gestion des déchets (13. 642)

Having always snickered a bit at the French signage for a waste bin, I recently disabused of my bemusement upon discovering the etymology having nothing to do with poo but rather the namesake of compulsory use of garbage containers, lawyer and diplomat Eugène-René Poubelle—a proposal considered so innovative for late-nineteenth century Paris that his surname is synonymous with the term for trash cans. In 1884, Poubelle decreed as the city’s préfet, essentially holding the authority of the mayorship, that landlords must provide tenants with three covered containers for household refuse to be sorted into classes of compostable and recyclable refuse—encouraged to call them Boîtes Poubelle by the newspaper Le Figaro, meeting stiff resistance by building owners for their cost and upkeep (plumping and drainage was also championed) and regarded by chiffonniers (traditional rag-and-bone men) as a threat to their profession. Likewise, we were surprised to learn, the English, American word for a movable waste container (skips or scows being more common outside of North America), designed to be brought and taken away by specially designed garbage truck lifts originated as sort of a portmanteau for the Dempster Dumpmaster, the company run by three brothers, George Roby, Thomas and John, in Knoxville Tennessee who patented and standardised a system (see also) of bulk trash removals in the mid-1930s with their dumpster model. George Roby Dempster was also a city manager, philanthropist and politician, initially motivated to support the demolition and construction wing of the family business.

9x9 (13. 633)

scrubbed launch: SpaceX has lost over a trillion dollars since its initial public offering on 12 June  

off-sides: the extensive rules and regulations governing tournaments in the Middle Ages—via Strange Company  

outside the far side: a short biography of comic creator Gary Larson—see previously 

two birds, one stone: alkaline thermal treatment of plastic waste produces high purity hydrogen as a fuel source 

memento: how memories and stored in the brain and how retrieval alters them  

street view: gorgeous photologs of San Diego in the 1970s plus more about this municipal mapping method  

the king’s great fortune: a fairy tale written in classic style with contemporary resonance 

from the chinagate hoax department: documents Trump ordered declassified to demonstrate meddling from Beijing cost him the 2020 presidential race show instead that Moscow was championing his re-election  

vikram-1: India’s first private rocket reaches low Earth orbit and deploys a satellite

i’m like a minus, she’s like a plus (13. 161)

With the music video inspired by the scene from Anchors Aweigh when Gene Kelly dances with the cartoon mouse from Tom and Jerry, the lead single, “Opposites Attract,” from the debut album of Paula Abdul, Forever Your Girl, rose to number one and number two on the US and UK charts respectively on this day in 1990. The rotoscoped, animated feline character (a collaboration of both Disney and Warner Brothers studios) was voiced by the duo the Wild Pair with an addition rap bridge performed by Derrick “Delite” Stevens would go on to win that year’s MTV Music Award for Breakthrough Video and garnered a Grammy in 1991. MC Skat Kat and the Stray Mob went on briefly with a musical career, featuring Abdul in another video, “Skat Strut” and were spokespeople (along with Melba Moore, Ozzy Osbourne, Bette Midler, et al) for a recycling campaign, “Yakety Yak - Take it Back!”

*    *    *    *    *

synchronoptica

one year ago: a latter day prophet of peace (with synchronopticæ), assorted links worth revisiting plus The Ugly American

twelve years ago: Swiss vote on immigration policy 

thirteen years ago: pharmaceutical vocabulary plus more on Germany’s renewable revolution

fourteen years ago: splintered support for EU IP bill 

fifteen years ago: stock market mergers 

sixteen years ago: elections in Ukraine 

seventeen years ago: stimulants and sedatives 

8x8 (13. 069)

leturfræði: an exploration of the graphic design heritage of Iceland through its greatest, recently departed historian  

shoyu-tai: a fibre-based soy sauce single-serve container as an alternative to disposable plastic droppers  

unfcc: Trump administration announces withdrawal from dozens of United Nations chartered organisations, saying their mission does not align with the US agenda  

i’m t?w?e?n?t?y?-f?i?v?e?: artist records one word per day for a reflection on the passage of time 

amour-propre: Chinese buzzword of the year 爱你牢记 (ai ni laoji, love yourself, my dear)—see previously 

hemlock: Texas university has forbidden a professor from teaching a course on Plato  

anodyne: a Singapore based technology company invents biodegradable, paper batteries that rely on no rare earths  

gobelins: the famed French school of animation has a YouTube channel that features student films

