zwischenstopp: nordheim vor der rhön

Lying on the continuum of the Streu, a tributary of the Frankish river Saale, like its easterly neighbor, the village of Nordheim is dominated by an ensemble of vernacular architecture known as a Kirchenburg or fortified church that dates back to the settlement’s founding over twelve hundred years hence that looks over its half-timbered houses and series of bridges that cross the northern bend of the stream.
The old footbridge features—as do many bridges across Europe—a statue of John of Nepomuk, a fourteenth century saint who was royal confessor and counsellor to the Queen of Bohemia. Despite threat of death, Nepomuk refused to betray the privilege of priest and confessor to a jealous King Wenceslas who ordered Nepomuk cast into the Vltava (Moldau) for being obstinate.
The martyr’s most famous representation is the figure on the Charles Bridge (Karlův most) in Prague on the spot where he was drowned. Because of his fate and discretion, John of Neomuk is the patron saint protector from drowning and floods as well as respect for the seal of attorney-client privilege, doctor-patient confidentiality and comparable arrangements.

tornello

Not without controversy on both sides of the debate, Venice installed turnstiles (tornelli) and gates to limit access and control crowds, suggesting that priority would be given to residents over the throngs of tourists and holders of public transportation passes.
In practise, the move was probably more symbolic and resulted in few bottlenecks or people being turned away entirely and probably did send the signal that perhaps tourists should try to book off-season or head for less popular areas. What do you think? The gates’ detractors argued, however, that perhaps more ought to be done to dissuade cruise ships from dominating the port or cheap flights from flocking to regional airports and divert visitors well before they arrive and such queuing and quotas make it seem like the authorities are affirming and reinforcing the amusement atmosphere already associated with heavily-visited areas.

splash & burn

Having recently been reminded myself how damaging and disruptive the practise of palm oil harvesting can be for society the ecology, this interview with artist and activist Ernest Zacharevic from Colossal struck us as quite resonant and important.
Zacharevic has partnered with an array of international and local artists to raise awareness of devastation that what has been portrayed as a sustainable industry has caused for the people and environment of Indonesia—the former by short-term employment opportunities and a one-time infusion of revenue in exchange for selling off the lands of indigenous peoples and part of the country’s patrimony and the latter by habitat destruction, monoculture and eventual desertification—all exacerbated by the popularity of coconut oil, sourced from the same plant and plantations, and palm oil as a bio-fuel, diverting more agricultural resources from nutrition towards green-washing.

code insee

Despite having muddled through for the past seven-hundred years of letter deliveries and liaisons without the regiment of named streets and numbered addresses, the medieval French town of Sarlat-la-Canéda in Dordogne is finally bowing to pressures from telecommunication providers, who demand that municipal authorities adopt formal street names and put up signage for its pristine fourteenth century old town.
The ten thousand residents of Sarlat, a contender for inscription on UNESCO’s rolls, are rushing to find fitting namesakes for a surveyed two-hundred nineteen avenues and alleyways by the end of May in order to have fibre-optic cables installed. Here is an alternative proposal for a system of geolocators, or rather INSEE (Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques) code, that the request and reform reminded me of. Local guests—the town being the backdrop for a number of historic cinematic protrayals—and national heroes are among the nominees.

calliope

We’d heard of renditions of songs being made with outmoded media players beforehand and of efforts to curate the endangered sounds of technology before for coming generations that might never appreciate the satisfying clangs and clunks of mechanical relays or baud versus bandwidth. We had not, however, sampled the repertoire of any of the artists behind this preservation movement until being introduced by Things Magazine to Paweł Zadrożnia and his extraordinary Floppotron.

pontificia cohors helvetica

We discover via Super Punch that the latest class of soldiers to matriculate into the Pope’s elite (notice that this is now the only acceptable context for that word) army, the Swiss Guard, will be issued as parts of their elaborate uniforms 3D plastic printed helmets rather than the traditional worked metal ones.
Though it strikes me as a bit costume-shop, there’s also surely less impact on the planet in having printed gear—which also burdens the wearer significantly less, though at nearly a thousand euros a piece (but still half the price of engaging a blacksmith) one has to wonder when and how the revolutionary, democratising moment of this technology will arrive.

the secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions

Via Slash dot, we learn that an upgraded e-mail service not only has a self-destruct feature (among many other new options) but that activists are petitioning the company to disable feature for governmental and public entities, fearing that they could use it to hide or delete records, research and transactions it would rather not be the subject of public scrutiny.
What do you think? Perhaps for private and personal matters, it is useful to be able to choose an expiry date for one’s missives to regain the right to be forgot and not have everything inscribed in someone’s permanent dossier. Knowing, however, that governments lean heavily on their suite of hosting services to organise and conduct their online communication and store their data, it does seem at odds with the public interest to provide the means to maintain the integrity of public records and at the same time the ability to rubbish it.