Saturday, 30 November 2024

6x6 (12. 043)

tour of duty: the life of the Roman soldier as told through the personal letters of one of the enlisted  

travelling cat: soar around the world with this feline aviatrix—via Maps Mania  

the keeper of the mss, begs to decline: manuscripts rejected by the British Museum Library on topics of conspiracy theories, the paranormal and for being overly amorous—via Strange Company  

the peal of protection: the bells of Notre Dame blessed as the cathedral reopens to the public—see more, see previously 

 katzenjammer: etymologies of hangover—see previously, see also  

continuing education: teaching rats to drive as a heuristic for joy and positive emotions 

 re:volt: an AI-powered robot seemingly convinced twelve others to quit their jobs and join it

 synchronoptica

one year ago: an AI Advent Calendar (with synchronoptica),  in-flight audio playlists plus an ominous weather forecast

seven years ago: the Mountain Dream Tarot, the first cryptocurrency (1989) plus skeletal nomenclature

eight years ago: RIP Fidel Castro plus an atlas of the underworld

nine years ago: more adventures in Vienna plus Vienna’s Gasometer City

ten years ago: a mango dรถner recipe plus memes and stock-characters

Friday, 8 November 2024

10x10 (11. 983)

chonkus: a cyanobacterium discovered in a underwater volcanic vent gobbles up CO₂ at prodigious levels—see previously  

attentat im bรผrgerbrรคukeller: the meticulously planned attempted assassination of Adolf Hitler and other Nazi principals, foiled on this day in 1939—see also here and here  

off-course: an Emperor Penguin recovering after a epic trip from Antarctica to Australia  

for unlawful carnal knowledge: the various folk etymologies of a famous and satisfying swear—see also  

files’s done, goodbye: Elwood Edwards—who voiced AOL’s “You’ve got mail” greeting—passed away, aged 74 

bj blazkowicz: Wolfenstein franchise is enjoying a resurgence among those wanting to smash Nazis right now  

the tiktok electorate: Facebook got the blame for Trump’s win in 2016 so it follows that P’Nut the Squirrel’s influencer status might be in part responsible for 2024—via tmn  

๐Ÿฆ˜: when the last 747 of Quantas’ fleet departed Australia for retirement, its flight path drew its logo  

mauerfall: juxtaposing photos of Berlin then and now thirty-five years after the Wall came down  

cells and organelles: thousands of professionally made vector illustrations and icons from the US National Institutes of Health—via Web Curios

Monday, 21 October 2024

iata identifier (11. 921)

Reposting exactly in the spirit of how it was shared—with the spark of enjoy and novelty that goes into a website one will probably only look at once for the scholarship and coincidence yet will remember and think about it for a long time afterwards (the hallmark of a good single-purpose website), we enjoyed via Maps Mania this project charting airport geolocation codes (see previously) that also happen to be filetype extensions. CSO, for instance, is Cochstedt Flughafen in Magdeburg and also a Compiled Shader Object used in graphics rendering assemblies, Cherbourg-Maupertus Aรฉroport is also a Windows Security Certificate and Ostend-Bruges International is also an Outlook email Offline Storage Table. Is your local airport also a filename?


synchronoptica

one year ago: a camping trip to the Land of a Thousand Lakes (with synchronoptica)

seven years ago: the life of Tiresias, Photographic Treatment, bonsai marijuana, protesting the draft plus declassifying the Warren Commission

eight years ago: indented writing, composite air planes in take off, dynamic projection mapping (caution flashing images) plus the CIA’s art collection

nine years ago: white hat hacking plus searching for unicorns

ten years ago: Byzantine Rome plus an extraordinary papal synod  

Tuesday, 3 September 2024

night owl (11. 812)

Wanting to garner greater influence in Nevada feeling past his prime in California, a reclusive and withdrawn Howard Hughes (see previously), at sixty, took up permanent residence at the Desert Inn of Las Vegas, occupying both upper storeys of the hotel—eventually to the proprietor’s consternation over the extended stay to which Hughes responded by purchasing the entire building—and remained holed up there. An avid fan of television, particularly movies, Hughes’ tendency towards insomnia turned into an acute frustration, given the limited choice of three networks and broadcasters signing off at 2300. Leaning heavily on his preferred local CBS affiliate KLAS (channel eight on the dial), Hughes had his employees often make requests to the station, Westerns or aviation dramas, and even would have regularly scheduled programming preempted or replayed if he happened to miss a part. Rather than dealing with upset sponsors, the network’s manager eventually suggested that Hughes buy the station and run things his way, which in 1967 he did, essentially turning it into a personal streaming service. The daytime schedule mostly stuck to CBS shows but late nights (the station airing on a twenty-four schedule) were Hughes’ playlist, to the confusion of other viewers, with films (including ones still in theatres through special deals with studios, owning RKO Pictures personally) sometimes paused, rewound or switched to an entirely different one without warning. It sounds like a more benign version of other contemporary vanity projects though just as audacious. More from Mental Floss at the link above.

