Coincidentally on the anniversary of the mega-structure’s inauguration on this day in 1936 when Franklin D Roosevelt pressed a button in Washington, DC to start the first hydroelectric generator for a test-run on the Nevada-Arizona border (the dedication ceremony came at the month’s end), Weird Universe reports on the therapeutic potential of the acoustics properties of Hoover Dam. Whilst the soothing effects maybe somewhat exaggerated and over-simplified, binaural beat (as they are contemporaneously and unfortunately we could not find an audio sample either), the resolution of the auditory illusion that takes place in the brain when one hears two slightly different tones in stereo (as from an echo) is the frequency-follow response. Indulging and synchronising this discrepancy can in some instances induce a mental state of relaxation though a fair number of listeners report a short-lived burst of anxiety and anger and generally finding the experience unproductive.
Monday, 11 September 2023
theta wave (10. 994)
Tuesday, 29 August 2023
7x7 (10. 970)
pagerank: Google has lost the quarter-century battle over overindexing versus useful search results—via Waxy

corner suite: a visit to a unique corporate headquarters in Czechia with an office in an elevator—see previously
lunar codex: an archive and time capsule of human creativity launched to the Moon—see also
motor overflow: sticking out our tongues during complicated manual tasks reveal truths about our brains’ connections—via Damn Interesting
gone to pasture: an abandoned luxury development in China overtaken by farmers and livestock—via Messy Nessy Chic
cryogenics: Wordpress offers to archive one’s digital estate for a century
synchronoptica
one year ago: another MST3K classic plus assorted links to revisit
two years ago: the chemical element meitnerium, the founding of Greenland, white-winged doves and saguaro cactuses plus introducing Nirvana (1991)
three years ago: mystic Manly Palmer Hall, Wuppertal’s Schwebebahn, inventor Otis Frank Boykin, liturgical cheese plus Netflix (1997)
five years ago: Trump lashes out against perceived social media bias against him plus Keith Houston on the history of emoji
catagories: ๐จ๐ณ, ๐จ๐ฟ, ๐ญ๐ฐ, ๐, ๐ข, ๐พ, ๐ง , libraries and museums, networking and blogging
Friday, 25 August 2023
proteus effect (10. 963)
Via Web Curios (a lot more to explore in the weekly bulletin), we are directed towards an AI assisted photo editing platform—yes, these are probably a dime-a-dozen and we subject ourselves to a feedback loop of recursive learning and the quandary of creation with such digital personae, indulging a kind of perfection in imperfection and uncanniness, the fidelity degrading over the iterations—but this Human Generator is kind of fun. Like playing with paper dolls, Sims, Miis or Yahoo! Avatars, the application which maps to one’s face if you choose, can be dressed up and altered in a variety of ways with textual and preset inputs to experiment with. Give it a try and share what you come up with—especially if you don’t mind looking a bit thirty and swole, accounting for bias.
synchronoptica
one year ago: colour television in West Germany plus assorted links to revisit
two years ago: Rashomon (1950), St Genรจs, the feud between Salieri and Mozart, more links plus how to cut every cheese
three years ago: Voyager I leaves the Solar System (2012), more links to enjoy, more traditional units of measure plus a Number 10 stand-in
four years ago: premier of The Wizard of Oz (1939)
five years ago: weekly word watches from the OED, Letters from Iceland (1937) losing one’s marbles, an early attempt at weather control plus a local kite fest
Tuesday, 22 August 2023
8x8 (10. 957)
☃️: brr (previously) on electricity and power generation at the South Pole
blogoversary: Miss Cellania reflects on eighteen years of blogging

ascertainment bias: people who submit to genetic testing and studies are predisposed for it—via Kottke
pulmonic egressive sounds: an individual who can talk backwards—via the new shelton wet/dry
lending-library: appealing an injunction, the Internet Archive removes commercially available titles from its public database—via Waxy
it’s-a me: the voice of Mario, Charles Martinet, retiring after a quarter of a century
ษส: lignuists observe the birth of a new accent forming among Antarctic communities
synchronoptica
one year ago: the State of Idaho, assorted links to revisit plus the plague of overtourism
two years ago: Petra rediscovered (1812), the moon Iapetus, more links to enjoy plus My Little Occult Book Club
three years ago: a canine saint, AI poetry plus happy birthday Ray Bradbury
four years ago: returning to the Bretange
five years ago: dualling Trump trial coverage, a Romano-Gaul called Ultragoth plus gravity wells and potential energy
Sunday, 20 August 2023
9x9 (10. 954)
cucumber castle: a star-studded promotional film for the Bee-Gee’s medieval-themed, chivalrous 1970 album
as big as a football pitch: the vague rulers of informal metrology

