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.  

9x9 (13. 061)

flu season: experimentation with gene-editing tools suggest CRISPR may be able to stop the virus from replicating—see also

i want my mtv: a service that rebroadcasts the cable channel from its first day until they stopped playing music, including vintage commercials—via MetaFilter 

l’etat, c’est moi: Trump makes the case for his own impeachment with his Mar-a-Lago press conference on Venezuela  

fire with fire: stopping a rogue AI with an instinct for self-preservation may call for turning off the internet—or more drastic measures 

a day of love: a plaque commemorating Washington, DC police for their actions during the Capitol insurrection has gone missing on this fifth anniversary—see below, see also  

monkeybranching: Gen Z dating and relationship terminology  

donroe doctrine: Denmark demands Trump quit his designs on seizing Greenland, risks the end of NATO  

gomrath: a forgotten psychedelic masterpiece rediscovered fifty years on  

home-brew: researchers develop a vaccine deliverable by beer

synchronoptica

one year ago: European Cultural Capitals (with synchronopticæ), certifying the vote of the electoral college plus the coat of arms of Denmark changed to signal Greenland is not for sale

twelve years ago: repeating history’s mistakes

thirteen years ago: cocoa and Christmas chocolates plus the threshold of discoverability for actors

fourteen years ago: debates over fluoridated water plus American empire

sixteen years ago: boxing up the Christmas stuff 

seventeen years ago: a faded superpower 

pale ale (13. 050)

As our faithful chronicler informs, on this day in 1876, the red triangle logo of the Bass & Co became the first colophon to be logged under the 1875 Act to establish a Register of Trade Marks when it came into force on New Year’s Day—which according to company lore, had employees queuing outside bureau offices on New Year’s Eve to be the first—strange for a bank holiday and Public Domain Day, as a demonstration of the brewery’s pioneering prowess in international branding and marketing. The iconic logo, simple yet pervasive, has been featured in over forty works by Pablo Picasso from his Cubist period as well as more contemporarily in James Joyce’s Ulysses, Leopold Bloom noting the triangle in the “Oxen of the Sun” (The Cattle of Helios in the Odyssey) episode and in Édouard Manet’s final painting (see also) Un bar aux Folies Bergère with the beer bottles depicted instantly recognisable and their conspicuous presence interpreted as an allegorical expression of anti-German sentiment following the Franco-Prussian war. Further achievements accomplished under the logo include being among the first corporate sponsors, licensing for production by foreign distributors and the earliest export entrant into the Japanese beer market.

heidelberger spargelessen (12. 474)

The culmination of tense relations between traditional collegiate fraternities and members of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (with its student league, NSDStB), the series of public demonstrations began on this day in 1935 at the University of Heidelberg directed against the leadership of Adolf Hitler. While many student groups had expressed views aligned with Nazi ideals and outlook, many university associations were targeted as elitist and counter-revolutionary, their self-administration and hierarchy (see also) as contrary to the Führer principle of Gleichschaltung. The rally began when members of the Corps Saxo-Borussia gathered at a local student pub, Seppl, to heckle a radio re-broadcast of Hitler’s “Friedensrede” (Peace Speech, stating that they only sought to build up marine forces to the level of thirty-five percent of that of British naval tonnage). Though excused for their riotous behaviour after an apology, the same fraternity, emboldened by being let off easy and press coverage, the same fraternity provoked patrons further with harsher criticisms during an asparagus dinner at the guesthouse Hirschgasse (a popular hangout), and saw their organisation immediately banned with members subject to expulsion and senior leaders arrested. Portrayed as reactionary and bourgeois, fraternities were dissolved later in the summer and reformation outlawed.

synchronoptica

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

seven years ago: countries shifting to fare-free mass transit, inherited learning, graphic designer Reagan Ray, artist Josef Albers plus the movie posters of Bill Gold

eight years ago: DC’s boundary stones, drone photography, superlative new species plus scientist Clair Cameron Patterson

nine years ago: a class-action lawsuit against the Devil, Venice of the North, shock graphics for cigarette packs plus a visit to Glastonbury

ten years ago: more links to enjoy

last call (12. 459)

