synchronoptica
one year ago: suggestions for what US president Joe Biden could do with his remaining weeks (with synchronopticรฆ) plus more on vexillology
twelve years ago: a history of coffee bans plus a periodic table of cheese
thirteen years ago: slips and sits plus Bad Neustadt all decked out for the holidays
fourteen years ago: poinsettias plus FACTA coming into force
sixteen years ago: the psychology of secret societies
it cuts up a man’s youth and vigour most horribly: Jane Austen invented the wellness guy
maplewashing: the deceptive practise of making things seem more Canadian than they actually are narrowly beat out “elbows up” for Canadian English Dictionary’s inaugural Word of the Year
antipodes: Rothera Antarctic research station gets a new Royal Mail postbox genai.mil: Pentagon installs a chatbot on all DOD computers—immediately concludes that Hegseth is a war-criminal—via Super Punch
dayton accords: a look back at the peace negotiations to end the war in after the collapse of Yugoslavia three decades on
cut spelng: English orthographer Christopher Upward’s failed proposal for language reform through elimination of redundant letters—see previously, see also
little wars: HG Wells’ contribution to table top role play games
synchronoptica
one year ago: Vince Collins celebrates the US bicentennial (with synchronopticรฆ), Intershop (1962) plus assorted links worth revisiting
thirteen years ago: IKEA instructions for that dapper monkey
sixteen years ago: drug money helped banks weather the Great Recession
Legacy media is such a derisive term for any among the establishment who is outside of the grasp and influence of new arbiters but such laurels still matter, 
and whilst knowing that the honour does not always go to the great and the good but rather to pith and moment and what is most impactful, we are a bit taken aback by TIME magazine’s person of the year (see previously) with an identity parade, a lineup of the usual suspects of billionaires, almost to a person tech bros, recreated of course by AI recreating the iconic photograph 1930 of construction workers of the Empire State Building taking their lunch break on a girder at the hundredth and thirty-fourth floor with no safety gear. Though the publication is owned by Salesforce founder and Oracle executive Marc Benioff, such a high-wire act may deserve a second glance as the vaunted technology does not seem to be delivering (a kind of bad imprint for a glossy cover and perhaps intentionally so), triangulated amongst economic ruin, environmental catastrophe and eschatological crisis and those responsible for it seemingly aloof of their situation and what might come next.
Though each time I picked up on the narrative again, telling myself I don’t have time to listen to a two-and-a-half-hour podcast, I did make it all the way through this dramatic reading of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas from The Allusionist host Helen Zaltzman. 
The novella, divided into five chapters—which Dickens calls staves, reflects and informs the zeitgeist at a time when Victorian England was reevaluating holiday customs and was his fourth attempt at the subject, first a serialisation called “Christmas Festitivies,” then a short story under the title “A Christmas Dinner” that appeared in his illustrated anthology Sketches by Boz and an episode in The Pickwick Papers, “The Story of the Goblins Who Stole a Sexton”—a sacristan, a church superintendent charged with care and maintenance of the building and cemetery grounds, misanthropic but after being ransomed by the creatures undergoes a conversion, similar to Scrooge. Capitalising on its success, Dickens wrote another four holiday themed novels (The Chimes, The Cricket on the Hearth, The Battle of Life and The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain) but none of the franchise as beloved as his 1842 iteration. Familiar adaptations are true to Dickens but I realised I had never listened to original narrative in its entirety, rather excellently delivered (with a few, non-intrusive short asides to gloss antiquated meanings) and really enjoyed the decision to voice the Ghost of Christmas Present aptly as a South Park character. It is a banger of a story and of course you have time to indulge.
