unchartered

Inspired by a transcontinental bicycle trip, we discover via Kottke, covering the US and Canada in a big loop, artist Peter Gorman has created a series of what he describes as barely maps, remixing memories of intersections, boundaries, city layouts, empty spaces and other inventions and interventions of civil engineering. While these minimalist maps may have relinquished some of their value as a guide, they certainly still convey the iconic quirks of the familiar—like the patterns one conjures out of stellar constellations, as Gorman depicts state metropolises relative to each other in the stars. More to explore at the links above.

6x6

the voyage home: studying whale communication for its own sake and as a gateway to talk to alien life

new car smell: the odour that’s a premium for American customers does not enjoy universal appeal 

the midnight parasites: a surreal 1972 animated short by Yōji Kuri set in Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights (previously)—an alternate source

notes on a place: visual artist Kimmo Metsaranta helps us appreciate architecture’s unnoticed corners and angles

casting out demons: US priests find themselves fielding more and more requests for exorcisms

😂: a Swedish word with a quite broad regional variation

phileas fogg

Though a far more serious investigative journalist earning her credentials for her undercover exposés on working conditions in factories and mental institutions, reporter and foreign correspondent Nellie Bly (the nom de plume of Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman) was dispatched on this day in 1889 on a round-the-world voyage—with only two-days’ notice, to match or best the record established by the Jules Verne novel.
Editors at Bly’s newspaper had been contemplating this sort of publicity race (at Bly’s suggestion) for some time and the last-minute dash materialised once a competing New York publication announced that they’d be sending out their writer Elizabeth Bisland also on a quest to circumnavigate the globe—but in the opposite direction, westward-bound and then steaming across the Pacific.
A missed connection in England ultimately cost Bisland the contest, with Bly returning triumphant (only informed of her competitor by the time she arrived in Hong Kong) in New York after seventy-two days. Bly’s sponsorship by a daily newspaper rather than a monthly magazine as Bisland with constant coverage and a prize on offer for the reader who could guess the date and time of her return was also a motivating factor for the intrepid traveller.  Bisland finished four-and-a-half days later, both adventurers beating the benchmark set by Verne.

message received, noted, acted on

 “Pulling up at the door the very moment Madame was ready,” Weird Universe gives us a 1961 vision of things to come with a ride-hailing service with a fleet of mini-cabs were dispatched (at a third of the cost of a taxi journey) by radio-telephone, unlicensed operators prevented from accepting fares.

city hopper

Though there’s not yet a projected date for the inaugural journey yet, plans are well underway for the first Hyperloop route (previously) in Europe, linking Amsterdam’s Schipol with Frankfurt am Main airport with commissions already being tendered for the design of hub city stations for the movement of people as well as goods.
Moving at nearly the speed of sound, the carriages will be able to cross the four hundred-fifty kilometre distance in under one hour with intervening stops in Bonn, Köln, Düsseldorf, Eindhoven, den Bosch and Utrecht not only offsetting a significant amount of pollution but also revolutionising business and leisure travel and our approach to commuting as the network expands across the continent.

transit hub

Though quite the committed walker myself, I’ve never quite mustered the occasion for the sort of point to point travel on foot from terminal to downtown that Ian Rose has developed into a rather intriguing pastime, sharing his routes and results—as we learn from Nag on the Lake and Things Magazine.
Ages ago I recall out of obstinance walking from Marco Polo airport to Pisa but that was only about an hour’s walk under relatively pedestrian friend conditions, and ages before that being told by a cab driver that he wasn’t licensed to take passengers to the airport servicing Havana and stopped on a parallel road and was told to dash through the intervening field of sugar cane to reach the airport. We don’t fly very often but do pass Frankfurt Flughafen on a pretty regular basis and I’ve wondered about those seemingly hard-to-access areas and industrial estates not meant for human perambulation. I think that this bears some further investigation.

