11x11 (11. 259)

cheesemongering: a specialist seller experiments with fifty-six varieties to find the perfect grilled sandwich 

vector portraits: photographs of drivers at speed traveling in Los Angeles  

decision 2024: this is the biggest year yet—and possibly democracy’s biggest test with over half the world’s population voting within the next twelve months  

run, rabbit, run: an AI-powered gadget designed to use one’s apps for one sells out 

electronics gives us a way of classifying things: Microsoft (now the most valued company in the world thanks to its part in AI, a font of misinformation) once explained to author Terry Pratchett how technology referees would make propaganda a thing of the past  

squaring the circle: Substackers against Nazis—reloaded—and a reminder that one can’t be just a little bit facist  

re-migration: a coalition of the far-right met outside of Berlin in November to discuss mass deportations  

blanket immunity: Trump’s legal team presents arguments for a president above the law—setting up the US Supreme Court to either rule on his exoneration or eligibility  

proxima swarm: US space agency supports bold proposal to reach the next nearest star system with a wall of tiny craft propelled by photons—see previously 

flower taxi: a mobile florist from 1960s London  

marie harel: producers of Camembert in Normandy fear EU recycling regulation could mean the end for their traditional wooden box packaging

rest in power (11. 234)

Continuing a long-standing tradition, Chris the Barker (previously) has made another Sgt Pepper’s style collage as a tribute and remembrance to those who have passed in 2023, updated until the last minute and reaching back all the way to the beginning of the year lest we forget any legends lost. It’s a crowded assembly to reflect on and features a key—also in the style of the album’s liner notes. Pee-wee Herman, Dame Edna, Sinéad O’Connor, Tina Turner, and Jane Birkin feature prominently but also includes political figures and cross-over moguls like Silvio Berlusconi, Jerry Springer and Gina Lollobrigida as well as Bobi, the oldest dog ever, and the Sycamore Gap tree who get their visual obituaries.  Shared on X, we can’t locate a reference to the death of Twitter on the cover however.

synchronoptica

one year ago: a new addition to the family plus assorted links to revisit

two years ago: St Telemachus, the umbrella patented, Hearts of Space, rogue waves plus Dinner for One

three years ago: making it through 2020, your daily demon: Ose, a Scooby Doo clone, the Julian calendar plus the launch of VH1 (1985)

four years ago: welcoming 2020, Unix time plus Star Wars on a synthesiser 

five years ago: ringing in 2019, banning single-use plastics, generated automobiles plus more on Ultima Thule

six years ago: more welcoming the New Year, the corrugated sculptures of Warren King plus artful thinking

mcmxcvi (11. 227)

Due to the periodic nature of the Gregorian calendar, 2024 corresponds precisely to the year 1996, twenty-eight years ago. We can speculate further what historic events from that year might resonate with the coming one, like in January, with the re-election of Yasser Arafat as president of the Palestinian Authority, the February peaceful transition of power in Haiti and a ceasefire in Sarajevo, March’s intimidating military exercises conducted by China along the coast of Taiwan, April’s Hutu genocide in Burundi, the arrest of the Unabomber, Israeli’s Operation Grapes of Wrath as retaliation for terrorist attacks perpetrated by Lebanon, May’s Port Arthur massacre which prompts Australia to introduce a nationwide ban on gun-ownership, the truce in Chechnya or the election of Benjamin Netanyahu, July’s cloning of Dolly the Sheep, the re-election of Boris Yeltsin or the Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta Georgia, August’s first three-parent human baby, November’s re-election of US president Clinton. We also have the choice of recycling the calendars from 1968 or 1940.

7x7 (11. 221)

pivot point: this year and the next will be judged as humanity’s failure to tackle the climate crisis  

fact check: a selection of debunked fake news from the past year  

sears & roebuck: through to 1971, a US department commissioned Vincent Price to assemble a collection of fine art to be sold in stores  

chronophoto: a challenge similar to GeoGuessr except one has to date an image on the map 

 🍾: the natural wonder material returning to the Moon and beyond 

jealousy list: articles that Bloomberg contributors wish they had scooped—see previously  

1%: the world population will stand at eight billion on the new year

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links to revisit

two years ago: 2021 in review

three years ago: 2020 in review, Brexit on tech plus cleaning up space junk

four years ago: the legacy of Thomas Beckett, nanotechology, a visit to a bunker museum plus flat-earther and other science denialism

five years ago: the Fifth Day of Christmas,  long-lived trees, dinosaurs of the year plus the competition to host Amazon’s second headquarters

