thirteenth pharaoh of the eighteenth dynasty (12. 832)

After a pause of more than three year after the discovery of the undisturbed burial chamber, the mummified remains of Tutankhamun were discovered on this day in 1925 by Egyptologist Howard Carter and his team. Over three thousand years after his death, the king is notably the only mummy yet found completely intact and with no sign of tampering and despite the famous find and iconic nature of his gold and lapis lazuli death mask, very little is known about the individual’s circumstances or cause of death, other than a reign of about a decade dedicated to undoing the much the cultural and religious reforms enacted by his predecessor and father Akhenaten and expiring only as a young adult, hence referred to a the boy-king. Laid to rest in a series of nested coffins which we carefully opened to reveal the golden sarcophagus—the headdress crafted to give him the likeness of the god Osiris. Inlaid with faience and precious stones, the back of the mask is inscribed with a chapter from the Book of the Dead, a collection of creation and resurrection texts, spells and incantations used in funerary rituals. Studied forensically for nearly a year, the body was indelicately separated from the gold coffin and reinterred within one of the larger ones and stays in repose in Luxor in the Valley of the Kings. Although contributing much to public awareness of the field of archaeology, Tutankhamun’s treasures and alleged curse—published and propaganda in the following decades, turned out to be more captivating than his mortal remains.

synchronoptica

one year ago: a tarot card inspired garden (with synchronopticæ), more air-based food plus a Trump rally in Manhattan

twelve years ago: the NSA espionage in Germany 

thirteen years ago: a Halloween greeting plus a seasonal recipe

fourteen years ago: China relations plus a gathering of the Common Wealth realms

fifteen years ago: polarised politics plus US government budgetary outlays  

seventeen years ago: proving you are not a robot 

familiar in his mouth as household words (12. 821)

Occurring on this day (the feast of St Crispin’s) in 1415 in the fields in the fields outside of Azincourt in north France, the decisive and surprise English victory, out-numbered by troops of the opposition marked a turning point in the Hundred Years’ War (Guerre de Cent Ans), humiliating France and boosting the morale of England, leading to the latter’s dominance in the protracted conflict over the duchy of Aquitaine and French throne (see previously here and here) for the next fourteen years—until English defeat during the Siege of Orléans. Henry V re-invaded France in the spring of the same year after negotiations with French court fell apart, with the English king asserting his claim to the kingdom of France through his great-grandfather Edward III—arguably the heir through his mother, Isabella, sister of the last Capetian monarch, Charles IV, but French Salic Law excluded matrilineal succession. For the past couple of iterations of this dispute, the English king would relent and back off the claim provided the French acknowledged English dominion over Aquitaine, Calais and other territories. Henry, however, demanded in exchange for renouncing the crown, a generous dowery for his marriage to Charles VI’s daughter, Catherine of Valois, a literal king’s ransom (payment in arrears for the release of John II—Jean le Bon—held as a hostage in London a century before) and in addition to the settled lands, Anjou, Brittany and Normandy as well. Although France was ready to make some concessions to the deal, it proved to be too bad of a bargain, especially since England had little to leverage—other than squandering peace and stability—and a series of pitched battles commenced, stretching out, with periods of interruption due to plague and other factors, for a hundred and sixteen years. Despite the ultimate loss of continental territory and the rejection of a joint monarchy that saw the rejection of all things French and vice versa (English becoming the official language and French no longer used in court and the classroom), the monarchy of England and Great Britain styled themselves sovereigns of France until 1802, the end of the French Revolution.

project west ford (12. 812)

