synchronoptica
one year ago: an Albanian Spring Festival
two years ago: assorted links to revisit, Czech and Slovak history plus goblin mode
three years ago: Andorra, the Mir programme, St Matilda plus Nazis erotic toys
four years ago: origins of the Panama Canal, an urban lagoon plus Disney’s White Wilderness
five years ago: end of the broadcasting day, geopolitical narratives, a coin honouring Stephen Hawking plus cross-border commutes
Via tmn, we discover that from 1790 to 1880, the US Patent Office uniquely required filers to include with each application a model of their inventions, which were later curated and exhibited in the agency’s miniature gallery, established ahead of Washington, DC’s other museums as the top attraction of the capital city. Long ago deaccessioned and largely lost (as a form of crowd control), some artefacts have been collected and put on display, including the exquisitely impractical and unmarketable hull of Abraham Lincoln’s boat design with inflatable and evacuatable ballast to improve navigation (6469, the only patent granted to a US president—though I suspect that Trump has registered an unfashionable number of trademarks administered by the same authority) along with dozens of other ambitious artefacts of ingenuity.
synchronoptica
one year ago: the network effect
two years ago: assorted links to revisit plus Saint Ansovinus
three years ago: more links to enjoy, snowdrops plus a classic number from Brewer and Shipley
four years ago: a coup attempt in Germany (1920)
five years ago: the world wide web (1989), noise-cancelling, plant mobility plus more Olympic pictograms
In collaboration with the Electronic Free Foundation, Muckrock (previously) has just announced its annual Foilies award winners, recognising the most egregious instances of US government violating the precept of the public record. Ahead of their also recurring Sunshine Week to champion the importance of transparency and access, this tenth iteration really featured some strong resistance to FOIA requests, doubly depressing considering the death of local journalism and advocacy outlets, flouting disclosure requirements of the law. From attempt to tag a cache of email correspondence with the label “NO FOIA” in hopes to keep fraud from the public eye or attempts to reveal corruption and mismanagement met with ingratitude to zealous librarians checking out books themselves to keep them out of circulation while bans for certain literary works were still pending court challenges and politicians trying to keep secret their travel expenses. These achievements, both large and small, have impact, and are not bailiwick of lawyers and reporters, only requiring determination. Learn more at the link above.
studio nue: the meticulous and immersive sci-fi illustrations of Naoyuki Kato
landsat lens: virtual rewinding maps created with historic satellite imagery
drawing for nothing: a growing e-book of storyboards and character studies from unfinished, shelved animation projects—via Waxy hag horror: Poseidon’s Underworld explores the genre with 1971’s Blood and Lace
แนs (t → ♾️) = 0: researchers find algorithms that only quantum computers can solve—via Damn Interesting—see previously
all these worlds are yours, except europa: NASA reveals the plaque its probe will carry to Jupiter’s icy moon later this year
rednaxela: unusual toponyms, including the named terrace in Hong Kong believed to be Alexander transcribed right-to-left, as was the practise in the past
fantomah: outsider comic book artist Fletcher Hanks
synchronoptica
one year ago: assorted links to revisit, domino theory (1947) plus more words with no English equivalent
two years ago: more links to enjoy, World Day Against Cyber Censorship plus Mamma Mia (1975)
three years ago: the cosmography of William Fairfield Warren (1915), artist Caterina van Hemessen, St Maximilian of Tebessa, occultist Austin Osman Spare, listening to maps, more isogloss maps plus a celebration of veteran memes
four years ago: St Serafina plus COVID travel bans take effect
five years ago: resurrection plants
Whilst speculation about the whereabouts and fate of Kate Middleton not seen in public since a Christmas 
engagement has run rampant, with alleged sightings in the unlikeliest of places including the Wonka Experience, a family photograph posted on Mothering Sunday has backfired and done little to quiet the rumours after the wire-services issued a mandatory kill-notice to remove the image released by Kensington Palace due to an editorial issue and possible manipulation. The Princess of Wales later admitted to doing the touch-up work herself and apologised for the lightly edited portrait taken (see also) by the prince for causing such controversy and at a time when all the principal royals are out of the picture and not performing public duties, it only fuels conjecture, sometimes to wild conclusions.
