12x12 (12. 179)

contraception begins at erection: Mississippi lawmaker has introduced a bill called ‘contraception begins at erection’ outlawing male masturbation, hoping to bring balance to the reproductive rights’ restriction that focus on women—via the New Shelton wet/dry  

obayashi world: Japan’s most Lynchian filmmaker  

so long and thanks for all the fish: Joan Ocean’s Dolphin Connection—via Web Curios  

crass competing abstrusities: official, sanctioned transcription of US secretary of state Marco Rubio (鲁比奥) changed—possibly as a way to get around the ban the Chinese government itself imposed plus other politicians’ names—see previously  

 

but if you don’t make your product in america—which is your prerogative—then very simply you will have to pay a tariff: though vacillating somewhat on his commitment and working from home, Trump delivers a message to the Davos WEF summit  

she was nasty in tone, not compelling or smart: Bishop Budde won’t apologise for her appeal for mercy and hospitality  

the birthright citizens’ brigade: a list of organisations pushing back against the slide to authoritarianism in the US  

dreiundfünfzig tage: how Hitler dismantled a constitution republic through constitutional means  

xanthelasma: Florida man on diet of beef, cheese and sticks of butter oozes cholesterol from his skin—see also—via Miss Cellania  

a catalyst for curiosity: Wikenigma documents the unexplained—via Kottke—those scientific and academic questions that evade a definitive answer, like the Collatz conjecture 

you remind me of the babe: Robert Eggers to make a sequel for Labyrinth  

unplanned pregnancy: as an encore to freeing all the January Sixth rioters, Trump pardons dozens of anti-abortion protesters, some jailed for violent tactics to block clinic access and intimidating doctors ahead of the Right to Life March

pangram (12. 170)

In recreational and trivial mathematics, a pandigital number is value that uses its digits at least once (usually without redundancy), the first of which in base ten radix is 1 023 456 789 (one billion, twenty-three million, four hundred sixty five thousand seven hundred eight nine) and chiefly have applications in fiction and commercial advertising to display a sample credit card or identification document or phone number—reserved in many cases so they are associated with any real individual. The smallest number in Roman numerals is 1444—that is, MCDXLIV. A pandigital number in base thirty-six notation (heexatrigesimal) would use all numbers and all letters—except zero. Despite their non significant nature in terms of maths, they do possess some interesting and unexpected properties, such as the zeroless palindromic pandigital number 12345678987654321 is the square of 111111111—called a repunit—that is a number with only one digit.

pomega (12. 142)

Via Clive Thompson’s latest Link Fest, we are introduced to another chaotic twin of π called ϖ—from the above script variant of pi, also called varpi—that represents the transcendental mathematical constant ratio of the perimeter to the diameter of Bernoulli’s lemniscate, analogous to the way pi defines a circle. The foci of the elliptical plane are equidistant in this figure which has applications in orbital mechanics (see previously). The curve having a shape similar to a figure 8 or the infinity symbol, ♾️, is from the Latin for something bedecked with hanging ribbons and occur in nature as often as the perfect circle. Much more from John Carlos Baez at Mathsodon at the link above.

mmxv (12. 116)

Numerically speaking, the coming year has some compelling arithmetic properties—albeit some are classified as amusing puzzlers without mathematical significance, though nonetheless worthy of exploration—foremostly being that it is a square that remains square if all its digits are incremented: itself a square (45²), the sum of three squares (5² + 20² + 40²) and the product of two squares (5² x 9²), the sum of a 9x9 multiplication table, and split as (20 + 25)² = 2025. Moreover by both American and European calendar conventions (because of the communicative property of addition) 24 July is a Pythagorean Day, with 24² + 7² = 25², like the last one on 16 December 2020. More from Futility Closet at the link above.

the thirteenth floor (12. 042)

