Sunday, 26 January 2025

13x13 (12. 185)

embossed: turn of the century tactile teaching aids for the visually impaired for lessons on nature and geography  

lab-leak theory: US Central Intelligence Agency embraces controversial vector for COVID-19 pandemic, discounting zoonosis factors 

ghostwatch: the supernatural horror BBC mockumentary broadcast on Halloween (see also) 1992 and never shown again due to the panic it elicited  

sb593: Oklahoma legislature introduces bill to “restore moral sanity” and criminalise production, distribution and possession of adult material—see previously 

minimoog: a fully-functional analogue synthesiser in LEGO  

haptics and macros: an idea to add gait gestures to one’s smart phone—we can hardly do the right kind of fake kick to open the rear hatch on our car 

mox nix: language borrowings from German propagated by US and UK soldiers stationed there post WWII  

electric garden: a run-down lodge transformed into a living museum mapchat: interact with AI shopkeepers for local businesses—results may vary 

wassergรถttin: prehistoric figurine from the Hallstadt culture found in 2022 in Lower Franconia goes on display at the Bavarian State Archaeological Museum in Mรผnchen  

walk without rhythm and you won’t attract the worm: graboids—see also—the other in-jokes that Tremors leans into  

underrepresentation: as part of order to eliminate DEI programmes, US Food and Drug Administration curbs clinical trials aimed at diverse populations for cancer research 

 switchmen: the sign language of railroad workers

Friday, 24 January 2025

the kรถln concert (12. 177)

Recorded on this day in 1975 at the West Germany city’s opera house Keith Jarrett’s live double-album went on to become the best-selling solo jazz and the best-selling piano record in history despite some inauspicious beginnings. Problems with booking pushed the hour-long performance (attended by a sold-out audience) to late Friday night, and the requested concert grand was not available and so the musician, who was fatigued from touring, had to make due with an out-of-tune and meek sounding baby grand that was only used for rehearsals. Jarrett however was able to lean into the instrument’s shortcomings (see also) and improvised in such a way that celebrated its disrepair.

*     *     *     *     *
 
synchronoptica

one year ago: the Family of Man (with synchronoptica)

seven years ago: A Fashionable Melange of English Words, website traffic, RIP Ursula Le Guin, an AI generated concert lineup plus the Babylon Bee

eight years ago: a conflict of interest 

nine years ago: an X-Files reboot plus the Ronnie Horror Picture Show

ten years ago: Hildegard of Bingen, canine astronauts plus Charlie Hebdo wine labels

Monday, 13 January 2025

8x8 (12. 176)

cryptobiosis: a nematode was reanimated when pulled out of the Siberia permafrost after forty-six thousand years 

fresh air, town square: Mastodon is becoming a non-profit organisation—via Waxy  

wrack and ruin: a superlative gallery of abandoned places  

a sprained ankle on a country walk is allowable but you must not go very far beyond this: in praise of Jane Austin 

hollywood hills: architects reckon with the scale of destruction from the Los Angles fires—more here 

luthersadt eisleben: a horde of coins found hidden in a statue’s leg in the reformer’s home church 

the joe rogan experience: Elizabeth Lopatto summarises the three-hour interview with Zuckerberg 

 : Sweden’s attempt to copyright Sweden thwarted plus other assorted legal stupidity

unwort des jahres (12. 173)

For the thirty-fourth time, the jury has selected its Un-word of the Year (see also below) for this past twelve months, the panel of linguists (for the first two years, the selection was announced by the Gesellschaft fรผr deutsche Sprache along with the Wort des Jahres but an internal row led to the committee to become independent and refuse any state funding) calling out a recently popularised term that denigrates human rights and democratic principles through euphemism or deflection. For 2024, with dishonourable mentions going to Heizungsverbot, misleading as implying a heating ban and attempting to discredit environmental protection measures but only effects standards for the construction of new heating systems, the overall winner was the neologism that repackages old, everyday racism biodeutsch, that is—biologically German. Gaining parlance on social media, it is used to classify, evaluate and discriminate against an out-group on supposed biological criteria, originally used ironically from the organic seal for domestic produce but used for some time in this non-satirical and unreflective way. The construct implies a non-existent biological connection to nationality and is meant to exclude those with immigrant roots, real or presumed.

