Via Slashdot, we are reminded that while there has already been a rather crass slue of space-related advertising tie-ins and governments are not the only participants in pushing exploration forward, but I’d still rather not see astronauts and rockets covered in corporate logos like NASCAR racers as the NASA administrator is directing his staff to look into.
While nothing is official yet, any change in stance towards allowing sponsorship or endorsement would signal a significant shift in ethics rules that prohibit officials using public office for private gain. I suppose it is a natural consequence of allowing a tabloid tyrant occupy high-office. What do you think? This does not even get into the value of inspiration and aspiration that would be squandered by staring off into the “moral equivalent of the side of a bus.”
Tuesday 11 September 2018
pay-for-play
catagories: ๐ญ
miss simpson, do you find something funny about the word tromboner?
catagories: ๐ถ, ๐บ, The Simpsons
north tower
Hoping to gather some stock footage of a placid skyline to illustrate the juxtaposition between expectations and apprehensions surrounding the hysterical build-up and climax to the Millennial Computer Bug and the quieter, calmer realities of the real world, Stuttgarter artist Wolfgang Staehle, an early adopter of technology in creating art, set up a webcam in New York City on 11 September 2001 and inadvertently captured the first plane’s impact into the World Trade Center and the subsequent collapse.
Because of the state of web-cameras seventeen years ago, the images are granular and advance in spans of four seconds. Though not the first time that the unique recording has been shown in remembrance and commemoration, on this anniversary the Brooklyn Historical Society will be projecting the film onto a custom screen and have synchronised the video so it plays out in precise real time. It is hoped that visitors to the screening will be able to incorporate this digital witness to terror in a resilient and circumspect way that recalls how the virtual world can both inform and contradict the real one.
catagories: ๐บ๐ธ, holidays and observances
Monday 10 September 2018
well fiddle!
Our faithful chronicler, Doctor Caligari’s Cabinet, reminds that among many other things that occurred on this day, a quarter of a century hence saw the pilot of The X-Files, whose reboot didn’t seem to fare so well in a post-truth world, aired. Thirty eight years before that, CBS broadcast the first episode of Gunsmoke (imagine that mash-up), which ran until 1975, making it the longest running scripted television series of continuing characters in American primetime television until that honour was taken by The Simpsons just in April of this year.
catagories: ๐บ, holidays and observances, The Simpsons
cross-winds
Winner of the UK James Dyson Award, which recognises excellence in innovative designs and engineering, the O-Wind (o for omnidirectional) Turbine captures any random breeze or gale from all vectors and could prove especially revolutionary in dense urban environments where traditional windmills could not go. Small enough to be used by individual apartment dwellers dangling them outside on their balconies, the prototype taps into a power source that previously went unharvested. See a video demonstration and learn more about the awards competition at Dezeen at the link above.
catagories: ๐ฌ๐ง, ๐ก, ๐, environment
calving
According to Slashdot, Dubai is exploring the possibility of towing an Antarctic iceberg to the rapidly expanding desert megacity to supply its populace with fresh water. What do you think about that?
I don’t know what the environmental consequences are to nibbling at the margins of the last apolitical refuges of the Earth but it doesn’t strike as a particularly good, far-sighted idea. An engineering firm is in the process of selecting an appropriate candidate—somewhere in the vicinity of a hundred million tonnes—and is working out the logistics, though it’s unclear about the finer points of storage or sale to the government.
catagories: environment, Middle East
the truth is out there
Rather than the usual under construction signs begging off any inconvenience caused, the authorities at Denver International are instead embracing the lore that’s been built up since its opening in 1995 while major renovations are undertaken at the airport’s Jeppesen Terminal.
Conspiracy theories abound and the airport expressed a willingness to parody itself, including its apocalyptic murals, “Templar” marking, coded Masonic words printed on the carpet (which are questionable transliterations of Navajo topographical terms), and a purported network of subterranean passageways that connect world leaders with aliens lodged at the relatively nearby military installation colloquially known as Area 51. See more of the publicity boards at the link above.
catagories: ✈️, myth and monsters