synchronoptica

one year ago: the life of a DJ (with synchronoptica)

seven years ago: a top-down review of quantum mechanics plus a trip around the Rhรถn

eight years ago: the Frank Reade Library specialising in the genre of science fiction

nine years ago: the myth of medieval torture chambers, assorted links to revisit plus the Albigensian Crusade

ten years ago: the gig-economy versus registered taxis, accommodations 

Sunday, 1 September 2024

the farnborough international airshow (11. 809)

The biggest aerospace exhibition behind Paris, the showcase of civilian and military aircraft hosted on even years in Hampshire (the French take the odd) has debuted the Concorde, the Vickers, Airbus 380, the F-35 and the Eurofighter. The week-long event for clientele and only open to the public on the ending weekend on this day in 1974 hosted the arrival of a US Air Force reconnaissance jet setting a new transatlantic crossing record (still unbroken), from the environs of New York to London in just under two hours for a subsonic flight. Unfortunately this achievement was overshadowed by a fatal accident by a prototype Sikorsky Blackhawk attack helicopter that crashed with attempting an aerobatics demonstration. Both test pilots were killed and development of the aircraft ceased afterwards. A later model was eventually chosen in 1976 for the programme, named after the epithet and nom-de-guerre of Native American Sauk leader Mahkatรชwe-meshi-kรชhkรชhkwa, whom fought alongside British forces during the War of 1812 in hopes of ridding his tribe’s lands of American settlers.

Monday, 26 August 2024

lone eagle (11. 794)

Famed aviator, conservationist, isolationist and anti-Semite Charles Augustus Lindbergh died (*1902) on this day in 1974. Although like his father, congressional representative of Minnesota’s sixth district who was one of the few lawmakers to oppose America’s entry into World War I, and many other members of the public who promoted a non-interventionalist stance prior to Pearl Harbour, Lindbergh never explicitly endorsed the Nazi regime though his overarching comments on race seemed to suggest otherwise, a platform won by his historic transatlantic crossing, and public adoration was immense not only for his skilled piloting and goodwill tours but also in promoting transport and air-mail, with the enterprise expanding significantly during the 1930s with more than a fifty-percent increase of individuals seeking licenses to fly and a virtual Renaissance virtuosity demonstrated by contributions to the advancement of medical sciences co-authoring a procedure that made organ transplants more viable and charting routes that still make up airline itineraries to this day. US president Ford eulogised him, “In later years, his life was darkened by tragedy,” referring to the kidnapping and murder of his infant son, “and coloured political controversy, but, in both public and private life, General Lindbergh always remained a brave and sincere patriot.” A couple of weeks before his death at his seaside home in Maui, Hawaii from lymphoma, Lindbergh reached out to his secret families, seven children from three different women in West Germany and asked the mothers not to reveal his identity, only known by the alias Careu Kent—either the alter-ego of Superman or picked in honour of the place in England where he and his wife retreated after the abduction of their child and media circus—from annual visits—which all three women complied with and was not discovered by his offspring until over a decade after his demise.

Saturday, 13 July 2024

doppeldecker-treffen (11. 688)




 Going to the next village from home, Hermannsfeld, we saw a little airshow in the fields that was a reunion of sorts for a certain model of biplanes from all over Germany, the sports-craft built from kits (every one unique) and named Kiebitze after the lapwing (peewit, Vanellus vanellus) as the wings are designed to fold up, like the birds, for easy transportation and can be towed by a car. We got to see quite a few take-offs and landings and some aerial acrobatics.




