dūstscēawung (12. 982)

A tenth century Old English term, the word carries the rather poetic meaning of contemplation of dust, the latter half of the compound evolving into the Middle English escauvinghe, shewing—in the sense of presentation or to examine or inspect, which comes down in the modern word of scavenge via scavage—that is a toll placed on imported goods, similar to a tariff. Whilst dustsceawung can connote a sorrowful occupation and a sort of nihilistic thanatopsis , it also, through its lexical lineage, refers to being caught up in minutiae but also the brighter and more reverential acknowledgement that such omnipresent motes (“suspended in a sunbeam”—crumbled empire but also stardust) once were and can be other things, a daydream of transience and the future.

9x9 (12. 981)

on average there are only 0.061 haunted locations per square mile in the uk: ghost mapper 

forty winks: an appreciation of sleep and everyday aesthetics  

married to the sea: CEO of US military contractor Palantir argues case for making war crimes constitutionally allowable  

grunts and thwops: cetologist share their first chat with a humpbacked whale named Twain—see previously 

the dangerous christmas of red riding hood: a 1965 revisionist fairytale from the Wolf’s perspective, starring Liza Minnelli  

ar 4294: giant sunspot cluster on par with the concentration that sparked the Carrington event pointed directly at Earth—via Damn Interesting  

mixtape: a growing repository of found cassettes from around the world with content and provenance—via Web Curios   

enhanced vetting: Trump’s state department directed to deny visas for fact-checkers and content-moderators in defence of free-speech absolutism  

mycology mapped: an engrossing explainer of the fungi kingdom and its place in the ecosystem 

 

synchronoptica

one year ago: Ze Frank on molluscs (with synchronopticæ), a digital advent calendar plus gift ideas for the holiday office party

thirteen years ago: a gaslit whistle-blower 

fourteen years ago: Eurozone credit downgrades 

fifteen years ago: net neutrality and IMF priorities 

seventeen years ago: Christmas decorations 

11x11 (12. 895)

american psychosis: pathologising along with artist Jordan Sullivan  

kojève and cigarettes: uncovering the history of Hegelian tobacco and the American spirit  

usenet: a 1995 CBC segment featuring Cory Doctorow on how to internet—via Waxy   

karzer: revisiting privilege and imprisonment in German universities  

de facto recognition: leaked US draft to end Russian war in Ukraine  

dress code: ignoring all other disruptions and baseline unpleasantness, US transportation secretary encourages flyers to not dress down for their flights to improve the overall experience for all passengers  

tiled words: a daily crossword puzzle-Tetris hybrid—via MetaFilter  

algospeak: taboo, newly minted unwords of search and social media

victor insulations: the ubiquitous American diner mug—via Miss Cellania  

in like flynn: over-exposure to the stupidest ambitions of society at large has brought us all down—via Web Curios 

operation charlotte’s web: ICE ruins a classic of children’s literature—some pig 

synchronoptica

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

twelve years ago: hand-washing and optimism  

thirteen years ago: the holiday winterval plus Martin Luther and bowling

offline crush (12. 879)

Via Web Curios, we quite enjoyed this five unit crash course whose simple yet atrophied syllabus is aimed at teaching those who want to escape algorithmic suggestions (we’ve spilt much ink on the subject of rewilding one’s online and by extension real-world experience—see previously here and here—and one has to really want that instead of the echo-chamber and comfortable confirmations) and appreciated the dogmatic approach that’s an actual framework rather than just the aspiration to get out more, with tips for bypassing the directed traffic presented as exercises. Inspired by some reactions to a recent post about exploration and widening one’s repertoire that suggested that some that bothered to comment—more than the tinge of guilt suffered over scrolling past a picture of someone’s cute dog and not upvoting—expressed that they had forgotten how to internet, the lessons advise one to take stock, make note of behaviours, intentional or otherwise, and has actually homework in form of following a daisy-chain of external links as far away as they will carry one, researching the commonplace—some artefact from one’s own room—until one finds a fact so unexpected that one is compelled to share, preferably in an essay format, long-read, delving into forums and into specific archived file types and pocket the results. The assignment we found most resonant was the reminder to use inspect element—not just to try to lift some coding ideas which usually nets nothing as there’s so many overlays and dependencies to negotiate (recursively represented)—and just mashing all the keys to see what’s there and break or remix it as a local copy. Before AI slop served fake news, this was how the sausage was made but is moreover a prompt that the web was never meant to be a black-box and one was never meant to scratch under the surface and in general whose interactions were siloed by commercial platforms.

