day twenty-eight (13. 299)

Rejecting reports that he is searching for an off-ramp (another tortured metaphor that isn’t build for this) as economies continue to falter and it becomes manifest that the situation is out of his control, Trump says; “I am the opposite of desperate. I don’t care,” as he again extends the pause on attacking Iranian energy infrastructure. Contrary to what Tehran is putting out, Washington maintains that Iran is eager to make a deal with productive conversations ongoing. Despite the veracity of the claims, Iran we think has no appetite to work with the same negotiators, Kusher and Witkoff, who orchestrated all the previous rounds when, resulting in last year’s attack on Iranian nuclear research facilities (now cited as a casus belli) and lately all out war (which led to the closure of shipping lanes) rather than achieving any semblance of cooperation or compromise. Meanwhile the Houthi militia in Yemen seem to be plotting opening up another front in the war by seizing control of Bab-el-Mandeb (Gate of Grief, the strait that links the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, fed by the Suez canal and the Indian Ocean. Bombardment and counterstrikes continue.

 

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links to revisit (with synchronopticæ) plus a German colonial holding in the Americas

 

twelve years ago: the Rod of Asclepius plus current affairs 

 

thirteen years ago: signs and shingles plus a reminder that a country is not a corporation

 

fourteen years ago: a Cold War melodrama 

 

fifteen years ago: long term entombment 

table manners (13. 285)

Though admittedly sometimes we practise with the wooden, break-apart pair included with store-bought sushi that includes a brief guide, like those napkins that one used to find in Greek and Italian restaurants that included a vocabulary lesson for native pleasantries to exchange with the waitstaff (one doesn’t find them so often any more), we knew we were doing it wrong and would never assay such behaviour during an authentic meal unless by limited utensils and were not prepared this extensive list, courtesy of MetaFilter, of breaches of etiquette that one can commit with chopsticks (箸, はし in Kana and pronounced as hashi). Dating back to antiquity with their first archeological evidence as cooking implements, the use of chopsticks spread with Confucian philosophy as civilised and refined with the modern aphorism that whereas knives are for the slaughterhouse and battle, chopsticks are for scholars—so called grand chopsticks (料理箸, ryōribashi) used for preparation rather than eating are longer and also measure temperature as a property of bamboo by their sounds or silence during frying. Whilst not intended as prescriptive or shame-inducing but rather as cultivating eating as an art and act of reverence, there are orders of precedence, using the serving implements, not double-dipping and many others, including the pictured transgression called ogamibashi (拝み箸), it being considered rude to hold one’s chopsticks during the expression of thanks (itadakimasu, いただきます) for what one is about to receive, the equivalent (though more nuanced as a recognition of humility rather than hierarchy and that one’s needs have a larger meaning) of having one’s knife and fork at the ready during grace.

day eighteen (13. 272)

Shocked and angered by the perceived ingratitude on the part of Asian and European allies not thanking the US for intervention in the Middle East and unwillingness to join the crusade, Trump says he will soon announce those nations that will help open the Strait of Hormuz, also telling reporters he expects operations to be wrapped up soon.

Not consulted prior and with no clear strategic objectives, Germany—whom the US has suggested should take up the mantle for leadership of the alliance in a couple of years from America—states that this adventure is not NATO’s war and the EU, particularly condemning the Israeli ground invasion in southern Lebanon not wanting to be drawn into a wider conflict and are working to de-escalate the situation. The US Green Zone surrounding the Baghdad embassy came under more attacks as Trump again expressed surprise over the blowback of his magnanimous act of aggression. Meanwhile, Donald Trump says he expects to have “the honour of taking Cuba” as his oil blockage plunges the country into darkness.

 

synchronoptica

one year ago: alien enemies (with sychronopticæ) plus more autopen controversy 

thirteen years ago: unexpected snow, the art of Keith Haring, antennas and broadcasting towers plus mesh-worm probes

fourteen years ago: the Obamas in Sgt Pepper-style, mass-surveillance at the pump plus a possible link between carbon-dioxide and obesity

fifteen years ago: automated skulduggery 

rëşt ộf wŏrld (13. 141)

DJ Earworm’s (previously) reprised mashup, Tops of the World, features the number one song in one hundred forty nine countries from the past twelve months, showcasing some one hundred five hits (obliviously some cross-over) is back online. This lesson in geography, music and culture expressed through dance, instrumentation and fashion as a global exchange is ambitious and inevitably ran into some legal entanglements and take-down notices due to the range of copyright laws that one would expect to have to navigate. Annotated, click through for a full listing of the samples and learn more about each source track and artist and inclusion methodology. This compilation might end the need for international song competitions. Let us know your new favourites and what you have learnt.

life in a day (13. 103)

