юзнет (13. 930)

Having examined before the failure of the Soviet internet, once neck and neck with the inchoate ARPANET with the Politburo developing a comprehensive and ambitious programme to streamline and upgrade the entire planned economy that was ultimately derailed, preempted by problems that wouldn’t plague its Western competition until recently—see previously, see also—we enjoyed this investigation on how telepathy (a pursuit of both sides of the Iron Curtain) informed networking and connectivity in Russia and with the rest of the world. Whilst the belief in or privileging of the paranormal cannot be shown to be the cause of the Soviets’ backsliding in the tech-race—the Space Bridges linking communities in the East and the West live were Russian innovations regarded with skepticism as trickery by the US—the parallel to the current attitudes and factionalism regarding the potential of artificial intelligence are interesting to consider—AI and psychic powers might be equal amounts of woo and hype—with the roles reversed and sceptics and true-believers alternately told they’ll be the ones left behind, depending one one’s perspective and who one asks, magical or mere parlour-tricks. Both sides had their evangelists and zealots then as now—with the web and its linkages a surrogate for the promise of mind-reading and mesmerism. More from JSTOR Daily at the link above.

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth the revisit (with synchronoptica), Tsar Bomba (1961) plus the Solvay Congress of 1927

two years ago: the Park of Monsters, more links to enjoy, Ford turns his back on NYC, Trump and the stock market, the Rumble in the Jungle plus a poem for the battle-worn 

three years ago: even more assorted links 

four year ago: drawing with Ed Emberley plus more links to revisit

five years ago: another MST3K classic—The Brain that Wouldn’t Die, more links to enjoy plus artist William-Adolphe Bourguereau

six years ago: the first residents board the International Space Station (2000), more on murderous dioramas, a wizarding curriculum from 1925 plus star charts for the yet to be born

seven years ago: East German counter-programming, Brexit postponed plus the lost dative case

eight years ago: stochastic terrorism, folksonomy, corporate fairy tales, birthright citizenship plus “Egyptian” Rocky Horror

 

baccanalia (13. 916)

After centuries of study and several attempts to understand and recreate the colour-changing effect, a team from the University of Sheffield—an area instrumental to the Industrial Revolution, many technologies emerging from there including large scale stainless steel and commercial glass manufacture—have rediscovered the sixteen hundred year old methods that went into dichromatic the Lycurgus Cup (see previously here and here). The caged-chalice (diatretum) was made in Alexandria in the fourth-century of unknown provenance before the 1800s depicts a scene of the mythological Thracian king Lycurgus (Tamer of Wolves) who banned the cult of Dionysus (Bacchus to the Romans) in his home territory and punished the followers of the god of wine, and in the iconography on the cup, Ambrosia, Dionysus’ human nursemaid, is shown acting in self-defence, transformed into a powerful vine as she is being pursued by the enraged despot, whereupon entangling him, rending his wardrobe (a act called sparagmos (σπαραγμός) and strangling him to death. Embedded flakes of silver and gold (molten nano-crystals forming a lattice work in the glass invisible to the naked eye) shift the absorption and scattering of photons depending on whether the artefact is backlit or viewed in ambient light. Our favourite part of the interview was how one of the scientists imagined how Roman craftspeople would be bemused and incredulous on the effort and experimentation that went into recreating the effect, “‘Why does she not know how to make this?’” The new cup, a local glass artist commissioned to make it, will be unveiled to the public next month at the university.

pluto lamps (13. 867)

Via fellow internet caretaker, Messy Nessy’s Cabinet, we learn that for the 1897 Great Exhibition of London an inventor by the name of H M Robinson installed a number of gas street lights with a vending machine built into the base of them—dispensing everything from a hot cup of tea, beef broth, hot cocoa to cigarettes and postcards—the company variously known about town as the “Hot Water Supply Syndicate” or the “Refreshment Lamp Syndicate.” Some models further contained a telegraph relay connected to Scotland Yard for police use. Within the space of three years, however, locals got wise to the fact that a slug could be substituted for half-pennies and the innovative concessionaires were unceremoniously dismantled and nearly forgotten about with such conveniences uncommon for decades afterwards.

