the annoying thing (10. 780)

Originally shared as an MP3 audio recording of a student in Gothenburg called Daniel Malmedahl imitating the sounds of a two-stroke engine revving (Tvåtaktare) in 1997 that was picked up as a signature sound for Formula One Racing in 2001, the concept, with the addition of a CGI character, became a ring-tone licensed and rather aggressively marketed in 2004 and on this day in 2005, just a couple of weeks after being released, its incarnation as a Eurodance, techno song by Axel F became the number one single in the UK and a summer hit (internationally—tube de l’été), beating out the likes of Cold Play in the charts. This enduring cult classic, which is periodically called into service, saw more than a dozen remixes, concert tours, a video game, a documentary plus an unrealised television series and feature film. Deng deng!

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me at the zoo (10. 693)

As the first ever video uploaded and shared to the platform YouTube, the nineteen second amateur clip that did not so much document a moment but rather was an announcement that illustrated the possibilities of the tilt to video and the ramifications the accessible technology had in store for the coming generation of self-publishing and broadcasting. Contributed by YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim on this day in 2005, the same day as the website went public, the platform was acquired by Google the following year, after realising the site’s full potential.

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9x9 (10. 652)

eieren blazen: egg blowing was all the rage in the Netherlands in the 1950s  

autofill: Google search recommendations illustrated  

sim card: a mobile phone museum, with a special exhibit of the ugliest—via Messy Nessy Chic  

horsell common and the heat ray: the 1978 War of the World’s concept album featuring Yes and Richard Burton  

vexing vexillogy: CGP Grey grades US state flags—see previously 

airspace: Alex Murrell on the ‘Age of Average’—via Kottke—see also  

if the engine jumps the track: another in a series of derailments—thankfully this time with no fatalities—yields some amazing photographs but a few beer or two, via Super Punch 

katkhakali: the dance of the ‘speaking hands’ about the myth of Kali and Travancore, a 1981 Soyuzmultfilm short  

peepshi: a complete guide to deconstructing Easter candies for festive onigiri

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negative test (10. 529)

Approached by Facebook executives with a request to run an experiment tweaking power demands of certain applications to make using them drain one’s phone batteries, a data scientist refused to do so on ethical grounds citing that by dint of the sheer volume of users—in excess of one billion individuals—some were bound to be negatively impacted by a dead phone, lost, stranded or otherwise able to purchase items or verify their identity or alternatively to be gaslit by ones own gadgets, was fired and revealed the existence of this rather sinister experiment (see also) in a lawsuit suing for wrongful dismissal. Details beyond the allegations are sparse since the plaintiff’s employment contract included a clause for binding arbitration, effectively surrendering his right of recourse to legal remedy and submit to the decision of a judge paid a retainer by the social media enterprise.

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civics lesson (10. 407)

Citing the precedence of public nuisance laws which stopped a vaping manufacturer from marketing to young people, a school district in Seattle, Washington is filing a non-frivolous lawsuit against social media outlets, alleging that TikTok, Facebook, Instagram et al are exploiting vulnerable psychologies and creating addicts for their own profit and precipitating a widespread hardship for students and the education system that services them. The attendant mental health crisis—a challenge for the best equipped and dedicated counselling professionals—is a distinct disservice, siphoning precious resources and time from curriculum for intervention and threat-response stemming from distressing and intimidating posts, compiling a growing list of intentioned maladies. What do you think? The school board hopes that this injunction is a first step for students everywhere.

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7x7 (10. 386)

de-evolution: Dangerous Minds interviews Devo’s Gerald V Casale  

santa baby: Cher’s 1975 Christmas Show—see previously  

risky ebay alternative: a round-up of poorly considered gift ideas from Tedium 

👁️‍🗨️: an infinitely recursive Game of Life—see previously—via Waxy  

going to be out of pocket today: a Gen-Z lingo quiz—via Language Hat⊙  

december will be magic again: a 1979 BBC Kate Bush Christmas Special with guest star Peter Gabriel  

crack that whip: the group’s signature song was inspired by Thomas Pychon’s Gravity’s Rainbow

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data dump (10. 373)

Although unashamedly US-centric, the just-published Year in Search retrospective from Google nonetheless yields some insights for this past year and our collective engagement with the news and trends. 

