6x6 (10. 993)

wordwhile: whilst Damn Interesting takes a short sabbatical to recoup and regroup, try their fun word game  

home-ec: kakeibo (家計簿) the century-old method of household budgeting devised by Motoko Hani, Japan’s first woman journalist  

germinating hope: seed art with a message at the Minnesota state fair  

bullet points: an encomium for the co-creator of PowerPoint Dennis Austin (RIP)  

vim and vigour: more on the nineteenth century cocaine-fortified wine—see previously 

 ☕️🍫: more on universal words, Betteridge’s and Cunningham’s law—browse through the comments

 synchronoptica

one year ago: Hey Jude (1968), links to enjoy, more telling the bees plus more assorted links to revisit

two years ago: St Aubert, the ecological importance of oyster-beds, comparable to coral reefs plus even more links worth revisiting

three years ago: the largest basilica in the world, artist Marianne von Werefkin, a devastating earthquake in Constantinople (1509), the original and the reprised Fresh Prince, burning skies plus Hongkonger neologisms

four years ago: the dissolution of the Austrian Empire (1919), Boris Johnson suspends Parliament, Sharpiegate plus more assorted links

five years ago: Denver airport plays up conspiracy theories,  towing an iceberg to the desert, an innovative wind-turbine plus the premiere of X-Files (1993)

10x10 (10. 924)

manufactured crises: distractions and moral panics fabricated by the US GOP and associates  

sachal jazz: Pakistani musicians perform a rendition of David Brubeck’s “Take Five” on tabla and sitar with orchestral accompaniment 

illuminated text: an unfinished medieval manuscript reveals a step-by-step manual for its making  

finishing the hat: Stephen Sondheim’s (previously) Turtle Bay townhouse is on the market 

smiley head: custom screws requiring a special driver—via Pasa Bon!  

f-91w: fully-function ring watches from Casio  

blogoversary: JWZ turns twenty-five 

the partridge family 2200 a.d.: a round up of animated spin-offs  

super fun pak: the novelty cards of Pee-wee’s Playhouse  

now you’re cooking with gas: the culture wars come to the stove 

synchronoptica

one year ago: the invention of champagne (1693), the Zone of Galactic Obscuration plus assorted links to revisit

two years ago: an infamous bugging device discovered (1945), the Lady of Elx, pipe architecture, working against one’s own self-interest plus assorted links worth revisiting

three years ago: more miniatures from Tatsuya Tanaka, St Sithney, the patron saint of dogs plus the birthday of Helen Thomas, Barack Obama

four years ago: sounds lost to lossy compression plus bouba or kiki

five years ago: interviews with author Philip K Dick

7x7 (10. 871)

terracotta army: new excavations in Shaanxi reveal the site contains more than the familiar infantry unit—see previously  

mizhuvkhamy: a group of Ukrainians documenting the graffiti left by Russian occupiers for future research on the invasion 

jazz kissas: the ambient sounds of Japan’s listening cafés—see also 

i never thought i’d be cheering for zuckerberg: in response to the runaway success of Instagram’s Twitter mode, Elon Musk threatens to sue, resorts to name-calling  

adequacy decision: EU rules that Big Data has sufficient controls in place, with the US to monitor compliance, to allow transfer to US servers  

vilnius: developments to watch during this week’s NATO summit in the Lithuanian capital  

dromolaxia vizatzia: Bronze Age tombs of unknown rulers discovered in Cyprus

8x8 (10. 828)

never change: a gallery of US high school annuals from the 70s and 80s—via Web Curios 

oceangate: executive piloting the submersible tourist vessel on its fateful descent has a familial connect to those who went down with the Titanic—more here  

mechanical turk: many of the human tasked to train AI are recursively outsourcing their work to AIs—see more, see also

reform club: the advent and eventual demise of Bellamy’s Refreshment Rooms that catered to Parliament’s schedule—see also—via Strange Company  

rocket lab: a visit to Norton Space Props, a junkyard full of salvage and surplus items from the Space Race 

scene together: the 70s craze of his and hers matching fashions—via Damn Interesting’s Curated Links  

atoms for peace: a tour of the nuclear-powered cruise ship, the NS Savanna—see previously  

katakana: the vintage signage of shops and restaurants in Japan captured as digital fonts—also via Web Curios

synchronoptic 

one year ago: My Sharona (1979), Logan’s Run (1976) plus the Sterling Area (1931)

two years ago: sustenance from CO₂ plus St John’s Eve

three years ago: assorted links to revisit, satisdiction plus another most favoured word, acnestis

