Returning to the long, narrow peninsula of Gรขrves opposite Port-Louis via the route sandwiched between two beach fronts, we took in some more views of the harbour and marina of this an storied fishing village and ancient former quarry.
synchronoptica
one year ago: a visit to the Rocco di Caldรจ (with synchronopticรฆ)
twelve years ago: plugging leaks
thirteen years ago: redefining the second
fourteen years ago: the introduction of the bar code
fifteen years ago: busting a Russian spy ring
Originally established as an annex for Port Louis (see below), the maritime hub Le Orient was significantly expanded during the age of transatlantic trade (including the triangular commerce in enslaved individuals) by the French East India Company, hence the name of the largest city in the region, shortened to Lorient—see previously—and though the chartered concern was also bankrupt with the South Sea Bubble but maintained its importance as an export centre. Feeling La Havre was too exposed, the Nazi Kriegsmarine established their largest U-Boot harbour here in 1940 and 1941, and despite heavy bombardment from Allied forces, they were unable to destroy the submarine pins and instead leveled the city to deny Germans further amenities.
synchronoptica
one year ago: Ponti dei Salti (with synchronopticรฆ)
thirteen years ago: drone warfare (Dronen Bedrohung) plus incomplete graffiti
fourteen years ago: copper thievery
fifteen years ago: shades of green and photosynthesis
The port community known for its sardine and later tuna and mackerel fishing is named for the river (Stรชr an Intel) that empties here into the gulf of Morbihan, and we owed the tip to a mural of the campsite’s bathrooms, learning such a picturesque ensemble of beached shipwrecks did exist and were very near by.
synchronoptica
one year ago: master medium Patience Worth (with synchronopticรฆ) plus a blocked alpine pass
eleven years ago: the diplomatic corps written exam and educational standards
twelve years ago: GCHQ and dragnet surveillance
fifteen years ago: boycotting Big Oil
sixteen years ago: an homage to towels
We appreciated the chance to revisit the works of graphic designer Edward Wadsworth, best known as a forerunner of the art movement known as Vorticism which saw a practical—though possibly not as effective as hoped—application in transferring dazzle camouflage designs for the Royal Navy fleet during World War I (see previously)—through the medium of his woodcuts. 
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark’s fourth studio album was inspired in concept and cover art by a 1983 gallery showing of Wadsworth’s works. Conscripted as a sub-lieutenant himself, Wadsworth’s monochromatic pieces reflect the same maritime and industrial themes and abstractions to decode and encode. Much more from John Coulthart’s Feuilleton at the link up top.
Via Web Curios, we appreciated learning about the pervasive packets of silica gel we’ve mostly encountered inside bags of doggy treats (not a prize per se and while not necessarily harmful to handle made of the same silicon dioxide that makes up glass for drinkware, wind shields and screens for electronic devices, a less device and porous form of glass but definitely not to be eaten) and sometimes lining the 
pockets of new clothes and soles of shoes—which although we’ve been rather compliantly socking in linen drawers for sometime now (the pictured sachet of an oxygen scavenger is materially something totally different but also extends the sell-by-date and keeps content fresh) based on something once read about how they can combat dampness and mildew, we realised we knew nothing about the history and growth of the industry that mirrors global trade and just-in-time delivery. The process for the manufacture of the nodules was mature by the 1930s, the beads exhibiting the rather remarkable property of absorbing forty percent of its weight in water vapour but there was not really a market for the pouches of wicking agent until the age of globalisation when everything from garments to crisps to gadgets where subject to a range of environmental factors air and sea and overland before getting to retailers and consumers. Rather than making packaging or shipping containers more robust to withstand these changing conditions, silica gel distributors began offering a less expensive alternative—complete with a protocol of how many packets might be needed depending on a product’s composition and journey—to stave off despoiling moisture. While the material can be recharged, regenerated (see also), stuck in a drawer, they have limited effect. More from Scope of Work at the link above.
synchronoptica
one year ago: 1974’s Eurovision finale (with synchronoptica) plus Annie Lennox’ debut solo album
seven years ago: assorted links to revisit, a coup in South Korea, the rediscovery of Pompeii plus Florida restricts public beach access
eight years ago: textile artist Dorothy Grebenak, protesting Putin, Sweden’s failure museum, designing Trump’s border wall, animated antiques plus the MAR-A-LAGO act
nine years ago: mapping Mt Fuji plus an exercise in character building
ten years ago: Motor City Mannheim
Though US president-elect Trump’s stupid antics are already too much to keep up with, they become too hard to ignore once the enter the territory of diplomatic crises and quashing internationally agreed upon norms of behaviour. A bundle of such instances can be traced to a recent assertion that America can and should reclaim the Panama Canal because of perceived unfair transit fees applied to US flagged vessels 
(never mind how America tanked British supremacy over a similar squabble in the Suez)—which seem to have antecedents in a Trump branded hotel in the capital that failed to pay Panamanian income taxes and social security for employees. The operation and management is administered (since New Year’s Eve 1999 when the US handed over the concession) by the Panama Canal Authority, a government agency which considers the waterway inalienable patrimony. Per the Torrijos-Carter treaties (see above) negotiated in 1977, America retains a right to defend the canal from threats to neutral operations but holds no claim to it. While there are two ports in the isthmus operated by China, there are no indications that American ship traffic has been affected, though imposing higher transit fees on non-US carriers might be seen as a way to bolster planned universal tariffs. At the same time, Trump is also renewing calls for the sale of Greenland to America (following offers to annex Canada as the fifty-first state), calling ownership and control of the Danish autonomous territory “an absolute necessity” for reasons of national security and global freedom. Neither property is for sale.
