starlight suppression (11. 864)

As part of a fascinating series called “Who is Government?” (see also), Washington Post columnist Dave Eggers confidently asserts that with the next quarter of a century, humanity will have conclusive evidence of extra-terrestrial life, thanks to the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope—giving a thoroughgoing profile of the astronomy pioneer who is the soon to be launched observatory’s name sake—which features a system of tiny pistons designed to occult the light of a host star, a coronagraph that can dynamically deform the reflecting mirror, that will enable with this shadow-casting technique far better imaging of any exoplanets orbiting it—an alternate yet untenable proposal (among other competitors) would be to use our Sun as a telescope through gravitational lensing (see also here and here) but the focal point is three times the distance that Voyager I has travelled. Aside from the answer to the existential question of are we alone, the essay goes on the explore the importance of tax-payer funded science (with dedicated government workers generally maligned) and return on investment in knowledge—projects that billionaires would never finance as there’s no money to be made in such endeavours. Much more at the links above.

10x10 (11. 852)

analogical harmony: Edwin Babbit’s Principles of Light and Colour (1878)  

riding the rails: a guide to a cross-country trip on America’s Amtrak

world level zero: how well travelled are you—see previously  

porifera: an appreciation of the barely understood sea sponge  

me and my aero: one inventor invented both the flying ring frisbee and an innovative coffee press—via Kottke  

type tuesday: Microsoft’s new default font (see previously here and here) and more typographical briefs  

the cry of cthuthu: Poseidon’s Underworld reads the July 1979 anniversary issue of Starlog—see previously

small world: kinetic microphotography captures biological processes and microbes in never-before-seen ways  

road trip: charting the longest possible drivable distance through Eurasia  

come up off your colour chart: Taylor Swift lyrical swatches

synchronoptica

one year ago: faithless electors (with synchronoptica) 

seven years ago: the stage play that coined race plus a legitimising veneer for populist prejudice

eight years ago: a visit to the Hessen Landtag

ten years ago: Roman emperor Hadrian 

eleven years ago: a photographic scavenger hunt in Leipzig plus gifting votes

pyri (11. 844)

A wildfire detection device made of wax and charcoal, taking its inspiration from the botanical function of pyriscence (a type of serotiny which is triggered by an environmental factor like the seasons, weather conditions, moisture or in this case fire) wherein seeds are only released once their protective resin is melted away in a forest fire has won a UK James Dyson scholarship for further development of the prototype. Like the natural process to reseed the woods, the outer shell of the pine-cone shaped alarm is liquified and activates a radio beacon that alerts local authorities, the electronic components also made of organic materials to avoid leaving foreign objects in the environment and to forego the need of mining more raw materials of components. As compared to established methods of monitoring which rely on drone patrols, satellites and sensors Pyri offers a passive solution that can be widely deployed at low costs and requires no maintenance after distribution. More from Dezeen at the link up top.

8x8 (11. 821)

i voted: the state of Michigan let the internet choose the redesign of its election sticker given out at the ballot box and it’s a werewolf clawing off its own shirt  

selective foresight: the “marshmallow longterism” of conservatives—see also  

turn on subtitles: animated videos using only the closed captioning feature  

psycho a capella: Korean ensemble MayTree shows off their vocal abilities with an excerpt from the film’s tense main theme—via Everlasting Blört  

backchannel: YouTube removes Tenet Media content following US justice department indictment linking them to Russian election interference  

slipstream: the amazing achievements of cyclist José Meiffret 

eidophone: voices made visible by Welsh singer and scientist Margaret Watts Hughes  

the kamala and tim show: the Democratic ticket is bringing 80s sitcom energy—via Kottke

8x8 (11. 799)

heatwave toolkit: applying yogurt to one’s windows to cool homes and offices  

calculating empires: an exploration of the genealogy and evolution of technology and power from the fourteenth century on—via Pasa Bon!  

better than binary: a look at the potential for base-three in computing applications and security—see previously  

coriander, comfits, confetti: Italian cuisine, shifting tastes and etymology  

campaign photo op: Trump staff had a violent altercation with Arlington National Cemetery officials—see previously  

chaos rainbow: an unusual monochrome optical meteorological phenomenon over a baseball stadium  

license to travel: the three thousand year history of the passport, linking bureaucracy with our hopes and aspirations  

süßwarentechnik: Swiss researchers discover a way to produce chocolate using the whole cocoa fruit rather than discarding most of it

synchronoptica

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

seven years ago: an optimised crash-test dummy, the backstory on the distracted boyfriend meme plus a villa modelled on the White House in Germany

eight years ago: moving a museum plus Calais’ Jungle encampment

nine years ago: the reproducibility crisis, more links to enjoy plus a squishy map