Though we’ve wrote quite a few times on the rather audious joint US Airforce-Massachusetts Institute of Technology mission (see previously here and here) to ensure the continuity of communications in the era before satellites in case of Soviet sabotage on underseas cables by seeding the upper atmosphere with a half a million copper dipoles to create an artificial ionosphere, the natural but unpredictable one being the primary sounding board for international correspondence via shortwave, we think the story bares repeating on the anniversary not of the deployment of the payload of “Westford needles” but rather on date that the first abortive experiment failed in 1961. After the initial set-back, it’s amazing that there was another trial.  Hundreds of thousands of tiny copper pins, thinner than a human hair (scaled to amplify target signals) in orbit would, as the theory went, would form a ring to collective provide passive support to a parabolic transmission dish located on the grounds of MIT’s multidisciplinary observatory. Carried aloft in tandem with the launch of a MiDAS 4 satellite the diodes failed to disperse. A second attempt in May the following year was successful. Though unknown at the time how quickly the needles would deorbit and that the debris field was temporary and diminishingly small, the secret experiment enraged the international community and although the fears of the a catastrophic grounding were unfounded, Project West Ford did prompt an inclusion of a consultation provision in the 1967 Outer Space Treaty.

synchronoptica

one year ago: airport geolocation codes and shared abbreviations (with synchronopticæ) plus Musk selling votes

thirteen years ago: a visit to Sigmaringen

fourteen years ago: Eurozone crisis talks plus more on digital rights management

sixteen years ago: diploma mills 

seventeen years ago: nostalgia and intellectual property 

 

the holtermann nugget (12. 808)

Unlike another individual who immigrated to avoid the draft with a mild, tangental case of the gold bug, leaving his native Hamburg some fourteen years prior, Bernhardt Otto Holtermann, who thrived in his adopted homeland of New South Wales and left a positive legacy, on this day in 1872, as an independent prospector under contract with the Star of Hope Mining company, discovered the eponymous gold specimen, a contiguous vein of the precious encased in quartz, the largest ever unearthed, the find weighed ninety-three kilograms, over three-thousand troy-ounces. Already wealthy from successful ventures in mining and sound investments (a shareholder in a residential hotel) and with a controlling interest in the corporation, Holtermann attempted to purchase his discovery for over the going value but was rebuffed by the company, only to have the nugget smelted for bullion—who disheartened prompted Holtermann to change careers and become a philanthropist and pursue his hobbies. Taking up residence in Sydney and building a mansion with a high turret for taking panoramic photos of the harbour, he followed his passion for photography and helped finance campaign directed at potential migrants (for needed labour and hoping to pass on the entrepreneurship that helped him) with his series of panorama images of the city and environs and became alderman for his ward, residing the second city for the remainder of his days.

crypt of civilisation (12. 803)

With the suggestion of the belief in reincarnation over hundreds of generations following the Platonic theory of metempsychosis with rebirth coming in thousand year cycles and setting the unsealing date six millennia in the future, calculated to be the difference from the height of Egyptian culture until the present, courtesy of Strange Company, we learn that the hermetically preserved installation (entombed in an unused swimming pool on campus)—inspired by the same contemporary craze of Tutmania (see previously here, here and here) and the notable dearth of information that the Ancients left for the Moderns—organised by history professor Thornwell Jacobs of Oglethorpe University in the American state of Georgia gave us the coinage time-capsule. Finally shunted away in 1935 after five years of careful, considered archiving and curation, the collection includes over eight hundred books, The Iliad, the Bible, a manuscript of Gone with the Wind among others, a seed vault, contemporary scientific instruments, cultural artefacts like Lincoln Logs, dental floss, fashions, an electric toaster, a radio—a windmill is also supplied to provide electricity to the appliances and equipment—as well as vocal recordings from Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini and FDR with a hand-cranked device called the mutoscope for playback and teaching the eighty-second century openers of the crypt the English language. Designated to be unsealed in the year 8113 CE at noon US Eastern Time on Thursday 28 May, with the assumption being human beings (see also) are conducting the ceremony and a request that they respect and adopt this legacy for future generations.

for jointly having negotiated a cease fire in vietnam in 1973 (12. 800)

