10x10 (13. 829)

danse macabre: a detailed and comprehensive exploration of the allegorical art genre—see previously—via Web Curios 

taos hum: the transcendental art of Emil Bisstram was a lure to attract nuclear scientists to Los Alamos—see also 

háskólabíó: Iceland mourns the loss of another beloved glacier—see ptreviously  

glimpse 17775: JWST studies mysterious red dots seeding the early Cosmos, suggesting that they were “black hole stars” 

singularity syllabus: a helpful round-up of recent developments on the AI front 

💂‍♀️: an in depth explainer regarding the controversy over the UK royal guards’ bear-skin hats and their ursine origins  

summa lacticinorum: an 1477 treatise on cheese and dairy—via Strange Company  

they’re all good boys: the canine portraiture of Paolo Veronese that ultimately put him on the wrong side of the Inquisition 

infrasound: the source of the ultra-low frequency global hum that has baffled scientists may be the crashing of waves—see also  

νεῶν κατάλογος: an interactive site of the Achaean fleet epically described in Homer’s Iliad—via Kottke—see also

field office (13. 816)

NASA administrator James E Webb (see previously) announcing the day prior that the new Manned Spacecraft Centre, Mission Control for the Apollo and subsequent programmes, would be built on a site southeast of Houston on a land donated to the government by Rice University, the Space Task Group vacating its offices at Langley Field, an air force base in Virginia, and relocating to Texas, the US Central Intelligence Agency began work on this day in 1961 consolidating its staff, scattered across thirty-three buildings spread throughout DC and moving into their new headquarters in Langley, technically with the address of 1000 Colonial Farm Road in the unincorporated community of McLean, Virginia. Both new centres of operations are referred to colloquially by their metonyms, the former as in “Houston, we have a problem” and for the later—despite the address, “the Farm” is the nickname for the CIA training facility on nearby Camp Peary—the designation “Langley,” the building was formally unnamed from its opening until 1999, when the complex was called the George H W Bush Centre for Intelligence in honour of its one time director and later US president. Mission Control was named the Lyndon B Johnson Space Centre in 1973 in honour of the late president and Texas native. In addition to the Kryptos sculpture, the campus of the CIA headquarters (the largest of its kind in the world until 2019 when surpassed by the BND-Zentrale once the Bundesnachrichtendienst was moved from Bonn and consolidated with other federal services in Berlin—see more) also include bronze statues of Nathan Hale, double-agent executed by the British during the Revolutionary War, and Harriet Tubman, whom is considered a model spy by the Agency for her service to the Union Army during the civil war.

day one hundred ninety-three (13. 799)

An explosive-laden Russian drone veers into Lithuanian airspace. Pentagon inspectors general warn that Operation Epic Fury has severely depleted munition stocks as US congress set to approve an arms package for Israel including forty-thousand heavy bombs. Saudi Arabia intercepts Houthi drones launched toward the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. American Space Force admits to having weapons in orbit in violation of international agreements with fears of starting a new arms’ race.

space farce (13. 772)

Another example of the abused to meaningless Poe’s Law when even a small percentage of Trump’s AI slop escapes containment into reality and distractions masquerading as policy and directives and that action figures are not human capital, the American president unveils a mock-up of the dress uniform for his Space Force Guardians, “inspired by the discipline and functionality” of the uniforms from Starship Troopers. The fact that we are sure that general-issues would look dumpy and poorly tailored on Earth or in an artificial-gravity environment is sort of beside the point as the American president did not repair immediately to the Hugo Boss apparel of the Nazi or to the derivative of the Galactic Empire, fascists already, but to the cinematic adaptation by Paul Verhoeven whose upbringing in the occupied Netherlands informed his directorial decisions—Trump wanting to leave no doubt that yes, we are the baddies from the outset—and perhaps a little too on brand for the regime. One Christian commentator insisted that the design is a perfect blend between Star Wars and Star Trek.

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links to revisit (with synchronoptica), The Tonight Show at the Berlin Wall (1961), the official residence of the US vice president plus Dr Katz: Professional Therapist

two years ago: a electromechanical rotor cipher, the ugly, car-centric focus of American urban planning plus more links worth revisiting 

three years ago: Interpol (1923) plus divination with cheese

four years ago: a controversial campaign ad (1964), a banger from John Parr plus Germany ends its public transportation subsidy

five years ago: the social engineering of kitchen design, WikiCommons (2004), a weird conspiracy involving the Muppets and 9/11, Dancing Queen (1976) plus three look-a-like candidates running for the Duma

six years ago: the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance, Clärenore Stinnes drives around the world (1929) plus Egypt’s national handball team

