8x8 (12. 641)

practically perfect people never permit sentiment to muddle their thinking: the Art Room Plant presents multiple vignettes on author PL Travers and her most famous character, Mary Poppins  

savage garden: this year’s Edward Gorey envelope art competition has a sinister botanic theme—see previously—via Web Curios 

catsup and fries: potatoes evolved from tomatoes 

🌀: a two-part episode on tempestology—the study of hurricanes, typhoons and cyclones

drowned in sound: reflections on the current state of music discovery and serendipity in general 

liberation day: Trump’s tariffs go into effect—see more hapax: a project tracking every unique English word uttered on Bluesky, including those yet to be used—via Waxy  

society for the protection of underground networks: SPUN has created a subterranean global atlas to map the mycorrhizal connections (previously) under our feet that support the ecosystem above  

傘: the spiritual underpinnings of the umbrella in Japanese society

sidecar, side-quest (12. 608)

Via Web Curios, we are directed toward the rather epic, years’ long adventure of one Adam Aaronson—the would be the first—to sample every cocktail on the registry of the International Bartenders’ Association (IBA). Notably not binge-worthy and assayed with refinement and purpose, research and travel, Aaronson drank all one hundred two concoctions inscribed since the list was established in 1961 to bring a standard and uniformity to the profession of mixology which includes three broad categories: the Unforgettables, like the martini, Manhattan, Americano and Between the Sheets; Contemporary Classics, like the Black Russian, Sex on the Beach the Bloody Mary; and New Era Drinks, like Naked and Famous, Southside and Three Dots and a Dash. Past versions of the list, drinks de-accessioned for going out of favour and not standing the test of time also offer an insight into changing tastes—with historic, former cocktails removed like the Screwdriver and a personal favourite, the Harvey Wallbanger. Aaronson shares anecdotes for many drinks and the bars where he tried them, reformulating the data in compelling ways and as a point of departure, he begun mixing his own.

sylvanian drama (12. 591)

The Japanese toymaker behind the woodland cast of characters (see previously) is suing a dramaturg who posts popular videos and images across a variety of platforms of the fuzzy creatures portraying bleak and dark adult domestic situations for copyright infringement and causing “irreparable injury” to its reputation. The Irish artist from Kildare, Thea Von Engelbrechten, is filing a countersuit that her creations are parodies and fair-use. There’s a potential for the Streisand Effect and the legacy brand launched in 1985 and otherwise unfamiliar to today’s generation with this soap opera that resonates with audiences.

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth revisiting (with synchronopticæ) plus Geraldine Ferraro accepts her party’s nomination (1984)

9x9 (12. 578)

i’ll get no residuals ‘cause i’m a stateless individual: Trump considers revoking the citizenship of long time show-business foil Rosie O’Donnell  

know thy selfie: from visibility and transformation to the routine, an examination of the custom that’s unlikely to loose currency  

room 237: Stanley Kubric’s last minute change to the ending of The Shining  

from the i sing the scooter electric department: China’s Omo X is a self-driving EV  

turtle spiders of the sea: Ze Frank on the horseshoe crab 

ebb and flow: an underwater turbine off the coast of Scotland demonstrates the viability of tidal energy  

hyborean age: a Red Sonja remake in discussion thirty years in after numerous other reboots  

a common-thread among world-eating types: a literally history of the billionaire—via Nag on the Lake  

off-ramp: unmoved by other atrocities, MAGAist may view Trump’s connection with the sex-pest as a somewhat dignified way to sever connections with the movement

télégraph aérien (12. 575)

Having previously learned about the invention of the optical or semaphore communications system of Claude Chappe, we appreciated this retrospective and chance to revisit the contentious innovation that informed public perception and art movements into the nineteenth century. Hailed as a great advancement, the tachygraphic network that was being introduced just as the French Revolution was beginning in 1792 as a series of relay towers throughout the countryside and in metropolitan areas was by turns regarded as an achievement, condemned as an eyesore and viewed with suspicion. The cellular masts (or windmills) of their day, their addition to the tops of buildings, profane and sacred, was considered despoiling aesthetically—numerous examples of paintings from that period feature them prominently, sort of like the scaffolding that encased the Statue of Liberty during the eighties that become as iconic and emblematic as the unobscured monument—and the coded messages (the arrangement of the blades or wings corresponded to ninety-eight numbers) to be deciphered and passed on the next operator) were taken as something sinister, prompting the destruction of some towers either as signs of witchcraft (compare to the attacks on the 5G masts during COVID either as its cause or a government conspiracy to implant microchips in the population to control it) or to hinder accelerated responses to quell uprisings, the government privileged with this speeded up reaction not available to the protesters. A group of investors in Bordeaux were jailed, though ultimately acquitted, for bribing operators to transmit stock market figures from Paris hours ahead of when the gains and losses would be available to the competition—an abuse for the sight-lines that was never envisioned. Much more from Hyperallergic at the link above.