when life gives you lemons

Derived ultimately from the Arabic word for swindler, mafioso did not necessarily carry the negative connotations on the island of Sicily where it took on the qualities of swagger and fearlessness and the mafia itself arose, as presented quite fascinatingly by Æon Magazine, due at least in part to the success of another Arabic transplant, the lemon.
The unification of Italy (previously Sicily was ruled by a Bourbon dynasty and the residents of the island probably viewed the mainland as just another in a long succession of colonial powers) intersected with the medical insight that citrus would prevent scurvy in sailors on long ocean voyages and translated to a huge windfall for those who kept orchards on the island. More and more groves were planted to keep up with demand and in order to prevent loss of the valuable fruit through theft, guards were employed to supplement the unreliable or non-existent defence that local police or the courts could provide. Eventually such protection, merited or otherwise, became customary with a growing cut of the proceeds going to wardens who had established themselves as fixtures of the marketplace and de facto authority.

danza de la lluvia

Apparently not contended with contributing to the respiratory distress of millions by manipulating its emissions data, one German automotive manufacturer operating in Cuautlancingo in the Mexican state of Puebla has decided to go full on evil mad scientist with a weather-control machine.
The plant (the largest outside of Germany) employed sonic cannons to disrupt the formation of hail, which threatens to ruin the shiny new paint jobs of cars made there. Local farmers complain of the practise saying it has exacerbated drought conditions and ruined their harvest. Developed over a century ago and mostly used to protect crops from hail damage, scientists are skeptical if the sonic cannons have any effect at all, intended or otherwise. For its part, the automobile manufacturer is reaching out to the community and pledges that the disruptors, which were apparently on stand-by at all times, will only be operated manually as weather forecasts indicate and the company will be hanging a protective netting over its lot as a long-term solution.

seetroën

Via Weird Universe, we discover what’s purported to by the first spectacles that help to recalibrate and re-orient the senses and reduce incidents of motion sickness and vertigo through a meniscus of flowing liquid that is interpreted by the brain as level ground—introduced by French automobile manufacturer Citroën.
It’s a clever idea that apparently works, but it also strikes me as finding a remedy for the intolerance for reading or consulting one’s devices while in a moving vehicle to which a bit of nausea seems like a natural and healthy consequence. From the Greek for seasickness, the feeling arises as a defence against having accidentally eaten neurotoxins, eliciting what the brain understands as hallucination, feeling motion but not seeing it, and encourages one’s stomach to reject what was last put into it. That said, I know others suffer from it acutely, over screen-time or not, and hope that they can get some relief from these glasses.

living daylights

The European Commission is soliciting feedback on the option to end the requirement for harmonisation across the EU for daylight savings time, citing the potential for negative health consequences caused by the bi-annual change and prompted by Nordic members who’ve dutifully sprung forward and fell back despite the fact that no hour of sunshine at these higher climes is won or lost.
Railway and telegraph networks necessitated synchronisation and standardisation in the late eighteenth century and the concept of adjusting the clocks with the seasons was first proposed by an insect collector and astronomer (and frequent train passenger) named Charles Hudson in 1895 and was not implemented until the spring of 1916 with the German Sommerzeit as a way to conserve coal during the war. The current EU compact dates to 1980, in response to the energy crisis of the 1970s, and if repealed, the change wouldn’t be automatically nullified, just the participation of each member state. What do you think? Modern time-keeping devices can assuredly handle the changes and dispensing with the ritual will be certainly welcomed by many but time and tide admit politics and identity as well.

