ecstacy garage (12. 532)

We are directed—courtesy of Web Curios (lots more to explore there) to this rather incredible archived catalogue of ephemera (see also) in this collection curated by the Cornell university library of scarce hip-hop party and event fliers, spanning from circa 1977 to 1984. Not only to these handcrafted promotions document the scene with information on performers, venues, admission and dress code, this is also an amazing graphic design resource that bookends a cultural moment. The archive is approaching five hundred items with additional information regarding provenance.

the stand in the schoolhouse door (12. 528)

Occurring on this day in 1963, as our faithful chronicler reminds, possibly as a staged event to allow the governor whom promised to his constituents upon his inauguration for “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever” to save face, George Wallace (previously) blocked the entry of into the University of Alabama’s Tuscaloosa campus for two matriculating students, Vivian Malone and James Hood—the former the first Black graduate and the latter returning years later in a teaching position after being forced out by racists and both given a death-bed apology by the former governor. The state national guard federalised by executive order (EO 11111, see above) compelled Wallace to step aside and allow the new students to complete their registration, providing “assistance for the removal of unlawful obstructions of justice” across the state and allowed students to enrol in previously all-white schools. The Kennedy administration afforded Wallace this publicity stunt over warnings for repeated counter-demonstrations and violence like that that had occurred in Mississippi with desegregation, and while not able to ultimately quell all riots did focus attention on Wallace and his arguments for states’ rights versus civil rights.

el arte peruano en la escuela (12. 512)

We enjoyed learning about the career and works of illustrator, textile designer and educator Elena Izcue through her 1930 inclusion of Incan and other pre-Columbian works into the curriculum of Lima’s National School of Fine Arts, much to the displeasure of some of her fellow academics aired with a very public debate—detractors finding nothing redeeming in native culture and a surrogate for a larger question of Peruvian identity. In the face of this resistance and aesthetic judgement, Izcue’s insistence and advocacy ultimately led to appreciation and a syllabus that included a set of workbooks she produced drawn from the motifs of Indigenous ceramics and fabrics and archaeological finds. Much more from Public Domain Review at the link up top.

apparent magnitude (12. 492)

Realising I had taken for granted knowing what the unit of measurement was, or what exactly it was gauging, we appreciated this introduction and overview of the decibel—via Quantum of Sollazzo. Sort of like the distinction between mass and weight, sound intensity is measured in terms of pressures in pascals as the deviation from the ambient caused by an acoustic wave through a given medium, and the decibel as a way of expressing the ratio between two values logarithmically—with the silent partner being the threshold of human hearing. Originally stemming from a technique to measure and compare signal loss over telegraph lines and later telephone circuits, first expressed as loss per miles of standard cable, the new definition developed by Bell Labs was received favourably by operators and long-distance providers, named in honour of the communications pioneer Alexander Graham Bell. Still used chiefly to calibrate signal strength and fidelity as power passes through different exchanges across a network (mathematically, it is easier to process and account for the changes in transmission media and resistance by their additive properties rather than cumulatively by logarithms, which is incidentally the reason why older hardware and appliances last longer being over-engineered by dint of material and electrical tolerances calculated with a slide-rule and rounding up adding up to machines built to a more robust standard than for their planned lifecycle. Because humans perceive an increase in loudness exponentially rather than linearly (per studies in psychophysics known the Weber-Fechner laws that demonstrate gradual increases are likely to go unnoticed by the senses, the contrasted stimuli also seen to carry an effect in registering numbers and statics, in placebos—titration of all types through interoception and voting), the dB scale became a useful measure, as with the Richter scale for earthquakes and the Fujita scale for tornados, for when a in situ judgment might fail.

