day two hundred thirty eight (13. 941)

Russia begins construction on a massive radar array in the exclave of Kaliningrad. European supermarkets refrigeration systems once again are disabled by a cyberattack. Houthi rebels strike the airport of Dammam in Saudi Arabia. Iranian foreign minister Araghchi says that Tehran is prepared for either diplomacy or military confrontation with the US and Israel as indirect talks continue.  The Supreme Leader gives permission for the negotiations. The massing of American forces and assets in the Persian gulf causes many to conclude that a resumption in fighting is inevitable and could start this week. IDF demolishes homes in southern Lebanon as air raids remain ongoing. Abdullah II, the king of Jordan, reiterates that there can be no stability and security in the region without a Palestinian homeland.

synchronoptica

one year ago: South Korea gives Trump a crown (with synchronoptica) plus assorted links to revisit 

two years ago: private language creation among twins, the Collins’ Direction Word of the Year, more links to enjoy, caesaropapism plus the Balfour Agreement of 1917 

three years ago: a trove of tintypes from western Massachusetts plus even more links 

four years ago: the Morris Worm (1988), Simpsons Albums plus in praise of phrase books

five years ago: a treasury of neologisms,  US president Warren G Harding plus an art storage facility opens its doors to the public

six years ago: your daily demon: Vine, a board game about the US electoral college, the first BBC high-definition television broadcast (1936) plus Hartfield’s Landing revisited

seven years ago: Party Like It’s 1999, a historic bar in Singapore plus more shadow puppets

eight years ago: artist Piet Mondrian, assorted links to revisit plus more on the first residents of the International Space Station

 

day two hundred thirty seven (13. 939)

Reversing an earlier announcement of tele-rallies, Trump is attending campaign events in the final days before the midterm elections in once bulwarks of the GOP, Kansas and Iowa, that have turned into battlegrounds over his unpopularity and poor handling of the economy and foreign relations. It is very much in the Republican playbook to crash the break the budget and sever diplomatic ties, after inheriting stability, and leave it to the Democrats to clean up the chaos and get the blame for the sabotage and slow turn-around. Meanwhile, the media is too fixated on the run-off between Dans Sullivan in Alaska to address the allegation that Trump raped Miss Switzerland or how the administration purchased a vote-tabulation machine to reverse engineer it and exploit vulnerabilities through AI-aided hacking. Palestinian vice president Hussein al-Sheikh holds high level talks with European delegates, accusing the IDF of targeting Gazan police officers and urging the perpetrators of violence be held accountable. Iranian foreign minister Araghchi awaits US response on their framework for reopening Hormuz. King Charles arrives in Antigua and Barbuda for the Commonwealth Conference and apologies for the UK’s slave trading past, though prime minister Burnham does not believe that reparations should be on the table. The Anglican communion, whose clergy also owned enslaved individuals, has independently established a fund of one hundred million pounds for affected communities and research into the legacy of Britain’s role in the transatlantic trade.

ludus litterator (13. 888)

Via Web Curios—be sure to not skip the preamble for a surreal, Kafkaque case of identity expropriation—we are directed to this engrossing essay on the vices of highly effective Victorians, which present in stark contrast to the discipline and clean-living if not practised espoused by the titians of industry of today, whose empires are arguably built every bit as much as the British one through colonialism and exploitation if not more reliant on class-struggle and inequities. Etonian and Oxbridge attitudes towards education, whilst not wholly staunchly traditional and did incorporate progressive elements, the capacity of the Classics for character development was far more privileged than a science and maths based curriculum that we would call STEM in modern parlance—on the basis that technical mastery could be acquired later with the formative years dedicated to cultivating independent thought. Although the lifestyle was unobtainable for the working poor who enabled it for the small cadre of the elite, those matriculated schedules and inculcated attitudes—with the exception of matins and vespers which required early rising—carried over to post-graduate careers with workdays generally starting not before 10:00, time to recover from the previous night’s social commitments, and an elaborate, boozy brunch with most having the flexibility to work from home for reading, research and replying to correspondence until afternoon in-person meetings, with Parliament not seated until 17:00 or later, the nocturnal existence and party scene made possible through gaslighting and electrification. Not exclusive to elected representatives, though very much encompassing the ruling class, this concession to birthright, even for all those whom it disadvantaged may have been the secret to the success of the era, the allowance for sentiment and tradition over the explicit social contract and norms that typically bind highly developed hierarchies. Contemporary parallels are abhorrent and deserving of punishment and ostracisation—like the Epstein nucleus or any who would scoff laws they themselves enacted, and whilst it is harder to hide behaviours considered inegalitarian in the age of social media, when many voluntarily brag about it—cf the expulsion and black-balling of senate candidate Madison Cawthorn for exposing orgies and “key bumps” of cocaine in the GOP and for those careless hints from careless people of lavish lifestyles (significantly at tax-payer expense and not earners nor beneficiaries but grifters for the grind) coming periodically from appointed officials. Read more from Works in Progress at the link above.