synchronoptica

one year ago: movie title drops (with synchronopticæ), the Onion to purchase Infowars plus the Polish-German border

twelve years ago: Wiesbaden’s Südfriedhof 

thirteen years ago: an inexact science 

fifteen years ago: advances in 3D printing 

chthulucene (12. 874)

Having recently revisited the designation of the Anthropocene Age in the midst of the COP30 climate summit and we enjoyed this alternate heuristic, courtesy of Clive Thompson’s latest Linkfest, for not only understanding the era in which we live but also as way to put into perspective an appreciation for the concept of deep time (see also here and here) that underpins geology and evolution and even our accelerated moment of anthropogenic climate change. Though premised and predicated on gradual change over aeons which outlives any observer, thinkers like Charles Darwin and contemporaries failed to grasp the timescales that they were invoking and not much better equipped to fully comprehend its enormity and depth than us who deal with far cruder and protracted cycles. Not the Elder Gods of H P Lovecraft (the sudden-death round of links below features another allegorical Lovecraftian entity in the shoggoth, a meme to describe the unknowable and formless horror when AI becomes unhinged and reveals its true nature) but rather in the sense of chthonic powers—earthly forces of volcanos and seismic quakes and tidal waves deified in a host of underworld heroes and horrors unleashed by Mother Earth through our own prospecting and extraction.

synchronoptica

one year ago: from 2016 SNL mourns Leonard Cohen, Trump victory (with synchronopticæ), a national treasure of rare, modest and enduring interest plus more the Frankfurt Model Kitchen

thirteen years ago: thrift shops and overconsumption 

fourteen years ago: myth and monetary policy 

fifteen years ago: Esszett now an allowable character in domain names 

the festival of reason (12. 870)

On this feast of Saint Monitor, fifth century bishop of Orléans of whom nothing is known, Pope Leo I, also active during the mid-four-hundreds, called the Great and a diplomat perhaps best remembered for his embassy with Attila the Hun that successfully persuaded him to turn back his armies and not invade Italy, and many others, revolutionary France declared a national Fête de la Raison on this day in 1793 (An II, 20. Brumaire), organised by humanist philosopher Antoine-François Momoro under the Cult of Reason, as a state-sponsored atheistic religion to replace the Catholic church (a policy of agnosticism and god-building or la construction de dieu as a surrogate as opposed to outright abolition), which was seen as a major catalyst for the uprising, arguing that deifications of such ideas as liberty and truth diminished the autonomy and self-determination of the individual. Former houses of worship were transformed into Temples of Reason, stripped of icons and idols—the largest event hosted in Notre Dame in Paris. Women dressed in togas and tricolour sashes of the republic tended a symbolic flame on the altar representing the values of the First Republic. Described by detractors with the lurid hallmarks of Roman excess and misplaced ritual, the holiday did not see a repeat, supplanted with the rival tradition, slightly more deistic and promoted by jurist and statesman Maximilien Robespierre with the Cult of the Supreme Being. Both sects were banned by Napoleon Bonaparte with the Law on Cults of 18 Germinal, Year X—re-privileging the old order.

