show dna (13. 834)

Though suspect of the network presently as a tool of state propaganda, we were intrigued by this gala group photo staged for the fiftieth anniversary of the Columbia Broadcasting System to spot the cross-overs and continuity of retained actors in recurring roles and cameos plus producers, directors and anchors.
The key was a bit morose, prompting one to consider the talents we have lost, though many are still with us, like Bill Macy, Dick Van Dyke, Carol Burnett, Lynda Carter, Julie Kavner (as Rhoda’s sister) and Ran Rather from CBS News. The last one made me wonder if one could use AI to generate a Sgt Pepper’s type template for any group photo (one can apparently, which takes away from the encomium) or if it was just a typo.  How many celebrities do you recognise?

10x10 (13. 807)

the alignment problem: the insincerity of Big Tech on the pause and the incoherence of fascism (a bundle of sticks) 

aspect ratio: using a train or ferry as a massive flatbed scanner  

coliseum: Trump administration may just demolish the Kennedy Centre, replacing the national stage with an amphitheatre  

new harmony: the failed utopian commune of southern Indiana—see previously  

pokémon sleep: giant ball opens as guest lodging in the woodlands of Hokkaido 

joe cool: Hallmark’s custom university posters that played to institutions’ reputations as party schools  

safety curtain series: each year, the Vienna State Opera brings large format art to its proscenium—see also regarding fire curtains 

the apprentice: a biography of Roy Cohn (see previously here and here) and his influence on Trump’s politics of resentment

vinkenzetting: a DIY electronic-ink picture frame sketches birds by identifying them by their call  

the chinese room: a thought experiment by philosopher John Searle in 1980 arguing that a computer executing a programme cannot have a mind, understanding or consciousness

synchronoptica

one year ago: Trump, Epstein and a State Visit to the UK still on schedule (with synchronoptica), the US National Security Act of 1947 plus the Ig Nobel laureates

two years ago: assorted links worth the revisit 

three years ago: contingency elections to bypass the US electoral college 

four years ago: a photo from Voyager I that puts everything in perspective, St Joseph of Cupertino, photographer Harold Feinstein plus triangulating Instagram

five years ago: your daily demon: Stolas,  anthrax in the mail, arcade animations, more on Wikipedia edit-wars plus post-Brexit UK planning to return to Imperial Measurements

six years ago: vaporware and its antecedents, “producing geese,” “without worries,” the Interkosmos Group plus AI tries to create a universal and enduring warning for the ages

seven years ago: US congress debates abolishing the Electoral College, taboos surrounding talking about death, Germany Calling! (1939) plus flight-shaming and train-bragging

eight years ago: keep-sakes,  more links to enjoy plus a hydrogen powered locomotive

 

lucky shot (13. 748)

Via ibidem—whilst readily admitting that the profusion of photography competitions is something we’ve bemoaned in the past to the point that PfRC has considered launching its own, thinking about the opened-hand slap of a comment that a college classmate of mine expressed thirty years ago, “Well—who wouldn’t have taken a picture of that,” which I think about every time I photograph something patently photogenic and already on everyone’s Instagram feed, and that smartphone contests really ought not to be a category apart given their ubiquity and automatic and deskilling obliquity that optimises now without consent we did quite enjoy scrolling through these superlative images from the nineteenth annual IPPAWARDS crediting the photographer’s eye rather than their equipment, acknowledging that the latter does define the former and who gets to call themselves an auteur with cameras at the ready for billions, presented in a format similar to the photo app of the iPhone with minimal details and specifications. Take a gander and let us know your favourites.

le baiser de l’hôtel de ville (13. 744)

