7x7 (10. 859)

armada model zero: prototype flying, electric car cleared for takeoff 

국보: ancient Corinthian helmet found in Olympia and awarded as a trophy in 1936 among South Korea’s National Treasures  

el niño southern oscillation: combination of global warming and cyclical weather patterns have yielded the hottest day since record-keeping began  

🧵: 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

c-18 (10. 833)

Via friend of the blog par excellence, Nag on the Lake, we learn that in order to protect beleaguered journalistic outlets—many of whom have been forced to shutter or severely curtail reporting—and local coverage (plus perhaps with the added bonus of slowly the spread of fake news), which Facebook’s and Instagram’s parent company is decrying as an unnecessary link tax (previously), the legislator of Canada has passed the Online News Act, prompting Meta to selectively, incrementally block access to such content on social media rather than entertain compensating small reporting operations for their work. Potentially impacting all headline aggregators, it remains to be seen what percentage of Facebook’s audience would be willing to leave the walled-garden for reputable sources, rather than what’s propagated or suggested to them, ahead of the law coming in to force, Facebook, leaving unchanged its services for Canada otherwise, will run trials cutting journalistic content for an experimental slice of five percent of its users and study the outcome—a rather disturbing and non-informed news blackout given the social media giant’s history of being sandbox unburdened by ethical parameters. Steeled against the pressure campaigns of the internet giants, other jurisdictions are expected to follow Canada’s example.

fortune cookie (10. 818)

Originally launched under the title “Content Targeted Advertising” a few months earlier with the name AdSense used by competing service Applied Semantics, Google’s acquisition rolled out its programme to within network website publishers and content creators on this day in 2003, eventually replacing GoogleAds and DoubleClick. It is the company’s biggest revenue generator and serves advertisements on over thirty-eight million websites in addition to its own search engine.

8x8 (10, 816)

picassa: Google is sunsetting Album Archive—which could possibly affect Blogger blogs—but no one seems to know for sure—see more  

eames institute of infinite curiosity: exhibit honours design duo’s (previously) relationship with Saul Steinberg  

select the photos of clouds that would make me stand out on the lawn and watch for storms—and we definitely need a good storm soon: reCAPTCHAs as written by your father

cronuts: a protest poster with some cannibalistic syncretism and linguistic confusion  

boo berry: a look at the history of America monster breakfast cereals—see previously

eesti nukud: a 1982 stop-motion animation about a baker and a chimneysweep switching roles—with some banging flute rock  

maximalism: a tour of Barbie’s Dream Home—more on the aesthetic here  

bad karma: Reddit communities going dark in protest and forced to reopen—in the funniest possible ways

9x9 (10. 786)

folkocracy: the latest from Rufus Wainwright  

old hollywood: one property management company dedicated to preserving Los Angeles’ vintage homes and apartments 

ladies’ ordinaries: a look at how gender got on the menu—see also 

cultivating a creative community: Tina Roth Eisenberg on “How I Built This”  

ologies: a comprehensive chart of the medical disciplines and how they fit together—also a good podcast  

purchasing power parity: mapping the cheapest Big Macs  

morbid passion for one of the opposite sex: the recent invention of heterosexuality  

controspazio: a photographic tribute to the recently departed post-modernist architect Paolo Portoghesi  

what a wicked thing to do—to let me dream of you: Tenacious D kicks off their next tour with a cover of the 1989 Chris Isaak hit

uncropped (10. 785)

Expanding on a previous post using AI to unframe and extend the backgrounds of iconic works of art and other bounded creations, the same suite of tools has been applied to internet memes to image what’s going on just outside of the picture, like for Side-Eye Chloe or Wandering-Eye Boyfriend. 

 What do you think? While it does strike one as impressive and plausible, distortion aside, we wonder how far removed these abilities are from zealous automated enhancement and “upsampling” features that play into our biases. More at the links above.