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth the revisit (with synchronoptica) plus the discovery of Troy

seven years ago: mythemes, a global weather service, the GDPR goes into effect, drowning does not always look like drowning, the founding of St Petersburg, ancient and modern trade routes plus a walk along the former inter-German border

nine years ago: the classified section, petty commodification, French-Canadien curses plus pizza as alimony

ten years ago: more links to enjoy, a supernatural dating society, the upcoming G-7 plus a new city in Mongolia

in a word (12. 488)

Courtesy of Futility Closet, we enjoyed this moment of logophilia with an selection of obscure words from the personal collection of Eric Albert, frequent contributor to Butler University’s journal of recreational linguistics, Word Ways, specialising in research and demonstrations on palindromes, tautonyms (reduplication like aye-aye or namby-pamby), anagrams, pangrams and lipograms. We especially liked supermuscan defined as having the qualities greater than which is typical of a fly; alkahest, a universal solvent—chiefly in the alchemical sense; titivil—a demon who collects dropped or mumbled parts of the mass and bears them off to hell as evidence against the offender—see previously; brotus, any extra measure given without charge, as in a baker’s dozen; ecdysiast, one who rhythmically disrobes as in a strip-tease artist; holmgang, a duel fought on an island; velleity—the lowest degree of desire, a slight wish; microlipet, one bothered by trifles; palinode, retracting or recanting something formerly praised; supellectile, pertaining to furniture; and poliad, a nymph that lives in the city. Some in the catalogue were familiar to us but there’s a surplus of choice news terms to be found clicking through. Let us know your new favourites.

9x9 (12. 483)

leaderboard: an exclusive look at the $TRUMP memecoin banquet   

leap together: Kermit the Frog delivers a commencement speech at Jim Henson’s alma mater 

biosignature: potential signs of alien life on exoplanet K2-18β raises the question of when evidence becomes definitive 

industrial light and magic: Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, founded by Star Wars franchise creator and slated to open next summer, made redundant fourteen percent of staff

mr tompkins in wonderland: after attending a lecture on relativity, a bank clerk discovers the ability to perceive quantum phenomena and the foreshortening of spacetime   

liquidity squeeze: collaborative scholarship and the fake Roman financial panic of 33 AD—via Strange Company 

yeah—it has been hard, mainly because of the numbers: a vintage 2005 spoof on every television news spot on the economy

matriculation: graduates answer questions posed by their past selves insider trading: US attorney general divested herself of between one and five million dollars worth of shares ahead of Trump’s “Liberation Day” announcement

synchronoptica

one year ago: Phyllis Diller’s garage sale guide (with synchronoptica), an alternative space shuttle design, AI can’t do minor edits plus assorted links worth the revisit

seven years ago: more removing science from the classroom, a cosmic interloper, eyeball worlds, wine windows plus the Dear Leaders fail to meet

eight years ago: corporate welfare 

nine years ago: transparent wood plus a visit to Weimar

thirteen years ago: the chemistry of wine

11x11 (12. 481)

ν octantis: astronomers discover a tight binary star system with a lone exoplanet wedged in the middle  

{sum free sets}: Cambridge graduate student proves an conjecture of Paul Erdős on the limits of the additive property—via Damn Interesting 

gorgoneion: the backstory of Medusa 

market instability: complaining that negotiations have stalled, Trump threatens to impose a fifty-percent tariff on EU exports to the US 

ambigram: more invertible messages—made by impossible letters (see previously here and here) 

the old, old, very old man: the sudden death of super-centenarian Tom Parr in 1635 illuminates our long quest for longevity—see also 

marked decline: the precipitous drop in the use of semicolons—with a quiz to celebrate its proper placement  

urban renewal: arborists are planting giant sequoia (previously) in blighted Detroit neighbourhoods—via Kottke  

pandemonium: when the pantheon of gods and goddesses came into the world, they already had company with a multiplicity of daemons acting through human agents 

exchange programme: US Department of Homeland Security revokes Harvard’s ability to enrol foreign students  

brown dwarf: in the distant past, Jupiter was nearly twice its present size with a much stronger magnetic field, revealed by the orbital dynamics of its constellation of satellites—see previously

interdisciplinary (12. 475)

On the corner of Broadway and West 112th Street, above the iconic neon-lit Tom’s Diner used as the establishing exterior shot for the sitcom Seinfeld and in the Susan Vega song, NASA research facility, the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, has occupied the six upper storeys of Armstrong Hall since 1966. Affiliated with Columbia University’s Earth institute, from whom it leases the laboratory space, GISS has embarked on a broad programme of astrophysics and climate dynamics and advanced public understanding of phenomena like El Niño and first synergised ideas such as plate tectonics, quasars and black holes—introducing the terminology to common parlance. The institute also issued a vocal warning regarding global warming’s trajectory and involved with numerous solar system exploration missions dating from Mariner, Pioneer and Voyager to the present. This impressive list of accomplishments and continuing projects, both theoretical and applied, however, is failing to secure the lab’s legacy for the the Trump administration, which has cut overall science funding by half and is sceptical of climate change, and through the auspices of DOGE and the Government Services Administration is terminating the lease effective at the end of the month (or at least pretending to in the name of efficiency as the contract cannot be broken early and the building will sit empty until it expires) and is directing the staff of one hundred thirty to work from home until they can be dismissed or placed within another part of the agency. More from the Guardian at the link above.

