We were hoping to enrich our vocabulary with this word of the day from Fancy Notions but then were a little deflated to verify that in fact aibohphobia is a deliberately constructed palindrome and part of a family of humorous phobias rather than a serious term describing the actual fear of things read the same in either direction. It’s strange that we tend to give scary or adverse things Greek names. I think the term is ingratiating itself, nonetheless, as well as another word I came across while investigating: semordnilap. Palindrome spelt backwards, an example of a pair of semordnilaps would be stressed and desserts. Curiously, it should also be noted that there’s a genus of spiders native to Africa called Palindroma whose five species all have palindromic names, which I suppose would elicit a fear response in those disposed to arachnophobia.
Friday 15 June 2018
low rent, high stakes
8x8
i’m ready for my close-up: a selection of vintage Hollywood test shots
emeco: a look at the indestructible chair commissioned by the US navy in 1940 that could withstand the blast of a torpedo
columbo: US ambassador to the Holy See, Callista Gingrinch, returns a pilfered letter penned by Christopher Columbus to the Vatican Library
fjallkona: Iceland picks a drag queen to be its national personification, the Lady of the Mountain
flare-up: periodically the Sun erupts
jankรณ layout: an alternative keyboard to the traditional piano format
pitchforks: main-stream media is ignoring the protests of poor peoples in the US
x-ray vision: Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers harness ambient radio signals and WiFi to see through walls
Thursday 14 June 2018
signs and symptoms
Though yet to implement as far as we know, back in 2016 an exploitative ride-hailing company (previously) applied for a patent for non-invasive artificial intelligence technology that would be enlisted to distinguish drunk passengers from sober ones. What do you think about that? In theory through the passive screening process, the company would hope to mitigate undesired outcomes.