8x8 (12. 614)

ieepa: class action lawsuit from small businesses affected by Trump’s tariffs could prove to be a significant challenge to his economic model 

lambretta boogaloo: a new single from Big Boss Man Los Res and the Bongo Fuzz label   

geodesy: astronomers triangulate Earth’s location in the Universe using black holes but WiFi is interrupting the signal  

at most ten-percent syncopation: Nazi era rules for jazz musicians—via Nag on the Lake  

aldeh: Greater Manchester chain keeping temporary name in honour of Oasis reunion tour after attaining status as cultural landmark  

sing what happens: a sedately risqué Japanese karaoke televised game show—via Memo of the Air 

tas: Strange New Worlds to have a fully Muppetised episode courtesy of Jim Henson’s Creature Workshop—still, cancel Paramount 

church and state: US to allow federal workers to evangelise in the work place

splashdown (12. 604)

On this day in 1975 with the re-entry of the American spacecraft, with the Soviet capsule landing a few days earlier in the steppe of Kazakhstan after the successful joint mission, the Apollo programme came to an end. The international docking manoeuvre and orbital handshake between the two rivals was seem as a moment of détente for the polarised world during the Cold War, leading to later collaborations like the International Space Station. A technical triumph and symbolic of the cooling tensions between the super-powers, in keeping with the spirit of the Space-Race, the link-up with Soyuz-19 went unnumbered by NASA to avoid confusion with the failed Moon landing of Apollo-XVIII, and the mission’s only tense moment was during re-entry with propellants accidentally vented into the astronauts’ chambers. The US engaged in no further orbital ventures until 1981 and there were no more splashdown landings until August of 2020 with the Space-X Crew Dragon demonstration.

moffett field (12. 587)

Via Kottke, we really enjoyed browsing the Internet Archive’s expansive exhibit of over five thousand historical images of the NASA Ames Research Centre, built at the tip of San Francisco Bay in 1939 and now surrounded by the campuses of tech giants Google, Microsoft and Apple originally as a facility to conduct wind-tunnel tests and gauge the aerodynamic properties of propeller-drive aircraft, its scope broadened quickly after World War II to compass space exploration, rocketry and computer science. Perusing the collection (see also) gives one an appreciation of the eight decades’ worth of missions, discoveries and breakthroughs that came from this nexus of Silicon Valley and makes us more than a little anxious about the future of public, state-sponsored research and long-term repercussions of short-sighted priorities.

synchronoptica

one year ago: American’s AI-military complex (with synchronopticæ) plus an evil cocktail

gegenschein (12. 583)

Light pollution being a topic of particular concern to us, appreciating the fact that we are privileged to be far removed from most of the effects and most holidays too are spend under the stars, we liked learning about the metrics that went into this app—via MetaFilter—that uses the Bortle Scale, which builds and improves upon the way astronomers generally gauge the quality of the observations, naked-eye limiting magnitude (NELM) and judging the apparent brightness of the faintest visible objects, to make a better informed assessment of one’s environs and how far those margins might extend when looking up from a given location. The enlightening nine-step classification system with visible phenomena, untethered from a specific constellation or distant galaxy, with the most optimal including the zodiacal band (false dusk), regions of the Milky Way casting shadows on the ground with starshine and the above occurance of counterglow (not pictured—it’s much more subtle than that—see here for an actual attempt to image it), a brighter spot in the night sky centred at the antisolar point caused by the backscatter of sunshine on the opposite side of the Earth by interplanetary dust. Though previously described, the term was coined by Alexander von Humboldt during his South American expeditions, noting that this slightly illuminated spot appeared at midnight.

synchronoptica

one year ago: the asteroid Pallas (with synchropticæ) plus Lonesome (1928)

thirteen years ago: more security theatre plus the Vertue of the Coffee Drink 

sixteen years ago: hundredth blog post 

télégraph aérien (12. 575)

