ballonflucht

In the early hours of this morning in 1979, eight members of two families, realising the fruition of a plot hatched over a year and a half beforehand with careful planning and patience so as not to arouse suspicion, one attempt that ended in resounding failure that almost led to their capture and detention and brought heavier surveillance plus three hand-stitched balloon membranes, crossed from Pößneck in East Germany to Naila just over the border in Bavaria in a hand-engineered hot air balloon with navigation improvised. Read (or listen to) the full story about the harrowing heroics of the families Strelzyk and Wetzel and their determination to secure a future in the West at the link above.

6x6

cheese whey wine: this proposal does not exact merit the enthusiasm of either turophiles nor œnologists

nessie: DNA evidence suggest that the monster of Loch Ness might be a colony of giant eels

mensch-maschine: watch limber, articulate but abstract robots mimic human motion

an englishman in new york: a biographical look at the life and times of Quentin Crisp (previously)

cloverleaf: a gallery of freeway interchanges (previously), via Present /&/ Correct

formaggio ubriaco: bringing it full circle, this delicacy from Treviso sounds more palatable

genomkörning på svenska

Whilst some organisations have taken to deputising fast-food franchises with plenipotentiary and consular powers, we discover that a few such outposts in Sweden (fifty-five at least) are installing drive-thru charging stations for electric vehicles to supplement the coverage of state-sponsored infrastructure that leaves just enough gaps as to dissuade some drivers from committing to this other mode of transportation. While a full re-charge takes a bit longer than fulfilling one’s order, it still offers a nice alternative and adds extra value to queuing up.

escalator to nowhere

Having gleaned no lessons learned from other municipalities like Berlin and Barcelona—not to mention the panoply of remorseful cities in the US—who count their decision to open up their thoroughfares among their biggest miscalculations, this week Wiesbaden allowed the installation of e-scooter stations that one can rent via a smartphone platform and abandon anywhere.  It’s not so much the question of liability and the potential for bodily harm to the operator and cross-traffic that bothers me so much but rather the gimmickry of it all, the luring away of people content to walk and take mass-transit otherwise and the greenwashing that belies the considerable infrastructure and how very smart people are lapping it up. “Well sir, there’s nothing on Earth like a genuine, bonafide, electrified six-car monorail. What’d I say?” That’s one way I suppose to get your town on the map.

8x8

blood meridian: two animated maps (see also) chart Manifest Destiny from contrasting perspectives

lobby cards: the iconic film posters and title sequences of Saul Bass (previously here and here)

strong to the finich: because of the leafy green’s steroidal qualities, some are calling for it to be banded like other doping agents

scientific method: brilliant vintage middle school text books via Present /&/ Correct

nineteen eighty-four was not meant to be an instruction manual: workers trialled with beacons and bracelets to monitor performance and productivity

best in show: a curated selection of the winners of the National Geographic travel photography competition

lj: going into production in 2021, the Lightyear One represents the industry’s first long-range and untethered electric vehicle, via Design Boom

pomological catalogue: the 1886 US contract for watercolour depictions of all the world’s fruit

hægri dagurinn

A year after a far more logistically challenging switch-over had occurred in Sweden, all vehicular traffic in Iceland switched from left-handed chirality to right on this day in 1968.
Owing to the relative absence of congestion on the roads prior and to the stationing of British military forces during and after World War II which significantly overrode civilian activity, Iceland was not compelled to choose or to align itself until it began hosting more guests from continental Europe and America. As for Sweden, the change was imposed in hopes of reducing traffic accidents and while indeed accidents decreased right after the transition due to an abundance of caution and over-compensation, the benefits were not long-lasting.

bolstering bridges

The twenty-six hundred residents of Giethoorn are seeing their relationship with the tens of thousands of tourists descending on the “Dutch Venice” (previously) every year growing a bit strained—appreciating the revenue the visitors bring but not necessarily the added traffic to this car-free town that is only navigable by foot and boat. Minor though frequent collisions with the residents’ private bridges that span the canals and connect the islands are sustaining enough damage that passage along these waterways criss-crossed by some forty-five of the traditional bridges is needing to be restricted so repairs can proceed and make conditions safer for villagers and punters alike.

jet set

The TWA hotel housed in an incredibly restored 1962 terminal designed by Eero Saarinen (previously) has just recently celebrated its grand opening and welcomes its first guests at the John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens, New York. Given the convenience and immersive atmosphere that perfectly captures all the best of Mid-Century modern glamour, lodging seems rather reasonably priced and it costs nothing to visit and walk through the main terminal. Learn more at CityLab at the link above.

polar azimuthal projection

Via Strange Company, we are introduced to the magnificent, late sixteenth century chart of the known world, Urbano Monte’s Planisphere.
Splitting from the traditional representation of the globe made the industry-standard by Flemish mapmaker Gerardus Mercator in the preceding century, which portrayed the constant bearings of sailing vessels (curved rhumb lines) as straight paths, Monte deconstructed the round Earth as sixty separate surfaces that could be reassembled to study the entire atlas comprehensively. The resulting masterwork is full of tiny details and illustrations but is also testament to Monte’s geographic understanding on a continent scale, surpassing his peers by getting the Mediterranean and Africa more to scale than other depictions and not making California an island. More to explore at the links above.