Although acquainted somewhat with taboo numbers and avoidance of certain addresses, I hadn’t seen it in practice—admittedly applying my own form of lore and arithromania to disbursements when paying bills and try to have a figure four in there albeit mindful that auspicious dates, versions can deceive—and enjoyed this enlightening overview from Language Log in the form of a superstitious elevator panel, removing the fourth storeys as a homophone for death (死, sì, sĭ), or more specifically according to the Eighteen Level of Hell in Chinese mythology, as elaborated in Journey to the West, the association with the Mirror of Retribution, the literal “evil mirror platform” (孽鏡臺)—accounting for further omissions for those wanting to bypass the degrees of purgatory awaiting the ones dodging dharmic-for-karmic justice in this life. Much more at the links above.

julian day zero (12. 009)

Introduced by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in 1957 to track the orbit of Sputnik with a thirty-six-bit mainframe, to save on memory and compute resources by expressing time-coordinates in just eighteen-bits through 7 August 2576, the Modified Julian Date system simply dispatched with the proceeding two-million four-hundred-thousand days of history from the dawn of the calendar, counting backwards and resetting the number at noon on this day in 1858, often further truncated. This was also the reference epoch (see previously) for the earliest operating systems, chosen in part as it predated most modern record keeping. Because of the continual count, it is easier for software to process the intervening time elapsed between two events for applications like calculating interest, sell-by-dates for perishable inventories, etc, in the same was computers can’t really perform mathematical operations except by matrices. The Julian Period was proposed by sixteenth century academic Joseph Justus Scaliger (a year after the unrelated calendar was replaced in most of Europe by the Gregorian one) as the sum product of three calendrical cycles that comprise the system, twenty-eight solar cycles, nineteen lunar cycles and fifteen indiction cycles (the periodic census and tax reassessment of the Roman Empire that occurred every fifteen years)—or a span of seven thousand nine hundred and eighty years, reaching back in time under the assumption that all were synchronised at the beginning of time. Scaliger calculated this to be 4713 BC, well before any events in recorded history known to him.

bleuje (12. 005)

Our thanks to Web Curios (a lot more to explore there) for giving us the proper provenance and credit for a cache of mesmerising animated GIFs that we had saved our our sandbox with a direct link to the artist’s gallery and other projects including coding, simulations, previous collaborations and more visualisations. By Etienne Jacob, these moving, looping studies in maths and geometry are certain to soothe and inspire.

i’m feeling lucky (11. 952)

A court in Moscow has imposed a symbolic fine of ₽2 undecillion (around $20 decillion, a thirty seven digit figure that far exceeds all the money in the world but still magnitudes less than a googol) on the parent company of search engine Google and YouTube for blocking seventeen of the country’s media outlets and news channels following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, to curb the spread of disinformation and propaganda. The calculation comes from an original ruling that penalised the company with one hundred thousand roubles per day (around a thousand dollars) per plaintiff that the channels were not restored, doubling weekly—hence the exponential growth—for non-compliance. Youtube remains available within Russia though threats to ban it for not showing state-controlled broadcasts remain on the table. For its part, Alphabet is not to concerned about on going litigation.

amidakuji (11. 918)

A way of establishing 1:1 correspondence with any number of random pairings of equal size—for instance assigning roles to actors or chores to a group of helpers—the lottery game of chance, guaranteeing equal chance and distribution is called the above in Japan (阿弥陀籤, after the aspect of the Buddha associated with discernment and perception), in Korean as Sadaritagi (사다리타기, ladder climbing) and in Chinese as Guijiaotu (鬼腳圖, a ghost leg diagram). Participants’ names are listed in the row above with vertical lines dropping down to an assignment directly below. Concealing the names and jobs, the lines are hashed with random horizontal detours that must be taken on to the next column until reaching the bottom. Revealing the lines to the players but still keeping the other names and jobs concealed, they choose their path downward, the permutations in the snaking path ensuring all tasks are taken—unlike with drawing lots, flipping a coin. Aside from practical applications, such lottery elements can be found in the bonus rounds in video games to randomise one’s chances of getting the best prize.

