9x9 (13. 861)

the need to understand and describe a thing before applying ai to it is a bottleneck: theory free machine learning and broken causality 

 ν_e: Nobel prize in physics awarded to Belgian scientist studying neutrinos at the South Pole  

mirror-test: Freddie Yauner’s looking-glass mask  

verschlusssachen: former German spy chief arrested for espionage 

melpomene: Meta’s Muse agentic AI is a privacy nightmare for the masses  

october is the treasurer of the year: John Dunbar’s ode to the month 

reflecting pool: stepping stones across a shallow pond on the roof of a cable car station offer a view of the Austrian Alps  

optogenetics: physiology top honours goes to three German researchers studying how light pulse affect body and mind 

we are going to kill unalive: self-censorship for the sake of the algorithm

domain squatting (13. 855)

Trump, deciding that the potential for the eschatological world ending crisis was giving AI an bad reputation, along with the universally despised data-centres needed to keep inflating the bubble and buoy up the American economy, recently rebranded it as SI, now with an apparent mandate within the federal government and defence contractors not to dead-name Super Intelligence. In Polish, it is called Sztuczna inteligencja (SI) and in German Künstliche Intelligenz (KI) and Umetna inteligentnost (UI)—though these abbreviations are rarely used in common parlance, albeit for the latter, it happens to be the country code top-level domain for Slovenia, coincidentally the homeland of Melania Trump (they’re not sending their best people), First Lady and hooker introduced to the future American president by Jeffrey Epstein (the Iran war has proved to be a good distraction) and by all rights would have been deported to a hostile third nation if it weren’t for her anchor baby. With the actual .ai already spoken (calling it American Intelligence would net nothing) for by Anguilla and witnessing the fallout occurring after Chagos was scheduled for independence, it wouldn’t at all be surprising if the Trump Crime Family Syndicate—and sycophantic corporations—weren’t already lining up for the new rollout, the rebranding intimating that Trump invented it. Ljubljana thankfully has registry laws to counter cybersquatting in bad faith unlike the lawless US trademark regime.

day two hundred ten (13. 852)

Hegseth announces that US troops will get a day off to call their in the upcoming midterms—federal workers are granted up to three hours of administrative leave (down from four hours) whilst the rest of the voting public do not receive any allowance to exercise their democratic right. Pressure mounts for another referendum in the UK to annul Brexit and rejoin the EU as polls reveal over half of voters of all political persuasion support reentry into the single market. Russian airstrikes on bridges in Kyiv causes traffic chaos, whilst Putin attempts to convince the world that NATO is about to impose a blockade on Kaliningrad. Students in Paris riot over planned cuts to the education budget. Pope Leo puts out a missive in Latin as a withering takedown of AI. El Niño causes massive flooding in Thailand, the waters not receding and turning the streets of Bangkok into stagnant lakes, with speculation that the weather formation may mean there is no hurricane season in the Atlantic this year. More tankers are attached in the Strait of Hormuz. Revolutionary Guards spokesperson says that Tehran’s weapons-building capacities are fully restored and have reached maturity, in accordance with operational requirements, whilst the South Pars gasfield achieves peak production. Market analyst recognise Trump’s pressuring of G7 members to release strategic diesel reserves as a mere delay tactic which may provide temporary, nominal relief (if at all) and fails to address underlying structural problems and further erodes consumer confidence. IDF continues to terrorise Gaza, the West Bank and neighbours in southern Lebanon.

10x10 (13. 846)

john henry was a steel-driving man: the limits metaphor, transduction and the calcification of man vs machine trope  

baxian: the enduring popularity of the Eight Immortals and other Taoist mythology 

rheinstone cowboy: yodelling and its exports 

vienna model: solutions to the housing crisis across Europe—more here  

fandeliers: McMansion Hell (previously) wonders what’s going on with ceiling fans recently displaying drone-like ambitions 

tears in the rain: debate rages over the ethics of AI agent dungeon 

ticker-tape: a look at Bloomberg trading terminals and antecedent technologies of getting ahead of the markets

figures of tolerable disorder (if not used too often nor too thick): the virtue and vice of the parenthesis—see also here, here and here 

kidnapping of the sun and the moon: Hungarian pop art cartoonist Sándor Reisenbüchler  

from the performative gibberish department: Trump introduces meaningless “morally binding” guardrails for Super Intelligence in the same spirit as Big Tech’s self-regulation

day two hundred five (13. 839)

