Having previously learned about the invention of the optical or semaphore communications system of Claude Chappe, we appreciated this retrospective and chance to revisit the contentious innovation that informed public perception and art movements into the nineteenth century. Hailed as a great advancement, the tachygraphic network that was being introduced just as the French Revolution was beginning in 1792 as a series of relay towers throughout the countryside and in metropolitan areas was by turns regarded as an achievement, condemned as an eyesore and viewed with suspicion.
The cellular masts (or windmills) of their day, their addition to the tops of buildings, profane and sacred, was considered despoiling aesthetically—numerous examples of paintings from that period feature them prominently, sort of like the scaffolding that encased the Statue of Liberty during the eighties that become as iconic and emblematic as the unobscured monument—and the coded messages (the arrangement of the blades or wings corresponded to ninety-eight numbers) to be deciphered and passed on the next operator) were taken as something sinister, prompting the destruction of some towers either as signs of witchcraft (compare to the attacks on the 5G masts during COVID either as its cause or a government conspiracy to implant microchips in the population to control it) or to hinder accelerated responses to quell uprisings, the government privileged with this speeded up reaction not available to the protesters. A group of investors in Bordeaux were jailed, though ultimately acquitted, for bribing operators to transmit stock market figures from Paris hours ahead of when the gains and losses would be available to the competition—an abuse for the sight-lines that was never envisioned. Much more from Hyperallergic at the link above.
Saturday, 12 July 2025
tรฉlรฉgraph aรฉrien (12. 575)
Friday, 4 July 2025
31/atlas (12. 557)
Spotted only a few days ago by astronomers in Chile at an associate observatory under the auspices of the international Asteroid-Terrestrial impact Last Alert System monitoring station that’s the future home of the Vera Rubin observatory, the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope which will be capable of scanning the entire sky of the Southern Hemisphere every few days as the largest digital camera ever constructed and watching for changes—including such interstellar interlopers—the inbound comet originating from another solar system is only the third such object passing through to have been verified.
Like the explosion in the discovery of gravitational wave phenomena, more visitors like สปOumuamua and Borisov are bound to be found, advanced imaging techniques underwritten by more data but now both enterprises are in jeopardy by funding cuts to NASA, sponsor to both. And while anyone can determine whether a trajectory is parabolic or hyperbolic or predict a collision course, a potential loss of telemetry seems of great gravity when it comes to such global studies and preservation for Earth and other knock on effects. Significantly brighter than the previous two encounters and traceable by amateur astronomers, the comet, posing no threat to Earth, won’t be visible at perihelion as it will be on the other side of the Sun then in October but at its closest approach to Mars, it may be detected by Martian rovers and satellites.
synchronoptica
one year ago: the introduction of the Caesar salad (with synchronopticรฆ) plus the waterfalls of Mount Cuvignone
twelve years ago: a trip along the Rhein plus a revolution in Egypt
thirteen years ago: the God particle plus national drinks
fourteen years ago: the passing of Otto von Hapsburg and the legacy of the Austro-Hungarian Empire
Saturday, 31 May 2025
opus 314 (12. 499)
To mark both the fiftieth year of the European Space Agency and the second centenary of the birth of the composer—as well to redress a glaring omission in the playlist of Voyagers’ Golden Records, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra performed the “Blue Danube” livestreamed for terrestrial audiences and beamed out to the stars from an ESA dish antenna in Cebreros, Spain, part of the array of the deep-space network. The waltz by Johann Strauss II had its association with the wonder and grandeur of the Cosmos cemented by its use in the score of Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey—see also—and broadcast at the speed of light, the single will have surpassed the twenty-four billion kilometres transversed by the twin probes launched in 1977, overtaking Mars in just four and half minutes, Jupiter in thirty-seven minutes and Neptune in four hours. ESA director general hopes that this concert will inspire future scientists and explorers and become the anthem of space travel.