6x6 (10. 762)

nightingale-olympic: the time capsule that is Bangkok’s first specialty retail establishment—via Messy Nessy Chic 

splinternet: legal jurisdictions—for reasons real, specious and facetious dividing the internet

recruitment bonus: Florida governor is offering cash incentives to bring violent police officers to departments across the state—more here  

loveboat insanity: Poseidon’s Underworld reviews their lodestar film and more shared movie DNA  

puriteens: prudishness is taking over some parts of the internet   

bhs downtown: a Vermont high school hosted in an abandoned department store

9x9 (10. 713)

spokescandies: put together just ahead of the writers’ strike, Stephen Colbert afforded Tucker Carlson the chance to bid his audience farewell  

redundancy: IBM puts a pause on hiring to on-board an AI back-office workforce  

oops all linkdump: veteran blogger Cory Doctorow returns to his roots in a special jubilee edition  

€49 ticket: Germany launches its more fiscally-secure successor to the €9 monthly fare 

pitch decks and powerpoints: slide presentations from the largest corporate frauds and failures—via tmn  

chevron v national resources defense council: the US Supreme Court to re-litigate a 1984 precedent that defers judgement to the competent federal agencies, like the Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency 

cherry ice cream smile—i suppose it’s very nice: revisiting the art and influence of Patrick Nagel—see previously  

workforce implications: a company runs an empirical test, replacing its human staff with AI 

hal gurney’s network time fillers: reactions to past strikes by the Writers’ Guide

ガシャポン (10. 710)

As part of an ongoing curious curation of the Japanese vending machine capsule toy collectibles, Card House presents another series of gachapon, which includes a set of miniature circuit-breakers, foothold traps, regional sirens, and novel laundering instruction washing tags as well as this sequence of posable versions of the famously armless Venus de Milo. The onomatopoeic word—echoing the cranking sound of the machine and the clunk of the item falling in the collection tray—is a proprietary eponym, a genericised trademark, like kleenex, googling, xeroxing or band-aid, copyrighted by Bandai but used by imitators and competitors as well.

subgenre (10. 697)

With the admonition “You better not be acting like you’re in a Wes Anderson movie when I get there,” videographer Ava Williams delivers and propagates an idea that’s infinitely relatable, the momentary feeling, like deja vu, that one has been launched into the signature aesthetic of the filmmaker. These deadpan takes on the meme, as curated by Hyperallergic makes me stop and take note of those transporting instances that we all experience. Check out the TikToks at the link above and get inspired to make your own.

7x7 (10. 682)

born to die: on the common fate of beloved social media platforms—they are heart-breakers

the past is a foreign country: they do things differently there: historian Paul Veyne shows that past is not necessarily precedent 

la fée bruin: a tour of nineteenth century opium dens 

bbc100: John Hoare celebrates the broadcasting corporation’s centenary  

joan does dynasty: a stand-up therapist inserts herself into a soap-opera 

athena: Microsoft introduces an AI chip to step ahead of the field in machine-learning  

sixty-nine percent: CBC called by Twitter as government-funded and embraces the label—see previously

8x8 (10. 655)

lorem ipsum: the Bitcoin whitepaper is hidden in the Mac operating system 

duchenne smile: AI bias towards American standards skews cultural norms—see also  

soapbox: in a continuing attack against journalism, Twitter categories National Public Radio as state-affiliated media  

desancimonious: the problem with the governor of Florida eventually solves itself 

carhop: a classic post from Kottke on McDonald’s early years

grift: US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas (previously) has been a flagrant recipient of rather lavish kickbacks and gratuities for decades—via Boing Boing  

talk of the town: Japan’s singular buttered toast critic 

illnumerate: George Box’ maxim and the problem with economic modelling

7x7 (10. 642)

one day near salinas: a sizeable California city has no local coverage, with original content limited to paid obituaries—see also 

suzanne primate: every documentary about historical Edinburgh 

ugly duchess: Quinten Massy’s 1513 portrait, “The Old Woman” is likely a drag queen 

the future is a dead mall: Dan Olson on the impoverished, dystopian metaverse as a third-place—via Waxy  

confessions of an idiom: the proverbial elephant in the room confronts the skeleton in the closet 

the pictish trail: wanderlust in northern Scotland  

strategies to foreground vertical video: media company Gannet’s success has little to do with journalism—via the New Shelton wet/dry—see also

extremum opus (10. 639)

Via Kottke, this final, no not a farewell version of “Everything is a Remix” from Kirby Ferguson, a remastered edition after over a decade of refinement, an empowering commentary on the art of sampling, repurposing and reimagining, terms very much ensconced but not exclusively in the propagation of meme and is definitely worth one’s viewing pleasure.