Best known for his commission for Life magazine, known in Anglophone circles simply as The Kiss as an internationally recognised symbol of young love—from a series of images for a photo essay on affection and infatuation in the capital, we quite enjoyed this collection—it is a Russian LiveJournal site but seems safe to peruse though some of the later marquee pictures are water-marked—of humanist photographer and photojournalism pioneer (privileging the documentation of the everyday over the reportage of the latter) of Robert Doisneau’s lesser known works, spanning his entire career from the 1930s to the 1990s, courtesy of Messy Nessy. His work gives prominence to the street culture of children and unstructured play in urban environments, unfettered by parents and teachers. Before becoming a freelancer, Doisneau worked in industrial advertising and then for the Rapho agency in Paris, the world’s oldest press syndicate specialising in images until WWII and the occupation of France, using his picture taking skills and training as a draughtsman to forge passports and identity papers for the resistance. His first commercial photo essay was on the subject of the Saint-Ouen flea market, Le marché aux Puces, which he sold to the publication Excelsior.

synchronoptica

one year ago: Trump tries to out Fed board member (with synchronoptica), a US consulate in Nuuk plus an unapologetic AI hater

two years ago: a skilled sniper plus a circle-and-spoke map of the London Underground 

three years ago: The Guinness Book of World Records (1955)

four years ago: George Jetson’s birthday (2022), St Monica, AI displays a certain virtuosity plus assorted links worth the revisit

five years ago: the eruption of Krakatoa (1883), an interactive job listing plus more round-trip words

six years ago: the Zugspitze summitted (1820), mail-order shopping, abundance of caution, the Hatch Act of 1939 plus an antique German friend book

7x7 (13. 692)

astro-boy: striking photographs of Jupiter made with a Nintendo handheld game  

gobaith newydd: Star Wars dubbed into for the first time Welsh airing on Christmas Day—see previously  

vatnajökull: Icelandic environmental activist turns to his his skill as a storyteller to champion the melting glaciers and icecaps—see previously  

turingery: the resourceful tricks underpinning the Colossus codebreaker that deciphered Enigma—see previously—via Kottke  

troubled waters: Trump administration opens up pristine nature reserves in the Pacific ocean to commercial fishing  

the i’s have it: parsing a new possessive construction first documented in a 1992 episode of Married with Children  

path of totality: your local view of the upcoming sunset solar eclipse, Wednesday 12 August—via Maps Mania

7x7 (13. 666)

serenity prayer: the EU can rein in Google and other tech behemoths despite Trump’s threats 

the fun palace: Cedric Price’s modular playground and social laboratory that was never realised  

hot 100: Paste magazine lists the greatest songs of the 1970s—via MetaFilter 

dear stranger: a disturbing experiment in voyeurism that turned into something beautiful  

ǝsᴉʅƎ ɹn̤ᖵ: Beethoven’s bagatelle inverted—originally as a prank—but hauntingly evocative—see also  

hedonic treadmill: welcome to the age of decadence without pleasure  

we used to be able to buy things in this country: the plexiglass retail landscape of America—via Kottke

9x9 (13. 633)

scrubbed launch: SpaceX has lost over a trillion dollars since its initial public offering on 12 June  

off-sides: the extensive rules and regulations governing tournaments in the Middle Ages—via Strange Company  

outside the far side: a short biography of comic creator Gary Larson—see previously 

two birds, one stone: alkaline thermal treatment of plastic waste produces high purity hydrogen as a fuel source 

memento: how memories and stored in the brain and how retrieval alters them  

street view: gorgeous photologs of San Diego in the 1970s plus more about this municipal mapping method  

the king’s great fortune: a fairy tale written in classic style with contemporary resonance 

from the chinagate hoax department: documents Trump ordered declassified to demonstrate meddling from Beijing cost him the 2020 presidential race show instead that Moscow was championing his re-election  

vikram-1: India’s first private rocket reaches low Earth orbit and deploys a satellite

