Via Web Curios, we appreciated the referral to Planet Pizza, a Pioneer or Voyager space probe style project to impart to extraterrestrials not only the the basic concepts of maths, space-time coordinates of our Solar System, chemistry and the nature of the sender (and recipient) but also—as an express end in itself—wonderfully detailed and over-thought set of instructions on how to make said sender’s universally enjoyed dish, which is a bit defining and representative of all humanity in its variety and variation as well.
Friday, 2 December 2022
al taglio (10. 356)
Sunday, 27 November 2022
8x8 (10. 339)
truly toastmaster: an elaborate and enduring hoax that shows one should not believe everything on the internet—via Nag on the Lake’s Sunday Links
cabinet of curiosities: the intro, outro and interstitials of the horror anthology hosted by Guillermo del Toro, which has distinct echoes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents

plasmonic photocatalysis: researchers engineer a nanomaterial that could allow for power plants to efficiently isolate hydrogen from ammonia using only light
el peatonito: a champion of the pedestrian and other Super Citizens
it’s not delivery, it’s digiorno: an interesting short documentary on the history of frozen pizza—via Hyperallergic’s Required Reading
teal and prebunking: the shortlisted candidates for Macquarie Dictionary Word of the Year
goncharov: thousands of fan-fic contributors have retcon’d a 1973 Martin Scorsese film starring Robert De Niro that never existed—via Slashdot
Monday, 29 August 2022
8x8 (10. 095)
clippit: a biography of the MicroSoft Office virtual assistant
banana for scale: megalophobia-inducing images to make you as a human feel small and insignificant

flagship store: fashion brand Gucci opens up in Detroit—via Nag on the Lake
pillow-talk: the history of bundling, the sixteenth and seventeenth custom of allowing pre-martial sleeping arrangements—via Messy Nessy Chic
sabbatical: oh no—after seventeen years Futility Closet is taking a hiatus—see also
it’s a reference to don quixote: a selection of literary nods from They Might Be Giants—see previously
book it: incentivising reading with pizza
Sunday, 6 February 2022
9x9
platinum geezer: our London correspondent reflects on the Queen’s jubilee by the numbers
snow-drifting: artist Alexander Deineka’s celebration of winter sports in the USSR
nunsexmonkrock: Nina Hagen’s (previously) legendary masterpiece extolled as it deserves
definitely did not used to be a pizza hut: an investigation into the camouflage (see previously) of franchise blight—via the morning news
biblioclasm: more books, press outlets, educators under fire as potentially subversive, challenging
king of the mountain: fours goats play on a sheet metal shelter
celebrity-ntf complex: the race is on to find the remaining marks and rubes before the bottom falls out
cockney cats: vintage feline photos collected by Spitalfields Life
hrm: Pietro Annigoni’s 1969 portrait of the Queen
Thursday, 3 February 2022
7x7
1:12: a 1983 architectural magazine’s call for dollhouses
way-finder: a friendly reminder about the most important app ever made
fisheye lens: a floating exhibit platform showcases Norwegian aquaculture practises
philately: a brilliant abecedarium (see previously) of vintage postage stamps from around the world
tensor strength: researchers engineer new material that can absorb and release enormous amounts of energy—like super-charged rubber band, via Slashdot
the vault of contemporary art: a collection of architectural sketches and schematics from a Things Magazine omnibus post on the subject
Thursday, 25 November 2021
now i work at the pizza pizza
A brief discussion of the tabletop shuffleboard-like, disk-flicking game that the interlocutors mostly knew from the lyric from the song “King of Spain,” “playing crokinole with the Princess of Monaco” transported me back aeons ago when I was volunteer “security detail” (i.e., checking wrist-bands and stamps of people coming and going between different venues) at a music festival in Vermont with headliner Ani DiFranco and also featuring acts like Moxy Frรผvous (1989 - 2001) with their ballad retelling the Prince and Pauper story. Now I eat humble pie.