Co-laureates announced on this day of the same year, the Norwegian Nobel Committee controversially decided to award the prize, following the Paris Peace Accords, to the delegates of the United States of America and North Vietnam, Henry Kissinger and Lê Đức Thọ respectively. The treaty negotiated and signed without the input or endorsement of the senate or the government of South Vietnam, having been derailed several times over the demands that all prisoners of war be released, American intervention in the war was ended and troops withdrawn (see previously) leading to an almost immediate resumption of the conflict. Thọ outright refused the questionable honour and Kissinger accepted it only in absentia, fearing the optics of protesters at the ceremony. Kissinger subsequently tried to return the award but the Nobel committee did not want it back. Consideration given to forty-four other nominees that year, deliberations included author Pearl S Buck for work in humanitarian projects and championing racially mixed children, Indira Gandhi, the Hague, Spurgeon Milton Keeny for work in family planning and reproductive choice and Luis Kutner for advocating for a universal law of habeas corpus to counter arbitrary imprisonment and exile, Josip Broz Tito, Universala Esperanto-Asocio and sponsored by several members of congress Richard Milhous Nixon for accomplishments promoting lasting world peace. Further criticism includes recipients Jimmy Carter, the European Union, Shimon Peres with Yasser Arafat and Barack Obama, whose, in the minds of some, electoral award pressed Donald Trump to the to pursue the same circuit of honours. 

synchronoptica 

one year ago: Rocky & Bullwinkel and the Cuba Missile Crisis (with synchronopticæ) plus assorted links worth the revisit

sixteen years ago: home-heating units 

oblique strategies (12. 795)

Though I am reluctant to add many executive toys to my physical desktop, I do catch myself staring off quite a bit in moments of tension or feeling overwhelmed at a collection of juggling practise bean bags, a memory match game wherein one tries to pair dogs with their owners (I think the idea is supposed to be pretty open ended and there are no wrong choices) to jar or dislodge or alleviate something, and so very much appreciated this new deck of cards to put in one’s rolodex to seek out a positive reframing rather and “avoid falling into the slipstream of prevailing trends” and performative expectations. Ambagious Tactics contain an aphorism or question to ponder on each cue-card, a prompt to cleanse the palette, following the format of the above worthwhile dilemmas co-created by Brian Eno (most famously used during the recording sessions of David Bowie’s Berlin trilogy) and Peter Schmidt in 1975 to encourage lateral thinking and help creatives—or anyone—break through an impasse. Only ever released in limited runs, physical copies of Strategies are hard to come by but are available on-line to shuffle through for suggestions—this cartomancy (see previously here, here and here) carefully crafted to be trusted even if the appropriateness is unclear, and with signicant cultural impact, many books, songs and film make oblique reference to the cards, including the bit of advice, “Withdrawing in disgust is not the same thing as apathy,” a lyric in REM’s What’s the Frequency, Kenneth? Other suggestions run along the lines: Emphasis repetition; Try faking it; Restate the problem as clearly as possible; What would your closest friend do? More to explore from { feuilleton } at the link above and perhaps the inspiration to make one’s own set for yourself or as a gift.

the garden of forking paths (12. 791)

Via the always engrossing Quantum of Sollazzo newsletter, we were at first a bit repelled by this project by Sean Goedecke to build a never-ending Wikipedia, tens of thousands of articles generated by AI—not really understanding what was happening under the hood. The constellation of seed entries of course branch off like a neural network, be that organic or synthetic and contain links, a potential daisy-chain to topics adjacent, like the typical experience of falling down a research rabbithole, except there are no red ones to click on. If the article does not yet exist, it is summoned into being with the user’s interaction and the freshly generated page has its own set of potential connections. Though no replacement for the genuine encyclopaedic project, it does make the paracosm of the large language model a bit more scrutable—like how getting to Philosophy and related challenges illustrate its architecture as well as the nature of interdisciplinary studies. Goedecke, with ample caution for the visitor, compares EndlessWiki to the Library of Babel of Jorges Luis Borges, a pocket universe of stacks holding every permutation of book possible, which by the laws of probability contains a lot of gibberish but also every title ever written and that might be written. Some new languages could also be proposed to make sense of the seemingly random texts—however, despite the search for meaning, the librarians remain functionally ignorant and cultist behaviour and superstition arises that confound and frustrate the infinite task of curation and of culling.