8x8 (12. 566)

peering capacity: a chronological representation of the undersea cable network and earthbound exchange points that forms the global internet—via Maps Mania  

somewhere, somebody must have kicked you around some: a growing thread of emigration options  

turophiles’ delight: a two part podcast on fromology, the science of cheese and cheese-mongering 

this time for africa: a possibly unironic appreciation of the 2010 World Cup anthem—Waka Waka, inspired by Zangaléwa, the Cameroonian marching song—via Pasa Bon!  

first serve: an overview of the history of tennis  

a fine bromance: a series of ruptures in the relationship between Trump and Putin—previously—possibly signals the end  

holding hands while the walls come tumbling down: a mental time-capsule of Gen-X doom ballads 

frame of preference: a story about early Mac settings and control panels narrated through ten interactive emulators—see previously—via Kottke

synchronoptica

one year ago: Savage Curtain (with sychronopticæ), impressions of West Berlin in the summer of 1977 plus Project 2025

twelve years ago: World Heritage Sites around Germany plus RIFs for the Pentagon

thirteen years ago: East-Bloc versions of Western vehicles 

a fine bromance (12. 514)

Although it was bound to happen eventually (see also), we were a little surprised that the very public and acrimonious split between Elon Musk and Donald Trump took as long as it did to occur, with insults exchanged on their respective social media platforms coming to a breaking point during Trump’s meeting with the Chancellor of Germany, Merz (see below) did not seem quite to know what to make of the US president’s asides: “You saw a man who was very happy when her stood behind the Oval desk—even with a black eye,” asking Musk if he wanted some concealer, which Musk declined. “Elon and I had a great relationship. I don’t know if we will anymore.” Their partnership showed its first signs of strain with reservations over Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill, ultimately ratcheted up to calling in a “disgusting abomination” and threatening to his influence to unseat Republican members who vote for it, discarding restraint and reluctance to air their private differences. Trump appeared at first only slightly taken aback over what was characterised as full-throated endorsement of his economy and domestic policy omnibus bill and only update because language mandating the accelerated adoption of electric vehicles was removed from the legislation, which prompted Musk to unleash his ire. Having announced his support for Trump after the failed assassination attempt in Pennsylvania, Musk told Trump that he would not have won the election without his help, both on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter and his generous donations. “Such ingratitude.” Trump then responded on his Truth Social that he had fired Musk from DOGE as he had worn out his welcome. Musk then escalated the feud even further denying he had been fired and re-tweeting calls for Trump to be impeached and accusing the government of suppressing the release the files on Jeffrey Epstein and his underage sex trafficking ring because they implicated Trump. Unclear if he will follow through with the threat, Trump concluding that a big cost savings measure would be to terminate the billions spent on Tesla and SpaceX government subsidies and defence contracts. Rightwing writer who Musk sired his fourteenth known child with, Ashley St Clair, now estranged and suing for alimony, @‘d Trump, “Let me know if u need any breakup advice.”

air gap (12. 511)

We enjoyed these collected reflections from The Curious Brain on how genuine experiences and inauthenticity has broken trust and belief in what formerly was upheld as evidence but in that betrayal has sparked not regression or aversion necessarily but rather an appreciation for what’s not flawless and frictionless (whether we’ve asked for it or not) and in this post-verification era when seeing is not believing, distancing ourselves with presence and identify and define oneself with showing up and—despite the fraughtness and frailty of memories and expressions otherwise not committed to documentation and curation, made less reliable when seen through a distorting and optimising lens—“I was there.” In this age, authenticity it’s free—it’s currency. It’s status. It’s luxury.