8x8 (12. 813)

vampira: the obscure made-for-television title by George Moorse with a atmospheric score by Tangerine Dream 

concrete progress: a demonstration project for turning the rubble of war torn Ukraine into cement 

overton window: a measured approach to AI—via Kottke—see also  

spoiler-alert: William Castle’s Homicidal, a hammy, gimmicky film capitalising on the success of Psycho, gets reviewed by Poseidon’s Underworld

 
atira asteroids: a constellation of interior-Earth objects in our orbit and hidden by solar glare are uncomfortably close—via Damn Interesting 

it’s awfully strange to make a decision where i’m paying myself—but i was damaged very great and any money i would get i would give to charity: Grifter-in-Chief demands two-hundred and thirty million dollars in restitution from the US department of justice for past convictions  

billionaires’ row: a supertall residential tower on Manhattan’s Park Avenue is riddled with stress-fractures that may lead to its condemnation

the vampyre: Lord Byron’s unremembered manservant who invented the modern form of the genre—via Miss Cellania

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links to revisit (with synchronopticæ) plus the Berlin Crisis of 1961

fourteen years ago: exploring the past with the Retronaut

11x11 (12. 697)

99% invisible: Roman Mars takes listener and staff questions for a fifteenth anniversary special 

fire and ice: immigration raids in the US hinder fighting forest fires   

expert build: modelling Kowloon Walled City in Minecraft—see previously  

petri dish: rather than going viral, the latest Tik-Tok accelerated coffee trend is very much bacterial and potentially sickening 

not with a bang but with bad branding: democracy loosing the attention wars to autocracy  

vynález zkázy: the fantastic posters of Karel Zeman’s films 

when the snow leaves town: photographic dispatches from a thawing Greenland 

health and human services: as distrust in US public health authorities grow—prompting some states to conduct their own research— RFK Jr testifies before the senate  

excited state: the thermodynamics of Mine Sweeper—see also  

ccc: after Trump failed to dismantle the nature conservancy volunteer agency fully, legislation is introduced to rebrand AmeriCorps into America First Corps, shifting focus away from disaster response and stewardship of public lands 

 retuna: a second-hand only Swedish shopping experience

200 (12. 080)

Though without the nudity and slightly brain-melting morphing of characters of the animator’s best known short in 1982’s Malice in Wonderland, we appreciated being able to attribute the style to director Vince Collins (still actively creating) through this tribute to the United States’ then upcoming bicentenary (see previously)—commission by USIA—with a psychedelic review of its history through iconic symbols of Americana (caution flashing images). Maybe there will be a follow up for 2026.

*    *   *   *   *

 synchronoptica

one year ago: Hyperalleric’s Year in Memes (with synchronoptica)

seven years ago: cartoon characters with alcohol problems, alternate Nativity plus Volta’s battery

eight years ago: more Trump appointees, assorted links to revisit, a sad Christmas tree for Rome plus Wonder Woman dropped as a UN goodwill ambassador

nine year ago: Fermat’s last theorem plus more links to enjoy

eleven years ago: double-meaning in genetic code, an alcohol periodic table plus bad signing

9x9 (11. 807)

city corridor: Metropolitan Museum of Art to exhibit the built and unbuilt visions of architect Paul Rudolph—see previously  

move over miss marple: German television mystery series imagines what the former Chancellor is doing with her retirement 

batteries not included: peruse the complete catalogues of Radio Shack produced over its six decades of business—plus this theme song 

mizzenmast: experimental solar sail prepares for its first voyage—see previously 

a copy of a copy: AI’s synthetic data is its downfall—via Damn Interesting’s Curated Links  

marshmallow test: the heuristic for delayed gratification and executive functions is fraught with bias and harmful assumptions—via Hyperallergic  

preowned platform: IKEA launches a second-hand marketplace to become a circular company within the decade—via Nag on the Lake  

substantially worse than random chance: seemingly counterintuitive probability puzzles are perplexing social media—see previously  

cerceri d’invenzione: the aesthetic and romance of imagining ruins of foregone civilisations

generally meant to be discarded (11. 385)