9x9 (11. 218)

inukshuk: CGP Grey grades the flags of the Canadian provinces—see previously  

omnibus: a compilation of the best books of the year 

52 things: Kottke shares some inspired, superlative gleanings from the past twelve months 

black smokers: hydrothermal vents evolved to prey on benthic Santas  

editors’ picks: some of NPR’s favourite, possibly overlooked stories of the year  

in a big country, dreams stay with you: assessing the size of YouTube—via Waxy  

there are two kinds of bubbles: speculation on the speculative nature of artificial intelligence from Cory Doctorow  

font foundry: the year in typography  

first nations: the contentious, selective display of tribal flags at the Oklahoma state capitol

11x11 (11. 208)

mmxxiii: the year in anniversaries, including the debuts of Question Hound, Casablanca, the World Wide Web, The Exorcist and the Yom Kippur War 

seasons greetings: decades of off-kilter Christmas cards from John Waters 

explainer: five video essays worth your holiday downtime 

tl;dr: public nominates longreads worth revisiting  

enigmatic chemical reactions: runaway chaotic catalysts are heating up two massive landfills near Los Angeles  

cash-on-deposit: leaving money in your bank-account also contributes to one’s carbon-footprint  

lithub: the biggest literary stories of the year 

a year in illustration: the collages accompanying Pluralistic posts  

re:view: Dezeen’s annual top tens 

et exaltavit humiles: a medieval token likely dispensed by a Boy Bishop, who held authority from the feast of Saint Nicholas through the Day of Holy Innocents, was discovered in Norfolk  

2023: the year in review from the Financial Times

write-in campaign (11. 198)

In a narrow, historic ruling by the state Supreme Court, justices in Colorado concluded that Donald Trump is barred from the primary ballot, citing the 1868 fourteenth constitutional amendment’s Civil War-era Disqualification Clause (see previously), for engaging in insurrection in encouraging the January Sixth attack on the US Capitol and threatening to overturn the electoral process. The campaign to re-election Trump immediately filed an appeal with the US Supreme Court to overturn the state’s decision. The decision includes a stay through the fifth of January, the deadline for inclusion in the state’s March Super Tuesday initial round of voting, to give Trump the chance to fight the ruling and if challenged by the high court, Trump’s name will be included on the ballot for the Republican primary. Should other states issue similar bans, it could make it difficult to impossible for Trump to secure the GOP nomination, though other Republican candidates are threatening to boycott Colorado altogether. President Biden is not included on the Democratic ballot for New Hampshire’s upcoming primary over a long-simmering dispute within the party about what states and regions should get the first say in determining how nominees will fare in the broader field and proposing to move the prime spot from New England to a more diverse location.

looking for his love and mercy should not be subject to an exhaustive moral analysis as a precondition to receiving it (11. 192)

Reversing a 2021 ruling that characterised such relationships as not conforming with God’s plan for matrimony and family, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith expounding on a missive sent to two conservative cardinals by the Pope which suggested that blessings could be offered by priests to same-sex couples—and those in “irregular situations”—in limited circumstances decreed that such benedictions, at the discretion of ordained ministers, could be offered freely and without stint (see also) provided that conferring of them could not be confused with the sacrament of marriage and resemble the rituals associated with it. 

 synchronoptica

one year ago: a Paul Rand Christmas

two years ago: Assassins (1990), St Winibald plus pingxiety illustrated

three years ago: St Sebastian, The Nutcracker (1892) plus a special Nativity Scene for the Vatican

four years ago: the moons of Saturn plus the self-injuring Anglo-Saxons

five years ago: postage art, a clock that requires maths plus a miniaturising ray

memeification (11. 188)

We quite enjoyed the rather uniting distillation of the year’s news in meme form from Hyperallergic, covering topics from Barbieheimer, orcas attacking yachts, AI images of the Pope and how most men think about the Roman Empire on a daily basis, a viral moment of Karenness and the mugshot of Donald Trump all re-contextualised.

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links to revisit plus Dune (1984)

two years ago: Preserved Fish III, the Wall Street Charging Bull, more MST3K classics, mushroom-derived dyes plus pyrotechnic posters

three years ago: End Times,  Saint Nicasius, filming locations for Topaz plus Well-Armed Peasants

four years ago: first-flight (1782) 

five years ago: interesting trivia, the brief monarchy of Finland plus predictive text

10x10 (11. 184)

arrows of time: a timeline tracing the evolution of human understanding through various magisteria—via the new shelton wet/dry  

horary quandrant: oldest dated English time-keeping instrument goes under the hammer—see previously  

guten morgen: the newly launched Nightjet service between Berlin and Paris marks a return of sleeper trains—see previously 

the beef and dairy network: industry delegates and lobbyists triple at COP28 

theory of mind: researchers reveal a deep chasm in how perception varies from individual to individual  

animation v physics: Alan Becker’s follow on video to Animation v Maths—via Waxy  

oed: the joys of exploring the authoritative dictionary—see previously  

rewind: carbon removal technology is also a time-machine—though presently only able to move the needle a little—via Good Internet 

 the year in search: Google presents its annual review  

the great scrollback: the Verge’s features the best archived tweets

schminkautomat (11. 182)

Via Messy Nessy Chic’s peripatetic findings and although originally staged as a hoax (Aprilscherz from the photo archives of the Süddeustsche Zeitung), such acoin-op beauty dispensary must certainly be a contemporary, inevitable reality regardless of whether the calibre of the technology has seen much improvement over the intervening century. 