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth the revisit (with synchronopticæ) 

fifteen years ago: a secret Cold War West German bank bunker 

heavy petting (12. 785)

Despite (or because of) its ban by the BBC and refusal to air the chanson on the radio or on Top of the Pops for its overtly sexual content, the song whose title translates to “I love you … me neither”—originally composed by Gainsbourg for Brigitte Bardot in 1967—the Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin duet rose to number one on the UK and Irish charts on this day in 1969, the first foreign language one to do so. Prolific and iconic songwriter Gainsbourg (previously) was ordered after a particularly bad date by his then-girlfriend Bardot (see also) to write the ultimate love song as penance—which the two later recorded in a studio together. After the session Bardot begged Gainsbourg to never release it—he complied but was upset that his singular attempt at writing a love song would go unheard. Breaking up with Bardot the next year, Gainsbourg’s on-screen tryst with English actress Birkin during the filming of the romantic comedy Slogan turned into a real-life affair—at first for the sake of the project—with Gainsbourg latter seducing her with the private recording made with his ex. For admittedly selfish reasons, motivated by the fact she wanted no one else to record it, Birkin agreed to perform the track. The title «Je t'aime... moi non plus» was inspired by a quotation of Salvador Dalí that “Picasso is Spanish, me too. Picasso is a genius, me too. Picasso is a communist, me neither.” Despite Birkin’s lasting imprint (Gainsbourg directed her in an erotic film of the same name in 1976), it was revealed later that Gainsbourg also approached Marianne Faithfull to do the duet and by 1986, Bardot had reconsidered her position and persuaded Gainbourg to release their original recording. An instrumental version was played during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Paris Paralympics.

*    *    *    *    *

synchronoptica

one year ago: Texas Chainsaw Massacre (with synchronopticæ) plus a last day on the Havel

sixteen years ago: an awful trollish post on Obama winning the Nobel Peace prize that we’re ashamed we made and feel very differently now

seventeen years ago: fleeing interconnections to a new Dark Age 

t-dollar (12. 757)

Representative from Maryland elevated to cabinet secretary of the interior and then commerce secretary during the Nixon and Ford administrations, Rogers Clark Ballard (C B, “Chesapeake Bay,” congressman with a strong pro-environmental record—see also) Morton speaking with the National Press Club on this day in 1975 announced that a new metric was to be used in future releases regarding the economy and federal spending, citing the inexperience and incomprehension of the average American consumer and tax-payer for such astronomical appropriations. The statistic of $14.06 (about $85 presently adjusted for inflation) was derived by dividing one billion by the then seventy-one million households in the United States to make government expenditures more relatable in household economic terms. Unlike the pledge for journalist covering the Department of War, this convention was never enforced and quickly forgotten. 

 synchronoptica

one year ago: JFK’s Sword of Damocles speech to the UN (with synchronopticæ), aggressive cuteness plus Those Were the Days

twelve years ago: a visit to Bad Soden 

thirteen years ago: the US Library of Congress 

fifteen years ago: cyber warfare 

public law 80-253 (12. 739)

Statue at large enacted at the the end of July of the same year, the US National Security Act took effect on this day in 1947 after the senate confirmed the nomination of James Forrestal as the first secretary of defence (transitioning from his role as the last cabinet-level appointee as secretary of the navy) and was a significant restructuring of the government’s armed forces, merging the army, naval commands (granting autocephaly to the marine corps) and the then newly established air force formerly under the aegis of the Department of War. The result of efforts of president Harry S Truman during the waning days of WWII in the European Theatre, the legislature for reform and reorganisation to ensure better communication and cooperation was taken up by congress in the aftermath of the surprise attack on Pearl Harbour with army and navy commanders at odds on how to best respond to warnings of an imminent ambush on the Hawaiian outpost, the culmination of failed joint operations and internecine turf battles during ground operations which ignored air power. Budgetary constraints and the customary relinquishing of executive powers during times of relative peace also influenced its passage, though resistance to change was notable. Through numerous rounds of debate, compromise created a council of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, creations of agencies for overall logistics, contracting, training and educational support as well as the Central Intelligence Agency. The act was signed into law by Truman whilst in transit aboard a custom Douglas C-45 Skymaster, call-sign Sacred Cow and the first aircraft designated as Air Force One, during a visit to see his ailing mother in Grandview Missouri. Promised cost savings evaporated almost immediately due to the start of the Cold War with Soviet advances in nuclear weapons and the crisis on the Korean peninsula. Revertion to the old name took place with a minimal amount of reflection or consultation.

