tron/troff (11. 710)

Via Slashdot, we are directed towards a reflective essay from Harvard Computer Science professor Harry R Lewis, whom taught both Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, positing the two enduring lessons of technology: be careful what you ask them for and it can be hard to tell what they are doing. Gleaned already back in the mid- to late-1960s when electromechanical computers were far from inscrutable, prior to miniaturisation of circuits, Lewis, through switches and dials, learned how to listen to machines to not only diagnose problems but also, with careful attention (see also), to know if a programme was going to deliver reliable results and goes on to address the doubly blackboxed array of algorithms and lickspittle mimicry of artificial intelligence by never bypassing human judgment from the parameters and recognising that the humanities don’t provide ready answers but rather better informed questions and lines of inquiry.

synchronoptica

one year ago: Mary Magdalen (with synchronoptica)

seven years ago: assorted links worth revisiting,  a challenging diplomatic mission plus a history of ink

eleven years ago: a toy drone

fourteen years ago: a storied Berlin discothek plus a Bulli cake

we shape our tools and then the tools shape us (11. 708)

Subtitled An Inventory of Effects and co-created by media analyst who coined the phrase referenced Marshall McLuhan in 1967, the collaborative best-seller experimentally formatted had the imprimatur of McLuhan himself to call out how various outlets massaged our senses in order to maintain currency and hold interest—with some anecdotes that it was a typo that stuck—arguing that technologies, from the wheel, to the loom, to the printing press and beyond rather than their content as an extension (and increasingly necessary aid thereto in order to function therein) of our perceptions of the world, informed by the same progress. The recording is not exactly an audio book but rather a montage of main statements punctuated by dissonant sound-effects meant to suggest the fragmentation of the listening experience.

the unchained goddess (11. 698)

Open Culture directs our attention towards the highlight of the Bell Systems Science Series, nine television specials originally broadcast between 1956 and 1964, with the first four written and produced by award-winning filmmaker Frank Capra (previously), recently having found himself “retired” from Hollywood due to being blacklisted as a communist sympathiser over his body of work (previously here and here)—despite being holding rather conservative political views himself, with the AT&T sponsored commissions being viewed in retrospect as a quiet means of rehabilitating his image and reputation, with the 1958 examination of weather. Though somewhat less well received by critics and audiences than Capra’s previous three instalments (perhaps the topic considered too pedestrian in comparison with the others on the circulatory system, the sun and cosmic rays), The Unchained Goddess is indelible and enduring with a prescient message about the effects of Anthropogenic climate change and the cascade of the warming atmosphere and sea-level rise. Much more at the links above.

* * * * *

synchronoptica

one year ago: photos of the Anthropocene (with synchronoptica) plus a continued blockade on Ukrainian grain shipments

seven years ago: swimsuit models, Voltaire’s science-fiction, the premiere of SpongeBob plus the Golden Submarine

nine years ago: assorted links to revisit plus Merkel’s immigration policies under scrutiny

twelve years ago: climate change and too much water plus a branded look for US Commanders in Chief

fourteen years ago: a trip to the Baltic coast

postpositive (11. 683)

Via TYWKIWDBI (indeed), we are brought back to the subject of forming the plural of compound expressions through what are also referred to as post-nominal adjectives, which in English syntax can be employed for subtly and nuance—asking to be directed to the responsible people versus the people responsible or adjacent to something versus something adjacent—and occur in a number of set and archaic phrases, usually derived from Latin and French, like midnight dreary, body politic, proof positive, and the legal term malice aforethought (premeditated, from malice prépensée).

 synchronoptica

one year ago: a marker to symbolise the start of the Anthropocene Epoch (with synchronoptica), a crowd-pirated movie plus assorted links to revisit

seven years ago: LeVar Burton Reads, open-pollination, THC regulations in the EU, a typeface combining Hebrew and Arabic plus Trump as Putin’s useful idiot

nine years ago: exploring Pluto and beyond

in the year twenty-twenty-five (11. 676)

By inference, example and declaration, the American people and the world has been warned repeatedly, relentlessly of what a second Trump term would entail, a conservative agenda of policy proposals that failed to coalesce on the first attempt radically transforming the republic into a regressive evangelical hypocracybased on the rule of tribal grievance and restoring the patriarchy. With the express aim of purging what’s characterised as “woke propaganda” in regulation and curriculum under a Trump regime, emboldened and enabled, the administration not only is plotting to gut the administrative state under a unitary executive with autocratic powers, eliminate environmental regulation (framing global warming as a hoax), consumer safety, civil liberties and protections (framing affirmative action and equality as “reverse racism”), mass deportations, stripping of citizenship, abortion access, pornography as well as no-fault divorce—essentially rolling back the hard-fought progress of the past seventy years and this all, with the extensive blueprint pre-positioned, might happen on day one.