Saturday, 16 October 2021
7x7
pour homme, femme, et grenouille: Amphรญbฤซa, Kermit the Frog’s signature scent from 1995
hampsternomics: a look at how the attention economy has matured through the lens of a quarter-century old meme—see previously
a day without rain: Endless Enya (previously) from Mischief Magazine—via Web Curiosmemento mori: a treasury of macabre reminders of death’s inevitability
corvid catalogue: counting crows of literature
sneakernet: non-existent virtual trainers dreamed up by artificial intelligence (see also)—via ibฤซdem
pietra per pizza: a deep-dive into the history of the cooking accessory convinces one individual it isn’t just a trendy gimmick
Wednesday, 14 July 2021
mervรคrdeskatt
Sunday, 30 May 2021
small barnstar
Despite having not seen another contending example of a table of contents that I can recall lending outsized credence or interest to an otherwise dull article about an Italian-cuisine-inspired restaurant chain (other franchises aren’t so elevated—just with a section In Popular Culture, Litigation or Controversies—even more of a furore could be made of it, like with one Charles Entertainment Cheese and rebranding under bandmate Pasqually P. Pieplate), I am confident that there is a category dedicated to just that—likely contained herein. We wonder if they might mandate that the sensationalism be toned-down a notch.
Saturday, 22 May 2021
rpow
Nearly a year and a half after the minting of the first blocks of the chain and demonstration that block chain was viable in code as a reusable proof-of-work system (a cryptographic transfer wherein one party shows to another that an established amount of computational effort has been expended with no other disclosure between the two sides), the first known cryptocurrency commercial transaction (see also) occurred between a programmer and a pizza chain, the later exchanging ten thousand bitcoin for two pies on this day in 2010. At the time of publication, this figure is valued at over three-hundred thirteen million euro.
Monday, 5 April 2021
7x7
snuggling cygnets: avian photography of the year, also known as b-poty for short—via Colossal
untitled pizza movie: documenting change in New York City slice-by-slice
aqen the ferryman: Cairo hosts a parade for a score of royal mummies moving to a new museum—via Super Punchsalvator metaversi: art historian turns supposed last Leonardo into an NFT to help out the family who sold it to unscrupulous art dealers
theatre of machines: intricate gear illustrations from Agostino Ramelli (see also here and here)
scenes from a mall: footage from the Southdale Centre’s grand opening in 1956
knock knock: a swan terrorising a neighbourhood in Northampton—via Nag on the Lake’s Sunday Links
Wednesday, 3 March 2021
6x6
spongmonkey: though not a cultural shibboleth for myself personally, this history of the Quiznos’ submarine sandwich franchise’s mascot was an interesting object lesson in internet culture—via Miss Cellania
backmasking: fun with that portrait animation application, via Super Punch
puce chintz alert: a truly cursed McMansion built in 1978
micro-face: a fascinating, multistage look at the process of acquiring a super hero with the Planet Money podcast
garage mahal: vlogger pays house-calls to the ostentatiously wealthy, asks what they do for a living
previous tenants: buildings that used to be a Blockbuster video rental shop—in the tradition of This Used to be a Pizza Hut—via Things Magazine
Sunday, 29 November 2020
ping-pong
Originally created by programmer Allan Alcorn as a training exercise assignment from Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell (also the businessman responsible for Chuck E. Cheese restaurants—establishing a venue and a franchise for arcade games), Pong—the table tennis themed video game, was released on this day in 1972, having been prototyped at a local bar in Sunnyvale, California since August of that year.
Patrons visited Andy Capp’s tavern just to play the game, at a quarter per play with each unit projected to generate forty dollars a day, quadruple the revenue of other coin operated entertainments like jukeboxes and pinball machines. Among the first commercially successful ventures in the field, Pong was instrumental in establishing the industry of gaming and drove emulation and competition.Wednesday, 28 October 2020
putt putt to the pizza hut
Friday, 22 May 2020
power pellet
First appearing in limited release in Tokyo arcades on this day in 1980 and originally called Puck Man (see also) from the onomatopoetic gobbling om-nom paku paku taberu—though that was changed once developers realised that the potential and temptation for defacement would be high, especially in foreign markets, Pac-Man was an instant and transformative hit with players, helping to expand and legitimise the video game industry. Working for Namco, programmer and game designer Toru Iwatani was inspired to make the protagonist by a pizza with a slice taken out. Much more gaming history and lore at Kotaku at the link above.