Prospective users are invited gauge the colours to right tones and style, insert 10₰, face the portal and turn the hand crank. A bell sounds when the makeup (the word comes from the Late Middle High German verbs for smearing and stroking) has been applied.

7x7 (11. 143)

sonic deconstructions: 1950s radio broadcaster’s album of Foley art, “Strange to Your Ears”  

onfim’s homework: a Wikipedia rabbit hole inspires an individual to get a tattoo of an eleventh century Novgorod pupil’s writings and illustrations discovered preserved on birch bark—via Hyperallergic’s Required Reading  

year in review: Time magazine’s one hundred top images of 2023—via Nag on the Lake’s Sunday Links (lots more to explore here) 

amaterasu: scientists detect an ultra-high energy cosmic ray—the most powerful in thirty years of observation 

<!--: a collection of historic HTML innovations—see also  

kenough: the story of Denny Fouts, hustler and literary muse for Truman Capote, Gore Vidal and Christopher Isherwood  

pie hole: a silly twenty-year-old vocal exercise that holds up

the streisand effect (11. 124)

US teens and young adults are not stanning (the term itself taken rather ironically from an Eminem rap song as a portmanteau of stalker and fan about a fictional encounter with an obsessed, ardent admirer whose pleas to get the artist’s attention turn desperate and deadly and this complex and unsavoury form of adulation has been simplified into shorthand for something short of support and mild interest) terrorist and al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden. Rather this supposed trend of discovery on the escapingly recent past through bin Laden’s Letter to America is a moral panic triangulated with an unrelenting attack on the TikTok platform for its virality and tenuous connections to the Chinese government and the war in Palestine and generational division, and raises serious questions about how we can (selectively) gauge shares and views and how exposure (propelled in part through censorship and timorous outrage) is different from indoctrination.

the battle of the chinese farm (11. 060)

Occurring this day in 1973 after Egyptian forces had advanced beyond the Israeli line of defence during the previous engagement, the Battle of the Sinai, ultimately repulsed but with Israel sustaining significant losses, the titular battlefield that marked a turning point in the Yom Kippur War was given the misnomer for an Egyptian agricultural research station equipped with Japanese-made technology and over the next two days managed to push Egyptian forces back across the Suez Canal in one of the deadliest and brutal clashes of the conflict. Plans for crossing and securing a corridor for re-supply and relief were considered too ambitious and exacting with deviations from the established dead-lines resulting in losses for the Israeli Defence Force, but the Egyptians girded the exposed flank of their forward division (as the IDF had hoped, misinterpreting their objective) and were cut of from re-enforcements, causing Egypt’s withdrawal from the Sinai and abandon its attempts to re-establish control over the peninsula.

queen of jazz (11. 059)

Having recently learned about the career and contributions of the Jazz Age legend Adelaide Hall, we appreciated having her biography limned more fully by the British Newspaper Archive (via Strange Company), gaining an appreciation of how Hall achieved the status of true superstardom in her adoptive UK and was remarkably resilient in her touring and performance schedule, appearing everywhere and adored by audiences. Spanning more than seven decades, Hall was inscribed inscribed in the Guinness Book of World Records among the most enduring recording artists and collaborated with Cab Calloway, Rudy Vallee, Duke Ellington, Josephine Baker and Louis Armstrong among countless others. Here is Hall in 1948 performing one of her signature songs, “A World is Turning,” at the Nightingale Club. More at the links above.

the third intifada (11. 043)

Nearly coinciding with the 1973 Yom Kippur War when a coalition of Arab states fought to retake the Sinai Peninsula and Golan Heights territories occupied by Israel, the militant governing authority of Palestine, Hamas, together with other nationalists groups launched a large-scale surprise offensive against Israel from the Gaza Strip, breaking through barrier and crossing the Green Line, in the first such incursion since 1948 with a barrage of thousands of rockets and hostages taken. Declaring a state of war, Israel has retaliated in what may escalate into a regional conflict. The near complete blockade of Gaza in force since 2007 (when Hamas was elected to political power) and denial of statehood to Palestine or any meaningful form of self-determination, though commanding officers cite tensions that occurred six months earlier at the Temple Mount / al-Aqsa Compound in Jerusalem and under Israeli jurisdiction when Passover, Eastertide and Ramadan occurred all at the same time and Muslim worshippers were forcibly removed after clashes with police.

