8x8 (10. 820)

north american aerospace defence command: cache of Cold War era briefings and slide show presentations scanned and shared on the Internet Archive—via Super Punch  

yellowhammer: Alabama enshrines an official state cookie  

clipart: AI generated images disrupting the portfolio of stock photos that helped create it 

playlist: fish music may help revitalise coral reefs  

lui, sait juste ken: a clever double-entendre in French ad-copy for the Barbie movie 

the killer rabbit caerbannog: more on the trope of deadly bunnies in medieval manuscripts—see previously  

apple core: computer giant taking on venerable Swiss Fruit Union, other in a trademark dispute—via Slashdot  

sci-fi edition: Poseidon’s Underworld reviews a 1979 issue of Starlog

bellona (10. 783)

Daughter of Jupiter and Juno and sister to Mars, Vulcan, Lucina, Discordia and Juventas, the Ancient Roman goddess of warfare was celebrated on this day in the Republic and Empire by a cult of priests whom mutilated themselves to make a blood sacrifice and placate this deification of madness and frenzy in battle. The majority of rites dedicated to Bellona were equally gory, though fearful of a volatile deity, most worship was not for public spectacle. Her main temple on the Campus Martius with station located through the expanse of the Empire (St Peter’s Minster in York was originally a temple dedicated to her) had an extra-territorial status, the equivalent of modern day embassies and consulates, where ambassadors from foreign states could stay, not allowed to enter the capitol or colonies proper, and could meet representatives of the Senate for negotiations. If diplomacy (fētiālis) and states became belligerents (bellicose and before the consonant shift, duel come from the name of the goddess), the high priest would launch a javelin over the column of war (columna bellica) to formally declare hostilities.

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.

9x9 (10. 752)

x-date: unless a compromise is found to work with the statutory debt ceiling, the US could default on paying its bills and unleash chaos in global financial markets 

the house of mouse: Disney is cancelling plans for a billion dollar Florida annex—and shuttering its immersive Star Wars experience resort hotel—in an ongoing feud with the state’s arch-conservative governor  

garbage patch kids: creepy dolls being washed ashore are auctioned off to benefit marine habitats—see also 

superimposition: researchers at the Zurich Institute of Technology create the world’s largest ‘Schrödinger’s Cat” 

the great silence: we are probably not alone in the Universe but we might as well be—see previously  

random access memory: previously unreleased tracks from retired duo Daft Punk  

interior design: browser-based application to create and share voxel rooms, via Waxy—see previously  

byte-dance: American state of Montana passes a ban of the social media platform TikTok over conflated fears of violations of users privacy  

seat at the table: G7 summit hosted in Hiroshima—with nuclear deterrence on the agenda

6x6 (10. 749)

unartificial: city of Vienna is using AI feline-added artwork to promote its inspiration—via Miss Cellania  

paved paradise: the American obsession with car storage and its attendant ills  

world police: US military bases around the globe—see previously here and here 

sour grapes: the art of the sulk as a form of indirect communication and social-leveller  

bakerloo line: an incredible schematic of the Piccadilly Circus under- and overground by Renzo Picasso—see previously 

uhohlingo: a AI that generates language learning lessons—and tends to be notoriously wrong

mama šč! (10. 742)

Having enjoyed all the performances from Eurovision Song Contest from Liverpool Saturday—we didn’t stay up late enough for the voting but saw the returns the next day—we appreciated this linguist insight into the penultimate entry from Croatia’s Let 3 (Flight Three, known for their progressive, sometimes subversive performances and lyrics) whose consonant collision can be understood as a reference to the Cyrillic letter щ (pronounced in Russian like the -sh in Welsh-sheep and in Ukrainian like cash-chest—see previously) and has ostensibly an anti-war message, narrowly edging out the other national favourite that had an even clearer rebuke against Vladimir Putin, keeping within Eurovision guidelines against overt politics. The digram means nothing in itself in Croatian, though as band members explain it could signify a moan of pleasure, a blood type or a mediative mantra. More from Language Log (including a video clip of the number) at the link above.