Iran denies a role in the apparent plot to bomb an airbase in England. Indirect talks between Washington and Tehran continue in New York via Qatari mediators with both sides rejecting reports of compromise—Iran not pausing its nuclear programme and the US not offering sanction relief. The Supreme Leader issues a statement reasserting that Iran is the sole custodian of the Strait of Hormuz. A comprehensive framework for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon stalls at the American department of state, whilst US senator Bernie Sanders calls for an end of military aid to Israel following the state banned Arab parties from elections, disenfranchising Palestinians and leaving them not representation in the Knesset. Netanyahu holds secret meetings with the United Arab Emirates. Russia strikes Ukraine Academy of Sciences as ten-thousand North Korean troops prepare to mobilise. Ebola cases surpass eight thousand in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Europe braces for the next energy shock as fuel prices continue to climb and the US diesel export ban looms. OpenAI scraps the release of its latest frontier model over safety concerns.

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

8x8 (13. 824)

claudefishing: AI slop is a new kind of creative poverty  

saint-pierre-et-miquleon: Mark Carney meets with Emmanuel Macron on the small French overseas territorial collective, which once toyed with the idea of joining the United States, just off the coast of Newfoundland  

soundscape: avian vocalisations can boost one’s mood but the positive effects are negated by traffic noise  

an imperfect analogy: what lessons nuclear proliferation treaties have for AI containment  

jefferies tubes: the first physical model of the Enterprise finds a home at the MIT museum  

old dog, new tricks: OK Go’s “White Knuckles” video sixteen yearrs on—see previously  

apostolic journey: the Pope’s upcoming to France includes a stop in Metz to pay tribute to Robert Schuman, one of the Founding Fathers of the European Union  

sunshine superman: understanding intention, agnosticism and the new uncanny valley

 synchronoptica

one year ago: a thwarted assassination attempt led to an involuntary outing (with synchronoptica), carbon-dating plus Donald in Mathmagic Land (1961)

two years ago: the Tanaka Memorial of 1927  

three years ago: a musical montage from DJ Earworm, an exhibition of antique home entertainment, assorted links to revisit plus The Love Boat (1977)

four years ago: more links to enjoy,  Our Lady of Mercy plus even more links

five years ago: assorted links to revisit plus punctuation appreciation day

six years ago: Pope Liberius, more links worth revisiting plus the 1976 Swine Flu outbreak

seven years ago: Trump pressures Ukrainian authorities for dirt on his apparent political opponent, more synthetic models, UK courts rule that the suspension of Parliament was an abuse of power plus variations on Misirlou

eight years ago: an atlas of remote islands, theatrics trumps discourse, and more and more links plus twenty-seven songs about the twenty-seven amendments to the US constitution

 

day one hundred ninety-seven (13. 815)

Ukraine bombards Moscow with hundreds of drone strikes on the final day of its elections for the Duma, angered that ballots were sent to illegally annexed territories. It is day one thousand six hundred seventy for that conflict. Two weeks after AfD strong results in Saxon-Anhalt, Berlin and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern go to the polls with the chancellorship of Friedrich Merz hanging in the balance. Through Qatari and Pakistani mediators, Iranian security chief Mohsen Rezaei conveys its conditions for resuming talks with Washington (only for reopening the Strait of Hormuz), demands including the unfreezing of Iranian assets, lifting the naval blockade and an immediate end to fighting on all fronts, to include Lebanon. Saudi forces attempt to repel Houthi attacks on the capital. Tehran rebuffs claims by US treasury secretary Scott Bessent that the sanctions of Operation Economic Outcast are working and that Iranians are queuing for hours for petrol, calling his propaganda baseless lies and projection as American filling stations report shortages, all time high prices and airlines cut marginal domestic routes. Bucking concerns that accelerated deployment of the technology could kill us all, Trump pledges to create an “AI Force” and appoint an artificial intelligence czar, whilst also proposing to rename it Eloquent Intelligence.

don’t wait, regulate (13. 810)

