6x6 (11. 036)

eggs: another classic animated short from John and Faith Hubley 

patrimoine mondial: UNESCO inscribes forty-two new sites on its World Heritage list—via Kottke 

dog brain: a classic Nicktoon from the early 1990s

the madame b album: the artistry of the Victorian photocollage  

it’s a perfectly cromulent word: Merriam-Webster adds six hundred fifty new definitions to the dictionary  

schattenspiel: the German singer and director Lotte Reiniger who pioneered spot-motion animation

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links to revisit, Tree Talk plus Star Wars Cantina music as inspiration 

two years ago: your daily demon: Malphas plus der Tag der Deutsche Einheit

three years ago: a logical second plus a bit of seasonal decoration

four years ago: East Germans flee to Czechoslovakia (1989),  Germany’s four corners, Trump in Europe, Banksy’s shop, Inland Printer plus East Berlin’s TV Tower

five years ago: the 2008 financial crisis, reminders of a divided Germany, Plastic Love plus Trump-inspired cocktails

 

sycamore gap (11. 029)

Made famous internationally by a cameo appearance in 1991’s Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves but a regional landmark for generations, the picturesque lone tree (see previously) growing in a dramatic dip in the Northumbrian landscape near Hadrian’s Wall was chopped down by a vandal for a chance to achieve some dread and senseless Herostratic fame (more here).  The community near the craggy terrain are of course very saddened to loose a natural monument in this fashion, especially when so much more is threatened with accelerated climate change, and there are already plans in place to coax it into regrowing but it won’t have the same character.

 synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links to revisit plus St Leoba

two years ago:  your daily demon: Halphas plus more links to enjoy

three years ago: Pope John Paul I plus Trump’s taxes

four years ago: hitchhiking returns to Brussels 

five years ago: William the Conqueror crosses the Channel (1066) plus the #MeToo movement

life finds a way (11. 017)

Runner-up in the category of Urban Wildlife in the annual competition sponsored by Nature TTL, we were especially taken with this surreal image of a spider by Simone Baumeister captured from a pedestrian bridge’s railing that passes over the main intersection of Ibbenbüren in the Münsterland region using an analogue lens to diffuse the traffic lights and passing cars at night and produce a bokeh effect. Much more superlative photography at the links above.

9x9 (11. 010)

⏈: play around for a moment with the Water web toy—via Miss Cellania and the Everlasting Blört  

green new deal: modelled on FDR’s Civilian Conservation Corps, US president Biden creates a federal jobs training and climate protection force  

won’t someone think of the children: UK passes Online Safety bill—see previously  

piramida: architectural photographer Danica O Kus documents the newly-repurposed monument in the Albanian capital of Tirana

nine-man morris: archeologists discover a board game carved in the ruins of an ancient Polish castle  

qed: a tiny Irish child has a brilliant solution to the trolley problem—see previously  

the mascot of ascot: the magnificent millinery modelled by Gertrude Shilling—via Messy Nessy Chic

once i played a tanpura: electronic music from India from the early 1970s—via Things Magazine  

written on water: physicists using an ionic pen and Brownian motion can draw lines and letters in liquid

 

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links to revisit 

two years ago: the Global War on Terrorism declared (2001), photographer Charles Cylde Ebbets plus more links to enjoy

three years ago: St Eustace plus running out of hurricane names

four years ago: an AI names mushrooms,  exploring a local wayside chapel, more links plus Randy Rainbow for the Emmy

five years ago: retro web bumpers, a then-and-now of New Zealand’s government, modern-day occupations plus the board game Careers

glistening green (10. 996)

This photograph by Nicolas Reusens perfectly frames a male emerald tanager (the informal name above for the Chlorochrysa phoenicotis) won gold in the portrait category for the Bird Photograph of the Year (B-PoTY, previously) taken in its native habitat in a nature reserve in the tropical jungles of Ecuador. Selected from over twenty-thousand submissions, the overall winner among all the superlatives went to Jack Zhi for a dramatic act shot captured in southern California of a peregrine falcon defending her nest from a brown pelican. More at the links above including the annual contest’s conservation initiative.

