Whereas astrophysics suggest that extending out the significant digits to thirty-nine decimal places would be at the level of precision to measure the circumference of the known Universe to within the breadth of a hydrogen atom, we quite enjoyed the overkill and ambition, as reported by the Guardian, of a team of Swiss mathematicians that have calculated out the transcendental, irrational number, also known as Archimedes’ Constant and whose use of the Greek letter to symbolise it first attributed to Welsh professor William Jones in 1706, to sixty-two trillion places for the accomplishment in itself plus the bonus facts and anecdotes. Not only is it fiendishly useful to understand and is embedded in all sort of applications, there’s quite a bit of lore attached to pi. There’s its elegance in comprehending a bit of the Cosmos, cameo appearances and an infamously misguided attempt in 1897 by the Indiana state legislature to round it up to 3.2 and be done with it.
Tuesday 17 August 2021
Tuesday 6 July 2021
a bird, a young lark—lifting the sky as it took flight
Via It’s Nice That, we discover a retrospective exhibit at the Tate aims to correct a curatorial and conversational miscarriage in art history that left the contributions and influence of Swiss artist Sophie Taeuber-Arp (previously) to the Dada and Modernism movements by showing her due recognition. Much more on the artist’s media, works and career at the links above.
catagories: ๐จ๐ญ, ๐จ, ๐งถ, libraries and museums
Wednesday 16 June 2021
Tuesday 1 June 2021
stultifera navis
A Latin, international edition translated by his pupil Jakob Locher in Strasbourg and published by printer Hans Grรผninger of Sebastian Brant’s 1494 German-language Das Narrenschiff (The Ship of Fools) on this day in 1497 made the late medieval moral allegory a success all over the continent, prompting several more translations, sanctioned and otherwise. The humanist and theologian compiled an anthology of one hundred and twelve brief satires, illustrated with woodcuts (originally issued in Basel), as commentary and condemnation of the human condition, developing the character of Saint Grobian, a patron for the crude, clumsy and gluttonous and is singled out as the best treatment of the trope taken from Plato’s Republic about a dysfunctional crew unable to pilot the ship of state. Locher (*1471 – †1528), the student who translated the work, went by the Latin name Philomusus and became a professor of Humanism and a dramatist himself and published a multivolume study on comparative religion. Though an artefact of medieval sensibilities sharpened with the focus of scholasticism, the conceit, tempered with allegory, gave the authors’ license to, writing in the voice of the fool, to legitimately criticise church and court.
Tuesday 11 May 2021
7x7
caption this: a celebration of strange, out-of-context vintage photography—via Boing Boing scroll + click: an elegant paintbrush diversion via Kottke’s Quick Links
mudlarking: more trash and treasures dredged from Amsterdam’s canals—see previously here and here—via Messy Nessy Chicstille orte: a travelogue of scenic rest stops in the Swiss Alps
laundry day: a clever stop-motion dirty clothes brawl
this is a stub: a list of lists on Wikipedia—via Swiss Miss
down in bedrock: antique snapshots of people posing with dinosaurs
Sunday 25 April 2021
mappi mundi
On this day in 1507, humanist and cartographer Martin Waldseemรผller—whom also went by the Latinised form of his name Hylacomylus (forest-lake miller)—together with his collaborator Matthias Ringmann, published their map featuring the new world, significantly portraying South America as a continent separate from Asia and naming portions of the New World America after explorer Amerigo Vespucci. The academy that Waldseemรผller and Ringmann founded in Saint-Diรฉ with the patronage of the Duke of Lorraine came in possession of a booklet that gave a rather heroic and sensational account of the voyages of Vespucci in the western Atlantic and the two scholars carried forward that credit in a short treatise with atlases and a world map as a primer on cosmography (Cosmographiรฆ Introductio) that spanned from the familiar to the antipodes that were predicted in Antiquity. Ringmann actually, persuasively championed the toponym America, arguing: “I see no reason why anyone could disaaprove of a name derived of that Amerigo, the discoverer and a man of sagacity—with suitable forms being Amerige, meaning land of Amerigo, or America, especially since both Europe and Asia have women’s names.” Europa was raped by Zeus in the form of a bull and gave birth to the Minotaur. Hesione was a Trojan princess and distressed damsel for Hercules to save from a sea monster and blamed indirectly for the Trojan War—Hercules helping himself to the fine horses that Zeus sent in compensation for the abduction of Ganymede and causing strife among the gods. Classically referred to as Libya, Africa was considered to have a feminine ethnonym as well. The original world map was believed lost until a copy was found in Schloss Wolfegg in Austria in 1901 and purchased by the US Library of Congress (pictured)—though other uncut gores to be assembled into globes survive.