23-skidoo (12. 467)

Unclear who arranged the shells, former FBI director under Donald Trump during his first term, James Comey (previously here and here)—who prior to the election made hay over Hilary Clinton’s private server overshadowing Trump’s own string of controversies and unceremoniously dismissed for conducting an independent investigation into Russian interference in the campaign and since his firing a vocal critic—was interviewed by the US Secret Service for an hour after sharing and then deleting an image encountered on a stroll along a beach with the widely shared though perhaps selectively interpreted political message, 8647. Trump accused Comey of feigning ignorance, Homeland Security Director Kristi Noem is continuing the investigation for advocating the assassination of the president with Director of National Intelligence calling for the former FBI chief to be jailed for “issuing a hit” while the president was on official travel in the Middle East and Junior—his father having survived two assassination attempts during the race accused Comey of “calling for my dad to be murdered.” The term 86, which generally does not denote violence but rather booting out an undesirable patron, seems to have entered the political lexicon when Trump’s then  press-secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked to leave a Mexican restaurant in Virginia in 2018, cleaving close to the original meaning of the rhyming slang for nix. Coined in the 1920s by the hospitality industry, it was shorthand among service personnel to indicate an item from the menu that was no longer available and by extension a guest that was no longer welcome in the establishment, the etymology is unclear: whether from the jargon and numerical codes of soda jerks, a signal during Prohibition to exit out the back door ahead of a police raid out to Eighty-Sixth Street or from an unknown source. The term was cited occasionally for partisan gesturing since, a similar formulation used previously by Republicans to call for Biden’s removal but without this level of controversy or retributive repercussions. Also with a bit of contrived numerology—8+6+4+7=25, as in the twenty-fifth amendment of the US constitution that outlines the process to remove a sitting president.

fishing in the night (12. 457)

Roman Mars’ 99% Invisible cross-posting the work of a colleague and regular contributor directs us to a rather fascinating listen that synthesises a multitude of developments in radio and broadcasting that first forecasts how the medium previsions the internet and the miracle of instantaneous, round the world communication taken for granted by our modern perspective and seemingly by many contemporaries as well. The follow-on season focuses on shortwave, ceded to the pioneering amateurs with authorities considering that band to be of minimal utility and wanting safeguard AM and FM frequencies for tactical and commercial purposes with the outbreak of war. With a limited range but higher fidelity, broadcasters built antenna towers for amplitude modulation transmissions, usually reaching perhaps a county-sized audience, however after dark, listening audiences sometimes caught snatches when tuning the dial to programmes from very far afield. A phenomenon well known to the HAM radio community (see above), the signal boost was caused by the ionosphere becoming less charged by sunlight and able to refract and reflect errant signals back to ground-based receivers. Their shortwave leavings, the hobbyists discovered, had an incredible global and antipodal range which spurred the collecting of calling cards. As knowledge spread that programming and news was not restricted nocturnally, many members of the public, equipped only with standard AM receivers and spent many evenings engaged in the title practice, leaving families to bemoan these squandered evenings with their casting for transmissions in their “radio shack.” Once the potential of this belittled band was realised day or night with the potential for a station to bound around the world and picked up by anyone tuned in, however, once again the enthusiast community—as is the case with modern surfing the web—found themselves sidelined and marginalised with more licensing and crackdowns on commandeering the public airwaves when governments reclaimed the bandwidth for propagandising.

what is this—a coding bootcamp or a lumberjack convention? (12, 452)

Amidst the deployment of more and more bloated apps and brittle, complicated and dependent code that needs constant maintenance—we enjoyed this sweary, full-throated appreciation of hypertext markup language for its robustness and versatility—with antecedents, via MetaFilter. “It’s been the backbone of the web since Al Gore flipped the switch, and it’ll still be here long after your trendy framework is rotting in a GitHub graveyard.”

synchronoptica

one year ago: a banger from the Rolling Stones (with synchronoptica)

seven years ago: creative construction canvases plus assorted links to revisit

eight years ago: Klingon linguistic Easter eggs, more links to enjoy, men’s spaces plus Trump orders DOJ to ratchet up sentencing

ten years ago: even more links plus the Ship of Theseus

eleven years ago: Russia rubbishes the Eurovision

ballerina cappuccina (12. 442)

