multicurse

We enjoyed very much contemplating this illustrated history of mazes and labyrinths, a 1922 volume curated by Public Domain Review.
The branching lanes referred to as curses and the turns each a course, these classical pieces of landscaping and iconography from legendary times through to churchyards and engravings and the ornamental gardens of the great estates speak indeed to a collective unconsciousness and present a meditative puzzle, regardless of vantage point though some perspectives might seem more advantageous than others, especially if one is the engineer and architect. Much more to explore at the link above.

what kind of person bokehs a child?

We were extra delighted to learn—via the always brilliant Nag on the Lake—that Apple has taken the very real photographic technique and aesthetic that means blurry or hazy in Japanese, anthimerized (“I’ll unhair thy head” or “the thunder would not peace at my bidding” from Shakespeare or more recently, “Don’t @ me”)—verbified, to demonstrate the depth control, softening focus with the ability to reverse the effect, feature of the camera on their latest smart phone.

hatefulness/impish

On this day at this time in 1971, an erroneous Emergency Action Notification was dispatched to US broadcasters, directing stations to cease regularly scheduled programming immediately at the request of the government but no reason was given.
Listen to WCCO serving Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota area air silence here. The title refers to the codewords to give and them belay that order, and the bungle with the false alarm (the operator picked the wrong tape) revealed a lot endemic faults with the system—including that due to the fact the message coincided with a regularly scheduled systems test and many choose to ignore it and additional safeguards were added.

8x8

shadow-boxing: more clever illustrations from Vincent Bal (previously)

a sid and marty krofft production: the Banana Splits (see also) may get a revival, possibly as homicidal maniacs

animal husbandry: falcon breeders wear special copulation hats to get donor samples (see also the Falcon Hive), via Super Punch

shelf-life: a book whose pages are slices of processed cheese

www: via Kottke’s Quick Links, we discover that CERN has rebuilt the original 1990 browser that Tim Berners-Lee invented as an in-browser emulation—how does your website look through the lens of three decades?

bauhaus: a collection of short documentaries celebrating the design movement’s centenary (previously)

prêt-à-porter: a retrospective look at some of Karl Lagerfeld’s greatest fashion shows

climeworks: the determined Swiss start-up that is working to stop climate change through direct CO₂ capture, via Swiss Miss  

geheimtreffen vom 20. februar

In order to raise funds for the election of the Nazi Party ahead of the early March general ballot and secure the two-thirds chambers majority to pass Enabling Act legislation (Ermächtigungsgesetz—formally called the “Law to Remedy the Distress of the People and the Reich”) and block its defeat, and give the party chancellor Adolf Hitler the plenary powers to pass laws without involving the tedious and meddlesome Reichstag, party officials held a secret meeting with some twenty prominent German industrialist (IG Farben, Opel, Siemens, various coal magnates, bankers and defence executives) on this day in 1933. Over two million Reichsmarks were contributed and made payable to a trust established by the party, and while the role of big business financing was undoubtedly crucial to the Nazis seizing power, it is also unclear if donations were completely voluntary.