overwintered (12. 041)

Hardly redemptive though having read about municipalities getting dual-use out of the massive amounts of energy expended on bitcoin mining before, it took me a couple of readings to get how this news article was a “bit too on the nose,” about how a Dutch tulip farmer was offsetting their heating costs by hosting crypto servers in the greenhouse. We realised however reading the completely unironic reportage that it was a very apt commentary on the original mania, speculative bubble (see also) albeit now a relatively benign one is being fuelled by one in the series of benighted ventures.

high concept (12. 024)

Though I would too defend Maurizio Cattelan piece of a banana duct-taped to a wall as legitimate art in the route of Duchamp or Warhol (and not an object with actual permanence like the hyper-realistic and satirical sculptures in the artist’s repertoire but rather a perishable piece of fruit and a roll of duct tape that need replacing with a certificate of authenticity and instructions on how to display the work—see also), the sale of a third edition (the first two were acquired by museums for a more reasonable sum of one-hundred and twenty thousand dollars) to an entrepreneur for just over six-million— well over its million dollar reserve price and paid in Bitcoin, one of the only lots for which the auction house would accept payment in that form—makes me think that the resurrection of the Trump regime, for all the obvious nefariousness, was also a vehicle to bring back the grift of crypto and NFTs. The main element of the work was purchased the morning of the auction from a local fruit vendor for 35¢, appreciating in value fifteen-million fold, by the end of the day. The two other copies were eaten while on exhibitions, as will this one, whose new owner is happy about the portable nature of the work that could be mounted anywhere.

synchronoptica

one year ago: an apparent breakthrough in general artificial intelligence (with synchronoptica) plus a counter-culture Thanksgiving tradition

seven years ago: more Thanksgiving greetings

eight years ago: another pause for Turkey Day 

nine years ago: recommended gift catalogues  

ten years ago: poetry and language

11x11 (12. 020)

enemy of the people: veteran journalists expect Trump to go after the press by every possible means  

net elevation: calculate the differential between the birth place and the death place of the good and the great—via Waxy 

panda diplomacy: Russia donates seventy animals to North Korean zoo with a plane sanctioned by the US normally dispatched to Syria—via Super Punch

jellyfish dream theatre: a visit to the Kamo Aquarium in Yamagata prefecture, home to the largest collection of medusazoa 

cryptobro: investigating undisclosed financial interest in various schemes, BBC trolled by Paul Logan impersonator 

icc: the International Criminal Court has issued warrants for the Israeli president, former defence secretary and Hamas’ military leader on charges of war crimes  

ai pimping: the growing industry of machine-generated influences  

exclusive gladiator experience: AirBNB’s booking at the Colosseum incites outrage  

test-fire: in response to strikes with Western missile systems, Putin orders the firing of experimental hyper-sonic armament deep into Ukraine  

allotted to companionship: a look at how a certain demographic spent their time in the 1930s as compared to today—via tmn  

grim meat-hook future: resistance to Trump’s authoritarian regime could result in a military coup—read the comments

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth revisiting (with synchronoptica) plus a lost demo tape rediscovered decades later

seven years ago: endangered elements plus more links to enjoy

eight years ago: more fun with shadows plus Eigengrau and colour perception

nine years ago: Alan Moore’s Star Wars

ten years ago: ransomware plus dialect and distinction

die osingverlosung (12. 011)

Inscribed on the UNESCO register of intangible cultural heritage in 2016, we had never heard of this five hundred year old custom, that takes place every decade (in years ending with four) on the arable plateau called the Osing near Bad Windsheim in Middle Frankonia after the harvest when lots are drawn by farmers of the four villages that share the land to determine who will work which parcel for the next ten years, until the next lottery. This unique system dates back to the late Middle Ages and ensures that fertile and less desirable fields are distributed equitably, this tradition surviving no where else in Germany has been upheld as the community appreciates the element of fairness—one farmer consigned to a poor allotment will have an equal chance to work more high-yielding patch of land next time, instead of selling off the commons to the highest bidder. Even taking place in 1944 when other long-standing traditions were put on hiatus, the custom is said to date back to around the year 1020 when Kaiserin Kunigunde von Luxemburg went on a hunting expedition in the then densely forested area of the Osing. Her party got lost but thanks to the pealing of church bells of the four villages surrounding the woods at the cardinal points, Herbolzheim, Humprechtsau, Krautostheim and Rüdisbronn, they were able to find their way, and in gratitude, the empress deeded the land to the people to share in perpetuity.