Friday 26 March 2021
kirรกlypuccsnak
Taking advantage of the quiet ahead of Easter with the Diet not in session and the regent installed by the Allies Miklรณs Horthy settled in for a long weekend at the palace, former king and last Hapsburg Austro-Hungarian emperor Karl I. (IV. Kรกroly) attempted on this day in 1921 to retake the throne, encouraged by royalists and his close entourage.
Wednesday 24 February 2021
6x6
street legal: these stunning automobile illustration are from a 1930 Soviet children’s book by Vladimir Tabi—via Present /&/ Correct
conferment ceremony: Finnish PhD students receive a Doctoral Sword and Hat on graduationa coney island of the mind: Beat Poet and activist Lawrence Ferlinghetti passes away, aged 101
train ร grande vitesse: Roman roads of Gaul presented in the style TGV routes across France, Belgium and Switzerland—see previously
epilogue: French electronic music duo Daft Punk disband after twenty-eight years
usps: design proposals for the next generation US mail truck
Saturday 30 January 2021
ferienhaus
Some property-scouting from Things Magazine directs our attention to the estate agents who have recently placed a MidCentury Modern vacation village on the market. This ensemble of chalets with amenities are part of a campground on the Italo-Swiss border outside of the community of Cremenaga with seventeen of the twenty-seven units (plus communal buildings and facilities) designed by renowned Zรผrich lecturer and architect Justus Dahinden (*1925 - †2020), whose other works include some iconic, Brutalist concrete sacred buildings, a ziggurat-inspired clinic and numerous community centres, multi-purpose halls and holiday resorts. Much more to explore at the links above.
Tuesday 26 January 2021
7x7
paradiplomacy: an intricate Tajik teahouse in Boulder, Colorado
nivotone: brilliant restoration of a 1930s Soviet optical-analogue, electronic music synthesis—via Things
❄️: a snowflake generator—see previously
soon may the wellerman come: more sea shanties—see previously
twitchable: discovering a drive for birding under lockdown
topographic prominence: an interactive version of Switzerland’s 1845 Dufour Survey Map from Maps Mania, see also
putin’s palace: a gallery of photographs and digital renderings from blueprints of luxury property that is allegedly the Russian president’s personal retreat
Saturday 2 January 2021
berchtoldstag
The Alemannic holiday celebrated generally on this day in Liechtenstein and certain Swiss cantons and strongly associated with Rauhnรคchte traditions has contending etymologies and pedigrees including a late twelfth century abbot, a storied hunting expedition undertaken around the same time by a like-named duke or to the alpine pagan protectoress of wild things called Perchta (*Brehtaz, Bertha) and leader of the entourage of the hunting party. This final candidate is the most interesting and compelling, the figure a cultural continuity from pre-Christian influences and was given the role of upholding totem and taboo, reinforcing ritual fasting and the prohibition of working on the holidays, Sabbaths and monitoring the progress of servants and craftspeople to make sure that they were keeping up with the productivity quotas—later transferred to winnowing the naughty from the nice (see also) like her male counterpart Krampus—with the good and upstanding rewarded with a silver coin the next day in a shoe or pail and the recalcitrant would be eviscerated and have their innards and the contents of their bellies replaced with straw, flax and pebbles.
catagories: ๐จ๐ญ, ๐ฑ๐ฎ, ๐, ๐ , myth and monsters
7x7
3 a.m. eternal: the musical stylings of the KLF are finally available for streaming services—via Things Magazine
paleofutures: the lunar Western Moon Zero Two takes place in 2021
no show: Trump fails to appear at his Mar-a-Lago New Year’s Eve bash—guests entertained by Rudy Giuliani and Vanilla Icenot disappoint: a recommendation for a good polyglotinous language lover to follow, whose byline does rather suggest a crash blossom
star wars—give me those star wars, nothing but star wars: the saga continues
alla breve or cut for time: big, brute data analysis may finally resolve the controversy over Beethoven’s metronome and how the composer intended his works to be heard—via Strange Company
klanglandschaft: Swiss artist Zimoun engineers ambient soundscapes with everyday materials
Tuesday 8 December 2020
third protocol emblem
The global humanitarian movement comprising nearly a million volunteers and staff worldwide, the International Red Cross and Red Crescent, adopted on this day in 2005 the red crystal, officially referred to as the above, as an auxiliary symbol available to use when religious connotations of the previous emblems might be objectionable as an amendment to the Geneva Conventions, known as Protocol III. Neutral and without religious, political or geographic associations, it was meant to make the organisation more inclusive and not a vehicle of hegemony and privileging, allowing more groups to join and deploy this protective banner during times of conflict to render assistance to the wounded.