Contributing footage captured all on a single day, 24 July 2010, some eighty thousand participants from one-hundred-ninety-two countries answering the call-for-submissions on the video hosting platform, the Ridley Scott and Kevin Macdonald (director also of biopics Whitney and Marley, State of Play, The Last King of Scotland and Touching the Void) collaboration is a crowd-sourced feature length documentary, revelatory at the time, and was previewed on Youtube (conceived in part as a commemoration of its five-year anniversary) one week prior to its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on this day in 2011. Inspired and informed—with new media and technological possibilities—by a 1930s British sociological and ethnographical project called the Mass Observation movement—asking respondents around the UK to share their diary entries for one day per month, anonymously and answering a few basic demographic questions, in order to highlight the complexities and fullness of the seemingly mundane—and to demonstrate that everyone’s the main character in their own narrative, a touch lesson to learn, the director began the appeal for clips with a column in The Guardian, asking simple questions about people’s passions, what was in the pockets and their fears—also dispatching video cameras to people in the developing world. That particular day was chosen as it was the first Saturday following the World Cup. Several countries including Panama, Canada, India and Spain made their own national versions in the following years and a sequel was made in 2020 for 25 July during the height of the COVID-19 global pandemic and premiering just after the inauguration of US president Joe Biden.

*    *    *    *    *  

synchronoptica

one year ago: a planetary alignment (with synchronopticæ), the side projects of Vangelis, a longitudinal study of love songs plus more trivial maths

twelve years ago: more data breaches 

thirteen years ago: kitchen implements, self-healing construction plus workplace distractions

fourteen years ago: geopolitical meme templates 

sixteen years ago: privatising student debt 

seventeen years ago: house-hunting 

ежедневник (12. 877)

Though many fall after the period of the Soviet calendar, which was in use along side traditional ones from 1918 to 1940 (see previously), the aesthetic and layout of the alternating five- and six-day weeks and schedule of continuous production and colour-coded match this collection of pin-up ephemera featuring industrial prowess match closely with that original reform initiative—the design meant to endure not as perpetual or eternal as some outside sources reported the system to be but rather naturally cyclical and upon consultation regular and predictable and still planned around non-work days and “whose sore task does not divide the Sunday from the week.” The set is also an interesting observation on the artefacts of progress and commemoration and what society embraced as contemporary achievement. Much more from Print magazine at the link above.

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth the revisit (with synchronopticæ) plus Matt Gaetz nominated for US attorney general 

twelve years ago: US corn policy, the Victorian internet plus timing vs on-demand

thirteen years ago: the phobia illustrations of John Vassos plus the Oxford Word of the Year

fourteen years ago: outlawing parody 

seventeen years ago: phantom rings 

patrimoine mondial (12. 590)

As NPR reports, twenty-six new sites from all over the world have been inscribed into the UNESCO list of World Heritage (see previously) for 2025, including many we’d have thought would have already been among them like the ensemble of castles commissioned by King Ludwig II of Bavaria, Jamaica’s Port Royal, the memorials of the Cambodian genocide and the coasts of Morbihan with the megaliths of Carnac, necropolises in China and Sardinia and Minoan archeological sites in Crete. Click through at the link above for a full list of the new additions with extensive information about each location.

el pueblo de nuestra señora la reina de los ángeles del río porciúncula (12. 520)

In response to rallies against US immigration and customs enforcement (ICE) raids in Los Angeles over the weekend, Trump has federalised the Californian National Guard, deploying two-thousand troops to quell the protests. Over a dozen individuals have been arrested as agitators and insurrectionists for attempting to impede law enforcement activities as ICE agents clash with residents and have apprehended more than one hundred individuals suspected of being undocumented immigrants in sweeps that have so far been limited to isolated areas in the Paramount City, the garment district and the Civic Centre. Defence secretary Hegseth also threatened to mobilise marines if the violence continues. The state’s governor counters (whom Trump referred to as Gavin Newscum for his inability to control RIOTS and LOOTERS) that there is no shortage of law enforcement officials and that Trump only wants a spectacle and an excuse to escalate the situation and urges advocates to remain peaceful and not give the administration what it wants. Preparing for such raids and mass-deportations since Trump’s reelection, the ACLU and other groups championing immigrants have been coordinating efforts for outreach and advocacy as well, with city councilmember Eunisses Hernandez pushing back on the pledge that ICE would focus their efforts on dangerous criminals, coming at the time of graduation season and Pride Month celebrations: “It’s never, ever, ever been the case, because when they come for one of us, they come for all of us—and we have to remember that.”

dim sum and then some (12. 337)

