third eye blind

Industrial designer Minwook Paeng has created a prototype prosthetic eye that is meant to keep vigil whilst the wearer is fiddling if their phone to help prevent distracted pedestrians from getting in accidents themselves and becoming a nuisance or threat to others sharing their space. Automatically awaking once it detects the head is tilted downward and the neck slumped—possibly also a good posture re-enforcer—and buzzes to warn one of approaching obstacles, the satirical though appreciable in application project examines how phono-sapiens are evolving and our relations to our gadgets and accessories. More to explore from Dezeen at the link up top.

flash crash

Triggered by a combination of human error—so called fat-finger trades that if not invalidated within thirty minutes after execution are considered legitimate—automated trading protocols set on edge by the sovereign debt crisis in Greece, over the course of thirty-six minutes of the trading on this day in 2010, US stock indices collapsed, loosing over a trillion dollars in wealth. The markets for the most part recovered quickly and additional regulatory safeguards were put in place to prevent the same thing from happening again. It held the record for the most volatile day for American stocks with the largest intraday change in valuation until August of 2015 when global markets faltered over concerns about the viability of the Chinese economy, but both events were pushed way down in the rankings by the crashes of 2020 caused by the pandemic.

in the margins

The always interesting Maps Mania acquaints us with the artistic collaboration of Angela Detanico and Rafael Lain that reformats the distortion of map projections and polar flare (see previously) in a visually immediate, typographical fashion in The World, Justified. One can arrange the dots on the screen where all the latitudinal paragraphs are aligned to see the differences in distribution in landmass along the compass points.

a modest proposal

Via the ever-engaging Weird Universe, we are directed to a 1983 edition of OMNI magazine and the ponderings of the doctoral theoretical biologist, literary critic and prolific science-fiction author Thomas A. Easton (Mood Wendigo, Wallflower, Alien Resonance, Micro Macho) proffering essentially the thesis of the 2017 film Downsizing through selective breeding, shrinking the average human stature to curb our unsustainable appetite for range and resources. As of yet undeveloped technologies could accelerate the process across all populations by introducing desirable genetic traits through a viral delivery system with this atavistic twist netting health benefits as well. Though indubitably bad stewards of the environment, the popular 1970s and 1980s trope of over-population was somewhat of a red-herring and the argument could be twisted in rather nefarious ways. More to explore at the link above.

customary units

Though the super-antiquated unit of measure might presumably have been settled by now with only one hold-out, we learn that there are significant surveying discrepancies in the United States with different jurisdictions employing different standards and tolerances, which while not making an appreciable change in demarcation between neighbours, on a grander scale can shift boundaries. While the overall harmonisation of America with the rest of the world has yet to accrue the necessary threshold for change, the US is being compelled by 2023 to settle on a uniform factor for conversion in order to eliminate dispute. The Mendenhall Order of 1893, an early attempt to put America on the metric system, defined a metre as 39.37 inches with a foot being twelve with forty out of fifty states using this measure for cartographical purposes with the remaining ten not specifying and six of those using both. Other obsolete feet in Europe prior to the adoption of mesures usuelles between 1817 and 1871 were the Fuß, voet, pied, stopa, and fod ranging from 270 to 350 millimetres in length and often varied, unpredictably from region to region.

your daily demon: buer

Ruling from this day through 9 May, this infernal president of the grimoire Pseudomonarchia Dæmonum and its appearance when the sun is in Sagittary and like his archer compatriots embraces some of the characteristics and conflation associated with Chiron, chief of the Centaurs, who taught moral and natural philosophy and revealed to humans the balm and bane of plants and herbs.

Buer, opposed by the angel Aladiah, also shares some of the mythology of Ixion, father of the Centaur race first pitied by Zeus, as a King Lear-like figure, and given a seat at the table of the gods but then cast out of Olympus for lusting after Hera. Zeus ordered Hermes to bound Ixion to a fiery wheel that was always spinning, wandering the heavens for eternity. This tenth spirit presents as an asterisk (*) or triskelion, this chimeric demon has the face and mane of a lion and five goat legs capable of motion in all directions and commands fifty legion.

7x7

sensory deprivation: science fiction author Hugo Gernsbeck invented an isolation helmet to eliminate distractions  

while my guitar gently weeps: Prince performs a mind-blowing solo during a 2004 induction ceremony for George Harrison into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 

🆎: revolutionary way to use thirty-year-old gaming controls (see also) to reach new heights in high-scores

seti@home: project Breakthrough Listen seemingly revives the spectre of Fermi’s Paradox  

gratitude journal: tiled grid of things to be thankful for from Kira Street inspires one to make one’s own mood board  

urban renewal: colour-coded maps like stained glass help one visualise how cities age and grow 

; vs –: duelling punctuation preferences of famous authors

revenge of the sixth

A bit deflating like learning a super hero’s catch-phrase was derived from a Ted Cruz joke or some other detestable tool, we were a little disheartened to learn the albeit non-canonical, not endorsed Star Wars holiday is sourced and cited to a celebratory message that the Conservative Party took out in the London Evening News just after exit polls declared Margaret Thatcher Prime Minister on this day in 1979:“Congratulations Maggie, May the Fourth be with you!” The advertisement caused some consternation among the Tories—thinking bringing in such a pop culture reference, though two years old by then, out of place, though calling Reagan’s his missile shield, the Strategic Defence Initiative after the space opera made the pun socially acceptable, and made the phrase, trope an enduring relic of the Reagan-Thatcher era.