Wednesday 30 November 2022

8x8 (10. 347)

da ba dee: a bardcore version of Eiffel 65’s ‘Blue’  


palace intrigue
: a cracked encoded missive sent by Holy Roman Emperor Charles V to his French ambassador—via Language Log  

correctional facility: unearthed cache of photographs of San Quentin prison taken by inmates—via tmn  

circumnavigation: a recreation to explore Ferdinand Magellan’s trip around the world—via Pasa Bon!  

antidisestablishmentarianism: the UK is demographically no longer a majority Christian country 

still-life: a study of meta-trolling—see also  

eadburg: eight century individual scribbles in a medieval manuscript  

boards of canada: psychedelic ‘Aquarius’ remixed with Deforum Stable Diffusion

Sunday 27 November 2022

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

Thursday 24 November 2022

6x6 (10. 329)

turkey in the straw: Thanksgiving with Liberache (1952)  

the blockchain eight: post-mortem of the collapse of FTX  

woty: the short-list for the publicly juried OED word of the year includes metaverse, #istandwithX and goblin mode 

ooh directory: an omnibus of blogs on every subject—via Waxy  

what sophistry is this: Facebook’s artificial intelligence labs design a negotiator called CICERO to gameify diplomacy—see also 

gratitude, don’t give me no attitude: the nine best Thanksgiving songs that I definitely didn’t just make up

Saturday 19 November 2022

man on the street (10. 319)

We are gently reminded that the will of the people is not the voice of authority, the proverb taken out of context (see also), with the full phrase contained in a missive from Alcuin to Charlemagne in the late eighth century, warning the emperor: “Nec audiendi qui solent dicere, Vox populi, vox Dei, quum tumultuositas vulgi semper insaniae proxima sit.” That is—And those should not be listened to who keep saying that the voice of the people is the voice of God, as the riotness of the crowd is always close to madness.”

fissorium (n): a place where one splits (10. 318)

Via Language Hat we are directed towards Lyre’s Dictionary, a bot that generates English nonce words—see also—based on detected roots, patterns and meanings. Sometimes it reframes existing but rarely used terms like botanize, meaning to do what botantists do, but as to make a plant or bibible as able to be drunk whose more widely circulated antonym unbibible means sober or abstemious, but the machined logorrhoea is insightful and speaks to perhaps the unnoticed entendre and frameworks in ways that words are put together. From the more recent roster or ersatz vocabulary, we particularly liked: 

obvindicant (n): one who avenges away
mediciculture (n): the rearing of physicians
speculigerent (adj): bearing mirrors
diacosmy (n): the state of being across the universe 

What are your favourites? Which suggested words ought to be incorporated into common parlance?

Friday 18 November 2022

7x7 (10. 314)

umwelt: a short video to compliment Ed Yong’s exploration of animal cognition—previously 

what9whos: a proprietary geocode system based on the names of the actors who’ve portrayed the Doctor from Gallifrey 

lexical lists: the index, the listicle are the oldest forms of narrative  

commit to being extremely hardcore: the Twitter exodus continues  

speaker of the house: after two decades of party leadership in the lower chamber, Nancy Pelosi is stepping down 

chart-topper: a collector has amassed every single number one single in the UK—see previously  

mockingbird: you’ve likely been fooled by an avian friend––see also

the quest for self-winding (10. 312)

This was a bit of a haunted memory for me as I recalled this one scene with the Droste Effect but couldn’t name the animated film until this reminder from last month from Nag on the Lake and Memo of the Air asking “what lies behind the last visible dog?” It is the 1977 cinematic adaptation of the young adult novel by the same name from a decade earlier by Russell Hoban, which was released by Sanrio studios on this day that year. The Mouse and His Child tells the story of two conjoined clockwork toys holding hands who gain awareness after being unboxed in a shop, and although forming a close bond with an elephant and seal, are ridiculed for the suggestion that they remain in the shop and form their own family. The titular protagonists accidentally end up discarded and once at the dump and are forced into a pressgang by a rat who runs a casino at the rubbish yard on the labour of broken toys but escape aand are rescued by their friends from the shop, eventually realising their goal. The film version features the vocal talents of Cloris Leachman, Andy Devine and Peter Ustinov.