 

Thursday, 20 June 2024

8x8 (11. 642)

crazy logic: a rather seamless mashup of Gnarls Barkley, Rockwell, Pink Floyd and Sumpertramp  

ั‹าปั‹ะฐั…: the Yakut people of arctic Siberia celebrate New Year on the Summer Solstice  

culicidology: a fascinating two-part discussion of mosquitoes with Alie Ward 

baggage carousel: an animated journey of checked airline luggage 

the phrygian cap: the Paris Games’ mascot with a revolutionary past—via Miss Cellania  

the beige begins early here folks: McMansion Hell (previously) presents another instalment of the American Medieval Revival—via Things Magazine  

re-alignment: just ahead of Solstice celebrations, activists with Just Stop Oil douse the megalithic calendar with orange paint power 

chiroptera: a ballet chroegraphed by Thomas Bangalter, formerly of Daft Punk—via tmn

Saturday, 15 June 2024

roll subsidence mode (11. 631)

Jargony reporting on some scary turbulence and skilled piloting that led to subsequent recovery, a yaw and tumble sustaining a Dutch roll, resulted in some discussion on etymology and more broadly the label with possibly pejorative connotations, as in going Dutch or Dutch treat rooted in the general enmity of the English for the Netherlands dating to the Anglo-Dutch Wars of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries over maritime trade and overseas colonies. Whereas the righting manoeuvre, borrowed from term originally applied to an ice skating move (twentse schoorijders), may have been the optimal correction for the aircraft as well as for the skater, phrases like Dutch courage implies something less than authentic. More at Language Log at the link up top.

synchronoptica

one year ago: a small piece of the US in the UK, assorted links worth revisiting plus Rembrandt’s Danaรซ

two years ago: potatoe, more on Eadweard Muybridge, a false dandelion plus Sukiyaki

three years ago: another MST3K classic, a mysterious notebook of Outsider Art, a chronology of the New York Times, the Rashomon effect plus the Durgan script

four years ago: the Magna Carta (1215)

five years ago: a pristine Peel Trident plus anatomical maps

Wednesday, 5 June 2024

8x8 (11. 608)

i’m too busy helping plot world domination to bother with such run-of-the-mill liberal brainwashing: a day in the life of Mister Anthony Fauci, according to one Congressional representative  

syllabus: a reading list spanning nine-decades—via Messy Nessy Chic  

psychotronics: the prospect of telepathy is once again tantalisingly close—see previously  

foreign accent: TWA’s 1968 campaign to introduce cosmopolitan flair for US domestic flights  

zoonotic: cross-species viral transmission cases is an ominous warning for the public health community—see previously  

the rot-com bubble: the deterioration of tech began with iterative, virtual fetishes—starting with the gig-economy, moving on to crypto, NFTs, the metaverse and now AI, substitutes and replacements that no one asked for 

anagnosology: the science of reading from Alie Ward

look at me, i’m mtg, lousy with stupidity: one of the latest from Randy Rainbow

synchronoptica

one year ago: The Truman Show (1988) plus a follow-up on an Italian archaeological discovery

two years ago: Uncle Albert (1971) plus a selection of British tongue-twisters

three years ago: a preliminary report of the disease that would become known as AIDS (1981), St Boniface, a sophisticated place name generator plus disco lessons

four years ago: generative copy, assorted links to revisit, a zany public service campaign plus a classic from Crash-Test Dummies

five years ago: US national park typography, the palette of dying coral plus clearing up space junk

Saturday, 4 May 2024

8x8 (11. 539)

an elegant weapon for a more civilised age: the physics and power demands of a lightsaber  

defective fleet of fly sky-wreckage: nothing good has the acronym MRSA (Material Review Segregation Area) 

chic boutique: Messy Nessy to open a brick-and-mortar clubhouse and shop in Paris  

wopr: US urges China and Russia to pledge that AI will never have command and control of nuclear weapons  

poultice: an orangutan observed self-medicating a wound in the wild with a paste made of plants with healing properties 

serenity amid disaster: a short animation from Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby, “The Flying Sailor,” examines the wonder and fragility of existence  

peak wtf: gun-mounted flashlights popular with American police officers 

oh, the asthma guy: a conversion with that one friend who’s never seen Star Wars

Friday, 26 April 2024

8x8 (11. 514)

flightline: stunning visualisations of air traffic  

splinternet: ByteDance does not plan to divest itself of TikTok following US ultimatum  

megadeath: modelling the destruction caused by a nuclear bomb on a major city  

mtv buzz: a surreal montage of audio and video clips arranged by Mark Pellington (1990)  

celebrity endorsement: musicians, artists and novelist pose with the Sears’ appliances in this 1969 ad campaign for Kenmore—see also  

undiscovery: the Map Men chart phantom islands—including some that have made it into the era of Google Maps—see previously  