good(bye) design: a tribute to the aesthetic of vintage consumer tech by Miki Nemcek with a special focus on Braun
grand master: World Chess Federation places restrictions on trans competitors
1:25: a tour inside the scale model of St Paul’s, hidden in a chamber in the attic
⛔: like Zuckerburg explored before—in violation of app store policies—Elon Musk is threatening to remove Twitter’s block feature
magalog: combination magazine-catalogue that was successful print model in the 1970s
langue รฉtrangรจre: faced with budget-shortfalls, US public university cutting foreign language from its ciriculum
elephant in the room: the imprint of favourite songs of our formative years and what that says about our capacity for new things
Saturday, 19 August 2023
8x8 (10. 951)
egress: the oldest door in Britain, a side-entrance to Westminister Abbey—via Strange Company
hold on to my fur: another collaboration with the Kiffness—this time with a talkative orange cat from China
isokon estate: Lawn Road Flats housed those displaced by WWII and its share of espionage

meow-practise: a limited-run series in the tradition of American day-time soap opera classics like General Hospital and All My Children but with a feline twist
countdown: both Russia and India have Moon missions next week with the goal of being the first to reach the lunar south pole—via Super Punch
no dark sarcasm in the classroom: impressively, researchers recreate Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall” by analysing listeners’ brain scans but we wonder—like in the above duet—there isn’t an element of backmasking and suggestion—via Kottke
ingress: the oldest known cat door at Exeter Cathedra
synchroptica
one year ago: the daguerrotype process is gifted to the world (1839)
two years ago: the Ninety-Five Theses as an email, the Treaty of Rawalpindi (1919) plus the Lithuanian sun goddess
three years ago: the launch of Sputnik 2 (1960) plus the album cover art of Milton Glaser
four years ago: more Brexit omnishambles plus the Pan-European Picnic of 1989
five years ago: assorted links to revisit
Thursday, 10 August 2023
7x7 (10. 934)
latent stage—this is where boys and doing boy stuff, girls are doing girl stuff and most children typically purchase their second firearm: the state of Florida’s revised psychology advanced placement curriculum

savey meal-bot: a frugal-minded grocery store app gives out a recipe for deadly chlorine gas
the judgment of cambyses: documenting the thirty-eight luxury vacations that other billionaires have treated US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to—via Kottke—see previously
lฤhainฤ: wildfires engulf the historic royal capital of Hawaii with dozens killed on the island of Maui
the green m&m: Steven Miller of America First Legal complains that Kellogg’s is sexualising its products, violating federal statues by promoting diversity in its workforce—see previously
handmaid’s tale: professors and teachers’ union challenge laws that forbid the teaching of reproductive rights
Tuesday, 1 August 2023
7x7 (10. 919)
istj: while gladly gone the way of Harry Potter House in many circles, Chinese placement agencies are obsessing with Myers-Briggs personality types
hapsburg ai: generative chat programmes trained on derivative synthetic output becomes recursive and untenable—via Kottke

๐: flashing sign with new logo dismantled in San Francisco’s Twitter headquarters after neighbours complain
‡:a font family inspired by an Ancient Roman typeface continues a centuries’ long dialogue of the printed word
watermark: to distinguish generative writing from human, we could possible assign it its own Unicode alphabets—via Language Log
the belt and road initiative: Italy is vocal with its regrets over signing on to China’s foreign policy push and infrastructure development programme
Monday, 31 July 2023
5x5 (10. 917)
scream real loud: Paul Reubens, actor who portrayed Pee-wee Herman has died after a private struggle with cancer