A series of AI-generated memes featuring a cast of surrealist chimeric characters, usually a visual portmanteau of animals with vehicles or fruit with anthropo-morphic features emerged a few months ago and the phenomena is called Italian brainrot (see previously) for the accompanying text-to-speech voiceover in not-quite-nonsense Italian (see also) for rhyming effects to low-effort static images, which nonetheless seemed primed to evoke a feeling of uncanniness. Minted as volatile meme coins, they seem to be employed to underscore aggressively self-aware shitposting as well as the amount of AI slop inundating the internet. The original Tralalero Tralala and Bombardino Crocodilo have been cancelled as Islamophobic but have returned in a more satirical form and all are subject to remix and revision as well as commentary about the impermanence problem of AI image creation when an input is subject to the telephone-game. The trend is also ostensibly in response to mainstream studio entertainment, franchises sorely lacking in originality.  Chimpanzini grappalini

@eliotmediaoficial Todo lo que debes saber de los personajes del brain rot italiano #chismecito #tik_tok #tiktokers #creadores #trends ♬ sonido original - Eliot Store

synchronoptica

one year ago: AI-generated cityscapes (with synchronoptica) plus Swedish PhD traditions

seven years ago: US-Iranian tensions plus US withdrawal from the Iranian nuclear deal

eight years ago: Belphegor’s Prime, Trump’s interference with the justice system, Banksy’s Brexit mural plus a suitably gilded property

eleven years ago: a hoard of paintings of unknown provenance plus the question of Scottish independence

twelve years ago: Nazi Germany’s capitulation and a fateful date

etsomnia (12. 370)

Via Marco McClean’s Memo of the Air, we are introduced to the very long-standing tradition (for which we were woefully remiss about perusing beforehand) of My One Beautiful Thing’s weekly curation of a sampling of some of the strange crafts discovered on the e-commerce site (see also here and here) with an emphasis on handmade jewellery, totes and home decor. The above disorder leading to sleep deprivation is a self-diagnosis from obsessive browsing of said upcycling marketplace, whose name itself comes from etsi—Italian for oh yes and French and Latin for what if. Frequent themes include taxidermied plush animals, ceramics, inspired doormats and wall signage and overly-accessorised charm bracelets and bedazzled garments.

the wisdom of the crowds (12. 362)

A bit of social media sleuthing and reverse engineering suggests that the Trump administration contrived its nonsensical tariff formula by asking AI and set those custom rates per the confident suggestion of a chatbot, which are not reciprocal to import duties at all but rather their trade surplus divided by total exports. Economist and frequent financial contributor to The New Yorker and other publications James Surowiecki obtained similar solutions when prompting various AI models with the question “how to fix trade imbalance.” We suspected that infusing artificial intelligence into everything and the attendant slop produced eventually would drive us collectively over a cliff but wasn’t suspecting such a mark, like a kid rushing to get an overdue homework assignment completed, would be its agent, native and wilful ignorance, shortcuts and retribution conspiring to further fray the global supply chain whose brittleness was on display not too long ago during the pandemic and unleash havoc on world markets and international relations.

put down artist (12. 345)

There’s a Chinese expression in romanji that’s curiously enunciated, masticated as its acronym, spelt out P-U-A for pick up artist which entered common-parlance a few years ago but still very much circulating and having acquired more nuance synonymic with the concept of gaslighting, manipulative but perhaps not on the same level of flattery, though with same ends, and maybe more akin to the retired, superannuated phrase being owned or pwn’d (pronounced poned). The prescribed antidote is to not have ambitions party to seduction. More on leetspeak and linguistic disabusement with a sample in context from Language Log at the link above.

cruelties, collusions, corruptions and crimes (12. 336)

Via JWZ, the crew at McSweeney’s Internet Tendency has regrouped after that initial and unending force majure of flooding the zone to again catalogue the daily horrors instigated by the Trump administration, like last time around, lest we forget. The atrocity legend has been updated with several new and dreadful categories to work into the schedule.