Via the New Shelton wet/dry, we are directed to problem of how most cuisine is reduced to a flag and cordoned in by national borders, which is serviceable to an extent but results in a monolithic understanding when regional dishes are in reality much more granular foodways. Chinese cooking has been categorised in popular culture into eight styles, Sichuan, Cantonese, Anhui, Hunan, Jiangsu, Shandong, Fujian and Zhejiang as a start (based off the order of courses presented in banqueting tradition) but is far more rarefied in reality, even to the exclusion of standard dishes which so far not been subject to an official count but seems conservatively to number in the scores with this “coffee table” enumeration of representative recipes, ingredients and trajectories.

i love king charles—sounds like a great idea (12. 327)

In between issuing two new executive orders designed to further undermine recent judicial decisions against the assault on the administrative state to void rulings that the OPM could not order another agency to terminate employees and affirm loyalty oaths and that DOGE could not be refused access to “siloed” data, Trump, on his social media website, linked to an article from a UK tabloid suggesting that during his upcoming, second state visit, Charles will make a “secret offer” for the United States to join the Commonwealth as its fifty-seventh associate member, connected as former territories through historic and cultural ties, in order to dampen tension over pulling in Canada as the fifty-first state and escalating trade disputes and might be received as an alternative to the tenuous relationship to NATO and the EU. While floated and endorsed by the Queen, reportedly, during Trump’s first term, claims that it is being entertained at the highest levels challenge veracity. Charles III as the titular head of state with the wanna be king in fealty sounds preferable however symbolic and outside the realm of possibility and would possibly deflate tariffs by placating his ego. PfRC has reached out to the Commonwealth for comment.

tv.garden (12. 326)

Via the always stupendous Web Curios we are directed to a rather amazing resource that brings together thousands of live-streaming stations from around the world, covering nearly every country with dozens of free-to-air broadcasting for each. Point to a country and flip through the channels for a compelling glimpse of local reporting, talk-shows, soap operas, music videos and commercials with the obligatory home shopping networks. I’m not one to have television on in the background generally or with the patience to channel-surf but found this surprisingly absorbing and like a mini-vacation with a much broader selection than on hotel tv.

eo 10924 (12. 269)

Established on this day in 1961 by executive order from John F Kennedy and authorised by the US congress later in September, the Peace Corps is an independent agency of the federal government that trains volunteers and deploys them to local communities around the world to assist developing countries in health and environmental programmes, education, empowering women and the marginalised and making resilient polities that enshrine American values of democracy, free markets and entrepre-neurship, respecting local customs and norms by embedding participants with a command of the prevailing language and living under the same general conditions as their outreach group. Pitched as missionaries of democracy to provide technical advice and assistance, the Corps dispatched some nine hundred volunteers to fifty-two partner countries in its first year, Kennedy committed to its formation in the final days of his presidential campaign—realising the potential to genuinely help people in post-colonial Asia and Africa and counter stereotypes of US imperialism and hegemony—against his opponent Nixon who called the proposal a magnet for draft dodgers and a “cult of escapism.”

you can basically just be gay and you are fine in thailand (12. 174)

Joining Taiwan as the only other country in the southern Asia to recognise marriage equality for same-sex unions, hundreds of couples in Bangkok and elsewhere held wedding ceremonies as the legislation passed by the National Assembly in June 2024 came into effect, written into law by King Maha Vajiralongkorn following a long campaign and petition decades in the making by the country’s community for rights and respect. Though many obstacles and ostracism remain domestically and regional, this moment sanctified of the movement marks historic progress.

england’s home of mystery (12. 154)

Sadly demolished in 1905 to make way for offices and flats, we enjoyed this appreciation of the Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly, originally commissioned by antiquarian and naturalist William Bullock as a museum to house his collection of curiosities acquired by Captain Cook’s exploration (see also) of the South Seas and built in 1812 in the revival architecture style popularised (see also) by reports of Napoleon’s exploits and Admiral Nelson’s defeat of the French navy on the Nile, which after disposing of his ethnographic and natural history collection, transformed the space into a public exhibition hall, with rotating collections including Napoleon’s carriage captured as a war trophy at Waterloo, Egyptian artefacts and The Raft of Medusa. By the end of the nineteenth century, the hall became a venue for magical acts and spiritualism demonstrations, chiefly staged by the duo of Maskelyne and Cooke with a rather remarkable run of thirty-one years—the former, John Nevil, stage magician, card shark, professional sceptic (wanting to expose fraudsters and charlatans) and inventor of a typewriter of proportional character width (kerning was apparently all over the place and probably would have driven me to distraction) and the pay-toilet, hence the euphemism, “spend a penny.” Much more from Feuilleton at the link above including a gallery of show posters.