bro, do you even lase? (13. 832)

Recently gifted a hologram-making kit, our trusty AI wrangler Janelle Shane (previously) has turned their attention to lasers and minerals lately, with super intelligence turning a touch problematic and more prone to making a death ray that will destroy us all. We really enjoyed the gems of science series, the argon ion effects of Clash of the Titans and though we were not familiar with the characters of the Steven Universe universe until now—being named for obscure semi-precious stones—this ranking of heroes from the series in terms of optical amplification proved to be pretty educational and edifying for getting a grasp on concepts like coherence and spectrum. The above verb is a back-formation and the acronym (now mostly an anacronym, see also, like scuba and radar) is from Gordon Gould’s 1959 conference paper for light amplification by stimulation emission of radiation, though in retrospect LOSER, for light oscillation by stimulation emission of radiation, would have been more scientifically accurate.

9x9 (13. 766)

tokyo drift: where potential car owners have to show proof to the dealership of a place to park before purchase, Japanese architects carve automobile shaped voids in urban houses 

trickle down economics: diesel prices hit a record high in the US  

pew pew: laser-washing gives jeans a broken-in look  

mo6: Finnish company introduces carbon-negative building material produced from waste lignin from the timber industry  

tasting notes: visualisations and maps of coffee origins  

ceramic dalmatian: the Wheel of Fortune consolation prize added to the History of America in 100 Objects speaks to the evolution of the game show format and our collective aspirations  

a modified neublon-b escort frigate: Lucas Museum of Narrative Art opens in Los Angeles—see also  

newman’s own didn’t drop a these colours don’t run salad dressing: the attempt to rename Lake Ontario is a dumb distraction but with sinister, Orwellian undertones no matter how pathetic  

handmade utopia: the architecture of the back-to-the-land movement of Northern California of the 1960s and 1970s

synchronoptica

one year ago: linking celebrities across time and space (with synchronoptica) plus assorted links worth the revisit

two years ago: more links to enjoy

three years ago: Kenneth Anger’s first film plus hot labour summer

four years ago: the reservoirs of Saalfeld 

five years ago: AI generated movie posters, less and more of the old weird web, Space 1999,  a bluesy rendition of the Seinfeld theme, the Goethe-Schiller monument plus another MST3K classic

six years ago: Trump undermining public confidence in elections 

👅 (13. 754)

Inclined to screw up my face and stick out my tongue when doing a delicate or precision task, I can well imagine that this slim dental retainer with a pressure sensitive trackpad to be worn on the palette that personal experience is testimony to the accuracy of the tongue, clicking, scrolling, swiping and dragging—with a range of other haptic cues—to keep one’s pointer from being lost on the screen. Moving from the experimental phase with volunteer trials to public sales, we learn courtesy of Clive Thompson’s Linkfest—individuals with mobility limitation are the first priority, but the hands-free Mouthpad (see also this kiss-by-wire prototype which we are not sure went anywhere) but hundred of individuals have signed on to the waitlist to purchase the device, including professionals like surgeons, pianists, mechanics and technicians. The makers have also recognised the potential to incorporate it with other wearables for text to speech applications with augmented-reality spectacles. More at the links above.

ordinary abundance (13. 741)

Via Things Magazine, we quite enjoyed this cozy turn about a tiny apartment that showcases all the features and amenities which were out of reach or unimaginable to generations just a few removed from the comfortable and sheltered lives that many of us live—taken for granted—scrolling through short vignettes that are inexhaustive, not giving the complete the history behind the unseen conveniences, but in those brief anecdotes we come to appreciate what’s not fully articulated that underpins their engineering and the larger systems behind them. Of course we knew about the savings in labour but it isn’t something that presents itself with enough regularity, particularly when bemoaning doing a chore that used to occupy a whole day, the work that went into a single garment, distances transversed and the cost of candlepower. We also liked how the suite looks like an IKEA showroom.

mundaneum (13. 731)