eleven years ago: Italian Ghostbusters 

9x9 (11. 791)

rhythm 0: in 1974 artist Marina Abramović subjected her unmoving body to a six-hour ordeal to see how an audience might objectify her 

 bang records: a documentary about the life and career of songwriter Bert Berns behind “Here Comes the Night,” “Brown-Eyed Girl,” “Hang on Sloopy” and many other standards  

back to obamacore: with hope and the end of history, the Harris-Walz campaign gives nostalgic vibes of 2008—via Web Curios 

gothamq loop: a prototype quantum network being tested beneath the streets of Queens  

geography and maps division: a mystery, featureless solid silver globe at the US Library of Congress—via the Map Room   

mice fancy: how a Victorian hobbyist breeding programme became a mainstay of the laboratory  

diversion tunnel: Margaret Bourke-White (previously) documents building of a dam in Montana in 1936  

diminished by its artsiness: studio pulls trailer for Megalopolis after realising the marketing team used AI to generate phoney tag-lines by famous film critics—via Super Punch  

the birth of coolth: Sentence First explores similarly constructed neologisms, including the statistical term shorth for shortest half—via Language Hat  

the confetti illusion: oranges are sold in red mesh bags to enhance their orangeness—via Marginal Revolution—see also

 synchronoptica

one year ago: paper dolls and digital avatars (with synchronoptica) plus bat men on the Moon

seven years ago: more from artist Lance Wyman, assorted links to revisit, anti-migrant riots in Rostock (1992) plus a collection of government sponsored cartoons

nine years ago: the birthday of Sean Connery plus adiaphora and cafeteria Christianity

ten years ago: the sacred, prognosticating chickens of Rome

eleven years ago: creative interpretations of film

10x10 (11. 783)

zener cards: the phenomenon of population stereotypes help mentalists seem genuine to their audience—via The New Shelton wet/dry 

null island: the nation of Kiribati (see also, see previously) straddles the four hemispheres  

mycobbuoys: a natural anchored float to help ween aquaculture off of plastics and keep them out of the oceans  

gisnep: a hybrid jumble, Connect-Four and cross-word game—via Neatorama  

vanquish surveillance, not democratise it: California legislators’ deal to have Big Tech sponsor local journalism causes concern it may affirm monopolies rather than break them up  

who’s telling trump he might be seeking one of those black jobs: former US first lady Michelle Obama taunts the GOP candidate for his comments about immigrants taking away supposed targeted employment opportunities 

seven-segment display: the fast technological progression from the incandescent numitrons to the liquid crystal display—see previously  

dishonourable mentions: winners of the annual Bulwer-Lytton fiction contest—see previously  

veni, vidi, vici: discover Roman antiquities in your area—via Satyrs’ Link Roll  

miss cleo knows the truth: confessions of psychic hotline operator—via tmn

synchronoptica

one year ago: a classic from Gary Numan (with synchronoptica)

seven years ago: staunch Prohibitionists

eight years ago: cross-species friendships, taxidermied instruments plus healthy microbiomes

nine years ago: the scramble for the poles plus asylum problems in Germany

ten years ago: Pallas’ Cat

7x7 (11. 761)

popp horlage: the network of pneumatic clocks of fin de siècle Paris 

just get me eight-hundred thousand votes: Elon Musk interviews Trump on X—see more 

home row keys: a documentary on Mavis Beacon  

porte-clés: the French youth craze for key-rings  

josuushi: counting-markers in the Japanese language, nuanced by rank, size and sentience—see previously, see more—via tmn 

homo naledi: chance discovery reveals more branches in our family tree  

death-slot: revisiting broadcast television’s dumping grounds  

spear-fishing: reportedly a group of hackers with ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard of Iran were able to break in to the Trump campaign’s database 

us patent application 10/953212: a training regimen to harvest hyperspace energy and pass through solid items

synchronoptica

one year ago: a classic from Lynard Skynard (with synchronoptica) plus a tour through the Geratal

seven years ago: classic cartoon What on Earth?! plus diagrams of parliamentary seating

nine years ago: keeping stashed cash safe 

ten years ago: Mexico ends state oil monopoly plus more humanitarian airstrikes

eleven years ago: histomaps plus ages of the US Founding Fathers

🧭 (11. 738)

Via the Map Room, we are directed to Map Happenings’ tenth instalment of cartographic innovations (previously) that changed how we navigate in this in the long tail of that led to the founding and subsequent demise of MapQuest. A printing concern in Lancaster, Pennsylvania—notably in Amish country, a culture that famously eschews the transportation and technological developments that lead up to our subject, established in the mid-nineteenth century by one Richard Robert Donnelley, which acquired clients commissioning catalogues, magazines, telephone directories and marketing material convinced oil companies to distribute road maps (in the same vein as Michelin guides) for drivers and distributors ultimately a century later to Donnelley Cartographic Services and in 1990 a partnership with a startup called Spatial Data Services, accruing more clients in the industries of car-rental, travel agents, real-estate and motoring associations. Within a few years, accelerated and informed by the burgeoning internet, MapQuest was formed and expanded globally—the first (dis)service to offer geocentric advertising and satellite imagery. I can remember carrying around printouts for various itineraries, creased and well-worn or otherwise. Much more at the links above.