*    *    *    *   *

 

synchronoptica

one year ago: terraforming Mars (with synchronoptica)

seven years ago: bioluminescence

eight years ago: majestic sandcastles, a particular aesthetic, the uncanny mantis shrimp, digitising archival photos plus a collapsing bike helmet

nine years ago: saving the bees  

ten years ago: linguistic redundancy plus high-fructose foods

peoples’ choice (12. 003)

Polls open now through 28.November, the OED presents its shortlist of nominees for the Word of the Year for 2024, with only one actual neologism in romantasy (see previously, albeit the portmanteau for the literary genre dates back to 2008 when the German arm of publisher Random House tried to categorise its translations of English romance romances with an element of fantasy). Other contenders include brainrot, a term first used by Henry David Thoreau in his 1842 Walden; or, Life in the Woods, and dynamic pricing, a calque of the Swedish coinage of economist Gunnar Myrdal in 1927 as dynamiska prisbildning which has also seen a revival this past year with heightened public awareness of surges, gouging and exploitation in retail spaces and for gig-workers. More older words with new meanings are lore, slop and demure. Which one is your pick?

10x10 (11. 988)

the moral arc of the universe is buffering: an update on where we stand 

intermission: Cardhouse’s 2024 mixtape  

chimera: archaeologists re-examine ancient Roman burial and realise skeleton is composed of bones from eight different individuals that died thousands of years apart from one another  

inactivity reboot: Apple quietly introduced a security patch in its latest OS update that makes it harder to police to break into confiscated iPhones—via Super Punch  

plutocracy: the Elites have finally been defeated by the Billionaires 

text-to-brainrot: convert any PDF into an engaging TikTok-style audio summarisation overlaid with video-game footage—see previously—via Web Curios  

ye olde cheshire cheese: a gallery of the pubs of Old London  

changing narratives: new genetic evidence of Pompeii victims suggest that they were strangers comforting each other during the world-ending calamity   

the sounds of ramallah: techno Insomnia Fest in Tromsø rallies for Palestine and Lebanon  

venture alchemists: Wall Street and the broader economy brace for Trump tax-cuts, tariffs and retribution

 synchronoptica

one year ago: paper lanterns for St Martin’s Day (with synchronoptica), Republican primary debates, a banger from Frankie Goes to Hollywood plus assorted links to enjoy

seven years ago: illusion of confidence

eight years ago: snail matchmaking, a national nightmare plus Europe’s Alt-Right

nine years ago: carbon foil that mimics muscles

ten years ago: an art exhibition for octopi plus an abandoned nuclear test site just outside of Paris

the volfefe index (11. 945)

Despite heavy financial losses since its inception and low overall traffic (monthly users are estimated to be between six and eight hundred thousand), Donald Trump’s TRUTH Social platform (and its parent company) has surged recently in terms of stock price and presently has a higher valuation reportedly than Elon Musk’s X. The former US president first launched a website called “From the Desk of Donald J Trump” for sending out tweet-like dispatches (despite having a press secretary and a pool of journalists dedicated to covering him) after being banned from Facebook and Twitter in the wake of the 6 January attack on the US Capitol but the venture failed to attract many visitors and folded less than a month later, founding the social network by late February—with the help of two former contestants from Trump’s reality television show The Apprentice. The title refers to the portmanteau of volatility and covfefe for the disruptive market swings that Trump tweets caused, and of course the high stock price, more than tripled in the course of weeks, has little to do with fundamentals or inherent worth but is rather speculation on the election outcome.

as safe as fort knox (11. 866)

With the exception of a brief tour granted to FDR in 1943 and a similar junket in August of 2017 to dispel the same rumours that the vaults had been emptied out, no members of the public had been admitted to the national gold bullion depository until when on this day in 1974 a contingent of journalists and a dozen congressional representatives were guided inspection by members of the American Mint (director Mary Brooks pictured) and the Treasury Department.