8x8 (11. 642)

crazy logic: a rather seamless mashup of Gnarls Barkley, Rockwell, Pink Floyd and Sumpertramp  

ыһыах: the Yakut people of arctic Siberia celebrate New Year on the Summer Solstice  

culicidology: a fascinating two-part discussion of mosquitoes with Alie Ward 

baggage carousel: an animated journey of checked airline luggage 

the phrygian cap: the Paris Games’ mascot with a revolutionary past—via Miss Cellania  

the beige begins early here folks: McMansion Hell (previously) presents another instalment of the American Medieval Revival—via Things Magazine  

re-alignment: just ahead of Solstice celebrations, activists with Just Stop Oil douse the megalithic calendar with orange paint power 

chiroptera: a ballet chroegraphed by Thomas Bangalter, formerly of Daft Punk—via tmn

then they showed me a world where i could be so dependable, oh, clinical, oh, intellectual, cynical (11. 633)

Rising to number six on the US Billboard Hot 100 on this day in 1979 (the seventh spot in the UK charts), the lead single from Breakfast in America (see previously) was a deeply personal reflection by Supertramp’s singer-songwriter Charles “Roger” Pomfrit Hodgson, honoured with the Ivor Novello prize the following year for best song, both musically and lyrically, about his decade away from home as an adolescent at boarding school and an indictment on the priorities of the educational system for eroding individuality. The critically acclaimed song’s instrumentals feature castanets, saxophone and the tackle sound-effect from a Mattel electronic football game. The version by German techno band Scooter—as Ramp! (The Logical Song)—from 2001 peaked at second place in the United Kingdom, topping the charts in Norway, Ireland and Australia.

*    *    *    *    *

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth revisiting, Screaming Lord Sutch, chicken orbs plus the exorcism of a werewolf demon (1983)

two years ago: Ziggy Stardust, the monkey puzzle tree plus Bloomsday

three years ago: your daily demon: Bathin, Psycho (1960), more links to enjoy, a summit in Switzerland plus a guide to hurricane name enunciation

four years ago: the sacking of Cambridge (1381), trends in house numbers, renaming US army bases, the first woman in space plus CPT Picard Day

five years ago: microplastics in our bodies, a field of poppies plus graphic designer Otto Aicher

six years ago: purging the Deep State, a visit to Burg Sonnenberg plus black hole solar systems

seven years ago: the Dunning-Kruger effect, IKEA cookery plus experiments in human-dolphin communication

eight years ago: denying a platform to dissenters, Funeral Parade of Roses (1969), coats-of-arms for same-sex couples plus Frankenstein and the year without a summer

advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young (11. 611)

Via our faithful chronicler, we are reminded of the spoken-word composition by Australian auteur Baz Luhrmann (Romeo + Juliet, Strictly Ballroom, The Great Gatsby, Moulin Rouge!), which topped the UK singles’ charts on this day in 1999. The essay is in the tone of a hypothetical commencement speech and was written two years prior by Chicago Tribune columnist Mary Schmich—though often misattributed due to a viral email circulated around graduation time to Kurt Vonnegut and address given at MIT (here’s the one they’re probably thinking of), and hits, mellows as pretty poignant, particularly as it’s the year I got my college diploma. Trust me on the sunscreen.

extended diacope (11. 557)

Via Language Log, we are directed to an omnibus linguistics lesson of fascinating terms of literary criticism and figures of speech—which although containing a few that we’ve encountered before (though often needing to look up to remind ourselves of the particular scheme and trope) like tmesis, eggcorns and mondegreens, amphiboly and redundant acronym syndrome syndrome—there were quite a few new concepts to ponder, like rebracketing, a fusion of terms whose components are then taken apart and reconfigured in a way that’s readily intelligible, like alcoholic to workoholic, and the so called cutthroat compounds, agentive and instrumental exocentric verbs-nouns like the class itself or scarecrow and scofflaw. From the source, there was also the humourous dysgraphomophone—a homophone that looks like a typo used purposely to catch the eye or to lure someone into correcting it: like indorse their banns—to formally back (from dorsum, dorsal) their wedding announcement. More at the links above. 

