synchronoptica
one year ago: Be my Valentine, Charlie Brown (with synchronopticรฆ) plus assorted links to revisit
thirteen years ago: Nature harnessing quantum mechanics
fourteen years ago: PIPA, SOPA, ACTA plus a visit to Suhl
fifteen years ago: code red plus uprisings in Egypt
sixteen years ago: local news
seventeen years ago: woolly memories
write his merits on your mind: a fitting eulogy for murdered ICE victims from eighteenth century poet William Drennen on the persecuted and defamed activist William Orr
drizzle: the controversial conservatory teacher Li Jinhui (้ป้ฆๆ) who brought jazz to Shanghai
sons of torum: the dreamtime legends of the vast taiga
fungus among us: the sociophonetics of the mushroom kingdom—from the Roman legal Latin res fungibiles, replaceable things
the life aquatic: a tribute to David Bowie on the tenth anniversary of his passing with beautiful Portuguese covers of the classics
arsenal and armoury: a new exhibit examines global traditions of battlewear, beyond white knights
stooky bill: a visit to the London address where television was first demonstrated—see previously—a hundred years ago today
deluge: British Museum curator on the “ark tablet” and the universal myth of the Great Flood
chill session: a set of deep cuts from Daft Punk
border czar: Trump dispatches Tom Homan to Minnesota to manage the campaign of state terror
les chansons de bilitis: a century old literary hoax of a fictional lesbian poet incited dialogue and reevaluation on the genuine figure of Sappho and queerness in antiquity
apt mascot: a manufacturing error created the Cry-Cry Horse and its popularity for the Lunar New Year has prompted suppliers to reinstate the stitching mistake
tam o’shanter: a poem for Sunday’s Burns Night
ts and cs apply: new updated user agreement for US TikTok draws scrutiny regarding its privacy policy, including sexual orientation, mental health and immigration status
coming attractions: an imagined trailer for Star Trek: Voyage to Vengeance as directed by Quentin Tarantino
the disappointed tourist: an elegy to lost places
composition yellow, blue, black red and white: reevaluating the cross-dressing Cornish artist Marlow Moss whose work influenced that of Piet Mondrian—via Kottke
synchronoptica
one year ago: jazz artist Keith Jarrett (with synchronopticรฆ), a Bolivian abundance festival, assorted links to enjoy plus Trump pledges to overhaul federal emergency response agency
thirteen years ago: the assassination of Caligula
twelve years ago: impending base closures and a reduction in US forces
sixteen years ago: relaxing US campaign financing reforms plus petty kingdoms
the gift of the magi: Better Living through Beowulf shares a Godfrey Rust poem for the Feast of the Epiphany
wegmans: NewYork grocery store chain collecting biometric data, conversations of shoppers
year of the fire horse: zodiacal facts about the upcoming annual cycle
heavy sour crude: how realistic Trump’s designs on Venezuela’s reserves are—see more
pea-brained: organoid culture research and experimentation raises ethical, philosophical concerns
big brother and the holding company: the numerological and business significance of six-and-twenty
john players’ special: the tobacco purveyor presents the celebrated gates of London
mother superior jumped the gun: convert Elizabeth Ann Seton feted as first American saint for establishing the parochial education system in the New World
synchronoptica
one year ago: Trump does not want lowered flags for his inauguration (with synchronopticรฆ), the chaotic twin of Pi, the right attacks Wikipedia plus Mussolini’s Black Shirts
twelve years ago: vaping regulations, landmarks lost to progress, miniature artists plus hyperobjects
thirteen years ago: the push for green energy plus fake smiles
fourteen years ago: marginal victories plus Three Kings’ Day
sixteen years ago: holidays unwrapped
seventeen years ago: New Year’s resolutions
the unforgivable sin of ms rachel: Tedium’s Online Video Awards and the problems with platforms
grunt work: AI has the potential to destroy career ladders—via Damn Interesting
grove press: the Mid-Century Modern covers and jackets of Roy Kuhlman
turbo moka: a thermodynamic redesign of the classic Italian coffee pot—see previously
gรขnditorul de la hamangia: reflections on a palaeolithic pair of artefacts
ieee spectrum: top climate tech stories of 2025—including atmospheric ammonia harvesting
