Via Slashdot, we are directed to the newest Danish polity hoping to secure a seat in the Folketing in the country’s upcoming general election called the Synthetic Party (Det Syntetiske Parti). The chatbot figurehead (see also) which is eager to debate anyone has been trained on the policies and priorities of fringe groups from 1970 onward in order to appeal to the fifth of voters who feel unrepresented and disenfranchised, possibly marshalling solutions and consensus better than a human candidate. Learn more about this civics experiment at the link above.
Friday, 14 October 2022
leader lars (10. 221)
Thursday, 13 October 2022
8x8 (10. 220)
punto di ebollizione: pasta maker introduces ‘passive cooker’ meters

a shropshire lass: four decades of mushrooming in England and Wales
friluftsliv: the term for the Danish tradition of unwinding in the wilds popularised by playwright Henrik Ibsen
perfect for roquefort cheese: all about blue cheeses—see also
yes sirah: origins and production of wine grape varietals around the globe—via tmn
wormsign: building a functional Fremen thumper
hasta la pasta: the Italian influence in Argentinian cuisine
Tuesday, 14 June 2022
7x7
exascale: the world’s super computer might be surpassing benchmarks in secret
hub and spoke: a suite of interactive maps that lets one scour the globe with creeping data spiders

viral nightmares: more trials of an AI text to image generator
witkar: a ride-sharing demonstration projection that ran from 1974 to 1986 in Amsterdam
the firth of forth: some of the world’s best bridges for driving
whiskey war: the fifty yearlong territorial dispute between Canada and Denmark over Hans Island has been settled
zeroth law: an AI ethicist believes Google’s LaMDA has attained sentience
Monday, 6 June 2022
sort sol
Revisiting an arresting and formative moment from his childhood in western coast Denmark, as the Guardian reports, photographer Sรธren Solkรฆr is exhibiting a portfolio of mesmerizing murmurations of starlings on the wing from the Wadden Sea to northern Spain. These flocks of hundreds of thousands of birds can blot out the sun (the dark sun of the title, referring to the accompanying coffee table edition), and it remains a mystery how autonomous individuals achieve this degree of mass-coordination for these majestic manoeuvre.
Saturday, 12 February 2022
der totentanz
Premiering on this day in 1912 at the newly constructed “Glashaus” studio in the Neubabelsberg district of Potsdamm—what would become the production company—the silent picture in three acts, The Dance of Death, directed by Danish filmmaker Urban Gad with camera work by Guido Seeber, only is known to exist in fragments. The movie relates the tragedy of Bella Burk (Asta Nielsen) whose engineering husband (Oskar Fuchs) is badly injured during a factory mishap and is no longer able to support the family. Bella finds employment as in a vaudeville act as a singer and dancer, scandalising audiences and critics with her exotic belly dance which would have otherwise proved merely scintillating if it wasn’t ultimately a fatal mental breaking point for the new object of her affection and infidelity, the troupe’s composer, Czerneck, portrayed by Fritz Weidemann.
Friday, 1 October 2021
highly irregular
Via the always engrossing 99% Invisible, we are introduced to the poem “The Chaos” penned by Dutch teacher and travel writer Gerard Nolst Trenitรฉ under the the pseudonym Charivarius (see also) in 1920 as a part of a broader commiseration and discussion on the mongrel nature of the English language and the challenges that poses for new learners. An excerpt of the rather epic length work begins:
Studying English pronunciation,
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse.
Ending thus with the emblematic, problematic words italicised:
Finally: which rhymes with “enough,”
Though, through, plough, cough, hough, or tough?
Hiccough has the sound of “cup”…
My advice is—give it up!
Sunday, 26 September 2021
fristaden christiania
Occupied over the course of weeks prior to the declaration, amid protests of the Danish government of the lack of affordable housing in Copenhagen, squatters claimed their takeover of the abandoned military barracks and historic depot of the borough of Christianshavn on this day in 1971 to establish an independent commune. The unique, semi-autonomous site focused on self-sustainability and collectivism is home to around one thousand residents. The flag is a modified version of the labarum, the military standard of Emperor Constantine and pairs with the city flag of Amsterdam, triple x.