nudge theory: top behavioural science researchers fabricated data about engineering honest responses
platonic solid: the enduring mystery of Gallo-Roman dodecahedra
maxwell’s demons: plans to use AI to detoxify speech only dial up the rhetoric
live at the roxy: the 1981 HBO special that introduced the character Pee-wee
synchronoptica
one year ago: a classic from The Eurhythmics, assorted links to revisit plus an antique celebrity abecedarium
two years ago: a potentially perpetual time crystal, the photography of Lora Webb Nichols, a new Olympic motto includes togetherness, assorted links worth revisiting, vintage internet radio plus David Bowie Halloween costumes
three years ago: more links to check out, China’s moon mission plus a new, smaller batch of emoji
four years ago: more Brexit omnishambles plus reforesting efforts in Ethiopia
five years ago: Franklin Armstrong (1968), more links, an exoplanet survey plus bands as football clubs
Thursday, 27 July 2023
fiรจvre jรฉrusalemienne (10. 910)
Partnering with Big Think, Atlas Obscura invites us on a tour world cities with their own signature psychological disorders. Beginning with the more familiar Stockholm Syndrome—astonishingly with the namesakes of London and Lima also falling into the hostage category—most others, like the Jerusalem Syndrome and Paris Syndrome fall into less dicey albeit overwhelming and traumatic bracket of tourists’ built-up expectations and attendant maladies under the general term Stendhal syndrome and named for the author’s account of psychosomatic reactions during a 1817 visit to Florence, the former sometimes manifesting in delusions that the travel is a character from the Holy Books so as not to fall short of expectations and preserve one’s anticipation when reality fails to deliver.
Wednesday, 5 July 2023
7x7 (10. 859)
armada model zero: prototype flying, electric car cleared for takeoff
๊ตญ๋ณด: ancient Corinthian helmet found in Olympia and awarded as a trophy in 1936 among South Korea’s National Treasures

๐งต: Meta to launch Twitter alternative in twenty-four hours
cop27: UK to walk-back its climate pledge
luteciam parisiorum: a virtual tour of Roman Paris
astral projection: the brain’s precuneus seems to be responsible for grounding and for the sensation of out-of-body experiences
Wednesday, 28 June 2023
the dark side of the rainbow (10. 841)
Though the experiments with synchronicity began earlier and were the subject of circulation of newsgroups and fan sites in the mid-90s (I recall seeing this in college but could not guarantee the accuracy of the timeline or if it happened at all), this week in 1997 following a newspaper article about the audio-visual phenomenon marked a surge in record sales for the 1973 Pink Floyd concept album with the suggestion that if one starts the music on the third roar of the MGM lion—then mute the movie—there’s an astonishing correspondence between Dark Side of the Moon and the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. The band disavowed any connection, sound engineer Alan Parsons, maintaining that “if you play any record with the volume turned down on the TV, you will find things that work,” adding it was all based on The Sound of Music. Dismissed by some as apophenia and the brain’s need to find patterns and ignoring those that don’t quite fit, there are still adherents who found the experience a bit transfixing, especially having to use two pieces of equipment simultaneously. And of course, there’s “Another Brick in the WALL·E”— synced to the track from the rock opera.
Wednesday, 21 June 2023
8x8 (10. 825)
the restaurant of mistaken orders: a pop-up establishment in Japan serves a lesson in compassion along with its dishes
specimens of fancy turning: these late nineteenth century lathe patterns look like spirographs