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

8x8 (12. 460)

anachronymy: a shopping list of items, like pencil lead, that are technically misnomers but accepted by convention—see also  

there were tears brimming on her azure peepers, and tremulous grief twister her kisser: choice lines from pulp fiction detective story author Robert Leslie Bellem—see previously   

you’re all bilingual already even if you didn’t realise it before: polyglot professor addresses a high school assembly in studied Gen Alpha slang 

danglers: many hanging gerunds only do harm with a feat of imagination—see also  

breaking and entering: effraction is an antiquated synonym from the French 

it’s a breakthrough—one of them can speak: a human polyglot communicates with bonobos in their own language  

five corpulent porpoises: vintage pronunciation drills for prospective BBC anchors, including “Penelope Cholmondely rasied her azure eyes from the crabbed scenario” 

 linguistic relativity: studies of comparative conceptual specialities suggest that some cultures do have more words for snow and lava

chrysopoeia (12. 443)

Although the aims of alchemists of transforming base metals into gold has been previously achieved through synthetic transmutation first in 1941 by heavy bombardment of mercury with neutrons—though the resulting isotopes were extremely radioactive and again in 1980 by Glenn Seaborg at Lawrence Livermore labs by surgically removing protons and neutrons from bismuth atoms, these demonstration projects were prohibitively expensive and would need to be scaled up a trillion-fold in order to produce a microscopic speck of the precious metal. We learn, however—via tmn—that researchers working on the ALICE programme at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, the acronym somewhat disappointingly only standing for A Large Ion Collider Experiment designed to study conditions immediately after the Big Bang with by creating exotic plasma phases of matter, have recently detected the mass albeit very short-lived conversion of lead into gold as the extremely hot and close-packed conditions cause dissociative reactions that can cause the target element to eject a small number of protons and neutrons, producing gold (the similar densities probably what inspired the study of alchemy in the first place). The above quick-silver and thallium were also temporary by-products of nuclear transmutation. Related to the title term, χρυσοποιία, ἀργυροποιία (argyropeia) refers to artificial silver-making, usually trying with copper.

11x11 (12. 431)

hot, cold, clash and burn: some performances from candidates for the 2025 Dance Your PhD contest with real EuroVision vibes—see previously 

man in motion: a biography of Eadweard Muybridge (previously) as a graphic novel   

pc connection: the raccoon mascot that made the catalogue stand out amongst industry uniformity—via Nag on the Lake   

popemobile: the pontiff’s conveyance used for his 2014 visit to Bethlehem to be converted into a mobile health clinic for Gaza   

oaf of office: arguing that due process is cumbersome, Trump defers to his legal team on whether it his duty to uphold the constitution 

pamflyt compiled of cheese, contayninge the differences, nature, qualities, and goodnes, of the same: an early Renaissance book on the staple food digitised and made available to the public

architecture of choice: AI buttons and the fat-finger economy pushing redesign and showhorning of non-options into everything   

sustained presence: Israel expands operations, evictions in the occupied territory   

papabili: the College of Cardinals’ report and coverage of the upcoming conclave—via Web Curios 

mingkwai: the rediscovery of an incredible antique mechanical typewriter prototype for printing Chinese characters—via Neatorama—with a video demonstration 

marge inalia: alert the grammar police, the Errorist strikes again

synchronoptica

one year ago: Expo '74 (with synchronoptica), the Cabbage Patch Kids’ maternity ward, assorted links worth revisiting plus the Grammies

seven years ago: more links to enjoy, lampooning mid-morning television, doggie bags plus election by Borda count

eight years ago: potential jail time for protesting the US attorney general, the Cornell carillon plays a tribute to the Grateful Dead plus even more links

nine years ago: gorillas sing little tunes as they eat, maps of Middle Earth, a market hall in Rotterdam plus a popular French tonic wine

ten years ago: Hee-Haw and the cancellation of Star Trek plus utopian thinking

[citation needed] (12. 416)