Requests to visit Ft Knox are summarily turned down but pressure by the House to conduct an independent audit of US gold reserves in response to the publication of a book, Conspiracy Against the Dollar: The Spirit of the New Imperialism by Peter David Beter, that attacked international monetary reform and cited the usual culprits, global elites, Bolsheviks, the Rockefeller-cartel, Soviet space lasers, important public figures were dead and had been replaced with “robotoids”—and most resoundingly with the public, that most of America’s gold had been trucked away and sold at depressed costs to European speculators—all claims without evidence or merit. Beter’s AM radio show gave him a platform to continue his allegations, making the military installation’s standing policy suspicious and proof that they had something to hide. The delegation was delighted with the tour and mostly cleared up the false speculation—largely imputed to America’s leaving the gold standard three years prior when the reality was that movement of gold had effectively halted (US silver bullion is stored at the military academy of West Point) and most gold is still in New York City—that is, until the rumours started circulating again and Kentucky senator Mitch McConnell visited with treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin, proclaiming the nation’s stockpile to be secure. 

synchronoptica

one year ago: David Bowie’s Heroes (with synchronoptica), robinsonades plus urban wildlife photography

seven years ago: shibboleths 

eight years ago: smart carts for airport security, windpipes plus point-of-sales machines

nine years ago: algae-based membranes as liquid containers 

eleven years ago: a census of house plants

semi-obscure, guilty pleasure, cultural punchline (11. 850)

Planet Money directs us to an engrossing cross-over podcast episode from 99% Invisible on the fast-food enterprise that was singly responsible for the phenomena of the chain restaurant with its often copied by but no means faithfully reproduced White Castle System of Eating Houses, which was able to overcome a strong public aversion to the idea of eating ground beef—in patty form as a hamburger—directly attributable to the influential work by Upton Sinclair, The Jungle, about the unsanitary business of meat-packing by establishing a rigid regime of uniformity for its eateries, instilling assurance in customers with consistency and cleanliness through a range of programming and marketing. Though not as celebrated as another chain that opened later in the same city, White Castles first opened in Wichita, Kansas in the 1920s and expanded regionally to other college and factory towns but its innovation and legacy was overtaken by second-wave imitators usually given credit for the business model with their more aggressive expansion propelled by car-culture, restaurants built not in urban centres but along highways and byways, and franchising, something that the family-owned business never did lest the experience and reputation be sullied by out-sourcing the name. Whilst a bit of an insult for the misattribution of globalisation, in terms of menu and McWorld, White Castle has cultivated a different definition of success and has built a loyal fandom.

synchronoptica

one year ago: an old school webring (with synchronoptica) plus a logic-based constructed language

seven years ago: the Ig Noble Prize plus Big Tech to disrupt the corner shop

eight years ago: subway etiquette plus no assembly required 3D printed machines

eleven years ago: navigating new technology plus the problem with biometrics

twelve years ago: the Pope in Lebanon 

doge (11. 817)

Trump has announced that Elon Musk has agreed to head a commission for his potential administration, named the Department of Government Efficiency in reference to Musk’s favoured meme-based cryptocurrency, tasked with reducing US federal spending and the deficit. Musk’s businesses not only benefit from government subsidies and also counts NASA, the Pentagon and several intelligence agencies among his direct clients, which raises the spectre of a conflict of interest in line with Trump’s imperial presidency. Musk was formerly a member of a White House advisory council but resigned in protest in 2017 after the US withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement, although has recently recanted that decision, saying the climate catastrophe was not in need of immediate attention and has softened his opinions of the petroleum industry.

schnelling points (11. 816)

Humans have a seemingly uncanny knack for solving complex coordination problems when communication and prior planning is limited by uncovering the shared cultural or knowledge-based default in a such situation, concerting the intentions and expectations and land on the above foci, named after economist and game-theorist Thomas Schelling. 