Having previously learned about the invention of the optical or semaphore communications system of Claude Chappe, we appreciated this retrospective and chance to revisit the contentious innovation that informed public perception and art movements into the nineteenth century. Hailed as a great advancement, the tachygraphic network that was being introduced just as the French Revolution was beginning in 1792 as a series of relay towers throughout the countryside and in metropolitan areas was by turns regarded as an achievement, condemned as an eyesore and viewed with suspicion. The cellular masts (or windmills) of their day, their addition to the tops of buildings, profane and sacred, was considered despoiling aesthetically—numerous examples of paintings from that period feature them prominently, sort of like the scaffolding that encased the Statue of Liberty during the eighties that become as iconic and emblematic as the unobscured monument—and the coded messages (the arrangement of the blades or wings corresponded to ninety-eight numbers) to be deciphered and passed on the next operator) were taken as something sinister, prompting the destruction of some towers either as signs of witchcraft (compare to the attacks on the 5G masts during COVID either as its cause or a government conspiracy to implant microchips in the population to control it) or to hinder accelerated responses to quell uprisings, the government privileged with this speeded up reaction not available to the protesters. A group of investors in Bordeaux were jailed, though ultimately acquitted, for bribing operators to transmit stock market figures from Paris hours ahead of when the gains and losses would be available to the competition—an abuse for the sight-lines that was never envisioned. Much more from Hyperallergic at the link above.

31/atlas (12. 557)

Spotted only a few days ago by astronomers in Chile at an associate observatory under the auspices of the international Asteroid-Terrestrial impact Last Alert System monitoring station that’s the future home of the Vera Rubin observatory, the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope which will be capable of scanning the entire sky of the Southern Hemisphere every few days as the largest digital camera ever constructed and watching for changes—including such interstellar interlopers—the inbound comet originating from another solar system is only the third such object passing through to have been verified. Like the explosion in the discovery of gravitational wave phenomena, more visitors like ʻOumuamua and Borisov are bound to be found, advanced imaging techniques underwritten by more data but now both enterprises are in jeopardy by funding cuts to NASA, sponsor to both. And while anyone can determine whether a trajectory is parabolic or hyperbolic or predict a collision course, a potential loss of telemetry seems of great gravity when it comes to such global studies and preservation for Earth and other knock on effects. Significantly brighter than the previous two encounters and traceable by amateur astronomers, the comet, posing no threat to Earth, won’t be visible at perihelion as it will be on the other side of the Sun then in October but at its closest approach to Mars, it may be detected by Martian rovers and satellites.

synchronoptica

one year ago:  the introduction of the Caesar salad (with synchronopticæ) plus the waterfalls of Mount Cuvignone

twelve years ago: a trip along the Rhein plus a revolution in Egypt

thirteen years ago: the God particle plus national drinks

fourteen years ago: the passing of Otto von Hapsburg and the legacy of the Austro-Hungarian Empire 

opus 314 (12. 499)

To mark both the fiftieth year of the European Space Agency and the second centenary of the birth of the composer—as well to redress a glaring omission in the playlist of Voyagers’ Golden Records, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra performed the “Blue Danube” livestreamed for terrestrial audiences and beamed out to the stars from an ESA dish antenna in Cebreros, Spain, part of the array of the deep-space network. The waltz by Johann Strauss II had its association with the wonder and grandeur of the Cosmos cemented by its use in the score of Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey—see also—and broadcast at the speed of light, the single will have surpassed the twenty-four billion kilometres transversed by the twin probes launched in 1977, overtaking Mars in just four and half minutes, Jupiter in thirty-seven minutes and Neptune in four hours. ESA director general hopes that this concert will inspire future scientists and explorers and become the anthem of space travel.