8x8 (10. 737)

what is a strikebreaker: past gameshow champion Ken Jennings to host Jeopardy! during its final episodes for the season, crossing the picket line during the Writers’ Guild protest  

captain’s table: a tour of the Hamburg-America Line’s SS Prinzessin Vitoria Luise—the world’s first purpose built cruise ship, launched in 1900 

the big four: the dominant professional services networks providing auditing and assurance advise clients on how to cheat their way through compliance inspection 

bull-boards: more on the Osborne brandy mascot that’s become an icon of Spain 

get your kicks on route 66: ahead of its centenary, the historic American highway gets a much needed refurbishment—via Miss Cellania 

c’est le dernier qui a parlé qui a raison: ahead of tonight grand prix in Liverpool, a look back on the geopolitics of Eurovision—see also, see previously 

lucky duck gets private equitied: the latest cartoon fro, Ruben Bolling—see previously, see also 

home port: despite the ban, cruise ships are still docking in Venice  

scabs: Starbucks announced closure of three franchises in Ithaca, New York has nothing to do with the workers’ decision to unionise

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

forschungensreaktor haigerloch (10. 695)

The nuclear test facility, the final experiment of Uranprojekt of Nazi Germany, discovered the day previously by the US and the British Special Forces unit Alsos, created as mission under the aegis of the Manhattan Project to coordinate foreign intelligence on atomic research and activity—a heavy water nuclear pile, housed in a cliff cellar used for beer storage and obscured by a castle chapel and disguised as a spelunking centre near Tübingen was brought offline on this day in 1945 during the last phase of War World II and dismantled, with the attendant scientists and materials brought back to America as part of Operation Paperclip. Under the direction of Werner Heisenberg, the aim of the undertaking was to harness the power of nuclear fission, though the research never moved beyond the experimental stage and later assessments concluded that critical mass would have required a set-up one and a half times larger, for weaponisation or as a practical output of energy. Crossing the front with the 7th Army, Alsos members moved over the Rhein and apprehended physicist remaining at research facilities, a cyclotron, in Heidelberg, and scoured the region for other trials to forestall capture by the advancing Soviet army and eventual French occupying force, whose arrival the same day prompted assessors to downplay its significance and immediately disassemble the laboratory and remove the contents to Munich, headquarters of the American Zone. Heisenberg and the other internees learned of the bombardment of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August and expressed gratitude that their tests were a failure and would have never produced such a weapon but rather a power-plant. Since 1980, the site has hosted a museum on nuclear reactors with the original five cubes of uranium on display.

9x9 (10. 667)

pass****123: a visualisation of pilfered passwords aggregated from various leaks and breaches

event horizon: a streak of young stars may be the wake of a supermassive black hole ejected from its host galaxy  

pop: speeding locomotives in an animated short by Yoji Kuri—see previously  

you sank my battleship: leaked NATO plans for bolstering Ukraine’s military were first circulating on a Minecraft gaming forum—more here  

what, me worry: a celebration of the long life and career of cartoonist Al Jaffee 

bierpulver: the Neuzeller Klosterbräu, known for other innovative libations, introduces a dehydrated beer that one needs only add water to   

example handshake: a look at the squelch of the dial-up modem  

trapezoidal flux deviation: an alternative proposal for the non-existence of exoplanets—via the New Shelton wet/dry  

a generator and a discriminator: AI can crack most users’ passwords in under two minutes—via Dam Interresting’s Curated Links

liittyminen (10. 654)

In a ceremony that saw the raising of the national banner joining thirty others at the international defence pact headquarter’s and coinciding with the aniversary of the founding of the organisation in 1949, Finland’s accession to NATO, approved by all members in under a year and prompted by Russian aggression in the region more than doubles its the size of the border abutting the Western alliance and Russia. In a process that saw its formal beginning in last May, along with neighbouring Sweden, Finland abandoned decades of military nonalignment for increased security and mutual, multilateral response.

true south (10. 643)

Via Miss Cellania, we are treated to vlogger CGP Grey’s enthusiastic primer on the succession of banners bestowed on the world’s largest condominium, the continent of Antarctica, territory of no nation despite competing claims and the presence, albeit it temporary, of research outposts that like to plant their own flags. Designs and proposals flown as at least semi-official ensigns have been around since the 1930s and with a vexillologically complete presentation in 1978 that chose a highly contrasting international, aerospace orange and an 2018 contender by Evan Townsend that seems to have traction with the negative space of a compass arrow pointing to the geographic nadir and invoking bergs and mountains and thelong days and nights of the planet’s extremes.