Via tmn, we are directed to a brief chronology of the superyacht (its definition and the more exclusive class of gigayacht) and how that 
history corresponds with the larger world of oligarchy and status, beginning with (of course with acknowledged antecedents) shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis’ Christina O, a surplus Canadian anti-submarine frigate purchased in 1954 and outfitted with swimming pool that could be converted into a dance floor an appointed with furnishing crafted from the leather of whale foreskin and pornographic scenes from the Odyssey carved in whale teeth. Only keeping it for three years, the Trump Princess is flipped to another Saudi prince in 1991 after one of the previous owner’s casinos went bankrupt. A boasted new yacht, the Trump Princess II, which will be “something in excess of four hundred feet long—closer to five hundred feet” fails to materialise. There are dozens of other data points and anecdotes to consider on how that unattainable lifestyle informs the everyday reality of us all.
Originally launched in 1962 by the Scripps Institute of Oceanography and the US Office of Naval Research and decommissioned since 2017, the R/P FLIP, the vessel (see previously) designed to partially flood its ballast and capsize to pitch it backwards ninety degrees, was headed to the scrapyard but has now been saved and will see a second incarnation as an environmental research ship. Past studies included whale behaviour, ocean turbulence and effects on intensity and directionality of underwater acoustics—presumably to track the movement of submarines—see also. The engineering marvel able to reorient its labs ninety metres under the surface and shield experiments from the wind and waves is being purchased by DEEP, a private consortium devoted to exploration and developing subsea habitats, and is being retrofitted in France. More from the CBC at the link above.
Dissecting this article about the trending popularity of cruise vacations by people identifying with the cohort of Millennials and GenZ—via Web Curios—left me depressed and angry, not knowing whether to lay the onus on the industry catering to a different demographic, sensational generational baiting characterising progenitorial peers as stay-ins and homebodies or latch it to the holiday-makers finding appeal not in the port-of-call but never leaving the house, reliably fed and bed with the opportunity for a few no stakes sharable moments. What do you think? What hit as really was the commiseration over vacations that had no gone to plan and finding such a preferable alternative in the safe and secure with all the familiar comforts, especially after revolts against this mode of tourism.
synchronoptica
one year ago: assorted links worth revisiting (with synchronoptica)
seven years ago: crony capitalism hindering Puerto Rico’s recovery
eight years ago: a half-buried church in Helsinki
nine years ago: banksters sentenced in Iceland, Germany’s little reunification plus Dutch bubble houses
twelve years ago: vampiric gourds
Leaving the Haussee of Himmelpfort, we took a short trip through the tributary Wolblitz (the river‘s name meaning the Little Havel in Old Slavic) for a really magical route with wooden bays and tight curves all to ourselves and crossed into the public dock in Lychen. We walked around the town for a bit and had a nice lunch at a former coffee mill and rostery. One the way back to the boat, we passed the the historic home of one Johann Kirsten who circa 1900 invented the push pen, thumbtack, whose present occupant had somewhat appropriately it seemed established a Museum of Fake News, using the windows as a bulletin board for made-up headlines. The weather turning windy and rainy and not much time left in the day for traveling, we returned to the campsite by the lock in Himmelpforte and had our pitch still waiting for us—although our neighbors had moved on, an older couple who had been on the waters since May and had been working their jobs remotely thanks to the pervasive WiFi coverage with the company of their two adventurous cats.
synchronotpica
one year ago: assorted links to revisit (with synchronoptica), a pristine tomb discovered in Naples plus a fully outfitted station wagon
eight years ago: more links to enjoy, the Altamura Man plus Parliament under repair
nine years ago: the Best of Reddit
ten years ago: parenting around the world
eleven years ago: debt-limits and default
synchronoptica
one year ago: fantastic spiralling art with AI (with synchronoptica), a graphic design collection curated by Kristen Lound plus LEGO as a media for fine art
seven years ago: murderous dioramas, proposed sovereignty for a Great Lake plus Japanese bathroom ghosts
eight years ago: Obama to his successor on unfinished business, solar plasma eruptions, a new front in the Cola Wars plus early canned, robotic music
nine years ago: holiday creep
ten years ago: the Ebola outbreak, stealing drug-offenders identities plus the landed gentry unchanged for a thousand years