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. 675)

giant’s causeway: Curiosity rover discovers valley of honeycomb polygonal rock formations—see also  

ars notoria: a magical medieval text that promised a pathway to instant, universal mastery of the liberal arts 

singing seat: artist Dan Ortiz Leizman transforms Monobloc chairs into stringed instruments 

translator of original ‘minions’ epic poem slams sexless, bloodless film adaptation: most fun movie discourse since Barbenheimer—see more, see also here and here—via Kottke   

it’s giving: a glossary of Gen Z lexical constructs  

mittingsaia: a mysterious illustrated Swiss manuscript from the 1940s in the style of a European travel brochures with undecipherable captions that resemble AI hallucinations  

van allen belt: despite its small size, no bigger than North America, Mercury’s weak magnetic field can trap solar winds

synchronoptica

one year ago: Trump administration obliterates Clean Air Act plus assorted links to revisit

two years ago: obligatory voting in Australia (1924), the Likert scale plus more on millenialism

three years ago: more links to enjoy 

four years ago: a banger from Annie Lennox, even more links, more antique abecedaria plus graphic designers Elinor and Joe Selame

five years ago: time crystals, photographer Lora Webb Nichols, Olympic mottoes, assorted links worth the revisit, a world music radio station plus a David Bowie inspired costume

six years ago: more links to enjoy, a Chinese mission to Mars plus an interim emoji release

12x12 (13. 670)

we should rely less on the nazi bar somewhat: Elon Musk is given a pass for his virulent racism on the social media site he owns  

googlewhack: it’s becoming impossible to find old emails for reference—see previously 

pitsur í steinofni: the history of pizza in Iceland 

claim-jumping: taking space prospecting down a notch with no known commodity resources that could be sold profitably on Earth  

pyrocumulonimbus: the wildfires in southwest France have grown so intense that their smoke columns became a thunderstorm, with lightning strikes that ignited new fires  

absurdly optimised: the antithesis of a product review site—via Card House  

spirit airlines: Evangelical preachers, much to the dismay of fellow passengers, are turning planes in pulpits with a captive congregation       

dinopocalypse: all life with the Chicxulub impact zone sixty-six million years ago would have been immediately obliterated and grateful for it 

icc: US is pressuring countries to withdraw from the International Criminal Court, with Chad and Venezuela being the latest to begin the process of leaving the Hague 

today’s special: restaurateurs are increasingly reject AI generated advertising and menus as cheap and lazy and turn to the handmade and bespoke  

blame the home row: a work-around for not reenforcing one’s browser history and being lured into to distraction—we can relate to this 

regular animals: artist Beeple (previously) put the head of Elon Musk on a robot dog for a dynamic art installation in Berlin

synchronoptica

one year ago: balance of trade (with synchronoptica) plus more misheard lyrics

two years ago: JD Vance’s sofa memoirs, nobody reads ads, twirling towards freedom, a phoney controversy over the Olympics opening ceremony plus Friday Night Videos (1983)

three years ago: Martha of Bethany 

four years ago: departing from Newcastle 

five years ago: St Olaf, in-game economies, Lord of the Rings (1954) plus philosophical CAPTCHAs

six years ago: the Seashells of North America, more Universal Everything, the wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Diana (1981) plus Trump’s personal physician

 

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. 621)

space jam: erythrulose, a simple sugar found in raspberries and fake-tan lotion, detected in an interstellar cloud  

vindolandia: a Roman “genius”—a familiar and household spirit sculpture discovered at Hadrian’s Wall  

the kingdom of hyrule: hand-drawn maps of the The Legend of Zelda, the land inspired by the Kyoto countryside, with a bestiary of monsters 

our lives are woven together in a fabric—but the connections that make society strong also make it vulnerable: the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists on the legacy and lessons of Threads—via tmn  

médicos sin fronteras: US launches a global pressure campaign against Cuba’s last lifelines, exporting expert physicians 

the escherian stairwell: the invented legend of an impossible campus architectural feature and a perpetual downward loop 

clipart.studio: make and share cut-out collages from the Internet Archive’s magazine collection—via Waxy  

the lore of the rings: science is only beginning to appreciate the richness of the archives inside trees  

pop iii: astronomers scan the skies for elusive non-metallic behemoths, the first stars in the Cosmos

9x9 (13. 539)

criterion collection: a roundup of dirigible-themed movies, featuring, among others, Fay Wray and Ronald Reagan as secret agent Brass Bancroft  

the camelot of africa: a tour Ethiopia’s Gondar castles 

binomial coefficients: some numbers in Pascal’s triangle make very few cameos and no one is sure why  

lost world: museum docent Louis Gratacap pioneered the genre—see previously  

fast-track enlargement: talks begin for EU accession for Ukraine and Moldova  

ger:gre: Monty Python’s Ancients v Moderns football match  

planetary-mass companion: the famous Pink Planet may be a failed binary star system  

a tisket, a tasket: an update on the headquarters building of Longaberger baskets—see previously  

sac pour mal de l’air: a collection of air sickness bags from a variety of airlines

convention zone (13. 527)