Taking longer than expected after Musk cast aspersions against what he styled as “Wokepedia”—though remember with these unimaginative and incurious MAGA toddlers every accusation is a confession—the Wikimedia Foundation is joining good company for a very bad precedent with the Trump administration’s Department of Justice issuing a boilerplate letter to the free encyclopaedia, threatening to strip it of its non-profit status for facilitating the spread of propaganda. Following the memory-holing of entire programmes and purging US government websites of any established science, from vaccine efficacy, the climate catastrophe to the spectrum of sex and gender identity—as well as any affirmative action—and pressuring any corporations contracting with the government to do the same, department lawyers levy that Wikipedia permits and promotes the manipulation of historical events and the biographies of American political leaders, subverting Trump’s agenda and undermining the interests of US taxpayers, who subsidise the international consortium in the same way that tariffs equal economic prosperity. As with other respected scientific institutions, like the New England Journal of Medicine and universities that have seen federal funding withheld, Wikipedia has been audited for proof that they have sufficient counter measures in place to suppress partisan disinformation edited by foreign nationals and measures to include competition viewpoints, such demands being another tactic to silence dissent and control the dissemination of knowledge that does not align with administration’s narrative and agenda.

a1 is number one (12. 411)

Even as Trump has directed the responsible party to dismantle the institution, and is clawing back payment plans in arrears administered under department, he is encouraging the promotion of literacy in artificial intelligence, which the secretary so charged with making herself redundant referred to as the steak sauce, with the integration into the curriculum to teach the next generation of AI workers. Aside from sounding like a dystopian effort to drain human handlers of original, non-recursive thought, expendable once exhausted or replaced with a level of sycophancy useless to all parties, prioritising such initiatives following other governments stated reforms, which strike as far more feasible and responsible imbued with a functioning bureaucracy, Trump will need his DOE extant in some form to administer his Presidential AI Challenge and form partnerships within the industry, an unacknowledged tension for the organisation that he ordered dissolved and remanded to state school districts as the Supreme Court appears more focused on granting parental carve-outs for objectionable curricula rather than a hands off approach as promised.

she put the miss in misdemeanour when she stole the beans from lima (12. 404)

Although a bit too old for the PBS game show continuation of the franchise—though I’d defy anyone to not declare the theme song from house band (“Do it Rockapella!”—inspired by “Been Caught Stealing” by Jane’s Addiction) an absolute banger, I do remember the original educational computer game, Carmen Sandiego, released on this day in 1985 by Brøderbund software (whose catalogue includes Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing). Though upon reevaluation deemed edutainment, Carmen Sandiego and later incarnations were meant to teach geography in response to a significant portion of US children demonstrating a lack of basic knowledge when it came to the globe and atlas and questions were vetted and fact-checked by the National Geographic Society, a major underwriter of both the game and television version from 1991. The objective was for fledgling gumshoes of the ACME detective agency to thwart the organised crime ring of international art thieves headed by the titluar character using geography. The series was rebooted 2021 (see above) and Rockapella reprised their theme, though the production team criminally used another song. She’s a double-dealing diva with a taste for thievery.

*     *     *     *     *

synchronoptica

 

one year ago: the lost mixtape (with synchronoptica) plus assorted links worth revisiting

seven years ago: more links to enjoy, David Bowie’s self-portraits plus Plain People on vacation

eight years ago: more bad flags, more terror attacks in Germany, a concept flying car, Trump dismisses the surgeon general plus Billy Butcher on love power ballads

nine years ago: breathing exercises plus pavement level pedestrian signals 

eleven years ago: populist politics plus TTIP and reciprocal tariffs

great calamary (12. 396)