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth revisiting (with synchronoptica) plus more emoji remixers

seven years ago: Martin Luther King Day universally celebrated in the US plus the leader of the American Nazi party

eight years ago: bat-friendly tequila, promotion via voice-analysis, modern grotesques, MAGA international plus image compression

nine years ago: Germany’s Unwort of the Year 

ten years ago: Switzerland retires some of its civilian defence infrastructure, the origins of bio-feedback plus no crisis unexploited

Saturday, 11 January 2025

8x8 (12. 165)

all the things that we’ve amassed sit before us, shattered to ash: interviews from celebrities who lost their homes in the Los Angeles megafire, which is still burning out of control  

facechan: some words of advice for disillusioned social media employees  

bepicolombo: final flyby of the space mission beams back extraordinary photos of Mercury’s polar region

obit.: Bob Canada’s two volume tribute to celebrity deaths of last year we may have overlooked  

erfolgreich abgemeldet: German and Austrian government and academic institutions leave X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, following the summit between Musk and Weidel  

chip off the old block: apparently in some families, it’s customary to nickname a son named after his father the former, a son named after his grandfather Skip and one named after all three Trip  

you’re so woke—diet coke: corporate America abandoning DEI (diversity, equality and inclusion) programs ahead of Trump’s return, hoping to curry favour with the new administration 

delta smelt: fact-checking the fallout over water shortage for emergency responders in California

synchronoptica

one year ago: David Lynch’s 1984 unfinished Dune sequel (with synchronoptica) plus assorted links with revisiting

seven years ago: John Wayne as Genghis Khan (1965), time and dark energy plus more links to enjoy

eight years ago: even more links, misinformation about the refugee situation in Germany plus an anti cow bell campaigner denied Swiss citizenship

nine years ago: the elegance of heliocentrism, RIP David Bowie plus the performer as internet pioneer

ten years ago: a slow news day (1922) 

Monday, 6 January 2025

c the unseen (12. 149)

Deutsche Welle has a pair of interesting profiles of the cities—three actually—that will serve as the 2025 European Cultural Capitals. Once the flagship metropolis of the DDR (see previously), Chemnitz (formerly Karl-Marx-Stadt) has mostly dimmed since reunification and attracting negative attention, but under the motto above (“C” for the vehicle registration plate) organisers hope to highlight the city’s long history and rich heritage, including showcasing a selection of the thirty-thousand garages built during the East German era as a backdrop to explore their functions not just for parking but also storage and communal spaces, like the allotments of Gardenstรคdte. The other municipalities participating is Gรถrz, once the home to an Alpine dynasty under the Hapsburg Empire, now divided into Nova Gorica and Gorizia along the Italian-Slovenia border but for the first time celebrated together as a joint culture capital. The former cosmopolitan and culturally diverse city was annexed by Italy following the dissolution of Austro-Hungary at the end of World War I and the German and Slovene populations were either expelled or assimilated, borders redrawn again in the aftermath of World War II with Yugoslavia’s Tito founding a new district on the divide between East and West. More on the year’s schedule of events and programme at the link up top.

