Thursday, 6 February 2025

aplicรณ (12. 208)

The amazing mastery of Andean weaving and dyeing that surpassed the craft as known to Europeans at the time of contact is showcased in the vivid patchwork tunics of the Wari (Hurari) tribe, centred in what is now the western province of Ayacucho in Peru, which were well-preserved in desert burials. Surviving textiles also including hats and tapestries as grave goods, featured abstract motifs—possibly coded and too make through geometric distortions to make the wearer appear larger and more imposing befitting of their rank. These garments, whose requisite skills and traditions predate the Conquista by hundreds of years (circa the sixth to the tenth century) and have been transmitted and appropriated to an extent by successor cultures, both pre-Columbian and settlers, imparted as tribute along with treasure, but none can compete with this ancient that involved the multidisciplinary practise that involved exotic pigment-sourcing and precise llama husbandry for the ideal substrate, revealing social stratification and hierarchy. View a whole gallery at Public Domain Review at the link above.

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth revisiting (with synchronoptica) plus Saint Mรฉl

seven years ago: women’s suffrage in Britain (1918), MLK, Jr on capitalism, more links to enjoy plus a vocabulary lesson

eight years ago: amoeboid robots

nine years ago: the evolution of corporate logos, high-definition rewatches plus threatening dust bunnies

ten years ago: vaccine scepticism plus even more links

Friday, 31 January 2025

12x12 (12. 196)

happy to be hard core: a sampling of the genre produced on Amiga computers—via Web Curios 

biodiesel: grassroots efforts opposing plans to transform Hungary into an EV battery manufacturing hub—see previously 

pc gamer: vintage scans of computer and arcade hobbyists’ magazines  

eureka moment: the account of the rediscovery of one of Archimedes’ lost manuscripts—see previously  

signature block: as part of Trump’s attempt to redefine gender as a sexual binary and “defend women,” US federal workers are directed to remove preferred pronouns from their emails  

the cruel kids’ table: a look at the resurgent fratocracy of Americans under thirty, as witnessed at Trump’s inaugural parties 

hexaflexagons: fun with paper models—via MetFilter 

m23: Rwandan-backed rebel forces take provincial capital of Goma in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, possibly with designs on annexing the eastern region  

hold the line: the new legal council of the US Office of Personnel Management (previously and under new management) is a soi-disant “raging mysogynist” 

clu clu land: the Video Game History Foundation opens its archives to the public—via Ars Technica  

doggerland: archeological exploration of the submerged North Sea region 

mixolydian mode: compose chords and compare output in a range of dozens of scales—see previously—via ibฤซdem


synchronoptica

one year ago:  a film by Rosa von Praunheim (with synchronoptica), assorted links to revisit plus another banger from ABBA

seven years ago: telepresence, more links to enjoy, credit for the discovery of x-rays plus an executive order from the desk of Richard Nixon

eight years ago: film-strip leader ladies

nine years ago: even more links plus perspectives in price-lists 

ten years ago: chance decision-making, the mad monk plus electromagnetic moats

Friday, 24 January 2025

alasitas (12. 178)

Derived from the Aymara word “buy from me” and evolving from an annual event pre-dating European contact that involved communal prayer for good crops and an exchange of staple goods, evolving over time to accommodate missionary teaching and colonisers’ sense of acquisition, the month-long fair in La Paz—and other Bolivian communities—honouring Ekeko (Iqiqu), the indigenous god of abundance, begins today at noon. Similar to the paper votive offering given and received for Lunar New Year’s celebrations, people purchase miniature plaster representations of luxury items that they hope to get in the coming year from artisans and have them blessed by shamans and local priests.

Wednesday, 25 December 2024

the fees being charged by panama are ridiculous, especially knowing the extraordinary generosity that has been bestowed to panama by the us—this complete 'rip-off' of our country will immediately stop (12. 111)

Though US president-elect Trump’s stupid antics are already too much to keep up with, they become too hard to ignore once the enter the territory of diplomatic crises and quashing internationally agreed upon norms of behaviour. A bundle of such instances can be traced to a recent assertion that America can and should reclaim the Panama Canal because of perceived unfair transit fees applied to US flagged vessels (never mind how America tanked British supremacy over a similar squabble in the Suez)—which seem to have antecedents in a Trump branded hotel in the capital that failed to pay Panamanian income taxes and social security for employees. The operation and management is administered (since New Year’s Eve 1999 when the US handed over the concession) by the Panama Canal Authority, a government agency which considers the waterway inalienable patrimony. Per the Torrijos-Carter treaties (see above) negotiated in 1977, America retains a right to defend the canal from threats to neutral operations but holds no claim to it. While there are two ports in the isthmus operated by China, there are no indications that American ship traffic has been affected, though imposing higher transit fees on non-US carriers might be seen as a way to bolster planned universal tariffs. At the same time, Trump is also renewing calls for the sale of Greenland to America (following offers to annex Canada as the fifty-first state), calling ownership and control of the Danish autonomous territory “an absolute necessity” for reasons of national security and global freedom. Neither property is for sale.