casus belli (10. 624)

In a late night address from the Oval Office on this day in 2003, US president George W Bush, without mentioning the pretext of “weapons of mass destruction” whose rhetoric had already been established in the weeks leading up to this announcement after issuing a forty-eight hour ultimatum, committed America and allied partners to a decade of bloody and violent conflict, dearly bought with the lives of over a quarter-million Iraqi civilians, over five thousand allied combatants at a cost exceeding two-trillion dollars, causing permanent economic and credibility losses with only the military-industrial complex profiting from the violence. The preoccupation and extension of the “War on Terror” moreover significantly contributed to the loss of the fragile uni-polar world order and led to the ascendance of China as a world power and the undelivered democratic reforms of the Russian Federation due to the years of focus spared for this crusade. After the “shock and awe” and following his cabinet’s over-confidence that this adventure would be decisive and over in “five days or five weeks or five months” as defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Bush would appear in military fatigues (very much the image of his nemesis, Saddam Hussein) less than a scant two months later on the deck of an aircraft carrier to deliver his “Mission Accomplished” speech. The allied Iraqi army was disbanded, fuelling a counter-insurgency that made the ultimate US withdrawal a protracted one, resulting in civil war and a would-be caliphate unleashing more terror and displacement regionally and globally.

truman doctrine (10. 607)

Introduced to the US Congress on this day in 1947—prompted by crises in Greece, a violent uprising by the national Communist party partially funded by neighbouring Yugoslavia and Türkiye, under pressure from the Soviet Union to allow its ships passage from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean and the Long Telegram by George F Kennan of the previous year—President Harry S Truman, with the assistance of Secretary of State George Marshall (previously) and undersecretary Dean Acheson, outlining his “domino theory” in grave terms, secured Republican buy-in and ensured funding for his foreign policy objectives. In an address before a joint session of Congress which was generally well-received by the public, Truman said, “I believe it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures. I believe that we must assist free peoples to work out their own destinies in their own way. I believe that our help should be primarily through economic and financial aid which is essential to economic stability and orderly political processes.” Couched in the context of the broader Cold War, the expansive and highly publicised commitment of the Truman Doctrine established precedent for the next four decades of siding with anticommunist forces and regimes all over the world no matter how antithetical and opposed they were to the democratic image that America wanted to promote and form military alliances against the USSR and confederates.

fifty-fifth statue at large (10. 605)

After over a decade of isolationism and avoidance of foreign entanglement and narrowly passed in the houses of Congress chiefly split along party lines—with Republicans mostly disfavouring the proposal or approving conditionally—the Lend-Lease act was signed into law by US president Franklin D Roosevelt to provide military and materiel aid to first Britain and China on this day in 1941, later extended to other Allied nations France and the Soviet Union. Effectively ending the United States’ pretence of neutrality and non-intervention spurred by the Great Depression and the outlays of participation in the Great War, the act allowed for the “sale, transfer of title, exchange, lease, lend of otherwise dispose of, to any such government—whose defence the president deems vital to the defence of the United States—any defensive article.” Fifty destroyers were transfer to the Royal Navies of the UK and Canada in exchange for the right to establish bases in the Caribbean, Newfoundland and England. Many of these ships were transferred on to the USSR in 1944, the terms of the agreement being that the goods could be used until exhausted, returned and repatriated or destroyed. All countries reciprocated with Reverse Lend-Lease by supplying the US with components or raw materials. Over one billion dollars was allocated (close to $800 billion by present reckoning) with the Soviet Union discharging its debt in 1971 and the UK repaying its loans in 2006.

tonight on amerika (10. 549)

As our faithful chronicler informs, the miniseries starring Mariel Hemingway, Sam Neill and Kris Kristofferson about the US after a bloodless coup engineered by the Soviet Union (set a decade on) was first broadcast on this day in 1987 over the course of a week—see also here and here. Implicated that America and other client states succumbed to Soviet control following an electromagnetic pulse weapon that destroyed the power grid and economic independence by targeting emerging reliance on computers, the show that inspired an even more patriotic novelisation was characterised both as hawkish hysteria and alternately as an indictment of the UN as an instrument of a one world government and damaging to relations recently improved under Glasnost. Highly divisive, Moscow threatened to close network ABC’s Russia news bureau over its airing and in response (and I remember watching this) The Discovery Channel ran sixty-six hours of counter-programming of Soviet television, including live shows.