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.

10x10 (11. 707)

the institute for controlled speleogenesis: an fictional organisation designing artificial caves  

indecent proposal: the infamous 1994 advertising campaign, Love Letters from Fiat 

a river runs through it: the consequences of taming—and rewilding—the Los Angeles River (see previously)—via Nag on the Lake  

amazombies: online retail giant’s affiliate programme for customer returns are overtaxing for brick-and-mortar partners  

one hundred days of cultural clarity: an exploration of recent memes and trends  

bootstraps: JD Vance as the toxic byproduct of America’s obsession with rags-to-riches narratives  

polkamania: Weird AI (see below) drops a new new medley of song parodies  

posse: publish (on your) own site, syndicate elsewhere  

fiddler on the forum: male exploitation on the Carol Burnett Show—see also 

nietzsche and the noonday demon: the fictitious French philosopher, Jean-Baptiste Botul, whose writings are often cited

gallery of the louvre (11. 678)

On the occasion of the record-setting auction in which the pictured painting fetched an incredible three-and-a-quarter million dollars on this day back in 1982 (going to a private collector but on public display), we take a look at the artist, better remembered for his contributions to telecommunications, Samuel Finley Breese Morse. 

First establishing his credentials at a portrait artist and having a success career, several US presidents sat for him, Morse turned to invention in his late forties after encountering a fellow-passenger on a steam ship back from Europe who taught him about electromagnetism and demonstrated some experiments for him. Setting aside the subject painting in 1832 (finished the following year and contains thirty-eight miniature versions of the museum’s treasures—see also), Morse developed a single-wire telegraph, improving on European systems, and overcame the problem of signal-strength and range, a limiting factor, by the addition of relays to boost the distance transmissions could be carried from a few yards to dozens of miles. Patents were awarded but Morse’s invention was not unique or as foundational (see previously here and here) as he liked to present it. Adopted as the international standard for telegraphy, Morse would go on to contribute to his eponymous Code a few years later.  The first public demonstration was held at a steelworks in Morristown, New Jersey with an electronic missive—rather cryptically the message was “A patient waiter is no loser,” sent to a factory two miles away. 

kinesigraph (11. 669)

Public Domain Review contributor Irfan Shah revives the forgotten figure of Wordsworth Donisthorpe of Leeds—inventor, chess enthusiast, anarchist, linguist, social reformer and unrecognised pioneer of cinematography, only to fall behind the competition in Louis Le Prince and Thomas Edison. Though Donisthorpe’s career is punctuated with lamentable near successes and frustrating failures—which saw him turn to blackmail on more than one occasion but that did not produce a favourable outcome either—except as a posthumous postscript that connects Donisthrope, through his social outreach, to one of the early icons of the silver screen. Read more about the Kinesigraph patent, free love and his Latinate language reform attempts at the link up top.

9x9 (11. 665)

won’t back down: Biden committed to remain his party’s candidate for the US presidential election

wall∙e: facing a labour shortage, Japan railways deploys a colossal humanoid robot to maintain train tracks  

conspiracy theory rock: the 1998 Saturday Night Live TV Funhouse cartoon that may or may have not been banned by the network  

if it’s so smart, why does it live like this: next version of ChatGPT has post-doctorate level intelligence and the poor life choices to back it up  

shadow secretary: the political upbringing of Sir Keir Starmer  

wish you were here: beforehand postcards to prepare prior to departing for vacation—see previously  

oberheim ob-1: a short documentary on the revolutionary analogue synthesiser that allowed musicians to record and save patches for playback  

a face to a name: researchers create life-like robotic skin to express emotion and self-healing from harvested juvenile foreskin cells  

dark brandon: Democrats backing Biden’s decision to run 

synchronoptica

one year ago: advice for urban day-trippers in the countryside (with synchronoptica)

eight years ago: gameifying one’s wellbeing

nine years ago: pushing Greece out of the EU plus assorted links to revisit

ten years ago: more dragnet surveillance 

eleven years ago: a history of fireworks 

offcuts (11. 639)