 

synchronoptica

one year ago: Martian topography plus some Ancient Greek terms that should be reintroduced

two years ago: Chess (1986),  the Mise of Lewes plus St Matthias

three years ago: more on grawlixes plus the curse of toil 

four years ago: St Corona, The Safety Dance (1983), pandemic neologisms, a mole on Mars, paperback dress-up plus misremembered cultural touchstones

five years ago: quiltwork of Old World diseases,  celebrating Doris Day, shark faces, the US Library of Congress’ open archives, paleofuturism plus safeguarding private data

ampas (11. 553)

Founded on this day in 1927 by head of the studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer producer Louis B Mayer in order to create an organisation to mediate labour disputes without the need for outside, independent trade unions and improve the image and reputation of the film industry with input from prolific actor and matinee idol Conrad Nagel (who would six years later go on to establish the Screen Actors’ Guild) and thirty-five other professionals including Mary Pickford and Harold Lloyd, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was to hold an annual banquet but no mention of awards at the time. During the Great Depression, the Academy lost credibility as an arbitrator when it came to labour negotiations and gradually pivoted towards its present role as an honours society, with meritorious awards for “distinctive achievement” in one five branches—acting, directing, writing, technical accomplishment and producing—eventually becoming known as the Oscars. Around the same time, the Academy founded the first film school in collaboration with the University of Southern California, a library charged with collecting all publications about movies and state-of-the-art screening venue for members.

nailed it! (11. 549)

Via Super Punch we learn—and on par with the Finnish practise of awarding a hat and a sword—that Sweden carries on with the unique and obligatory tradition, described as “Lutherishly,” for PhD candidates to nail one’s thesis, disseration to a wall or plank a few weeks prior to one’s defence. Referred to a spikning, students will post their paper (nicely bound by the university’s library press, and with the written approval of their advisor, signed off as Må spikas, “May be nailed”) in the halls of their respective departments for others to pursue and dispute. The comparison to the sixteenth century revolutionary protest against the selling of plenary indulgences seems apt but Martin Luther took the idea from academia and not the other way around.

hardhat riot (11. 546)

As our faithful chronicler reminds, on this day in 1970, around noon a group of more than four-hundred construction workers—many working on the World Trade Center—converged on a group of anti-war protesters, mostly college students picketing the New York Stock Exchange and rallying on the steps of Federal Hall, originally a Customs House on Wall Street, setting up a memorial for those killed at Kent State four days prior and calling for an end to the fighting in Vietnam and Cambodia, release of political prisoners and an end to military-related research on university campuses. By lunch time the clashes turned violent with some eight hundred office workers joining the ranks of the agitating construction workers, breaking through a thin line of police separating the two sides and pursuing students and onlookers and beating them safety equipment and tools. Law enforcement, sympathetic to the counter protesters, did little to intervene or stop the melee. Two weeks of protests followed before the demonstrations, pitting labour union leaders against pacifists, subsided and towards the end of the month, the organiser of the initial riot and a delegation of representing some three-hundred thousand unionised trade workers, were invited to the White House to meet with president Richard Nixon, who said he sought to honour those labour leaders “and people from Middle America who still have character and guts and a bit of patriotism,” accepting hard hats as a gift. For his loyalty and role in starting a culture war, a values war that divided traditionally shared sentiments among Democratic voters, that leader Peter J Brennan was appointed secretary of labour and the cabinet official outlasted the Nixon administration and served under Ford as well.

 

synchronoptica

one year ago: an early fifth century bog man

two years ago: the Nebra Skydisc

three years ago: a classic Eurodance number, assorted links worth revisiting plus more photographs from Pete Souza

four years ago: the death of Tito (1980), more links to enjoy plus Russian borderlands

five years ago: more links worth the revisit plus Heath Robinson contraptions

beginners’ all-purpose symbolic instruction code (11. 526)

The original version of the general-purpose programming language (see also) developed by Thomas Kurtz and John Kemeny of Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire designed in mind to build computer literacy for those outside of speciality fields executed its first code with immediate user-feedback and released after the initial demonstration on this day in 1964. With simpler and more intuitive syntax, the compiler was put into the public domain and immediately spawned several dialects based on terminals’ operating systems and memory constraints and was ideal for porting and inclusion for the growing mini- and microcomputer market for enthusiasts and hobbyists (I can remember being very pleased with some of my programs, however basic) and considered to be the first user-friendly family of high-level languages.