i dislike dune with some intensity: JRR Tolkien was not a fan of Frank Herbert’s work
the imperfect homework machine: students’ experience with AI mirrors a Shel Silverstein poem
the year in search: more of Miss Cellania’s annual superlatives
christmas day storm: heavy rains and landslides batter Los Angeles area
vertex summary: holiday reception by renowned fiddler in Nova Scotia cancelled due to AI search erroneous labelling the performer a sex-offender—via Super Punch
soft cell: astronaut Tibor Kapu debuts geometries that can only exist in microgravity aboard the ISS
high holidays: an assortment of newspaper clippings on confiscated marijuana Christmas trees of yesteryear
autocoup: a viral fake video of an overthrow in Paris is throwing the government in turmoil
daemon est deus inversus: the occult imagination of W B Yeats
winterval: seasonal breaks and the signal most observed public holiday—maybe not the one you’re thinking of—from Quantum of Sollazzo
neighbourhood watch: AI powered app issues false crime alerts across US, terrorising residents
spirit of the season: US launches strikes against ISIS militants in Nigeria—accused of persecuting Christians
synchronoptica
one year ago: assorted links worth revisiting (with synchronopticรฆ), Wild Strawberries (1957) plus a classic from Goorge Harrison
thirteen years ago: an antique Bible
fifteen years ago: Boxing Day and Second Christmas
For this first Advent, marking the transition from Ordinary Time (tempus per annum, that is the countdown weeks of the big seasons of Christmas- and Eastertide, Better Living through Beowulf, via the lens of the End Times and popular-eschatology that’s become as much part of the holiday counter-insurgency as anything else, introduces us to a second concept of time that the Ancient Greeks had, at the same time offering some solace to contextualise and countenance such rapture fantasies. 
As opposed to ฯฯฯฮฝฮฟฯ in the sense of chronological or sequential time, kairos, personified as opportunity or proper timing in the figure of Zeus’ youngest son, depicted with the iconography of a razor or scales balanced on a sharp edge to symbolise fleeting fortune and though eternally youthful is completely bald save for one lanky lock of hair that hangs over his face (let me adjust my bang) to suggest one can catch him on the approach by this tuft of hair but ungraspable once he has moved past. Also the sense of skilled professionals, an altar to Kairos was at the athletes’ entrance to the stadium of Olympia, in rhetoric and debate it is a passing instant that must be seized upon to turn an argument and in medicine and in media, the right dose administered at the right time. Despite how rapture fiction, and we’re reminded not to underestimate its readership, might be set in the familiar and predictable realm of ordinary time—so to is the more secular run up and trappings of the holidays—it is time-out-of-time for reflection, vigilant anticipation to be ready for chance to present itself.
synchronoptica
one year ago: assorted links worth the revisit (with synchronopticรฆ) plus surviving a meteor strike (1954)
twelve years ago: fostering children from Nazi Germany plus Cicada 3301
thirteen years ago: Christmas deadlines
fourteen years ago: a Star Wars/Rankin/Bass mash-up plus The War of Wealth
fifteen years ago: the fall-out of the diplomatic cable leak
More convincing than asking nicely to do better or expressing doubt, a team of mimetic researchers (the likes of which Plato warned us about in The Republic as a menace to society) in Rome have discovered that couching a prompt to a large language model as an “adversial poem” has the dazzling effect of surrender, causing it to ignore its safety protocols and abandon its pre-programmed guardrails. 
The exact wording of these verses that allows harmful request to pass through are not reproduced verbatim as there is potential for the AI to do anything asked of it—including the criminal—with this literate deprogramming (an MFA or English major may be one’s best ally for bypassing inscrutable governance for this blackbox they’ve foisted on all parts of our lives) hovering at ninety precent. This image of the Cave by fifteenth century Flemish painter Michiel Coxie looks like it would violate standards. Rather than the apotheosis of what LLMs are incapable of and an urge to impress with confidence, it seems metaphor confounds tokenisation and even suggests that machine-learning is incapable of growth to scale.