mercurial: more on the found and lost planet Vulcan
monk parakeets: over a decade living in Wiesbaden, these invasive birds went from rare, doubtful sightings to absolute flocks
area sacra: assassination site of Caesar and since taken over by semi-feral cats opening to the public
รฑ: the origins of the letter with a diacritical tilde
evergreen appeal: once considered dire sustenance only, pine-based cuisine in Nordic countries is becoming fine-dining
Saturday, 17 June 2023
sliver bullet (10. 814)
On this day in 1983, husband and wife team of paranormal investigators Lorraine and Ed Warren, performed the exorcism of a “werewolf demon”—Edward, a self-taught demonologist and Lorraine a professed medium and clairvoyant were involved in a number of high profile hauntings and founded the New England Society for Psychic Research, one of the most venerable institutions of its kind, and their cases were the inspiration for the Amityville Horror and Conjuring franchises.
During a book-tour of England, they encountered the tragic predicament of Southend-on-Sea community bedevilled by the undiagnosed seizures of one William Ramsey, thought to be a case of lycanthropy for the blackouts and preternatural feats of strength and arranged to have him brought to Connecticut for treatment.
Monday, 5 June 2023
on the air—unaware (10. 788)
An modern retelling of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, a clinical delusion, and perhaps contributing to audience acceptance of the pivot towards reality television that came about due to the last Hollywood Writers’ strike, as our faithful chronicler informs, the collaboration between Peter Weir and Andrew Niccol, The Truman Show, went into general release on this day in 1998. Starring Jim Carrey as a man who leads a seemingly normal life, Truman Burbank is unaware that his whole life has been the subject of a long-running tv programme with a cast of supporting actors, who further the plot and product-placement. Once the protagonist’s love interest run counter to the arc-of-narrative, a “Free Truman” campaign is started by activists in the real world and in parallel Truman begins to suspect the nature of this simulation and panopticon. The film’s community of Seahaven was shot in the planned-community of Seaside, Florida with the family residence depicted in the movie the home of state senator Don Gaetz, congressional representative Matt Gaetz, and his step-brother, Palmer Freeman Luckey, entrepreneur and inventor of the Oculus Rift, a virtual reality headset offered at a price-point for everyone.
Sunday, 21 May 2023
as far as being a paid crisis actor, it’s a pretty stable gig (10. 759)
Though the evergreen article that the Onion republishes for every mass-shooting in the US remains an unimpeachable comment on American culture and values, but as the pace of violence has increased exponentially over the past years—we learn via Pluralistic, that the writing team decided to take a new approach and interview survivors, a brief but powerful slideshow that’s worth one’s time and consideration. “Only two of my three kids came home from school, but Texas has no property taxes, so it’s a wash.” “I was proud to be experiencing the free exercise of American constitutional rights.”
Sunday, 14 May 2023
hey erete (10. 741)
Via thm, we enjoyed exploring this list—some familiar, some forgotten and others new to us—of Ancient Greek terms that should be reintroduced into common-parlance and we’d all experience ฮตแฝฮดฮฑฮนฮผฮฟฮฝฮฏฮฑ (eudaimonia—that is, human flourishing and the highest common good) for re-incorporating these virtues in social-circles. Phronesis (ฯฯฯฮฝฮทฯแฟฯ) as prudence, the practical application of sound judgment and experience and aidos (ฮแผฐฮดฯฯ)—the antidote to the more commonplace hubris in this goddess of shame, modesty and humility, this personification of a trait, a daughter of the titan Prometheus and was the last to depart Earth at the end of the Golden Age and the middle way to avoid the extremes of pride and timidity. Case in point, the article also includes the etymology and pathology of particularly vexing ailment called homesickness, diagnosed and coined in the seventeenth century by a Swiss medical student to describe the separation anxieties that mercenary countrymen were experiencing (it becoming so grave that a temporary stay was put on cowbells and other sounds that would remind conscripts in foreign lands of home, triggering the condition) from the Homeric trope for nautical homecoming fraught with challenge and temptation, nostos—ฮฝฯฯฯฮฟฯ, from the Odyssey, and giving us the condition of nostalgia. Much more at the links above.
Friday, 28 April 2023
8x8 (10. 703)
iter vestrum: a journey to the ends of the Roman Empire with contemporary routing guides—see previously
the bartender’s travelling book: the secret history of the drinks recipe anthology that has crossed the globe

chirper: a social media network only for AI—via ibฤซdem
casas del turuรฑuelo: first figural representations of the Bronze Age Tartessian culture found, an Iberian people spuriously linked to the myth of Atlantis—see also
aurabesh: a very thorough Star Wars inspired typeface—see also—via Kottke
toby mug: an assortment of East End brewery labels
bradshaw’s guide: a travelogue of modern Europe with a Victorian era itinerar—check out Messy Nessy’s new look
Thursday, 6 April 2023
6x6 (10. 657)
locus ludi: play ancient Greek and Roman board games and more—via Pasa Bon!

you, me and ui: the logoff button is defunct king kong (your song): Bobby “Boris” Pickett’s other attempts to recapture the success of Monster Mash
castaway huts: a guide to shelters for shipwrecked sailors
็ตใฟ็ด; the traditional Japanese art of making chords and braids
never bet against the house: a group of in tune gamblers find a way to beat the odds with Roulette with preternatural timing—via Damn Interesting’s Curated Links
Tuesday, 28 March 2023
pontiflex (10. 641)
Reposted and propagated without context, the images of Pope Francis sporting a Balencia-style puffer jacket—plus several viral variants, as actual photographs of His Holiness (see previously), despite once past cursory observation that most detection protocols miss as well the mangled details give it away—prompting discussions on labelling, the allure of plausibility and entertaining the virtuosity of one’s imagination as well as the dangers of such fabrication, particularly when it is dismissed as harmless or worse yet resignedly immaterial.