7x7

bbc dad: via Kottke, the five or so times that the internet was collectively fun over the past year

stratagem: Sun Tzu’s the Art of the War on Christmas

earworm: the United States of Pop 2017 Edition

data discrimination: US attorneys general and congress mount legal challenges to the Federal Communication Commission over Net Neutrality

holiday jumpers: the history of the garment and the Vancouver get-togethers that launched the Ugly Christmas Sweater phenomenon

a matter of timing: more Comedy Wildlife Photo Awards winners

luke starkiller: concept trailer for Ralph McQuarrie’s original 1975 vision for Star Wars

brooding and blissful halcyon days

Thanks to our faithful chronicler Doctor Caligari we not only learn that the period of time seven days on either side of the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year, are referred to as halcyon days for a time when the seas are calmed but also the term’s etymology: from the Latin form of Alcyone, the hapless daughter of Æolus, the god of the winds, and his wife Enarete. Alcyone met and fell in love with a sailor called Ceyx—who also had divine parentage as a son of Phosphorus, the Morning Star. Husband and wife were very happy together but the king and queen of the gods took umbrage at the fact that their pet-names for each other were Zeus and Hera. I could imagine better terms of endearment than evoking a philandering, incestuous relationship but couples can be peculiar, and this sacrilege earned the scorn of Zeus, who wielded a thunderbolt at Ceyx’ ship. Alcyone was of course inconsolable and the other gods (their parents and in-laws presumably) took pity on them both by transforming them to kingfishers (taxonomically speaking, Halcyon) who migrate from Africa to Greece at this time of year to roost and the weather is fair so that they can nest in peace.

discharge

Studying the anatomy of the electric eel informed Alessandro Volta’s first synthetic battery and over two centuries later, the creature (Electophorus electricus, and technically a kind of knifefish) is still contributing to scientific innovation, as The Atlantic reports (not pictured but drawing off the same idea of scalability), with a Swiss team making soft and pliable energy storage units that act like the highly specialised electricity producing organ. Potentially compatible with our own bodies, some recognise the bionic potential, powering and self-sustaining medical implants and microscopic machinery that our metabolism and internal chemistry can keep charged.

alternativity

BBC 2 will air a collaboration between street artist Banksy and director Danny Boyle on Third Advent billed as a “festive spectacular” held at the venue of the artist’s own self-described worst hotel in the world at the foot of the wall dividing Bethlehem.