spy in the sky (10. 524)

Hitting a bit like the Evergreen saga with geopolitical consequence being reduced to, incapsulated in a few albeit funny memes, the US has shot down a Chinese surveillance dirigible, scrambling a pair of F-22 fighter jets and downing the balloon over Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. The high-altitude craft was detected in American and Canadian airspace—which was characterised by the Chinese as a meteorological station blown off course, just on the eve of Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s diplomatic mission to China, one months in planning and would represent the first constructive contact between the two nations in three years and was subsequently called off due to this blatant provocation. A second balloon was detected over Central America. President Biden, even before rabid hysterics by Republican accusing him of dereliction of duty and urging patriots to take matters into their own hands and shoot rifles at the balloon some fifteen kilometres in the sky and the size of a sports stadium, issued orders for its destruction when it was safe to do so. Having already jammed its ability to relay telemetry back to its operators and neutralised it as a threat, Biden probably, exasperated, had it brought down to placate mobs irresponsibly encouraged to fire bullets in the air and presenting more of a danger to the public with their return trajectories. The Department of Defence casually adds that there were three known incidents of similar violations of US airspace during the Trump administration, with nothing done about it.

paris peace accords (10. 500)

Negotiations finalised between Lê Đức Thọ and Henry Kissinger on 24 January and nearly derailed the day before by the Battle of Cửa Việt, the treaty officially known as the Agreement of Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Viet Nam (Hiệp định về chấm dứt chiến tranh, lập lại hòa bình ở Việt Nam) was signed on this day in 1973 at the Hôtel Majestic on Avenue Kléber in the XVIe arrondissement by representatives of the governments of the United States, the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam), the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) and the Republic of South Vietnam (the Provisional Revolutionary Government, representing South Vietnamese communists). All US and allied forces agreed to complete withdrawal in exchange for the release of prisoners-of-war, with all parties acceding to an immediate cease-fire, the establishment of council of national reconciliation, a peaceful reunification free of foreign interference, withdrawal of foreign troops from Cambodia and Laos and financial aid from the US for war-ravaged Indochina. Despite also securing a commitment from America to replace materiel and armaments on a one-by-one basis, congressional support for further appropriations evaporated and lapsing during the Watergate scandal, North Vietnam made their final offensive operations in April of 1975, precipitating the fall of Saigon and the capitulation of the Republic of Vietnam.

fourteen points (10. 398)

Delivered in an address to Congress, outlining his administrations aims for the war and negotiated settlement, US president Woodrow Wilson on this day in 1918 enumerated his principles for peace, having rather reluctantly joining the Triple Entente against the Central Powers the spring prior due to Germany’s disruption of transatlantic shipping and trade (II) with France and Britain and the interception of a secret diplomatic communication proposing an alliance between México and Germany. Adopting progressive, domestic practises as foreign policy goals—though regarded by allies as a touch naive and idealistic—Wilson derided secret treaties (I) and championed free trade (III), public agreements, democratic hallmarks and above all self-determination, decolonisation (V) and recognition of national ambitions as a preventative measure of realising those aspirations through violence. Other bullet points covered arms reduction (IV), sovereignty for constituent Soviet republics (VI), restoration of Belgium, Balkan and French territories (VII, XI, VIII), redrawing Italian, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman borders along lines of nationality (IX,X, XII), an independent Poland (XIII) and supranational organisation to enforce political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike (XIV), a covenant that would eventually lead to the establishment of the League of Nations and its successors.

the four freedoms (10. 390)

On this day in 1941, US president Franklin D Roosevelt delivered his State of the Union Address, articulating four fundamental and universal guarantees vouch-saved for all of humanity. Breaking with the long-standing tradition of non-interventionism with foreign wars and nearly a year before the attack of Pearl Harbor and the Philippines, FDR pressed for a greater role in aiding allied forces already under siege through the lens of national security and self-interest.
Enumerating the benefits of the democratic system, the speech highlights the importance of economic security in the face of precarity as a counter-balance to the regression towards nationalism and belligerence.