Published as literature to educate and to disabuse attendees of the 1883 International Fisheries Exhibition held on the campus of the Royal Horticultural Society in South Kensington, the event running from May to October perhaps not as storied as other Victorian world’s fairs but heretofore attracting the most visitors and exhibitors due to its rather well-apportioned aquaria on a scale never before seen and menagerie of sea birds and marine mammals gathered from all over the Empire. Distributed by the Literary Committee, also charged with documenting the proceedings of the exhibit, the pair of illustrated guides commissioned of one Henry Lee, “sometimes naturalist of the Brighton Aquarium,” were meant to unmask the mythos of the deep by glossing the monsters and fables of the sea and tempering the imagination with scientific reason and technological and exploratory advances that left little room for the leviathans and merfolk. Demonstrating how such encounters could be explained away while expressing concern over less fantastic natural treasures and how our penchant for conquest could be their undoing as well, it’s interesting timing to come across these handbooks as the first documented footage of a colossal squid, a Kraken albeit a baby one, has been captured and shared. More from Public Domain Review at the link above, with an array of fantastical sightings including the Vegetable Lamb of Tartary and barnacle geese.

synchronoptica

one year ago: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (with synchronoptica)

seven years ago: oceanic microplastic plus Britain from Above 

eight years ago: leek pasta plus the Turkish expatriate vote

nine years ago: worlds out of balance plus auditory hallucinations

eleven years ago: a night at the opera

glass menagerie (12. 392)

The epidemic whipped into the height of frenzy on this day in 1954 following newspaper reporters and appeals for intervention from local authorities, the state governor and ultimately president Eisenhower, the Seattle Windshield Pitting Panic is considered to be a text-book example of mass delusion—sometimes mislabelled as mass hysteria, classed with near contemporary occurrences like Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds broadcast—propagated by rumour, mis- and disinformation and mass media when residents of the Washington capital and surrounding communities were invited to closely examine their cars’ windshields and discovered them to be scored with previously unnoticed pits, dents and dings. I recall getting out of a movie once with a lot of car-bombings and in the parking lot of the theatre was inspired to check below the steering column and was petrified to feel a bundle of wires—though quickly calmed down once I realised that I had never before poked around down there. Originally suspected to be a rash of sabotage or vandalism, but the scale and scope quickly lead to other theories arising beyond a conspiracy of hoodlums, sourcing the normal weathering to a range of agents from sand flea eggs hatching, cosmic rays, a nearby large radio transmitter operated by the navy, UFOs, a shift in the Earth’s magnetic field to fallout from nuclear testing. As damage reports preoccupied police, a committee of scientists from the state university was called together to survey cars on campus and compare to reported incidents. Concluding the wear and tear was the result of average road-use, calls to the police abruptly dropped off two days later.

 

 

synchronoptica

one year ago: the Rennsteiglied (with synchronoptica) plus wondrous woodcuts of astral phenomena

 

seven years ago: Thousand Insects of Japan plus creative anatomies

 

eight years ago: illustrator Boris Artzybasheff

 

nine years ago: more words with no English equivalent 

eleven years ago: Banksy graffiti at the GCHQ plus sea water to fuel

9x9 (12. 391)

field of vision: the evolution of eyes branching out as on a tree of life   

land-grant college: the federal-funding based model for American post-secondary education is based on a deliberate post-World War II decision to outsource expertise and experimentation rather than compartmentalise it within government consortia  

habeas corpus: relenting to the idea that some people have no rights is siding with authoritarianism and hoping you aren’t next   

under construction: transform any modern website a late 90s GeoCities masterpiece—via Clive Thompson’s Linkfest   

thank you easter bunny—bwak, bwak: more on the controversial, re-constructed, retcon of the holiday mascot 

⌂: the tiny house in the middle of IBM’s eight-bit character set, adopted by PC clones with the 1981 Code Page 437—see previously—and its possible relation to Blissymbolics 

rinki-tink in oz: deportation and administrative oversight in L Frank Baum’s paracosm   

uniwersytet latający: US institutions higher education can defy Trump’s crackdown by outreach and going underground, as Polish universities did under Communism—via Kottke   

recaptcha: corvids demonstrate surprising mental acuity for identifying outlier shapes and geometric regularity—via MetaFilter

synchronoptica

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

seven years ago: US refusing Syrian refugees, American kakistocracy plus some local prehistory

eight years ago: bunking busting bombs, the White House Easter Egg Roll plus a grim future vision of US national parks

nine years ago: animated viruses, solar sails, more chatbot failures plus a walk from Wiesbaden to Mainz

eleven years ago: Ukrainian break-away republics

 

life is much more successfully looked at from a single window, after all (12. 379)

