djia = σp/d

Having muddled through the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997 and the collapse of the Russian rouble the following year, the US stock market index the Dow Jones Industrial Average, that gauges the performance of a select thirty large, publicly listed companies, on this day in 1999 a celebration was held on the trading floor when for the first time the Dow closed above ten thousand points.
Bolstered by faith in a strong dollar—the world’s reserve currency—and mergers in the petroleum industry and what was decried presciently by some as an “irrational exuberance” in the seemingly unbridled technology sector, investors at the time would scarcely realise that they were partying at the apex (or nadir, depending on one’s point of view) of the Dot Com Bubble. The speculation fuelled growth peaked in March 2000, once borrowing became more expensive and credit tighter when national banks changed their lending practises once the industry had weathered y2k without significant disruption, before surrendering a gain of nearly four hundred percent by October 2002.

in my merry oldsmobile

Not to be confused with the mass-produced Model-C from competitor Ford Motors that debuted the following year and marketed as a “doctors’ car,” the 1903 variant Model-6, curved dash runabout prototype called the Doctors’ Coupe unfortunately never went into production with only one ever made.
This incredibly steam-punk podium of a vehicle had two gears plus could be thrown in reverse. Though at this early point in history, the cars were named after company founder Ransom Eli Olds (and hence R.E.O. Speedwagon, another musical connection), a popular tune by vaudevillian Gus Edwards with an enduring chorus and refrain was a powerful marketing jingle:

Come away with me, Lucille
In my merry Oldsmobile
Down the road of life we’ll fly
Automobubbling, you and I

To the church we’ll swiftly steal
Then our wedding bells will peal
You can go as far as you like with me
In my merry Oldsmobile

🜍

Though observed numerous times before and mistaken as a comet or star, the asteroid Pallas was discovered and identified—after Ceres—as the hypothetical planet astronomers expected to be present above the orbit or Mars and below that of Jupiter on this day in 1802 by Heinrich Wilhelm Matthais Olbers (*1758 – †1840).
Subsequent discoveries of asteroids occupying a belt that marked the edge of the inner solar system helped scientists come to the incremental conclusion that these celestial bodies were the debris of protoplanets that had failed to resolve into a globe under its own gravity. Named after the epithet for the goddess Athena (see previously)—meaning to brandish a weapon—and is represented by the astronomical symbol above, a spear. The asteroid’s discoverer is also known for his eponymous paradox—otherwise referred to as the dark sky paradox, a crucial thought experiment to dislodge the classical thinking that the Cosmos is static and eternal rather than dynamic since if Universe were infinitely old and homogenous, the night sky should be uniformly illuminated from stars spread out across the firmament.

8x8

expansion pack: kit and ideas for remixing new board games by combining pieces and platforms of classic games one already owns—via Kottke’s Quick Links

video phone: the teleconferencing tool that’s being forced on many of us is a privacy and security nightmare whose long-term liabilities far outweigh the benefits of seeing colleagues in pyjamas

razliv haystack: a look into how the mythos of Lenin fuelled the early Soviet tourism industry

stay sane, stay safe: a graphic design community’s rapid response to promote positivity

at home everywhere: with at least a quarter of the world’s population under at least partial lockdown, a design duo has turned national flags into houses

utica club: beer steins Schultz and Dooley (voiced by Jonathan Winters) advertise Matt Brewery’s flagship beverage

tossed dallas: Tuna Antipasto and assorted silliness—see previously

mashrabiya and mezzanine: a celebration of balconies

employment situation summary

i beg at this time that i have not intruded upon this evening

This day marks the anniversary of among other occasions of pith and moment as our faithful chronicler informs the choice of favoured to win Oscar contender Marlon Brando chose to boycott the 1973 Academy Awards and in his place sent Native American actor and activist Sacheen Littlefeather in protest of the portrayal of Native Americans in film and television and to raise awareness regarding the standoff at Wounded Knee. Littlefeather gained an appreciation for her heritage after being involved in the occupation of Alcatraz and her speech helped to remove a media blackout imposed on the siege that had begun a month earlier, involving the ouster and impeachment of the Oglala Sioux tribal president on corruption charges. The beleaguered president refused to standdown and had called in the US Marshals and Federal Bureau of Investigations.

bed, bath and beyond

We are quite pleased with the way our interior design came together and one of the more pleasant aspect was visiting showrooms and browsing through catalogues to select faucets and fixtures.
Not looking to redecorate any time soon mind you, we enjoyed quite a bit leafing through this American Radiator and Standard Sanitary Corporation (today the rather sedate Trane Inc., having divested itself of its bathroom division) brochure from 1940 with some fantastic period pastels and palettes to choose from. Much more to explore from Present /&/ Correct at the link above.

super-spreader

Remanded to quarantine for the second and final time (she would remain in isolation for the rest of her life) on this day in 1915, Irish-born cook Mary Mallon (*1869 – †1938)—also known as Typhoid Mary, was the first individual clinically identified as an asymptomatic carrier of a disease.
Persisting working as a domestic for affluent families in New York state (and why wouldn’t she resist calls from authorities to quit her profession if she was in good health herself, albeit precedent-setting), Mallon infected at least fifty-one people with typhoid fever, an ailment caused by exposure to a particularly pernicious strain of Samonella bacteria, at least three of them fatally. Mallon was returned to confinement on North Brother Island, in the East River between the prison Rikers Island and the Bronx mainland, having earned her sobriquet during her first three-year stint and subsequently became a minor celebrity for her stubbornness, unrepentant behaviour (she was retrained as a laundress, considered a safer job, but returned to cooking because the pay was better) and with what was sometimes portrayed as victimhood in the face of public health and medical science—mingled, conflated surely with stereotype and xenophobia. The hospital closed shortly after her death and the island is today a seabird sanctuary.