7x7 (10. 812)

sister act: a serendipitous find of a bawdy collection of Renaissance era songs leads to a trove of research on bad nuns  

slow tv: Pennsylvania governor sets up a live stream so the public can view the progress on rebuilding the main traffic artery (previously) the eastern seaboard  

whichcraft: a look at the usage and abusage of the relative pronoun  

⛩️: an urban exploration of Toyko’s hidden Shinto shrines 

freshies: a look at what’s on the menu at the South Pole and other in-person observations (see previously)—via Strange Company  

gullinhjatlti: stunning three-thousand year old bronze sword unearthed in Nördlingen  

oude doolhof: a a late Renaissance labyrinthine pleasure garden on the outskirts of Amsterdam

unified floating object (10. 798)

From Hyōryū-ki-shu’s “Archives of Castaways” of the late Edo period when the island nation’s isolationist policies and suspicions of foreigners was still prevailing, we learn about the strange, illustrated account of a fishing crew salvaging a mysterious saucer-shaped utsuro-bune (虚舟, a hollow vessel) off the eastern coast of Japan in 1803. 

Bringing this boat ashore for investigation, they discovered strikingly beautiful young woman with red and white hair and speaking no known language inside, clutching a wooden box she refused to release. Pictures show her unusual dress and equipage as well as alien symbols. Speculating on the nature of this visitor and close encounter at the time (an ever since), villagers from Jōshū thought this woman might be a Russian or Bengali princess fleeing an unhappy marriage, guarding either her dowery or husband’s severed head in the box and pragmatically, not wanting to draw unwanted attention from the lord of the prefecture rather than out of fear or xenophobia, and decided to send her back to where she came from in her well but bafflingly provisioned and seaworthy boat. More at the links above.

williamsburg, as a site, was the site of the first representative assembly and the second university in the colonies which then became the united states–it has been a particularly appropriate place in which to rededicate ourselves to these principles (10. 772)

Hosted in Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia and remarkably the only international meeting chaired by Ronald Reagan during his administration, the ninth annual summit of the Group of Seven—an informal gathering of the richest, industrialised countries—opened on this day in 1983, running through 30 May, and was attended by French president François Mitterrand, West Germany Chancellor Helmut Kohl—their predecessors having first proposed such a forum in 1975—the Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, the Italian Prime Minister Amintore Fanfani, the Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, the Prime Minister of the UK Margaret Thatcher, plus the president of the European Commission, Luxembourgish statesman Gaston Thorn. Though normally reserved as a venue for resolving and harmonising trade and monetary policy amongst members, Reagan shifted the focus to missile deployment in Europe aimed to encourage the Soviet Union to return to disarmament negotiations in Geneva. Having met with Thatcher for bilateral consultations ahead of the summit, the UK and the US wanted support from the G-7 to affirm NATO’s stance on basing Pershing II rockets in Turkey and West Germany, pressing others for agreement despite the objections of Mitterrand and Trudeau, this concord was considered essential for Reagan’s first encounter with Gorbachev for talks two years later.