Though absent from the traditional pre-ceremony press conference with the prize to accepted on her behalf, awarded in absentia, Nobel peace laureate Marรญa Corina Machado (previously) did make it safely to Oslo thanks to a fraught extraction mission, codenamed with the above for the medallion and Alfred Nobel’s explosive legacy, 
carried out in large part by members of the Grey Bull Rescue Foundation, a group of US military veterans and expatriates that have pulled off hundreds of such operations globally. In hiding for years, the team deemed it was too risky to travel overland for the opposition leader and decided, with only a week to plan and despite the presence of the US navy off the coast and the targeting of supposed drug-trafficking boats entering international waters, to take a sea-route and rendezvous with a larger ship in the Caribbean. Secreted into the United States, a flight originating in Bangor, Maine brought her to the Norwegian capital in time for breakfast with St Lucy.
The latest multi-panel comic of Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal by Zach Weinersmith (previously) shows an alternate version of Pinocchio’s transformation by the Blue Fairy through the lens of AI and the inscrutability of what’s going on under the hood, so to speak. “And now by magic, you shall be a real boy,” the fairy announces, in accordance with his maker’s wish. 
Attaining his final form, the former wooden marionette asks, “What was I before?” “A philosophical zombie—you had the outward manner of a conscience being but no internal conscious experience.” Pinocchio takes exception with that characterisation and the Blue Fairy is compelled to change him back into a stochastic parrot, albeit an immortal one. We too wonder why this “real boy” analogy is not more pervasive in the industry—more from Language Log and SMBC at the link above including a performative demonstration of a decision-tree advertised as showings one’s thought process.
Lexically predisposed to the formation of neologism and portmanteaux, the German Wort des Jahres (see previously) usually selects from terms in coming common parlance that reflect social or cultural phenomena and not necessarily driven by novelty or the reference desk. 
The jury of the Gesellschaft fรผr deutsche Sprache in Wiesbaden has chosen KI-รra (Artificial Intelligence Era) as its representative phrase for 2025. The shortlist of other contenders for the honour are illustrative as well—like Vertiktokung, to use the short format video platform, klimamรผde to describe exhaustion over the existential environmental crisis, Sondervermรถgen for special assets or a shadow budget for projects whose funding bypass parliamentary rules, Wehrdienst-Lotto expressing fear and reservation over the return of mandatory military conscription in the country and two Trumpian inspired entries in Strafzรถlle—punitive tariffs—and “Deal.”
synchronoptica
one year ago: the Raelians (with synchronopticรฆ) plus a photo jacket
thirteen years ago: winter sports, a bounty for tax-avoidance plus the Feast of St Lucy
fourteen years ago: the UN climate summit in Durban plus sweet potato tortillas
fifteen years ago: vuvuzelas
you think hamilton wrote the federalist papers in trebuchet ms: Times New Roman turns rightwing
the night that the loving ended and the killing began: Hitchcock knock-off Crescendo! reviewed in depth
mercatino di natale: Brothers of Italy host a week-long winter wonderland named after the protagonist of The Never Ending Story—see also, see previously
running on empty: peak copper’s coincidence with peak oil and what that means for the renewable transition with or without the matinee darlings of Rare Earths—via Web Curios
castello di sammezzano: the Moorish and Oriental follies of Cesare Mattei and Ferdinando Panciatichi
asahi illusion: from the Japanese for morning sun, the centre of this optical deception is no brighter than the background
ะถััะฝะฐะปัะฝะฐั ััะฑะปะตะฝะฐัa: Journal grotesque and typographical options in the Soviet Union—via Kottke
Via Web Curios, we are directed towards the US National Security Strategy with foreword by Donald Trump that was published in full earlier this week following leaks to international shock not only of its vision—one praised by Moscow as aligned with Putin’s own world-view—that’s little more than an addendum to the Monroe Doctrine, an isolationist policy demanding that Old World colonial powers stay out of the Americas and a posture focused on cultivating the US’s own regional empire, asserting a right to meddle in the politics of Latin America and taking over territories at the same time, like Cuba and the Panama canal, pretty audacious coming from a former colony only independent for a few decades at the time, and parsing the globe into three spheres of influence, a fantasy map of the United States and client possessions spanning from Greenland and Canada, the isthmus and further south with designs on the Falklands, the Indo-Pacific controlled by China and Europe—perhaps under control of Russia, uncontested and with no incursions upon the sovereignty of these domains, but more over repugnant for the unkindess it has for traditional allies and the US abandoning its commitment to uphold values of democracy and freedom, even if in principle only and not always in practise. 