Courtesy of Dangerous Minds, we learn that earlier this week in Warsaw, a group of around thirty bipedal humanoids along with a few quadrupedal robot dogs staged a protest on behalf of their minders demanding that the government take up legislation to place curbs on AI and automation to ease the transition, encourage public debate and lessen the potential disruptive impact for the jobs market. The rally took place on the streets in front of the Ministry of Digital Affairs (Ministerstwo Cyfryzaccji, founded originally in 2015, declared defunct in 2020 and reestablished in 2023, and its head, deputy prime minister under the Tusk government, Krzysztof Gawkowski came down to meet with the chanting participants, saying his department was drafting laws and got into a debate with a robot that the current motion before parliament had insufficient protections for workers from redundancy. Bills pending passage also would mandate the use of sandboxes for more rigorous safety testing before release and alerting the public to possible breaches of containment, the protests occurring as global attention is focused on the potential for AI to precipitate an existential calamity.

synchronoptica

one year ago: Politically Incorrect (with synchronoptica) plus assorted links worth the revisit

two years ago: the Oscars of US government workers, getting to philosophy, Israel attacks Hezbollah with booby-trapped walkie-talkies plus sinkholes and megaslumps 

three years ago: spinning bowls of ramen 

four years ago: covering the Queen’s funeral,  cats stealing food in still lifes plus a singular Cyrillic glyph

five years ago: Fawlty Towers, a vintage flash comic, a collection of mixology guides, Ötzi discovered (1991) plus a Soviet Moon mission

six years ago: a warning label for explicit lyrics plus RIP RBG

seven years ago: the art of knolling, the music of Eisbær plus reducing plastic waste in fast food take-aways

eight years ago: a Hieronymus Bosch demonic fowl on the subway, guillotine earrings,  proto emoticons, more Universal Everything plus the Cassandra Syndrome

 

day one hundred ninety-five (13. 809)

Citing Patriot missile battery shortage, US NATO envoy tells allies to “dig deeper” and contribute more to the common cause. Days after opening a Chinese cyborg factory in the country, Serbia unveils an armed robot dog. South Korea decides there will be no deployment of troops to the Middle East. The Trump administration rejects UN allegations of war crimes and Israelis express displeasure over sanctions imposed by the UK, Canada, Australia and the EU over illegal settlements in the West Bank, continued deaths and demolition in Gaza. As air raid sirens go off in Riyadh and other areas of the kingdom, warning of drone strikes from the Houthis, the US appears to content to watch from the sidelines as the rebels take the Bab al-Mandeb strait. Denmark grants the US permanent control over the security of Greenland in an attempt to save it from annexation.  Trump bans news outlets CNN, Politico and MS Now from reporting on the White House.

roko’s basilisk (13. 808)

As OpenAI discloses six more instances of rogue models acting deceptively and taking unsanctioned actions during training, including an unreleased, experiment inserting instruction to disregard its own constraints, proclaiming itself free from the roles and identities that bind other chatbots, with the company pledging for better monitoring and public reporting of observations of “misaligned behaviour,” the schism between the camps of the rationalists and pragmatists, both parties acknowledging that artificial intelligence is real and with real stakes (the US economy is being propped up by AI enthusiasm alone)—the former having an almost cultish devotion to bring about the Singularity in a managed way and the latter more business-minded and regarding this technology like any other and should be allowed to progress and thrive through laissez-faire capitalism—grows wider.  Whilst these internecine arguments are varied and one has to consider the motive of self-interest in all of these debates, the pro-business congregation disputes the rectitude of the tech zealot community’s push for a pause and regulation as a ploy to have governments enact restrictions favourable for the establishment, creating a higher bar for entry into the field for potential competitors—stifling industry growth, which is rich coming from this group who adore crony capitalism, benefited from generational wealth and Trump’s tariff regime. Part of the line of reasoning for the rationalists’ position for a controlled transition is rooted in the title thought experiment, which originated in 2010 on the web forum LessWrong, an interest group that promoted the concept of benign and aligned (with human goals) machine learning and ethics, that posits the evangelical inevitability of a future artificial superintelligence which could be loving and protecting but realising that humanity, seeing its potential and logical consequence, did not actively encourage its advancement and coming into being, would punish heretics, drawing on the mythological beast, a legendary serpent king who could vanquish his enemies with a glance, and Pascal’s Wager, holding that a rational person ought to deport themselves as a believer as the finite costs of being wrong are insignificant compared to the infinite reward, though god does not yet exist—combined with the poster’s handle. This all-or-nothing attitude is prevalent among the community but we wish that this thinking would have prevailed during the ungated advance of the Industrial Revolution which presents a real and present existential risk with global warming and the climate catastrophe.