The latest instalment of a multipart series on the Sun and its inner workings addresses in depth a fact briefly touched on in a recent post regarding the surprisingly glacial speed which a photon escapes the solar core to emerge as light and radiative energy. Whilst many of us may be cognisant of the fact that the beams of light reaching us from the Sun are eight minutes old due to the distance that they have to transverse and how looking up into the night sky is looking into the distant past, the fact that the stellar furnace is so dense that it takes a photon over one hundred thousand years to work its way through the crowd of excited particles to the surface strikes one as a strange contrast. Because protons emanate in all directions through the medium of packed plasma, the straightforward journey is impeded by obstacles at every step, the bumping into a fellow traveller and the redirection over and over again increases the time to make it from the core to the corona by a factor of a trillion, a dampening process calculated in a process called a random walk, that sustains the fusion reaction. This delayed makes the light in the sky prehistoric, older than civilisation.

10x10 (13. 523)

nine days in june: landmark US supreme court decisions of years past and upcoming cases during this busy time of the year  

mcmodernslopecore: AI-generated architecture—via Miss Cellania  

photovoltaic: a brief tutorial on how solar panels work—via Kottke  

linguist fingerprints: every AI talks with an accent  

i am not on harry mudd’s client list—stop talking about it, i don’t even know him: the Federation’s war with the Romulans was a total success 

defender of the realm: profiles of medieval warrior women  

dialog society: a trove of leaked documents reveals the activities of Peter Thiel’s secretive cult, prepping for WWIII with a breeding programme—see previously  

spacex: a plan to deploy a million satellites in Earth orbit would ruin the night sky for everyone  

parc güell: Antoni Gaudí’s 1926 failed housing estate has become one of Barcelona’s public spaces  

51st state: rural Illinois citizens petition to eject Chicago and split into two polities—see also 

synchronoptica

one year ago: the G7 in Alberta and the Israeli-Iran war (with synchronoptica) plus the Trump phone 

two years ago: a synthesiser performance piece , OJ Simpson flees police (1994) plus tragic children’s names

three years ago: NASCAR celebrates Pride plus a werewolf exorcism (1983)

four years ago: Star Trek: TAS retcon, the Watergate break-in (1972) plus assorted links to revisit

five years ago: Iceland reforms its naming rules, ASCII standards published (1963), the musical stylings of the Sons of Kemet plus calendrical dating formats

six years ago: US supreme court erodes the Civil Rights Act, the East German uprising of 1953, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls plus Trump sues to stop publication of a tell-all exposé

8x8 (13. 520)

bff: open-source branding for fast foods and convenience stores  

slopaganda: the fake Canadians behind Alberta’s separatist movement  

painting with light: a look back at the pioneering Quantel Paintbox system that debuted in 1981  

it is long since i saw you: the flying monk Eilmer of Malmesbury who witnessed Halley’s Comet twice  

jam handy to the rescue: The Girl on the Magazine Cover (1940)—say do you mind if I take a picture?  

biosphere: the unrealised spherical, utopian architecture of nineteenth century France—via Messy Nessy Chic  

homefront: mapping all Russian casualties in the Ukraine war in order to expose the human costs of the fighting  

at participating locations: a 1977 commercial for the McFeast

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links to revisit (with synchronopticæ) plus photographer Lycien-David Cséry

optotype (13. 517)

The second star of the constellation Ursa Major (the Big Dipper or the Plough or in Arabic بَنَاتُ نَعْشٍ الكُبْرَى , the daughters of the bier—those who bear the funeral litter) and it was considered a test of visual acuity for those whose keen eyesight could resolve the second star of its tail or handle, Mizar (ζ Ursae Majoris, meaning apron or wrapping in Arabic) from its fainter companion Alcor (it’s name being literally that) with the eye exam likened to being able to distinguish a horse and rider at distance. Other civilisations had other asterisms used for the same purposes. The Latinised adage, Vidit Alcor, at non lunam plenam—for he saw Alcor yet not the full Moon, came to signify one whom couldn’t see the forest for the trees.