Tuesday, 19 May 2020
pizza arbitrage or avoid the noid
First rejecting the characterisation of the whole house of cards of mail order schemes that pushes no cost merchandise in exchange for favourable reviews and nights on the town fuelled and funded via recommendations as too unsustainable to be believed and then learning of the seemingly contradictory exorbitant fees that food delivery aggregators charge to restaurants for membership, I was really taken aback by this bit of trading and markets incongruity that seems to be an example of business working for exposure.
Essentially the delivery service that a pizzeria proprietor uses undercuts the price paid per pizza taken from the order-in diner—the result being, experimentally verified, it being more profitable for the eatery to order their own pizzas and netting the difference. Of course, this mismatch and spreading out risk wouldn’t be sustainable with a network of restauranteurs capitalising on this sort of scheme but it’s the bubble and burst cycle that’s reflected in macroeconomics all the time—strange as it seems on this level. These platforms and the exploitative gig empire, a sheen of refinement, sophistication and technical skill but all held together with great effort and with the most precarious and vulnerable doing the most work, are subsidised by bigger platforms and by our own delusions of taking part and conceits of convenience.
Sunday, 1 December 2019
ะฟะธััะฐ ั ะฐั
Nearly as strange and forgotten as the time when Pepsi Cola had the second largest naval fleet in the world, Miss Cellania reminds us of the time in 1997 when Mikhail Gorbachev was promoting an international pizza franchise (see also).
It can be a bit treacherous for leaders to outlive their countries or for celebrities or politicians to otherwise survive beyond their careers when there’s little prospect for a next chapter and every time a moment like this appears in a collection of clips of embarrassing star endorsements, it does leave a bit of a breadcrumb of clickbait behind, yet there’s a truly complex narrative and history encapsulated in this sixty-second spot that’s more respectful than most advertising to geopolitics and recent history and one worth exploring in detail.
catagories: ๐ท๐บ, ๐บ๐ธ, ๐, ๐ฅค, foreign policy
Sunday, 10 November 2019
secret agent man
While better known for his role as the music director for the Godfather franchise of film and for his award-winning score for Pizza Connection (1985, originally called The Sicilian Connection until realising that that title had already been taken, composer Carlo Savina (*1919 – †2002) was incredibly prolific, behind the soundtracks of dozens and dozens of movies, including for numerous Spaghetti Westerns, Sword-and-Sandal dramas (previously, known as pepla in Italian, after the Greek full body gown, แฝ ฯฮญฯฮปฮฟฯ, a period costume from those movies) and the later profusion of Eurospy features of the mid 1960s. This 1966 Goldsnake ‘Anonima Killers’ (with plenty of alternate titles for foreign markets) is a good number to start with. More to explore at the link above.
Wednesday, 2 October 2019
8x8
surveillance cinema: iconic movie scenes from the perspective of security cameras, via Kottke’s Quick Links
take this job and fill it: a satisfying gallery of resignation letters
fortress america: Trump wanted to fortify border wall with snake- and alligator-filled moats
๐: a startup in Seattle demonstrates a mobile robotic chef that makes up to three hundred pizzas an hour, via Slashdot
flyover: a cache of gorgeous, high-resolution images of our planetary neighbour courtesy of the Mars Express orbiter
biogarmentry: living apparel made from biofabricated textiles photosynthesise
pareidolia: a surveillance camera detects a face in the snow and won’t shut up about it
Sunday, 4 November 2018
7x7
gooey, crunchy, cheesy, yummy: Pizza: the Musical by Anthony Clune, Sarah Fiete and Eric Tait, via Everlasting Blört
craft master: paint by numbers with Dan Robbins, an appreciation from Nag on the Lake plus lots more to discover
bauhaus 100: Dezeen continues its special series on the upcoming centenary of the art movement with a profile of Walter Gropius
corporate identity: a retrospective look at the design studio of Massimo Vignelli (previously) and cohorts
rock, paper, scissors: agitating militia groups expected to surge at the border present a more dangerous challenge than the refugees
ghastlygun tinies: MAD magazine remixes Edward Gorey’s macabrely doomed children for the era of school shootings, via Boing Boing
the shape of water: vintage illustration of the alien beauty of the nudibranchia (previously here and here)