Via Kottke, we are referred to Jon Keegan’s survey, contributor for Beautiful Public Data, of the US Federal Highway Administration’s style guide for American road-markings. With particular emphasis of uniform, the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices for Streets and Highways sets forth the national standards for all signage open to public travel, with exacting specifications for font (Highway Gothic), size, kerning, backgrounds, etc to ensure swift recognition and legibility.
Thursday, 12 January 2023
mutcd (10. 409)
Wednesday, 9 November 2022
6x6 (10. 288)
elektrisk kjรธretรธy: a retrospective look at how A-ha inspired and informed Norway’s early adoption of electric vehicles—via Things Magazine
taposiris magna: archaeologists discover a nearly mile long tunnel deep under a temple near Alexandria on the search for Cleopatra’s lost tomb—via Damn Interesting’s Curated Links

stenography: more on shorthand (see previously) in ancient Greek and Roman texts
nit-picking: oldest inscription bearing a full sentence found on a Canaanite comb
terrain de stationnement: France to require all existing and new parking lots to be covered with solar panels
Monday, 26 September 2022
knight industries two thousand (10. 169)
Premiering on the NBC television network on this day in 1982 and running for four seasons, Knight Rider, created by Glen A Larson (Alias Smith & Jones, Battlestar Galactica, The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo), covers protagonist Michael Knight, a lieutenant detective with the LAPD who was cosmetically robocopped after being betrayed by an informant and industrial espionage expert. Disfigured and officially declared dead, Knight is given reconstructive surgery (appearing as David Hasselhoff—see also) and teamed up with a nearly indestructible, sentient car, KITT (previously) to fight crime in the name of public justice, under the pilot organization of philanthropist billionaire Wilton Knight (no relation) called FLAG (Foundation for Law and Government).
Wednesday, 24 August 2022
7x7 (10.082)
the traffic cone preservation society: a venerable and conserved web artefact—see also—via Weird Universe
red light, green light: authorities in China are not changing traffic-control scheme despite rumours to the contrary

wagahai wa neku de aru: selected sayings about cats and dogs in Japan
45°, 90°, 180°: after more than half a century, Michael Heizer’s lost desert city is complete
perfect impasto: ongoing research into Rembrandt’s Night Watch—see previously
happy belated blogoversary: Miss Cellania turns twenty-two
catagories: ๐จ๐ณ, ๐ญ, ๐บ, ๐, architecture, networking and blogging
Friday, 12 August 2022
7x7 (10. 055)
zone improvement plan: the Swinging Six ensemble sing the praises of the ZIP code (1967)—see also
unsealed warrant: FBI recovered multiple boxes of top secret and classified documents from the Trump residence during Monday’s search

mulder & scully: full script of an unmade episode of the X-Files—via Super Punch
that old black magic that you weave so well: Clavis Inferni (The Key of Hell), an illustrated spell book from 1775
retrofit: more on the noir aesthetic (more here and here) of vintage automobiles converted in electric vehicles
like & subscribe: the long and short history of the newsletter—both print and digital
tin lizzy (10. 054)
Designed by the engineering team of Joseph Galamb, Eugene Farkas and Childe Harold Wills and hailed as the United States entrรฉe into the modern machine era, the first Ford Model T was built on this day in 1908 at the Piquette Avenue Plant in Detriot—leaving the factory at the end of the following month. Proceeding through the alphabet sequentially starting with Model A in 1903, though not all vehicles went into production, Henry Ford ended the series here with the first mass-produced automobile, using an assembly line (though credit for the concept is owed to Ransom E Olds) and interchangeable, standardised parts—marketed to a growing middle class that was in the reach of most. Just under fifteen-million were produced (a record not surpassed until the Volkswagen Beetle in and within a decade over half the cars on American roads were Model T, and while Ford’s pronouncement to his managers, “Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black,” was not apocryphal during the first four years of production only green, grey, blue and red was available
Thursday, 4 August 2022
7x7 (10. 037)
@artbutsports: juxtaposing scenes from professional sports with classical painting
nearly right: an intriguing Chinese language t-shirt circulating on social media