Via Colossal, we are introduced to the work of ceramicist Yoonmi Nam in her exhibit featuring pottery and architectural elements made on a substrate of single-use, disposable containers. Displayed on traditional soban (소반, used as dining trays and general purpose tables) as pediments—Nam employs the green-grey hued glaze, which reminds us of Frankoma ware and also of the craft of kintsugi, both dating from the era of the Goryeo kingdom that once covered most of the peninsula. It is an interesting meditation on the nature of trash and consumption, encased forever as something beautiful and permanent.  Much more at the links above.

synchronoptica

one year ago: Campbell’s cocktails plus the Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den

two years ago: assorted links to revisit plus the Peace of Stolbovo (1617)

three years ago: The Lady’s Mercury (1619), artist Carel Fabritius, most quoted and remixed works in the Anglophone literary canon, Walter Cronkite’s Report from Vietnam (1968), reanimating old photos plus the Conservative Political Action Conference

four years ago: more links to enjoy plus birthright citizenship in the US in jeopardy

five years ago: the Reichstag Fire (1933), the art of Alex Moy plus synthetic DNA

11x11 (11. 259)

cheesemongering: a specialist seller experiments with fifty-six varieties to find the perfect grilled sandwich 

vector portraits: photographs of drivers at speed traveling in Los Angeles  

decision 2024: this is the biggest year yet—and possibly democracy’s biggest test with over half the world’s population voting within the next twelve months  

run, rabbit, run: an AI-powered gadget designed to use one’s apps for one sells out 

electronics gives us a way of classifying things: Microsoft (now the most valued company in the world thanks to its part in AI, a font of misinformation) once explained to author Terry Pratchett how technology referees would make propaganda a thing of the past  

squaring the circle: Substackers against Nazis—reloaded—and a reminder that one can’t be just a little bit facist  

re-migration: a coalition of the far-right met outside of Berlin in November to discuss mass deportations  

blanket immunity: Trump’s legal team presents arguments for a president above the law—setting up the US Supreme Court to either rule on his exoneration or eligibility  

proxima swarm: US space agency supports bold proposal to reach the next nearest star system with a wall of tiny craft propelled by photons—see previously 

flower taxi: a mobile florist from 1960s London  

marie harel: producers of Camembert in Normandy fear EU recycling regulation could mean the end for their traditional wooden box packaging

church key (10. 862)

From the shifting onus of mass-delivered single-use that incentivised disposing of one’s beverage container properly to the technological innovations that allowed beer from a can to be palatable and not compromised in the filling and distribution process while being easily and readily accessible, to follow-on safety concerns about the opening mechanism and wide-spread pull-tabs, which led to engineering that we are familiar with today, we are directed towards the design history of the aluminium can. Learn more from Tedium at the link above—with plenty of top-popping detail.

exposome (10. 658)

We learn via the New Shelton wet/dry that the field of exposomics was coined in 2005 to describe the aetiology of chronic disease and cancers due to environmental factors and has since been expanded as a heuristic approach to gauging exposure to pollutants and how toxins are metabolised and change in the body once incorporated. Taken rather dismissively like the statistic that we swallow a fair share of spiders annually, the idea that we ingest a credit card per week of microplastics ought to be a cause for alarm and what’s inert and what’s potentially reactive and enduring is a big unknown for public health and well-being as we continue to trash our planet.

poly s tyrene (10. 631)

Artist and beachcomber Duke Riley has turned the trash he has gathered washed up on the shore into art in various forms including a selection of oceanic plastic transformed into scrimshaw recalling its original motifs, portraying those whom profit off of our collective addiction to single-use and out-of-sight conundrums just like the ships’ captains and corporations, addressing both past and present injustices and criminal exploitation of the environment and the inured consumer.

cross-cut (10. 620)

Introduced with the invention of the process of paper recycling, pulping (plus the discussion of the printed page as the medium of record) in an exchange between Matthias Koops and King George III, Tedium presents an interesting historical survey of the development of paper shredding, destroying that record of information, promoting privacy and salvaging the base medium, the mechanism first patented in 1910 by Abbot Augustus Low, a serial tinkerer and possibly by modern reckoning “patent troll” now forgotten but contemporarily only surpassed Thomas Edison. The shredding strips, called fantastically paper excelsior, and how they were created were subject to a series of lawsuits beginning in the 1930s with the publisher of anti-Nazi material, Adolf Ehinger, adapting a pasta maker to destroy errant copies of his pamphlets with competitors suppressing the innovative process with legal wrangling and countersuits. While Ehinger may not have been the paper shredders first and only inventor, he was the first to recognise its practical use in the Information Age and informed (see also) the industry as it exists today. Much more at Tedium at the link above.