7x7 (10. 771)

schachtürke: a fraudulent chess-playing automaton launched the AI debate in 1770 

bart: the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit has new anime mascots—each of the characters has a backstory 

pattiegonia: facing the expected backlash from staunch conservatives after featuring a drag star in their ads, the North Face refused to back down—this is not a white flag 

beyond the yellow brick road: the reading that The Wizard of Oz is a Populist political allegory is kind of an incoherent mess, suggested over six decades after it was written—via Strange Company  

buena vista social club: a restored, enhanced 1972 tour of Disney World 

priority road: one individual’s quest to document the unusual, confusing traffic signs of Japan  

lexus nexus: lawyer turns to ChatGPT for help in finding precedence a client’s case, citing a wholly fabricated disputes and settlements—via Waxy—see also

8x8 (10. 747)

me and coolio down by the school yard: a treasury of DJ Cummbund’s mash-ups—see previously  

pedestrianised zone: Tokyo, the largest city in the world, achieved at level of automobile usage almost without compare to all other urban areas—via Kottke 

oo-de-lally: Disney’s Robin Hood at fifty—via Waxy  

was involved in a quid pro crow: during an interview, a politician introduces an interesting error  

sentence grimes: tag yourself in the unimpeachable list of seventh- and eighteenth century Quaker names—see also—Experience Cuppage is also very good 

contes de ma mère l’oye: fabulist, architect and meteorologist, the passions of the Brothers Perrault informed the modern age  

conservancy: the gradient of corporate and public, historic interest for digital preservation and possible solutions—see previously 

soda stereo: an appreciation of the Argentine musical sensation, four decades on

9x9 (10. 728)

daily double: Jeopardy! had a all-fonts category with answers in the typefaces they were looking for as the question—via Kottke  

on the eighth day: a 1984 BBC documentary on nuclear winter preparedness—see previously 

a la carte: a century of cultural changes captured in restaurant menus—see previously  

カクテル: an award-winning small Tokyo ex-urb defined Japanese cocktail culture 

that’s so fetch: tech retreats from the Metaverse to the new hotness  

exciton condensates: physicists find a link between photosynthesis and strange states of matter  

cabin crew: the argot of airplane travel 

mutually assured destruction: new analysis of the same Cold War  

grundvig: font-founder Reinadlo Camejo transforms a Copenhagen church into a typeface

ガシャポン (10. 710)

As part of an ongoing curious curation of the Japanese vending machine capsule toy collectibles, Card House presents another series of gachapon, which includes a set of miniature circuit-breakers, foothold traps, regional sirens, and novel laundering instruction washing tags as well as this sequence of posable versions of the famously armless Venus de Milo. The onomatopoeic word—echoing the cranking sound of the machine and the clunk of the item falling in the collection tray—is a proprietary eponym, a genericised trademark, like kleenex, googling, xeroxing or band-aid, copyrighted by Bandai but used by imitators and competitors as well.

famicase (10. 705)

In what’s become an anticipated yearly tradition, various artists, like the pictured from Zach Roy, conceive, develop and design cartridges for Famicom video games—what might be more familiar as the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) was first released in Japan in 1983 as the Family Computer. Exhibitions have been hosted annually since 2015. What 8-bit everyday adventure would you create?

8x8 (10. 676)

footprint: a sobering visual essay showing the deleterious impacts of cruises from Puget Sound to Alaska—via Things Magazine 

kitakyushu kaku-chi: a look into Japan hidden liquor shop drinking culture 

the wonderful world of tupperware: a vintage celebration of the storage solution’s storage solution as the company goes insolvent 

bea wolf: a re-telling of the epic poem for both kids and grow-ups  

influential flop: deconstructing the Apple Lisa—Locally Integrated Software Architecture 

great firewall: the US state of Montana moves to implement a ban on TikTok 

subcal: an exploration of the best of Tokyo’s fandom nightlife  

greenhouse effect: acknowledging the contributions of the mostly forgotten Eunice Foote, pioneer of climate science

eleki bushi (10. 637)

Via Clive Thompson’s weekly Linkfest (lots more to check out there), we are introduced to the musical stylings of the Japanese surf-rock legend Takeshi Terauchi (寺内タケシ) with a new anthology collection featuring among other tracks his instrumental group Blue Jeans performing the eponymous song from their 1972 album Rashōmon (see previously here and here). A fusion of American rockbilly and traditional influences, playing his guitar like a shamisen, Terauchi, despite some of the adverse reactions from the older generations and reputation as a radical, was able to show that these folkways weren’t so different and dedicate his legacy to his mentor and mother, Hatsushige, a music teacher that fostered his creativity.