7x7 (10. 991)

trochilinae: a look at the evolution of evolution of hummingbirds—see previously  

uranometria: a comparative study of constellations across cultures—via Web Curios  

portfolio: photographer James Mollison documents children’s rooms, collectors and their collections around the world plus other projects—via Things Magazine  

lightning 4-2: a record-setting speedrun of Super Mario Bros  

zero width non-joiner: let AI generate a custom emoji—note the cursed thumbs up/down icons—via Waxy

extended-stay: Plato’s Cave (previously) will be raising its rent—via JWZ  

halcyon days: a slow-motion look at the kingfisher’s dive 

synchronoptica

one year ago: Stone Temple Pilots plus the proclamation of King Charles III

two years ago: more on DC statehood, the Battle of Teutoberg Forest (9 AD), rewilding begins at home plus assorted links to revisit

three years ago: the establishment of Washington, DC (1791), the disputed Hans Island, a lighthouse transformed plus AI supervillains

four years ago: more on the moons of Jupiter 

five years ago: Trump threatens to remove US troops from Germany plus an expansive pattern library

 

proteus effect (10. 963)

Via Web Curios (a lot more to explore in the weekly bulletin), we are directed towards an AI assisted photo editing platform—yes, these are probably a dime-a-dozen and we subject ourselves to a feedback loop of recursive learning and the quandary of creation with such digital personae, indulging a kind of perfection in imperfection and uncanniness, the fidelity degrading over the iterations—but this Human Generator is kind of fun. Like playing with paper dolls, Sims, Miis or Yahoo! Avatars, the application which maps to one’s face if you choose, can be dressed up and altered in a variety of ways with textual and preset inputs to experiment with. Give it a try and share what you come up with—especially if you don’t mind looking a bit thirty and swole, accounting for bias.

 synchronoptica

one year ago: colour television in West Germany plus assorted links to revisit

two years ago: Rashomon (1950), St Genès, the feud between Salieri and Mozart, more links plus how to cut every cheese

three years ago: Voyager I leaves the Solar System (2012), more links to enjoy, more traditional units of measure plus a Number 10 stand-in

four years ago: premier of The Wizard of Oz (1939) 

five years ago: weekly word watches from the OED,  Letters from Iceland (1937) losing one’s marbles, an early attempt at weather control plus a local kite fest

7x7 (10. 912)

barbieworld: a survey of a thousand advertisements contextualises the box-office phenomenon—see also 

gigo: a fundamental law of computing will ultimately thwart digital dictatorships  

lake berryessa: Dorothea Lange (previously) documented the flooding of a Napa Valley community in the 1950s—via Strange Company 

chamber music: a poorly received Baroque Beatles Book from 1965

i want to do whatever common people people do: a new genre was born in the sixteenth century when Pieter Bruegel began specialising in peasants, merchants and mongers  

word vectors: a bit of demystifying for Large Language Models—via Waxy 

 a census-designated place: explore Oppenheimer’s secret city of Los Alamos

photos of the anthropocene (10. 890)

We found this gallery of images of the permanent scars that human activity has been inflicting on the planet since the early 1950s curated in response to the retroactive inauguration of the new, dread geological epoch. All the photographs in the project portfolio are unbelievable and terrible to contemplate but we were especially taken with this view of potash-extracting operations in the Urals, mining for this vital fertiliser ingredient underground causes this spiralling pattern that resembles a trilobite fossil.

synchronoptica 

one year ago: Handel’s Water Music (1717) plus a visit to Amersfoort, downriver from Amsterdam

two years ago: Emoji Day plus the shores of Lake Vänern, Sweden

three years ago: the Feast of the Romanovs and their Domestics, a working couple’s cookbook plus Banksy’s lockdown tags

four years ago: more on Emoji Day plus forward basing of nuclear arsenals

five years ago: Yellow Submarine (1968), a living, incognito Pride flag, more on Trump and Putin, anti-car-sickness glasses plus the British royal family adopts the surname Windsor (1917)

jupiter xv (10. 866)