Courtesy of our faithful chronicler, we are reminded on this day in 1974, ABC first broadcast the award winning children’s television special conceived and produced by Marlo Thomas and friends, adapted from a record album with activity book published sixteen months earlier. The songs and stories sung or acted out by contemporary celebrities including Carol Channing, Dustin Hoffman, Roberta Flack, Diana Ross, 
Alan Alda, Harry Belafonte, Cicely Tyson, Rosey Grier, Shirley Jones, Michael Jackson and Mel Brooks champion values of inclusion, individuality and comfort with one’s identity and reject gendered stereotypes, hailing that anyone can achieve anything, despite or because of the circumstances of their birth and was inspired by an uncomfortable incident in a bookstore where Thomas wanted to show her niece that it was acceptable and encouraged to flaunt traditional roles but only found materials reinforcing then—namely in a picture book that suggested boy grown up to be pilots and girls stewardesses, doctors, nurses, etc. Though predictably it drew criticism from certain circles at the time for indoctrination and emasculation, but the special and recording have endured, garnering both an Emmy and Peabody award, going Platinum within two years of release. A sequel, co-produced in the both the Soviet Union and the US—the first such primetime variety show collaboration, Free to Be… a Family, aired in 1988—featuring a new cast including Robin Williams, the Muppets, Lily Tomlin, Russian children’s television host Tatyana Vedeneyeva, JonBon Jovi and the magicians Penn and Teller.
synchronoptica
one year ago: assorted links to revisit, Queen Anne’s army plus the Lend-Lease Act of 1941
two years ago: The Kick Inside (1978) plus a pioneering photographer
three years ago: your daily demon: Dantalion, more links to enjoy, a Van Gogh up for auction, Oprah interviews other princesses plus a gallery of bad and misleading book covers
four years ago: more phonetic spelling alphabets plus more links worth revisiting
five years ago: a flag supercut, even more links plus scripturiency
The revitalised linkroll of Mx Tynehorne’s cabinet of hypertext curiosities reminds of another venerable old school Wunderkammer, very much en vivant and worth checking out on a regular basis, in the aperiodic blog of Peter Blinn, Curious Notions. Covering anniversaries and superlatives and obscure but useful tools in the main, it’s easy to get lost down a rabbit hole of shifting and surprising facts, which is undoubtedly a good feature for this sort of curation. Starting with a Monty Python-inspired cheesemongers’ survey of the rarest and most precious varieties just published for us turophiles, we learn that the among the most dear are traditionally caciocavallo—that is, transported by horseback, and derived from the milk of donkeys, derived from a tiny herd in the Balkans, a small-batch production influenced by folkways and the fact that the milk of an asinine jenny is counted as one of the leanest in the mammal family and produce sparingly compared to bovine sources.
With a two-hour made-for-television pilot airing the previous November to establish the antihero’s origin story, the CBS network series The Incredible Hulk, staring Bill Bixby as Dr David Banner and professional bodybuilder Lou Ferrigno as his alter ego, debuted on this day in 1978. Based off of the Marvel comic book character by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, a widowed and presumed dead physicist hitchhikes across the country, taking odd jobs and helping others in need whist trying to hide his condition, exposure to gamma radiation causes him to transform in stressful situations into a creature with superhuman strength, usually managing to do good by those he encounters despite his violent rampages. All the while, the Hulk is pursued by tabloid journalist Jack McGee, determined to expose Banner as a dangerous menace to society. The series ran until 1982, continuing in syndication and with several specials following the run that reprised the principals’ roles and spinning off the franchise with other super hero prodcutions.