synchronoptica

one year ago: outtakes from Dalí Atomicus (with synchronoptica) plus more on numbers stations

seven years ago: brutalist birdhouses  

eight years ago: a visit to Schloss Moritzburg plus bot armies

nine years ago: a trip to Berchtesgaden plus language and colour perception

ten years ago: the lifecycle of ladybugs

9x9 (12. 483)

leaderboard: an exclusive look at the $TRUMP memecoin banquet   

leap together: Kermit the Frog delivers a commencement speech at Jim Henson’s alma mater 

biosignature: potential signs of alien life on exoplanet K2-18β raises the question of when evidence becomes definitive 

industrial light and magic: Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, founded by Star Wars franchise creator and slated to open next summer, made redundant fourteen percent of staff

mr tompkins in wonderland: after attending a lecture on relativity, a bank clerk discovers the ability to perceive quantum phenomena and the foreshortening of spacetime   

liquidity squeeze: collaborative scholarship and the fake Roman financial panic of 33 AD—via Strange Company 

yeah—it has been hard, mainly because of the numbers: a vintage 2005 spoof on every television news spot on the economy

matriculation: graduates answer questions posed by their past selves insider trading: US attorney general divested herself of between one and five million dollars worth of shares ahead of Trump’s “Liberation Day” announcement

synchronoptica

one year ago: Phyllis Diller’s garage sale guide (with synchronoptica), an alternative space shuttle design, AI can’t do minor edits plus assorted links worth the revisit

seven years ago: more removing science from the classroom, a cosmic interloper, eyeball worlds, wine windows plus the Dear Leaders fail to meet

eight years ago: corporate welfare 

nine years ago: transparent wood plus a visit to Weimar

thirteen years ago: the chemistry of wine

11x11 (12. 481)

ν octantis: astronomers discover a tight binary star system with a lone exoplanet wedged in the middle  

{sum free sets}: Cambridge graduate student proves an conjecture of Paul Erdős on the limits of the additive property—via Damn Interesting 

gorgoneion: the backstory of Medusa 

market instability: complaining that negotiations have stalled, Trump threatens to impose a fifty-percent tariff on EU exports to the US 

ambigram: more invertible messages—made by impossible letters (see previously here and here) 

the old, old, very old man: the sudden death of super-centenarian Tom Parr in 1635 illuminates our long quest for longevity—see also 

marked decline: the precipitous drop in the use of semicolons—with a quiz to celebrate its proper placement  

urban renewal: arborists are planting giant sequoia (previously) in blighted Detroit neighbourhoods—via Kottke  

pandemonium: when the pantheon of gods and goddesses came into the world, they already had company with a multiplicity of daemons acting through human agents 

exchange programme: US Department of Homeland Security revokes Harvard’s ability to enrol foreign students  

brown dwarf: in the distant past, Jupiter was nearly twice its present size with a much stronger magnetic field, revealed by the orbital dynamics of its constellation of satellites—see previously

interdisciplinary (12. 475)

On the corner of Broadway and West 112th Street, above the iconic neon-lit Tom’s Diner used as the establishing exterior shot for the sitcom Seinfeld and in the Susan Vega song, NASA research facility, the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, has occupied the six upper storeys of Armstrong Hall since 1966. Affiliated with Columbia University’s Earth institute, from whom it leases the laboratory space, GISS has embarked on a broad programme of astrophysics and climate dynamics and advanced public understanding of phenomena like El Niño and first synergised ideas such as plate tectonics, quasars and black holes—introducing the terminology to common parlance. The institute also issued a vocal warning regarding global warming’s trajectory and involved with numerous solar system exploration missions dating from Mariner, Pioneer and Voyager to the present. This impressive list of accomplishments and continuing projects, both theoretical and applied, however, is failing to secure the lab’s legacy for the the Trump administration, which has cut overall science funding by half and is sceptical of climate change, and through the auspices of DOGE and the Government Services Administration is terminating the lease effective at the end of the month (or at least pretending to in the name of efficiency as the contract cannot be broken early and the building will sit empty until it expires) and is directing the staff of one hundred thirty to work from home until they can be dismissed or placed within another part of the agency. More from the Guardian at the link above.