la casa azul (12. 736)

Renowned artist Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón, known for her numerous works of self-portraiture (Autorretrato) and murals executed in a naïve folk style with an element of magical realism that examined topics of class, race, gender, identity, post-colonialism and her personal experience with chronic pain, having recovered from a disabling case of polio as a child and, aged eighteen was a promising and gifted student headed to medical school was on this day in 1925 in Mexico City was nearly killed in a serious accident when the bus she was a passenger in collided violently with a streetcar. Sustaining numerous injuries, including a fractured spinal column—never fully recovering her mobility—for the next two years Kahlo (see previously here and here) was confined to her bed whilst her body healed. During this long convalescence, she returned to her childhood aspirations, also prompted by an extended period of recuperation and resignation, of becoming a painter. Kahlo’s parents provide an easel and supplies arranged where she could work reclined and mounted a mirror on the ceiling so she could study herself bedridden and produced among many other painting the pictured aristocratic self-portrait in a velvet dress. The mannerist piece was later considered Kahlo’s seminal project and first professional painting, and was gifted to her boyfriend at the time, during a fractious time in their short relationship, which aided in a brief reconciliation, though he moved away to Europe while Kahlo remained in Mexico, toughening up her self-image and rejecting the expectations of the male-gaze.

mare de déu de meritxell (12. 708)

Venerated on this day—which is also the national day of the Pyrenees condominium of Andorra—patron and protector Our Lady of Meritxell was originally a twelfth century Romanesque statue, canonically crowned, a pious institutional act by the pontiff that adds an ornamental tiara or halo to a devotional icon, by Pope Benedict XV in 1921. According to legend, it was found by villagers on their way to mass beneath a wild rose bush blooming out of season and placed in the church. The statute depicting a Marian apparition (see also), however, reappeared under the rose bush again the next day. After a few iterations of disappearing and reappearing, the villagers understood the sign to construct a new chapel in Meritxell—from the Latin meridiem, denoting a sunny pasture, the sanctuary was built on a spot miraculously clear of snow. Tragically the chapel during down also on this day in 1972 with the original statue also lost. A modern replica was created and is housed in the rebuilt basilica by Barcelonan artist and architect Ricardo Bofill Leví in 1976.

synchronoptica

one year ago: incantations of Legal Latin (with synchronopticæ), the founding of the Kievan Rus’, more diplomatics, America Beauty (1999) plus another summer compilation from DJ Earworm

twelve years ago: redefining the kilogramme plus the Bavarian separatist movement

thirteen years ago: illustrating the eurozone crisis 

fourteen years ago: contextual translations 

fifteen years ago: quantitative easing plus privacy concerns with Google Streetview 

primary residence (12. 706)

Planning for a permanent US vice-presidential residence beginning in 1966 under the Johnson administration in order to economise on security detail and upgrades to private residences, as had been done in the past, construction was halted on a new building on the campus of the Naval Observatory in Washington, DC within a month due to the general recession, hoping to commence he project once conditions improved and the conflict in Vietnam had ended. The Government Accounting Office had selected the location in 1974, in the interim retrofitting the private homes of vice-presidents at rather great expense—but with a succession of quick turn overs, Spiro Agnew only living in his re-modeled house for three months prior to his resignation and flipping the property for a great profit at the tax-payer expense and igniting a minor scandal, overshadowed since by the Watergate controversy. Congress moved quickly to appropriate (Public Law 93-346) an existing secured, government building, built originally for the superintendent of the observatory in 1893 in Queen Anne style but so admired by the chief of naval operations it was commandeered by the admiral and remained so until this day in 1975, when the address was dedicated as the temporary official residence of the vice-president of the United States of America—fifty years on, it is still designated as so and unlikely ever to return to the admiralty though the navy is responsible for upkeep and repairs. The first occupants were Nelson and Happy Rockefeller, though already having a larger home in DC, only used the house for entertaining and state functions. Upon the inauguration of Jimmy Carter in January 1977, Walter and Joan Mondale (pictured) became the first second couple to move in.