Despite abundant supplies of natural resource lithium, Australia—and most of the world—lack another, overlooked key component for the manufacture of battery storage and the transition away from carbon-intensive energy and must import graphite—see previously. Researchers at Charles Sturt University in Victoria, we learn courtesy of the New Shelton wet/dry, however, may have devised a technique for turning hair and wool cast-offs into the conductive crystalline form carbon by heating it under extreme pressure. This breakthrough also heralds opportunities for salons and shepherds who end up disposing of a lot of lower-quality animal fibre.

 synchronoptica

one year ago:  Rocky Horror (with synchronoptica) plus assorted links to revisit

five years ago: one hundred facts for logophiles, German abbreviations plus plagiarism revealed through punctuation

six years ago: more the US Space Force, a model kit controversy, more on the robot crew member of the ISS plus a collection of beer coasters

seven years ago: the Saturday morning show that possibly inspired MST3K plus the wisdom of Wil Wheaton

eight years ago: gunpowder in the New World

11x11 (11. 625)

indemnity clause: a look at the exactingly detailed Sanborn maps created for US insurance firms in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries 

unseen persia: thousands of historic photographs of Iran during the Qajar dynasty leaked on-line from the archive of the Golestan Palace  

sweet thing: Chaka Khan’s debut Tiny Desk performance  

bahía de cochinos: Russian warships on drill visit Cuba  

doubly-disambiguated bishop non-capture statemale: a vlogger tries to categorise the rarest chess moves  

transponder: wood proves surprisingly durable material in space as agencies plan to launch experimental satellites, like ships on the high seas—via the Linkfest  

1337: a pretty exhaustive list of English words that can be spelled on a calculator turned upside down  

hollywood canteen: a fond farewell to Janis Page, recently departed at 101  

the brannock device: a better shoe-sizer based on the barley corn  

gallus gallus domesticus: photographer recreates exacting portraits of Edo-era Ito Jakuchu’s studies of chickens—via Nag on the Lake  

geochron: the incredible restoration of 1960s analog, electromechanical world clock and map

dis-disgruntled (11. 623)

Via Slashdot we learn that the investment holding company Softbank, after a three year study into the feasibility of “emotion cancelling” technology, it has introduced a trial of AI-powered voice-conversion routines into its call-centre operations in aims to reduce the psychological stress incurred by those phone-bank employees worn down by hostile clients, transforming angry tones into more pleasant and calming ones. What do you think? This one-sided conversation wouldn’t seem to de-escalate matters—like a troll that didn’t realise they were muted rather than blocked and I have wanted to disengage from plenty of calls and do funny voices in my head sometimes to take the edge off and things rarely get confrontational—but the software supposedly maintains a restrained level of dissatisfaction and urgency to ensure that the operator takes the cues. The system will also terminate calls that go on for too long or become overly abusive.

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

yokushitsu kansouki (11. 589)

Via the New Shelton wet/dry, we are are treating to some laundry lessons from Japan (see also) and a potential third way to cross the chasm on either side of the Atlantic when it comes to drying clothes. When have a nice rack in the backyard and try to line dry as much as possible but still have a heavy-duty tumble dryer that we have to resort to quite often, especially when the weather isn’t cooperating—and so were intrigued by the installation known as the “bathroom dryer” (浴室乾燥機, よくしつかんそうき) that blurs the lines between interior design and appliance that blows warm, dry air onto the hanging clothes. Efficient and effective as the outdoors, no ironing needed and kinder to fabrics, more on laundry technology and culture from Bloomberg at the link above.

 synchronoptica

one year ago: a classic Tina Turner album (1984) plus hype cycles

two years ago: A Raisin in the Sun plus a visit to the Black Moor

three years ago: anatomical astrology, Noël Coward rap artist, St Bona plus the invention of the trampoline

four years ago: legislation per tweet, astronomer Maria Cunitz plus an AI parliament

five years ago: peak oil, air gaps, a concept car, modern still lifes plus the Mueller investigation

aerophone (11. 577)

Officially recognised and granted a patent for his invention on this day in 1829, Armenian extract working in Vienna the accordion (from the German Akkord for concord of sounds) of Cyrill Demian (Կյուրեղ Դեմյան) and sons was only half of modern version with bellows and a single button board but was considered distinct enough for court authorities from the portable klezmers and harmonicas available for vocal accompaniment. Numerous variations followed and there is some debate amongst historians who credit Friedrichroda native Christian Friedrich Ludwig Buschman with the innovation but the accordion of Demian’s was clearly based on a common prototype called the Handäoline with a lot of competing models being introduced at the time (see also), and Garfield’s dad Jon, an attested aficionado, states in the comic strip that Demian is his hero, making it cannon.