11x11 (12. 472)

higher power: traditionally anodyne, new Chinese spaceflight mission patches (see also) might betray some secrets 

triple word score: fun variants, house rules and more Scrabble-related news—see previously 

a stra ze neca: no, the multinational pharmaceutical concern name does not mean “a road to death” in Latin 

hamburgervons: a flip book of font specimens to build the perfect typeface—the heading a typographer’s tool to test layout and legibility—see also   

revenge of the sith: a retrospective for the prequel twenty years on—see also here and here 

there i ruined it: interesting mashup of US national anthem to the tune of Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun” 

kyphosis bicyclistarum: an 1893 warning from the Lancet for wheelmen on the bad posture and stoop that frequent cycling can cause—see also   

sunny days: after Trump defunds PBS and NPR, Netflix is championing Sesame Street   

micro-camper: a well-appointed mobile tiny home in the bed of kei truck—via Things Magazine (much more to discover there)   

fan theory: Doctor Who’s “Interstellar Song Contest”—Eurovision counter programming—teases the return of a classic arch-villainess  

pinball wizard: the 1976 NBC gameshow flop, The Magnificent Marble Machine, with celebrity players 

niallia tiangongensis: evolution on display in novel bacteria found aboard China’s space-station—via Damn Interesting

synchronoptica

one year ago: more on the Kessler Effect (with synchronoptica), AI overviews plus two classes of typos

seven years ago: Pentecost, for-profit colleges plus a ride on a steam locomotive

eight years ago: reforming the US electoral college, the Global Seed Vault is flooding, protesting Trump’s bribes plus an AI names bespoke colours

nine years ago: a visit to Tintagel

ten years ago: a time lapse of climate change, assorted links to revisit plus the making of The Shining

космос-482 (12. 445)

Launched 31 March 1972, the Soviet Venus probe that failed to escape low Earth orbit is expected to make a crash landing, plunging through the atmosphere today, more than fifty years after the mission was aborted and while debris of this size, five hundred kilograms, deorbits regularly, most space junk of this mass disintegrates before reaching the surface, breaking up into shooting stars—however with a titanium heat shield and built to withstand the rigours of exploring our hot and crushing neighbour, it is likely to survive the journey and land in one piece. While far more likely to hit the ocean, it could smash down on someone’s property (see previously here and here). Shrouded in the secrecy of the Cold War Space Race, it was common practice for the USSR’s space exploration programme to use low Earth orbit as a staging grounds, a sort of parking lot, for missions to other planets, launched well ahead of the ideal path for future rendezvous with their intended targets, and all given the designation of Kosmos so as not to publicise mission goals. A misfire of the booster rockets condemned the vehicle to this decades’ long limbo, retaining the original mission identification, rather than making it the planned Venera 9 atmospheric study.

synchronoptica

one year ago: a collection of abandoned blogs (with synchronoptica) plus the Tea Act of 1773

seven years ago: the FCC complains about the White House Correspondents’ Dinner plus photographer Rodney Lewis Smith

eight years ago: Persian miniatures, Trump fires FBI director James Comey plus artisanal coins

eleven years ago: cracking down on intelligence leaks plus the practise of kintsugi

twelve years ago: plagiarism scandals in German politics

6x6 (12. 441)

αντίδωρον: brilliant wrapping paper makes presents appear as loaves of bread  

impact statement: for the first time, an AI avatar of a murder victim testifies in court 

heptapods: imagining alien languages reveals insights into the nature of our own ways of communicating—see previously 

picking fights: while Trump declares a ceasefire with the Houthi militant group—which we only know about because of Signalgate—the administration signals it will not get involved over the dispute in Kashmir  

orrery: a centenary of planetariums still inspiring awe—via tmn—see previously  

decomposing: lab-grown mini-brains of a deceased musician create posthumous compositions

origami mouse: a pointing device that folds flat when not in use—via Clive Thompson’s Linkfest—along with a few more fun items on arcade classics

first contact (12. 367)