synchronoptica
one year ago: a once-in-a-lifetime exhibition of Dutch paintings plus child-birth in Early Modern Europe
two years ago: assorted links to revisit
three years ago: Silent Running (1972), happy Mario Day, filibustering, the touchdown of Perseverance plus jamming with Nintendo Wii
four years ago: direct-dial telephones (1891), global stock markets respond to COVID, the origins and iconography of quarantine plus just wash your hands
five years ago: RIP Keith Flint
๐ซ: the origins of the circle-and-slash prohibition symbol, its adoption as an ISO standard coinciding with 1984’s Ghost Busters
return to sender: as part of the Prize Papers Project, a pristine Faroese hand-knitted sweater was discovered in an impounded parcel from 1807
electronic labyrinth: the 1967 student film from George Lucas that would be later reworked into the feature
snowdrops: Robert Marsham’s Indications of Spring (1789)
clairaudient: more on Rosemary Brown with other classical compositions from beyond the grave
if it doesn’t exist on the internet, it doesn’t exist: as of the beginning of the year, the venerable repository, the Ubuweb whose founder Kenneth Goldsmith is famous for the axiom, of the avant-garde has gone into archive-mode—via Web Curios
sella rotalis: Paul de Livron crafts beautiful wooden wheelchairs, including one for the Pope
belinda new: exploring the typography of Oscar nominated films
On the way back from grocery shopping, we walked the dog (car rides are still not her favourite and we like to reward her and ourselves with a little adventure en route) on a hiking trail called the “Kirschberge” (cherry mountains) to a fourteenth century signal tower a few kilometres outside of town with the central stronghold of the area, the Lichtenburg of Ostheim vor den Rhรถn, between there and the Stockheimer Warte in the woods near home. 
The “Amt”—an administrative unit of the County of Henneberg—changed ownership and allegiance often and subject to dispute over rights to impose taxes and tariffs on trade through the region (see above) and so this series of watch-towers was erected to secure their holdings for the next five hundred years. Like the one within the line of sight of Stockheim, the quarried-stone tower is seven metres high with re-enforced walls almost four metres thick and built a top a commanding height.
synchronoptica
one year ago: the peculiar properties of the letter r plus assorted links to revisit
two years ago: more links to enjoy
three years ago: medical trains in Siberia, St Frances of Rome, The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahogany (1930), Sputnik 9 (1961) plus a colourful neighbourhood in Kyiv
four years ago: the musical stylings of Jackie Manface Opel, the pandemic continues, a more mindful approach to recycling plus Nintendo LEGO
five years ago: the musical stylings of The Skaggs, Luke Perry guest stars on The Simpsons (1993), more links to enjoy, the introduction of Barbie (1959) plus the magic of bread
Whilst the lawsuit Elon Musk recently filed against OpenAI might seem frivolous and the domain of tech-billionaires with hard feelings—Musk being an original backer of the artificial intelligence venture, the allegation that co-founder Sam Altman (previously) for breach of contract—essentially harm caused by 
the broken-promise above—for abandoning its initial vision and mission of forwarding the field for the benefit of all by licensing its interim innovations before the Singularity to Microsoft as a commercial branch of the non-profit. Arguably an incremental improvement (weighing the publicised concerns from people involved with the newest iteration), the plaintiff claims that the release of GPT-4 without transparency and available for a price amounts to a sentient Clippy. Although we don’t believe that this version is thinking and the sought after Artificial General Intelligence, yet—at least, and such altruistic slogans like “Don’t be evil” or “Move fast and break things” tend to backfire—the lawsuit does raise an interesting question for the new Turing Test that I never thought might be an impediment to progress: if OpenAI is motivated to say that the next version for commercial release is only an improvement on the last and not the end goal, then we may never reach it, at least by one estimation and subject to litigation.
Hosted by a red dwarf around seventy light years from Earth nestled in the southern constellation of 
Equuleaus Pictoris (the painter’s easel, the majority of asterims of the hemisphere named after instruments representing the Age of Enlightenment and exploration), astronomers, building on earlier observations by Hubble, are studying the outermost exoplanet, TOI-270 ฮด, of the star system with the keener eyes of the James Webb Space Telescope and are coming to the conclusion that this temperate Neptune may be a water planet—above a portmanteau of hydrogen plus ocean. Though probably much hotter than conditions we are accustomed to, the pressure of the dense atmosphere (which the JWST can effectively lens through starlight and submit to spectral-analysis) and the fact it is tidally-locked with one side forever simmering and the other cast in an unending night reveals a chemical mix of water vapour and methane, suggesting a steamy global seascape.