day two hundred five (13. 839)

Iran denies a role in the apparent plot to bomb an airbase in England. Indirect talks between Washington and Tehran continue in New York via Qatari mediators with both sides rejecting reports of compromise—Iran not pausing its nuclear programme and the US not offering sanction relief. The Supreme Leader issues a statement reasserting that Iran is the sole custodian of the Strait of Hormuz. A comprehensive framework for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon stalls at the American department of state, whilst US senator Bernie Sanders calls for an end of military aid to Israel following the state banned Arab parties from elections, disenfranchising Palestinians and leaving them not representation in the Knesset. Netanyahu holds secret meetings with the United Arab Emirates. Russia strikes Ukraine Academy of Sciences as ten-thousand North Korean troops prepare to mobilise. Ebola cases surpass eight thousand in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Europe braces for the next energy shock as fuel prices continue to climb and the US diesel export ban looms. OpenAI scraps the release of its latest frontier model over safety concerns.

day one hundred ninety-eight (13. 818)

Lawmakers is Iran draft legislation to pull the country out of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty whilst issuing stark warnings to the US following Trump’s prognosis of options available for ending the conflict are either total obliteration, economic rot or reaching a deal that suggest a fresh wave of military strikes. Tehran promises to retaliate “without limitations,” the Revolutionary Guard saying that the USA lacks the courage and resolve to defeat the Islamic Republic and the world will be “astounded” by Iran’s new weapons. Just as the White House East Wing renovations and the ballroom were a cover for an apocalypse grade bunker, the American president reveals that he plans for his triumphal arch in the capital to host a den of snipers and drones—ostensibly for defensive purposes but likely to quell riots. Trump sanctions the entire staff AfD secures a bald majority in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern but has no options of forming a state government. IDF carry out strikes in Lebanon’s Tyre district and enter Syria. European jet fuel imports fall by half with serious shortages expected.

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth revisiting (with synchronoptica), American Idiot plus a banger from Earth, Wind & Fire

two years ago: Weird Al parodies Bob Dylan with palindromes plus more gerrymandering 

three year ago: grieving the loss of dark skies 

four years ago:  Ba-Dee-Ya, Martin Luther’s German translation of the Bible, more on the US Space Force plus a collection of manhole covers

five years ago: an advertisement for Ivermectin 

six years ago:  the Order of the Smile, The Hobbit (1937), the legacy of colonial goods stores, alternative chess plus wide-scale money laundering

seven years ago: The Far Side returns plus more Earth, Wind and Fire

eight years ago: assorted links to revisit, a sexy Handmaiden costume for Halloween plus Dial-a-Song

 

ebov (13. 739)

Beginning on this day in 1976 in the village of Yambuku in the northern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (then Zaire), the first known outbreak of ebolavirus occurred when Mabalo Lokela, the headmaster of the local mission school sought treatment for what was mistaken at first for malaria, then the Marburg virus (see previously) at a clinic.  Later named for the French corruption of the rather distant Legbala river (Ngbandi for white water), pathologist not wanting to associate the remote village with the legacy and stigma of the haemorrhagic disease it causes, the US Centres for Disease Control Epidemic Intelligence Service and the World Health Organisation helped local medical personnel to quarantine the village. Out of a total three hundred eighteen cases, two hundred eighty resulted in death, an eighty-eight percent fatality rate, and though better monitoring, access to sanitation and containment has resulted in marginal improvements to treatment and survival, the highly infectious disease still has no vaccine or cure and kills on average half of those who encounter it.

