Linger on your pale blue eyes...

I think it was his eye! Yes, it was this! He had the eye of a vulture—a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold...I made up my mind take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever

invisible man / ralph ellison

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Prologue

I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids -- and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. Like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus sideshows, it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination -- indeed, everything and anything except me.

viewshed

 He who from the top of AEtna casts his eyes leisurely around, is affected chiefly by the extent and diversity of the scene. Only by a rapid whirling on his heel could he hope to comprehend the panorama in the sublimity of its oneness. But as, on the summit of AEtna, no man has thought of whirling on his heel, so no man has ever taken into his brain the full uniqueness of the prospect; and so, again, whatever considerations lie involved in this uniqueness, have as yet no practical existence for mankind.
 http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/poe/eureka.html

A viewshed is an area of land, water, or other environmental element that is visible to the human eye from a fixed vantage point. The term is used widely in such areas as urban planning, archaeology, and military science. In urban planning, for example, viewsheds tend to be areas of particular scenic or historic value that are deemed worthy of preservation against development or other change. Viewsheds are often spaces that are readily visible from public areas such as from public roadways, public parks or high-rise buildings. The preservation of viewsheds is frequently a goal in the designation of open space areas, green belts, and community separators.

In digital imaging, a viewshed may be a binary raster indicating the visibility of a viewpoint for or from an area of interest. A pixel with a value of unity indicates that the viewpoint is visible from that pixel, while a value of zero indicates that the viewpoint is not visible from the pixel. In certain disciplines, such as radio communications, 'visibility' may be probabilistic, therefore viewshed may be represented with non-integer values.
In radio, a viewshed is the area where a specific combination of transmitter, antenna, and terrain allow reception of signal.

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Avebury// googleearth

Steganography / hiding in plain sight

Steganography is the art and science of hiding that communication is happening. Classical steganography systems depend on keeping the encoding system secret, but modern steganography is detectable only if secret information is known, e.g. a secret key. Because of their invasive nature, steganography systems leave detectable traces within a medium's characteristics. This allows an eavesdropper to detect media that has been modified, revealing that secret communication is taking place. Although the secrecy of the information is not degraded, its hidden nature is revealed, defeating the main purpose of Steganography.

http://www.outguess.org/

builder's language

Calm block fallen here from some dark disaster

Calme bloc ici-bas chu d’un désastre obscur

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--> The language is meant to serve for communication between a builder A and an assistant B. A is building with building-stones: there are blocks, pillars, slabs and beams. B has to pass the stones, in the order in which A needs them. For this purpose they use a language consisting of the words "block", "pillar" "slab", "beam". A calls them out; — B brings the stone which he has learnt to bring at such-and-such a call. Conceive this as a complete primitive language. (PI 2.)

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Later "this" and "there" are added (with functions analogous to the function these words have in natural language), and "a, b, c, d" as numerals. An example of its use: builder A says "d — slab — there" and points, and builder B counts four slabs, "a, b, c, d..." and moves them to the place pointed to by A. The builder's language is an activity into which is woven something we would recognize as language, but in a simpler form. This language-game resembles the simple forms of language taught to children, and Wittgenstein asks that we conceive of it as "a complete primitive language" for a tribe of builders.

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{5}Here, above all, is the basis of the profound affinity between the adventurer and the artist, and also, perhaps, of the artist's attraction by adventure. For the essence of a work of art is, after all, that it cuts out a piece of the endlessly continuous sequences of perceived experience, detaching it from all connections with one side or the other, giving it a self-sufficient form as though defined and held together by an inner core. A part of existence, interwoven with uninterruptedness of that existence, yet nevertheless felt as a whole, as an integrated unit - this is the form common to both the work of art and the adventure. Indeed, it is an attribute of this form to make us feel that in both the work of art and the adventure the whole of life is somehow comprehended and consummated - and this irrespective of the particular theme either of them may have. Moreover we feel this, not although, but because, the work of art exists entirely beyond life as a reality; the adventure, entirely beyond life as an uninterrupted course which intelligibly connects every element with its neighbors. It is because the work of art and the adventure stand over against life (even though in very different senses of the phrase) that both are analogous to the totality of life itself, even as this totality presents itself in the brief summary and crowdedness of a dream experience.

Georg Simmel The Adventure