US president Calvin Coolidge rebuffing the proposal of the prominent prohibitionist to enforce the Volstead Act with the navy, believing the purpose of the armed forces was national defence and not police duty, on this day in 1925, attorney and longtime leader of the Anti-Saloon League, Wayne Bidwell Wheeler experienced his first push-back from the government after being a major advocate securing the passage of the eighteenth amendment to the US constitution, outlawing the manufacture, distribution and sale of alcoholic beverages. Wheeler’s initial refusal to allow for exemptions for beer below a certain threshold of proof had made him seen as unreasonable and uncompromising, making the already untenable problem of ensuring compliance worse and compelled authorities, resources stretched thin, to turn to increasingly violent and draconian measures to curb consumption including poisoning alcohol (see above). His method of activism, familiar though not a term in common parlance today, came to be known as Wheelerism—focusing on a single issue, relying heavily on mass media to persuade politicians that pet programmes held wide-spread public support, aligning with the ends of the Anti-Saloon League and other tee-totalling organisations and employed tactics like threatening to withdraw endorsements and financing opposition candidates. Wheeler’s influence waned afterwards and did not live to see the repeal of Prohibition, dying of kidney disease in Battle Creek, Michigan.

9x9 (12. 339)

debonair: an amazing and comprehensive collection of flight attendant uniforms—via Things Magazine  

contrapoints: a documentary contextualising misinformation to point out it is misinformation 

shortened itinerary: second lady’s tour of Greenland (now joined by her husband) is limited to inspecting the troops at Pituffik Space Base  

seagram’s vo: pallets of American alcohol being returned to the manufacturer  

jug band: a fun cover of Beat It!—with a powerful solo bridge by the Bottle Boys 

boilerfaker: a new trend in microdosing alcohol—via tmn  

duty to report: the 1890 attempt to coerce Canada into joining the US backfired spectacularly  

signalgate: The Atlantic editor inadvertently added to a national security counsel group chat publishes transcript in full after Trump administration downplayed the seriousness of the breach 

hmnd: an incomplete bestiary of humanoid robots

8x8 (12. 147)

black swan event: futurist forecast a host of unpredictable geopolitical scenarios for 2025—via the New Shelton wet/dry  

it’s schoolhouse rocky—that chip off the block—of your favourite schoolhouse, schoolhouse rock: a rather incredible thrift store find of Smash Mouth’s Steve Harwell performing some numbers from the educational cartoon series—see previously  

paraiso de los gatos: the art of Remedios Varo  

to unalive or not unalive: the resurgence of the term was prompted by a way to get around advertiser blacklists with euphemisms—see more  

reboot: the Landauer Limit, thermodynamics and more efficient computing—see also  

post-scarcity, post-singularity: it’s still easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism—via Duck Soup 

the eagle & child: Oracle’s Larry Ellison has purchased the Oxford pub frequented by Tolkien and C S Lewis—via Clive Thompson’s Linkfest  

the year that was and wasn’t: The Morning News interviews some of their favourite journalists about the most and least important stories and trends of 2024—see also the dumbest timeline

10x10 (11. 988)

the moral arc of the universe is buffering: an update on where we stand 

intermission: Cardhouse’s 2024 mixtape  

chimera: archaeologists re-examine ancient Roman burial and realise skeleton is composed of bones from eight different individuals that died thousands of years apart from one another  

inactivity reboot: Apple quietly introduced a security patch in its latest OS update that makes it harder to police to break into confiscated iPhones—via Super Punch  

plutocracy: the Elites have finally been defeated by the Billionaires 

text-to-brainrot: convert any PDF into an engaging TikTok-style audio summarisation overlaid with video-game footage—see previously—via Web Curios  

