i often wonder what the vintners buy—one half so precious as the goods they sell (13. 618)

To gain purchase on the sophistry of scammers, grifters and gurus and proffer the question on the greater fraud of our time—why isn’t the artificial intelligence industry in direct competition with their consumers—Cory Doctrow starts with the lasting imprint of the enigmatic verse from The Rubáiyát of Omar Khamyyám, completing the couplet as translated by Edward FitzGerald:

And much as Wine has play’d the Infidel,
And robbed me of my Robe of Honour—well

to probe what the purveyors of the promise of wealth and success could possibly benefit from the exchange—be they winesellers or in his illustration booksellers, infidel or otherwise—with their wares already better than anything else money could buy. 

In other words: if someone had discovered the secret to generating all the wealth, even if willing to share in the munificence, what would they need with another’s, unless the pyramid scheme was baked in from the beginning? Venture capitalists and AI evangelicals might cite their work in progress needs funding to achieve godhead but fails to to address the fundamental question for both buyer and seller. If there’s a better vintner, why not establish one’s own vineyard? If there’s a large language model that can educate better than human teachers, why license it to a school district instead of opening up an academy? Late-stage capitalism has shifted our willingness to question motives of gospellers in the estranging drive not make but abstract—the rentier economy made more meta by options eschewing work and exposure—rather than driving a taxi, buying stock investing in a ride-share concept or prospecting for land to build a data-centre on, being the very friction and middlemanning that AI strives to remove.

synchronoptica

one year ago: the return of the ground-effect vehicle (with synchronoptica), Live Aid (1985) plus assorted links to revisit

two years ago: claim-jumping in the Arctic, reproductive care in international waters, a local air show plus a failed assassination attempt on Donald Trump

three years ago: potential biomarkers on Mars plus the Hollywood sign (1923) 

four years ago: a banger from Bryan Adams plus a summer research project on artificial intelligence (1956)

five years ago: Småland plus Sweden’s Crystal Kingdom

six years ago: more links to enjoy plus 1970s HiFi equipment

thüngen und gambach (13. 591)

 

Afterwards, we traveled to the market town of Thüngen, whose name is derived from the Old Germanic word Thing, þing, ding for an assembly place and placed on to a knightly family (see previously), on the river Wern. There is an ensemble of Schlosses including the old hospital palace and warehouse but in private hands, it was not really possible to get a good view of the castles from the street other than the Orangerie at the entrance.

Driving a little further on, we returned to a constituent community of Karlstadt, Gambach, just beyond the vineyards and hiked up a geological trail, populated with lizards and snakes though we didn’t encounter any, that showed the limestone strata of the epochs forming the hills now given over to viticulture. A top the Weinbau was a chapel and a Lourdes Grotto, constructed in 1958 for the hundredth anniversary of the Marian apparition in France and inspired by a local war veteran’s pilgrimage to the Occitan site in the Pyrenees (see also), grateful for surviving World War I and praying for intercession to stop the landslides that threatened to destroy the wine harvest, promising to build the shrine.

lightning round (13. 565)

Without even being disclosed as satire with its ultimate tired-not-wired entry being “Having a ‘funny’ back page,” this early example of ragebait from Wit’s End September 1995 issue is an interesting time capsule of opinion (facetious, cringe—crass in hindsight or otherwise) of what was trending nearly twenty-one years ago. There’s a lot going on with this listicle of what’s deemed overrated, some of which still have resonance, like gender ambiguity, anything called a Summerfest, all-you-can-eat shrimp, being the host city of the Olympics, town-meeting with elected officials, morphing, zines. Others just seem bizarre for their inclusion like Pliny the Elder and conversion to Islam whilst incarcerated, 1968—and others, disparaging the likes of the alums of the Harvard Lampoon or Absolutely Fabulous, which made me rather upset. Check out the Reddit post above and let us know what stuck out for you—and maybe do a wellness check on that year.

vague de chaleur (13. 558)

Reminiscent of the restrictions placed on the tradition of shooting off fireworks in Germany for New Year’s during the height of the COVID pandemic in order to not put more pressure on already overburdened hospitals, Paris has imposed a temporary ban on the sale of off-license (take-away) alcohol and public consumption as the country swelters under an unprecedented heat wave as emergency services is being overwhelmed by heat-related incidents. The weekend’s prohibition does not apply to restaurants and cafés but may be extended as the forecast for France and the rest of the continent bodes of more stifling temperatures.

