7x7

horton plaza: a study of the postmodern ghost mall built to revitalise downtown San Diego

for hire: riotously brilliant hand-painted signs from South Bengal

big top: Germany’s touring Circus Roncalli replaces animal acts with holograms

cat walk: balloon apparel deflates on the runway and transforms into practical garments

normay: a projection map skewed by the mentions various places get from Donald Trump—via Maps Mania

team breakfast: a fun montage of musicians eating their morning meals, via Everlasting Blört 

toward a concrete utopia: a revival in interest for Yugoslavia’s monumental architecture—previously

kranavatn

I found this campaign from the Icelandic tourism board especially shaming and the scold that I deserve since—especially owing to the fact the justifications of mandatory sorting of trash, deposits (Pfand) to encourage recycling are starting to hold less and less water or even a panic over Legionnaires’ disease tap water is generally clean and safe—I too am guilty of imbibing exclusively the bottled variety.
Like Kranavatn (Icelandic for tap water), it’s not out of fear for safety that I prefer to get my bottled water, which is even sourced not far from where we live and assuredly is piped in as well, but because I’ve come to prefer the carbonation—something I am confident that could be otherwise arranged. This is a small pledge for visitors that we could all make.

brigadoon

Denying the Orange Menace the opportunity to promote his golf course, Trump en route met with the Irish Taoiseach (previously) instead at quite another venue, the terminal of Shannon Airport—just down the hall from the Duty Free shop, the world’s first incidentally, at a hub that’s no stranger to trans-Atlanticism and corridor diplomacy.
The short, awkward press conference was painfully lacking in constructive mediation, however, with Trump comparing the spectre of the return of a hard, physical border between the Republic and Northern Ireland and possible flare up of sectarian violence under a no-deal withdrawal from the European Union to the monument to his proud monument to racism and xenophobia at the southern frontier of America. Though both may be manufactured crises both meant to forward an agenda, Varadkar indicated that any sort of wall was the last thing Ireland wanted.

apis and bombus

Via Slashdot, we learn that the same Australian-French collaborative team of researchers that determined that honeybees understand the concept of zero, can recognise human faces and perform basic arithmetic also can understand numerals as stand-ins to symbolise numerical values.
Separate studies suggest that bumblebees (which also live in nests and hives as colonies with a queen and division of labour—albeit on a much smaller scale) are capable of a similar level of communication and learning, they just don’t dance like their more agile cousins, a fact that sounds funny given that they’ve garnered the reputation of being too heavy to fly, which they manage quite well on the contrary. Insights into how smaller brains process such abstractions are not only humbling and point to the eusocial insects and their cohesion as drivers of culture but could moreover led to new and innovative ways to mimic Nature with artificial intelligence.

i am the operator with my pocket calculator

Via Open Culture, we are reminded that when the pioneering electronic band Kraftwerk (previously here, here, here, here and here) released their eighth studio album in May of 1981, Computerwelt / Computer World, which presciently dealt with themes of the rise of computers in society at a time when they were hardly ubiquitous, they recorded several different language versions of the single Taschenrechner / Pocket Calculator—also Mini Calculateur, Mini Calcolatore and Dentaku (電卓)—and even commissioned a custom synthesizer from Casio as a promotional give away. Sheet music was included with the album to instruct fans how to recreating the melodies, and not just for the new material but their early synthpop hits as well. Much more to explore at the links above.

urban renewal

Never failing to deliver on the interesting and engaging, Coudal Partners’ Fresh Signals refer us to the pioneering Hull House maps of civil and labour rights activist Florence Kelley (*1859 – †1932), whose survey of wages in Chicago neighbourhoods was ground-breaking in terms of data visualisation and making compelling, accessible arguments by this early fusion of sociology and cartography.
Aside from influencing legislation that led to better working conditions and the eight-hour workday (see also) and living wages, ending child labour and beginning regular inspections of factories to ensure compliance, Kelley was also a founding member of the NAACP and used her considerable sway in the state government to block the passage of discriminatory policies. Learn more about this social justice warrior, her compatriots and predecessors at the links above.