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth the revisit (with synchronoptica) plus challenging conventional wisdom on Big Data

one year ago: the era of AI photography plus the death of Charles Lindbergh (1974)

three years ago: Gaberboccus press plus midcentury modern embassies and consulates 

four years ago: more links to enjoy plus measuring time 

five years ago: pandemic saints plus promotional material for the film AI

six years ago: the Isle of Wight Festival (1970), millions of photoplay plots, US Space Force command structure, IKEA catalogues in virtual space, Top Value Television plus more unbuilt architecture

iso 4217 (13. 732)

Introduced on this day in 1976 to replace the South Africa rand, which had been used as the legal currency since the republic gained independence from the UK in 1966, the Botswana pula (symbolised by P) is from the Setswana word for rain, a very precious commodity in the Kalahari desert, meaning by extension fortune and blessings. Unpegged from the rand and the US dollar to a floating currency, the pula adopted a fixed exchange rate regime with a basket of funds that reflected its regional trading relationships. The sub-unit, thebe (meaning shield) is represented in various denominations of coinage (also one, two and five pula coins, with the lower value bill demonetised in 2014) and bear the motto ipelegeng, meaning to carry one’s own weight, to be self-sufficient. The ten pula note currently in circulation (according to the central bank) depicts the country’s fifth president, not quite aligned with the up-to-date political situation, Mokgweetsi Eric Keabetswe Masisi, who served in high office from 2018 to 2024 and has been succeeded by His Excellency Duma Gideon Boko, leader of the Motswana opposition party Umbrella for Democratic Change—the former demonym is the singular case with Batswana being the plural, collective form for the people of the “Land of the Tswana.” The pula is also used widely in Zimbabwe following the hyperinflation of its dollar.

la mise en garde (13. 680)

Whilst not given the deserved retrospective treatment as her near namesake and contemporary Leonora Carrington, in her own time Argentine-Italian surrealist (though rejecting the label the label and broader movement personally), designer, illustrator, dresser and author, especially celebrated for her empowering and erotic portrayals of women (herself included), Leonor Fini, had her share of attention from documentarians wanting to know more about her life, influences and works. We appreciated this entree to Fini via the discovery of some of these films, rarely screened or available online, with subtitles, including the feature length profile by Belgian director and screenwriter Chris Vermorcken and the short produced for Swiss broadcaster Radiodiffusion-télévison-française by journalist Yvan Butler, decades after her credentials were established with showings in her native Trieste, Milan, patronised and exhibited by Peggy Guggenheim as well as costuming several theatrical and screen productions. From 1953 onward, Fini held an open polyamorous relationship with Count Stanislao Lepri, Italian consul general to Monaco, and Polish writer Konstanty Jeleński, remaining inseparable for the rest of their lives along with her retinue of no fewer than twenty-three Persian cats. Like Carrington’s, Fini’s art often focused on liminal beings, witches, werewolves and sphinxes.  More from { feuilleton } at the link above. 

terra deserta (13. 673)

Mid-grade curious as to why the descriptor wilderness was likewise applied to the deserts spaces of the Bible and to our more conventional understanding of untamed forests, we found this excerpt from a new book by Cal Flyn on the savage landscape rather inexhaustibly fascinating. Though these habitats might seem poles apart—with only spirtual challenges lurking in the former, medieval monks in the Europe after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire solidified parallels between the tribulations of the prophets, the desert mothers and fathers, and the rewilding of vast swaths of land in Provence, Bretagne, Burgundy and Transylvania and other former colonies saw a sharp decline in population and many villages, villas and fortifications abandoned along with fallow fields that allowed the return of the forest primeval. Returning from the brink of extinction, with attendant lore and literature surrounding the liminal woodlands at the edge of cultivation and urbanisation became an allegory for the trepidation of earlier time out of mind, causing a stark rebellion against the encroachment of the undomesticated with commiserate suspicion for its denizens both human and non-human, transmogrifying contemporary fears of famine and pestilence to remote dwellers, bears and werewolves, though counter-narratives also prevailed with the ancient masonry of ruins repurposed as churches and city walls.