synchronoptica
one year ago: outtakes from Dalรญ Atomicus (with synchronoptica) plus more on numbers stations
seven years ago: brutalist birdhouses
eight years ago: a visit to Schloss Moritzburg plus bot armies
nine years ago: a trip to Berchtesgaden plus language and colour perception
ten years ago: the lifecycle of ladybugs
Saturday, 24 May 2025
9x9 (12. 483)
leaderboard: an exclusive look at the $TRUMP memecoin banquet
leap together: Kermit the Frog delivers a commencement speech at Jim Henson’s alma mater
biosignature: potential signs of alien life on exoplanet K2-18ฮฒ raises the question of when evidence becomes definitive
industrial light and magic:
Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, founded by Star Wars franchise creator
and slated to open next summer, made redundant fourteen percent of staff
mr tompkins in wonderland: after attending a lecture on relativity, a bank clerk discovers the ability to perceive quantum phenomena and the foreshortening of spacetime
liquidity squeeze: collaborative scholarship and the fake Roman financial panic of 33 AD—via Strange Company
yeah—it has been hard, mainly because of the numbers: a vintage 2005 spoof on every television news spot on the economy
matriculation: graduates answer questions posed by their past selves
insider trading: US attorney general divested herself of between one and five million dollars worth of shares ahead of Trump’s “Liberation Day” announcement
synchronoptica
one year ago: Phyllis Diller’s garage sale guide (with synchronoptica), an alternative space shuttle design, AI can’t do minor edits plus assorted links worth the revisit
seven years ago: more removing science from the classroom, a cosmic interloper, eyeball worlds, wine windows plus the Dear Leaders fail to meet
eight years ago: corporate welfare
nine years ago: transparent wood plus a visit to Weimar
thirteen years ago: the chemistry of wine
Friday, 23 May 2025
11x11 (12. 481)
ฮฝ octantis: astronomers discover a tight binary star system with a lone exoplanet wedged in the middle
{sum free sets}: Cambridge graduate student proves an conjecture of Paul Erdลs on the limits of the additive property—via Damn Interesting
gorgoneion: the backstory of Medusa
market instability: complaining that negotiations have stalled, Trump threatens to impose a fifty-percent tariff on EU exports to the US
ambigram: more invertible messages—made by impossible letters (see previously here and here)
the old, old, very old man: the sudden death of super-centenarian Tom Parr in 1635 illuminates our long quest for longevity—see also
marked decline: the precipitous drop in the use of semicolons—with a quiz to celebrate its proper placement
urban renewal: arborists are planting giant sequoia (previously) in blighted Detroit neighbourhoods—via Kottke
pandemonium: when the pantheon of gods and goddesses came into the world, they already had company with a multiplicity of daemons acting through human agents
exchange programme: US Department of Homeland Security revokes Harvard’s ability to enrol foreign students
brown dwarf: in the distant past, Jupiter was nearly twice its present size with a much stronger magnetic field, revealed by the orbital dynamics of its constellation of satellites—see previously
Wednesday, 21 May 2025
interdisciplinary (12. 475)
On the corner of Broadway and West 112th Street, above the iconic neon-lit Tom’s Diner used as the establishing exterior shot for the sitcom Seinfeld and in the Susan Vega song, NASA research facility, the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, has occupied the six upper storeys of Armstrong Hall since 1966. Affiliated with Columbia University’s Earth institute, from whom it leases the laboratory space, GISS has embarked on a broad programme of astrophysics and climate dynamics and advanced public understanding of phenomena like El Niรฑo and first synergised ideas such as plate tectonics, quasars and black holes—introducing the terminology to common parlance. The institute also issued a vocal warning regarding global warming’s trajectory and involved with numerous solar system exploration missions dating from Mariner, Pioneer and Voyager to the present. This impressive list of accomplishments and continuing projects, both theoretical and applied, however, is failing to secure the lab’s legacy for the the Trump administration, which has cut overall science funding by half and is sceptical of climate change, and through the auspices of DOGE and the Government Services Administration is terminating the lease effective at the end of the month (or at least pretending to in the name of efficiency as the contract cannot be broken early and the building will sit empty until it expires) and is directing the staff of one hundred thirty to work from home until they can be dismissed or placed within another part of the agency. More from the Guardian at the link above.