post-dated post script: lago benàco

Framed by the edge of the Dolomites—between Venice and Milano—Lake Garda (originally Benacus in Latin, both stemming from the Germanic root for warden and guard) and hewn by glaciers, we found ourselves lured out on the waters for another, extended boat trip that afforded us the chance to see most of the towns and villages along the shore and experience the majestic sweep of the forested foothills that rose steeply into mountains, the Gruppo del Baldo.
We passed camp at Isola San Biagio with Isola dei Conigli (the isle of the rabbits) no longer connected by a land bridge and thus isolating the bunnies. I had wondered about this change since first arriving and noting that one couldn’t walk there any longer and wondering if there was that much more snow melt flowing down into the valley or if before we had just visited at a particularly dry time.   In any case, I was impressed by the efforts of the residents to curb plastic waste by installing rubbish bins exclusive for recycling packaging along side every regular receptacle.
We also inspected the larger Isola de Garda where Francis of Assisi founded a monastery originally in the eleventh century (now marked by a Venetian façade), the promontory of Sirmione with its Veronese defensive castle, the bathing spot at San Felice del Benaco, Torri del Benaco and Salò, once the seat of government of Socialist Italy.
Not long after we docked at the old port in Manerba and returned our boat, there was the sudden and intense onset of a storm that first kicked up a lot of dust into the air and turned the sky a quite peculiar and ominous shade.
The geological history of this region informs very a favourably mild Mediterranean, to include support for citrus fruits, generating winds (i venti—all of which are named for their characteristics) at the mountain tops that rush into the valley, only to return to higher altitudes at the end of the day. I was a little worried about the ducks but they seemed to take to the surf and the rough waters like champions and seasoned veterans—even the babies.
The swans too seemed especially dramatic, staying together and blending in with the white-capped cresting waves and the buoys that bounced around. Protected as we were in the cove, I couldn’t imagine what it might have been like on the open lake. It grew stormy over the next few nights but by morning, all appeared back to normal and the hot, still conditions returned, with hardly a trace of wind or rain.

keitora

Kei class trucks (軽トラ) were first popularised in 1949 and have been since enlisted for all sorts of heavy-duty jobs including agriculture, construction and firefighting, and now thanks to Spoon & Tamago, that this tough little vehicles have of late also become a showcase for an annual landscaping contest sponsored by the Japanese federation of contractors.

The entries are really fantastically detailed and capture the elements of traditional Japanese gardening arts, called Nihon Teien (日本庭園) and incorporate plants, water elements and distressed materials to invoke the idea of far off lands and signal resistance to the march of time and entropy.

7x7

and in flew enza: an encyclopaedic investigation into the estimated six-hundred-fifty thousand US deaths—out of fifty million globally—of the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic, via Kottke’s Quick Links

deconstructivist tendencies: postmodern architectural wonders of the 1970s and 1980s added to the UK’s National Heritage List—according them protected status, via Things Magazine

one year times two: the musical art installations of Trond Nicholas Perry, via ibidem

sundries for the modern workspace: contemplating the function of colour in defining manufacture, learning and healing in 1930s schematics, via Nag on the Lake

let’s try to get our core business right before trying something else: Facebook exploring minting its own cryptocurrency

pneumonic spelunking: a look at Elon Musk’s boring project beneath Los Angeles

dies irae, dies illa: a trio of (possibly not ordained) Catholic priests form a hard rock band in 1974 to broaden their missionary work

8x8

revamp: the classic Vespa (previously) reincarnated as an electric vehicle whose dash console is one’s mobile phone, via the always splendid Nag on the Lake

white noise: a multimedia appreciation of the pioneering electronic composer and sound archivist Delia Derbyshire, who also created the opening theme music for Doctor Who

peafowl: an Australian community is divided over whether the urbanised birds are a nuisance or nice to have around

electroconvulsive shock: a FOIA filing includes an unexpected manual on the use of “psycho-electronic weapons,” via Boing Boing

exonym: in order to disburden itself of its past as a British colony—and possibly reduce confusion with Switzerland—Swaziland will return to its precolonial identity of eSwatini 

flóttamaður: still at large, the suspected ring leader behind the mass theft of computers for bitcoin mining in Iceland escapes prison and flees to Sweden on the same flight that carried the Prime Minister

a state in new england: making the Massachusetts oath of office more concise and assorted other constitutional conventions