synchronoptica

one year ago: YMCA at number one (with synchronoptica), Epiphany in Greenland plus assorted links to revisit

seven years ago: the animations of Jonathan Stroh, an AI generates plausible Wikipedia categories, designer candies plus more links to enjoy

eight years ago: even more links, more Japanese designer New Year’s cards, an inaugural prop plus The Running Man (1987)

nine year ago: more links worth revisiting, wearable tech plus underwater farming

ten years ago: CNN’s apocalyptical sign off plus a supposed Nazi UFO

Wednesday, 1 January 2025

10x10 (12. 135)

year of the snek: designer Japanese greeting cards for 2025—see previously from Spoon & Tamago

world record for tiny window inchoateness: Kate Wagner’s McMansion Hell takes on Neuschwanstein  

cloisonnรฉ garnet: an elaborate seventh century brooch discovered near Rostock 

dropped: the 2025 edition of Lake Superior State University’s banished words list, including cringe and skibidi 

back to basics: scientific research confirms that exercise is the most potent medical intervention—for one’s New Year’s resolutions  

dumpster fire: an ominous start for 2025  

classical conditioning: the unscientific and unethical Little Albert Experiment that led to stricter standards in psychological testing 

choicest swears: excellence in strong language and two other New Year’s traditions  

monuments men: Italy’s cultural heritage protection squad saves artefacts from a clandestine dig in Naples

new year, new neighbourhood: the transformation of New York City’s Times Square

Wednesday, 25 December 2024

niemandsland (12. 110)

Though no White Christmas down in the valley, we took the dog for a frolic through the snow up on the highlands near of the Schwarzes Moor along the Lange Rhรถn (previously), an extensive basalt plateau about eight hundred metres in elevation. 

We saw the former border crossing Grabenberg with preserved East German watchtower, a relic in this nature preserve not far from the Dreilandereck, the tri-point where Bavaria, Hessen and Thรผringen meet. 

Due to the constrains of the landscape and connecting roads, the partition extended DDR territory five hundred metres into West Germany in a horseshoe-shaped strip nicknamed die Badehose (the bathing trunks), which provided border guards considerable challenges in keeping Bavarian tourist from wandering into this invisible no man’s land.

Tuesday, 24 December 2024

forschungslaboratorium fรผr elektronenphysik (12. 106)

Autodidact in applied physics and prolific inventor, Baron Manfred von Ardenne, after presenting to the public his concept of Fernsehen a year and a half earlier, achieved his first wholly electronic transmission of television pictures, using a cathode ray tube (see more) for both transmission and reception, on this day in 1933. Following trial runs on broadcasters, Ardenne’s technological advance progressed quickly with the private station of Paul Nipkow culminating with the live airing of the 1936 Berlin Games. Having also conducted pioneering experiments in the fields of radar, radio, isotope separation and inventing the scanning electron microscope, Ardenne’s research facilities in Berlin-Lichtenfelde were put a protective order by Soviet occupying forces in April 1945 and Ardenne and his colleagues were reassigned to laboratories in Abkhazia to work on the atomic bomb project (see also)—like the Russian version of Operation Paperclip. Realising that participation in such a plan would jeopardise his eventual repatriation to East Germany, Ardenne convinced authorities to focus on uranium enrichment rather than weaponising the programme, slowly development until the Americans bombed Japan and an extensive espionage network determined that it was more than theoretical possible. Once Ardenne returned to the DDR and assumed an advisory role in the government, he applied his study and resources to medical diagnostics, inventing an early form MRI scanner and radiotherapies to treat cancer.

 synchronoptica

one year ago: Christmas Greetings (with synchronoptica), Aida (1871) plus more accidental Renaissance art

seven years ago: Sleighrunner, Trump’s challenge coin plus more Season’s Greetings

eight years ago: A Human Document, internet court plus a collection of Yule Logs

nine years ago: more Yule Logs 

ten years ago: a visit from Father Frost

eleven years ago: 2013 wrapped plus a holiday reckoning  

Monday, 23 December 2024

fruitcake (12. 105)

Language Log featured recently a duo of Christmas confections from Italy and Germany and while the latter in the Stollen might have a more robust etymology, derivative of the verb stellen—to put—and from the Ancient Greek ฯƒฯ„ฮฎฮปฮท, stฤ“lฤ“, to support, as in the beams constructed in a mine shaft to prevent a tunnel from collapsing (see also here and here), it is the former in the mildly sweet and far less dense (fluffy as compared to the Stollen’s consistency of a neutron star) the panettone that has a more intriguing composition as a augmentation of a diminutive, big little bread. Fettuccine is the reverse formation in little big slice, and there’s a single-serving variant called a panettoncini, a diminutive of the augmentative of the diminutive. More at the links above.