Established in Mons in 1910 by the collaborative work of two Belgian lawyers Paul Otlet and Henri La Fontaine as founding pioneers of the discipline of documentation science, informatics or library science as the study of the recording, storage and retrieval of data, following the their first joint project of establishing the Institute International de Bibliographie in Brussels with the mission to classify and cross-reference all recorded knowledge with a card catalogue system with tables, indicators and connecting mark-up notation, originally as the Palais Mondial in the left wing of the government office complex Parc du Cinquantenaire, this programme of systematic and public-facing linkages, an archive of some twelve million annotated index cards and other documents provisioned the internet—see also here, here, here and here. Though the technical capacity of the peace activist’s time was not up to the challenge, Otlet hoped that people would be able to access his catalogue from their own home studies or the office and experimented with a pre-digital réseau (network), virtual communities of researchers that cooperated via telegraph. As the scope of the project grew, there were plans to move the Mundaneum (World Museum) to Geneva to be housed in an institution designed by architect Le Corbusier (previously) but failing to materialise, the collection was copied and with another branch in the Hague, championed by Otto Neurath in 1933, following the political economist’s flight from Austria after the defeat of the Social Democratic Party following the dissolution of the Hapsburg empire (here is another artefact from Otlet). Under Nazi occupation the Mundaneum was placed in storage with the area in the Cinquantenaire Palace used as an exhibition space for Third Reich Art. The collection was eventually reunited, restored and conserved in a large former department store in the Hainaut capital. On this day in 2015, the massive filing cabinets of the card catalogue were featured as the Google Doodle in tribute to its founders and forefathers of open information. More from Open Culture at the link up top.

light-rail (13. 623)

Via Kottke, we learn that a rather enterprising Swiss start-up has recently concluded the first year’s trial run of a demonstration project in along a one hundred metre stretch of train track in the village of Buttes in the canton of Neuchâtel that placed forty-eight removable solar panels in the space between between the rails (called sleepers—Bahnschwellen, the spot for the crossties). Installed in May of 2025, the short spur has seen the traffic of over eleven thousand locomotives (despite its size and remoteness, it is well-connected to the national transport network), rolling safely over the panels, which despite the narrow gauge, short length of the array and interruptions for maintenance and winter snows, the portable solar generator produced enough electricity to power four average Swiss homes for an entire year. The innovative idea is attracting interest in Italy, France, the Philippines and South Korea.

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth revisiting (with synchronoptica) plus Project Ester

two years ago: more links to enjoy plus the Trump-Vance ticket

three years ago: even more links,  Netscape Navigator defunct (1993) plus the Rosetta Stone (1799)

four years ago: Jane Fonda in Vietnam (1972) plus Gangnam Style (2012)

five years ago: the Elder Fuþark plus the Stone Ship of Nassjä

six years ago: a rhapsodic roller-coaster, Castor and Pollux plus more official state junk

the innovator’s dilemma (13. 604)

Despite the early acquisition of DeepMind and a bit contrary to the overall consensus regarding the quality of search that’s a bit poisoned by AI tangents (the AI underpinnings should be disclosed but it has a visibility problem—not in its inscrutability—but it making it seen, many problem don’t benefit from shoehorning it into everything and putting it on display in a why that overshadows its potential use as a sounding board or a brainstorming interlocutor), Google has consistently fallen in second place in the field of artificial intelligence. A Planet Money interview with an author profiling the founder and current chief executive officer of the company’s AI research laboratory, now called Google Brain, Demis Hassbis, aside from covering the computer scientist’s lofty and noble ambitions and striving for fundamental understanding, the author also puts forward an intriguing set of reasons that might account for the tech giant’s self-sabotage. As with the case-studies of industry leaders developing potential disruptive innovations—Kodak inventing the first digital cameras, Blockbuster’s early partnership with Netflix, Xerox’ pioneering of the personal computer—likewise for Google, whose business model is based on reliable search results and serving advertising, it may have perceived a threat to its reputation should those answers be seen as something below what we’ve become accustomed to and reluctance to deviate from a proven formula. More from the NPR podcast at the link above.

