brewing process. The surviving tower is itself a source of tales told by people of Willmars (strangely enough) across the valley which include a kidnapping dwarf and a shoe-maker’s apprentice who did not succumb to hardship and give up once in the company of lumberjacks.

the matilda effect

As a corollary to the Bechdel test that poses three basic standards that the majority of film and entertain digest cannot pass fully or in part: at least two female characters, who hold a dialogue whose topic cannot include marriage or babies or the like, science journalist Christie Aschwanden, as Kottke informs, once suggested a similar gauge for gender-bias in the sciences.
The namesake of fellow science writer Ann Finkbeiner (the titular effect refers to academia’s general willingness to attribute accomplishment and discovery to a woman’s male colleagues rather than letting her have or share in the credit), who resolved to write a profile about an astronomer without calling attention to the fact she is a woman. The last being the first criteria, other subjects to avoid were her spouse’s profession, child care, her nurturing nature, how she was taken aback by the competitiveness in her field, how she’s a role model and how she’s superlative as a female. It would be nice if we as a society were more enlightened and that racial and sexist bias were an issue we’ve moved beyond.

inbetweening

As a follow on to the celebration of the career of artist and typographer Herb Lubalin, as Coudal Partners reports, day forty-one features animated titles he created in the early 1970s for the US Public Broadcasting System. A team of graphic designers and musicians at Cooper Union have recreated the lost opening sequences based on the archived keyframes that one can find at the project’s website and the link above, plus the chance to explore weeks’ worth of other tributes with more to come.

hot air

Coming to terms with how damaging that plastic debris is for the environment and considering how helium is becoming a scarce resource, we were surprised to learn that there’s a powerful balloon lobby, as Super Punch informs, that has successful blocked legislation in forty-nine of fifty states that would outlaw outdoor balloon releases that punctuate political victories, weddings and other celebrations. While the industry council, whose managed to buy off politicians of all ilks, does not actively encourage balloon releases, it fears that codifying a ban would stigmatise consumers and hurt small businesses.