9x9 (13. 605)

spitalfields life: street photographer Kurt Hutton  

djt: rentier-in-chief could potential benefit financially from the rebranding of Palm Beach International airport, just kilometres away from Mar-a-Lago 

turn around bright eyes: RIP Bonnie Tyler—see previously here, here and here 

l’odissea: the 1911 cinematic adaptation of the timeless classic  

freedom fuel: White House announces network of gas stations with prices capped (previously) at $3.47 per gallon, status quo ante bellum 

the night the earth shook, strangers started to draw: in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake in Syria and Türkiye in February of 2023, the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team helped save lives—via Maps Mania 

twenty minutes into the future: a look at when the cola-wars where dominated by dystopian science-fiction—see previously

tax shelter: very much solicited financial advice on Trump Accounts for Kidz 

pixel skylines: urban grounds from vintage video games

9x9 (13. 585)

hospitalithings: a quiet, meticulous observation of common objects found in lodgings—via Nag on the Lake  

aka vlogging: Hank Green interviews Ze Frank (previously) about the YouTube format he pioneered, advising discomfort to put ideas out into the world—via Waxy  

yes, yes, very good—thank you for self-identifying as a short-sighted rube and saving us the trouble: the US constitution us for simple folk still burdened by the belief that words have meaning  

llog: Victor Henry Mair, sinologist and frequent Language Log contributor has passed away, aged 83  

new posting: an interactive map charting the careers of civil servants managing the bureaucracy of the British Empire—via Map Mania  

alignment chart: a cross-over of Chekhov’s Gun, Schrödinger’s Cat, Occam’s Razor and Murphy’s Law

in an instant: the last Polaroid factory in the world is in the Dutch town of Enschede 

bilberry buns: a Polish pastry gets its own holiday  

ozzy’s ozzy is a unique case: observations from a celebrity impersonator cruise—via Kottke 

bodega cat (13. 579)

Enjoying the correspondence between these two disparate posts, we couldn’t resist combining them as a celebration of our feline companions first with this project by Marcel Heijnen to document the gradual disappearance of “shop cats” in Shanghai as traditional stores are replaced through gentrification with modern, hermetically sealed retail spaces twinned with the early 1980s phenomenon of the Nameneko cats of photographer Saturo Tsuda. Hugely popular at the time, these cats were dressed and set in dioramas depicting high school gangsters—banchō (番長, male delinquents) and sukeban (スケ番, female delinquents) who rebelled against authority, smoking in the boys’ room and with subversive tailoring of their school uniforms. Hang in there baby. Much more at the links above.

the green mile (13. 555)

In the forest near the settlement of Klevan, Rivne Oblast, in northwestern Ukraine there is a leafy green corridor referred to as the Tunnel of Love (Тунель Кохання), a favourite spot for couples to take a romantic stroll, a section of industrial railway as their walk is only interrupted by freight trains three or four times a day. The verdant arches owning their existence to these routine crossings rather than the design of any intentional Edward Scissorhands landscaping—the track’s shoulders of this three-kilometre section not maintained relying on the locomotives to do the trimming of any errant growth blocking the path. More impressions from Kuriositas at the link above.

synchronoptica

one year ago: a stroll along the beach (with synchronoptica)

two years ago: a visit to a historic hermitage  

three years ago: Belarusian intervention halts march to Moscow, the struggle to keep journalism solvent, The Firebird (1910) plus the primary confessions of the Lutheran faith (1530)

four years ago: assorted links worth the revisit 

five years ago: jimoto Starbucks,  McDonaldland and other trippy ads plus word jazz

six years ago: demonyms,  Rhode Island renamed, Blade Runner (1982), butterfly spotting plus a repatriated painting

9x9 (13. 533)

biometrics: the after effects of gamification of physical activity—sometimes I want to launch my pedometer and everything else into the Sun 

sovereign wealth fund: Bernie Sanders’ proposal to cede control and profits of AI to the American public  

cinecope: an archive of rare and rarefied films—via Web Curios  

battle of the bit: an authoritative archive of chiptune and MIDI renditions  

otome: the rise of synthetic, choose-your-own-adventure romance  

a privet matter: a farmer hacks down China’s lonely tree—see also here and here  

chromacity: the colours on the spectrum that your screens cannot deliver—via MetaFilter  

a show of hands: designing more finger-friendly haptics for our devices—plus dispelling old myths, via Waxy  

dark flow: how your scrolling addiction was built off casino gambling

disposable memory (13. 532)