Saturday, 21 December 2024

solstice (12. 099)

Also referred to as the Southern Solstice not to privilege the Northern Hemisphere (see previously, see below) when the Sun pivots directly over the Tropic of Cancer, marking the shortest and longest day of the year depending on one’s climes, at the extremes nearest the poles in the Baltics and Russia there are zero hours of daylight as compared to fifteen plus in Australia, Oceania and South America, NPR has a list of suggestions for observing this change in seasons occurring today from the Stonehenge live-feed, special concerts to sampling traditions and customs (see more) from around the globe plus tips for a little self-care as we cannot opt just to hibernate this time out. 

 synchronoptica

one year agoMidwinter Night traditions (with synchronoptica), Strange Paradise plus Christmas cards from Dan Quayle

seven years ago: Trump moves the Israeli embassy to Jerusalem, what do you call a world that can’t learn from itself, a sleek sedan plus no more email signature blocks with motivational quotations

eight years ago: assorted links to enjoy, Christingle plus the VR experience

nine years ago: a new HTTP status code that calls out censorship plus the sewers of Wiesbaden

ten years ago: the Russian rouble and the Dutch Disease plus 2014 in review

Tuesday, 22 October 2024

10x10 (11. 923)

potalapitsi: a 3D resin replica of ancient Wauja cave carvings presented after the original was vandalised is helping keep their tradition and ancestral wisdom alive  

stop the steal: the Trump campaign’s coup endgame—via Kottke  

waymo: robocars circling the block 

pumpkin spice: the untold story of the rebellious photographer that helped found the tradition of craft beer and the seasonal flavour  

๐Ÿ‘ป: guide to converting one’s haunted mansion to an AirBNB  

grab-bag: vintage trick-or-treating paper sacks 

ใ…›: revisiting a demonic number  

charter cities: how wealth redraws geopolitical borders  

because i was not a trade-unionist: the political implication of mass-deportations

hillfort: a preserved early Celtic wooden chamber tomb

 synchronoptica

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

seven years ago: Trump’s possibly fake Renoir, a two party system plus the first and only Space Cat

eight years ago: ICANN meets, turning leaves plus a massive internet outage that could impact the US election

nine years ago: more links to enjoy, time-travel plus even more links

eleven years ago: sacred architecture in France, Chartreuse plus lavender cultivation

Saturday, 5 October 2024

dromomania (11. 887)

Returning to his hometown of Waseca, Minnesota from the west, having departed on his journey accompanied by his brother and a mule nearly four years earlier and setting forth eastward, on this day in 1974, having walked just over twenty-three thousand kilometres, Dave Kunst became the first independently verified individual to have circumambulated the globe. Received by Princess Grace in Monaco and by chance meeting fellow adventurer Thor Heyerdahl in a restaurant in Italy, the epic walkers solicited donations to UNICEF along the way. Denied entry into the Soviet Union, about midway through their journey, the team continued through India and Afghanistan, where the two were tragically ambushed by bandits who believed they were carrying the monies pledged to the United Nations’ emergency children’s fund, killing his brother John, but Kunst finished after months recuperation, joined by his older sibling Pete. After the loss of his mule in the Australian Outback, a schoolteacher, who Kunst became enamoured with and eventually married, towed his supplies with her car for a thousand miles at walking pace, Dave keeping up alongside. Kunst’s trip consisted of twenty million steps and went through twenty-one pairs of shoes.

