abysmal zone (11. 714)

Via Kottke, we learn that after over a decade of readings that suggested significant amounts of oxygen were being produced on the seafloor, dismissed as an error since no photosynthesis can occur in the region of the deep where no sunlight penetrates, researchers have now concluded that the “dark oxygen” is real and likely produced by polymetalic nodules strewn across the ocean floor in the Clarion-Clipperton region—see also below. The result of millions of years of accretion of elements dissolved in seawater, these lumps, composed of manganese, copper, cobalt and lithium, working in concert are natural batteries, cause electrolysis and split seawater into its component hydrogen and oxygen with its voltage. Maybe abiotic pathways for oxygen resources could support life elsewhere. It is precisely this property that has attracted mining companies with proposals to harvest the nodules for raw material for battery manufacture, with many in the scientific community calling for a moratorium on development for fear it would destroy a potential ecosystem that we know nothing about.

offcuts (11. 639)

Despite abundant supplies of natural resource lithium, Australia—and most of the world—lack another, overlooked key component for the manufacture of battery storage and the transition away from carbon-intensive energy and must import graphite—see previously. Researchers at Charles Sturt University in Victoria, we learn courtesy of the New Shelton wet/dry, however, may have devised a technique for turning hair and wool cast-offs into the conductive crystalline form carbon by heating it under extreme pressure. This breakthrough also heralds opportunities for salons and shepherds who end up disposing of a lot of lower-quality animal fibre.

 synchronoptica

one year ago:  Rocky Horror (with synchronoptica) plus assorted links to revisit

five years ago: one hundred facts for logophiles, German abbreviations plus plagiarism revealed through punctuation

six years ago: more the US Space Force, a model kit controversy, more on the robot crew member of the ISS plus a collection of beer coasters

seven years ago: the Saturday morning show that possibly inspired MST3K plus the wisdom of Wil Wheaton

eight years ago: gunpowder in the New World

8x8 (11. 632)

anabolics: the mainstreaming of casual steroid use  

cover model: the identity of the individual on the iconic Duran Duran album revealed four decades on—via Miss Cellania  

rank and file: a woodland-themed chessboard that rolls up into a log 

the imitation game: researchers claim that GPT-4 has passed the Turing Test—see previously 

london underground: spelunking through the strata of the ancient city  

non-playable character: determinism versus emergence and the question of free will  

ticino: a cache of five-thousand photographs spanning from 1900 to 1930 taken by a poor seed-peddler captures life in a remote, Italian-speaking Swiss canton  

food that makes you gay: stereotypes and gender in what we eat—via Web Curios

7x7 (11. 626)

senza vergogna: some notes for Martha-Ann Alito on her anti-Pride flag (see previously)  

factory floor: inside Andy Warhol’s studio—via Messy Nessy Chic  

prospecting: Norwegian mining firms discovers Europe’s largest cache of rare-earth metals  

adaptive force controlled shaving demonstration: a robot barber in Shanghai  

daily bread: an overview of the staple foodstuff’s contribution to civilisation  

hydrant directory: colour palettes of New York’s suppression points—via Pasa Bon!  

gruppo dei sette: following EU elections, the G7 forum begins in Puglia

synchronoptica

one year ago: a top album by Alanis Morissette plus an early world-traveller

two years ago: a chronic case of the hiccups, a hit by Paul McCartney plus international crisps flavours

three years ago: the G7, Shangri La the musical, St Anthony plus two very prolific travelogues

four years ago: illustrator Wilbur Husley, assorted links to revisit, the Pentagon Papers (1971) plus a banger from Mungo Jerry

five years ago: the elusive American Middle-Class plus x before x-rays

the bessemer saloon ship (11. 484)

Steel magnate and prolific inventor during the late nineteenth century and second-wave of the Industrial Revolution—whose innovations were uniquely punctuated with enduring commercial success, including steam-power and techniques that improved steel manufacturing and solidified Sheffield’s reputation for more than a hundred years as a major industrial centre (also the namesake for the Alabama steel town) as well as numerous other improvements in material engineering with glass and iron, Henry Bessemer’s chronic disposition to sea-sickness inspired to come up with his rather singular flop. Though working in principal and in models, the sea-trial ended in disaster, crashing into the pier at Calais as it attempted to leave the harbour—outside of the control of the crew—however his idea for a self-righting cabin, a saloon, that swung on gimbals and hydraulic cylinders during cross-Channel journeys for passengers’ comfort in rough weather was ahead of its time. More from Amusing Planet at the link above.