Cooperative experiments demonstrate that a team of individuals acting towards shared end will pick the same time and place for a rendezvous. Part of the allure of AI models is that they seem also quite good at coordination problems—from predictive text, to routine emails to proofreading to peer-review, insofar as they have been trained on the social norms that we draw on as well to achieve a common goal. Artificial intelligence has a worse track record when it comes to something genuinely innovative or unprecedented, and moreover may erode the implicit social bargain that underpins cooperative efforts. The routine is also ritual and outsourcing them, like the above onerous tasks, dulls not only the refining practise when it comes to composing an email—which is also the author’s assessment of their audience—but of course lands as disingenuous and meritless when one can’t be bothered to dash off a good reference or buy someone a gift that was not generated by algorithm. What do you think? We’ve always been taking short-cuts but subverting ceremony altogether seems more serious. More from Henry Farrell at the link above.

9x9 (11. 814)

unpodcasted: one hundred ninety nine ideas about etymologies, idioms and eponyms that Helen Zaltzman has not produced an episode for—yet  

book club: Oprah Winfrey’s upcoming special on Artificial Intelligence with Sam Altman, Bill Gates and other AI-evangelists has critics of the tech sector up in arms  

blue chip index: Intel’s earnings slump could see it removed from the Dow, possibly putting a wrench in plans to increase US domestic manufacturing

sleepy grendel’s mother: Beotrump by Christopher Douglas  

jevons paradox: even if autonomous vehicles worked perfectly, they will still lead to more pollution, congestion and accidents—see previously—via tmn  

oslo—is it even a city: a wonderful bit of anti-advertising for the Norwegian capital plus more news and jokes 

intel inside: Pentium microprocessor as Navajo weaving—via Waxy 

nanowrimo: the organisation behind National Novel Writing Month criticised over labelling aversion to generative texts as classist and ableist 

unblogged: fellow flâneur Diamon Geezer lists a month’s worth of explorations not posted

 synchronoptica

one year ago: The Eye of the Tiger (with synchronoptica),  Kenneth Anger’s first film plus hot labour summer

seven years ago: the Little Ben of Victoria station

eight years ago: a visit to Churfrankenland plus an ant colony thriving in nuclear waste

nine years ago: assorted links to revisit plus algorithmic eavesdropping

eleven years ago: Germany votes plus pirate patches

eingungsvertag (11. 803)

Approved by both the Bundestag and the Volkskammer later in September, the Unification Treaty between East and West was negotiated and signed on this day with the then Federal Minister of the Interior Wolfgang Schäuble for the Federal Republic and Parliamentary State Secretary Günther Krause for the Democratic Republic. The terms of the agreement led to the dissolution of East Germany and its accession into the unitary state (see previously) following a series of gradual steps to reintegrate monetary, economic and social policies, with both parties choosing an interstate ratification and transitional legislation rather than drafting a new all-German constitution as the options available under the Basic Law. The articles divided the DDR into five states and merged East and West Berlin into one polity and national capital under the above Grundgesetz, the right to bi-lateral self determination guaranteed under the Two Plus Four Treaty without prejudice from or to the occupying Allied rights and responsibilities ongoing at the time of signing and the treaty going into effect.

 synchronoptica

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

eight years ago: van life plus Icelandic elfin habitats

ten years ago: the sanctity of the Roman senate

thirteen years ago: electronic monitoring plus Wikipedia loves monuments

fourteen years ago: exporting the financial crisis plus self-same Celtic tigers 

8x8 (11. 746)

divi recap: the obfuscating vocabulary of finance and corporate take-overs 

ch₄: methane removal may prove as the most effective way to curb the climate collapse  

anima and archetype: an overview of the thought of Carl Jung—see previously  

mamala: Maya Rudolf returning to the cast and reprising her role as Kamala Harris for the fiftieth season of Saturday Night Live—via Miss Cellania  

v. to remove monks from: demonachise and other infrequently used words  

wall flowers: increased appreciation of complex and nuanced botanical behaviour leads a new branch of plant philosophy  

rewiring: if billionaires truly wanted to save the planet, they’d buy heat-pumps for every home—via Kottke 

big brother and the holding company: the spiteful origins of Berkshire Hathaway and corporate hard-pivots

somewhat agree (11. 735)