“The days of the United States propping up the entire world order like Atlas are over,” the NSS—the document mandated by congress to be periodically updated to provide a common understanding between the executive and legislative branches in terms of strategic priorities and a point of departure for dialogue and something dusted off and updated every other year to satisfy a requirement but never filled with blame and bombast. It identifies only vague and baiting threats like mass-migration, drug-runners, unfettered trade and globalism, echoing JD Vance’s earlier ill-received lecturing during the Munich Security Conference and warning Europe of “cultural erasure” with seemingly American interest in foreign policy to keep neighbours stable to quell refugee-seekers and immigration (questioning if NATO members whose populations are displaced by individuals with non-NATO heritage could be still considered reliable partners) and cites no concrete peril from Russia or China or North Korea and barely acknowledges its recent belligerence of record with bombing Iranian nuclear facilities or sabre-rattling in the Caribbean. Truly a scary read, this paper is only about thirty double-spaced pages in Times New Roman, written by AI (actually by Lt General Flynn—national security adviser kicked out during Trump’s first term) and at a basic reading level, so won’t take too much investment but is sure to haunt for a very, very long time.
synchronoptica
one year ago: assorted links to enjoy (with synchronopticรฆ) plus Jimmy who? for president
twelve years ago: a list of winter weather words
thirteen years ago: class architecture
fourteen years ago: visa reciprocity plus Clinton urges world leaders not to censor the internet
fifteen years ago: Mesopotamian dreamtime
Via Kottke, we are directed to a gem of a McSweeney’s contribution from Robert Rooney, on par with their perennial offerings, with an imagined dialogue amongst the marketing and development staff of Invicta Games, LTแดฐ on their packaging for Mastermind, a two-player board game for breaking code invented in 1970 by an Israeli postmaster and telecommunications specialist and later refined and released by the UK plastics company after debuting and unsuccessfully shopped at the Nรผrnberg International Toy Fair. The resulting box art since 1973 featured this photograph of a mature man in a suit jacket in the foreground seated with a young woman in the background—the two amateur models, Cecilia Fung and Bill Woodward, reuniting in 2003 to pose for a publicity photo. “Yes. Let the box look like it could pass a doctoral defence and start a coup d’etat at the same time.”
helm of awe: taboos, tattoos and load-bearing iconography
esta: the White House will vet the social media history of tourists from visa-free countries
๐ฏ️: holiday borders and decorative elements from an old Ricatype catalogue
forty winks: sleep habits in the animal kingdom—see previously
association football: Trump suggests changing the America name for the sport from soccer (with adjustments to current franchises) ahead of co-hosting the World Cup with Canada and Mexico
water of the sky: two thousand Japanese words for rain—see previously
synchronoptica
one year ago: assorted links worth revisiting (with synchronopticรฆ) plus parental guidance suggested
thirteen years ago: people in space right now
fourteen years ago: the 2012 US presidential race a year out
The latest from Neal Agarwal (see previously) evokes the chain-reaction of the zero-player Game of Life and is well worth playing on your desktop with the volume up to appreciate the stirring cello score with increasing intensity and tempo as you scale up. 
As one advances, there are interesting facts about the largest examples of the small and the smallest of the big, including long extinct species like the Arthropleura, an invertebrate as big as a tiger that roamed steamy oxygen rich forests during the Carboniferous period three-hundred million years ago and the extant but threatened giant barrel sponge, the Red Wood of the Reefs, that could hold a human and can live for two-thousand years.