 

synchronoptica

one year ago: wine and quinces (with synchronoptica)

seven years ago: drawing logos from memory plus biofuels from moss

eight years ago: turning Twitter into a public utility, ghost signs plus an unpopular file format

nine years ago: the Norman Conquest and the Divine Right of Kings

ten years ago: Roman tax regimes

Saturday, 28 September 2024

antรกrtica (11. 879)

Established in April of 1984 with the second person born on the continent in November of that year, we learn via Nag on the Lake of the larger of two permanent settlements just north of the Antarctic Circle on King George Island that is not a research outpost. With about one hundred fifty inhabitants during the summer and eighty hardy souls in the winter, the remote Villa Las Estrellas which arguably seems to exist in order to legitimise the Chilean claim against the overlapping British and Argentine ones—the latter having founded Base Esperanza in 1953, the community of fourteen homes has several amenities, though some like the school, souvenir shop, hostel and the post office which formerly was a significant draw for philately fans seeking to have a stamp cancelled with an Antarctic post mark seem to have closed in recent years at least temporarily, but the infirmary, fitness facility/cultural centre and library remain to support the community. More southerly and significantly smaller with a civilian population of only ten families, the Argentine settlement seems better outfitted.

Thursday, 26 September 2024

9x9 (11. 874)

must contain the characters #@^*!: US regulatory body that sets standards for government agencies issues guidance that urges the end of vexing password compliance rules  

landscape of faith: church-to-residential development is in some places easing the housing crisis  

ertunet crater: planetoid Ceres may harbour potentially life-sustaining oceans like Europa  

hippopotami: the phenomenon of Moo Ding seems likely the natural conclusion of art history—see also  

regency era: unofficial Bridgerton Ball Experience leaves attendees feeling scammed—drawing parallels with another disappointing and pricey event 

outrรฉ west: eight radical architectural works from western America (see previously

huaca de la luna: brilliantly painted throne room of a seventh century Moche female leader discovered in northern Peru 

the creepy hallways of the built environment: American suburbs are a horror show  

universal media disc: the challenges of conserving good data in the age of AI and shuttered, zombified outlets—via Damn Interesting’s Curated Links

geoglyph (11. 872)

With the aid of AI, researchers have uncovered three hundred new Nazca Lines previously unknown—nearly doubling the number of these ancient, massive figures impressed in the ground of the Peruvian desert only discovered with the advent of air travel—bringing older, faded and weathered ones into sharper focus. The cultural purpose of these designs that are only appreciable from a bird’s eye perspective are an enduring mystery but this new cache of images (we hope they’re not machine hallucinations) will provide insights into the people who created them and include fantasy creatures, orcas, llamas and a depiction of human sacrifice.

synchronoptica

one year ago: AI on fake virality (with synchronoptica), the tarot art of Leonora Carrington, the thermodynamic history of the universe plus a solar observatory in Potsdam

seven years ago: self-marriage, assorted links to revisit plus US Homeland Security monitoring social media

eight years ago: Keats’ To Autumn, mirror spiders plus remediative meditative sessions for elementary school

ten years ago: lexical gaps and the European Day of Languages

eleven years ago: German fondness for abbreviation 

Sunday, 11 August 2024

7x7 (11. 758)

pop quiz: extended CVs of classic game show hosts  

pass the mayo: condiment’s dynamic nature could help solve containment challenges for nuclear fusion  

wingnut: a South Berkley salvage store turned museum—via Nag on the Lake’s always excellent Sunday Links  

cocรณnonรณs: a Bogota-based fusion band—possibly named after the ill-fated Tiki drink shared with Geordi La Forge and Christy Henshaw on their first date  

bias towards coherence: Trump’s latest on rally attendance and his greatest hits  

the type specimen of humanity: the designated permanent reference for Homo sapiens is Carl Linnaeus  

magick show: Richard Metzger’s latest occult project

 synchronoptica

one year ago: cutting archived content for the sake of SEO (with synchronoptica), a racist brawl in Alabama plus multi-hyphenates

seven years ago: reproductive awareness

eight years ago: ant wars, Martian landscapes, disproportionate and xenophobic calls for burqa bans, a floating home in Canada plus Facebook and clickbait

nine years ago: Liberia and the US 

ten years ago: a party at Neuseenland plus the geopolitics of terrorism

Saturday, 13 July 2024

beaumont slope (11. 686)

In anticipation of eventual ratification of the 1994 UN treaty, the Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS, see more), the United States quietly staked claim last month to its extended continental shelf in the Arctic so were it to become a signatory, it would be joining on its own terms with boundaries already delineated. The move did not go unnoticed as other member nations have also tried to assert, under the treaty, their own territorial reaches in the far north and the American declaration of what’s theirs by dint of geological affiliation, an area of the seabed the size of California which overlaps with the exclusive economic zones of Canada, Norway, Denmark and Russia, rather than political flag-planting and is seen as contentious and a sign of continued American exceptionalism, manifest destiny flouting customary and international law. More from Radio Free Europe at the link above.