a555 (12. 104)

Via Things Magazine year-end round-up we are invited to take an epic road-trip (which we managed to somehow miss earlier) for the fiftieth anniversary of Kraftwerk’s Autobahn, a twenty-two minute musical tribute to the German road network (previously here and here) that transformed the entire electronic music landscape—achieving international chart success the following year once pared down to three-minutes and twenty-eight seconds for radio audiences. Legend has it that the group were inspired by a stretch of West German highway from Kรถln to Bonn, a main artery from the international airport, a Brutalist masterwork who band member Florian Schneider’s father designed, to the capital and just a few junctions from their Dรผsseldorf studios. Much more from Tim Jonze’ pilgrimage at the link above. You need to unmute for this one.

synchronoptica

one year ago: miscellany from the depths of Wikipedia (with synchronoptica), assorted links to revisit plus Hansel and Gretel (1893)

seven years ago: keep watching the skies plus misappropriating a Secessionist motto

eight years ago: combatting fake news

nine years ago: a cavalcade of holiday customs, Christmas ghost stories, lip balm recalled over high THC levels plus Seasons’ Greetings

ten years ago: Ship of Theseus

 

Saturday, 21 December 2024

achtung baby! (12. 100)

Via JWZ, we are directed to this piece by Wonkette contributor Gary Legum with the brilliant and crucial preamble: “Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: a bigoted industrialist who owns a giant car company has endorsed a far-right German political party full of Nazis that aims to purify Europe by casting out groups of people it considers to be its lessers, if not downright subhuman. Ha ha, no, it’s not Henry Ford, but we sure fooled you.” Of course Legum is referring to the cosplay Darlek shadow president space Karen, who fresh off his latest foray into trying to influence the US congress is now sparking outrage after endorsing AfD ahead of Germany’s snap elections. Musk has launched trial balloons before in international matters in inciting rioters in Britain, criticising Italy’s immigration policy and presaged by his turning Twitter into a Nazi bar. Those aligned with Alternative fรผr Deutschland, including party co-chair Alice Weidel, who plans to campaign for chancellor, were ecstatic over this boosterism from the American oligarchy. What does Germany need saving from? The United States reelected an authoritarian, which was risible the first time, and quoth Marx, “history repeats itself first by tragedy second by farce.”

Friday, 20 December 2024

justizvollzugsanstalt (12. 098)

Released under clemency conditions from the Landsberg prison complex outside of Munich from his confinement for participation in the attempted coup, Bรผrgerbrรคu Putsch, of the government of the Weimar Republik, Adolf Hitler (previously) used his incarceration to dictate Mein Kampf to his deputy Rudolf Hess. Following the war, the facility was a holding area of war criminals during the Nuremberg Prozess and as early as the establishment of West Germany in 1949 and the abolishment of the death penalty there was a push for reformation and rehabilitation with the prison today being run as a progressive correctional facility with job training for basic vocations.

let’s run and we’ll have some fun now before i melt away (12. 097)

Via Clive Thompson’s latest Linkfest (much more to explore there), we learn about the 1987 commission of the Rรถmerbrรผcke thermal power station, Heizkraftwerk Saarbrรผcken, to create a never-melting snowman sustained by the excess energy from the plant. Awarded to Swiss multi-media artistic duo David Weiss and Peter Fischili (see previously) for the concept of Schneemann, they formed a copper skeleton inside a refrigerated unit that’s renewed by frost and freezer burn, metaphorically a commentary on the climate crisis in the corporate campus of this power plant, but still needing a routine human-touch to limn his face.

