Operation AXIOM
Four hundred eleven years ago to the day, 20 March 1602, the United East India Company (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, V.O.C.)—commonly known in English as the Dutch East India Company to distinguish it from the later British East India Company (which called itself simply the East India Company)—was chartered with a twenty-one year monopoly to establish colonies & trade links betwixt the Netherlands (then in the midst of a prolonged rebellion against the Habsburg-ruled Spanish Empire) & the East Indies (today, the Republic of Indonesia). At one time, the V.O.C. was the most valuable corporation ever to exist, with an adjusted 2012 value of $7,400,000,000,000. The V.O.C. acted as a quasi state unto itself, & though it was not the first company to so function, it was the first protomodern business to wield such influence. From the V.O.C. to New Netherland to Cape Town, I find the history of Dutch colonization & colonialism endlessly fascinating. Four hundred eleven years ago to-day.



Project PANDORA
The free online dating website I use classifies the correlation of the answers to a series of questions in one of two ways, either "The Two of Us" or "Y'all Got Issues." (Irksome, I agree.) I strive not to be too much like the character Jerry from Seinfeld, discarding girls based on the slighted pretext or quirk, but some standards must be maintained. Recently, the "staff robot" (which I assume is their whimsical name for their proprietary matching software) recommended to me a girl who answered "Yes"—as did I—to the question, "Do spelling mistakes bother you?," or something very much like that. All well & good. Just a few questions later, though, in elaborating upon her answer to another question, she wrote "there" in place of "their." That kind of mistake is always discouraging, but in light of her professed distaste of spelling errors it became galling. Presented with the choice of writing her a message or clicking a button, "I'm not interested," I chose the button.

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
Burt Bacharach & The Posies, "What the World Needs Now Is Love" from Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery—Original Soundtrack (T.L.A.M.)