synchronoptica

one year ago: the search for past life on Mars (with synchronoptica) plus the Hollywood sign (1923)

seven years ago: assorted links worth revisiting plus a million dollar heist

eight years ago: camping in Metz 

nine years ago: missing the Dalai Lama plus the Bechdel Test

eleven years ago: a furlough for US federal workers, psychiatry and sainthood plus a choreographed panopticon

Friday, 21 June 2024

don’t cry for me argentina (11. 644)

Originally conceived as a rock opera concept album two years prior to popular and critical acclaim, the collaboration by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber (see previously here and here) was adapted for the stage and debuted on this day in London’s West End on this day in 1978 and relates the life and political career of of the wife and widow of Juan Perรณn. Rice, interested in philately in his childhood, was somewhat taken by her images on stamps but knew nothing of her significance to the country’s history, social reform and charitable works until intrigued by catching the end of a radio biography and became highly interested on the verge of obsession, research, traveling to Buenos Aires and even naming his first born daughter Eva after her before pitching the idea to Webber, whom at first rejected the idea in favour of producing a musical based on Jeeves, the PG Wodehouse character—a decided flop—before reconsidering Rice’s proposal.

Tuesday, 21 May 2024

8x8 (11. 570)

nicht abgeholtes gepรคck: the main station in Freiburg has a mystery vending machine where one can buy unclaimed items left in delivery lockers—see previously 

the ahramat branch: a long ago dried up arm of the Nile may explain some of the mystery behind the building of the Pyramids of Giza 

takenoko: a public service announcement for when the bamboo shoots sprout, one of Japan’s traditional seventy-two microseasons—see previously 

endless shrimp: the American seafood chain was private-equitied into bankruptcy and not by dent of its generous promotions—more here

first draft: in a since deleted post, Trump advocates for a “united Reich” in a video featuring hypothetical newspaper headlines following his reelection  

on the town: the story behind the ten-year-old who in 1947 spent a week in San Francisco with twenty dollars 

we call it maize: an interesting hypothesis that ancient Incan stonework and other architectural elements may be an homage to corn kernels  

out-of-order: broken and unused vending machines from around Japan—via Cardhousesee also

synchronoptica

one year ago: Croatia Diplomacy Day, a classic from David Bowie, an evergreen piece on American gun-violence plus assorted links worth revisiting

two years ago: Ok Computer, a rainbow fifty pence coin for Pride, more feathered friends plus Amelia Earhart crosses the Atlantic

three years ago: your daily demon: Beleth, Elton John in the Soviet Union plus trace a raindrop from river down to the sea

four years ago: vintage Las Vegas logos, an avant-garde art show (1951) plus The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

five years ago: the White Night Riots (1979), regional airline logos, OK Cola, African air-carriers, one hundred and twenty years of photography plus a camera on a sushi conveyor belt

Monday, 13 May 2024

proclamation of neutrality (11. 556)

Though granting legal recognition to the Confederate States of America as belligerents, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland under Queen Victoria, announcing the stance on this day in 1861, never accorded the breakaway southern states with the status of a nation, negotiated treaties or exchanged ambassador and trade came to a halt. Despite massive losses in the textile sector, particularly in Manchester, due to loss of imported cotton, most Britons, maintained their fidelity to the Union and Abraham Lincoln, and CSA president Jefferson Davis’ wager that dependence on “King Cotton” would lead to diplomatic recognition, mediation or intervention militarily, fell far short of hopes. After the costly war in the Crimea, European powers wanted no more entanglements. Some smuggling of cotton occurred (see previously) with privateers running bundles across the Atlantic in exchange for munitions and luxury goods, but most mills—even threatened with bankruptcy and famine for the workers—refused to process the Confederate contraband.

meant for each other (11. 555)

Once the top-vetted hopeful for Donal Trump’s ticket for vice-president who has since seen her reputation tarnished (but probably irreparably—amazing that one could recover from something so heinous—due to the American values wars and backlash against cancel culture) by an autobiographical account of killing a family dog and a problematic goat as well as exaggerated or outright fabricated geopolitical meetings, South Dakota governor Kristi Noem has been banned from twenty-percent of the state’s territory as six Native American reservations exercise their sovereign right to declare Noem an outlaw and refuse her entry. The Tankton Sioux Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate joined the Oglala, Rosebud, Cheyenne River and Standing Rock tribal branches for on-going jurisdictional feuds that began with suppressing the opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline in 2019 and recently suggesting that the independence reservations were dens for organised crime—drugs trafficking and illegal migration.

 synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth revisiting, the Pantheon plus a classic from Boney M

two years ago: Our Lady of Fatima (1917), more links to enjoy plus Gรถdel and Einstein

three years ago: common areas of Singapore’s public housing plus St Glyceria

four years ago: anonymous scholarship, a quiet black hole, unmasked assailants plus an ancient herbal

five years ago: mushrooming traditions, technological middlemen plus open-sky requests from the incarcerated

Saturday, 4 May 2024

progress without pollution (11. 537)

Opening on this day with the above motto with the park grounds divided amongst the islands of Canada and Havermale and the adjacent south bank of the Spokane River, Expo ’74 was the first environmentally themed World’s Fair, distancing itself from the tech-centric events of the past (another first for not looking to a utopian future but instead addressing present and emergent issues), drawing a sizeable crowd and hosting several UN symposia to address regional and global environmental concerns. Whist mostly foregoing the established tradition of debuting new innovations like the telephone, escalator, video games, the waffle and the ice cream cone, the Washington World’s Fair did showcase the first IMAX theatre (screening Man Belongs to the Earth) and had pavilions cooled without air-conditioning, as well as demonstrating telecommunications relay services and previewed the roll-out of a national emergency 911 service.

synchronoptica

one year ago: the Flatiron building (1902), assorted links worth revisiting plus Saint Florian

two years ago: Dave Brubeck Day, Gaslight (1944) plus more links to enjoy

three years ago: default fonts, Margaret Thatcher and Star Wars plus more links to revisit

four years ago: the Kent State Massacre (1970), the formation of Greenpeace (1972), even more links plus more Star Trek: TAS

five years ago: May the Fourth Be With You, Always

Tuesday, 16 April 2024

passerine dream (11. 493)

Via Damn Interesting’s Curated Links, not only do we learn that our avian friends also dream, singing silently in their sleep, but researchers are able after a fashion, to decipher these nocturnal rehearsals by carefully monitoring unconscious muscle contractions along a bird subject’s vocal tract, akin to eye-movements during REM sleep, amplifying and correlating the series of calls with observed behaviours. These dream sounds, using a Great Kiskadee (pitogue, bichofeo—a member of the tyrant flycatcher family and named onomatopoeically for its exuberant call, bien-te-veo or “I see you well”) from Central and South America for the study, suggest that the specimen was replaying a daytime territorial defence with an encroaching intruder, insightful surely but given the nature of dreaming, perhaps only part of the story. More from New Atlas on the methodology, anatomy of birdsong and a sound-clip at the link above.

Monday, 8 April 2024

penumbra (11. 477)

Visible for totality in a narrow corridor of the Pacific Ocean, as North America is watching the skies, when the shadow of the Moon’s ascending node (where the orbit of the satellite intersects the plane of the solar ecliptic from our perspective) obscured the Sun, crossing the international dateline and beginning on the ninth and ending on this day in 1995, this relatively rare hybrid eclipse with phases of the complete and the annular (when the lunar disc does not quite obscure the sun) as it progressed across the globe. Observers in extreme northwestern South American, Central America and the Caribbean were afforded near totality.

Monday, 4 March 2024

product placement (11. 400)

Though a bit averse to reposting content from Twitter, this cultural artefact was too good to resist, learning—via Super Punch—that circa 2003 when Chilean television first broadcast the original Star Wars trilogy, sponsors were keen on not taking the audience out of the experience and commercials breaks were subtly (or not so subtly) stitched into the film. This is rather ingenious and wish more networks did the same. Here is an example dubbed in English.  Much more at the link above.

synchronoptica

one year ago: Don’t Stop the Beat (2002), Anti-Flirt Week (1923), cult cinema classics, more puzzling emoji plus Trump’s January Sixth charity recording

two years ago: the high cost of mineral extraction, customised browsing plus Jesus Christ Price

three years ago: Nosferatu (1922), more on the 1918 Influenza Pandemic, a visual search engine, American state birds plus Icelandic names

four years ago: stream-climbers plus Robert Mugabe elected (1980)

five years ago: outsider artist Adolf Wรถlfli, closed Italian shops, music from a Bosch triptych plus a Brexit phone booth to call Europe