Courtesy of Web Curios, we are directed to a global photography project conducted by Matthew Knight between 2008 and 2013 that entailed seeding locations all over the world with a single-use camera, a set of instructions to take a few pictures and pass it on until the film is exhausted and how to return it for developing.
Coinciding with the introduction and adoption of the iPhone and a pre-revolt of sorts of what the pervasive device would do to picture-taking and social media (though there are a lot of selfie and at least one unsolicited dick-pic), these anonymous images from all over—the Geoguessr aspect of it was fun: cameras 160 and 159 seem to be left at the South and North Poles respectively and there’s one roll from Mongolia and another from Austin Texas carry a affecting nostalgia for a time when we were connecting the world, demonstrably so, and online and offline were distinct magisteria.
Only a fifth of the some five hundred cameras were returned (which is a pretty fair response rate and photo quality reflecting the carelessness of a digital camera native in many instances) but we wonder what happened with the rest and if any of these messages in a bottle might yet be answered.

in search of… (13. 479)

Polymath and multi-hyphanate, Dr Robert Harvey Rines, whom helped develop the Microwave Early Warning System in the Cold War after serving as an officer in the army signals corps, as trained a jurist for intellectual property, prolific inventor, librettist penning musicals about the life of HL Mencken (previously) among others, violin prodigy playing a duet with Albert Einstein at age eleven at a summer camp in Maine, and adjunct professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology for the last forty five years of his career, is probably best known for leading the American expedition, sponsored by the US Academy of Applied Sciences and the The New York Times, the quest for Nessie, the most thorough and comprehensive search for the Loch Ness Monster up to that time, that commenced on this day in 1976. Becoming obsessed with the mystery of a possible cryptid after a visit to the area four years, Rines launched a scientific safari provisioned with sophisticated sonar and photographic, many instruments of his own design, and whilst garnering a great deal of publicity for his efforts, including several intriguing but blurry photographs, after six months, the project was halted due to lack of hard evidence. This famous “gargoyle head” image was later discovered to be a rotting tree stump on the silty bottom of the loch, since located and put on display in the Nessie gallery at Drumnadrochit on the western shore. Rines for his part never stopped believing that there was more to the legend and kept up the exploration, albeit on a smaller scale, for the next decades.

synchronoptica

one year ago:  automated purging of US government workers (with synchronopticæ) plus a Star Trek: TNG superfan

fourteen years ago: looking forward to our Norway holiday 

fifteen years ago: Ascension Day 

sixteen years ago: the Deepwater Horizon oil spill 

7x7 (13. 402)

national character: photographer John Sanderson captures shifting social demographics in the US—via Nag on the Lake  

c-64: chiptune Depeche Mode—see previously  

db: revisiting the measurement of loudness and the decibel scale, meant to replace the older unit of miles of standard cable to measure loss of fidelity—via Quantum of Sollazzo  

filmaffisch: early to mid-century movie posters by prolific graphic artist Eric Rohman  

stranded assets: the economic concept of demand destruction, emerging from peak oil and pivot to energy alternatives  

beast in the basement: the musical stylings of organist Leon Berry, who also recorded a cover version of “Misirlou”  

blind patriotism: Banksy (previously) confirms that guerrilla installation in central London is his work

windows on the world (13. 365)

Opening on this day in 1976 and in operation until destroyed during the September 11th terror attacks in 2001, the complex of dining and entertainment venues developed under the guidance of restauranteur Joe Baum (responsible for renovating the Rainbow Room of Rockefeller Center and creator of America’s first themed destination dining establishments) and architect Warren Planter (student of Eero Saarinen) whose concept for the interior was that of a grand ocean liner with plush accents and brass railings and a terraced layout that afforded views from every table with logo, dinnerware and lighting designed by Milton Glaser.  Housed in the upper storeys of the North Tower (Building One) of the World Trade Center, all staff present on the day of the attack perished, the impact of American Airlines Flight 11 cutting off all means of escape above the ninety-second floor. Though never conclusively confirmed, it is speculated that the identity of The Falling Man is restaurant audio engineer, Jonathan Briley, brother of Alexander, the soldier and later seaman character from the disco recording act, Village People. The iconic photograph is owned by Elton John and was named after the 1950 oil painting by Max Beckmann that seems to foreshadow the trapped jumpers.