Tuesday, 20 May 2025
11x11 (12. 472)
higher power: traditionally anodyne, new Chinese spaceflight mission patches (see also) might betray some secrets
triple word score: fun variants, house rules and more Scrabble-related news—see previously
a stra ze neca: no, the multinational pharmaceutical concern name does not mean “a road to death” in Latin
hamburgervons: a flip book of font specimens to build the perfect typeface—the heading a typographer’s tool to test layout and legibility—see also
revenge of the sith: a retrospective for the prequel twenty years on—see also here and herethere i ruined it: interesting mashup of US national anthem to the tune of Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun”
kyphosis bicyclistarum: an 1893 warning from the Lancet for wheelmen on the bad posture and stoop that frequent cycling can cause—see also
sunny days: after Trump defunds PBS and NPR, Netflix is championing Sesame Street
micro-camper: a well-appointed mobile tiny home in the bed of kei truck—via Things Magazine (much more to discover there)
fan theory: Doctor Who’s “Interstellar Song Contest”—Eurovision counter programming—teases the return of a classic arch-villainess
pinball wizard: the 1976 NBC gameshow flop, The Magnificent Marble Machine, with celebrity players
niallia tiangongensis: evolution on display in novel bacteria found aboard China’s space-station—via Damn Interesting
synchronoptica
one year ago: more on the Kessler Effect (with synchronoptica), AI overviews plus two classes of typos
seven years ago: Pentecost, for-profit colleges plus a ride on a steam locomotive
eight years ago: reforming the US electoral college, the Global Seed Vault is flooding, protesting Trump’s bribes plus an AI names bespoke colours
nine years ago: a visit to Tintagel
ten years ago: a time lapse of climate change, assorted links to revisit plus the making of The Shining
Saturday, 10 May 2025
ะบะพัะผะพั-482 (12. 445)
Launched 31 March 1972, the Soviet Venus probe that failed to escape low Earth orbit is expected to make a crash landing, plunging through the atmosphere today, more than fifty years after the mission was aborted and while debris of this size, five hundred kilograms, deorbits regularly, most space junk of this mass disintegrates before reaching the surface, breaking up into shooting stars—however with a titanium heat shield and built to withstand the rigours of exploring our hot and crushing neighbour, it is likely to survive the journey and land in one piece. While far more likely to hit the ocean, it could smash down on someone’s property (see previously here and here). Shrouded in the secrecy of the Cold War Space Race, it was common practice for the USSR’s space exploration programme to use low Earth orbit as a staging grounds, a sort of parking lot, for missions to other planets, launched well ahead of the ideal path for future rendezvous with their intended targets, and all given the designation of Kosmos so as not to publicise mission goals. A misfire of the booster rockets condemned the vehicle to this decades’ long limbo, retaining the original mission identification, rather than making it the planned Venera 9 atmospheric study.
