9x9 (10. 596)

destination berlin: a Royal Military Police guide to the divided city from 1988—see also

geodomesticeerde: one Dutch rancher spearheading the protest against livestock reductions 

gado gado: the Indonesia version of the cult Cobb salad that may be the best in the world—via Digg 

fret and fingerbøard: a guitar nearly exclusively sourced from IKEA furnishing elements—via Clive Thompson’s Linkfest  

paratethys sea: the ancient lake that stretched from the Alps to the Arals was the world’s largest lake  

florilegium: botanical collages by an eighteenth-century septuagenarian—via Kottke  

mar yousef’s: the “pizza church” of Jordan imparting Iraqi Christian refugees with marketable skills—via Miss Cellania  

heritage graziers: regenerative agriculture, no farmstead required  

orange alternative: how a diminutive graffito helped bring down the Soviet Union

Tweet

radio detection and ranging (10. 574)

Already having pioneered and already discovered practical applications for radio direction finding in the 1920s for meteorology by using the signals given off by lightning to track thunderstorms—known as high-frequency direction finding or huff-duff, and then conscripted into service in tracing submarines, their bearings revealed by intercepted communications, on this day in 1935—after being asked by a reporter to comment on the possibility of a death ray that the Nazis were rumoured to be developing and assuring the public it was not feasible but sparked another idea—Robert Alexander Watson Watt and partner Arnold Wilkins made the first public demonstration of the technology that would become known as radar by bouncing a signal from a BBC short-wave transmitted off an aircraft, showing its location and velocity could be calculated by measuring the time it took for the object’s echo to return.

Tweet

8x8 (10. 566)

scoby: manufacturing electronics out of a kombucha culture  

ngc 1433: more incredible infrared imaging of neighbouring galaxies from JWST  

meanwhile back at the manse: documenting changing American architectural aesthetics in Barbie’s Dream Home  

recalculating: Karen Jacobsen—the original GPS voice multi-modal: code-switching in texting in Hong Kong  

kbbl: music streaming service is offering AI hosts with generative chatter—via Super Punch  

55 cancri 𝛿: a collection of the most bizarre exoplanets discovered so far  

fomes formentarius: introducing the fungus that has the potential to replace plastics

Tweet

king biscuit flower hour (10. 554)

The syndicated radio show that featured concert performances debuted on this day in 1973, broadcasting Sunday nights through 2005, the programme taking its name from the earlier, pioneering Blues segment sponsored by the King Biscuit Flour Company—with a tip of the hat to “flower power.” This first show featured a line up of Blood, Sweat & Tears, Bruce Springsteen and the jazz ensemble the Mahavishnu Orchestra. Although associated with classic rock, much air time of the programme was given to emerging artists and genres and still exists as a digital station with much of its archive available for streaming.

Tweet

((DV)) (10.542)

In an annual tradition tradition, the team at NPR’s Planet Money takes a moment to consider the things they love and dispatch valentines accordingly. While we really enjoyed the opening segment and the affection for venturing down a logistics and supply-chain rabbit hole with ImportYeti, a website that aggregates bills of ladening and customs sea shipment records and yields exacting insights on where component parts and completed goods come from (give it a try with any product marked made in China and drill down on the details), we would be compelled to send our overtures as well to Audio Description (see also)—something we’ve tried and will continue—for film and television programmes—a feature mandated by regulation and very prevalent but that affords all audiences the chance to attend in all circumstances, as if watching in company, closely and turns every episode into a podcast experience and narrated play-by-play.

Tweet

7x7 (10. 541)

sky survey: a massive, high resolution picture of the Milky Way with three billion distinct objects  

pachyderm prototype: presenting the Platybelodon—see also

braggoscope: using machine learning to create affiliative indices of the extensive archives of BBC4’s In Our Time with Melvin Bragg—via Web Curios 

hobohemian: a primer for Tramp Art  

book renewal: the New York Public Library has found that the majority of literature published prior to 1964 may already be in the public domain—via Kottke 

opuntia: invasive cacti are spreading in the Swiss Alps  

stardust to dust: researchers propose kicking up lunar debris to create a sunshade and cool the Earth—see also

Tweet

7x7 (10. 476)

inflection point: one young person’s crusade to salvage writing, journalism before ChatGPT changes it forever 

beasts of burden: the giant donkeys of Ancient Rome—see also  

birth-rate: China registers its first population decline in six decades 

ren faire: author Eleanor Janega’s Once and Future Sex  

level 100 schlamm zauberer: police attempt to clear remaining protester demonstrating against the demolition of the hamlet Lützerath for surface mining of coal—see previously  