Via tmn, we become more familiar with the pervasive rating scale used on polls, research questionnaires and surveys, a range of response choices that are immediately recognisable, but that we didn’t know that the psychometrics are called the after their namesake, social psychologist Rensis Likert. Also developing ostensibly the antithesis in open-ended interviewing—to glean more information from respondents on their perspectives and preferences but filtered with a funnelling technique that narrows down answers towards a given goal—and management system styles that are also pretty well-known and pop-up on leadership and workplace satisfaction assessments too: Exploitative Authoritative, Benevolent Authoritative, Consultative, Participative, the scale of agreement and disagreement and measure of intensity has slowly seeped out academics and test markets to rankings, reviews and instant feedback quantified for everything. How likely are you to recommend the Likert scale to your colleagues?

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

7x7 (11. 626)

senza vergogna: some notes for Martha-Ann Alito on her anti-Pride flag (see previously)  

factory floor: inside Andy Warhol’s studio—via Messy Nessy Chic  

prospecting: Norwegian mining firms discovers Europe’s largest cache of rare-earth metals  

adaptive force controlled shaving demonstration: a robot barber in Shanghai  

daily bread: an overview of the staple foodstuff’s contribution to civilisation  

hydrant directory: colour palettes of New York’s suppression points—via Pasa Bon!  

gruppo dei sette: following EU elections, the G7 forum begins in Puglia

synchronoptica

one year ago: a top album by Alanis Morissette plus an early world-traveller

two years ago: a chronic case of the hiccups, a hit by Paul McCartney plus international crisps flavours

three years ago: the G7, Shangri La the musical, St Anthony plus two very prolific travelogues

four years ago: illustrator Wilbur Husley, assorted links to revisit, the Pentagon Papers (1971) plus a banger from Mungo Jerry

five years ago: the elusive American Middle-Class plus x before x-rays

a frontier research problem (11. 511)

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

7x7 (11. 509)

betteridge’s law: the legacy of Alfred Harmsworth, Viscount Northcliffe, and commoditising fascinating factiods to sell newspapers  

congestion pricing: overtourism and its consequences  

disclose, divest: on the 1968 anniversary of the protest that ousted the university’s president and established the student body senate, activism on Columbia’s campus is again in the national spotlight over Palestine  

grace period: America’s addiction to credit cards  

zoonosis: concern rises over avian flu as it appears in cows and wild animal communities  

nonstop flight: the epic migration of the Bar-tailed Godwit and the engineering of feathers—via the New Shelton wet/dry  

catch-and-kill: deal to bury stories unfavourable to Trump by tabloid The National Enquirer was an “agreement between friends”

piggy bank (11. 296)

As part of an inventory from the British Museum that concludes—along with the need for better definitions and legal protections to ensure that important antiquities are not sold on the open market—recent years have yielded the highest number of treasures found since records have been kept, we are introduced to non-singular practise of Iron Age Britons of storing their coins in naturally occurring hollow flint nodules found in the chalk and limestone strata of the region. The contents of the ball date from the last decades BC and were minted in the East Wiltshire area and are classed as “Savernake Wreath” staters, after the Ancient Greek standard, στατήρ (weight), circulating first as ingots then as coins, brought by the Celts to Western and Central Europe. Learn more at the History Blog at the link above.

synchronoptica 

one year ago: the Paris Peace Accords (1973), corecore, Ballroom Blitz plus Cistercian cyphers

two years ago: RIP Peter Robbins, the voice actor for the character Charlie Brown, more on esoteric programming languages plus assorted links to revisit

three years ago: The Singing, Ringing Tree, inspired watch-faces, computing in Poland plus an alternate spelling alphabet

four years ago: policy via magical thinking plus emoji on license plates

five years ago: more on generative adversarial networks