isolated, initial, medial, final (13. 562)

Via Kottke, we are directed to a fascinating interactive introduction to the typesetting and rendering of Arabic script and the technical debt of font engineering and word-processors, built for the Latin alphabet (see also), which after years of struggles and comprise with alignment, default-settings that generated a WYSIWYG that looked ragged, broken and unaesthetic by Arabic standards is finally coming around to more faithfully reproducing the typography in the tradition of the scribes and calligraphers. Each glyph “holds hands” with the one preceding it and following it—everything is cursive, necessitating a minimum of four variants to create the right ligatures connecting the letters, dynamically renegotiating its shape for what comes next. The block formatting, which no manuscript would deviate from, is not achieved with spacing, but rather stretching or shortening the strokes within the word to make it flush with the margins. Much more including exercises and examples from La Vita Nouva at the link above.

synchronoptica

one year ago: Port Louis (with synchronotpica)

two years ago: Ponti dei Salti

three years ago: paronomasia plus design critique for Latin letters 

four years ago: attorney advertising, Captain Video, another MST3K classic, hummingbird hawk moths plus the Bored Ape Yacht Club

five years ago: your daily demon, Moby Dick (1955), Our Lady of Perpetual Help, the Seven Sleepers, Queen’s first gig plus assorted links to enjoy

six years ago: the first Pride march, more AI pareidolia plus Russian bounties for US soldiers

disposable memory (13. 532)

Courtesy of Web Curios, we are directed to a global photography project conducted by Matthew Knight between 2008 and 2013 that entailed seeding locations all over the world with a single-use camera, a set of instructions to take a few pictures and pass it on until the film is exhausted and how to return it for developing.
Coinciding with the introduction and adoption of the iPhone and a pre-revolt of sorts of what the pervasive device would do to picture-taking and social media (though there are a lot of selfie and at least one unsolicited dick-pic), these anonymous images from all over—the Geoguessr aspect of it was fun: cameras 160 and 159 seem to be left at the South and North Poles respectively and there’s one roll from Mongolia and another from Austin Texas carry a affecting nostalgia for a time when we were connecting the world, demonstrably so, and online and offline were distinct magisteria.
Only a fifth of the some five hundred cameras were returned (which is a pretty fair response rate and photo quality reflecting the carelessness of a digital camera native in many instances) but we wonder what happened with the rest and if any of these messages in a bottle might yet be answered.

7x7 (13.326)

a look at books: some new highlights from old library archives  

putt, putt to the pizza hut: though Gorbachev’s circumstances were quite different, the empire-ending spokesmen only to be believed in hindsight  

edinburgh of the seven seas: the very busy, remote settlement of Tristan da Cunha—see previously—via Nag on the Lake  

master editor: the inevitable ubiquity of AI writing 

koyaanisquatsi: a new visually stunning music video, Pattern Index, by Max Cooper—reminiscent of the subtitle  

whitey’s on the moon: we want to be excited about the return trip around the lunar surface but are thinking a lot about that poem and sentiment from the late-1970s and how everything’s propaganda and grift layered on heavily to get to the science  

unknown artist: a collection of Mid-Century Modern ephemera from Zara Picken—via Things magazine with much more to click through and enjoy

day twenty-eight (13. 299)

Rejecting reports that he is searching for an off-ramp (another tortured metaphor that isn’t build for this) as economies continue to falter and it becomes manifest that the situation is out of his control, Trump says; “I am the opposite of desperate. I don’t care,” as he again extends the pause on attacking Iranian energy infrastructure. Contrary to what Tehran is putting out, Washington maintains that Iran is eager to make a deal with productive conversations ongoing. Despite the veracity of the claims, Iran we think has no appetite to work with the same negotiators, Kusher and Witkoff, who orchestrated all the previous rounds when, resulting in last year’s attack on Iranian nuclear research facilities (now cited as a casus belli) and lately all out war (which led to the closure of shipping lanes) rather than achieving any semblance of cooperation or compromise. Meanwhile the Houthi militia in Yemen seem to be plotting opening up another front in the war by seizing control of Bab-el-Mandeb (Gate of Grief, the strait that links the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, fed by the Suez canal and the Indian Ocean. Bombardment and counterstrikes continue.