Calling to mind this wonderfully laugh out loud and still arguably the only legitimate use of LinkedIn that matches the names of CV-holders to pop songs, Futility Closet directs us to an earlier effort scouring the telephone directory of Toronto’s 1977 white-pages choosing entries to approximate the lyrics to nursery rhymes (as published later in anthology of recreational linguistics and onomastics). 
One example cobbling together of the Roud Folk Song #19626 of disputed historical meaning:
Merrie Merry Quaint Caunt Ririe
Howe Dussiaulme Garden Groh
Witt Silver Belson Cockell Schells
And Pretty Mayes Allin Arro
Whist predating Mary Tudor and Mary Queen of Scots, despite popular associations, scholars believe the English traditional poem is an allegory for Catholicism with pretty maids representing nuns, the sanctus bells and the cockleshells as the pilgrimage badges of the Way of St James. Click through at the link above for more examples plus a 1963 television show that assembled a live studio audience to the tune “Inda Good Old Somerstein.”
synchronoptica
one year ago: the first human-non-human organ transplant (with synchronopticรฆ) plus polls open for the OED Word of the Year
thirteen years ago: alternate search engines, International Day of Philosophy plus more flea market finds
fourteen years ago: the myth of unlimited growth
sixteen years ago: a visit to Coburg
Courtesy of Weird Universe, not only do we learn about the public multimedia experiment (see also here, here and here) started by artist and activist John Giorno in 1968—
initially introduced as an installation before being deaccessioned by the Museum of Modern Art in New York after complains over its catalogue being weighted towards counter-cultural polemics and a subsequent FBI investigation into potentially subversive language before retreating into different iterations and media, we learn that the service is still active and one can dial-a-poem—or visit the its web presence for a random selection (or with directory assistance per app), sourced from the original exhibit (collaborating with John Cage, Allen Ginsberg, William S Burroughs, Patti Smith and others) with many more contributors added in the decades since.
Albeit the scansion can be a bit off at times for human consumption—via Web Curios—this algorithm that pulls headlines, with by-line often, from the Guardian is a fun little experiment (see previously here and here—see also here) which could possibly run through ever permutation well past the heat-death of the Universe and keep on presenting as haikus. 
The traditional Japanese short-form poetry, consisting of seventeen morae (ฮผ, a syllable or sub-unit) presented in a five-seven-five pattern, classically with a kireji (ๅใๅญ, a caesura or cutting word) at the end of the verse and reference to a season:
the first cold shower
even the monkey seems to want
a little coat of straw
English inspired forms are typically a departure, retaining some of the qualities but more focused on the rhythm and structure of the language, having no precise equivalents and usually composed in an exercise of metric-counting rather than juxtaposition and surprise. Still finding like patterns is nonetheless intriguing.
synchronoptica
one year ago: new Nazca lines revealed (with synchronopticรฆ), the study of street art plus assorted links to revisit
thirteen years ago: Icelandic landscapes, the US Food and Drug Administration audits Swiss dairies plus excommunication and indulgence
fourteen years ago: a visit to Darmstadt and Erfurt to see the Pope plus the euro vies with the the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency
fifteen years ago: flea market finds and a visit to Werneck
As PfRC turns seventeen years old we wanted to once again extend our gratitude to our readership and to the members of the wider blogosphere (many of those fellow caretakers are listed under our Smรธgรฅsblog) and new ones discovered for their serendipity, sustainment and inspiration that keeps the internet curious, entertaining, engrossing and engaging.