9x9 (12. 865)

amor fati: Fredrich Nietzsche’s philosophy (previously) of passing on engagement can break the cycle of polarisation without becoming disengaged and nihilistic 

the memes of production: the internet reacts to Zohran Mamdani’s mayorial win in New York City  

unpaving paradise: an urban greening game to optimise replacing parking spaces in Berlin with trees  

№: why number is English is abbreviated n-o 

no springs: a hypnotic video of manufacturing robots politely waiting their turn in the assembly process—see also  

alive internet theory: a seance with the vibrant web and all its expressive artefacts against the countervailing argument it has become overrun by bots—see also—via Waxy 

gathering wool: online apparel retailers in China employ oversized hangtags to curb high return rates  

hatch act violation: US federal judge rules administration overstepped its bounds by inserting partisan blaming into furloughed government employees’ out-of-office autoreplies  

bleak outlook: astronomical survey deposits galaxy could be riddled with the artefacts of long dead alien civilisations that could avoid destroying themselves—we suppose that depends on what sort of religion they develop—see also, see previously—via MetaFilter

synchronoptica

one year ago: a monument to the Armenian diaspora (with synchronopticæ), the Carrington count, backstage customs plus US presidential numbering

fourteen years ago: food and drink prohibited plus Inventors’ Day

the machine stops (12. 858)

Expanding on the E M Forester dystopian novella, which first revealed its resonance to many during the COVID pandemic and lockdown when most were confined to a hexagonal cell with creature comforts and on-demand entertainment provided much like the main characters, we appreciated the chance to revisit the story and its litany of predictions courtesy of Better Living Through Beowulf. Written as a rebuttal to HG Wells more utopian and slightly paternalistic vision of the future, Forester wants to emphasise the authoritarian nature of rapid technological advance set in a future then very near to its publication. Most of the human population has gone subterranean after extreme climate change and toxic air has made the Earth’s surface uninhabitable. A benevolent omnipotent, super-intelligence caterers to its kept humans’ every need who in physical isolation only engage in the activity of posting on social media, texting and Zoom calls. Travel is permitted but deemed unnecessary and the super-intelligence, simply the Machine, is worshiped as a god—with orthodoxy reenforced by social creditworthiness. When the Machines begins to malfunction, people accept defects and hallucinations as the whims of omniscient providence until the disruptions become intolerable but unfixable as knowledge of how to affect repairs has become lost, if it was ever understood in the first place. After a catastrophic collapse of its circuits, people slowly reemerge and begin to rebuild civilisation.

synchronoptica

one year ago: Germany’s coalition government faces collapse (with synchronopticæ), an archive of military uniforms, America’s first Red Scare plus assorted links worth the revisit

13x13 (12. 845)

norwalk platform: architect Jackie Ferrara ends her life, aged 95  

antedating: lexicographers talks lexicography through canonical form  

spoiler alert—some counties pronounce it as rhyming with stone: further exploration on British toponymy

index of multiple deprivation: UK office of government statistics releases its deciles of the most under-served  

willy and the poor boys: Creedance Clearwater Revival (previously) released their third studio album on this day in 1969 

loss-leader: an image editing tool on par with Adobe makes itself freely available to appeal to non-professionals  

holy war: Trump readies troops for action in Nigeria to protect Christian popular despite a paucity of evidence for persecution 

perfectly al dente: a research roundup of scientific investigations nearly overlooked 

body horror: biopolitics, the body politic and David Cronenberg  

police brutality: Sting and company release their debut album Outlandos on this day in 1978 

county stripes: visualising US demographics and distribution—see also 

anthimeria: the verbification of mystery writers—see previously 

first woman of fluxus: Alison Knowles passes away, aged 92—see more, see also

9x9 (12. 824)

project mind control: Sopranos creator’s next project is about spymaster and chemist Sidney Gottlieb and MKUltra  

perwich letter: a coded seventeen century diplomatic missive deciphered after three hundred and fifty years 

daisy, daisy—give me your answer do: AI models creating their own survival drive to avoid being switched off 

meanwhile back at the academy: new Star Trek series featuring Holly Hunter is to have a coming-of-age teen theme 

critical ponerology theory: a fascinating look at the othering nature of evil 

space mom: veteran actor June Lockhart passes away, aged 100  

anti-deficiency act: anonymous donation meant to defray a fraction of the salaries of the US armed forces revealed as a reclusive billionaire 

bletchley park: a virtual Enigma machine to reverse-engineer in the style of an early 2000s computer game—see previously, see also—via Web Curios 