Tuesday 6 October 2020
51 pegasi b
On this day in 1995 the discovery of the exoplanet by Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz of the University of Geneva was announced in the journal Nature.
Tuesday 29 September 2020
9x9
patim, patam, patum: font specimens of Patufet, a typeface inspired by the Catalonian Tom Thumb
ace of cups: Summer of Love all-female band that played the Avalon Ballroom and appeared with Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix and the Grateful Dead release a new double-album
leaf-peeping: Swiss fall foliage map franking privileges: Finnish studio mints climate change stamps with heat-reactive inkbackyard safari: highly detailed journal documenting encounters with wildlife—via Nag on the Lake
space 1999: scenes from the sets of the iconic British scifi series that ran from 1975 to 1977—via Messy Nessy Chic
pacomobile: a modified VW snail camper—via Things magazine
sฤlaj county: a brilliant assortment of flag redesigns for Romania’s forty-two regions to celebrate the country’s diversity
cannonball aderley: jazz record sleeves from Reagan Ray (see previously) feature the typography of the artists’ names—via Kottke
Thursday 10 September 2020
marianne von werefkin
Born this day (Old Style 29 August) 1860 (†1938) in the then Govenorate of Tula, Mariรกnna Vladรญmirovna Verรซvkina would go on to become an important and influential painter (claimed by every place she lived and worked) in the Expressionist style. Protรฉgรฉ and eventual peer of artists in the movement like Alexj von Jawlensky, Paul Gauguin, Edvard Munch, Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc.
The latter two (whom are a prominent part of the permanent collection of artists of the Wiesbaden Museum) distanced themselves from the collective in Mรผnchen that they all as emigres had joined but with the outbreak of World War I formed Der Blaue Reiter group, prompting the seasoned Werekin and Jawlensky to repair to Geneva—forming their own splinter school Ursa Major—der Groรer Bรคr.
Saturday 5 September 2020
galleria stradale del san gottardo
Holding the title of world’s longest road tunnel for two decades before being overtaken by the Lรฆrdalstunnelen in Vestland, the Gotthard Road Tunnel between the cantons of Ticino and Uri, linking the highlands to southern Switzerland beneath the namesake massif opened to traffic on this day in 1980.
After taking more than a decade to construct and given the high monetary cost and the nineteen fatalities of workers, the public balked at the fact there was no supplemental toll for it (the tunnel being covered by the mandatory vignettes for use of Swiss motorways), sighing that “The Italians built it, the Germans use it and the Swiss pay for it.” The inaugural vehicle was a school bus.
Monday 11 May 2020
7x7
great railway journeys: POV footage of Swiss trains racing through the countryside accompanied by techno music
day-o: a family in lockdown recreates dinner party scene from Beetlejuice
starfish and coffee: Prince is the opening act for the latest Link Pack from Swiss Miss
down to gorky park: an in depth investigation into whether the 1990 Scorpions’ power ballad was a US was soft power ploy by the intelligence services
oslo maps the world: visit dozens of global festival venues virtually, via Maps Mania
novas: a mirror universe mixtape of 1982—one of the 1982s, via Kicks Condor
sun dance: a mesmerising percussion set paired with high resolution footage from the Solar Dynamics Observatory
catagories: ๐จ๐ญ, ๐ฉ๐ช, ๐ณ๐ด, ๐ฌ, ๐ถ, ๐ญ, 1990, networking and blogging, transportation
Thursday 5 March 2020
7x7
goetheanum: a visit to the seat of the General Anthroposophical Society in Dornach in the canton of Solothurn
0107 – b moll: a brilliant short by filmmaker Hiroshi Kondo on cityscapes, commutes and light—via Waxy
pivot point: we are entering the era of Peak Car—see also
gratuitous diacritics: a peek inside the world of extreme heavy metal logos—via Things Magazine
autoritatto: an artist commissions a neural network to generate her a self-portrait out of thousands of selfies
it’s big, it’s heavy, it’s wood: documenting the wildlife traffic over this log bridge in Pennsylvania enters its second year