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links to revisit

two years ago: the Unicode Technical block of characters

three years ago: the show goes on, the legacy of project MKUltra, a capsule hotel annex in the woods plus more on Star Fleet uniforms

four years ago: extended Eastertide plus funny bios for birds

five years ago: empathy and tribalism, more coding by radio, retro McDonald’s packaging plus perennial cereal crops

leipziger neuseenland (11. 458)

Not to be confused with the German name for New Zealand, H and I found a nice camping spot, the first of the season, on the peninsula of Magdeborn, an artificial wetland formed in the early 2000s when the open cast mining operations outside of the city were flooded and fed by the past two decades by tributaries to create a nature reserve and recreation area. 

A score of villages and some eight thousand of residents formerly resettled in the from the 1930s through the 1950s for brown coal extraction (see also), the floating installation called Vineta bobbed back and forth in the bay of the Störmthaler See on the horizon, the the steeple looking particularly phantasmagorical with the waxing sun of early spring and the lengthening days (the time change in Europe is the last Sunday in March)—also owing to a dust storm blowing in from the Sahara that gave the sky a singular quality—and aptly as the anchored structure, venue for art exhibits and a bistro accessible by ferry, is a monument to Magdeborn and those deserted settlements since underwater, Stauseen. 

The mining operations at Epsenhain ran from 1937 to 1996 and yielded half a billion tonnes of coal—phased out over the decades since, the last active field, which lends its name to the reservoir, will cease operations next year.  There are quite a lot of trails around the lakes to hike and bike and enjoyed being outside and marveling at the reclaimed landscape. 

Leipzig is visible in the distance and also the Bergbau Industrial Park that we pass on the Autobahn now a relict carved out of a massive Windpark.

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links to revisit plus Trump arrested and arraigned

two years ago: Iceland protests against NATO ascension (1949) plus more links to enjoy

three years ago: your daily demon: Vassago, the sixtyforgan, the Louvre announces a new public portal for its collections, an attempted assassination plus yacht rock

four years ago: an expensive telegram plus the Sgt Pepper’s album cover

five years ago: an unassuming shrub

basaltwerk stengerts (11. 214)

For a grey but bright Christmas day, we ventured past the industrial section of Bischofsheim an der Rhön to explore the former basalt refinery and quarry (see previously here, here and here), active for decades but now abandoned and designated as a nature preserve. The wind was a bit fierce and the trees bare but the moss covering the stones was a vibrant green.  Once containing an active settlement for workers, the volcanic rock used for construction and the making of cobblestones as well as more recently insulation as stone wool and a possible repository for carbon sequestration, were taken to the freight yard with a cable car and distributed throughout the region.

ydinjätteen loppusijoitustila (10. 968)

Via fellow internet peripatetic Messy Nessy Chic, we are directed towards a quick but ruminative tour of an installation in Finland, which in two short years will see no human traffic for the next hundred thousand. The deep geological repository of Onkalo near the Eurajoki power plant on the western coast will be the first long-term disposal facility for spent fuel rods and other highly radioactive material currently warehoused in storage depots around the world, the site chosen for its geologic stability and informed by residents around the site’s location. The reflections of being among the last to tread these caverns is particularly poignant as one imagines the surface landscape taking on a new character in the intervening aeons and how might these seals remain unbroken for untold future generations.

 synchronoptica

one year ago: Culture Beat’ Mister Vain (1993) plus the short-lived BBC spy drama Quiller

two years ago: your daily demon: Asmodeus,  assorted links to revisit plus the art of Arthur Tress

three years ago: the death of Emmett Till (1955)

four years ago: the iconic artwork Marianne Saxl-Deutsch

five years ago: the Ramstein Air-Show Disaster, Late-Stage Capitalism, more links to enjoy plus more on the Great Span