channelvue: capturing the experience of early 1990s cable channel surfing, a network CEO becomes flummoxed to find her station guide broadcast hijacked—see also 

synchronoptica

one year ago: The Terminator (with synchronopticæ) plus half-baked ideas

thirteen years ago: the cognitive dissonance of political campaigning 

fourteen years ago: the EU experiment, a mysterious manuscript decoded by computer plus the anniversary of the German invention of the telephone

fifteen years ago: printable Halloween costume ideas

sixteen years ago: fall back with the clocks 

seventeen years ago: the McCain-Palin ticket for the US presidency 

10x10 (12. 801)

press credentials: all major US media outlets surrender their badges granting them access to the Pentagon rather than consent to only reporting on approved releases—see previously  

pomalo: embracing the unhurried lifestyle of the Dalmatian coast 

🚀: a huge archive of international space agency logos and patches, including private and fictional ones—via Kottke 

my my my my michell: a tribute to Joe Don Baker 

dear new york: an installation featuring the city’s denizens in Grand Central Station  

doxxing and the doxxed: a roundup of hateful boosterism from American Republican youth organisations  

un embarras du choix: perhaps options and avenues are a poor surrogate for being free 

farshoring: Luxembourg’s role as a space hub allows prospectors to claim asteroids—though profits may never pan out  

κόπος: Greek parliament passes thirteen-hour work days amidst strikes and labour shortages  

reframing: an exhibit inspired by WEB Du Bois’ infographic “data portraits”

oblique strategies (12. 795)

Though I am reluctant to add many executive toys to my physical desktop, I do catch myself staring off quite a bit in moments of tension or feeling overwhelmed at a collection of juggling practise bean bags, a memory match game wherein one tries to pair dogs with their owners (I think the idea is supposed to be pretty open ended and there are no wrong choices) to jar or dislodge or alleviate something, and so very much appreciated this new deck of cards to put in one’s rolodex to seek out a positive reframing rather and “avoid falling into the slipstream of prevailing trends” and performative expectations. Ambagious Tactics contain an aphorism or question to ponder on each cue-card, a prompt to cleanse the palette, following the format of the above worthwhile dilemmas co-created by Brian Eno (most famously used during the recording sessions of David Bowie’s Berlin trilogy) and Peter Schmidt in 1975 to encourage lateral thinking and help creatives—or anyone—break through an impasse. Only ever released in limited runs, physical copies of Strategies are hard to come by but are available on-line to shuffle through for suggestions—this cartomancy (see previously here, here and here) carefully crafted to be trusted even if the appropriateness is unclear, and with signicant cultural impact, many books, songs and film make oblique reference to the cards, including the bit of advice, “Withdrawing in disgust is not the same thing as apathy,” a lyric in REM’s What’s the Frequency, Kenneth? Other suggestions run along the lines: Emphasis repetition; Try faking it; Restate the problem as clearly as possible; What would your closest friend do? More to explore from { feuilleton } at the link above and perhaps the inspiration to make one’s own set for yourself or as a gift.

the garden of forking paths (12. 791)

Via the always engrossing Quantum of Sollazzo newsletter, we were at first a bit repelled by this project by Sean Goedecke to build a never-ending Wikipedia, tens of thousands of articles generated by AI—not really understanding what was happening under the hood. The constellation of seed entries of course branch off like a neural network, be that organic or synthetic and contain links, a potential daisy-chain to topics adjacent, like the typical experience of falling down a research rabbithole, except there are no red ones to click on. If the article does not yet exist, it is summoned into being with the user’s interaction and the freshly generated page has its own set of potential connections. Though no replacement for the genuine encyclopaedic project, it does make the paracosm of the large language model a bit more scrutable—like how getting to Philosophy and related challenges illustrate its architecture as well as the nature of interdisciplinary studies. Goedecke, with ample caution for the visitor, compares EndlessWiki to the Library of Babel of Jorges Luis Borges, a pocket universe of stacks holding every permutation of book possible, which by the laws of probability contains a lot of gibberish but also every title ever written and that might be written. Some new languages could also be proposed to make sense of the seemingly random texts—however, despite the search for meaning, the librarians remain functionally ignorant and cultist behaviour and superstition arises that confound and frustrate the infinite task of curation and of culling.