subliminal education: an educational material publishing house (previously) conducted a massive experiment in classrooms across the US to test the efficacy of its new material without disclosing the “interventions” (previously) to any of the unwitting students and teachers, via Marginal Revolution

residence hall

Under construction since the summer of 2016, the architects behind Urban Rigger—we learn via Plain Magazine—present an innovative concept to address the shortage of affordable student housing by creating floating dormitories along disused docklands in Copenhagen.
The potential for expanding sustainable dwelling places parallel to abandoned water transport infrastructure that line the world’s rivers and canals with extant but outmoded infrastructure is tremendous and would relieve a lot of pressure in places where space is already at a premium. Units, which would have applications for sheltering refugees as well, moored and unmoored as needed, are housed in upgraded shipping containers and include an array of amenities and harness power passively through solar panels and the passing current and tides.  Be sure to visit the links above for a whole gallery of the floating dorm and a video documentary.

6x6

coif: a collection of headshots of alpacas with good hair, via Everlasting Blört 

boring bricks: Elon Musk tunneling operation to sell interlocking building materials made out of excavated dirt

elevation: a documentary from architecture magazine Dezeen on how drones will change urban dwelling

whiter-than-white: chemists engineer a ultra-white non-toxic coating based on the scales of a ghostly scarab, which could make painting roofs and roads white environmentally sensible

pulp fiction: a digital archive of over eleven thousand vintage fantasy, science-fiction and true crime magazines

the fourth plinth: Iraqi-American artist Michael Rakowitz recreates the winged bull-human chimera that guarded the ancient city of Nineveh destroyed by ISIS to be showcased in Trafalgar Square, via the always brilliant Nag on the Lake

droide astromeccanico

From the Italian word for a jaunty saunter, Gita the cargo droid from the company Piaggio (famous for their Vespas—that is, wasps in italiano and Popemobiles) meant to accompany humans on errands and help bare burdens that are two heavy or awkward to convey otherwise.
Designed with the goal that it should be able to carry a case of wine—and leave it’s human’s hands free for other things, Gita is self-navigating and can avoid obstacles and balance a load of up to twenty kilogrammes and seems to be a disruptor somewhere in a happy medium between (segue to) Segways and unaccompanied delivery robots and drones, which have both earned derision. Visit the links above for a demonstration and to learn more.

daisy, daisy give me your answer do

Though we may be acquainted with tandem variety of a bicycle built for two where the cyclists are positioned fore and aft but we were hitherto unfamiliar with an alternative configuration known as the Sociable or the Side-by-Side (das Nebeneinandem).
Historically employed as a courtship vehicle, the design is credited by some to Australian sportsman, engineer and politician Sir Hubert Ferdinand Opperman, who incidentally was the object of international disdain after garnering the reputation as a cheater for doping for his trials in the Tour la France and other feats of endurance, heralded in the press with the saying “un beau mentir qui vient de loin,” a good lie comes from a great distance. Though always maintaining that “there is no sporting prize worth the use of drugs or stimulants,” Opperman competed at a time when the practise was endemic and an assist for a truly heroic effort was generally a forgivable offense. One’s intent could also be misconstrued when sporting such a contraption. I wonder if it was possible for some cad to going cruising and operate the craft solo—or if a willing partner was required to propel it.

aeroplanette

Though popularity and thus signalled acceptance for the concept of heavier than air propulsion as a viable and reliable form of conveyance took some time to cement itself in the minds’ of the public—as told through product tie-ins—was more gradual than, say, the appetite for all things space related. Nonetheless by 1912, there was a parlour game, a version of roulette, which in this variation had a tethered propeller-powered plane that was wound up and stayed aloft for around thirty circuits. The winner of the wager was the player who choose the correct world capital that the craft would touch down in. In the illustration, it looks to me like a dispute is about to ensue with the plane landing exactly on the line between Berlin and Wien.