8x8 (10. 612)

scheele’s green: more on the poisonous, synthetic shade—via Messy Nessy Chic 

terroir: BBC’s Jancis Robinson’s Wine Course  

family business: a look at the oldest-continuing operating hotel in the world, by shifting definitions (see also)

contagion: banking stocks drop as investors lose confidence after the failure and intervention for Silicon Valley Bank (previously)  

xerox alto: a half-century on (see previously), we are still living with the legacy of one of the first home computers—via Kottke  

ghostwatch: a BBC mockumentary that spooked viewers

$: the first instance of the dollar sign in print—see previously 

arsenic and old lace: an astonishing murder ring of earlier twentieth-century Hungary

🔙🔛🔝🔜 (10. 589)

Language Log directs us to the ongoing puzzlement over a grouping of four emoji—from the original set created in 1998 for DoCoMoNTT (the only symbol predating this innovation being the ❤︎) and what cultural context prompted the inclusion of these four particular characters, surmising that they were a reference to gaming menus but with no compelling narrative for their inclusion—instead, like most other stories about these glyphs, have found novel and dynamic use outside of the laboratory—see also here and here.

8x8 (10. 555)

konekon no rakugaki: an imaginative 1957 cartoon from the studios that would become Toei Animation  

the riddle of today: Nelson Riddle’s “Sunshine Superman” and other tracks 

the six-triple-eight: the WWII all Black, all female postal battalion—via Strange Company  

the remorse of professor panebianco: a selection of short fiction one can read from its annals for the centenary (today) of Weird Tales—see previously  

ai mirror test: misattributing software for sentience to review before exploring this two-hour conversation with a robot interlocutor—via Waxy  

80s cold war techno thriller: the trailer for a Tetris movie—see previously, see also  

secondhand songs: an exploration of original versions upstaged by later covers—via the Awesomer  

my green crocodile: a 1966 stop-motion Soyuzmultfilm

6x6 (10. 538)

bardolatry: Google stock sheds a hundred billion dollars after its premier AI search engine makes a factual error  

order 66: the Jedi Academy will no longer include the massacre of padawans by Anakin Skywalker in its history lessons  

manga [1977]: an animated short by Yōji Kuri 

kamishibai: literary a “paper play,” Spoon & Tamago presents this unique Japanese form of story board 

i know i’ve made some very poor decisions recently, but i can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal: Star Wars in the directorial style of Stanley Kubrick and 2001 by George Lucas  

pass notes: Noam Chomsky on outsourcing academics with Chat CPT

ukiyo-e (10. 493)

Before gaining renown for his iconic series of woodblock prints of the Great Wave off Kanagawa, Katsushika Hokusai (葛飾 北斎) published three comprehensive volumes of “Quick Lessons in Simplified Drawing,” which are really fun to browse and remarkably build figures from the same rudimentary figures that all art teachers seem to employ, with the first book breaking every conceivable subject into geometric shapes, the second book fragmenting their curves and contours and the third book diagramming stroke order. Much more from Kottke at the link above.

6x6 (10. 492)

zhengyue 2: the second day of the Lunar New Year is considered the birthday of all dogs 

only took the m’f’er fifteen tries: Randy Rainbow lampoons Kevin McCartney with a parody of ‘Master of the House’ from Les Misérables 

i shot the serif: US Department of State drops the typeface Times New Roman in favour of the more legible Calibri font  

yellow magic orchestra: watch performances by the Japanese group that created some of the most innovative and influential acts in electronic music  

odonymy: more open etymological street maps—see also  

tet: a short, hand-drawn game about cooking and serving a Vietnamese holiday meal—via Waxy