7x7 (10. 617)

aquifer: new research suggests that rocky exoplanets may have ways to sequester and protect their water until their host stars stabilise 

blogoversary: a very happy twenty-fifth to Kottke—home of fine hypertext products 

icc: the Hague issues an arrest warrant for Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin and accomplice over child trafficking, forced adoptions from Ukraine to occupied territories  

hee-haw: an appreciation of donkeys—by any name—see previously  

the jabalaires: the gospel group active from the 1930s to the 1950s that helped inform the development of rap music  

👏: a selection of funny posts from Super Punch  

hot neptune: astronomers watch as an exoplanet has its atmosphere and ocean stripped away

9x9 (10. 614)

telegeography: the current map of submarine cables connecting the world  

blogoversary: a belated birthday greeting to Fancy Notions 

rightish: Microsoft touts AI’s factual errors as “usefully wrong”  

goldenes buch: German communities’ official, historic guest logs are a chronicle of the times and Zeitzeugnisse  

media matters: if journalists cannot call out propaganda—what’s even the the point of coverage—via Kottke  

gǒutóu māo níng—literally dog’s head, cat’s meow: cute Chinese animal transcriptions for English salutations  

seoul ring: the world’s largest spokeless ferris wheel being built in South Korea  

linkrot: more thoughts on three broken links and internet conservation  

mappa mundi: the thirteenth century chart of the mundane and exalted—see previously

network effect (10. 609)

We’ve come across the adage before that “if the service is free, you are the product, recently reframed and encapsulated in Cory Doctrow’s resonate summation of ‘enshittification’—now examined and broadened to include sponsors, advertisers as social media platforms’ real clients. Beyond the walled-garden of on-site engagement and the difficulty of exporting one’s social graph to an alternative host, posters and advertisers are locked into a captive market, joining at first voluntarily and then kept locked in by peer-pressure with all of these platforms free to privelege engagement over news and updates from one’s circle of friends with license and motivation, subtle or blatant to engineer the site to maximise those ends—and whilst not inevitable, the scale continues.

9x9 (10. 600)

shepherds bush’s: a collection of vintage photographs from Peter Marshall  

hold my calls, i’m blogging: the life of the dedicated internet caretakers 

clubhouse goals: the creative compound of the Red Rose Girls of fin de siècle sisterly Philadelphia  

dynamo: labelling suggestions notes art: stunning sketches made in the Notes app—via Things Magazine  

clickbait: sixteen seven companies dominating search results—via ibīdem  

the cheops inclination: unbuilt mortuary monuments of London—see previously—inspired by Egyptomania 

i want to lie, shipwrecked and comatose, drinking fresh mango juice: celebrating the thirty-fifth anniversary of Red Dwarf  

cabmen’s shelter fund: the remaining few historical kiosks constructed so livery wouldn’t need to let unattended—see previously

ccctv (10. 588)

Via fellow internet peripatetic and caretaker Web Curios, we are directed to a YouTube channel with an expansive catalogue of older movies and cinema serials in full and free to watch, rather expertly curated and while not formulaic or all within the genre of Spaghetti Western, sword-and-sandal, teen-exploitation or Space Opera, they all complement one another and rise to cult status. Give it a look and let us know what dreadful-excellent gems you uncover.

gonzalez v google (10. 563)

During oral arguments, the US Supreme Court entertained a 2015 case contending that internet giant and parent company of Youtube effectively acted as a recruitment platform for Islamic State violence by hosting and algorithmically promoting harmful content and ought to be held liable for what users post on their sites—as publishers would for seditious or dangerous material. Heretofore, host companies have been shielded from legal responsibility from third-party screeds and recommen-dations that can potential deputise and radicalise through their affirmation and reinforcement (admittedly a search engine’s raison d’être) under a provision of the law called Section 230, a carve-out of the 1996 Communications Decency Act that states those operators are not the authors of what people choose to share and propagate, and without a measure of immunity, it is feared that US companies would be exposed lawsuits and severely disincentivised from offering anything that one might find objectionable by any standard. Though the court and the twenty-six word that the argument hinges on may not provide a sufficient framework to define defamation and danger, justices—again, the internet is not America and such regulations should be taken in context—are trying to parse the difference between inclusion and amplification.