message received, noted, acted on

 “Pulling up at the door the very moment Madame was ready,” Weird Universe gives us a 1961 vision of things to come with a ride-hailing service with a fleet of mini-cabs were dispatched (at a third of the cost of a taxi journey) by radio-telephone, unlicensed operators prevented from accepting fares.

decorative gourd season

Building off an earlier exercise in training a neural network to conjure up extremely plausible sounding names for craft beer and small batch breweries, Janelle Shane (previously here and here) brilliantly tweaked the naming conventions slightly to infuse the results with pumpkin spice and other seasonal trappings. Here are some of our favourites but they whole beer menu is definitely worth sampling:

Bog Porter
Winter Winter This Dead Ale
Warmer Hollow
Ale Gore
Spice Prophecy
Pumpkin Disaster
Faceless Ole Ale
Winter Zuul

Check out AI Weirdness (aka Lewis and Quark) at the link above for more and to study the methodology and learn how to develop an artificial intelligence of your own.

vacancy announcement

Learning that the social media accounts of the newly elected Iraqi prime minister were absolutely inundated with over thirty thousand applications by those who wanted to join the government after taking to the medium to solicit for appointees, we were reminded of the concept of sortation—rule by lottery—we explored last week. Wanting to disburden himself from a fraught political past of sectarian tensions, corruption and nepotism, Adil Abd al-Mahdi was overwhelmed and heartened by the depth and range of independent applicants interested in cabinet positions, willing to work to rebuild the country.

lumen gentium

Though his feast day is celebrated on 22 October to coincide with his papal inauguration, on this date in 1978 Cardinal Karol Józef Wojtyła (*1920 - † 2005) was elected by papal conclave and took the regnal name John Paul II in tribute to his predecessor who died after only a month in office.
His nearly three decade reign, the first non-Italian officer-holder in four-hundred and fifty years, is recognised for its influence in the peaceful dissolution of Communist rule in Eastern Europe, a marked improvement in inter-faith relations, diplomacy and a belief that the vocation of holiness was a universal one and a part of human nature, hence his unprecedented number of beatifications and canonisations.

nightwatching

Thanks to this comprehensive primer via Nag on the Lake, we can better appreciate news of this planned restoration of the monumental masterpiece by Rembrandt van Rijn that will take place on display to the world.
One of the most prominent piece in the collection (previously) of the Rijksmuseum, the 1642 commission by company commander Captain Frans Banninck Cocq, dashingly dressed in black with the red sash and depicted at nearly life-sized scales, is a group portrait of his shooting militia guards. According to the museum’s general director, Taco Dibbits, the project—the embodiment of slow television, will take place over several years and involve hundreds of experts from the art world—already captivating the public before it even begins next July. Learn much about the painting’s symbolism, cultural legacy and conservation at the resources above.