10⁶⁰⁰ (11. 819)

Via Things Magazine (lots more to explore there), we get the chance to revisit the electromechanical rotor cipher machine, the advanced HX-63 developed by a private Swiss firm, which would prove difficult to crack even by contemporary standards and in 1952 was exponentially more secure than the CIA’s top model. Over the course of a decade, only about a dozen of the units were manufactured and though most clientele remained anonymous, the French defence ministry was one known buyer and a defence contractor found the device in a Cold War communications bunker and restored it to working order. The potential of those above undisclosed purchasers to be forces not aligned with Western interests caused the intelligence agency to intervene and not only eventually stop their sales but also to enter into a partnership with the company to produce a model with a backdoor so the CIA could decrypt any transmission. More from IEEE Spectrum at the link above including a video demonstration of the restored, uncompromised model and more on how the technology works to encode messages.

synchronoptica

one year ago: INTERPOL (1923)—with synchronoptica—plus divination through cheese

seven years ago: an appreciation of composer Edvard Grieg,  a meditation on the dacha plus cabmen’s shelters

eight years ago: restoring the Houses of Parliament, the debut of Star Trek, a Buddha-inspired knitted cap plus the debut of Voyager

nine years ago: a partially submerged art installation in the Thames is a statement on climate change

ten years ago: window displays, NATO talks on the Russian invasion of Ukraine plus a visit to Bad Vilbel

9x9 (11. 807)

city corridor: Metropolitan Museum of Art to exhibit the built and unbuilt visions of architect Paul Rudolph—see previously  

move over miss marple: German television mystery series imagines what the former Chancellor is doing with her retirement 

batteries not included: peruse the complete catalogues of Radio Shack produced over its six decades of business—plus this theme song 

mizzenmast: experimental solar sail prepares for its first voyage—see previously 

a copy of a copy: AI’s synthetic data is its downfall—via Damn Interesting’s Curated Links  

marshmallow test: the heuristic for delayed gratification and executive functions is fraught with bias and harmful assumptions—via Hyperallergic  

preowned platform: IKEA launches a second-hand marketplace to become a circular company within the decade—via Nag on the Lake  

substantially worse than random chance: seemingly counterintuitive probability puzzles are perplexing social media—see previously  

cerceri d’invenzione: the aesthetic and romance of imagining ruins of foregone civilisations

8x8 (11. 799)

heatwave toolkit: applying yogurt to one’s windows to cool homes and offices  

calculating empires: an exploration of the genealogy and evolution of technology and power from the fourteenth century on—via Pasa Bon!  

better than binary: a look at the potential for base-three in computing applications and security—see previously  

coriander, comfits, confetti: Italian cuisine, shifting tastes and etymology  

campaign photo op: Trump staff had a violent altercation with Arlington National Cemetery officials—see previously  

chaos rainbow: an unusual monochrome optical meteorological phenomenon over a baseball stadium  

license to travel: the three thousand year history of the passport, linking bureaucracy with our hopes and aspirations  

süßwarentechnik: Swiss researchers discover a way to produce chocolate using the whole cocoa fruit rather than discarding most of it

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth revisiting (with synchronoptica)

seven years ago: an optimised crash-test dummy, the backstory on the distracted boyfriend meme plus a villa modelled on the White House in Germany

eight years ago: moving a museum plus Calais’ Jungle encampment

nine years ago: the reproducibility crisis, more links to enjoy plus a squishy map

eleven years ago: Italian Ghostbusters 

7x7 (11. 761)

popp horlage: the network of pneumatic clocks of fin de siècle Paris 

just get me eight-hundred thousand votes: Elon Musk interviews Trump on X—see more 

home row keys: a documentary on Mavis Beacon  

porte-clés: the French youth craze for key-rings  

josuushi: counting-markers in the Japanese language, nuanced by rank, size and sentience—see previously, see more—via tmn 

homo naledi: chance discovery reveals more branches in our family tree  

death-slot: revisiting broadcast television’s dumping grounds  

spear-fishing: reportedly a group of hackers with ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard of Iran were able to break in to the Trump campaign’s database 

us patent application 10/953212: a training regimen to harvest hyperspace energy and pass through solid items

synchronoptica

one year ago: a classic from Lynard Skynard (with synchronoptica) plus a tour through the Geratal

seven years ago: classic cartoon What on Earth?! plus diagrams of parliamentary seating

nine years ago: keeping stashed cash safe 

ten years ago: Mexico ends state oil monopoly plus more humanitarian airstrikes

eleven years ago: histomaps plus ages of the US Founding Fathers

chiliad (11. 735)