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links to revisit (with sychronoptica) plus Campus Crusades for Christ

two years ago: Savage Curtain, impressions of West Berlin in the summer of 1977 plus Project 2025

three years ago: more links to enjoy 

four years ago: TRON (1982), the first animated Hobbit, Choreography for a Copy Machine, Prague’s Charles Bridge plus even more links

five years ago: pets’ past lives regression, more on the Know Nothing Party plus underway to Sweden

six years ago: Bernkastle-Kues, more of Mittlemosel plus the Republic of Palau (1981)

brandweer (13. 602)

Mindful of how Marcus Lininius Crassus financed the First Triumvirate, overseeing the transition of the Republic to an Empire with his enormous wealth earned in large part by controlling the original bucket-brigade in Rome, dispatching slaves ready to extinguish a conflagration but doing little until the distressed owners of the property agreed to a fire-sale and leasing back to the former as tenants, we had thought that the public good of a fire department had just evolved slowly with gradual technological improvements and had not appreciated how maturity came rapidly thanks to a painter and tinkerer in seventeenth century Amsterdam. As the richest city in the world at the time, the capital had recognised and developed a relatively sophisticated system for dealing with burning homes and businesses, a daily occurrence given over to select guilds to patrol with suppression facilitated by easy access to water from the city’s network of canals. After the Great Fire of London, which proved uncontrollable and resulted in the invention of fire insurance, echoing the scheme from Ancient Rome with underwriters installing plaques, fire marks, on covered buildings, and enduring their own losses, artist and inventor Jan van der Heyden suggested improvements to hoses and pumps greatly increasing efficacy. At the expense of his artistic career, van der Heyden engineered a more efficient fire-fighting team, supported by municipalities and illuminated Amsterdam with patrols of gas lamp lighters, which contributed to no blazes in the city.

synchronoptica

one year ago: gendered characters in children’s literature (with synchronoptica), ending the prohibition on churches endorsing political candidates plus assorted links worth revisiting

two years ago: the 1948 London Games plus the Thirteen Colonies’ attempt to avoid open conflict with Britain (1775)

three years ago: everything under the Sun, Jupiter’s moons plus more fortifications along the US-Mexico border

four years ago: the Roswell incident (1947), AI ethics plus the animations of Sam Lyon 

five years ago: your daily demon, a lexical database of marine life, uncombable hair syndrome, the first certified Gold Record plus the death of Shelley (1822)

six years ago: the martyrdom of St Kilian plus the Upper Moselle 

social proprioception (13. 598)

Courtesy of Clive Thompson’s latest Linkfest, not only are we rather remarkable obituary for playwright Tom Stoppard whose poetic explanation of chaos theory in Arcadia inspired an audience member, a visiting oncologist to invent the technique of adjuvant systemic chemotherapy as a more effective treatment for breast cancer, through the magic of triangulation, saving untold lives unbeknownst to the author, we have occasion to examine the phenomenon further of happenstance and serendipity of disparate topics coalescing in unexpected ways that we need to be more receptive to. Thompson’s own hedgehog idea and guiding principle (an antidote to the previous post) grew out of a “slow hunch” that took years to germinate to describe the sense-of-self informed by social media, itself engendering amazing feats of coordination and kinship even through the briefest of briefs.

9x9 (13. 570)

general magic: an ambitious project to create the smart phone (see below) in the early 1990s failed over lack of constraint and too much freedom, not lack of vision, talent or technology

odyssey: charting the great journeys of fiction—see also  

humphrey’ executor: US supreme court strikes down federal laws that prevent the president from firing heads of (some) independent agencies—see previously  

don’t swear jerry—and don’t bleed in the sink, i’ve just cleaned it: actor and comedian Penelope Keith has died, aged 89  