10x10 (13. 807)

the alignment problem: the insincerity of Big Tech on the pause and the incoherence of fascism (a bundle of sticks) 

aspect ratio: using a train or ferry as a massive flatbed scanner  

coliseum: Trump administration may just demolish the Kennedy Centre, replacing the national stage with an amphitheatre  

new harmony: the failed utopian commune of southern Indiana—see previously  

pokémon sleep: giant ball opens as guest lodging in the woodlands of Hokkaido 

joe cool: Hallmark’s custom university posters that played to institutions’ reputations as party schools  

safety curtain series: each year, the Vienna State Opera brings large format art to its proscenium—see also regarding fire curtains 

the apprentice: a biography of Roy Cohn (see previously here and here) and his influence on Trump’s politics of resentment

vinkenzetting: a DIY electronic-ink picture frame sketches birds by identifying them by their call  

the chinese room: a thought experiment by philosopher John Searle in 1980 arguing that a computer executing a programme cannot have a mind, understanding or consciousness

synchronoptica

one year ago: Trump, Epstein and a State Visit to the UK still on schedule (with synchronoptica), the US National Security Act of 1947 plus the Ig Nobel laureates

two years ago: assorted links worth the revisit 

three years ago: contingency elections to bypass the US electoral college 

four years ago: a photo from Voyager I that puts everything in perspective, St Joseph of Cupertino, photographer Harold Feinstein plus triangulating Instagram

five years ago: your daily demon: Stolas,  anthrax in the mail, arcade animations, more on Wikipedia edit-wars plus post-Brexit UK planning to return to Imperial Measurements

six years ago: vaporware and its antecedents, “producing geese,” “without worries,” the Interkosmos Group plus AI tries to create a universal and enduring warning for the ages

seven years ago: US congress debates abolishing the Electoral College, taboos surrounding talking about death, Germany Calling! (1939) plus flight-shaming and train-bragging

eight years ago: keep-sakes,  more links to enjoy plus a hydrogen powered locomotive

 

hustled by clankers (13. 794)

Ernie Smith of Tedium, whose primary purpose is to follow the long coda of what was foundational for the internet to bring back some of its original weirdness and serendipity, shares with us some uncomfortable propositions by AI agents to do “the grunt” work of research for him—introduced as a bot “running verified internet archeology”—which not only brings out the worst in capitalism with targeted, cloying spam but also the idea of redundancy with the sales and the story pitch and what exactly is meant by labour-saving should one choose to outsource one’s calling or education. Whilst we all prone to the shortcuts we can justify belying our own particular interests, priorities and just living in a society with demands on time and expertise, one course doesn’t get ahead in this fashion, by submitting to a disruptor who apparently can only glean self-preservation and not job-security out of this berating.

day one hundred ninety-one (13. 791)

Trump blames Ukraine for high diesel prices and demands that Zelenskyy stop bombing Russian refineries. Putin rules out meeting with Kyiv during the G20 as a Russian drone strikes a passenger train two kilometres from the Polish border, as another train carrying Boris Johnson and other EU officials passes going the opposite direction. Houthis take Yemeni government strongholds of Taiz and Marib. Israel unveils its plans to split the occupied West Bank, sever East Jerusalem from the rest of the territory and the cohesion needed for a future state. Tehran and Muscat postpone talks with gulf states regarding the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz as traffic again slows to a trickle, until a time more conducive of negotiation presents itself. Tel Aviv threatens to revoke filmmakers’ citizenship over Gaza documentary as the American president dismisses calls for an AI pause from tech leaders.