Via Curious Notions, we learn the above term from the Ancient Greek χῑλιάς for a grouping a thousand things mostly encountered in modern English in the form of chiliastic, a Christian doctrine associated with the a thousand-year period of peace and prosperity the would follow the return of Jesus or—synonymously—believe in an apocalyptic millennium. Used generally to denote large in number or uncountable, it is on tenth of a myriad (M̄, the subject numeral rendered as X̄, with the largest Greek exponent M̄M̄ denoting a hundred million—see previously)), probably from the Greek word for swarming ants (μύρμηξ) and both can be used as a noun or adjective (distinguished in the cases “chiliad reasons” or “a myriad of reasons”) with hyper-pedantically, as with decimate, the former citing exactly a thousand causes and the former meaning a diverse basket of them.

monty hall enlightenment (11. 733)

Via Quantum of Sollazzo, we are invited to revisit the sometimes fiercely and vehemently counterintuitive probability puzzle based on the TV game show Let’s Make a Deal. Though it is easy to demonstrate that one should always switch doors, have a two out three chance of winning rather than staying with one’s original choice, there are an array of perfectly unreasonable factors that at play that make people stick with their original bet and believing the odds to be even, whereas they’re only ⅓ as likely to not walk away with a prize goat, the dilemma and its trenchant nature says a lot about human bias and errors of commission. Even mathematicians and physicists come to the wrong conclusion until being disabused (sometimes it never takes as our original selection is endowed by magical thinking and those times when we switch and lose cling to our minds more) by brute repetition or by positioning themselves as host and realising that certain protocols are followed in games of chance. This is a specific and tenacious example which illustrates our withering capacity for judgment but I wonder if there are analogous other odds that we similarly misunderstand.

⚶ (11. 696)

Observed between 1802 and 1807 before being identified as a minor planet by astronomer Heinrich Olbers, whom having already discovered and named what is now understood to be the asteroid Pallas gave the honours to mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss, whose orbital calculations had enabled researchers to confirm the existence of the first such object in that region of the solar system, Ceres, presumed—incorrectly—to be fragments of a larger, destroyed planet, and called the discovery after the Roman goddess of hearth and home, Vesta. The Dawn mission, dispatched to explore the asteroid belt, entered into a year-long orbit around the brightest and second-largest asteroid on this day in 2011. Presently represented by the modern astrological variant of the original symbol conceived by Gauss, it was suggestive of the altar of the goddess and home-fire by extension, the first form is scheduled to return as a Unicode character, the pictorial representations repopularised following their retirement in the mid-1800s as impractical as the cosmic backyard became more crowded with eight major planets and over a dozen minor ones. During the interim until the 1950s, asteroids were given the naming convention of ordinal numbers, according to the sequence of their discovery, this one called ④ Vesta.

synchronoptica

one year ago: professional uniforms (with synchronoptica), an experimental overland train plus the Trinity nuclear test (1945)

seven years ago: a linguistic curiosity

eight years ago: a beach on the Île d’Orélon

nine years ago: classes of quarks plus a Mad, Mad, Mad Max mashup

eleven years ago: informant gadgets 

9x9 (11. 694)

fungal magic: an update on the mushroom documentary narrated by Björk  

always lands on its feet: the myriad ways animals negotiate the laws of physics—see also  

meisje met de parel: decoding Vermeer’s true colours—see previously—via Miss Cellania 

i’m your heat pump: a seductive slow jam seems to educate the public on the thermal energy transmission system 

eno: the generative documentary on the self-described non-musician that changes with each viewing  

legal daisy spacing: a purported 1985 manual for terraforming a planet that presents a warped bureaucracy and sterile landscaping  

nolle prosequi: federal judge overseeing illegal retention of classified documents trial against Trump dismissed the indictment over the improper appointment of the prosecution’s special counsel—see previously here and here  

reimann hypothesis: new insights about the distribution of prime numbers—via Damn Interesting’s Curated Links  

kräuterbuch: Johannes Hartlieb’s fifteenth century treasury of herbs

 