9x9 (12. 704)

the free encyclopaedia: why Wikipedia works—see more 

steeple with tyneham: 1970 reportage on the ghost village taken over by the Ministry of Defence in 1943 as a firing range  

john deere: venerable American agricultural equipment manufacturer struggling with tariff chaos, decreased demand for US crops  

primary residence: investigators find several Trump cabinet officials guilty of the same mortgage fraud leveraged against his enemies—see previously   

the fyurry byerds of the night: Ze Frank (previously) on bats  

fifty basis points: the US Fed signals it will cut interest rates due to successive poor jobs reports 

homeland security: Seoul sends diplomats to a Hyundai, LG factory in Georgia after immigration raids which saw the arrest of nearly five hundred workers, ICE dismissing claims that such actions deter foreign investments   

città dei balocchi: the abandoned Las Vegas of Italy  

gptzero: Wikipedia style guide that outs AI agents

synchronoptica

one year ago: a electromechanical rotor cipher (with synchronopticæ), the ugly, car-centric focus of American urban planning plus assorted links worth revisiting

twelve years ago: mapping US/Soviet bases in divided Germany, proposals for a permanent venue for the Olympics plus an act of bioterrorism by sabotaging harvests

thirteen years ago: some castles of Berlin-Brandenburg, visions of the Apocalypse plus honest book covers

fourteen years ago: the EU economy and the single currency plus facial-recognition and dragnet surveillance 

goodbye england’s rose (12. 702)

With two thousand invited guests in attendance in Westminster Abbey, the route through London lined with over a million and two-and-a-half-billion viewers worldwide, the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales (previously), took place on this day in 1997—although not an official funeral but rather a royal ceremony, organisers relied on the plans, rehearsed for the previous two decades, codenamed Operation Tay Bridge (see also) for the Queen Mother, and was accorded the pageantry and liturgy usually reserved for the royal family. The dean of the cathedral had personally appealed to senior palace aides to secure Elton John’s performance at the service—to include something modern. Diana and John were last together only a few weeks prior, attending the funeral of mutual friend Gianni Versace in Milan, and immediately upon learning of the princess’ death, John reached out to lyricist Bernie Taupin to rework his 1973 tribute to Marilyn Monroe to honour Diana. A quarter of a century later to the day in 2022, Queen Elizabeth the second held an audience with outgoing and incoming prime ministers, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss respectively, at her residence in Balmoral as her last official acts before her death.

parts of speech (12. 699)

Mad-lib style, we discover, via Web Curios, this search engine that combines random adjectives and nouns and delivers a side-by-side comparison of what Wikipedia and one of the front-page browsers (Bing, Google, Duck-Duck-Go with varying degrees of AI) turn up with potential rabbitholes for every query, the former invariably telling you that the articles does not exist—whilst inviting you to make one—but not making presumptions about what you meant, just offering articles containing those keywords, making for a rather delightful non-sequitur medley to explore, whereas the latter confidently serves up what it thinks you meant, no more googlewhacks or 404 errors, or invents an enticing, seemingly relevant, overlay—probably not worthy of further exploration as impromptu catch-penny clickbait—see previously here and here, but the parallel frames make an intriguing juxtaposition.

all the way alive (12. 698)