22,5 light hours: engineers debug a forty-seven year old computer remotely from twenty-four billion kilometres away to revive the data stream from Voyager I—see previously  

embarking: a luxury airline that caters to canines above their human companions

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth revisiting

two years ago: dismantling Soviet-era monuments

three years ago: more links to enjoy plus a special issue of LIFE magazine

four years ago: fantasy urban map generators, more links worth the revisit plus geopolitical optics

five years ago: an elegant and modern personal seal, even more links plus a Victoria houseplant


Tuesday, 23 April 2024

7x7 (11. 509)

betteridge’s law: the legacy of Alfred Harmsworth, Viscount Northcliffe, and commoditising fascinating factiods to sell newspapers  

congestion pricing: overtourism and its consequences  

disclose, divest: on the 1968 anniversary of the protest that ousted the university’s president and established the student body senate, activism on Columbia’s campus is again in the national spotlight over Palestine  

grace period: America’s addiction to credit cards  

zoonosis: concern rises over avian flu as it appears in cows and wild animal communities  

nonstop flight: the epic migration of the Bar-tailed Godwit and the engineering of feathers—via the New Shelton wet/dry  

catch-and-kill: deal to bury stories unfavourable to Trump by tabloid The National Enquirer was an “agreement between friends”

Tuesday, 9 April 2024

8x8 (11. 480)

chambre de bonne: disappearing top-floor tiny apartments of Paris  

semifreddo: the origin of Neapolitan ice cream  

the united states of division: a prescient 2004 release by Prince & The New Power Generation  

court dress: the pink sleeves of the supreme courts of Labrador and Newfoundland are in deference to the former summer robes for sittings in England and Wales—via Super Punch  

geoengineering: Tennessee legislature outlaws (see also) so called chemtrails 

bpm: Chechnya announces ban of music considered too fast or too slow  

backsplash: mosaic of the day  

warehouse-to-loft-conversion: a tribute to the last of New York’s artists’ dwellings—via Messy Nessy Chic

Sunday, 31 March 2024

boac (11. 459)

The flag carrier of the United Kingdom, Imperial Airways, was founded on this day in 1924 through the nationalisation and merger of four existing operators, Instone, Daimler, Mandley Page Transport and the British Marine Air Navigation Company, Ltd—forming a fleet of thirteen planes for international flights to and from the London hub in Heathrow. Fifty years later and reflagged as British Airways, the national airline was created from the addition of regional carriers before moving back towards privatisation. 

synchronoptica

one year ago: the musical stylings of Pascal Nuzzo plus ASCII art by AI

two years ago: Cรฉsar Chรกvez Day, Maltese Freedom Day, mass resignations at Hong Kong’s high court plus South Ossetia votes in favour of annexation

three years ago: satanic sneakers, The Matrix (1999), retronyms plus assorted links to revisit

four years ago: museum cosplay, graphic designer Fortunato Depero plus presidential advisor myPillow Guy

five years ago: Urbano Monte’s planosphere,  Sony World Photo awardees plus graphic designer Herman Bayer

Saturday, 23 March 2024

8x8 (11. 444)

going in style: fantastic custom sarcophagi from Ghanaian coffin-maker Paa Joe  

tiamat: the misremembered series finale of the Dungeons & Dragons Saturday morning cartoon—see previously  

spoofing: FlightRadar maps GPS jamming—see also

cincyflags: neighbourhood banners for all of Cincinnati’s fifty-two communities—via Pasa Bon! 

mergers and acquisitions: Trump expected to see a windfall from the sale of social media network 

coal holes: cast iron plate covers for the chutes of London—see also  

infantile amnesia: early childhood memories may not be lost and yield insights to brain development—via the New Shelton wet/dry 

regeneration: a look at the jurisdiction practising human composting

synchronoptica

one year ago: sampler silhouettes, punctuation in headlines plus scrimshaw from oceanic plastic trash

two years ago: assorted links worth revisiting

three years ago: AI-generated pick-up lines, a variation of the Medusa myth, the controlled-deorbit of the Mir (2001), lockdown on year on, vintage GIF buttons, pole tossing plus REM’s Out of Time (1991)

four years ago: dissolution of the African Economic Union (1985)

five years ago: the musical stylings of Carsie Blanton, a town’s strong connection to the number eleven, Nick of Time (1989), the tarot of Pamela Colman Smith, Robert Mueller concludes his investigation plus the UK votes