 

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links to revisit (with synchronopticæ) plus a German colonial holding in the Americas

 

twelve years ago: the Rod of Asclepius plus current affairs 

 

thirteen years ago: signs and shingles plus a reminder that a country is not a corporation

 

fourteen years ago: a Cold War melodrama 

 

fifteen years ago: long term entombment 

11x11 (13. 268)

epistemic cocoon: filters, bubbles, synthetic friends and the personal theatre of disinformation—via Web Curios  

no yokes: a quarter of a century in market fluctuations  

semantic drift: the etymological and entomological history of the word drone  

belated blogoversary: Kottke turns twenty-eight  

wet shelter: the house photographer of the aid mission in the crypt of St Botolph’s 

le salaire de la peur: in a demonstration project to expand research partnerships with other laboratories, CERN attempts to transport a microscopic payload of antimatter for the first time—see previously  

caged lorries: Singapore, despite pressure from businesses that rely on migrant labour, is moving towards banning the dehumanising way workers are transported to job sites  

unbirthday: salutations and reflections from veteran blogger Diamond Geezer  

áfram með smjörið: delightful Icelandic idioms—via friend of the blog Nag on the Lake  

what’s that got to do with the price of tea in china: US egg cost down forty-two percent—hope it was all worth it  

ai is african intelligence: the exploited workers who tutor and moderate chatbots fight back

algeria, gabon, benin, the gambia (13. 257)

This was delightful and really could be integrated as a classroom geography lesson, since most of us are only disabused of our ignorance through wars. There I Ruined It (previously) improves Toto’s “Africa” by lyrically listing all fifty-four nations of the continent. More mnemonics from Kottke at the link above.

day five (13. 230)

Though there are disputed claims about the breadth of the US-Israeli dominance of the region with Iran stating it retains control of the Strait of Hormuz and Trump saying there are no enemy vessels in the waters, their naval power obliterated and offering US carriers as escorts for tankers, the belligerent spectacle seems beyond reproach with double the shock-and-awe campaign of the opening volleys of the 2003 Iraq war, hitting some two-thousand targets in Iran with over fifty thousand troops deployed and two hundred aerial assets launched from two carrier groups. Bombing continues in Beirut as Iranian missiles hit the Qatari Al Udeid base, the largest American presence in the Middle East. France is also sending its nuclear-powered aircraft carrier from the Baltics to the Mediterranean to safeguard its interests. Meanwhile the casus belli is still unclear with regime change being walked back and Trump expressing a desire to install some one from the current government into a leadership role—as with Venezuela—though admitting that they have killed most of the line of succession and there’s less emphasis for popular revolution and the narrative shifting from preemptive attacks under pressure by Israel to defensive countermeasures that Iran was going to fire the first shot, the inimical fog of war recently cited in attacks on trawlers in the Caribbean. Though most of Iran’s missiles and drones have been intercepted, Kiev offering to send its effective anti-drone nets to the region, markets and economies are yet in turmoil with no end in sight.  Airstrikes continue on Tehran as preparations are made for the late Ayatollah’s funeral and the expert assembly readies to appoint his son, Mojtaba Khameni, as the new Supreme Leader—Israeli avowing to assassinate whomever is put into the role.

synchronoptica

one year ago: US vice president Rufus DeVane King (with synchronopticæ) plus more on the Triadic Ballet

twelve years ago: world time zones diverging from true solar time 

thirteen years ago: over-apostrophisation 

rëşt ộf wŏrld (13. 141)

DJ Earworm’s (previously) reprised mashup, Tops of the World, features the number one song in one hundred forty nine countries from the past twelve months, showcasing some one hundred five hits (obliviously some cross-over) is back online. This lesson in geography, music and culture expressed through dance, instrumentation and fashion as a global exchange is ambitious and inevitably ran into some legal entanglements and take-down notices due to the range of copyright laws that one would expect to have to navigate. Annotated, click through for a full listing of the samples and learn more about each source track and artist and inclusion methodology. This compilation might end the need for international song competitions. Let us know your new favourites and what you have learnt.