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth the revisit (with synchronopticæ) 

fifteen years ago: a secret Cold War West German bank bunker 

haut-kœnigsbourg et kaysersberg (12. 770)

 First spied as we approached the campsite, we took a trip up to the Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg, the remains of a strategically located castle surveying the plains of the Upper Rhein below with views over Alsace extending to the Schwarzwald. Unknown when it was first built, the first documented mention predated the reign of Frederick Barbarossa in the tenth century, calling the fortification an illegally constructed incursion by the dukes of Swabia into French territory, and besieged during the Thirty Years’ War by Swedish Protestant forces in 1633, the burnt and abandoned outpost was left in ruin—the inspiring remnants subject of numerous romantic poets and painters over the ensuing centuries. Just after given the status of a monument historique by the Second French Republic, the region was taken over by the German Reich at the conclusion of the Franco-Prussian War as Elsaß–Lothringen (Alsace-Lorraine) with Kaiser Wilhelm II eager to solidify a sense of nationalism and unity through monument-building (see also) and entrusted the restoration of the ruin to architectural historian Bodo Ebhardt, whom had previously overseen the redevelopment of Veste Coburg, the Wartburg in Eisenach and many other projects—Edhardt himself called to his vocation growing up in Sankt Goarshausen. Completed in 1908, the work was inaugurated with an elaborate medieval re-enactment by the emperor present. Scenes from Jean Renoir’s 1937 La Grand Illusion were filmed there and a exact copy in of the castle and Colmar built in Malaysia outside of Kuala Lumpur and along with the canine-accessible Petite Kœnigberg—la Château de l’Oedenbourg along the apron walls it is one of the most popular tourist attractions in France.

 Next we went to Kaysersberg (the Emperor’s Mountain, previously) on the eastern slopes of the Vosges range on the Route des Vins—one of the chief members of the Décapole (Zehnstädtebund) of Alsace within the Holy Roman Empire to maintain their status of imperial immediacy. Among the finest wine-growing regions, owing to vine stock originally from Hungarian roots, the pinot gris is a particular speciality. French-German polymath—theologian, philosopher, organist and physician, Albert Schweitzer, hails from here, whose 1906 Quest for the Historical Jesus informed Christian mysticism and eschatology. And although holding paternalistic views and accused by some of forwarding the idea of the White Man’s Burden, Schweitzer’s clinics in then colonial Gabon helped advance hygiene and medical care for all of Africa. The village and hike through the vineyards are dotted with his eponyms, including “Example is not the main thing in influencing others; it is the only thing”—the so-called eponymous Effect for pedagogy for instilling trust for professional opinion through lived experience.

synchronoptica

one year ago: digital divinity (with synchronopticæ), ghost-writing, ambient music from a surveillance system plus up-selling

twelve years ago: reporting on the US government shutdown 

thirteen years ago: DIY month, wine and cheese advertising, vintage community calendars plus the risks of the agriculture lobby

fourteen years ago: hidden messages in song lyrics 

seventeen years ago: the fiscal new year 

collocation (12. 722)

Although it is justified to dismiss artificial intelligence and large language models as exalted extensions of auto-correct and predictive text—autocomplete—there is a danger is dismissing the analogy that a chatbot is a mere calculator of words. Albeit an adding machine has unimpeachable and unbiased output, AI too has by studying frequency a handle rather than an understanding of custom through patterns that even linguists have not been able to precisely pin down, which despite no understanding can through brute force pass the Turing test and even on a rudimentary dataset become convincingly fluent, just enough so as the technology and expectations advance.

by all means, tread on these people (12. 681)

Revisiting the poem by Martin Niemöller as the framework for understanding the descent of America (and elsewhere) into fascism, Cory Doctorow introduces to an unsympathetic and insightful corollary in Wilhoit’s Law (misattributed to Drake university political science professor but actually formulated by an Ohio composer called Frank Wilhoit in a blog post):

Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law bind but does not protect. 