It seems that we were less interested in chasing memes and more focused on the news and an interesting feature (America only apparently) allows one to find popular search terms locally. There are several categories–plants, pets, people–of analytics to parse and contrast and the top ten searches (with apparent recency bias) worldwide were: 

• Wordle
• India vs England
• Ukraine
• Queen Elizabeth
• Ind vs SA
• World Cup
• India vs West Indies
• iPhone 14
• Jeffrey Dahmer
• Indian Premier League

The top news queries were: Ukraine, Queen Elizabeth’s passing, Election Results, Powerball Numbers and Monkeypox. More at the links above.

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7x7 (10. 229)

symphony of the birds: CBS Radio director Jim Fassett’s 1960 experimental arrangement  

home row: Google Japan develops a long, horizontal keyboard for messy desks—reminded us of the iPhone Taller that doubles a guitar  

benevolent dictator: a profile of President Kevin Baugh and his micronation of Molossia—via the New Shelton wet/dry  

kunstradfahren: a graceful bicycle ballet by a skilled practitioner of this 130 year old sport  

barcalounger: ten homes whose decor is tied together with classic Eames chairs—see previously

unreliable narrator: microbrews and hipster beer names  

peer-reviewed: birdsong helps alleviate human anxiety and paranoia

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8x8 (10. 131)

le milieu du monde: influential Swiss director Alain Tanner has passed away at 92  

zodiaco: we liked these astrological sign matchboxes from José María Cruz Novillo—see previously  

circadian rhythm: an infographic comparing sleeping patterns across the animal kingdom  

landscape, portrait: a relatable, cautionary comic from xkcd  

punching down: US Republican governors ask Joe Biden to be less generous with his student debt forgiveness plan  

moxie: Perseverance’s experimental oxygen generation—via Super Punch 

trap set: chimpanzees in Uganda demonstrate their signature drum-beats, can communicate across great distances 

maître à penser: French New Wave film pioneer Jean-Luc Godard has exited the scene, aged 91

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8x8 (10. 091)

catenary curve: the relationship between arches and chains  

astrochickens: another one of Freeman Dyson’s theoretical constructs—albeit less famous than his spheres   

numeracy: a selection of books bringing maths to the masses 

click-wheel: design your next custom iPhone—add a headphone jack, handle, home button, etc. from Neal Agarwal (previously)  

safe neighbourhood: Madonna’s punk phase 

late-stage thatcherism: the UK under Tory leadership is in omnishambles 

chakumelo: a celebration of nostalgic words culled from Japanese dictionaries due to declining usage  

hìtëkw: an AI redesigns the tennis racket, named after Lenape word for tree due to its root-like design

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you’ll catch your death in the fall (10. 047)

Fancy Notions directs our attention to a 1970 promotional short from Bell Telephone that offers a rather remarkable if not a tad touched with the hubris and inflated self-confidence of echoed in modern Tech. This piece by Ugo Torricelli, is part informative and part psychedelic freak out, posits that the downfall of humanity and expulsion from the Garden of Eden was the first act of invention.

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6x6

a$ap pocky: Ardnira Putra creates immersive, nostalgic Nintendo 64 vapour wave landscapes  

clean air act: the US Supreme Court curtails the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate carbon emissions, pollutants 

kopen op afstand: the auction clock of royal FloraHolland—and how it was victim of its own popularity  

forty text-tone compilation: a duo expressively dances to all the iPhone alerts  

tpv: researchers develop thermophotovoltaic cells that passively converts white hot heat into electricity—via Slashdot 

biaoqingbao: the lexicon of emoji and memes are being admitted as evidence in more and more lawsuits in China—see previously

