some at a very high level

As an encore to his threat to bomb fifty-two undisclosed Iranian targets (one for each American hostage detained from 1979 – 1981), some of which are cultural sites (Iran hosts twenty-four places on the UNESCO World Heritage registry) and whose willful destruction, putting US might on the level of the Cosplay Caliphate and al Qaeda, constitutes a war crime, should the Iranian government or actors retaliate in response to the unprovoked murder of its top paramilitary commanders, Trump threatened further punishing sanctions on Iraq should its parliament pursue the expulsion of foreign troops (including thousands of US soldiers, materiel and installations).

Committing to remaining entrenched until a return on investment materializes, Trump conditioned any decision that led to redeployment or eviction with repaying the US billions on the new air base being built there, much in the same manner than Mexico is reimbursing the US for its racist folly of the border wall or the suggestion that host nations pay more for the privilege of quartering the US military. “If they do ask us to leave, if we don’t do it in a very friendly basis, we will charge them sanctions like they’ve never seen before ever. It’ll make Iranian sanctions look somewhat tame.” Meanwhile, the Iranian parliament decided to drop its commitments to the 2015 brokered nuclear deal, from which the US withdrew unilaterally in May 2018 much to global consternation, conditional on America relieving its tariffs and trade restrictions. All sides, I think, are running short of capital to leverage but America especially so.

namändg

On this day in 1938, outside of the courts and with the signature authority of the Reichs-Chancellor, the Interior Minister and nominal participation from the Ministry of Justice, Nazi Germany ratified its Decree Concerning the Changing of Surnames and First Names (das Gesetz über die Änderung von Familiennamen und Vornamen, kurzform NamÄndG) in order to facilitate external identification of those with Jewish backgrounds. Fully articulated and enforced by August of the same year, unless Germans and non-citizen residents identified as Jewish already had sufficiently typical Jewish first names—according to a list authorities drafted—the men were to be called Israel and the women Sara and their former identities stripped away in all official documents and registers.

laderoboter

Though the deployment date for these units is still to be determined, Volkswagen has developed a concept for a seamless, mobile electric-vehicle charging scheme for use in parking garages and similar spaces that will automatically locate and re-fuel cars in need, carrying their banked power in battery wagons to where it’s needed.
Once ready to integrate the system in a given location, it would be relatively easy to set up without much change to existing infrastructure and electric-vehicle owners wouldn’t feel the need to compete for a limited number of charging points or fight over a reserved parking space.  Such helpful robots could even patrol metered-parking in urban centres from the sidewalks, searching for automobiles in need of topping-up.

136199 eris

Ultimately named for the dual-natured goddess of strife, on the one hand peddling in the aspirational jealousies that drive competition and one the other sewing discord—like when she tossed that bombshell Golden Apple in the ring and left it to Paris to decide whom was the fairest of them all, Eris was discovered on this day by a team of astronomers at Palomar Observatory in 2005.
Pluto having not been yet downgraded and suspecting that this new find might indeed but a planetary candidate and bigger that soon-to-be dwarf planet (Eris is indeed a quarter more massive than icy Pluto though the latter has a greater diameter), the team used Planet X as a provisional designation. With the campaign to give more representation to female deities and New Zealand actor Lucy Lawless’ Warrior Princess enjoying a cultural moment back then, X transitioned to Xena before in accordance with the International Astronomical Union’s protocols, Eris was decided upon in September of the following year. Meanwhile, it was discovered that the most massive dwarf planet and the largest object not visited by a space probe in the Solar System, had a satellite of its own and following the above conventions before an official name could be given, the team referred to it as Gabrielle, Xena’s sidekick. Eventually the moon was named Dysnomia, after one of the daughters of Eris—Δυσνομία, being the personification of lawlessness and an indirect tribute.

stay-puft

Of the over four-thousand confirmed exoplanets—with some five thousand candidates waiting in the wings—three of the strangest, most unexpected reside in the Kepler 51 system, located in the Cygnus constellation twenty-six hundred light years away and have been classified as super-puffs.
Gas giants with the same circumference as Jupiter, they have only about one percent of the density, their rarefied atmospheres beaten to an airy consistency. Astronomers cannot quite fathom why the planets have such characteristics—though one theory suggests that the apparent surface is an upwelling of dust driven by some equally novel geothermal reaction—but agree that novel systems such as these are good incubators for positing the range of possibilities for planetary composition.

nach uns die sintflut

Taking a cue from ancient living coastal-hugging stalamites, colonial creatures called stromatolites (formerly wide-spread but now only found in Australia and Bermuda) that consist of layer-upon-layer of stratified microbial systems that play differing, symbiotic functions depending on where the high mater-mark has settled, researcher Jonathon Keats with Stuttgart’s Frauenhofer Institute for Building Physics suggests that we don’t try to address rising sea-levels by retreating further inland, a near impossibility since most of our conurbations—home to billions and our economic anchors are settled near the oceans, but rather by staying put.
Not only would the flood plain help mitigate extreme temperatures and the prospect that large cities may become unlivable heat-traps and avoid exacerbating the problem by making more land unavailable to uninterrupted forests in the process, levels of hi-rises being subsumed by the encroaching harbours adapting their function and growing upwards (timber buildings growing material for their next storey on the roof). It’s not a perfect nor an ideal form of redress but a realistic contingency and a more just one that may help us cope with the coming deluge without leaving vast swaths of humanity behind.

opus isodomum

Our gratitude once again to Present /&/ Correct for expanding our brick-and-mortar (see also) repertoire with this mediative volume by Melissa Price that looks at some of the chief stylistic and structural organising and coordinating principles behind this construction method, brick-bonding.
The most common types being Flemish, Monk, and Sussex it follows the notion that courses (the horizontal layers) should not be uniform straight across and changes the orientation of the masonry according to a set pattern for better load-bearing and aesthetic qualities. From the builder’s perspective, the brick has six positions depending how they’re turned and facing edge: stretcher, shiner, header, rowlock, soldier and sailor, which in tied and trusted patterns strengthen the ties with rows above and below.