synchronoptica

one year ago: dial-a-song (with synchronoptica), Trump banned from the primary ballot plus assorted links to revisit

seven years ago: a political sorting hat, the 2017 in pictures plus an innovative funicular railway

eight years ago: Yule Lads plus Russian meddling and American exceptionalism

nine years ago: 2015 in review plus a Christmas humbug

twelve years ago: 2012 in review

Thursday, 19 December 2024

bittersweet symphonie (12. 095)

The culmination of a formal joint West German-French collaboration, the first constellation of European communications satellites (see previously) was launched into orbit on this day in 1974 from Cape Canaveral atop a Delta rocket, with the stipulation that this would only be a demonstration project and not be fully operational in order for the US to protect its monopoly. The triad of retractable solar cell booms and thrusters to stabilise orbit and repositioning were the first time such innovations, now standards, were put to use. The impositions restricted commercial use but satellites could beam educational programming, primarily from Deutsche Welle to India and Africa as well as news concern Red Cross relief missions. Considered unacceptable, the embargo led to the development of Europe’s domestic Ariane rocket for future enterprises. Symphonie I and Symphonie II, launched the following August, we decommissioned and deorbited on this anniversary in 1984, exceeding their original mission by five years.

Tuesday, 17 December 2024

startpaket (12. 090)

Two weeks ahead of the introduction of the new currency, the mints of the Economic and Monetary Union of the European Union began on this day in 2001 to distribute starter kits of coinage in Greece, Portugal and Germany in order to familiarise citizens and cashiers in advance of their upcoming €-Day (see previously, see also). With a face value of 10,23 or 20 DM, five thousand drachma or two thousand escudo, around fifty-four million sealed plastic sachets were given out through local banks. Having moved to Germany just after the transition that took place on New Year’s 2002, I remember it being a strange time with the sentiment that prices had doubled overnight—or one’s worth suddenly halved—and many retail outlets were still in the process of changing over, accepting both Mark and US dollars at parity.

Saturday, 14 December 2024

intershop (12. 081)

With the first boutique of the chain owned and operated by East German (publicly, what’s classified as a VEB, Volkseigener Betrieb) on this day in 1962 in the East Berlin FriedrichstraรŸe train station, the original target demographic was Western tourists transiting in and out of the country as a vehicle to increase holdings of hard currency reserves (Westmarks, dollars, pounds, francs—the domestic Ostmark not being accepted) by offering a selection of luxury items, alcohol and cigarettes not available on the DDR market—sort of like a duty free-shop. Because of restrictions on East German citizens from holding foreign currencies (relaxed in 1974), locals could not originally make purchases but (with some connections) could window-shopping, and as the number of outlets grew outside embassy row to border crossings on the Autobahn (nur fรผr Reisende aus dem nicht-sozialistischen Ausland) and expanded to Western-style Interhotels, it had the unintended consequences of giving citizens insight into Western brands and their own limited selection. Lightly criticised by Erich Honecker in 1977 as a driver of inequality, the General Secretary said, “These shops are not obviously permanent companions of socialism, but we cannot ignore the fact that rising numbers of visitors are bring more such stable currency than before.” Over four hundred affiliates closing with reunification in 1990 and with no photography permitted inside, little documentation—outside of Stasi monitoring records—remains.

Sunday, 8 December 2024

ampel aus (12. 067)

The Committee for the German Language (Gesellschaft fรผe deutsche Sprache—see below) has announced its Wort des Jahres for 2024 as a nod to the collapse of the Red, Yellow, Green party coalition in the government and the call for snap-elections, but there were several other words being monitored as contenders, including Klimaschรถnfรคberei—essentially the German rendering of “green-washing,” kriegstรผchtig, war-like, Rechtsdrift, a shift to more conservative and populist politics, die Selbstbestimmung in Bezug auf den Geschlechtseintrag (abbreviated SBGG), a update to the outdated 1980 law on transgender identity enacted in November that allows non-binary individuals to register under a new first name and sex without the bureaucratic onus and Messerverbot, in reference to a few incidents of knife-attacks at public events earlier in the year and the response of authorities.