🧸: Nuigurumi Jinja (Plushie Shire) dedicated in northern Kyoto for honouring beloved stuffed animals—see also here and here 

keedoozle: the grocery store vending machine of the 1930s 

 île de peliz: the solitary natural islet of Lake Geneva, with room for a plane tree  

hypergraphia: history’s most prolific writers 

how about this: 1960s housewife and the pocket phone of the future

synchronoptica

one year ago:  a walk along the beach at Gârves (with synchronoptica) plus assorted links to revisit

two years ago: a visit to the Rocco di Caldè 

three years ago: animatronic Trump, an updated We Didn’t Start the Fire plus US supreme court strikes down affirmative action for college admissions

four years ago: goodwill ambassador Samantha Reed Smith 

five years ago: cartoonist Thornton Hee plus a record-setting Van Gogh auction (1987)

six years ago: Quo Vadis,  the feast of SS Peter and Paul, the debut of the iPhone (2007), a chiptune classic, exotic crisps plus Japanese train station jingles

@bitnic (13. 545)

Building off of the concept of distribution lists developed for IBM mainframes to handle email aliases, software engineer Éric Thomas studying at École Centrale Paris released the stable version of his modified application, with his own code, LISTSERV with automated features that allowed subscribers to join or leave groups without human administration as postmasters, edit templates and create auto-replies for system and welcome messages. Still foundational architecture, Thomas’ programme also included the first double opt-in methods and spam filters for junk- and grey-mail (bulk mailers at one point solicited but now considered a nuisance).

synchronoptica

one year ago: the menhirs of Bretagne (with synchronoptica) plus the Quiberon peninsula

two years ago: Lukmanier pass plus arriving at Lake Maggiore

three years ago: assorted links worth revisiting 

four years ago: a banger from The Knack, Logan’s Run plus the sterling area

five years ago: harvesting solar power plus Mid-Summer celebrations

six years ago: more links to enjoy, satisdiction plus scratching an itch

accessibility settings (13. 524)

Via Boing Boing, we learn that the operating system for iPhones have had a feature for a couple of years now called Vehicle Motion Cues that makes it more comfortable for a car passenger and potentially lessens the effects of motion sickness from staring at one’s phone by taking readings from the device’s gyroscope and accelerometer and placing flecks on the edge of the screen that harmonises with the motions of the automobile. When I am the passenger seat, lately, I am usually too enamoured with the passing scenery to even glance at my phone, but the author, whom road-tested it during an extended excursion—a working-vacation, swears by the magic dots and it could offer some relief (see also) during a bus ride or for a moment’s research and consultation, when I can feel the nausea creeping up trying to focus on one thing for too long.  Motion sickness comes about when our own gyroscope, the inner ear, detects that we are moving but the eyes, fixed on something static, presents a contradiction.

10x10 (13. 523)

nine days in june: landmark US supreme court decisions of years past and upcoming cases during this busy time of the year  

mcmodernslopecore: AI-generated architecture—via Miss Cellania  

photovoltaic: a brief tutorial on how solar panels work—via Kottke  

linguist fingerprints: every AI talks with an accent  

i am not on harry mudd’s client list—stop talking about it, i don’t even know him: the Federation’s war with the Romulans was a total success 

defender of the realm: profiles of medieval warrior women  

dialog society: a trove of leaked documents reveals the activities of Peter Thiel’s secretive cult, prepping for WWIII with a breeding programme—see previously  

spacex: a plan to deploy a million satellites in Earth orbit would ruin the night sky for everyone  

parc güell: Antoni Gaudí’s 1926 failed housing estate has become one of Barcelona’s public spaces  

51st state: rural Illinois citizens petition to eject Chicago and split into two polities—see also 

synchronoptica

one year ago: the G7 in Alberta and the Israeli-Iran war (with synchronoptica) plus the Trump phone 

two years ago: a synthesiser performance piece , OJ Simpson flees police (1994) plus tragic children’s names

three years ago: NASCAR celebrates Pride plus a werewolf exorcism (1983)

four years ago: Star Trek: TAS retcon, the Watergate break-in (1972) plus assorted links to revisit

five years ago: Iceland reforms its naming rules, ASCII standards published (1963), the musical stylings of the Sons of Kemet plus calendrical dating formats

six years ago: US supreme court erodes the Civil Rights Act, the East German uprising of 1953, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls plus Trump sues to stop publication of a tell-all exposé

dynalites (13. 502)