Imaged for the first time on this day in 1979 by the Voyager 2 probe, the smallest inner moon of Jupiter responsible for maintaining the integrity of its rings, composed primarily scientists believe of ejecta from meteorite impacts on the satellite, Adrastea was the first object discovered by a spacecraft rather than observations from a terrestrial telescope. In response to this discovery, researchers reviewed footage from months earlier taken by companion probe Voyager I and found two additional moons, Thebe and Metis. The object, which little is known about other than its lumpy shape and small size (around fourteen meters in circumference), is named, like others in this planetary constellation, after Zeus’ mythological foster family, charged with protecting him from Cronus, after a Cretan nymph of Mount Ida whose name means ‘inevitable fate’ later identified with the epithet Nemesis.

curtain call (10. 851)

NPR’s Goats and Soda features a commendable selection of superlative aerial photography from this year’s Drone Photo Awards (previously), which will be displayed in Siena’s Teatro dei Rinnovati during its festivities in October. In its sixth year, the annual competition to challenge our perspectives showcases a wide range of subjects from natural disasters, pollution, playgrounds to the precision symmetry of agriculture, like this strawberry field prepared for harvest as captured by Guy Shmueli in Hadera, Israel, that looks like the opening of a stage play. Much more at the links above.

synchronoptica 

one year ago: Dog Days of summer, Double Indemnity (1944), assorted links to revisit plus DALL-E Mini

two years ago: the Phaistos Disk (1908), IKEA on the US government’s report on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena plus on the etymology of the antiquated word hermaphrodite  

three years ago: a narrow-cast channel featuring video artefacts and interstitials, Mount Rushmore plus the proxy war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan (1979)

four years ago: assorted links to revisit plus Krispy Kreme leaves Iceland

five years ago: the cliffs of Lake Garda

8x8 (10. 820)

north american aerospace defence command: cache of Cold War era briefings and slide show presentations scanned and shared on the Internet Archive—via Super Punch  

yellowhammer: Alabama enshrines an official state cookie  

clipart: AI generated images disrupting the portfolio of stock photos that helped create it 

playlist: fish music may help revitalise coral reefs  

lui, sait juste ken: a clever double-entendre in French ad-copy for the Barbie movie 

the killer rabbit caerbannog: more on the trope of deadly bunnies in medieval manuscripts—see previously  

apple core: computer giant taking on venerable Swiss Fruit Union, other in a trademark dispute—via Slashdot  

sci-fi edition: Poseidon’s Underworld reviews a 1979 issue of Starlog

6x6 (10. 800)

reagan candy: the Taiwanese term for jelly babies  

treuhand: the privatisation of East Germany and the long reach of its consequences—via Maps Mania

mexico filter: the cinematic colour scheme applied to movie set in the “Global South” evokes corruption and pollution is the tinge of New York City (previously) now—plus lots more from Hyperalleric’s Required Reading—see also  

tag yourself: what your favourite classic rock band says about you—from Nag on the Lake’s Sunday Links  

ekd: hundreds of parishioners attend a Lutheran service in Fürth delivered by an AI—see previously—via Slashdot 

lu xun: the memes telegraphing generational disillusionment in China—see also

uncropped (10. 785)

Expanding on a previous post using AI to unframe and extend the backgrounds of iconic works of art and other bounded creations, the same suite of tools has been applied to internet memes to image what’s going on just outside of the picture, like for Side-Eye Chloe or Wandering-Eye Boyfriend. 

 What do you think? While it does strike one as impressive and plausible, distortion aside, we wonder how far removed these abilities are from zealous automated enhancement and “upsampling” features that play into our biases. More at the links above.

nine kings, one room (10. 755)