8x8 (10. 565)

scoby: manufacturing electronics out of a kombucha culture  

ngc 1433: more incredible infrared imaging of neighbouring galaxies from JWST  

meanwhile back at the manse: documenting changing American architectural aesthetics in Barbie’s Dream Home  

recalculating: Karen Jacobsen—the original GPS voice multi-modal: code-switching in texting in Hong Kong  

kbbl: music streaming service is offering AI hosts with generative chatter—via Super Punch  

55 cancri 𝛿: a collection of the most bizarre exoplanets discovered so far  

fomes formentarius: introducing the fungus that has the potential to replace plastics

blue marble (10. 368)

Photographed by one of the crew, likely Harrison Schmitt or Gene Cernan but ever member took turns taking pictures with the Hasselblad camera, of the Apollo XVII mission on its way to the Moon from a distance of just under thirty thousand kilometers on this day in 1972. Backlit and slightly rounded—gibbous and hence the name—from the astronauts’ perspective and after Earthrise only the second whole planet image captured by a human photographer, the Blue Marble is among the most widely reproduced and circulated images in existence, it was received by the public at a moment of increased environmental activism and awareness and helped focus the movement by framing Earth’s uniqueness and vulnerability set against the endless expanse of space. Although recreated by satellite imagining, there have been no crewed excursions since that taken us high enough aloft—yet—to fit the entire planet in the view-finder.

earth day

Organisers Denis Hayes and Wisconsin senator Gaylord Nelson who championed the establishment of the annual observance in support of environmental protection and better stewardship of the planet in congress—plus drumming up the earnest support of the United Auto Workers union which without the backing of the labour movement probably would have had no staying power—chose the date strategically as to time the holiday outside of college exams and Spring Break, student activism being among the important targets to carry the cause forward, and with the happy coincidence that the date range included the anniversary of the 1838 birth of John Muir—an American of Scottish extract regarded as the Father of the National Parks, avid naturalist, ecologist and conservationist who co-founded the Sierra Club and pushed the government to establish a nature reserve in the Yosemite region of California. 

Reportedly unbeknownst to Nelson and Hayes, the first 1970 celebration fell on the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Soviet revolutionary Vladimir Lenin (New Style, 1870), causing some media outlets to speculate at the time that it was not an unfortunately coincidence but rather signaled that the environmental movement was a “Communist trick” to subvert and indoctrinate the youth—apparently into caring for Nature and the world around them and engendered guilt over polluting and over-consumption. The themes for this year include Sustainable Fashion, the Great Global Clean-up, the Canopy Project (reforestation) and Climate and Environmental Literacy.

6x6

wheelie bins: a collection of municipal-issue recycling bins from across the UK—via Pasa Bon! 

filmový plakát: a gallery of vintage Czech movie posters  

1 000 trees: drone footage showcases Heatherwick studios’ Shanghai shopping centre  

northwoods baseball sleep radio: a fake game with no jarring sounds designed for podcast slumber  

holkham bible picture book: a 1330 curiosity that illustrates select passages from the Old and New Testaments  

the great british spring clean: projects and programmes (see also) sponsored by Keep Britain Tidy

plastikbesteck

Informed by the announcement of the EU parliament that from next month on, single-use plastic eating utensils, swizzle sticks, drinking straws, etc. will be banned, a design duo from Germany has exhibited as part of the London Design Biennale an installation called “Spoon Archaeology” of two decades of collected, curated strata—all part of a theme for a pavilion on ecological awareness and sustainability by putting problematic disposables on display as artefacts of the past that they should be consigned to. More from Dezeen at the link above.

scale model

Via the always marvellous Nag on the Lake’s Sunday Links (lots more to explore here), we are introduced to the life-sized sculptures by Swedish-born, Berlin-based artist Michael Johansson inspired by his fascination growing up with model kits (Plastmodelltillverkning) whose injection-moulded parts, prior to assembly are held in a plastic frame called a sprue or a runner. The pictured piece, this 1:1 dinghy with some assembly-required, is the first in his series spanning a decade with installations decorating recycling centres, fire stations, residential estates as well as an archaeological site, see also here and here. Johansson has also produced some smaller, deconstructed household items as wall hangings.