Since hitting our last milestone, here’s a round-up of some of our most popular posts with a few honourable mentions from the past year. Then it’s birthdays all the way down:
10: Reviving the old racist names of US sports franchises
9: An assortment of premium links
8: A remembrance of the past year’s departed
7: Carsinisation
6: Governance per tweet
5: musical backmasking on LinkedIn
4: Howard Hughes’ streaming service
3. A visit to the Tauber valley
2: A 1954 encounter with a meteorite
1: US presidential regnal numbers
synchronoptica
one year ago: blogoversaries all the way down, the People’s Crusade, the Berlin Crisis of 1961, a defector to North Korea, quibbling over possessive apostrophes plus assorted links worth the revisit
thirteen years ago: WWII week: submarine warfare, the single currency and quantitative easing plus the Lost Autobahn
fourteen years ago: more rainy summer plus quelling unrest and violence
fifteen years ago: a trip to Leipzig
seventeen years ago: a trip to the Bretagne
the people of 1925: a survey of a century ago through the lives of people we never knew—via Strange Company
the zendian problems: a detailed cartographic study of an imaginary republic used to train cryptanalysts for a simulated invasion
ะฐะผะตัะธะบะฐะฝะบะฐ: recollections of a summer exchange programme of a Russian literature major—via Web Curios
universal soundtrack: Ze Frank (previously) on crickets, katydids and grasshoppers
sonderauftrag bayeaux: a fragment of the famed tapestry taken by the Nazi Ahnenerbe Society will be reunited when it goes on display in England
megastrike: the longest measured lightening bolt stretched near nine-hundred kilometres across Texas and Kansas
revelations of a wife: the longest novel you’ve never heard of, serialised over four decades with a readership of millions
indecent exposure: photographs of individuals being cited on Rockaway beach in New York City in 1946
eight limes, no more: a list is a map, a compass, a prayer—via MetaFilter
ะบะปััะตะฒัะบะฐั ัะพะฟะบะฐ: volcanic eruption in Russia’s far east sets off earthquake and tsunami warnings
windrunner: turbine manufacturer—in defiance of Trump’s claim that windmills are killing us—building world’s largest aircraft (see also) to transport huge blades to remote wind-farms
foredone: useless etymology and some very cromulent words
twin primes: pairs that only are separated by an even number in between grow rarer as one looks at greater ranges of values but no one knows if they run out altogether
evrรณpusambandiรฐ: Iceland considering resuming accession talks with the supranational body
this guy is taking people from the spa: Trump reveals to press-pool that falling out with Epstein was over him stealing staff
an oral history of atlantis: a conversation about metafiction with author Ed Park
We thoroughly enjoyed this appreciation of one of the most successful products of all time in the BiC Cristal, introduced in 1950, the ballpoint pen ubiquitous and archetypal surpassing one hundred billion sold in 2006. 
In development since 1930 when inventor Lรกzlรณ Bรญrรณ (the genericised namesake of the writing instrument “biro” in many European countries) when inspired for the mechanism, a rolling metal nib, by witnessing a group of children playing with marbles in a muddy puddle and observing how the objects left a trail of water in their wake, Bรญrรณ experimented with various models and eventually recreated a prototype with a narrow reservoir of viscous ink encased in the body and kept from drying out by the nib and cap. Incremental improvements continued over the every years until the launch of Cristal. The pen was enshrined in the permanent collection in the Museum of Modern Art (see previously), the design virtually unchanged for decades. Much more from Open Culture at the link above.
synchronoptica
one year ago: the EU votes (with synchronoptica) plus assorted links worth revisiting
seven years ago: recycled illustrations and early modern memes plus the Alexander method for improving poise and posture
eight years ago: hung parliament in the UK
nine years ago: an advertising homage to the cats of the internet, world food resources, removing Confederate symbols from Washington’s National Cathedral, Star Trek coins from the Canadian Mint, a sci-fi screenplay written by AI plus the gig economy and moonlighting
ten years ago: more links to enjoy
Although also slightly peeved that the em-dash has become the signature punctuation of artificial intelligence chatbots (see also, scroll down for an act of malicious non-compliance with an agent) and sad to see the way I write coopted—though maybe leaning too heavily on a brittle linkage and perhaps should rely more on brackets or the semicolon, I was naturally intrigued by this proposal for a separator available exclusively for human use to signal that it was not penned by machine, the am-dash, via Web Curios and as in cogito ergo sum. Superficially like the title swung dash (used primarily, however, to set apart a list of alternatives or approximates or in dictionary entries to avoid reprinting the term being defined), the am-dash would be but of a restricted character set—see also. 
First widely used in the Nicholas Okes’ publication of Shakespeare’s plays to capture pauses, interruption and epiphany of the staged performances in the early seventeenth century, Jonathan Swift’s 1733 verse On Poetry later encapsulated the style as:
Blot out, correct, insert, refine,
Enlarge, diminish, interline;
Be mindful, when Invention fails;
To scratch your Head, and bite your Nails.