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth revisiting (with synchronoptica), Netscape plus the Rosetta Stone

seven years ago: dark matter, more on the election integrity commission plus the bicentennial of Frankenstein

nine years ago: thalassocracies, plutographies plus more links to enjoy 

eleven years ago: a slightly NSFW Soviet adult literacy reader

twelve years ago: the German banking system plus the Oberammergau Passion Plays

11x11 (11. 625)

indemnity clause: a look at the exactingly detailed Sanborn maps created for US insurance firms in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries 

unseen persia: thousands of historic photographs of Iran during the Qajar dynasty leaked on-line from the archive of the Golestan Palace  

sweet thing: Chaka Khan’s debut Tiny Desk performance  

bahía de cochinos: Russian warships on drill visit Cuba  

doubly-disambiguated bishop non-capture statemale: a vlogger tries to categorise the rarest chess moves  

transponder: wood proves surprisingly durable material in space as agencies plan to launch experimental satellites, like ships on the high seas—via the Linkfest  

1337: a pretty exhaustive list of English words that can be spelled on a calculator turned upside down  

hollywood canteen: a fond farewell to Janis Page, recently departed at 101  

the brannock device: a better shoe-sizer based on the barley corn  

gallus gallus domesticus: photographer recreates exacting portraits of Edo-era Ito Jakuchu’s studies of chickens—via Nag on the Lake  

geochron: the incredible restoration of 1960s analog, electromechanical world clock and map

counting crows (11. 621)

Previously we’ve visited general corvid intelligence (see previously here and here) and numeracy in bees—and given the recent discoveries of a whale language (not forgetting the Plant Kingdom, ibīdem) and elephantine endonymy—it is no wonder that we learn, via Clive Thompson’s latest Linkfest, that our cawing friends too understand the concept of numbers, according to preliminary studies undertaken at the University of Tübingen. Crows furthermore have been shown to vocalise actual numerals, corresponding to values from one to four consistently and have sophisticated maths skills. More at the links above.

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth revisiting

two years ago: the precursor to the bicycle, Cleopatra (1957) plus good wine needs no bush

three years ago: Clash of the Titans (1981), shutter sounds, Russia Day, Deep Throat (1972), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) plus the tripartite devil

four years ago: Loving Day, more concatenation plus a unique geometrical construct

five years ago: Canada decriminalises abortion and homosexuality (1969), Volkswagen tries to clean up its reputation, vintage Kellogg’s advertising plus a horse of a different colour

aabba (11. 594)

Via Futility Closet, we are reminded of the anatomy of a limerick (with the above rhyme scheme, see previously) with the following meta-versification by John Irwin, poet and professor of the humanities: 

A limerick’s cleverly versed—
The second line rhymes with the first;
The third one is short,
The fourth’s the same sort,
And the last line is often the worst.

This rendition is almost certainly in homage to the anonymous exemplar: 

The limerick packs laughs anatomical
Into space that is quite economical.
But the good ones I've seen
So seldom are clean
And the clean ones so seldom are comical.

Heretofore, most often privileged showmanship, they often invoked exotic geographic locations as a way to subvert the rote teaching of the subject in schools, with several variations and violations. British wordplay and maths expert Leigh Mercer, best known for his palindromes, (¡“A man, a plan, a canal: Panama!), also famously a mathematical limerick:  

12 + 144+20 +3 ✖️ √4 / 7 + (5 ✖️ 11) = 9² + 0 

Or, as read: 

A dozen, a gross, and a score
Plus three times the square root of four
Divided by seven
Plus five times eleven
Is nine squared and not a bit more.