暖簾

Thanks to the always brilliant Present /&/ Correct, we learn that the traditional curtains that hang in the threshold of Japanese restaurants and shops are called noren.
These bold dividers that also separate rooms as well as covering doorways and windows usually have vertical slits cut in them for easier passage. Hanging them in the morning and taking them down at the close of the business day and signal opening and closing hours and are often decorated with corporate logos—associated by extension with brand-recognition. More to explore at the link above.

point par pouce

From Kottke’s Quick Links, we are directed to a little routine that will convert any image into a mosaic consisting of emojis, matched for shape and colour. There is not quite the level of granularity present to make for a pointillist image and probably works better where it does not have to compensate too much for changes in contrast.
Up close, the results look like a chaotic jumble but at a distance, it does rather capture quite well Georges Seurat’s iconic A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, the Bathing Women of Hippolyte Petitjean and the self-portrait of Vincent Van Gogh when viewed from a distance, just as the original technique prescribed.
Click on the pictures to see more details and resolve what glyphs are representing each brush stroke. Though the term carries no negative connotations now, pointillism was originally coined by critics to ridicule the style and the artists who experimented with it. Try it yourself with what you think might take well to the mosaic treatment—and take a step back before judging the creation—at the link above.

disclaimer

During opening remarks to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the Islamic Revolution that exiled a Western-supported monarchy and installed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as Supreme Leader, the marja defended the continued use of his provocative catch-phrase, “Death to America,” saying that the sentiment only applies to Trump and his warmongering associates and not the American people as a whole. Khamenei adds that European leaders are not the most trustworthy lot either.

extended character set

Via Nag on the Lake, we were very pleased to learn that the latest batch of emojis to be released over the course of the year was not only inclusive of people with disabilities, having the vocabulary available and therefore not feeling like outsiders or othered, the combinations of couples, counting the gender neutral and the non-binary, numbers upwards of seventy permutations—to make sure all sorts of relationships are represented. I caught the end of a very clever commentary the other day that really anchored perspective and identity—I think it was through the lens of minorities depicted in superhero films but it’s also universally true: those depictions of a minority character on the screen is not just for those that look like and recognise something of themselves in the portrayal but it’s also for those in the majority who are used to seeing themselves in the movies to help them understand that others can be there too. There’s also underpants, a banjo and an otter.

below the belt selfie

Rather than concede to the badgering and blackmail of a supermarket tabloid with close ties to the Trump administration, a titan of industry who surely owns the network infrastructure that the media enterprise uses to manage all its properties, publically accused the publication of extortion, having a established record of threats and intimidation against the press, through their unsubtle intimation to release more compromising photographs of the magnate intercepted during a liaison.
Stopping short of characterising the tranche of threats as politically motivated or with the help of government agencies—and not to excuse unfaithfulness, such a move could be in retribution and in clear violation of plea deal the publisher reached with federal prosecutors last year, when due to reporting by a highly reputable newspaper owned by the billionaire critical of the Trump regime revealed that the tabloid had paid a not insignificant sum of hush-money to a woman that Trump had an affair with in order not too negatively impact Trump’s campaign, not to prosecute the company for skewing the presidential election.  I don’t think that the Trump syndicate is picking the right fight and calling in the thugs cannot be done without drawing attention.

hic sunt dracones

Thanks to Maps Mania, we are enjoying exploring this watercolour atlas of historic landscapes with the ability to compare them to their current coordinates—like this portrayal of nearby Schloss Biebrich, residence of the Grand Duke of Nassau, by French artist Aegidius Federle, known for his romanticised pastorals of the Rhein valley. I know that I’ve taken multiple pictures from that same vantage point—and who wouldn’t given the chance to frame that scene—and navigating by what’s picturesque and appealing makes me wonder about the monotony of holiday snap-shots and whether we are too harsh on imitation. See if you can find something in your neighbour captured on canvas.

gelöscht

Though the social media giant is begging off the decision saying that the agency does not appreciate the scope of the competition its properties face, the consumer advocacy watchdog, the Federal Cartel Office (Bundeskartellamt) in Bonn has ruled that Facebook cannot aggregate, bundle user data and cannot seed or otherwise inform the demographic model it maintains on each by profile drawing on information it collects from the boutique outlets it has absorbed. This anti-trust verdict demonstrates how the platform abuses user-data through pooling and will hopeful propagate further through the network’s ecosystem, remedying to an extent the regrettable decision to surrender and suborn some genuinely useful applications to the media empire, and moreover shows that the courts and like organisations are capable of catching up.