Via Waxy, we are lured down a deep rabbit hole on the subject of commercial signage that are especially ubiquitous in the US, bas relief and embossed vacuum or thermo-formed pan-faced signs that go by various trade names with this appreciation of their origin and design from Beth Matthews. Appearing in the 1950s after the novelty of neon was replaced by the durability and low cost of moulded plastic, the spread of the new format can be credited to a salesman in Los Angeles, Conrad Escalante, who developed and patented the layout of standard variants seen on guest lodgings, salons, repair shops, eateries and other businesses in need of a shingle. The docent then conducts us on a tour to see iconic examples in the wild. More at the links above.

9x9 (13. 499)

of all the us presidents he’s still the mussoliniest: Randy Rainbow reprises his rendition of the Major General’s Song, see previously—via Miss Cellania  

twenty-first century nightmares: Bill Hsu presents a collection of dark animated films 

hello dalí: a marginally remastered copy of the bizarre 1973 ITV profile of the artist surfaces on Youtube  

éolienne: an innovative nineteenth century redesign for the windmill  

responding with improvisation and exhaustion: meeting the subliterate where they are is a disservice to education  

necropolis: marine researchers discover the site of a whale fall in a deep rift valley of the Indian ocean  

guest-starring in alphabetical order: Poseidon’s Underworld on the short-lived 1984 television series Glitter about the cast of a glossy magazine  

the meatseller: an harrowing and brutal animation of a young migrant’s journey from Nigeria to Italy 

 there was nothing in al capone’s vault but it wasn’t geraldo’s fault: premiere episode of America’s history in one hundred objects (see also) begins with an underwhelming time capsule opened in 1976

gated reverb (13. 493)

Celebrating accidental discoveries, Clive Thompson’s latest Linkfest explores how Phil Collins inadvertently invented the signature sound of 1980s drumming whilst in collaboration with Peter Gabriel, the artificial muffler quintessentially demonstrated in the iconic bridge to his “In the Air Tonight.” The natural reverberation of the percussion is clipped, booming and punchy but not bleeding into the next beat—something even the most skilled could not accomplish without the ambient audio processing technique, illustrating how mixing and sampling factors into the perceived purity of acoustics and record takes, like with the airbrushing and editing we expect for images nowadays. In addition to Collins’ solo career, the effect was also embraced by Prince, Psychedelic Furs, Kate Bush and Duran Duran, the effect eventually falling out of favour but experiencing a resurgence.

in search of… (13. 479)

Polymath and multi-hyphanate, Dr Robert Harvey Rines, whom helped develop the Microwave Early Warning System in the Cold War after serving as an officer in the army signals corps, as trained a jurist for intellectual property, prolific inventor, librettist penning musicals about the life of HL Mencken (previously) among others, violin prodigy playing a duet with Albert Einstein at age eleven at a summer camp in Maine, and adjunct professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology for the last forty five years of his career, is probably best known for leading the American expedition, sponsored by the US Academy of Applied Sciences and the The New York Times, the quest for Nessie, the most thorough and comprehensive search for the Loch Ness Monster up to that time, that commenced on this day in 1976. Becoming obsessed with the mystery of a possible cryptid after a visit to the area four years, Rines launched a scientific safari provisioned with sophisticated sonar and photographic, many instruments of his own design, and whilst garnering a great deal of publicity for his efforts, including several intriguing but blurry photographs, after six months, the project was halted due to lack of hard evidence. This famous “gargoyle head” image was later discovered to be a rotting tree stump on the silty bottom of the loch, since located and put on display in the Nessie gallery at Drumnadrochit on the western shore. Rines for his part never stopped believing that there was more to the legend and kept up the exploration, albeit on a smaller scale, for the next decades.

synchronoptica

one year ago:  automated purging of US government workers (with synchronopticæ) plus a Star Trek: TNG superfan

fourteen years ago: looking forward to our Norway holiday 

fifteen years ago: Ascension Day 

sixteen years ago: the Deepwater Horizon oil spill