10x10 (11. 517)

age inappropriate: amid a the aggressive banning and policing of reading material, “disturbing” titles help teens become more empathetic and literate—via tmn 

brolly: a faux Britishism for umbrella—from an American regionalism—with an interesting history 

 …but often rhymes: what historian Thucydides would make of parallels and analogies 

true facts: Ze Frank on smart bees—previously

moulin rouge: the red windmill blades on the Parisian landmark collapse—via Nag on the Lake—more here 

completist: venturing to the remote US national park that requires a passport 

what’s the truth about mother goose: a search for the personage behind the nursery rhymes  

never-ending cash machine: a collection of lost and unreleased 

to the manor born: a series of articles on how to quantify a castle, palace and stately home—via Strange Company 

house penguin: recent anti-trust case over the acquisition of one publisher revealed sobering insights about the state of the industry

synchronoptica

one year ago: the evacuation of Prypriat (1986)

two years ago: a single from Harvey Danger (1998), more removal of Soviet monuments plus no new applications for flag icons and emoji

three years ago: Saint Zita, redrawing geopolitical boundaries according to indigenous lands, peaceniks, Dr Mabuse (1922), etymologies of company names and brands plus sustainable diets

four years ago: All Quiet on the Western Front, another Roman holiday, a comic make-up tutorial plus engine sounds for electric cars

five years ago: ranking the 404 landing pages for the US presidential candidates

 

respectful free expression of ideas (11. 513)

Via Kottke via are directed towards a timely and rather transcendent think-piece that we missed when it was originally published back in December from McSweeney’s contributor Andrew Patrick Clark in this message from the chancellor on the recent student protests to the university community.

“…We will not look back and regret this decision. Although we were wrong about not admitting women, abolishing racial quotas, US involvement in Vietnam, and divesting from apartheid South Africa, we are confident that this time is different.

Rules are rules, and the rules never change…

This recent protest is different. These students will never inspire change. Fifty years from now, we will definitely not pretend that we agreed with them the whole time.”

The brief missive is one to be read in full, particularly in light of recent events but speaks to the legacy and spirit revolution in general.

synchronoptic

one year ago: Wes Anderson deja vu, the Cosmati Pavement plus the founding of Audi

two years ago: a classic from Steely Dan, the feast of St Mark plus Ukrainian commemorative postage

three years ago: your daily demon: Barbatos, taxation in Rome, a Roman holiday, more guerilla gardening, the first map of the New World plus St Maughold

four years ago: more COVID conspiracies, the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope (1990), Elbe Day plus another phantom island

five years ago: CAPTCHA technology, the invention of the bicycle plus rebuilding Notre Dame

 

a frontier research problem (11. 511)

Trained on “publicly-available” text scrapped with or without consent from billions of human authored, English language websites in the hopes of informing accurate or at least confident language models, the rather nascent AI boom might be facing a bust as it is running out of data to mine. Previously we’ve looked at the phenomena of recursive AI as generated content begins to saturate the internet, but conversely as vast as the web seems industry experts estimate that AI—to presumably get better at delivering right and desired responses with minimal intervention by exposure to countless right answers and only learning through brute iteration—needs far more information than has been thus far produced in order to advance. Exuberance, nonetheless, is undeterred and growing, notwithstanding immense energy demands, threats to labour and intellectual property even given a spotty record of actual adoption and the dangers of citing less than authoritative sources—the original sin of artificial intelligence, exhausting the sum of human knowledge, only really came to light not by complaints of plagiarism but rather from competitors trying to shield warehoused content from the clearing house and our actions may be propping up something adversarial and degenerative. More from Ed Zitron at the link up top.

word salad (11. 510)