synchronoptica

one year ago: Iranian nuclear talks (with synchronopticæ), an Airstream inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright, US tech CEOs enlist in the army plus a Simpsons rewatch project

twelve years ago: digitally curating street art plus East Germany strikes down legislation outlawing homosexual relationships (1969)

thirteen years ago: the Italian silk industry plus more fallout from Snowden’s revelations

fourteen years ago: the United States of poverty plus a Fathers’ Day greeting 

fifteen years ago: Iceland crowd-sources its constitution 

sixteen years ago: more on Afghanistan’s mineral resources 

radio bubble (13. 449)

Via tmn, we enjoyed contemplating how much we’ve contributed to the cosmic conversation with the ever expanding shell of signals, every form of broadcast communication that has escaped the ionosphere and into the void of space. Though only a few missives were intentional and the vast scale of galaxy means that despite the impressive sounding volume of the bubble, two-hundred and forty light years across (the radius cubed of radio history multiplied by π times four-thirds, dating back to Marconi’s experiments at the turn of the last century, beamed out at the speed of light) only covers a vanishing small fraction of our own galactic local neighbourhood, still the silence (see above) is humbling and lonely. Our vision far outpaces our voice.  More from the Scientific Drop at the link above.

casemod (13. 436)

An homage to classic LEGO consoles and control panels (previously), we appreciated this workstation from design studio Watt IV for an Apple Mini with the housing palette referencing both the 1979 space line of playsets and the 1984 Macintosh 128K. The sloped brick features a touch-screen display and is meant to be used an extension to one’s desktop for instance as a dedicated interface and monitoring station for the life support systems of one’s smart home. More from DesignBoom at the link above, including instructions on how to make one’s own dashboard.

pearl of great price (13. 420)

Described variously as a star and planet—though to be fair, the distinction from prehistory to pre-modern times has not always been been clear-cut, in the Book of Abraham, we learn courtesy of Dangerous Minds, that the celestial body called Kolob is the seat of the throne of God. Beyond the Seventh Heaven and perhaps astronomically meant to be obscure by the Zone of Avoidance, the planet was sited by the eponymous prophet and Methuselah with the aid of the set of seer-stones Urim and Thummim (see above, see also), and in the Mormon belief system Jesus has his own home world and the righteous get their own planets at the centre of the Universe or near the galactic core (what does God need with a starship?) where a day measures one-thousand terrestrial years. More at the links above.

artemis ii (13. 315)

Any other day, a crewed mission to lunar orbit would be the only news story, but given the world of American hubris and hegemony, with wars in the Middle and Far East, Trump threatening to withdraw from NATO, the climate catastrophe, etc, etc, the awe-inspiring achievement that the world could collectively take pride in is overshadowed in the headlines. Whilst not landing on the Moon for this iteration, the capsule launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, if all goes according to plan, will take four individuals the farthest anyone has been from Earth, tracing a figure-eight around the Moon and back in a ten day journey, the flyby the first foray beyond low Earth orbit since 1972. The Apollo XIII and X missions entered geostationary orbit around the Moon but Artemis will assume a free return trajectory, similar to Apollo XIII. Among the historical firsts in store for the crew include the first woman, person of colour and in Canadian Space Agency astronaut the first non-US citizen to leave low Earth orbit. The landing mission is currently scheduled for 2028. Watch the countdown live at NPR at the link up top.

9x9 (13. 308)

ruina montium: an striking landscape in Spain created by the ancient Romans fracking for gold—via Miss Cellania  

13 ｘ 7 = 28: Abbot and Costello try to meet their sales quota—via MetaFilter 

i’m your hell, i’m your dream—i’m nothing in between: a linguistic and semantic history of the term bitch 

anatoly kolodkin: US waives sanctions to allow Russian tanker to deliver crude oil to Cuba  

coalition of the willing: recalling the legacy Icelandic PM Davíð Oddsson of committing the nation to the unjustified invasion of Iraq in 2003, juxtaposed with contemporary Spain  

cocktail nation: Spy Vibe’s regular segment on swank vintage soundtracks  

lip-filler accent: influencers inform the way we speak—via Nag on the Lake, see also  

gigo: AI is an accelerant for academic fraud, selling papers and citations to pad one’s portfolio  

unoosa: a profile of the director of the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs who alerts the world of impending asteroid impacts

7x7 (13.275)

rocketman: more on the centenary of Robert Goddard’s first launch—via Miss Cellania  

take the q train: a 1987 subway trip to Coney Island captured by pre-internet vlogger Nelson Sullivan  

cabbage architecture: how a bitter shrub became scores of distinct vegetables—via Quantum of Sollazzo  

limehouse: reconstructing Pennyfield’s Chinatown in East London  

outrageous fortune: the 1931 novel Windfall by Robert Andrews line of sight: see how far you can see plus the grandest vistas

twinkle, twinkle: a guide to identifying the planets and stars from xkcd—previously