synchronoptica
one year ago: a collection of abandoned blogs (with synchronoptica) plus the Tea Act of 1773
seven years ago: the FCC complains about the White House Correspondents’ Dinner plus photographer Rodney Lewis Smith
eight years ago: Persian miniatures, Trump fires FBI director James Comey plus artisanal coins
eleven years ago: cracking down on intelligence leaks plus the practise of kintsugi
twelve years ago: plagiarism scandals in German politics
Thursday, 8 May 2025
6x6 (12. 441)
ฮฑฮฝฯฮฏฮดฯฯฮฟฮฝ: brilliant wrapping paper makes presents appear as loaves of bread
impact statement: for the first time, an AI avatar of a murder victim testifies in court

picking fights: while Trump declares a ceasefire with the Houthi militant group—which we only know about because of Signalgate—the administration signals it will not get involved over the dispute in Kashmir
orrery: a centenary of planetariums still inspiring awe—via tmn—see previously
decomposing: lab-grown mini-brains of a deceased musician create posthumous compositions
origami mouse: a pointing device that folds flat when not in use—via Clive Thompson’s Linkfest—along with a few more fun items on arcade classics
Saturday, 5 April 2025
first contact (12. 367)
Observed on this day to celebrate both the flight of the Phoenix (repurposed from a nuclear warhead at a US Air Force missile complex outside of Bozeman, Montana) that broke the light-speed barrier and attracted the attention of a passing Vulcan survey ship, the T’Plana-Hath, with its warp-signature—and immediately following the test-launch humanity’s first encounter with an alien race. The 2063 event was introduced as a holiday in 2021 during the COVID pandemic a virtual pick-me-up during lockdown and social-distancing but was established in franchise canon outside of the feature film with the crew of the Next Generation thwarting sabotage by the Borg and preserving the timeline—Geordi and Riker need to go further back in the past to fix our timeline—and Voyager marking the occasion from the Delta Quadrant with Naomi Wildman and Neelix hosting a gathering (see also) for the three hundred fifteenth anniversary with a party and rock-and-roll music (pilot Zefram Cochrane’s favourites) from Tom Paris’ antique jukebox. Science officer Tuvok delivered the salutation, reluctantly not seeing the point, of “Live long and prosper,” to the applause of the guests. A decade after First Contact, during the dedication of Earth’s first Warp 5 complex, Cochrane—who was initially motivated to create the warp drive for ‘women and money’—addressed the crowd: “Don’t try tp be a great man, just be a man, and let history make its own judgments,” it never being clear it the later retcon whether the test-flight was successful due to the intervention of the Enterprise and the Borg attempt to prevent it, and “This engine will let us go boldly where no man has gone before.” Ooby dooby.
synchronoptica
one year ago: Carrie at fifty-plus (with synchronoptica)
seven years ago: another hit from Melanie, Lustron steel homes plus the Pillars of Creation
eight years ago: optical character recognition, amending the US constitution plus the news is fake but the leaks are real
nine years ago: the Panama Papers, Star Trek inspired cosmetics, manhole apartments, a gallery of Mid-Century Modern homes plus David Bowie as Abraham Lincoln
ten years ago: Easter greetings
Thursday, 3 April 2025
eighty-nine seconds til midnight (12. 361)
Via the New Shelton wet/dry, we are directed to this scrolly-telling essay (in the style of the artists from the sadly former Nib, from the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (previously) blog entitled “Mars Attacks” about how Elon Musk’s and his colonial aspirations for the Red Planet, as a part of a general aversion towards rules, could transform into a flagrant violation of the Outer Space Treaty, which far from a relic of the Cold War has served to preserve humankind here on Earth by preventing weaponisation of the higher ground and includes liability rules for damage caused by spacecraft, the safe return of fallen astronauts, an international rocket registry and the prohibition of projecting national sovereignty or claiming domain. Surely it is the intent of Muskovite Martians to proclaim their independence from terrestrial entanglements, however that first Virginia Dare might be reliant on Earth-based resources and wealth, and even if the flag nation does nothing to stop this assertion, other signatories will, launching a new geopolitical conflict over extraterrestrial claims.
Friday, 28 March 2025
where is everybody? (12. 342)
Being obsessed with the philosophical and cosmological question of Fermi’s Paradox and having considered the Great Filter beforehand, we enjoyed revisiting the proposal that no one makes it—that is succeeds as a spacefaring civilisation with a constellation of lesser filters setting up intractable hurdles to the accomplishment, progress sabotaged by biological limitations, superstition, self-destructive tendencies of a society, pollution or a misguided Singularity. In that unlikely loneliness, however, there also lies an equally improbable (though less so than intelligent life evolving no where else in the Universe) of a grand conspiracy of those that have made it exercising and enforcing a sort of Prime Directive to cloak their evidence and activities. While that might seem patriarchal (but who knows what challenges and dangers could await) and demotivating in terms of reaching for the stars, humans—on any others on the cusp—might have never had the ambition to invent and explore with gods in the sky.