Monday, 6 September 2021
festival der liebe
Appearing on stage for the final day of the Love-and-Peace-Festival on the Baltic island of Fehmarn this day in 1970, artist Jimi Hendrix gave his last concert performance on the seashore outside of the village of Flรผgge, the West German event one of the first attempts to recreate the atmosphere of Woodstock and the Isle of Wight and was sponsored in large part by Beate Uhse. Hendrix’ performance began around noon on a blustery day with organisers, fans and volunteers weary and irritable from three days of chaos but felt it was worth the wait. From 1995 to 2010, a local tribute band held a revival concert on the first Saturday in September. Other acts included Ten Years After, Canned Heat, Procol Harum, Mungo Jerry, Sly & the Family Stone and Danish progressive rock band the Burnin Red Ivanhoes.
Sunday, 29 August 2021
ultima thule
Though settled by the Paleo-Inuit Saqqaq peoples over thirty-five hundred years earlier and interacting with visiting Vikings until the fiftieth century, the traditional founding date of the Greenlandic capital is given as this day in 1728 when the Danish-Norwegian governor called Claus Paarss established Fort Godthรฅb (Good Hope) to relocate a group of colonists (primarily ex-convicts, mutinous sailors and soldiers and prostitutes) on the mainland from their former island dwelling. Five years later, a Moravian mission received clearance to establish Neu-Herrnhut to convert residents to the Lutheran Church of Denmark. The indigenous population endured generations of suffering and slights, but they persevered and eventually regaining cultural territory as well as an autonomous form of devolved government in 1979, officially changing the name to the Greenlandic (Kalaallisut) Nuuk, meaning cape.
Thursday, 29 July 2021
olaf ii haraldsson
Posthumously proclaimed eternal king and rapidly acclaimed as patron for Fรธroyar (the Faroe Islands) and a popular saint for greater Scandinavia, Norwegian realms extending over most of the region, the Vestfold ruler is venerated on this day, the anniversary of his death on the battlefield of Stiklestad in 1030, elevating his younger, half-brother Harald Hardrada to the throne. Olaf’s sainthood, saga and symbolism (attributed with qualities of Thor and Freyr) encouraged the widespread adoption of Christianity in the territory—though in his lifetime, after his own baptism in Rouen, wintering there with Duke Richard II of Normandy (see previously), was given the epithet “the Lawbreaker” for the forceful and exploitative means he used to win converts amongst the population.
Wednesday, 14 July 2021
slottruin
Tuesday, 13 July 2021
vissefjรคrda
catagories: ๐ฉ๐ฐ, ๐ธ๐ช, architecture
Friday, 9 July 2021
just passing through or something forgotten in the state of denmark
Having the chance to finally realise in some form a trip we'd planned two years ago but had had to defer until now—gingerly, cautiously—due to work and other prior engagements to southern Sweden and we both have given some rather serious consideration for those transit zones that are of course destinations in their own rights and ought to be spared a thought in these trying times.
Passing the Elba Canal outside of Hamburg and through Schleswig-Holstein and crossed onto the island of Fehmarn via the modernist brige over the sound from the mainland, finished in 1963 and affectionately known as the Clothes Hanger (Kleiderbรผgel) because of its distinctive girders and trusses.
For an easy morning get away to the ferry to Denmark from Puttgarden, we chose a campsite at the village of Strukkamp, populated by fearless bunnies abd gulls but unable yet to achieve escape velocity just yet from the dreary and driven rain, we were mostly confined to our tent.
We crossed the island, storied itself and one beach music festival in September 1970 that was the venue for Jimi Hendrix‘ last concert performance and stopped in the eponymous insular capital, called locally Burg. Arriving at the seaport, we realised it was our second time only seeing Denmark from the expressway and pledge to make a proper visit to all of these places one day soon. Crossing on the monumental รresundsbroen / รresundbrรผcke (previously) bypassing Copenhagen and likewise skirting Malmรถ upon arrival in Sweden.