Observed on this day to celebrate both the flight of the Phoenix (repurposed from a nuclear warhead at a US Air Force missile complex outside of Bozeman, Montana) that broke the light-speed barrier and attracted the attention of a passing Vulcan survey ship, the T’Plana-Hath, with its warp-signature—and immediately following the test-launch humanity’s first encounter with an alien race. The 2063 event was introduced as a holiday in 2021 during the COVID pandemic a virtual pick-me-up during lockdown and social-distancing but was established in franchise canon outside of the feature film with the crew of the Next Generation thwarting sabotage by the Borg and preserving the timeline—Geordi and Riker need to go further back in the past to fix our timeline—and Voyager marking the occasion from the Delta Quadrant with Naomi Wildman and Neelix hosting a gathering (see also) for the three hundred fifteenth anniversary with a party and rock-and-roll music (pilot Zefram Cochrane’s favourites) from Tom Paris’ antique jukebox. Science officer Tuvok delivered the salutation, reluctantly not seeing the point, of “Live long and prosper,” to the applause of the guests. A decade after First Contact, during the dedication of Earth’s first Warp 5 complex, Cochrane—who was initially motivated to create the warp drive for ‘women and money’—addressed the crowd: “Don’t try tp be a great man, just be a man, and let history make its own judgments,” it never being clear it the later retcon whether the test-flight was successful due to the intervention of the Enterprise and the Borg attempt to prevent it, and “This engine will let us go boldly where no man has gone before.” Ooby dooby.

synchronoptica

one year ago: Carrie at fifty-plus (with synchronoptica)

seven years ago: another hit from Melanie, Lustron steel homes plus the Pillars of Creation

eight years ago: optical character recognition, amending the US constitution plus the news is fake but the leaks are real

nine years ago: the Panama Papers, Star Trek inspired cosmetics, manhole apartments, a gallery of Mid-Century Modern homes plus David Bowie as Abraham Lincoln

ten years ago: Easter greetings

eighty-nine seconds til midnight (12. 361)

Via the New Shelton wet/dry, we are directed to this scrolly-telling essay (in the style of the artists from the sadly former Nib, from the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (previously) blog entitled “Mars Attacks” about how Elon Musk’s and his colonial aspirations for the Red Planet, as a part of a general aversion towards rules, could transform into a flagrant violation of the Outer Space Treaty, which far from a relic of the Cold War has served to preserve humankind here on Earth by preventing weaponisation of the higher ground and includes liability rules for damage caused by spacecraft, the safe return of fallen astronauts, an international rocket registry and the prohibition of projecting national sovereignty or claiming domain. Surely it is the intent of Muskovite Martians to proclaim their independence from terrestrial entanglements, however that first Virginia Dare might be reliant on Earth-based resources and wealth, and even if the flag nation does nothing to stop this assertion, other signatories will, launching a new geopolitical conflict over extraterrestrial claims.

where is everybody? (12. 342)

Being obsessed with the philosophical and cosmological question of Fermi’s Paradox and having considered the Great Filter beforehand, we enjoyed revisiting the proposal that no one makes it—that is succeeds as a spacefaring civilisation with a constellation of lesser filters setting up intractable hurdles to the accomplishment, progress sabotaged by biological limitations, superstition, self-destructive tendencies of a society, pollution or a misguided Singularity. In that unlikely loneliness, however, there also lies an equally improbable (though less so than intelligent life evolving no where else in the Universe) of a grand conspiracy of those that have made it exercising and enforcing a sort of Prime Directive to cloak their evidence and activities. While that might seem patriarchal (but who knows what challenges and dangers could await) and demotivating in terms of reaching for the stars, humans—on any others on the cusp—might have never had the ambition to invent and explore with gods in the sky.