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8x8

city in a bottle: a bit of micro-coding from Frank Force (previously) decoded—via Waxy    

kr: the Icelandic Graphic Design Association (FÍT, Félag íslenskra teiknara) issues a challenge to come up with a glyph for their króna  

nécessaire: a French borrowing—see also—for kit and carry  

enough: TIME magazine’s cover lists the two-hundred thirteen US cities that have had mass-shootings this year, so far  

social sentinel: a look at the dubious pre-crime predictive software that ill-serves society and the reliance on tech to come to the rescue in general  

party line: last bank of public phones removed from New York City—see also here, here, here and here  

swiss miss: Tina Roth Eisenberg celebrates her seventeenth blogoversary tesserae: MIT Lab develops autonomous modular tiles to create structures and habitats in space

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6x6

sagittarius a*: the Event Horizon Telescope captures images of the Milky Way’s Black Hole—previously  

sluggo: “Music from Nancy”—via Waxy  

click-wheel: with the announcement that the last iteration of the iPod is being discontinued after two decades (see also), enjoy this first commercial advertisement  

anamorphic camouflage illusion: the Phantom Queen optical effect  

übersetzer: Google Translate adds languages using Zero-Shot Machine Translation, now facilitating communication among one hundred and thirty-three different languages  

white dwarf: astronomers witness a nova in real time

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7x7

⚠️: a pictogramatical survey of caution wet floor signs—via Pasa Bon!  

load-bearing bifurcation: engineers incorporate sturdy, often-discarded tree forks in construction  

thameside tv: clips from London’s first pirate station—see also  

no tofu: the Noto typeface (previously) a suite of emoji  

unit patch: the more inscrutable badges of the US Space Force—see previously  

pocket mac: the process of designing a fake vintage product 

☿: Unicode Consortium’s growing list of astronomical glyphs, magical charms

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7x7

1:12: a 1983 architectural magazine’s call for dollhouses  

way-finder: a friendly reminder about the most important app ever made 

i can’t hear you—i’m wearing a towel: dated New Yorker cartoons whose punchline has become a depiction of the everyday—via Waxy  

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

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think different

Developed in great secrecy under code name Project Purple, the first generation of the iPhone—given the retronym 2G to establish its place in the lineage among some thirty-three different models made, Apple Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs introduces the public to the concept of the revolutionary, universal smart mobile phone on this day in 2007 during a keynote address during the Macworld Expo in San Francisco. Models would go on sale at the end of June, on the anniversary of the first trials of the Apple I by Steve Wozniak back in 1975.

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baby bells

Though not coming into force until the first of the year in 1984, the consent decree mandating the breakup and divestiture of the Bell System’s monopoly, vertical integration of telephone services in the US and Canada was finalised on this day in 1982. American Telephone & Telegraph could still provide long-distance services but was subject to competition and could no longer require subscribers—locally use telephonic equipment produced by its subsidiaries. The regional companies were independent and control of the Yellow Pages—the telephone directory—and the research and development branch, Bell Labs, were decentralised and given to the successor holding companies.

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pingxiety

This short about the tug-o’-war between duty to engage with social media demands and responsibilities in the real world that become increasingly suffused with online work and kindred spaces by Hanna Sun called “Blip” does an excellent job of limning that dreadful allure of the screen. Much more at Colossal at the link above.

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8x8

fauxliage: a superlative roundup of architectural photography projects

the ntf of dorian gray: a new, short take on Oscar Wilde’s cautionary tale 

emoji for scale: objects represented by their glyphs from smallest to largest—via Waxy

life plus 50: a Public Domain Advent Calendar in anticipation of the expiring copyrights that the New Year ushers in with a new class of works free to enjoy however one sees fit  

verrillon: revisiting the fragile glass armonica of Benjamin Franklin  

thank you for your patronage: hackers are instructing receipt printers to spout off anti-work manifestos to draw attention to poverty wages  

history is calling: a mobile phone museum—via Pasa Bon!

unbuilt architecture: mock-ups of ten modern monumental structures that were never completed—via Things Magazine

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