First published by Charles Scribner’s Sons on this day in 1925, the Jazz Age novel by writer F Scott Fitzgerald, although well-received initially by critics, many felt it fell short of his earlier works, This Side of Paradise and The Beautiful and the Damned and was commercially a disappointment, and the fact it is one of the most widely-read texts by American high school students and that there was occasion to mark the anniversary would have elicited surprise for the author, whom also considered considered his literary career to be a failure. Reevaluation over the ensuing decades count it among the masterpieces of the early twentieth century, attracting scholarly attention over his questions of social class, environmental conservation, gender, race and disillusionment with the American Dream, aspirations and refinements that speak across the years. The story about careless people is in part based on lived experience with Fitzgerald’s infatuation with a socialite out of his league, raucous parties and a sensationalised true crime story involving a love-triangle in New Jersey. Completing the manuscript whilst staying in the French Riviera, Fitzgerald shopped around for publishers, reworking the draft several times and with working-titles Among Ash-Heaps and Millionaires, On the Road to West Egg, Under the Red, White and Blue and The Gold-Hatted Gatsby before reluctantly settling on the alliterative one in deference to Alai-Fournier’s singular tragic character Le Grand Meaulnes (often rendered for English readers as The Wanderer). The dust jacket artwork for the first edition is Spanish painter Francisco Cugat’s Celestial Eyes, an abstract representation of a flapper suspended above a fun-fair evoking New York’s Coney Island, the commission being presented to Fitzgerald before the novel was finished and becoming a motif in the story, prompting him to finalise the book before it went to another author’s work, maintaining an unusual correspondence between artist and author, whose original painting was rediscovered in the bin of the publishing house’s archives decades later like so many unsold volumes of The Great Gatsby’s first run.

synchronoptica

one year ago: Dune: The Musical (with synchronoptica)

seven years ago: spirit animals and animal spirits, double-storey letters, floating dorms in Denmark plus assorted links to enjoy

eight years ago: sacrificial soda plus disinformation mills

nine years ago: a Canadian foothold in the Caribbean plus money laundering and the Panama Papers

ten years ago: more links to revisit plus an appreciation of Designing Women

desiccant (12. 369)

Via Web Curios, we appreciated learning about the pervasive packets of silica gel we’ve mostly encountered inside bags of doggy treats (not a prize per se and while not necessarily harmful to handle made of the same silicon dioxide that makes up glass for drinkware, wind shields and screens for electronic devices, a less device and porous form of glass but definitely not to be eaten) and sometimes lining the pockets of new clothes and soles of shoes—which although we’ve been rather compliantly socking in linen drawers for sometime now (the pictured sachet of an oxygen scavenger is materially something totally different but also extends the sell-by-date and keeps content fresh) based on something once read about how they can combat dampness and mildew, we realised we knew nothing about the history and growth of the industry that mirrors global trade and just-in-time delivery. The process for the manufacture of the nodules was mature by the 1930s, the beads exhibiting the rather remarkable property of absorbing forty percent of its weight in water vapour but there was not really a market for the pouches of wicking agent until the age of globalisation when everything from garments to crisps to gadgets where subject to a range of environmental factors air and sea and overland before getting to retailers and consumers. Rather than making packaging or shipping containers more robust to withstand these changing conditions, silica gel distributors began offering a less expensive alternative—complete with a protocol of how many packets might be needed depending on a product’s composition and journey—to stave off despoiling moisture. While the material can be recharged, regenerated (see also), stuck in a drawer, they have limited effect. More from Scope of Work at the link above.

synchronoptica

one year ago: 1974’s Eurovision finale (with synchronoptica) plus Annie Lennox’ debut solo album

seven years ago:  assorted links to revisit, a coup in South Korea, the rediscovery of Pompeii plus Florida restricts public beach access

eight years ago: textile artist Dorothy Grebenak, protesting Putin, Sweden’s failure museum, designing Trump’s border wall, animated antiques plus the MAR-A-LAGO act

nine years ago: mapping Mt Fuji plus an exercise in character building

ten years ago: Motor City Mannheim