synchronoptica

one year ago: a Euro Pop playlist (with synchronoptica) 

seven years ago: a yōkai primer, assorted links to revisit, transhumance plus an AI suggests April Fools’ pranks

eight years ago: more links to enjoy plus Mr Roger’s Conflict Series

nine years ago: Easter origins, a venerable guesthouse plus a sinister lullaby

ten years ago: night-vision eye-drops plus even more links

mercury-redstone booster development (12. 333)

On this day in 1961, the rocket prototype built in Alabama under the guidance of Wernher von Braun (previously) was launched from Cape Canaveral for one final test-flight to certify its safety and fitness for human transport—using a dummy as the occupant as with concurrent Soviet trials. The rocket reached an altitude of one hundred eight five kilometres in low Earth-orbit and was successfully salvaged in the Atlantic approximately eight minutes later. Alan Shepard had volunteered to fly himself but was strongly discouraged y von Braun because of the risk—had Shepard been allowed to go, he would have become the first human in outer space, instead of the second, Yuri Gagarin achieving that milestone less than three weeks later. 

synchronoptica

one year ago: The Breakfast Club (with synchronoptica), assorted links worth revisiting plus The Initiation of Sarah (1978)

seven years ago: quitting Facebook, the train from Pyongyang plus the March for Our Lives

eight years ago: ISPs allowed to sell browsing history plus Canadian schools cancel field trips to US over concerns of protecting students with immigrant backgrounds

nine years ago: The New Yorker mascot plus a quantum loophole in causality

ten years ago: more links to enjoy, fonts that promote recall and proofreading plus crusades against the unorthodox

the eagle has landed (12. 329)

Dropping its own diversity, equality and inclusion plans announced for the return trip to the Moon back in 2019, NASA administrators are left on a backfoot struggling to comply with the executive orders memory-holing real and perceived affirmative action and the original symbolism that the crew would include the first woman on the lunar surface and “the first person of colour” for the third mission of the Artemis programme, named after Apollo’s twin sister. One of the last official acts of his first term, NASA had ironically developed a graphic novel series celebrating the contributions of women to space exploration, including a fictional understudy to lead the diverse crew for the upcoming journey, slated for November 2027 but likely delayed further due to not having choose the landing crew and further cuts to the space agency’s workforce under DOGE—which has expressed a shift in priorities to go straight to Mars.

mothman and the man in the moon (12. 270)

Having come across his astronomical illustrations beforehand, we appreciated this monograph on artist and amateur astronomer and entomologist Étienne Léopold Trouvelot of French extraction who fled to Massachusetts because of his republican leanings after the coup d’état by Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte in 1851. Problems with raising silk-producing moths (previously) in his adopted home in North America revised his long time interest in studying insects, and unsuccessful in breeding domestic species, had shipment of spongy moth (Lymantria dispar, also known as the gypsy moth) egg masses sent over from Europe. The larvae Trouvelot was experimenting with unfortunately escaped into the wild, where this voracious, invasive species has been damaging woodland habitats ever since. The incident, realising the gravity of his actions, made Trouvelot return to sketching pictures of the heavens, eventually attracting the attention of the director of the Harvard College Observatory due to his prodigious and detailed output, ultimately leading to the publication of his pastel studies of the Sun, Moon and planets the opportunity to turn his hobby into a profession, contributing to a number of scientific papers.

7x7 (12. 243)

tvwishes: a reappraisal of digital preservation—via Waxy  

wasp 121β: ultra hot Jupiter exoplanet has a uniquely layered and roiling atmosphere—see previously  

unitary executive theory: latest Trump EO reigns in independent agencies, testing the limits of presidential power  

the doors of kypseli: the intricate entrances of an Athens neighbourhood  

gesserit jazz: a 1977 funk album inspired by Frank Herbert’s epic novel—see previously 

jikipedia: the rise and fall of China’s Urban Dictionary of internet slang  

dark entry records: queer album cover art from Gwenaël Rakkte