 

💎 (10. 909)

Rivalling the Pentagon as the world’s largest office building—having held the title for the past eight decades, the Morphogenesis architecture group announces the completion of its diamond-trading bourse on the outskirts of Surat in Gujarat, a city with a strong, established heritage in the gem-cutting business as well as textile manufacture and other commercial enterprises. Although the six hundred thousand square metre complex which can host nearly seventy thousand professionals is certified as a green building project, one has to wonder about the human and environmental impact that the trade has and what synergy within a hub, campus means for those who work there. More from Dezeen at the link above. 

synchronoptica

one year ago: the lochs of Scotland plus assorted links to revisit

two years ago: Stevie Nicks’ solo debut (1981), network bumpers, previously unpublished pictures of David Bowie, beckoning cats, more on the inconsistencies of the English language, Avant Garde magazine plus AI generated Tarot cards

three years ago: one of the fourteen Holy Helpers, a iconic cartoon introduction (1940), a growing collection of non-words plus the GIFs of Katy Daft

four years ago: a funeral for a glacier, bee habitats on bus shelters, more on data breaches and lax consequences for compromising personal information plus more vexing vexillology

five years ago: Madonna Madonna, coral bleaching, a commemorative bee coin plus mapping climate change in Europe

10x10 (10. 840)

⚫️ ⚫️ ⚫️ ⚫️ ⚫️ ⚫️ ⚫️ ⚫️ ⚫️ ⚫️: Neal Fun’s (previously) infuriating password game  

ceiling cat: the European Souther Observatory in the Chilean mountains discovered a feline nebula

bad odds: wagering on climate change to bring the danger and risk to present and personal 

backstage: newsletters (from 1962 to 1980) published for Disneyland crew members, scanned in full—via Super Punch  

homage to magritte: a 1974 tribute in five vignettes to the Surrealist artist 

independent legislature theory: US Supreme Court strikes down suit that would cut checks and balances and judicial review of laws passed 

monkey bars: the first jungle gym (see previously) was built in hopes of teaching children about three-dimensional space and Cartesian coordinates 

magma: mining volcanoes could provide a more ecologically-friendly way to extract metals  

power of ten: NASA’s coding commandments focused on testability, readability and predictability that keeps critical systems safe and running in outer space  

goodnight phone: an interactive web comic for our shared present—via tmn

synchronoptica 

one year ago: assorted links to revisit plus a surprise session of the January Sixth hearings on the US Capitol Insurrections

two years ago: body language, the UN International Criminal Court (1993), Miss Continuous Towel and other spokesmodels plus Pitman shorthand

three years ago: a corporate typeface, a performative masculine simulator game, Martian meteors plus cataloguing one’s possessions

four years ago: the Stonewall Riots (1969), surveying Titan plus bringing back the chestnut tree

five years ago: Paul Simon on Sesame Street, silent cooking videos, assorted links to revisit plus combating fake product reviews

7x7 (10. 476)

inflection point: one young person’s crusade to salvage writing, journalism before ChatGPT changes it forever 

beasts of burden: the giant donkeys of Ancient Rome—see also  

birth-rate: China registers its first population decline in six decades 

ren faire: author Eleanor Janega’s Once and Future Sex  

level 100 schlamm zauberer: police attempt to clear remaining protester demonstrating against the demolition of the hamlet Lützerath for surface mining of coal—see previously  

☠️: a safety warning from the Electric Company (1973)  

midway in the midjourney of our lives: what AI does well and why AI is not intelligent

7x7 (10. 410)

salt of the earth: a tour of Ukraine’s Soledar salt mines—presently under siege 

black mass: Boston is hosting the Satanic Temple’s SatanCon—see previously

verpertilio-homo: what the Great Moon Hoax of 1835 reveals about contemporary misinformation  

lhs 475β: JWST discovers its first exoplanet—via Damn Interesting’s Curated Links  

discretionary time off: salaried Microsoft employees given unlimited vacation leave  

jot and tittle: an unorthodox scholar ferrets out biblical forgeries  

russie d’aujourd’hui: a look back at Soviet boosterism and propaganda publications

ausflug thüringenersee (10. 107)

H and took a summer’s end quick excursion to the dammed Saale river valley to tour the landscape that developed around the reservoirs (Stauseen) and how the natural intersects the artificial.