☠️: a safety warning from the Electric Company (1973)  

midway in the midjourney of our lives: what AI does well and why AI is not intelligent

Tweet

krig, kriser och klimatdebatten (10. 372)

Annually Språktidningen magazine in collaboration with the Swedish Language Council publishes a list (previously) of a few dozen choice neologisms that help define the year informed by war, crises and climate debates. Among the new terms selected for inclusion for 2022 are jury favourite epadunk—a musical general that references the “epatractors” that rural youths are able to drive on public at age sixteen and the sound systems that they need to devise in order to hear over the loud tractor motors—matfattigdom—that is, food poverty, munkmodell, living an ascetic lifestyle for the sake of the planet, klickkemi or click-chemistry for constructing complex molecules and individualised drug treatments from modular building blocks and some more that have entered common-parlance through the news and current events, like kamikazedrönare, Putinprise, Permakris and smygflation (a portmanteau for stealth inflation).

Tweet

ultra vivres (10. 351)

Though it might be a big ask and imposition to encourage people to listen to this very excellent podcast from Rachel Maddow what with the holidays and the historical echo of the January Sixth Committee having just adjourned for the final time, it is decidedly worth one’s time and attention, regardless of polity, to explore how America nearly experienced a violent insurrection and backed fascism over eighty years ago and picking sides for World War II. The title of the series, well summarised in this tune by Woody Guthrie, refers not to arch-conservatives but rather a justice department official going beyond his scope of practise with a duty to warn.

Tweet

8x8 (10. 350)

gadgetbahn: displacing solid public transportation networks with amusement park rides won't address underlying traffic problems 

senior superlatives: the most interesting fonts and typefaces of the year  

👍: the ten best films of 2022  

seneca falls: the altruistic act that is said to have inspired It’s A Wonderful Life and other festive adventures in audio with Josie Long  

fæðingarsaga: listen again to an eleven-year-old Björk Guðmundsdóttir recite the Nativity Story in Icelandic  

as it was: some the most popular songs of the year  

shot sage blue marilyn: the most expensive works of art trading hands this year  

chief twit: abiding by results of a poll, Elon Musk announced he will step down as CEO of the social media platform as soon as a replacement can be identified

Tweet

vomiting camel (10. 366)

Planet Money’s partner podcast The Indicator introduces us to a practise called stock price charting or technical analysis that economic academics have long debunked as a poor predictor of market trends and no heuristic for basing future trades though pattern recognition yet for some traders and for many media outlets that cover the markets, this study with its language of line graphs classed as candlesticks, heads and shoulders, flags, pennants and cup and handle patterns is proving enduring and a guide of first resort. Skeptics dismiss this method as ineffective at best and verging on an obsession for a few adherents. Sort of like Doge Coin be created as a joke which gained purchase of its own, one detractor began to see the titular pattern in stock performance and offered this pareidolia as a critique of this sort of divination but it too took off as a telling up-and-down spike to be on the lookout for and be primed to buy—or sell—or hold. What do you think about reading the economic tea-leaves? Is it no better than one’s astrological chart or is there something to this superstition for a system buoyed up by common belief?

Tweet

6x6 (10. 357)

yuletide: Spitalfield’s Life welcomes the Festive Season with George Cruikshank’s illustrations—see previously  

isle of vaila: a remote mansion in the Shetlands comes on the market—via Strange Company  

hoops and loopholes: NPR’s Planet Money surveys the US tax code and tax-exemptions  

curds and whey: the ecosystems that make up our cheeses—via Damn Interesting’s Curated Links  

sight and sound: a once-a-decade poll of critics and filmmakers rates the top one hundred movies of all time  

the duchy of rutland: a Christmas at Belvoir Castle

Tweet

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 

oopsie, i did a misinformation: an exploration on how and why Japan does the internet differently than the rest of the world with case study—via Waxy  

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

Tweet

7x7 (10. 305)

eyes wide shut: morbid fascination for both the collapse of Trumpism and Twitter  

massa alimentícia: former pasta factory in Portugal for sale—via Messy Nessy Chic 

slava ukraini: president Zelenskyy visits liberated city of Kherson   

backstory: a modern history of our butts  

pets.com: series of Silicon Valley layoffs  

turbulent indigo: Joni Mitchell reminisces on her career with Elton John  

hidden in plain sight: the anti-MacGuffins of Hitchcock’s Charade—via Language Hat

Tweet

achtung baby!