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links to revisit (with synchronoptica), the spelling of Christmas and Hanukkah plus Germany’s Word of the Year

seven years ago: the fraught and racist history of square-dancing, net-neutrality under threat plus a catalogue of spomenik of the former Yugoslavia

nine years ago: a real world copy of the Simpsons’ home

ten years ago: the historical Snow White plus the History of the World in 100 Objects 

eleven years ago: decorating for Christmas, spies in the skies plus the languages of Switzerland

 

Friday, 6 December 2024

now chitans are a type of molluscs that nature uses to bedazzle things like rocks and shells (12 059)

Courtesy of Ms Cellania, we are afforded the opportunity to to catch up on our intrepid science presenter Ze Frank (see previously) with his surprise invitation to join the taxonomical committee of Frankfurt’s Senkenberg Ocean Species Alliance and his humorous tour (to find out if the offer was legitimate or a hoax) of the facility with an introduction to its scientific mission to describe and catalogue the overwhelming understudied forms of life under the waves. Frank will serve on the committing naming newly discovered species and certainly brings a lot to the table and reminded us of this impressive oratory feat in classifying the sea shell of North American beaches.

*    *    *    *    *

synchronoptica

one year ago: The Final Countdown (1986—with synchronoptica

seven years ago: a private spy network, medical marijuana in Italy plus the philosophy of ikigai

eight years ago: the Chรขteau d’Aubiry plus repurposing love-locks

nine years ago: ร†sop’s Fables

eleven years ago: non-English tongue twisters, Snowden’s home town plus infographic native advertising

Thursday, 5 December 2024

summis desiderantes (12. 058)

From the Latin incipit “for desiring with supreme ardor” (see previously, see also), Pope Innocent VIII promulgated his papal bull on this day in 1484 condemning witchcraft, issued at the behest of one Dominican Inquisitor called Heinrich Kramer, who would go on to publish the widely popular Malleus Maleficarum (der Hexenshammer) petitioning higher authorities for license to persecute witches in Germany after the local clergy failed to champion his cause—signalling a rather dramatic shift in the Church’s attitude, having previously made a distinction between white and black magic and opposed the denunciation of supposed practitioners of either, restricting the punishment for transgression to confession, repentance and community service. Manifestly political in nature as a way of settling jurisdictional battles between priests in Mainz, Kรถln and Trier by installing, deputising his cadre (Henry Institoris) with more papal immediacy bypassing the established hierarchy. Recognising the existence of witches, the text of the bull began, and as a preface to Kramer’s own work, written during retirement when the directive to cooperate with inquisitions under pain of excommunication failed to garner support:

Many persons of both sexes, unmindful of their own salvation and straying from the Catholic Faith, have abandoned themselves to devils, incubi and succubi, and by their incantations, spells, conjurations, and other accursed charms and crafts, enormities and horrid offences, have slain infants yet in the mother’s womb, as also the offspring of cattle, have blasted the produce of the earth, the grapes of the vine, the fruits of the trees, nay, men and women, beasts of burthen, herd-beasts, as well as animals of other kinds, vineyards, orchards, meadows, pasture-land, corn, wheat, and all other cereals. These wretches furthermore afflict and torment men and women, beasts of burthen, herd-beasts, as well as animals of other kinds, with terrible and piteous pains and sore diseases, both internal and external; they hinder men from performing the sexual act and women from conceiving ... they blasphemously renounce that faith which is theirs by the sacrament of baptism, and at the instigation of the Enemy of Mankind they do not shrink from committing and perpetrating the foulest abominations and filthiest excesses to the deadly peril of their own souls ... the abominations and enormities in question remain unpunished not without open danger to the souls of many and peril of eternal damnation.

Despite the blurb, the Church condemned the publication as misleading and rejected the animosity towards independent women, though failing to do enough to staunch this apparent endorsement of witchhunts.