synchronoptica
one year ago: a Euro Pop playlist (with synchronoptica)
seven years ago: a yลkai primer, assorted links to revisit, transhumance plus an AI suggests April Fools’ pranks
eight years ago: more links to enjoy plus Mr Roger’s Conflict Series
nine years ago: Easter origins, a venerable guesthouse plus a sinister lullaby
ten years ago: night-vision eye-drops plus even more links
Monday, 24 March 2025
mercury-redstone booster development (12. 333)
On this day in 1961, the rocket prototype built in Alabama under the guidance of Wernher von Braun (previously) was launched from Cape Canaveral for one final test-flight to certify its safety and fitness for human transport—using a dummy as the occupant as with concurrent Soviet trials. The rocket reached an altitude of one hundred eight five kilometres in low Earth-orbit and was successfully salvaged in the Atlantic approximately eight minutes later. Alan Shepard had volunteered to fly himself but was strongly discouraged y von Braun because of the risk—had Shepard been allowed to go, he would have become the first human in outer space, instead of the second, Yuri Gagarin achieving that milestone less than three weeks later.
synchronoptica
one year ago: The Breakfast Club (with synchronoptica), assorted links worth revisiting plus The Initiation of Sarah (1978)
seven years ago: quitting Facebook, the train from Pyongyang plus the March for Our Lives
eight years ago: ISPs allowed to sell browsing history plus Canadian schools cancel field trips to US over concerns of protecting students with immigrant backgrounds
nine years ago: The New Yorker mascot plus a quantum loophole in causality
ten years ago: more links to enjoy, fonts that promote recall and proofreading plus crusades against the unorthodox
Saturday, 22 March 2025
the eagle has landed (12. 329)
Dropping its own diversity, equality and inclusion plans announced for the return trip to the Moon back in 2019, NASA administrators are left on a backfoot struggling to comply with the executive orders memory-holing real and perceived affirmative action and the original symbolism that the crew would include the first woman on the lunar surface and “the first person of colour” for the third mission of the Artemis programme, named after Apollo’s twin sister. One of the last official acts of his first term, NASA had ironically developed a graphic novel series celebrating the contributions of women to space exploration, including a fictional understudy to lead the diverse crew for the upcoming journey, slated for November 2027 but likely delayed further due to not having choose the landing crew and further cuts to the space agency’s workforce under DOGE—which has expressed a shift in priorities to go straight to Mars.
Saturday, 1 March 2025
mothman and the man in the moon (12. 270)
Having come across his astronomical illustrations beforehand, we appreciated this monograph on artist and amateur astronomer and entomologist รtienne Lรฉopold Trouvelot of French extraction who fled to Massachusetts because of his republican leanings after the coup d’รฉtat by Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte in 1851. Problems with raising silk-producing moths (previously) in his adopted home in North America revised his long time interest in studying insects, and unsuccessful in breeding domestic species, had shipment of spongy moth (Lymantria dispar, also known as the gypsy moth) egg masses sent over from Europe. The larvae Trouvelot was experimenting with unfortunately escaped into the wild, where this voracious, invasive species has been damaging woodland habitats ever since. The incident, realising the gravity of his actions, made Trouvelot return to sketching pictures of the heavens, eventually attracting the attention of the director of the Harvard College Observatory due to his prodigious and detailed output, ultimately leading to the publication of his pastel studies of the Sun, Moon and planets the opportunity to turn his hobby into a profession, contributing to a number of scientific papers.