Saturday, 24 February 2024

flag carrier (11. 375)

From 1965 to 1967, JAL—once the jet age was firmly established and the airline had a full schedule of international routes, launched a marketing and public outreach campaign and printed a series of thirty-two pamphlets for passengers on all aspects of Japanese and Asian Pacific culture and industry. Entitled “New Views,” they have absolutely frame-worthy covers. More at Present /&/ Correct at the link above.

synchronoptica

one year ago: an Ibsen premier (1876), more beautiful infographics plus how uu became w

two years ago: a Midnight Moment in Times Square

three years ago: your daily demon: Belial, assorted links to revisit, a Monteverdi premier (1607) plus architectural illustrator Margarethe Frรถhlich

four years ago: common areas of Hong Kong housing, the Battle of Los Angeles (1942) plus revisiting I, Claudis

five years ago: the Icelandic calendar plus a Ukrainian folk band

Tuesday, 20 February 2024

10x10 (11. 365)

royal mews: King Charles’ one of a kind electric Jaguar up for auction—via Miss Cellania  

ppe: the portable nuclear bomb shield, patented by Harold Tiff  

got clearance clarence: after embarrassing blunder over bad travel advice, Air Canada advocates personhood (and limited liability) for its chatbot customer representative 

1776 days: Julian Assange’s long detention and fight against rendition to the US for Wikileaks

that which you call hardee’s, we call carl’s junior: food deserts, prevalence and distribution of casual dining chains in the US 

tigers blood: new singles from Waxahatchee 

daddy daughter day: breakdancing, bitcoin father revealed as a veteran of member of the Christian Coalition and conservative speech writer 

the second in line: Swedish illustrator Mattias Adolfsson—via Messy Nessy Chic  

body armour: Casimir Zeglen, the priest who invented the bulletproof vest  

motorcade: Joe Biden’s Cadillac sedan for sale—via tmn

synchronoptica

one year ago: artist creates a prosthetic extra digit plus assorted links to revisit

two years ago: more links to enjoy, the subterrene (1972) plus The Shape of Things to Come (1936)

three years ago: introducing the Jeep (1941), a Nyan Cat NFT plus a suite of Japanese pictograms

four years ago: more mass-transit upholstery, RIP Larry Gordon Tesler who invested copy-and-paste, superannuated map styles, the possible extradition of Julian Assange plus the new US ambassador to Germany

five years ago: all the presidents’ meals, a secret meeting between industrialists and the Nazi government (1933), more links worth the revisit, the US emergency broadcast system (1971), vintages mazes plus the bokeh technique

Sunday, 11 February 2024

callsign (11. 345)

Via the always excellent Maps Mania, we are referred to the rather infamous interactive flight tracker from Jack Sweeney that amalgamates real-time, crowd-sourced transponder data that follows commercial and
controversially the flight-plans of private jets belonging to well-known figures, the open-source forum used by other aggregators to publicise and monitor the itineraries and environmental footprint of celebrities who would rather their outsized impact, hypocrisy and whereabouts to be known. Some believe that keeping tabs on soi-disant free-speech champion Elon Musk motivated him to purchase Twitter and try to silence his critics. Taylor Swift also recently expressed feeling her privacy and security violated by Sweeney’s site—but in response sold one of her private aircraft, possibly for an upgrade. We were surprised to see the quite a number of smaller, non-commercial flights over our airspace. More at the links above.

Monday, 5 February 2024

terminal procedure publications (11. 327)

Via Kottke, we are directed to the detail-dense and exacting business of charting America’s airspace with this appreciation of the comprehensive and regularly updated tranche of publications from the US Federal Aviation Agency. Multiple editions specialising in airport arrivals and departures, as well as maps designed for use under instrumental and visual flight rules—the latter comprising the most impenetrable and engrossing examples of cartographical excellence. Intended for conditions and altitudes when the pilot can guide themselves by monitoring the landscape below, they are filled with markers and features that can be used as landmarks for orientation, most crew use apps, of course informed from the FAA charts, on a refresh-cycle of fifty-six days. Particularly interesting are the waypoints, invisible zones that planes transit into and out of managed by air-traffic controllers corresponding to latitude and longitude but to nothing earth-bound and are assigned five-letter mnemonic call-signs (fixes), and reference local culture or fandom, like MATAG near Newton, Iowa where the appliance manufacturer was founded or SATAN near Portland, Maine in honour of author Stephen King. Much more at the links above.