lapse in appropriations (11. 030)

With the deadline looming and only hours left before a government shut-down (previously) looks more and more inevitable, continued in-fighting amongst Republican members in Congress sabotaged a bill sponsored by the Senate that would have have been a stop-gap measure, a continuing resolution, to keep the funded government and operational through mid-November. The Speakership in hock and the House of Representatives held ransom by a radical element willing to let the government run out of money, insistent on a thirty-percent across the board cut in budgets and halting aid to Ukraine. Despite a precariously narrow majority in Congress that cannot enforce its will (captivity to an arch-conservative, pandering wing notwithstanding) without compromise and concession, particularly in mixed jurisdiction (and again, gerrymandering that protects their seats notwithstanding), the GOP is refusing to negotiate and willing to force a crisis costly in terms of economics and repute that may prove difficult to resolve.

 

synchronoptica

one year ago: the Mayak disaster (1957) 

two years ago: assorted links to revisit

three years ago: Star Trek tarot,  the Feast of the Archangels, the cartoons of R Cobb plus more links to revisit

four years ago: more Theremin maestros plus more Middle English vulgarities

five years ago: the Munich Agreement (1938) plus the Suprematism movement

10x10 (11. 020)

osiris-rex: fulfilling a seven-year mission (previously) a space probe to collect samples from an asteroid—with further adventures planned 

succession: Rupert Murdoch’s departure from News Corp is a cold-comfort for the millions brainwashed by Fox and Friends 

be the first to like this post: more on the meaning and origins of the chain of riders and horses dispatched to send missives—see previously  

project cybersyn: more on Salvadore Allende’s plans to build a socialist internet 

fanfare: the history and physics of the trumpet  

shear madness: 1980 reportage on a cutting-edge hair salon in Kensington  

the joke and dagger department: an appreciation of the genius of Spy vs Spy, a political cartoon that wasn’t a political cartoon 

3r’s: the Swedish educational system has a renewed emphasis on handwriting, quiet reading time  

omni consumer products: New York City police lease a robocop to patrol Times Square subway station as a trial run  

all these worlds are yours—except europa, attempt no landing there: the JWST detects carbon on the surface of the Jovian moon

motion to vacate (11. 001)

In the face of another US government shutdown over perceived cultural agendas, vacant military leadership roles by a single senator opposed to the armed forces providing reproductive care to service members and diminished deadlines over internecine posturing with bald majority of only a few party members, the beleaguered Speaker of the House whose appointment was conditional and easily unseated is making further concessions and pandering to the malcontents by pursuing an impeachment inquiry into the Biden administration, couching his justification in the belief that the president mislead the public about his family’s foreign business relations, with tinny and circumstantial echoes of the self-dealing of the Trump crime family syndicate. 

Conservative elements in the Republican Party want to oust McCarthy as leader for negotiating with Biden over the debt ceiling standoff and now the same group a threatening to force a government shutdown, unless a formal impeachment inquiry is launched—the GOP having wanted to eject Biden on any pretext since the election with the attack on the Capitol and the false narrative accompanying the vote, spurious lawsuits, the withdrawal from Afghanistan—which his predecessor also instigated, Biden’s handling of the immigration crisis but are now turning to old developments over unsubstantiated allegations that the president’s son used his father’s influence and position to secure wealth for himself (Trump was impeached the first time for badgering the Ukrainian president for dirt on Biden and his son, threatening to withhold military aid if Zelenskyy could not produce) to build a case, brought unilaterally by the Speaker himself since there are not the votes in support to bring the motion to the chamber.

storm daniel (11. 000)

First affecting Greece and Turkey with massive floods before reorganising itself as a low front over the Mediterranean and overwhelming dams and causing a catastrophic breach in the Lebanese port city of Derna, the cyclone forming in the Ionian sea has proved the deadliest and most expensive event of the year, only just now dissipating with tens of thousands of casualties and exponentially more displaced. A quarter of the the ancient city was washed away with entire neighbourhoods unaccounted for, seeming carried to the sea. The unconscionable scale of the disaster is attributed in part of years of neglected infrastructure maintenance under the regime of of Muammar Gaddafi followed by civil war but the extreme weather is also on account of the effects of runaway climate change.

synchronoptica

one year ago: The Waltons (1972), spreading seeds plus an AI illustrated Bible

two years ago: assorted links to revisit plus rice harvest art

three years ago: one of the first laws enshrining freedom of the press (1770), explaining the year 2020 to someone from the past plus music to move by

four years ago: seeing the tarnish of the golden era plus RIP Eddie Money

five years ago: Trump downplays deaths in Hurricane Maria, a new Russian cathedral, Jimmy Carter Says Yes, more on calendar reforms plus Trump’s campaign manager in court