i want to destroy the passerby

Later included on their eponymous first album Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols, the band’s debut single Anarchy in the UK was released on this day in 1976. Giving voice to a generation of disenfranchisement and poor prospects, this anthem launched the genres of punk- and anarcho-rock, reclaiming and reshaping pop music from its nadir of blandness and timidity, called out in the lyric—“I use the enemy” or NME, the New Musical Express, a rather tame hit digest that would later come to champion the Sex Pistols and similar groups.

 

hanging chad

Though George Walker Bush would not be officially awarded the presidency until the Supreme Court issued its split-decision nearly a month after election day and halted ballot re-count, on this day in 2000 Secretary of State of Florida, Katherine Harris certified Bush as the winner, having purged many voters (felons and other disenfranchised individuals) from the rolls, narrowly defeating contender Albert Arnold Gore Junior and losing the overall popular vote but thus able to carry the majority of the Electoral College. Coverage of the debate and controversy cemented the colour-coding conventions of US political parties (previously), whereas prior media coverage had been inconsistent or idiosyncratic, often following UK schemes which portray conservatives as blue and liberals as red.

6x6

four-score: an exploration how the language of counting might influence numeracy

sundowning: museum visits as therapeutic interventions seem to ease symptoms of dementia

look, a fruit-loop: the actual libretto—you’ve been singing Dies Iræ all wrong (see also)

satellite nyetwork: a retired gentleman elaborately decorates receiver dishes informed by traditional Russian folk art, via Nag on the Lake

dataviz: Information is Beautiful curates the year’s superlative infographics, via Kottke’s Quick Links

zero-to-sixty: a century of evolving European motorways as part of the Victoria & Albert’s series on Accelerating the Modern World, via Things Magazine 

musical instrument digital interface

Unless you’re backup keytar, strings and frets are usually the essential parts of the instrument, the exception being this rather clever barcode guitar from designer and musician James Bruton. Scanning chords across the four necks feeding information to a MIDI synthesizer, Bruton is able to create some interesting sounds and shares how you might be able to create something similar.