Photographed on this day in 1910 at Windsor Place by the studio of W & D Downey, these nine sovereigns, King Haakon VII or Norway, Czar Ferdinand of Bulgaria, King Manuel II of Portugal, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, King George I of Greece, King Albert I of Belgium, King Alfonso XIII of Spain, Emperor George V of the United Kingdom and King Frederick VIII of Denmark, were gathered for the funeral of George’s immediate predecessor, Edward VII (Albert Edward Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, called “Bertie”) and considered the Uncle of Europe by dint of his relatedness to all assembled (plus a non-zero chance of being the father of Winston Churchill and grandfather of Queen Camilla), whom had died on 6 May after suffering a series of massive heart attacks. Excluded for the most part from participation in regnal duties during his six decade wait on his mother, Queen Victoria, to leave office, Edward pursued the life of leisure of the privileged elite, travelling, gambling and earning the reputation of a playboy prince, taking on several liaisons (by some counts fifty-five, see above) and frequenting an exclusive brothel in Paris, Le Chabanais, a private room kitted out with his coat of arms and a custom made siege d’amour to allow the by then corpulent heir abilities to fornicate with multiple individuals at once. Though already past average life-expectancy at the time of his enthronement and with lower overall expectations for this last monarch to exercise political power, the legacy of the short reign of Edward saw the transition into constitutionally-bound sovereignty, was forward thinking and inclusive, especially for the time, and tried to keep peace amongst his nephews and was as capable of being dignified as he was indulgent.

atomgrad (10. 701)

A closed town founded in 1970 to serve the neighbouring Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station but not restricted like other cities and a showcase of Soviet engineering and innovation, Prypriat (При́пʼять) was evacuated on this day in 1986 following the disaster and has remained, within the exclusion zone, a time capsule slowly being reclaimed by nature and a draw for urban explorers. One particular attraction is the amusement park, slated for a grand opening for May Day celebrations in a state of abandon and ruin, with the iconic ferris wheel (Круговой обзор, circular overview) photographed as a symbol of the catastrophe and the delayed announcement of the danger, a population of some fifty thousand imperilled by high radition exposure for over thirty-six hours since the initial fire and steam explosion.

hofatelier elvira (10. 680)

Fellow internet peripatetic Messy Nessy Chic directs our attention to the former nexus of Germany’s pacifist and feminist movement in the photography studio and artists’ salon in glorious Jugenstil. Ultimately demolished and the address on Von-der-Tann-Strasse now occupied by the US Consulate of Munich after its stylised dragon façade was vandalised during the war years, the property used provisionally as a canteen kitchen, the enterprise spanning from 1898 to 1928 was notable as the first company in Germany founded by women, jurist, suffragist, writer and actress Anita Theodora Johanna Sophie Augsprung partnering with entrepreneur and photographer Sophia N J Goudstikker, and an important meeting place for avant garde artists in parallel with its primary business of taking pictures of celebrities and the aristocracy.

9x9 (10. 673)

photo booth: a self-meme generator that uses AI—via Web Curios  

1up: the Super Mario Brothers’ theme inscribed in the US National Recording Registry—via Miss Cellania 

martin chuzzlewit: Dickens’ illustrators  

acta et vita: today is the feast of Lidwina, patron saint of chronic illness and ice- and roller-skaters 

spring break: a look at the highdays and holidays of Old London—via Strange Company 

jubilee: US Supreme Court ruled against blocking cancellation of student loan debt—see previously  

the real macguffin: the Holy Grail of grail stories—with plenty of references to pop-culture  

double-feature: raw footage from a video rental store on a Friday night in 1987—what titles would you have picked?  

robo boys: an untethered large language model builds on a college years group chat with insights on the process of AI fine-tuning—via Waxy

7x7 (10. 649)

the house of mouse: Disney lawyers thwart Florida governor’s interference plans by linking status quo to the British monarchy 

the highrise collection: a drone exploration of beautiful early twentieth century skyscrapers of the US

mambabatok: Vogue Philippines has 106-year-old traditional tattoo Apo Whang-Od artist on its cover  

fraktur folk art: the lettering of German dissident émigré communities in Pennsylvania (see also) 

pretty fly for a white guy: Finnish politicians, as their rapping alter-egos Qruu and Cstar, drop some rhymes for their campaign platform—via Miss Cellania    

gelatinous cube: the 1977 Dungeon’s & Dragons Monster Manual  

g: all. of. the. above: a Trump indictment quiz

pontiflex (10. 641)

Reposted and propagated without context, the images of Pope Francis sporting a Balencia-style puffer jacket—plus several viral variants, as actual photographs of His Holiness (see previously), despite once past cursory observation that most detection protocols miss as well the mangled details give it away—prompting discussions on labelling, the allure of plausibility and entertaining the virtuosity of one’s imagination as well as the dangers of such fabrication, particularly when it is dismissed as harmless or worse yet resignedly immaterial.