We rather enjoyed this omnibus posting of rare and unusual English terms, which contained many we’ve encountered before but quite a few new words to us. We especially found useful to deacon, from Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women for careful product placement, arranging the top-shelve items up high and hiding the cheaper, lower quality merchandise below, snaste (from the archaic snite—to blow one’s nose—or snuff, as in a candle) referring to the burnt part of a wick, vestry (another non-church related terms though could appear otherwise) meaning the “smiling of [infants] in their sleep,” degombling (a backronym—see also—that comes courtesy of arctic explorers) for removing clumps of ice and snow, dextrosinistral describing a naturally left-handed person taught to use their right for writing, something sesquihoral lasts ninety-minutes, the perfect length for a movie, resistentialism from the belief, half facetiously, that inanimate objects will express spite towards their human users and witworm, coined by Ben Jonson—possibly with some meta-irony—for a someone’s else cleverness as a surrogate for their own. Much more from Mental Floss at the link above.

 synchronoptica

one year ago:  an experimental Nazi-era nuclear reactor plus assorted links to revisit

two years ago: politics of a monetary union (1972), the Trojan Horse, the UN body for the under-represented (1991) plus revisiting airships

three years ago: a rendition of a Daft Punk classic, preserving artefacts of the pandemic, indoor gardening tips, the Situationists plus a survey of map projections

four years ago: China enters the space race, more on eggcorns, signs of social-distancing, dancing mania, a new song from the Rolling Stones plus COVID misinformamtion

five years ago: effervescence, mortgage-backed securities, the tradition of telling the bees plus more logophilia

true facts (11. 476)

Via Super Punch, we thoroughly enjoyed this list of natural history events that could be mistaken for aggressively trashposting by dent of their apparent incredulity. Beginning with the unsourced footnote, “when mice first arrived in New Zealand, [indigenous] people had never seen them before and called the ‘Henriettas’ after the ship they came from,” the colonial brig the Elizabeth Henrietta, the thread is a growing one and reminds me of the unbelievable detail about woodpecker cranial anatomy and how their tongues wrap around their skulls to protect their brains from violent vibrations. Do you have a favourite to share?

 synchronoptica

one year ago: the prices of eggs in California, the palatial estates of Manhattan plus assorted links to revisit

two years ago: Russia’s imperial proclivity

three years ago: MST3K is back for another season, an underwater observation platform, sofagate in Ankara, a planned Martian colony plus maximalist interiors

four years ago: cartoonist Winsor McCay, Trump threatens to withhold funding from the World Health Organisation plus everyday carry

five years ago: more links to enjoy plus Ancient Roman fast food

rush week (11. 449)

We thoroughly enjoyed this detailed review of the 1978 ABC made-for-television movie The Initiation of Sarah by Robert Day and starring Kay Lenz, a retreating wallflower (see also) over shadowed by her popular sister (Morgan Brittany) who discovers her latent paranormal powers after being admitted to the sonority on campus with less prestige, ΦΕΔ—referred to by the members of ΑΝΣ (Alpha-Nus) as “pigs, elephants and dogs”—with the encouragement of house matron, Shelly Winters. Discovering that the hazing ceremony will involve a human sacrifice, Lenz uses her telekinetic abilities to disrupt the initiations for the rival sonority as well as her own. Much more from Poseidon’s Underworld at the link up top.

a brain, a beauty, a jock, a rebel and a recluse (11. 447)

Taking place according to the teen coming-of-age movie on this day, a Saturday, in 1984, The Breakfast Club by John Hughes, featuring the acting talents of Anthony Michael Hall, Ally Sheedy, Molly Ringwald, Paul Gleason, Emilio Estevez and Judd Nelson. Relating the encounters of five individuals from different high school social cliques being punished with a weekend detention overseen by an authoritarian vice-principal with the assignment to write a thousand word essay on who they think they are as punishment, with instructions not to talk or interact with their fellow classmates, all strangers to one another from different social groups. Hiding from their minder, they break the rules and pass the time gradually opening up and sharing their circumstances with one another. Considered the quintessential 1980s movie (in general release about a year after the events in the movie timeline occurred) and with a stellar soundtrack, film poster, a “family shot” ensemble of the cast was photographed by Annie Leibovitz.

synchronoptica

one year ago: the Lassie finale (1973) plus an ominous sign in the heavens (1345)

two years ago: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1952)

three years ago: the Potato Decree (1756), Donkeyskin, Moscow on the Hudson plus an alternative keyboard format

four years ago: International Tuberculosis Day plus a long fight ahead

five years ago: Meshes of the Afternoon plus marijuana etiquette