On this day in 1975, Manson Family cult member Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme (previously) attempted to assassinate US president Gerald Ford (see previously) in Sacramento on the grounds of the California state capitol to set an example for those refusing to stop environmental pollution and its effects on Air, Trees, Water and Animals (ATWA, also the acronym above—the ecological belief system expounded by Charles Manson and his followers) as the interrelated life-support network of the Earth with attendant acts of civil disobedience and eco-terrorism. The then new Democratic governor Jerry Brown had refused an invitation to address an annual gathering of wealthy business leaders of the state. Members of the politically powerful group called “Host Breakfast,” upset with the shun wanted to teach the recently elected Brown, considered to be an obstacle to industry with a host of regulations and taxes that were unpopular with the lobby, a lesson for his “dilatory response” and had instead invited Ford, a Republican and ally, to deliver the opening speech—which Ford accepted as a chance to appeal to more local voters in the upcoming election and retain office. Preceding his arrival, Ford had asked congress to relax certain provision of the Clean Air act of 1963 and pressure California to roll-back some of its automobile emissions standards, already garnering threats from environmental activists. Feeling personally responsible for the fate of California’s giant redwoods, in danger from smog and urban sprawl, Fromme resolved ambush Ford (studying the agenda of his visit) and demand that respect be paid to nature. Making her way through the crowd, Fromme raised her pistol but the weapon failed to discharge and was immediately apprehended by the Secret Service. A few months following Fromme’s trial and sentencing, director George Lucas was prompted to change the name of his protagonist mid-production from Luke Starkiller for unpleasant connotations and a perceived connection to the Manson Family. After thirty-four years in prison and two years after Ford’s death, Fromme was released on probation in 2009. The malfunctioning gun was donated to the presidential library in Grand Rapids, Michigan and is on display there.

synchronoptica

one year ago: America begins its bicentennial celebrations (with synchronopticæ), coordination problems plus Trump announces the Department of Government Efficiency 

twelve years ago: German license plate naming conventions 

thirteen years ago: some castles of Hessen plus open all hours

fourteen years ago: a visit to Rohr 

seventeen years ago: TGIF 

from the shallows of wikipedia (12. 687)

Via Super Punch, we learn that the honest-to-goodness academic term for the kink that can sometimes occur in both naturally-occurring and manufactured helix-based structures, like in knotty Christmas lights or the twisting of a telephone handset cord, is tendril perversion—which the article’s header helpfully disambiguates from Japanese tentacle based erotica (don’t get them confused). Already established as the accepted turn of phrase by the time of Charles Darwin and contemporary botanists, the phenomena was noted as the invariable twist in the spiral of a growing vine or sprouting seedling, and was formalised as a way to describe the elastic geometry of breaking symmetry and chirality.

the king in the carpark (12. 672)

After exhumation and reinterment with honours befitting, the mortal remains of Richard III, the last English monarch killed in combat—on 22 August 1485 during the Battle of Bosworth Field, the final skirmish of the Wars of the Roses—and the last Yorkish ruler of the Plantagenet dynasty, discovered (see also) on this day in 2012 beneath a parking garage on the site of the former Greyfriars friary in Leicester, were confirmed following an extensive and exhaustive scientific battery of tests that built solid consensus over the identity of the skeleton. The original tomb in the care of a Franciscan brotherhood lost with the Dissolution of the Monasteries and subsequent subdivisions of land and modern development, and triangulating historical records, forensic archaeology (the remains showed evidence of severe scoliosis and a deadly blunt wound to the back of the skull as well as other posthumous “humiliation injuries” consistent with the king’s disposition), radio-carbon dating as well as mitochondrial DNA lineages of descendants. Excavation and studies were granted on condition that if Richard was found, his remains were to stay in Leicester, the infamous king given a place in the cathedral. A legal controversy followed this condition with counter-claimants proposing alternate sites proposed deemed more in keeping with tradition, like Westminster Abbey or York Minster, though the courts eventually, after much consideration, recused themselves—judging they had no say in public matters having had exercised their due diligence, absent a last will and testament. Reburial ceremonies took place during the last week of March 2015 with a requiem mass and a prayer for all souls fallen in battle and distant relative Benedict Cumberbatch read a poem for the service with special Latin missals composed for the occasion.