The succinct post from 2018 speaks to our long present of wage-theft and corporate welfare, freedom of speech maximalism—and the entire gamut of “me but not for thee” double standards that MAGA has enveloped with conservatism.

synchronoptica

one year ago:  assorted links worth revisiting (with synchronopticæ) plus correspondence from the complaints department

thirteen years ago: taking a job in Wiesbaden 

fourteen years ago: senior citizens taking up street art plus meteorological terrorism

fifteen years ago: a souvenir from a medical scare 

if you’re pushing slop or eating it, you wouldn’t read it anyway—you’d ask a bot for a summary and forget what i told you, then proceed with your day, unchanged by word you did not read and ideas you did not consider (12. 678)

Via JWZ, we really enjoyed this considered and thoroughgoing declaration by an inveterate and unapologetic AI hater, Anthony Moser, that rehashes the litany of remonstrances (already well established) and shames us for collectively embracing the rude technology uncritically and enthusiastically. Overhyped and oversold, AI peddlers are not condemned by their failures and shortcomings but rather by their veiled promises not for innovation or utopia but rather a new class of unthinking individuals enslaved to simulacra that do what they’ve determined is an acceptable surrogate for the reasoning and deciding. Bespoke human content indeed, it was hard to find a single line to pull as it all flows together, concluding with the author’s conversion, radicalisation sourced in doing things that are particularly and uniqueness human, adding, “The machine is disgusting and we should break it. The people who build it are vapid sh*t-eating cannibals glorifying ignorance. I strongly feel that this is an insult to life itself.” It is very Butlerian jihad and post-post-truth, I wonder how we might engage this technology, and how the trajectory itself would have developed, if realities weren’t splintered and tribal.

6x6 (12, 643)

levi strauss waltz: fledging Jefferson Airplane’s commercials for blue jeans 

moral high-ground: despite what justice we might entrust to AI, ethics remain a human responsibility  

whittle: a reductive word challenge—via Web Curios  

keygen.exe: the soundtrack of internet piracy  

si te fata ferunt, fer fata, ferere: the inscribed joists of Montaigne’ tower of his favourite classical aphorisms   

the cube: Jim Henson’s experimental 1969 teleplay for NBC

text-to-toy (12. 625)

Via Web Curios, we are directed to a rather thoroughgoing and detailed dissertation to temper shortcomings and disappointment over artificial intelligence, plus our collective, oblique anxiety over what’s going on under the hood, by acknowledging that the large language models that we collaborate with are ludic (from the Latin for ludus or ludi, games—in the creative and playful sense) technology. The central crux of the thesis by Venkatesh Rao is that we find fault in the onerous tasks we seek to automate by dent of outsourcing what we don’t find fun, unwilling to engage with those missteps and the same impatience manifests when it comes to our expectations, misplaced as the off-registered AI outputs when put to more serious work, in not recognising its toy-like nature. We’ve identified for the machine a continuum of identity and equivalence for a car, from a sketch, to logo, to image, to video footage, to a model, to an actual car all as the same concept but only the last is not the form of a car with all the inherent physical constraints and requirements, which the AI does not know—being wrong about reality and representation in the same way images and models are, in correspondence with the way we can be duped by deep fakes or confidently wrong answers. Threats to playfulness and toy-making, model-hobbying are instinctive in this context and compensated for through deprogramming, overcoming the perceived infringement on vaunted humanity and genuineness when we are as poised for play and abstraction—which entails taking command of a situation with imagination, marshalling our toy soldiers—and balanced expectations of what we are working with.

anthropoclastic rock cycle (12. 624)

A couplet of recent postings about synthetic geology caught our eye—first about the accelerated process of material formation reduced to decades instead of the usual millions of years in the cases of slag heap debris fusing into sediment along the English coast and colourful industrial waste prepared with concrete to solidify and stabilise it—allowing for easier disposal without the normal caretaking required for liquid toxic waste and instead leech it out over aeons. We wonder what future archeologists will make of this anthro-littoral strata.