synchronoptica
one year ago: Evil Empire (1983)
two years ago: assorted links to revisit
three years ago: more links to enjoy plus a World War I flying ace
four years ago: Mars’ Peacock Mountain
five years ago: Frauentag, writer and illustrator Dick Bruna, a namer of clouds plus a Simpsons’ episode pulled from rotation
Though not the first sabbath observed as a day of rest, reflection and worship, on this day in 321 CE, Constantine the Great ordained that the Sun’s Day, styling himself as Sol Invictus, the Unconquered Sun, as the non-work day for urbanites of the Empire, with workshops closed and magistrates taking this venerable day off—though allowances were made for those in the agricultural sector, whose harvest and husbandry usually couldn’t stand on ceremony. Having declared tolerance for Christians a decade earlier with the Edict of Milan and later convoking the Council of Nicaea, Christianity adopted this Roman week-structure.
harmonisation: Albanian government using AI to try to speed accession to European Union by rewriting local legislation to fit the block’s regulatory framework—via Marginal Revolution
the once and future sex: enduring medieval views on female anatomy
gรฉodรฉsie: more on the Paris Meridian and how Greenwich ultimately won out walk without rhythm and you won’t attract the worm: Christopher Walken, portraying Padishah Emperor Shaddam Corrino IV, unaware of his epic choreography in “Weapon of Choice” references Dune
mcmxxiv: a curation of photos from Alan Taylor—via Kottke
here there be tygers: animated adaptations of Ray Bradbury’s science fiction by Sergei Bondarchuk
the world is a cat—i can’t unsee that now: a geopolitical map drawing challenge
the school of venus; or the ladies delight: self-pleasure in the seventh century
circling the wagons: Sweden accedes to NATO as its thirty-second member state after a wait of two years—while holdout Hungary visits Trump
Via Miss Cellania, we are directed towards the latest project from GMUNK (see previously, artist and director Bradley G Munkowitz) in the form of a music video produced for the Folktronica duo Milky Chance hailing from Kassel. Harnessing cutting edge technical developments in the digital arts for decades, GMUNK and team have created a rather brilliant rendered, dynamic landscape to accompany the song. Learn more about the human-AI collaboration to create effects not possible just a short while ago at Colossal at the link above.
synchronoptica
one year ago: Gone with the Wind’s Rainbow Script
two years ago: the Comet of the Century plus more odonymy
three years ago: Seven Nation Army (2003), Die Sendung mit der Maus (1971) plus wandering words
four years ago: the Battle of Remagen (1945), broadening the search for extraterrestrial life plus pandemic hoarding
five years ago: Van Life
Whilst we had encountered in older texts the island metonymically the island referred to as Kandy, Candia, Kandiye or Candy we did not realise that this exonym and demonym had come from the above 
fortification that Arab mercantile traders from al-Andalus built during the Cretan Emirate period called
ุฑุจุถ ุงูุฎูุฏู
(rabแธ al-แธซandaq, “Castle in the Moat,” subsequently Hellenised as ฮงฮฌฮฝฮดฮฑฮพ then Latinised as the above) not far from the Bronze Age archaeological site of Knossos. The Islamic outpost in the Mediterranean, falling on this day in 961 with the Byzantine reconquest of the Aegean, under the leadership of General Nikephoros II Phokas—later emperor—rebranding the main settlement as ฮฮตฮณฮฌฮปฮฟ ฮฮฌฯฯฯฮฟ (Megalo Kastro, “Big Castle”). The modern place name of Herakleion or Iraklion (ฮฯฮฌฮบฮปฮตฮนฮฟฮฝ) is a nineteenth century popular naming conceit after the sunken Port of Hercules at the mouth of the Nile in Egypt once unified under the Kingdom of Greece after a period of independence. The lost ancient namesake city of Heracleion, also called Thonis near Alexandria, was not itself rediscovered under six metres of water until 2009.