Joining Spain, the Netherlands, Slovenia and Ireland, Iceland’s national broadcaster, RรV, has voted to boycott the 2026 Eurovision Song Contest scheduled to be held in Vienna over the decision of the organising committee, the European Broadcasting Union, not to expel Israel for its conduct of the war against Hamas and occupation of Gaza. 
The announcement coinciding with International Human Rights Day, Iceland cites that “give public debate in the country…it is clear that neither joy nor peace will prevail” regarding participation. Members of the EBU voted in a general assembly last week to adopt stricter rules regarding alleged ballot manipulation favouring Israeli contestants during the last Eurovision but fell short of banning them, with the mounting walk-outs casting a pall over what’s supposed to be a feel-good cultural exchange (though it has never been wholly apolitical) with diminishing acts and those remaining seeming like a whitewashing of recent events.
In a cable from earlier in the week, US secretary of state reversed a decision taken during the Biden administration to use the modern, more legible typeface Calibri (also the default setting of the Microsoft Office suite of programmes), 
directing consular staff to resume using Times New Roman, criticising the move of his predecessor as wastefully woke, specifically taking aim at accessibility, saying that this would restore professionalism and decorum (we think that’s a lot to ask of some pixels–see also) to the foreign service, shaped through the typography of serif fonts. The formatting standard moreover aligns with the president’s One Voice for America’s Foreign Relations directive for communiquรฉs, a magisterial order that does not admit for back-channel dialogue and outreach, notwithstanding appreciable readability for those with vision limitations and those whom might not cleave exclusively to Latin lettering.
synchronoptica
one year ago: the Pope declares a jubilee year (with synchronopticรฆ) plus Luigi Mangione apprehended
twelve years ago: meme trading cards
thirteen years ago: apocryphal holiday traditions plus the Fahrenheit and Celsius scales
fifteen years ago: decking the halls
boรฎte aux lettres: a gallery of modernist mailboxes found around France—via Messy Nessy Chic
รกramรณtaskaupiรฐ: two decades of explaining the smells and bells of the holiday season in Iceland
semiquaver: “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” is a fine carol but lacks punctuation—via Miss Cellania
k-id: Australia begins to enforce the world’s first social media ban for under sixteen-year-olds
there is consensus to merge republican makeup into this article: Mar-a-Lago face, a plastic surgery trend among American conservatives has its own Wikipedia entry—via Nag on the Lake
zipf’s law: a collection of nearly universal facets of human language
linus and lucy: A Charlie Brown Christmas premiered on this day in 1965—see previously here and here
intermodal container: the history of compartmentalised freight and how one innovation in transportation can influence another
markets ten-fold of its budget and stars Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal (Matt Damon, Joaquin Phoenix, Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Josh Hartnett, Edward Norton and Ryan Phillippe were among the first choices) with supporting cast of Anne Hathaway and Anna Faris, with the opening set in 1963 Wyoming. Producers rented Airstream trailers for the cast and crew to live on site (filmed primarily in Alberta in the Canadian Rockies, whose wildlife authorities made an exception to allow in domestic sheep with careful controls and limitations to ensure that they didn’t infect wild herds, though the guild defending animal actors took issue with the sheep’ shuttling to location and quarantine, resulting in digitally created flocks) with the atmosphere of a summer camp and the first intimate scene between Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar took thirteen takes before Lee was satisfied with it. Although pleased with the adaptation and screenplay, Proulx has expressed personal, not professional, regret for writing the story since the movie, receiving wide spread criticism from reply-guys who submit fan-fiction and alternative endings—fine for the unsolicited critiques but failing to recognise that the narrative arc is not some kind of choose-your-own adventure scenario.