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 ago:  Midwinter 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

amidakuji (11. 918)

A way of establishing 1:1 correspondence with any number of random pairings of equal size—for instance assigning roles to actors or chores to a group of helpers—the lottery game of chance, guaranteeing equal chance and distribution is called the above in Japan (阿弥陀籤, after the aspect of the Buddha associated with discernment and perception), in Korean as Sadaritagi (사다리타기, ladder climbing) and in Chinese as Guijiaotu (鬼腳圖, a ghost leg diagram). Participants’ names are listed in the row above with vertical lines dropping down to an assignment directly below. Concealing the names and jobs, the lines are hashed with random horizontal detours that must be taken on to the next column until reaching the bottom. Revealing the lines to the players but still keeping the other names and jobs concealed, they choose their path downward, the permutations in the snaking path ensuring all tasks are taken—unlike with drawing lots, flipping a coin. Aside from practical applications, such lottery elements can be found in the bonus rounds in video games to randomise one’s chances of getting the best prize.

.io (11. 915)

Since 1968, the UK and US have operated a joint military base, Diego Garcia, on the Chagos Islands—with the official demonym of the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT, also previously known as the Oil Islands)—and Mauritius (which gained independence from the UK the same year after being ceded as a French colony to Britain under the terms of the 1814 Treaty of Paris) has claimed the archipelago as its own, supported by a ruling of the International Court of Justice to end decolonisation. After more than half a century, the UK conceded and in exchange for a ninety-nine year lease on the military base has handed over sovereignty to Mauritius earlier this month. And while a significant move for justice and reconciliation, these developments—not tracked by the tech world—have an equally sizeable impact on the internet with repatriation, we learn via Web Curious. The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, which issues top-level country domains will remove the suffix, IO, not allowing any new registration under that code (like with the governing body for emoji no longer accepting submissions for flags) and begin the process of retiring existing ones: github, twitch, et al. At a time when domain names can be a considerable portion of a country’s economy (see also) and how many have hitched their identity to a particular brand and legacy with an expectation of permanence, it’s pretty consequential—and of course not without protocol and precedent, albeit established in times when the online world did not play such an overwhelming part of our lives, geopolitically or otherwise. Granted less than a year earlier, the Soviet Union .su domain was replaced with .ru with understanding it would eventually be shutdown in 1991—but the former’s transformation into an unpoliced space and refuge of the dark web convinced authorities that regulations needed to be in place and enforced regarding transition and closure. The 1992 dissolution of Yugoslavia was arguably a better managed affair, with the ISO and IANA having learned from their previous experience, with .yu splintering into its successors .me and .rs respectively.

𑫀 (11. 914)

Having encountered such revered writing systems previously, we enjoyed this introduction and overview of the small religious community adhered to by members of the Tedim-speaking people called the Zo or Chin, practising a monotheistic faith called Laipianism, an outlier for this indigenous group in a region of Myanmar that primarily follows Christianity or Buddhism. Founded in response to aggressive missionary outreach in colonial southwest Asia, Pau Cin Hau, the charismatic figure who would become the movement’s spiritual leader had a series of dreams around 1900 regaling him with a multitude of symbols for writing his native language which had previously had only an oral tradition—developing with the aid of his dream-guide a logographic syllabary of a thousand characters, simplified into fifty-seven for an alphabetic script. The name of the religion, which still has about five-thousand devotees, reflects the importance of this invention, the lai element meaning literacy, and the dream-guide was revealed to be Pathian—compare to the Pythia—who was the one true and transcend god and discouraged worship of intermediary spirits called metapersons. In written form, Cin was able to propagate the teachings of Pathian—ironically Christian missionaries also published in the script called Zotuallai. While the script is considered sacred and a certain level of deferential diglossia is maintained, the alphabet Cin was given its own Unicode block in 2014 and can be used for everyday communications and texting.

  synchronoptica

one year ago: Pomp and Circumstance (with synchronoptica)

eight years ago: the Remembrancer of the Crown

nine years ago: assorted links to revisit plus Picasso’s Guernica

ten years ago: Barbie: Plastic Religion, redesigning Norway’s currency, the civic minimum plus robots and mobility

twelve years ago: heraldic standards, looking at rectangles plus exoplanets and Alpha Centauri

 

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

megaslump (11. 856)

The expanding Batagaika crater is a thermokarst depression in the northeastern Siberia taiga, presently about one kilometre long and growing at an alarming rate, beginning as a small gulley in the 1960s when the permafrost thawed (see previously) after the surrounding forests were cleared and since 1990, swallowing more and more land and becoming known as the Gateway to Hell. On a vicious trajectory, feedback loop, more thawing occurs as the gash gets bigger and the ground is bereft of tree cover and releases more ancient organic stores of carbon that further contribute to the planet’s warming, making more unstable sinkholes.