Saturday, 24 April 2021
situationist international
Though better-known by the later stages of the collective’s existence for developing the principles of dรฉrive and psycho-geography, the burgeoning group of avant-garde artists and social revolutionaries formed in the late 1950s garnered public attention and some herostratic fame on this day in 1964 by decapitating the landmark bronze located on a waterside promenade in Copenhagen, the Little Mermaid, the first act in a long line of vandalism towards this poort statue motivated by various reasons. Radically left-leaning and convinced that the capitalism that Karl Marx had sought to redress, the Situationists—especially during this formative political period, was becoming more pervasive and all-encompassing and that the estranging forces of commodity fetishism were fast encroaching on every aspect of life and culture, helping limn and inform the summer of unrest and insurrection of Paris in May of 1968.
catagories: ๐ง๐ช, ๐ฉ๐ฐ, ๐ซ๐ท, ๐ง♂️, 1968, philosophy, revolution
Monday, 22 March 2021
7x7
mรธbler, belysning, rumdesign: another dip into the iconic designs of Verner Panton—see previously
fortuitous numbers: a few sums with the rare property where a number equals its letter count multiplied together
avondklok: a photo-essay on the curfew in Amsterdam during the heights of the pandemic
digital only trainers: Gucci is selling a virtual sneaker for augmented reality photographs
yoshizawa-randlett system: rocket scientists and engineers are turning to origami for inspiration
screen-time: a comic panel from 1997 about high school in 2021 A.D., see also
in memoriam: a pair of obituaries celebrating the life and work of designer Zeev Aram from Things Magazine
Thursday, 28 January 2021
the wise wife of keith
Garrotted and burned at the stake for witchcraft on this day in 1591 on the order of James VI and said to haunt the halls of Holyrood as a naked ghost, Agnes Sampson was a healer and midwife and one of the more notable defendants of the well documented North Berwick witch trails.
The Scottish king inspired by his experience in the court of Denmark-Norway, visiting his in-laws on the occasion of marrying Anne of Denmark, and accounts of witch-hunting and practicing the dark arts—convinced during a fraught return voyage that a curse was responsible for the stormy passage. Subsequent arrests and interrogations conducted by the king himself in a specially convened tribunal was covered by a contemporary pamphleteer in the Newes from Scotland, which contained proceedings and quoted Sampson’s litany of confessions, implicating others and admitting with a seemingly taunting air that she had tried to drown the newly-weds and another had fashioned a charm out of a toad to make the king impotent. Reportedly James had been willing to declare Sampson innocent until her final confession which detailed the nuptial night of the James and Anne in Oslo with accuracy only one in communion with the devil could know. The writer with the by-line, James Carmichael, of the reportage later advised James on his other famous book (besides his patronage for the Bible), Dรฆmonologie.Tuesday, 17 November 2020
6x6
for ages eighteen plus: adult content next door
cph-รธ1: Copenhagen harbour floating parkipelago gets its first module
dapper duds: older dogs dressed as senior human citizens to encourage adoption
holes and slices: the Swiss cheese model risk management and loss prevention
coandฤ effect: a drone stays aloft by taking advantage of the fluid dynamic tendency to stay attached to a convex surface—a principle used in hovercraft, the Avrocar, NOTARs, windshield cleaners, mitral regurgitators and ventilators
for ages six and up: small bricks present a choking hazard
Monday, 16 November 2020
dagur รญslenskrar tungu
Celebrated annually since 1996 with accolades presented to the individual or group that has significantly contributed to the language, the Day of the Icelandic Language was picked for this date in honour of the poet, naturalist and independence activist Jรณnas Hallgrรญmsson (*1807 – †1845). Clerk to the sherrif of Reykjavรญk and studying for the bar, Jรณnas later went to metropolitan Copenhagen to complete his law degree but instead found himself far more enamoured with literature and natural sciences and so switched his focus of study, writing poems and founding a patrotic newsletter, Fjรถlnir, that argued for autonomy and promoted the native language of the island, based on Old Norse with little outside influence. Dividing his time between Denmark and Iceland, Jรณnas died of blood poisoning, aged thirty-seven, having slipped on a flight of stairs going up to his apartment. Let’s lighten the mood and build your vocabulary with the way the language forms new terms at the link here, cutely illustrated by Eunsan Huh.
catagories: ๐ฉ๐ฐ, ๐ฎ๐ธ, holidays and observances, language
Sunday, 8 November 2020
quodlibet
Wednesday, 21 October 2020
mindfulness adjacent