ye olde cheshire cheese: a gallery of the pubs of Old London  

changing narratives: new genetic evidence of Pompeii victims suggest that they were strangers comforting each other during the world-ending calamity   

the sounds of ramallah: techno Insomnia Fest in Tromsø rallies for Palestine and Lebanon  

venture alchemists: Wall Street and the broader economy brace for Trump tax-cuts, tariffs and retribution

 synchronoptica

one year ago: paper lanterns for St Martin’s Day (with synchronoptica), Republican primary debates, a banger from Frankie Goes to Hollywood plus assorted links to enjoy

seven years ago: illusion of confidence

eight years ago: snail matchmaking, a national nightmare plus Europe’s Alt-Right

nine years ago: carbon foil that mimics muscles

ten years ago: an art exhibition for octopi plus an abandoned nuclear test site just outside of Paris

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  

👻: guide to converting one’s haunted mansion to an AirBNB  

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

ㅛ: 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

buschenschank (11. 775)

In order to assuage complaints from innkeepers in smaller towns and villages of the empire who were compelled to only serve the wine from their overlord’s estate, Joseph II issued a decree on this date in 1784, beginning the tradition of the Heuriger (from Old High German hin jāru—this Year’s Vintage) which continues in Austria to the present day, allowing anyone to sell and serve home-made refreshments, wine and cider. Rules have been refined over the centuries regarding licensing and the establishments are generally only allowed to serve the public during alternating months during the growing season but many still retain their rustic atmosphere as an open air tavern on the premises of the winemakers, with live music and a simple repast that until recently the guests were expected to bring themselves. Vintners would hang a straw wreath (Strohkranz) to advertise that they were serving but many producers have taken to renting out wine-bars in nearby towns to expand sales and publicise their pop-up, limited-time offer with a modified wrought iron street sign (Nasenschild).

9x9 (11. 590)

priority seating: an account jammed packed with patterns for mass-transit upholstery—see previously—via Kottke 

ux: in the age of AI, perhaps it’s time to retire the term “user” 

voter turn-out: historically high temperatures in parts of India may skew election results 

🙂‍↔️: this year’s bracket for most misinterpreted emoji  

described herein as a beverage carrying assembly: a patent for a beer puppet for festivals and sporting events  

the second soul: a thoroughgoing essay by Anton Howes on the history of salt—via Clive Thompson’s Linkfest  

instructions to the jury: closing arguments in the Trump trial and deliberation begins  

wasteful by design: digital technology and internet habits are becoming major contributors to the climate catastrophe 

transakcja: an endearing animation on courtship rituals in 1950s rural Poland

pfingstsonntag (11. 566)

Courtesy of H’s fancy drone piloting we had a nice bird‘s eye view of the grounds but we were soon sharing the airspace with avian friends (I had never heard the belching cries of swans or the clapping of a stork before) and craft launching from a nearby strip built for model airplanes which could really do some impressive stunt maneuvers—none of which I could manage to capture, not for the lack of trying. 

Later we took a longer hike in the opposite direction through a stand of forest to a Biergarten outside of Oberreichenbach and back again.

synchronoptica

one year ago: St Ivo, The Phantom Menace (1999), assorted links to revisit plus more medieval collective nouns

two years ago: Amy Fisher (1992), St Dunstan, an altarpiece by Titian plus the zine of William Blake

three years ago: a birthday wish (1962), an animated stratified map, a classic by Paul Simon plus the stadio typeface

four years ago: the UK public terror alert system plus unsustainable arbitrage

five years ago: the Dutch Venice, etiquette as a social wedge, a tardigrade stress-ball plus flora and fauna of the New World charted out

toddy and crank (11. 437)