Tuesday 15 November 2022

6x6 (10. 306)

honkbal hoofdklasse: Dutch for ‘Major League Baseball’  

fragrant, acid, burnt and caprylic: the Crocker-Henderson odour classification system 

dinosaur.pocket: AI generated Mastodon instances by Janelle Shane (previously

the floor is lava: a fun looking arcade experience though the best part was climbing over the furniture and leaping from place to place  

pontifex: the cathedral-like under-girding of the bridges of Seoul 

phryge-fest: Paris unveils its Olympic and Paralympics mascots—anthropomorphic hats

Monday 14 November 2022

7x7 (10. 305)

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

massa alimentรญcia: 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

cinebox (10. 303)

I was wracking my brain and hitting an internal googlewhack over the audio-visual jukebox short films (finally found what I vaguely recalled blogging about before—an overview of the technology and content that spanned the history from the pre-WWII Soundies and Panorams to their revival in the late 1950s by a French company) that less mainstream performers used to promote their latest singles and see that it also inspired a search by friend of the blog par excellence Nag on the Lake, who preening through a lot of unfortunate link-rot, discovered and shares a great repository of scopitones. Check out the links above for more of these precursors to music videos and streaming whose particular style (Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots are Made for Walking” is a less obscure epitome) prompted essayist Susan Sontag to nominate them for inclusion as part of the “canon of Camp.” Let us know your favourites.

Saturday 12 November 2022

w³ (10. 297)

Though somewhat overshadowed by the achievements and recognition of colleague Tim Berners-Lee and his proposal for a hypertext system to connect many of the departments and projects of CERN in 1989 and which contained the kernal of the idea, credit for the World Wide Web also goes to fellow computer scientist Robert Cailliau for their joint proposal put forward on this day in 1990 for the World Wide Web. Not only did Cailliau come up with the logo and co-programmed the first web browser (MacWWW) with Nicola Pellow, he was instrumental in taking the concept out of the laboratory and releasing it into wilds, running several parallel projects to ensure interoperability and make the underlying structure more robust and cross-compatible, secured funding and organised a series of conferences and steering committees.

Friday 11 November 2022

6x6 (10. 291)

verifiable: Norman Bates checks out of Twitter  

deatheaters vs sapsuckers: mycologists give an overview of the epic fungal wars happening all around us  

key moment: an analysis in the dearth of modulation in pop music since the 2000s—this 80s number has one of the best  

the mansion on o street: Washington DC’s secret civil rights landmark with a heroes-in-residence programme 

mapping emissions: charting out the biggest polluters near you

รฉminence grise: Twitter’s Blue Check verification scheme causing chaos

Sunday 6 November 2022

7x7 (10. 276)

aeiou—red, green, yellow, purple, blue: the virtuosity of polymath Francis Galton and his 1883 work on synaesthesia—see previously  

toots, blorts and kerflunks: alternate social media network Mastodon grows a pace—via Language Log

wwjd: struggling corporations should look to the Jesuits as models of stability and longevity  

tragedy of the commons: a look ahead to COP27—more here  

momentum i: a 1983 synth compilation for runners by Matt Sullivan—see also  

kant generator: programmer Giacomo Miceli’s Infinite Conversation between interlocutors Werner Herzog and Slavoj ลฝiลพek   

sensory world: crossed-wires result in great art

Saturday 5 November 2022

obligatory dining turret (10. 274)

McMansion Hell (previously) revisits the suburbs of Washington, DC—Silver Spring, Potomac, Maryland and environs—to offer us a prospectus of properties that confound architectural cohesion and defy good taste with some of these choice homes on offer. Much more horrid, surreal estate from just beyond the Beltway at the links above.