synchronoptica

one year ago: Uncleftish Beholding (with synchronoptica) plus oyster-culture

two years ago: visiting Carmine and Cannobio

three years ago: assorted links to enjoy plus the Pied-Piper

four years ago: the end of the Soviet calendar plus mermaiding

five years ago: a Frank Gehry twisted tower plus a morphine substitute (1896)

six years ago: more links to revisit, the first UPC code plus a protest anthem

8x8 (13. 433)

marathon du médoc: get in shape for the annual event combining wine tasting and running at the Bordeaux château and vineyard—via Messy Nessy Chic 

of mice and men: the difference between singing rodents and the non-verbal variety maybe similar to the evolutionary split that humans took from other primates 

net exporter: Ukraine sees drone demand from eleven countries as manufacturers expand production  

childlore: a growing list of popular adolescent myths that have passed from generation to generation  

thirty-eighth parallel: North Korea abandons goal of reunification with the south—see previously  

scope of work: the ingenious design of the screwdriver handle  

gravitational constant: geometers including surveyor Charles Mason (of Mason-Dixon line fame) conducted the Sciehallion Experiment in the Scottish Highlands to determine the mean-density of the Earth, weighing the mountain Sith Chailleann—fairy hill of the Caledonians  

holztrompete: Richard Wagner fused a brass and a woodwind instrument for Tristan und Isolde—via Clive Thompson’s Linkfest

oilfield units (13. 341)

Somewhat preoccupied with the engineering diglossia of customary and scientific units of measurement (see previously here, here and here)—no longer encountered pervasively as the UK have given up the Imperial system almost in totality (with a few outliers like fuel efficiency is still expressed in miles per gallon), we really enjoyed this rant about drilling a borehole of Babel over the petrodollar and US-imposed standards and conversions, courtesy of MetaFilter, which whilst maddening don’t lead to catastrophic miscalculations on a regular basis—punished for our own ambition and avarice with a confusion of the tongues in the form of ten thousand different metrics whose meaning can vary a lot in a discipline where precision counts. A barrel of crude is, incidentally, abbreviated BBL, after the blue barrels that Standard Oil adopted as its standard, with a volume of forty-two American gallons (approximately one hundred and fifty nine litres or thirty five Imperial gallons at standard temperature and pressure), with a thousand barrels not enumerated as KBBL (further Simpsons references below) but rather Mbbl (from the Roman mille) and a million barrels as MMbbl then returning to Greek prefixes for a billion barrels with giga- in Gbbl. In contrast, a barrel of beer is thirty six Imperial gallons or half a hogshead and the wine industry also has its own standards, though most of the world has adopted DIN of the Euro Keg of fifty litres. As for density, it is confusingly measured in MW, not megawattage but “mud weight,” pounds per gallon or pound cubic feet.  More insanity, pidgin and jargon to follow.  

ancient aliens (13. 288)

Half buried in the storied vineyards of Nemea, near the mythic and archaeological sites of the Peloponnesian peninsula, architecture studio 314 has installed a winery that evokes an imaginative narrative that reaches back even further in prehistory with its saucer-like construction that suggests the crash site of a UFO, the extraterrestrial material comprising the hull unweathered by the passing eons but incorporated into the arcadian landscape as a unique visitors’ centre to sample reds made from the area’s renowned Agiorgitiko grape. More images from designboom at the link above.

katzenkopf iii (13. 281)

Taking advantage of the nice weather, H and I got the camper from storage and prepared for the season with a weekend trip back to the Frankish wine islands, staying in the village of Sommerach. The vineyards waking up too for the spring, we took a long hike crossing the island and over the canal of the Main river through fields and pine forest in protected environment known as the Sandfluren (inland dunes, the sandy areas reminding me of trekking from Wiesbaden to Mainz under the bridges and over the islands) outside of Volkach on the mainland. 

Reaching the village of Dimbach, we headed back to the island over the lock and weir at the southern part of the river loop at the Mainkanal. In the distance, we could spy the twin steeples of the cloister Münsterschwarzach with a cruise ship docked at the weir. Exploring more of the landscape on the way back, we walked around the village a bit, trying out that wine automat we saw on our last visit—it wasn’t dumped out like a soda machine but rather a mechanical arm guided our selection down to the flap—and had a late lunch before going back to the camp grounds.

More details about the history of these places and impressions at the links above.

éguisheim (12. 771)

H and I next drove a bit further on to make a return visit the the ancient commune whose estate lies on the borderlands where the Vosges intersects the plain of the Upper Rhein valley, the Gallo-Roman settlement referred to as Exsa or Exa, meaning a fortified withdrawal or retreat from a thoroughfare—the Wine Route—and seemingly preserved in the code-switching nickname for the three donjons, die drei Hexe (the three witches) for the ensemble of castles, watch-towers on the slope of the mountain, sparking to more etymological interest in the toponym and its continuum of cognates, ultimately with the accent and u added to give it more of a French sound.