Wednesday, 19 February 2025
7x7 (12. 243)
tvwishes: a reappraisal of digital preservation—via Waxy
wasp 121ฮฒ: ultra hot Jupiter exoplanet has a uniquely layered and roiling atmosphere—see previously
unitary executive theory: latest Trump EO reigns in independent agencies, testing the limits of presidential power
the doors of kypseli: the intricate entrances of an Athens neighbourhood
gesserit jazz: a 1977 funk album inspired by Frank Herbert’s epic novel—see previously
jikipedia: the rise and fall of China’s Urban Dictionary of internet slang
dark entry records: queer album cover art from Gwenaรซl Rakkte
Sunday, 16 February 2025
12x12 (12. 237)
little sisyphus: a challenging NES-style side-scrolling game—see previously—via Waxy
behind every robot that turns evil there’s an engineer that installed red diodes in its eyes in anticipation: Meta wants to create AI powered robots to do your chores
quipu: the largest known superstructure in the Cosmos, named for the corded knot accounting of the ancient Inca culture—via Strange Company
parataxis: storytelling loves a list
i will say this only once: John J Hoare responds to a video take-down notice for reposting an old clip—that suggests that YouTube is focused on hate speech against Nazis

pump and dump: nothing to see here, just another perfectly normal president pulling the rug out from under his country with a memecoin
return to forever: Chick Corea and friends at the forty-third Jazzaldia festival
stairwell of the quarter: more on the design efficiency of alternating tread stairs
nanook of the north: Robert J Falherty’s 1922 documentary on the Inuit
how many department of government efficiency employees does it take to screw in a lightbulb: a look at DOGE at work—via Nag on the Lake
windows, icons, menus, pointers: a cursor dance party—via Pasa Bon!
Tuesday, 21 January 2025
syzygy (12. 167)

one year ago: Saturday Night Fever (with synchronoptica), a stochastic parrot plus assorted links to revisit
seven years ago: a minister of loneliness plus Project Crested Ice (1968)
eight years ago: Trump’s inaugural speech was not lifted from the Bee-Movie though it seemed plausible, more on the Europe right-wing plus speculation about a 2020 Zuckerberg candidacy
nine years ago: telephone booths as private raves plus more rogue exoplanets discovered
ten years ago: threat-com levels raised plus artist Rob Gonsalves
Monday, 20 January 2025
coming attractions (12. 197)
As a little preview for Tuesday’s apparent planetary alignment in case the weather isn’t cooperating tomorrow, in the predawn western skies of Germany, one can see, so far, Venus (♀—the Morning and the Evening Star due to its proximity to the Sun but at its most elongated orbit currently), Mars (♂—on the wane and appearing dimmer than the gas giant), Jupiter (♃), Uranus (⛢) and Saturn (♄) staggered along the great arc of the elliptical.
Ideal views are expected to peak on the twenty-first of this month but can be seen for a few preceding days and for a few days afterwards. Consult local guides for the rise and setting of the planets and share what you see of our solar system.Saturday, 18 January 2025
12x12 (12. 191)
dyson trees: lesser known than his eponymous sphere, a hypothetical genetically engineered plant could be grown inside a comet and provide a self-sustaining habitat for space-faring
cold case: US retailer regrets installing advertising screens in its frozen food section and is struggling to get out of the contract—see also
fourth-wall: a filmmakers’ dilemma about the unseen camera’s point-of-view
decipherment: a solicitation for cursive users to transcribe and classify two centuries of undigitised documents—check the comments section—see previouslywhy this is hell, nor am i out of it: Trump, like Satan, doesn’t get away with it
drawing board: the Nokia Design Archive of prototypes never put in production
twentytwentyfive: George Orwell is to be honoured with a commemorative £2 coin for the seventy-ftfth anniversary of his death
erythrosine: US federal drug administration bans Red Dye 3 as food colouring and other business news—see previously
onite clam discrepancy: personal AI-chatbots yield more problematic advice—see previously
a stone only rolls downhill: a new music video from OK Go shot on sixty-four phones for sixty-four one take pieces
the toasters are flying: a history of screen-savers—see previously
☄️: meteorite strike caught on a doorbell camera in Prince Edward Island