8x8

von neumann probes: perhaps autonomous, self-replicating interstellar explorers are destroying each other, accounting for their lack of evidence

bahnhofsuhr: the iconic Swiss train station clock designed by Hans Hilfiker

dactylography: an interesting survey of ancient latent fingerprints and the scientific rigour of forensics

incidental music: a cocktail party version of the main Star Trek theme exists in the Star Trek universe

parclo interchange: the elegant engineering of Japanese freeway junctions from above

a rabbit’s revenge: a further study of the prevalence of bunnies committing violence on humans (previously) in medieval marginalia

breakfast at mondrian’s: studio Brani & Desi translate the Dutch artist’s geometric works to floors and furnishings in a concept apartment

aerography: huge rivers coursed across the Martian surface for billions of years, via Slashdot

breitling orbiter

After launching three weeks earlier from Chateau-d’Œx in the canton of Vaud, psychiatrist and avid balloonist Bertrand Piccard—hailing from a long-line of adventurers, along with co-captain Brian Jones, became the first team on this day in 1999 to successfully circumnavigate the globe in a hot-air balloon. With the help of a ground-crew of meteorologists, they accomplished this feat by negotiating atmospheric currents and jet-streams and had no means of forward propulsion other than being borne aloft by the winds.

too school for cool

Fusing the Tiny House movement with the culture of Van Life, we are introduced to a new but growing subculture of post-modern nomads called Skoolies, who live in refurbished buses, retired from the fleets that service public schools and municipalities. Correspondent for Curbed Britta Lokting infiltrates an encampment and delivers an interesting and insightful profile of some of the members of this tribe, their homes (which are far from rustic and austere) and their lifestyle.

styx

From the BBC Monitoring desk, we learn that years of neglect and crumbling infrastructure may be turned the Athens’ advantage and lead to the revival of an ancient and storied river that used to course through the city unimpeded but has been buried for decades after a post-war building boom.
Flowing down from Mount Hymettus and emptying into Phakeron Bay, the banks of the River Ilisos (Ιλισός, a demi-god, son of Demeter and Poseidon) was a favourite spot for Socrates and his pupils as well as being dotted with shires and temples to Zeus, Diana and Pan along its route. Rather than repairing the tunnel that contains the river, the plan is to return it to the surface and line its banks with a public park, emanating from the Pantheatnaic Stadium—the venue for the first modern Olympic Games in 1896.

global hawk

Via Slashdot, we learn that a company specialising in wireless power transmission has announced it has developed an electromagnetic field generator that could permit drones to remain aloft indefinitely—never needing to idle for a recharge. Our cargo cult-like obsession with automation and seamless delivery makes me think of how the pre-Enlightenment natural scientists supposed birds of paradise had no feet and lived their entire lives in the skies.    

acrostic or minibus appropriations

As the partial shutdown of the US government creeps into its third week, furloughed and exempted (working for delayed pay) staff at the National Weather Service’s Anchorage, Alaska bureau managed to embed a desperate plea in the forecast discussion.
One cannot expect to essentially close one quarter of the federal government without some nasty consequences down-stream and knock-on effects for departments that are open. Aside from rubbishing national parks, the workers and their families held kept in suspense, the air traffic controllers and screeners working without compensation (whoever thought we would be sharing a cup of kindness for the Transportation Security Administration), the research not being conducted and the tax statements not being processed (plus a litany of other thing not being done), there’s real dangers to public safety just being barely kept at bay by the dedication of a few.

was this trip really necessary?

While piloting a programme for commercial flights without single-use plastics on board might seem gimmicky and greenwashing, it is nonetheless a step in the right direction and unless we want to face the ethical problems that travel and tourism present without some ammunition in our moral quiver—begging questions like the one above—we’ve got to demand better more sustainable options when it comes to holiday-making, otherwise decisions will be made for us. Every locale with a tour operations running, boating excursions, snorkelling, photographic safaris, etc. or even restaurants and hoteliers that cater to outside visitors, ought to be mandated to use the most energy-efficient, zero-polluting means of transportation and logistics available with help from local governments.
What do you think? Would you pay a bit extra to site-see knowing that your presence didn’t deprive another of the same quality experience later on? After all, every little bit helps and we got here due to laziness and cutting corners multiplied billions of times. While progress towards cleaner and more efficient modes of transportation and daily living should not fall further behind in the private sector, governments should first place a premium on tourists to subsidise adopting new technologies and cycling out old, dirty motors for less intrusive electric ones.

6x6

cloud № 81: Dangerous Minds’ Richard Metzger interviews “prophet of the piano” Lubomyr Melnyk 

eviation: the electric airliner revolution may be here sooner than we think—via Slashdot

opera chirurgica: from our antiquarian, various anatomical charts to contemplate

stupid, twitsy remainers: found-footage from the Prime Minster’s residence

whitey sense: the unfortunate trend of calling out people minding their own business

yule log: an assortment of relaxing fireplace videos—previously

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.