As our faithful chronicler reminds on this day in 1966, the Star Trek:TOS episode “The Conscience of the King” (S1:E13) was originally aired with the USS Enterprise diverted three light years off course to ostensibly investigate a synthetic food source developed by Captain Kirk’s childhood friend Dr Thomas Leighton on Planet Q as a novel way to remedy dire shortages on Cygnia Minor. Both among the survivors of Kodos the Executioner, former governor of the Earth colony of Tarsus IV—who ordered the execution of half the settlers during a famine to prevent more starvation with the ensuing resistance precipitating an all out massacre, just days before a relief ship arrived—it is revealed that Leighton’s deception was a coded ruse to lure Kirk to confirm or deny his suspicions that an actor of a touring Shakespearian troupe might actually be the revolutionary provincial leader, Kirk and Leighton among the handful of survivors ever to see Kodos in person. Though convinced that Kodos was killed during the uprising, Kirk’s curiosity is piqued and returns to the surface to attend a cocktail hour held at the Leighton estate, hoping to encounter the supposed fugitive and in the meantime courts the actor’s daughter, the suspect not in attendance, excused as her father does not socialise. 
Strolling the desert grounds, they come across the murdered body of Leighton and Kirk contrives to strand the company on the planet. Spock conducts independent research and learns that the other eyewitnesses of the elusive governor have died in mysterious circumstances when in proximity to the acting company. More evidence is gathered and the Enterprise offers to ferry the players to their next venue, whilst the ship’s theatre club is rehearsing Hamlet, which the guest stars join, performing the play-within-the-play. Despite the non-fatal poisoning of another crew member who also survived the killings, tampering with Kirk’s phaser and the actor’s apologies in defence of the actions of the colony’s leader, Kirk remains hesitant to forward his accusations until his daughter reveals that she has been executing witnesses, unbidden, to help her father escape his past and whilst attempting to shoot Kirk, phasers her father, having jumped in the beam’s path, and like Ophelia with the accidental death of Laertes, descends into madness, attended by Dr McCoy. The episode also marked the last appearance of Grace Lee Whitney as yeoman Rand until brought back for the movies in that role, giving a resigned dirty look to Kodos’ daughter knowing it was her last scene, a fellow blonde and herself released so Kirk could pursue other love interests, and this show plus “Day of the Dove” (S3:E11), responding to another distress call that pits the Enterprise a in pitched battle with a Klington Bird of Prey gave Simpson’s producer Matt Groening the characters of Kodos and Kang.
Having encountered some of these brilliant and iconic Depression Era posters sponsored by FDR’s Works Projects Administration, we appreciated learning about the landscape architect and graphic designer behind the strategic and unified tourism campaign to promote US national and state parks, Dorothy Waugh, through an exhibit of seventeen of her placards—particularly at such a fraught time for these preserves, understaffed, subject to revisionist histories, corporate encroachment and surge-pricing. Due to the scope and scale of her work for the Civilian Conservation Corps’ infrastructure projects for the parks system, Waugh went from being the sole artist to hiring and supervising a team of draughtsmen and also produced easy to follow diagrams and designs, most workers unable to interpret blueprints and formal specifications, for the construction picnic areas and campsite conveniences as well as other basic structures. Much more from Print magazine at the link above.
Mental Floss brings us reporting on another imported holiday tradition (same procedure as every year) in the annual ritual on the afternoon of Christmas Day in that liminal time-slot after dinner and before super 
after the excitement of the gifts are baked in with over a third of the households in Sweden sitting down on the sofa to engage in a bit of nostalgia by watching the broadcast of a 1958 made-for-tv Disney anthology clip show called From All of Us to All of You, hosted by Jiminy Cricket, known locally as “Kalle Anka och has vรคnner รถnskar God Jul”—despite Donald Duck being only one character out of a cast of many. First aired on the Sweden channel SVT1 in 1960, it has grown into a yuletide custom more or less without change or commercial interruption for over six decades. The entire programme can be found here.
synchronoptica
one year ago: the Unwort of the Year (with synchronopticรฆ), King William College’s Winter Break quiz plus the narrative murals of a luxurious Roman villa
fourteen years ago: memes of the year
fifteen years ago: carbon chauvinism
sixteen years ago: a visit to Colditz