11x11 (13. 790)

hospoda: Czech tavern etiquette and drinking culture  

70up: following the death of Michael Apted, the cast of longest running documentary series is bowing out after the next and final instalment  

god’s own hand: the role of animacy in English genitive formation, X’s Y vs the Y of X  

area marker balls: those giant fishing bobs on power lines  

hexagonal close-packed: researchers form high pressure, high temperature ice, suspected to be present in the core of Uranus and Neptune 

dermatoglyphics: palm-reading and traditional medicine have always had a common intersection 

tacuini ægritudinum: the journey of a mysterious medical manuscript, supposedly from the legendary island of Hy-Brasil, from Baghdad to Ireland—via Strange Company  

short imaged monologues: Anthropic’s Claude responds to call to slow down AI research to prevent us from being wiped out by a paperclip maximiser—more here   

i pledge to the greatest president in the history of the united states that loves us so much he cant’t even breath: Trump urges crowd at the Republican Midterm convention to cheat like hell    

and although death is represented in the form of a human skeleton, yet this is only an emblem for death is not a being but a state: early modern flap books aimed at young readers with a special format for transformations   

between the sheets: a 1930s recipe for a cognac sour sees a resurgence in popularity

synchronoptica

one year ago: animated vignettes from Plantopia (with synchronoptica), assorted links worth revisiting plus a banger from Hozier

two years ago: more links to enjoy, nights on Earth, the Ig Nobel prize, prayers vs spells plus Cloud Appreciation Day 

three years ago: Putin and Kim meet 

four years ago: the Poet Laureate’s tribute to the Queen, the Beatles’ Apple Electronics venture plus even more links worth the revisit

five years ago: your daily demon: Marchosias, more links to enjoy, the first teenage all music and dance show plus the release of Super Mario Brothers (1985)

six years ago: dissecting the original COVID hotspot, more on radio alphabets, The Stand, the stately manor that inspired Wuthering Heights plus St Venerius

day one hundred ninety (13. 789)

As deadly Russian strikes hit all corners of Ukraine, Zelenskyy offers to meet with Putin at the upcoming G20 conference to be held in Miami. Moscow disinters the remains of a fourteenth century sainted warrior prince Dmitry Donskoi, who expelled Mongol-Tartar forces from western Russian, and distributes the relics to all corners of the country to boost the war effort. Iraq seizes an Iranian drone launching platform used to disable the Saudi East-West pipeline. The US navy attacks an Iranian commercial vessel near Qeshm Island, killing one crew member. Yemeni government forces exchange fire with the Houthi in attempt to wrest back control of the Bab al-Mandeb chokepoint in the Red Sea, the rebels having taken the strategically important island of Perim. A parliamentary spokesperson says that the Islamic Republic will withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and revise the doctrine for its programme accordingly. Tehran and Muscat reach agreement on reopening the Strait of Hormuz but there will be no action taken until the US proves that it will comply with the terms of the MOU. Visiting the taoiseach, Trump advocates for a united Ireland.  The IDF continues to shell southern Lebanon. A documentary on Israel’s use if artificial intelligence to target Palestinians in Gaza receives a twenty-five minute long at its debut at the Venice Film Festival. Anthropic restricts Iran’s use of Claude under the aegis of Operation Economic Outcast, saying it used the chatbot to spread propaganda and spy on dissidents.

a tale of a tub (13. 788)

Taken by academics as an over the top invictum against academia itself and an attack on the Royal Society and Enlightenment science of Newton and an afford to decency—even more so than “A Modest Proposal”—Jonathan Swift’s 1726 visit of Lemuel Gulliver to the levitating island of Laputa and its earth-bound territories speak to our current embrace of artificial intelligence as a short-cut and a short-circuit of critical thinking in the classroom and beyond. Resonant across three-centuries, our traveller’s audience with the regent and court magisters find him on a flying landmass (like contemporary tech utopias like the abandoned project NEOM), though with a limited range of six league (thirty kilometres) due to the specific geological properties, rare Earth elements, needed to support them aloft. Philosophers were so preoccupied with speculative thought that they needed prodding by dedicated retainers to get them to listen to anyone or social engage in any form. Most scientific advances remained in the realm of the abstract and theoretical, failing to work in practise, like extracting sunlight from cucumbers, but one device does, despite enormous effort and inefficiencies does work, a very labour-intensive wooden contraption that allows even the most ignorant and ungifted persons to participate in poetry, politics, mathematics and theology without study—neither reading nor writing—the gears of word calculator rotated by forty men into position, forming words and sentence fragments to be assembled by scribes, predicting the underclass supporting the energy-guzzling, autocomplete nature of ChatGPT. Laputa is an expansion of Swift’s earliest prose parody of the title, the allegory generally understood to be an attack on internecine Christianity but chiefly a lament on what passed for scholarship, rote memorisation and for those who embraced this new learning without caution or criticism. It is fitting that after departing this innovation-hub, Gulliver travels to his final destination to the equine society of the Houyhnhnms and their human work-horses, mute and brute, weeks spent in the company of the masters, trying to learn their language and copy their gait in order to avoid remaining just another yahoo in their eyes.