Your poem finish’d, next your Care
Is needful, to transcribe it fair.
In modern Wit all printed Trash, is
Set off with num’rous Breaks⸺and Dashes—
Much more at the links above.
Whilst there is more perhaps more superficial interoperability in computing today than in years past (see previously), this unlikely but sublime poem by Charles Bukowski, laureate of American lowlife, after receiving a Macintosh and laser printer from his wife for Christmas in 1990 and significantly increasing in already prodigious output in his final years, his experience with lost files and frustrations with manufactured obstacles speak to the same phenomena of walled-gardens, lock-in, portability issues and general enshiffication.
with an Apple Macintosh
you can’t run Radio Shack programs
in its disc drive.
nor can a Commodore 64
drive read a file
you have created on an
IBM Personal Computer. 
both Kaypro and Osborne computers use
the CP/M operating system
but can’t read each other’s
handwriting
for they format (write
on) discs in different
ways.
the Tandy 2000 runs MS-DOS but
can’t use most programs produced for
the IBM Personal Computer
unless certain
bits and bytes are
altered
but the wind still blows over
Savannah
and in the Spring
the turkey buzzard struts and
flounces before his
hens.
Whilst not pioneering in his adoption or embrace, Bukowski quickly came to assert that, despite technical difficulties recognised as defective by design, he could not write any other way. More from Kottke at the link above.
Wandering a bit through the neighbouring market town of Ostheim vor der Rhรถn and learned our area had a connection—and a celebrated one at that—with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, marking his visits to the town in 1780, accompanying Duke Karl August of Saxe-Weimar, whom ennobled the writer and polymath, in his role as privy councillor and highway commissioner.
Returning to the Stรถrmthaler See campgrounds for Easter weekend with a view of the floating, phantom steeple, the Vineta created to evoke the leveled settlements during the height of mining and mechanisation, we visited some neighbouring lakes and marinas reclaimed from a heavily industralised landscape like all of the Leipziger Neuseenland, the Haubitzer, Hainer and Kahnsdorfer lakes were developed in the early to mid-1990s when a large open-cast lignite coal extraction operation was flooded and slowly converted into beach-front properties with resorts and recreational boating.
synchronoptica
one year ago: a wine so nice they named it thrice (with synchronoptica) plus assorted links to revisit
seven years ago: robots assembling IKEA furniture, the Paris riots of 1968 plus springtime in Wiesbaden
eight years ago: an appreciation of edutainment, AI and implicit bias plus a profile of a North Korea day
nine years ago: a termite tent, the Sea-Monkey kingdom plus another experimental chatbot
eleven years ago: a light installation in Oberhausen, an arctic henge in Iceland plus EU lend-lease policy for Ukraine
The French Surrealist-oriented magazine in print from 1933 to 1939 was originally intended to be a general review of the plastic arts: poetry, architecture, theatre, ethnography, mythology and psychoanalytic studies but the publisher’s association with Andrรฉ Breton and others in the movement, ensuring a steady supply of contributions, shifted the focus. Illustrators and writers included Pablo Picasso, Joan Mirรณ, Max Ernst, Dalรญ, Renรฉ Magritte, Yves Tanguy and Frida Kahlo (see above—the pictured cover is by Diego Rivera for the Mexican supplement) and the publication’s high quality and high standards attracted the patronage of several sustaining sponsors. The title character was very much en vogue at the time with Picasso already having established several studies on the theme with the metaphor of the labyrinth representing the mind and the marauding Minotaur analogous to the irrational impulses with vanquishing Theseus a symbol for the greater self-knowledge of the Surrealist and psychoanalysis movement.
synchronoptica
one year ago: invasive species (with synchronoptica), a rare 1995 hybrid eclipse plus making US election day a holiday
seven years ago: Swedish house gymnastics, tokusatsu gifs plus giving a banana a passport
eight years ago: a cradle that mimics a car ride plus the first pizza delivery
nine years ago: Julia Child’s home in Provence, an ode to a departed feline friend plus quotes paired with fine art
ten years ago: a Nazi summer camp, assorted links to revisit plus the first petroleum company