Via Nag on the Lake and Weird Universe, we are referred to a delightful reprint (circa 1941) of an advertisement for a Colonial Williamsburg public house called Chowning’s Tavern whose verso gives a scale of the temperance or intemperance of various potables from the drinks menu from 1789. “A moral and physical thermometer small beer, grouped with water and milk, disposes one to “Health, Wealth, Serenity of mind, Reputation, long Life and Happineſs.” Whereas Gin, Anniẛeed and Rum has the attendant vices of Swindling, Perjury and Burglary leading to the Diseases Dropſy, Madneſ and Melancholy and the Punishments of the Poor-houſe, Jail and Whipping. We are all on the spectrum and can have maladies without picking one’s poison—see if you can tag yourself.

synchronoptica

one year ago: middling large numbers

two years ago: World Storytelling Day plus Easter origins

three years ago: Leipzig’s boy choir,  the science of pasta, Roman Emperor Thrax, reflections of dadaism plus St John of Neopmuk

four years ago: the Spring Equinox, assorted links to revisit, pandemic payments plus cats and dominos

five years ago: Bed-In for Peace (1969),  Apollo press kits, exercises in root system domestication, EU copyright reform, calls to expel the US ambassador to Germany, myth retold through physics plus creating landscapes with AI

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.

Around 2003 in Chile, when the original trilogy of Star Wars began airing on television there, they did this funny thing to avoid cutting to commercial breaks. They stitched the commercials into the films themselves. Here is one of them, with the English dub added in. pic.twitter.com/wC7N2vPNvv

— Windy 🛸 (@heyitswindy) March 2, 2024

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 Wölfli, closed Italian shops, music from a Bosch triptych plus a Brexit phone booth to call Europe

totally and utterly carparked (11. 370)

We enjoyed this essay on the supposition that most any English (or foreign for that matter) word can be turned into a posh, polite euphemism or intensifying drunkonym, which piqued the interest of linguists in Chemnitz and Erlangen to assay the subject and prove the adage, compiling an impressive five hundred synonym list in common parlance, following a long tradition of glossing terms, which includes contributions by Benjamin Franklin among others. There are the standards like blotto, totalled and gazebo’d, tosspots and more colourful, improvised for the nonce examples like tangled-legged, zozzled and slug-nutty. More from Jennifer Ouellette at the link above and let us know your favourites.

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links to revisit plus the Florida Purchase (1819)

two years ago: more links to enjoy plus National Cat Days

three years ago: more links worth the revisit, the throne of St Peter, delightful idioms plus Navajo Star Wars

four years ago: Pope Sanbinian, a virtual news anchor, division bells plus a daytrip to the Milseberg

five years ago: Mister X and the Long Telegram, Rihanna’s fashions as a guiding compass plus racing ranks of Big Tech

sarah t—portrait of a teenage alcoholic (11. 341)

Also featuring the acting talents of Dallas’ Larry Hagman and Star Wars’ Mark Hamill, the made for television movie starring Linda Blair of The Exorcist (previously) in the title role was first aired on the NBC network on this day in 1975. Dealing with isolation and loneliness, a fifteen-year-old takes after her estranged father, drinking to cope with feelings of inadequacy and begins to surreptitiously raid her mother’s liquor cabinet, having associated inebriation with greater social stability. Having passed out whilst babysitting and numerous interventions, Sarah can’t admit she has a problem until a near-fatal horse-riding accident (mortally wounding the horse, who is euthanised) and joins Alcoholics Anonymous. 

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links to revisit plus Planet Money Valentines

two years ago: an AI reimagines sci-fi comics panels, the Internet Sacred Text Archive plus more links to enjoy

three years ago: more links worth the revisit, bar sounds plus a unique file naming convention

four years ago: political engagement, Merkel’s would be successor steps down, gravity wells plus European emergency numbers

five years ago: the American Petrol-State, anosmia, medals for the Tokyo games to be made out of recovered specie from electronic waste plus the art of Andy Dixon

stag & nag (11. 316)