synchronoptica

one year ago: the calculus of Easter (with synchronoptica)

seven years ago: Woozle hunting plus a local beverage

eight years ago: art projects informed by the Rijksmuseum collection

nine years ago: digital colonialism,  an AI chatbot comes to a disastrous end plus the Satan-Leaf Gecko

ten years ago: assorted links worth revisiting plus hipster animals

8x8 (12. 318)

first comes the performance, then comes the repetition, then comes the integration: thirty lonely yet beautiful acts of defiance—even including social media—via Kottke 

fubar: Muckrock presents its FOIA Foilies awards for 2025—probably too early—see previously  

not shuttered, per se, just considered complete: venerable UbuWeb started back up after closure last year  

audible enclaves: researchers have discovered how to beam sounds to a targeted listener—via the New Shelton wet/dry 

it’s peanut butter jelly time: froghorn.exe is an homage to what used to be the internet’s biggest draw  

programmable mutterer: the allure of magical thinking and how the displaced grace of AI could prove more analogous to markets and institutions steering better than individuals  

smoking gun: Trump declassifies a tranche of documents on the JFK assassination, unredacted and “ushering in a new era of maximum transparency  

greeks bearing gifts: Senator Schumer votes to let the wooden horse into Troy

9x9 (12. 314)

👀: a “half-swipe” feature that allows recipients to screen messages with them being marked as read is exacerbating dating anxiety amongst teens—via Superpunch 

rabbithole: global styles of curiosity survey as revealed by Wikipedia app usage—via Clive Thompson’s Linkfest—are you a hunter, dancer or busybody?   

we have urinated in our beds—there was no chamber pot: a survey of the graffiti of Ancient Rome that’s very much like a contemporary comments section 

quotidiano: Italian news paper prints all-AI edition   

derezz: local club hosts a TRON party during a gaming developers’ conference as a history lesson   

gulf-stream: a mesmerising overview of the world’s ocean currents and eddies   

let your fingers do the walking: the typography of the telephone directory, the Yellow Pages, and its antecedents 

patrimonialism: running a state as one’s family business   

forbidden unlawful representation of roleplaying in education: legislation in Texas would outlaw students presenting as other than human, check out the acronyms of the bill, including fursonæ

synchronoptica

one year ago: the science behind sippy-birds (with synchronoptica), another 3D rendering challenge plus assorted links worth revisiting

seven years ago: the allure of old books,  The Gods of Japan (1943), more links to enjoy plus artist Grant Wood

eight years ago: the architecture of choice,  Trump defunds agencies plus Trump’s foreign policy

nine years ago: more on state fossils plus collected quotations

ten years ago: the new EU central bank headquarters, job redundancy, even more links, animals on trial plus local galleries

digital flâneur (12. 310)

We really enjoyed this essay, courtesy of fellow peripatetic Messy Nessy Chic, on how to rewild one’s browsing experience chocked full of helpful navigation analogies of avoiding congestion, breaking out of the walled garden, by taking the side streets and adopting the regular commute of another (we all have these routines and sources we check in with on a daily basis but it might be refreshing and eye opening to realise that there are whole unexplored routes to the same end) to add to serendipity. There are numerous suggestions and resources for taking this internet walk from the Syllabus Project at the link above, including gifting a mixtape to your friends and followers of places you’ve discovered, leaving a trace, taking more than just photos, bringing a satchel along to collect what we’ve encountered and cultivating the practise of derivé to map one’s local IRL wanderings to their online spaces.

and i’m going to use that bill for myself too—if you don’t mind—because nobody gets treated worse than i do online, nobody (12. 289)

Though drafted with the unimpeachably serious aim of curbing the distribution of non-consensual intimate imagery (NCII—also known as revenge porn) online, the piece of legislation, the so called “Take It Down Act,” whose immediate passage Trump urged during his address to a joint-session of congress earlier in the week overly-broad language and is blatantly a recourse of the powerful to pressure host platforms to remove content critical of the administration, censoring and silencing dissent. Sponsored in the senate by Ted Cruz of Texas, the act would further require social media to have procedures in place to comply with a takedown request upon notice from a victim and enjoys support from the first lady, who is known for championing a rather unoriginal online safety campaign “Be Best” during her husband’s first term, opponents fear it could easily be extended to political speech and journalistic reporting that leadership does not like, with no penalties for lodging a false or frivolous notice and a requirement for hosts to monitor content shared over end-to-end encryption, potentially leading to platforms abandoning privacy measures in order to align with the law.