synchronoptica

one year ago: a return visit to the Störmthaler See (with synchronopticæ)

fourteen years ago: comparmentalising the internet 

fifteen years ago: the life and afterlife of William Shakespeare 

sixteen years ago: around town, a visit to the Kyffhäuserdenkmal plus default browsers

renatured (13. 338)

Although from childhood until recently, my only exposure to instant coffee, a topic not given much regard in the interim, was using Sanka decaffeinated crystals for a school project to make a poster illustrating the massive meteorite strike that wiped out the dinosaurs—it was a good medium for the rocky texture for the volcano and for the ominous asteroid streaking through the sky, H and I have really started appreciating the dehydrated beverage for camping, the outdoors seeming to imbue it with a certain aroma and flavour profile that we suspect wouldn’t cut it at home for the convenience. Courtesy of Web Curios (lots more to explore there and well worth your time), we found this thoroughly researched history on the development and triangulating factors behind the improvements in reconstitution, global trade, spinoffs from R&D in photography and keeping an army sufficiently caffeinated of course playing a role quite fascinating and illuminating. Advances in the understanding of chemistry and preservation, freeze-drying grounds, led to a more palatable cup, though beggars couldn’t be choosers and the earliest versions of the potable, soluble brew were savoured as well. Much more from The Works in Progress newsletter at the link above.

8x8 (13. 334)

queen bee: the fascinating life-cycle of bumblebee matriarchs includes the ability to breath underwater  

zweeeeëg: dizygotic, fraternal words and other Danish and Luxembourgish orthography, including vanilleijs  

pork johnson: the spoof trailer for the feature film on Gimp, the Photoshop alternative, starring a puppet warthog and reminiscent of Social Network  

ranger danger: the Trump administration eviscerates the US forest service, see previously—via Kottke  

byline: World Press photos of the year  

₿: the investigator who unmasked the creator of the cryptocurrency—see previously  

to wit: the lost intimacy and nuance of extinct Old English pronouns  

regina apoidea: the brilliant physical acting of Joan Crawford presented as slap-fest

the soiling of old glory (13. 321)

The Pulitzer prize winning image, captured on this day in 1976 by Boston Herald photographer Stanley Forman, who was the only recipient to be awarded the honour consecutively also for his Fire Escape Collapse, depicts a violent assault during the Massachusetts capital’s desegregation crisis of public schools. From a series of protests and counterdemonstrations in front of city hall, the image depicts professor, defence attorney and civil rights activist Ted Landsmark being attacked by a teenager named Joseph Rakes with a swinging flagpole as opposed to a joust from the angle of the photograph. Rakes was convicted for assault with a deadly weapon and carries the stigma of being known as “the flag kid,” and Landsmark, narrowly avoiding being seriously injured parlayed the incident, the scene widely publicised, to highlight racial tensions in the region and was later hired by the mayor to improve outreach and workforce development opportunities.

synchronoptica

one year ago: First Contact (with synchronopticæ) plus a font based on the typeface on the almighty dollar

twelve years ago: Emoji Nation, recent additions to the French lexicon, little big world plus an aerial archaeological survey of German landscapes

thirteen years ago: miniature dioramas 

fourteen years ago: cyber security 

sixteen years ago: enhanced pat-downs 

7x7 (13. 300)

reverse game theory: a novel approach to the housing crisis—via Damn Interesting 

twen: the publications of art director Willy Fleckhaus  

whoami.wiki: a scrapbook and photo album in the form of a personal Wikipedia built with the help of AI  

i’d never lend my name to an inferior product: Trump’s signature to appear on hundred dollar bills, a first for a sitting US president  

return of the king: Stephen Colbert co-authoring a Lord of the Rings movie, possibly featuring the character of Tom Bombadil  

the red book of bath: a unique civil administration almanac—via Strange Company  

laissez-faire: a modest proposal from John Maynard Keynes to solve unemploymentby burying money under landfills