First we stopped to take a guided tour of the Saalfeld Fairy Grottos (die Feengrotten), a set of caverns in a former mine for alum shale (see previously) remarkable for their colourful mineral veins, called speleothems, owing to the porous soil.

Commercial operations halted in 1850 (the use of potassium aluminate as a preservative was antiquated) and was opened to tourist as early as 1914 due to the reputedly curative properties of the ambient radiation present, after the discovery of the third chamber, the Märchendom—the Fairy Tale Kingdom and the Grail Castle after various interpretations of the sedimentary creations.

Seeing this tableau inspired Siegfried Wagner to pattern the set design for his father’s opera Tannhäuser for the Bayreuth Festspiele in the 1920s.

erlebnis bergwerk (10. 073)

Decommissioned since 1993 but revitalised since as a living museum and working mine and venue, I had a chance to visit with H’s father the salt and potash (Kalisalz, used as an important agricultural fertiliser) extraction operation near the village of Merkers on the Werra river not far from Bad Salzungen.  

 Aside from the long history of mining and a comprehensive lesson on the enterprise and geology that bores under the Rhön mountains, the location is also the hiding spot for hundreds of tonnes of gold, silver and paper currency (amounting to around eighty percent of the holdings of the Reichsbank at the end of the war) and many priceless works of art looted by the Nazis, discovered per chance by the advancing United States army (tipped off by slave labour transporting treasures to the mine) who then worked quickly to clear it out of Soviet occupied territory before the borders were demarcated.

After being lowered in safety gear—like actual miners beginning their shift—in a hoisting cage that descended into the dark, and driven in flatbed transports from five to eight hundred metres below the surface through a network of tunnels that covers an area the size of Munich. 

Though the vehicles were only taking the dips, curves and ascents at under twenty kilometres an hour, the darkness, wind and narrowness of the shaft made it seem much faster, like a roller coaster ride stretched out for some two hours, with intermissions, lastly in the above Goldraum, a pair of excavated former bunkers that now serve as a machine exhibit, theatre and a concert hall with uncommonly good acoustics and unique crystal grotto with accompanying bar for refreshments—the deepest in the world.  

It was definitely worth the visit and would drag H along next time.
 

stillgelegt

On this day in 1986, the Zeche (Coal Mine Industrial Complex) Zollverein in the city of Essen ceased operations, workers leaving for Christmas break not to return, due to dwindling output that did not justify the high maintenance costs, among the last mining and coking facilities in operation in the Ruhrgebiet. The campus, built in the New Objectivity (Neue Sachlichkeit) style, is considered an architectural and engineering masterwork and the conserved landmark, Shaft 12, was inscribed in the UNESCO World Heritage registry in 2001.

chevron of chain counterchanged argent, sable, argent

Winning entrant designed by vexillologist Gracie Sheppard in a contest sponsored by a local museum to create a symbol for the region, the flag of Black County was first hoisted in 2012—thereafter on this day to mark the invention of the Newcomen steam engine in 1712 that heralded the beginning of the Industrial Revolution with a county fête.

The heavily industrialised area in the West Midlands after Birmingham has no single set of defined boundaries to the satisfaction of all with the most common being where the coal seam has come to the surface and refers to the layer of soot that covered everything from all the mining, mills and factories by the mid-1800s. Chain-manufacture was big business there, as was glass-making and brickworks. Charles Dickens’ The Old Curiosity Shop established the region’s first literary conceit as a vicious hellscape in 1841 with others upholding it including J. R. R. Tolkien’s Mordor—elvish for dark land—corresponding with contemporary accountings, with some suggestion that activist and Communist and Labour party mayor of Bilston in Staffordshire, Ben Bilboe, was the inspiration and namesake for the hobbit character, the author’s family having roots in the West Midlands.