Thursday 3 November 2022

7x7 (10. 269)

memorymoog: Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo shares his synthesizer collection  

erry & merry: the portfolio illustrator Walter Schnackenberg whose subject and style was informed by Toulouse-Lautec’s Parisian cabarets 

unalloyed: scientists discover a way to synthesise a cosmic compound that may be a cheap and abundant substitute for rare earth elements  

star-bellied sneech: verification for sale 

astronomicum caesareum: an exploration of an intricate, antique tome commissioned to prognosticate one’s destiny  

waverly abbey: an ancient yew in Surrey is accorded the UK Tree of the Year title  

ondioline: a demonstration of this precursor to the synthesizer from Jean-Jacques Perry—via Pasa Bon!

Wednesday 2 November 2022

oh, no! it’s devo (10. 264)

 Via Digg, we are directed towards this fantastic account called Simpson Albums which is the essential providence of the long-running phenomenon to have a scene in an episode that corresponds to anything imaginable and pairs frames of the show with album cover art, ranging from contemporary releases to more classic ones, like Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love. Much more to explore at the links above and do let us know your uncanny favourites. 


 

Sunday 30 October 2022

8x8 (10. 258)

♄iii: a 1980 Kirk Douglas, Farrah Fawcett sci-fi vehicle about colonising Triton by Star Wars set designer John Barry  

le forme variabili: a comprehensive guide to pasta selection  

christ stopped at eboli: an abandoned village in Basilicata—via Things Magazine  

the consent of the governed: as a platform, Twitter is a train wreck despite itself 

sessile by nature: Charles Darwin documents movement in plants—via Nag on the Lake’s Sunday Linkssee previously  

here an anteater that also appears to be some sort of quail in a sweater: an AI virtually, humanely dresses up cats in costumes for Halloween—see previously  

dead man’s body buffet: spaghetti is the creepiest food  

earth minus zero: a 1996 “Honey I Shrunk the Kids” with Sam Jones, Pat Morita and Joey Travolta

Monday 17 October 2022

7x7 (10. 232)

cheesewrights and turophiles: Noรซlle Janaczewska on the culinary and artistic history of cheese 

causal observer: a teenager in Trondhjem called Christian Charlotte Elster captured various scenes of Regency-Era Norway in the early nineteenth century–via Messy Nessy Chic  

perhaps more like edison than tesla: friends, family and enemies discuss Elon Musk

putinversteher: Russian leadership enlisting influential mouthpieces to convince Western governments to accede to their narratives–see previously

kukla, fran & ollie: a Youtube channel working to conserve and put on-line over seven hundred episodes of the 1950s puppet theatre–via r/ObscureMedia   

parlement technologies: the rapper formerly known as Kanye West announces plans to purchase rightwing friendly social media site  

la pyramide des saveurs: France’s reigning and unrivaled Queen of Cheeses, Nathalie Quartrehomme

Friday 14 October 2022

confirm receipt (10. 223)

Having previously been acquainted with the calling cards of citizens’ band and Ham radio operators, we appreciated this entree into QSL postcards exchanged around the world—and beyond—through this study by graphic designer Richard Bova on the standards, codes and curated selection of cards from across the globe.

Thursday 13 October 2022

§§ (10. 219)

The oldest formal data protection law in the world, the State of Hessen promulgated its Data Protection Act (das Datenschutzgesetz) on this day in 1970. A model for privacy legislation to follow, it was authored chiefly by Spiros Simitis, inspired by a visionary article in the Frankfurter Allegemeinen Zeitung (FAZ) warning of the potential pitfalls of widespread computer use and when the law was adopted by the Landtag to great zeal, it was declared that omniscient, panopticon of survellience would not be able to gain purchase here, setting up an independent institution to monitor against Orwellian practises. Though lacking a robust regulatory framework by today’s standards, evolution and articulation of the law enshrined for us in iterations the concepts of retention and disposition schedules, data earmarking and anonymization as well as informed consent and the right of information self-determination.