The historic centre includes numerous well-preserved medieval buildings as well as the château with a chapel dedicated to Bruno von Egisheim-Dagsburg, cousin of St Odile future Leo IX whose pontificate oversaw the schism with the Orthodox Church, the mandate of celibacy for the clergy down to the rank of sub-deacon and promulgating the legitimacy of the Donation of Constantine. The surrounding vineyards produce exceptional varieties of wine.

synchronoptica

one year ago: The Taking of Pelham 123 (with synchronopticæ) plus a giant hybrid sheep

seventeen years ago: out-of-body experiences 

haut-kœnigsbourg et kaysersberg (12. 770)

 First spied as we approached the campsite, we took a trip up to the Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg, the remains of a strategically located castle surveying the plains of the Upper Rhein below with views over Alsace extending to the Schwarzwald. Unknown when it was first built, the first documented mention predated the reign of Frederick Barbarossa in the tenth century, calling the fortification an illegally constructed incursion by the dukes of Swabia into French territory, and besieged during the Thirty Years’ War by Swedish Protestant forces in 1633, the burnt and abandoned outpost was left in ruin—the inspiring remnants subject of numerous romantic poets and painters over the ensuing centuries. Just after given the status of a monument historique by the Second French Republic, the region was taken over by the German Reich at the conclusion of the Franco-Prussian War as Elsaß–Lothringen (Alsace-Lorraine) with Kaiser Wilhelm II eager to solidify a sense of nationalism and unity through monument-building (see also) and entrusted the restoration of the ruin to architectural historian Bodo Ebhardt, whom had previously overseen the redevelopment of Veste Coburg, the Wartburg in Eisenach and many other projects—Edhardt himself called to his vocation growing up in Sankt Goarshausen. Completed in 1908, the work was inaugurated with an elaborate medieval re-enactment by the emperor present. Scenes from Jean Renoir’s 1937 La Grand Illusion were filmed there and a exact copy in of the castle and Colmar built in Malaysia outside of Kuala Lumpur and along with the canine-accessible Petite Kœnigberg—la Château de l’Oedenbourg along the apron walls it is one of the most popular tourist attractions in France.

 Next we went to Kaysersberg (the Emperor’s Mountain, previously) on the eastern slopes of the Vosges range on the Route des Vins—one of the chief members of the Décapole (Zehnstädtebund) of Alsace within the Holy Roman Empire to maintain their status of imperial immediacy. Among the finest wine-growing regions, owing to vine stock originally from Hungarian roots, the pinot gris is a particular speciality. French-German polymath—theologian, philosopher, organist and physician, Albert Schweitzer, hails from here, whose 1906 Quest for the Historical Jesus informed Christian mysticism and eschatology. And although holding paternalistic views and accused by some of forwarding the idea of the White Man’s Burden, Schweitzer’s clinics in then colonial Gabon helped advance hygiene and medical care for all of Africa. The village and hike through the vineyards are dotted with his eponyms, including “Example is not the main thing in influencing others; it is the only thing”—the so-called eponymous Effect for pedagogy for instilling trust for professional opinion through lived experience.

synchronoptica

one year ago: digital divinity (with synchronopticæ), ghost-writing, ambient music from a surveillance system plus up-selling

twelve years ago: reporting on the US government shutdown 

thirteen years ago: DIY month, wine and cheese advertising, vintage community calendars plus the risks of the agriculture lobby

fourteen years ago: hidden messages in song lyrics 

seventeen years ago: the fiscal new year 

riquewihr i (12. 764)

Just a few hundred metres’s stroll from the campgrounds, we crossed the Route des Vins winding through the valleys and explored the ancient village of Riquewihr, preserved in essentially the same state since the sixteenth century. Founded in the 700s as a demesne (Landgut, Dömaine) by a Frankish feudal lord called Richo (Richo’s villa), defensive walls and towers were erected and was granted city- and market-rights in the early fourteenth century, eventually purchased by the dukes of Württemberg across the Rhein.

Charming and picturesque with its half-timbered architecture and cobblestone streets, it is a bit over-touristed—like some other places we’ve made return trips to lately, but not overwhelmingly so, with the day-trippers still secondary to the economic activity of viniculture. We took a break from the crowds and hiked in the vineyards on the foothills of the Vosges for a nice overview, having not planned our vacation with the starting of the Riesling harvest.

synchronoptica

one year ago: ranking the gods (with synchronopticæ), Chilean Antarctica plus more brief papacies

fourteen years ago: proprietary geographic protections, illustrating Tarantino plus if the service is free then you are the product

fifteen years ago: more dragnet surveillance from the US plus a trip to Prague

sixteen years ago: an antiquated, nasty habit