flying down to rio: a profile of movie star Lolita Dolores Martรญnez Asunsolo Lรณpez Negrette
requiescat in pace: an obituary of antipope Michael, who believed that there had been no legitimate pontiff since Vatican II
wikenigma: compiling a compendium of unknowns—via Pasa Bon!
pop cars: visit an exhibit of Andy Warhol’s colourful automobiles alongside the classic models that inspired them
Tuesday, 2 August 2022
9x9 (10. 032)
iron monger: a preserved Victoria shopping alley hidden underneath an Edwardian arcade in Yorkshire
u1ke: a constrained coding experiment from Frank Force (previously) lets you strum on a 1024 byte ukulele—via Waxy
put a tiger in your tank: a brilliant, bizarre vintage ESSO filling-station commercial from Italy

call me ishmael: imagining a multinational coffee purveyor as other characters from Moby Dick
carbon-negative: biogenic limestone grown by algae as a concrete substitute
future farming: an exploration of sustainable, incidental agriculture
transcorporeality: bug-swallowing in fiction
spectacular vernacular ii: more architectural quirks, including witch-windows
Tuesday, 14 June 2022
7x7
exascale: the world’s super computer might be surpassing benchmarks in secret
hub and spoke: a suite of interactive maps that lets one scour the globe with creeping data spiders

viral nightmares: more trials of an AI text to image generator
witkar: a ride-sharing demonstration projection that ran from 1974 to 1986 in Amsterdam
the firth of forth: some of the world’s best bridges for driving
whiskey war: the fifty yearlong territorial dispute between Canada and Denmark over Hans Island has been settled
zeroth law: an AI ethicist believes Google’s LaMDA has attained sentience
Saturday, 28 May 2022
8x8
scotch tapes: commercials, idents and continuity from British television from 1984 salavaged from VHS casettes
boldly go!: a medley of songs from and about the Star Trek franchise—see also
apiculture: a survey of bee hives throughout the ages

kleksographien: revisiting the blotograms (previously) of Justinus Kerner plus other inspired symmetries
red wine and ginger ale: Vulture correspondent Rebecca Alter samples all the food combinations referenced in Harry’s House
diagrammatic map: another look at how Massimo Vignelli presented mass transit to the masses—see previously here and here—via Things magazine
the fantastic journey: an obscure 1977 time-travel series starring Joan Collins and John Saxon
Thursday, 26 May 2022
8x8
nebeskรฝ most 721: a walkway spanning two peaks in in eastern Bohemia
shunpikes: byways constructed to bypass toll roads, like spite houses

i guess i have to put your flat feet on the ground: astronaut Sally Ride (*1951)
imagen: Google tool turns input text to images—see previously
security detail: firearms off-limits during Trump’s speech to the National Rifle Association Leadership Forum—via Boing Boing
fahrenheit 451: Margaret Atwood’s fire-resistant edition of The Handmaid’s Tale—see previously
liminal places: a portrait of the Estonian border town of Narva on the frontier of the EU and NATO and the Russian Federation
Wednesday, 18 May 2022
7x7
conservation of momentum: a Newton’s Cradle performs Psy’s K-Pop classic
the tweter: a sweater for two
the elephant: an Ames inspired trainer—see previously
trust-fall: a collection of Italian ex-votos (previously) depicting divine intervention during a stumble
the bond bug: a three-wheeled two-seater produced by Reliant Motor Company—via Pasa Bon!
amphorae: Ukrainian soldiers digging trenches outside of Odesa discover ancient Greek artefacts
bill medley: the ending sequence of Dirty Dancing set to the theme of The Muppet Show—via Boing Boing
Saturday, 26 March 2022
7x7
the hay-bailer, that chain-maker: an assortment of highly satisfying precision industrial machines at work
mars & beyond: a 1957 Disney film narrated by Paul Frees about extraterrestrial life