We thoroughly enjoyed this episode of The Allusionist podcast that explores the ephemeral nature of warnings obilge and the limits of translation through the lens of the of the cautionary statement—in thirty-four languages—included with the toy prize as small-print pamphlets in Kinder Eggs/Kinder Überraschung produced on a global scale, though still unavailable in certain jurisdictions in this format, by Italian confectioner Ferrero (as Kinder Sorpresa or Ovetto Kinder) as examined and considered by sociologist and ethnographer Keith Kahn-Harris. What makes the cut internationally as a language for inclusion in one’s corner shop? What counts as correspondence in this regulatory, disclaimer tone? More food for thought below.

Tweet

the final programme

Adapted from the eponymous Michael Moorcock novel and premiering in UK cinemas on this day in 1973, the Robert Fuest sci-fi, action production (thanks to the introduction from The Flop House), the plot centring around the quest for post-humanism beings—perfect and self-propagating—is a post-modern Prometheus story that shares a lot of energy and aesthetics with the roughly contemporary Abominable Doctor Phibes. Bent on carrying out the taboo and contro-versial plan of a recently deceased mad scientist and bring human kind into a new age and out of an existence condemned to near post-apocalyptic wasteland, Miss Brunner—a sado-masochistic techno-magician—instigates the epiphanical sequence, causing her to merge with the protagonist, a suave playboy physicist and son of the man scientist called Jerry Cornelius and dispatching with the henchman named Dmitri who had helped bring their plot to fruition—briefly manifesting as some sort of messianic figure to herald a new age before devolving into a caveman (see also). The creature, as it escapes the secret lair, observes that it is indeed “a very tasty world.”

Tweet

functional discourse

We quite enjoyed this latest edition of Merriam-Webster’s Word Matters podcast with veteran podcaster (going on fifteen years, from back when I had a couple of Ricky Gervais episodes included on the MP3 playlist on my TomTom GPS navigator) Mignon Fogarty (also known as Grammar Girl) and the panel discussion on an approach that’s neither pedantic, precious nor prescriptive about language but rather focused on inclusivity and clarity as language is not about cultural, class signalling or shibboleths but rather getting one’s message across with minimal distraction for the recipient. That said, we particularly liked learning that one only throws down the gauntlet (a piece of armour meant to protect the wrists and hands) to issue a challenge to a duel whereas one runs the gantlet (from the Swedish gatlopp for a street run) as a form of hazing.

Tweet

come doused in mud, soaked in bleach as i want you to be—as a trend, as a friend

Ahead of the album’s official release later in the third week of September, a Boston radio station (call sign WFNX from 1983 to 2012 and one of the first commercial broadcasters to play alternative rock) hosted by DJ Kurt St. Thomas premiered Nirvana’s Nevermind, playing the entire recording on this day in 1991. Launching four singles and an unexpected success, both in critical reception and sales, the album is credited with bringing the various genres of the Seattle grunge movement into mainstream media, awarded several honours and reissues. Despite having recreated the cover art with underwater photoshoots for the album’s tenth, seventeenth and twenty-fifth anniversaries, the then infant model has filed a lawsuit against the band for lifelong damages for exploiting his image.

Tweet

8x8

letraset press: a collection of instant lettering dry-transfer sheets (see previously) from Coudal Partners’ Fresh Signals 

the woman who stared at the sun: the circumstance and contributions to astronomy of Hisako Koyama who helped hone our understanding of solar cycles 

a good walk spoiled: an in-depth look at how golf course exacerbate the housing shortage  

couch gag: a clever individual shares their construction of a miniature replica of the Simpsons’ purple television set that plays random episodes 

one week supply: a podcast discussing Damn Interesting’s curated links section 

the china syndrome: a super-tunnel simulator that illustrates the quickest, shortest routes to connecting points around the globe—see also  

tartu snail tower: the spiralling skyscraper in Estonia’s second city  

the art of letters: a typographical study from Mark Gowing

Tweet

this is npr

With this day marking the first on-air original programming from Nation Public Radio a half-century ago after the previous year’s passage of the 1967 Public Broadcasting Act, NPR and its member stations reflect on and renew their unique mandate to serve and amplify a listening audience that mirrors the fullness and diversity of the United States. The network’s original mission statement charged and championed its affiliates as being the source for “information of consequence” that helps the celebrants of human experience be “enlightened participants” in society. All Things Considered was the first segment broadcasted.

Tweet