The apparatus of a seagoing vessel’s box compass was suspended in alcohol in order to prevent freezing and the magnet from seizing up, and through this rather incredible punitive process imposed on a serial offender with a particular craving for tapping the navigation of ships, we encounter an impressive clipping’s introductory copy—cited without the aid of a ready resource like a Wikipedia stub—on an etymology which with we weren’t familiar. Whilst acquainted with the likely disappointingly spurious folk roots of the Elephant & Castle, more authentic instances of canting as branding like ‘spread-eagle’ (in reference to the imperial arms of the Reichsadler) to indicate an establishment where German wine and beer was sold, the public backlash against publicans’ paired namings as early as the start of the eighteenth century with often incongruous results, as opposed to patronage or services provided, like the cheese inn of Stilton. The not uncommon pub name “Goats and Compasses,” (see above) may come from, like “Pig and Whistle” the corruption of a benediction, piggin wassail in Anglo-Saxon and might be derived from a mishearing of ‘God encompasses [us]’—either that, of the canting arms of two guilds, the Worshipful Companies of Cordwainers and Carpenters, each with three of the domesticated livestock and three compasses, the drafting instruments rather than the navigation aid. More on the recidivist James Wishart Lyon and his unusual compulsion at Weird Universe at the link up top.

the shot (11. 212)

With echoes of this other accidental Renaissance painting of New Year’s revelry captured by Joel Goodman on the streets of Manchester in 2015, this scene captured by Dimitris Legakis in Swansea on the Friday before Christmas recalls to some students of art history the lifeboat ensemble from The Raft of the Medusa, the visceral depiction of the writhing survivors of the tragic and scandalous wrecking of a frigate off the coast of Mauritania in 1816—which by foreshortening the tumult of figures on this massive canvas by Théodore Géricault appear more than life-sized.

9x9 (11. 146)

the big easy: Bonapartist diaspora had designs for Napoleon to retire in New Orleans—via Messy Nessy Chic—see also courtesy of Super Punch  

holiday emporium: Kottke’s annual gift guide returns after a hiatus  

triple word score: players and lexicographers are a bit mortified with Scrabble’s new tournament rules  

colophon: the rise and fall of Borders Books 

moonlight towers: during the infancy of electric lighting, there was a predecessor to serial lamps  

pump and dump: insurance companies are exacerbating the climate crisis 

fiat: during the bank strikes of Ireland in the 1970s, pubs stepped in to fill their function—via the new shelton wet/dry  

ai garage sale: haggle with robots for real items—via Waxy  

pas de goulots d’étranglement dans la production: a strange 1940 diagram from linguist Benjamin Lee Whorf presenting French as a factory assembly line

9x9 (11. 002)

you deserve to sit: a comedian’s silly song about their favourite inactivity  

😸: visit a random feline friend featured on Wikipedia—via Pasa Bon!  

& let it stonde .1. nyght or .2.: a medieval recipe for mead  

montage: the animated collages of Alice Issac  

shrinkflation: a French supermarket chain displaying advisory labels to alert consumers 

word alienation and semantic satiation: one of the laureates of the thirty-third Ig Noble Awards—see also here and here  

consult our extensive archives: veteran broadcaster—and BBC’s first podcaster, Melvyn Bragg celebrates one thousand episodes  

pagliacci: a pizza chef turns melodramatic over a cursed request

synchronoptica 

one year ago: Our Lady of Sorrows plus assorted links to revisit

two years ago: forest mascots (1971) plus a Star Trek: TAS classic

three years ago: more Trek with “Amok Time,” illustrations from the children of Charles Darwin, rousing public sentiment following the Gunpowder Plot, life signs on Venus plus a COVID movie-night

four years ago: more on Jupiter’s moons, a hot Colonel Sanders, public crucifixes, Lovecraft in the style of Dr Seuss plus Graphis Press

five years ago: an AI names apples, the Ig Noble Awards, the Great Recession’s Lost Decade plus legalising marijuana confounded by travel regulations