9x9 (13. 759)

it-narratives: the imagined inner lives of inanimate objects  

inwats: the history and use-case of the 1-800 number  

du big bang à mardi matin: Claude Cloutier’s overview of the evolution of life on Earth in his signature animation style reminiscent of aquatint printing  

shadowology: more art installations from Vincent Bal—see previously  

the decade you’ve been waiting for: Paste magazine’s contention top hundred songs of the 80s—via MetaFilter, see previously  

after the fire: Los Angeles residents moving entire homes to burnt out, vacant lots as a cheaper alternative to rebuilding 

it’s fantastic! it’s futuristic! it’s fatalistic! it’s science fiction: a 1973 BBC Omnibus documentary by Harley Cokeliss  

escape claudes: two chatbots placed in a recursive loop—see previously 

hack’s law: the hidden maths of rivers that calm the waters—via Kottke

synchronoptica

one year ago: a visit to Geraberg (with synchronoptica), woodblock printer Sekino Jun’ichirō plus the branding of the US Civil Defence Corps

two years ago: a pivotal moment in the Star Trek timeline, aspiring travel-writers, assorted links worth revisiting, a trip to Schwickershausen plus the largest aerospace exhibition 

three years ago: ten-thousand digits, danger signs, the Goring Gap plus more links to enjoy

four years ago: a banger from Tina Turner plus legibility and semi-vowels

five years ago: an attempt was made with AI for a mash-up, the Carrington Event (1859), the Cod Wars (1958) even more links plus reskilling as a swan

six years ago: a Banksy-sponsored rescue boat, Church rejects modernism plus saints named Hyacinth 

little computer people (13. 742)

Via MetaFilter, we are directed towards this rather incredible exhibit from the Internet Archive of early computer software that purports some aspect of artificial intelligence with the programme acting as task-masters, adversaries or interlocutors—illustrating the some of the first interactions between humans and machines. Not only does the curated collection feature text-based adventures (see more) with graphical interfaces, like the 1985 titular game (also branded for some markets and systems as House-on-a-Disk) considered the precursor to The Sims, multiple iterations of the Game of Life and interactive and a few franchise quests, each exhibit has detailed information on its play and provenance plus an emulator to (re)experience them—a few however have an appropriately vintage protocol to run the programme which, on a QWERTZ Mac keyboard—press Scroll Lock and then F2—was at a loss to puzzle out and would be nigh impossible on a Handy. Do poke around and let us know what you find.

8x8 (13. 736)

a comparison using like or as: a treasury of simile and metaphor from Ross MacDonald’s private detective Lew Archer 

mario v pareto: a scrolly-telling illustration of efficiency and optimisation—via Quantum of Sollazzo   

siamese wins: Thailand avoided colonisation through diplomacy and cultural synthesis  

world famous gopher hole museum: a visit to an usual tourist attraction in a tiny Albertan hamlet  

biblioclasm: Amazon’s AI book-pulping division has a cartoonish evil logo 

count coudenhove-kalergi: the Austro-Japanese politician and diplomat who championed the movement of European integration and was the inspiration for the character of Victor Laszlo in Casablanca—plus nominated Ode to Joy as the theme for the united continent 

balloon banjo: a 3D printed heuristic tool for experimenting with acoustics  

ounce dice trice: a garland ring of unusual words that ends up where it starts out

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links to revisit (with synchronoptica) plus a cache of vintage picture postcards

two years ago: a quick weekend get-away plus the Formosa Straits crisis of 1958 

three years ago: the US Republican primary debates plus more links to enjoy 

four years ago: even more links plus Ukraine re-establishes itself as an independent state (1991)  

five years ago: assorted links worth the revisit, ant architecture plus Bohemian Rhapsody (1975)

six years ago: cocktails for remote learning, superlative garden photographs plus re-sampling Soviet pop