life in a day (13. 103)

Contributing footage captured all on a single day, 24 July 2010, some eighty thousand participants from one-hundred-ninety-two countries answering the call-for-submissions on the video hosting platform, the Ridley Scott and Kevin Macdonald (director also of biopics Whitney and Marley, State of Play, The Last King of Scotland and Touching the Void) collaboration is a crowd-sourced feature length documentary, revelatory at the time, and was previewed on Youtube (conceived in part as a commemoration of its five-year anniversary) one week prior to its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on this day in 2011. Inspired and informed—with new media and technological possibilities—by a 1930s British sociological and ethnographical project called the Mass Observation movement—asking respondents around the UK to share their diary entries for one day per month, anonymously and answering a few basic demographic questions, in order to highlight the complexities and fullness of the seemingly mundane—and to demonstrate that everyone’s the main character in their own narrative, a touch lesson to learn, the director began the appeal for clips with a column in The Guardian, asking simple questions about people’s passions, what was in the pockets and their fears—also dispatching video cameras to people in the developing world. That particular day was chosen as it was the first Saturday following the World Cup. Several countries including Panama, Canada, India and Spain made their own national versions in the following years and a sequel was made in 2020 for 25 July during the height of the COVID-19 global pandemic and premiering just after the inauguration of US president Joe Biden.

*    *    *    *    *  

synchronoptica

one year ago: a planetary alignment (with synchronopticæ), the side projects of Vangelis, a longitudinal study of love songs plus more trivial maths

twelve years ago: more data breaches 

thirteen years ago: kitchen implements, self-healing construction plus workplace distractions

fourteen years ago: geopolitical meme templates 

sixteen years ago: privatising student debt 

seventeen years ago: house-hunting 

pflp (13. 022)

After taking over sixty hostages, killing an Austrian police officer, a Libyan economist and and Iraqi security guard, six terrorist of the “Arm of the Arab Revolution” under the leadership of Venezuelan terrorist Carlos the Jackal (with assistance from West Germany’s Rote Armee Faktion), the energy ministers for eleven of the thirteen members of OPEC (the Organisation Of Petroleum Exporting Countries) present were taken ransom whilst attending a semi-annual meeting at the headquarters in Vienna. Delegates were separated into three groups in the conference room during the siege, with friendlies advanced towards the exit, neutrals cordoned off in the centre and enemy countries placed along the rear wall next to a stack of explosives rigged to detonate if the facility was comprised. Complying with the hostage-takers’ demands, Austrian broadcasters read a communiqué over the television and radio every two hours regarding the Palestinian cause and the group’s manifesto whilst transportation was arranged with an airplane bound for Tripoli with a layover in Algiers, lest captives be executed every fifteen minutes. Algerian foreign minister Abdelaziz Boteflika managed to de-escalate the situation, with all parties walking away unharmed forty-eight hours later, including the Iraqi and Iranian oil ministers, slated for execution before the raid began.

7x7 (13. 003)

it cuts up a man’s youth and vigour most horribly: Jane Austen invented the wellness guy  

maplewashing: the deceptive practise of making things seem more Canadian than they actually are narrowly beat out “elbows up” for Canadian English Dictionary’s inaugural Word of the Year  

antipodes: Rothera Antarctic research station gets a new Royal Mail postbox 

genai.mil: Pentagon installs a chatbot on all DOD computers—immediately concludes that Hegseth is a war-criminal—via Super Punch  

dayton accords: a look back at the peace negotiations to end the war in after the collapse of Yugoslavia three decades on  

cut spelng: English orthographer Christopher Upward’s failed proposal for language reform through elimination of redundant letters—see previously, see also 

little wars: HG Wells’ contribution to table top role play games

synchronoptica

one year ago: Vince Collins celebrates the US bicentennial (with synchronopticæ), Intershop (1962) plus assorted links worth revisiting

thirteen years ago: IKEA instructions for that dapper monkey 

sixteen years ago: drug money helped banks weather the Great Recession