pelagic zone: the highly specialised eyes of the strawberry squid (see previously)
nymphรฉas: often dismissed as victim of his own popularity and over-exposure, Claude Monet’s Water Lilies series was far from a tame variation on a theme but rather a memorial to lives lost in the Great War
aerial photo explorer: historic birds-eye-view images of England—see previously—via Things Magazine
tired vs wired: a Twitter bot that generates aphoristic comparisons between Web 2.0 and the Web 3.0 to come, via Web Curios
vertical parking: towering garages to remedy congestion
Tuesday, 25 January 2022
batmobile lost a wheel
Having previously poured over the custom automotive creations of George Barris (previously here and here) and his various commissions for film and television, we enjoyed this introduction to the body of work of Jay Ohrberg, which aside from super-stretch limousines, include KITT from the last season of Knight Rider (see above), the DeLorean from Back to the Future and ECTO-1 from Ghostbusters. Much more from Messy Nessy Chic at the link above.
Friday, 21 January 2022
dmc-12

Sunday, 16 January 2022
6x6
teed-off: the worse examples of gerrymandered voting precincts in the US portrayed as formidable mini-golf hazards—via Print Magazine
blursday afternoon is never ending: time reforms for 2022
toponymy: Wordle (previously) place-names editions—see also
la pista automobilistica: Nag on the Lake gives us the chance to revisit the incredible Fiat factory in Turin with rooftop test-track
crying is for plain women—pretty women go shopping: season one Golden Girls are younger than the cast of the Sex in the City reboot and other essential reading
undercounted: email traffic reveals how Trump interfered with US census to ensure polities with large immigrant populations didn’t gain clout
Thursday, 11 November 2021
by-way or the highway
Albeit not on quite the same scale, these extreme commutes executed without an automobile and via slower, more deliberative modes of transportation really speak to me as I have undertaken similar excursions myself, only out of curious necessity, though the office is only ten kilometres away in most cases and not through dangerous terrain however through places not designed for pedestrians or flรขnuers (see also) to explore, fascinated by such transit-zones and will regularly make an afternoon’s errands out of something that would be quickly dispatched by car and a few extra stops.
9x9
silent haitch: the voicing of this letter is “still a significant shibboleth”—a look at h based on modern usage and notes on wh by Alfred Leach
kinship and pedigree: genealogical mapping shows historic spread and retreat of surnames for British Isles and much of Europe

zeta reticulans: a tarot deck from Miguel Romero features the history of UFOlogy
ัะต ัะฐะผัะต ะบะฐััะธะฝะบะธ: collection of avant-garde children’s book illustrations from the USSR
retromod: Hyundai brings back its 1986 luxury Grandeur with a fully electric powertrain
trebuchet: another start-up envisions flinging satellites into space via spinning centrifuge—see previously
get lost losers: a rock band flotilla entertaining the cargo crews stuck in the seemingly insurmountable backlog waiting to unload containers at the ports of Los Angeles
agent of chaos: agnotology, the study of deliberate spreading of confusion
Friday, 29 October 2021
suite №4
For the iconic motor carriage’s sixtieth anniversary, the design studios of Mathieu Lehanneur made some modifications to the classic Renault 4L (“Quatrelle,” manufactured from 1961 to 1994)—now fully electrified and with photovoltaic cells to help charge engine batteries as well as glamping accessories—the first hatchback as sort of an open, motel on wheels. More at designboom at the link above.
Tuesday, 26 October 2021
7x7
in the stacks: museum curators uncover what may be the oldest depiction of a ghost on an ancient Mesopotamian tablet
1928 porter: a look at the 1965 short-lived sitcom (see also) My Mother the Car this climate does not exist: visualisations of one’s neighbourhood under the climate crisis from Nag on the Lakeev: more outstandingly odd electric vehicles from the on-line market Alibaba—via Things Magazine
reasonable person: “a moron in a hurry” is codified in Anglophone legal statute—via the New Shelton wet/dry
graphics processing unit: glitch art in medical imaging—via Waxy
don’t go wasting your emotion: the ABBA classic, as performed by a vampire—via Everlasting Blรถrt