Via Messy Nessy Chic, we are introduced to journalist by trade Grant Wallace, feature writer and then war correspondent in the 1890s to the end of World War I for the San Francisco Chronicler and Examiner whom also dabbled extensively as a screenwriter, author, Esperantist and erstwhile occultist—the extent of this preoccupation discovered after his death in 1954 in a cabin he had built in the woods outside of Camel-by-the-Sea. 
Archive, repository and laboratory for telepathy, or mental radio as Wallace characterised it, he produced hundred of detailed charts and diagrams reminiscent of sixteenth century alchemical illustrations but with a distinctly Art Nouveau flair (see also)—influenced by contemporary Egyptomania—as heuristic models for study on reincarnation and mediumship, with the dead as well as extraterrestrials, transcribing some messages over the course of his mostly secret and solitary research. Much more at the links above.one year ago: America’s Frozen Food Day plus assorted links to revisit
two years ago: more links to enjoy plus a LIFE parody in poor taste (1970)
three years ago: your daily demon: Seere, the Zapruder film, a Banksy mural plus more links worth the revisit
four years ago: the Pillar of the Boatmen, the winnowing oar plus negative reviews of the great outdoors
five years ago: hauntology, the Period Table (1869), even more links, the fashions of Edward Gorey plus Soviet home computers
beyond the edge: the paradox of an infinite Cosmos
why don’t you come up some time, see me: vocal fry and the valence of husky voices
the complete commercial artist: the graphic design that informed modern Japan
urschleim: primordial ooze as animated putty from 1911
l’urythmics: an anaerobic exercise routine led by jazz dance pioneer Eugene “Luigi 5-6-7-8” Faccuito
auteur: an omnibus collection of the most beautiful shots in cinematic history from the Solomon Society—including Barry Lyndon—sure to elicit lots of movie memories
biosigns: an array of telescopes trained on potentially habitable exoplanets confirm a sample size one in a demonstration of its capability
Via the New Shelton wet/dry, we are directed towards an interesting academic speculation from amateur historian Felice Vinci who transposes the epic, decade-long, decade-delayed homecoming of Odysseus (see previously here and here) from the Mediterranean to the higher climes of the Baltic Seas. Positing that conditions during the Holocene Climate Optimum during the time of the Trojan War made northern Europe more like Greece, the main battleground was on the plains of Finland, with Circe’s Isle Jan Mayen Island, the Sirens and Cyclops on the Norwegian coast, shipbuilding Aetolian Pylene the German town of Plรถn and Thebes Stockholm. Though many of the toponyms in Homer’s poem are frustratingly nondescript (most believed that Troy was legendary until it was discovered) and malleable, like the Matter of Britain or Charlemagne’s heritage claimed by many peoples, Vinci’s theory is an intriguing idea but does not seem particularly convincing or rigorous and follows a tradition of projection and syncretism. Much more at the links above.
one year ago: The Jaywalker (1956), the Great Michigan Pizza Funeral (1973), more needful punctuation plus assorted links to revisit
two years ago: the Iron Curtain (1946), a cinematic preview in retrospect plus translation choices for a global product
three years ago: ultracrepidarian, photographer AL Schafer plus another MST3K classic
four years ago: assorted links to revisit, Sinclair Computers (1981) plus Disney’s back catalogue
five years ago: artist Gunta Slรถlzl, parcours, Florida Man plus the Odyssey as a cruise itinerary
Though a bit averse to reposting content from Twitter, this cultural artefact was too good to resist, learning—via Super Punch—that circa 2003 when Chilean television first broadcast the original Star Wars trilogy, sponsors were keen on not taking the audience out of the experience and commercials breaks were subtly (or not so subtly) stitched into the film. This is rather ingenious and wish more networks did the same. Here is an example dubbed in English. Much more at the link above.
Around 2003 in Chile, when the original trilogy of Star Wars began airing on television there, they did this funny thing to avoid cutting to commercial breaks. They stitched the commercials into the films themselves. Here is one of them, with the English dub added in. pic.twitter.com/wC7N2vPNvv
— Windy ๐ธ (@heyitswindy) March 2, 2024
synchronoptica
one year ago: Don’t Stop the Beat (2002), Anti-Flirt Week (1923), cult cinema classics, more puzzling emoji plus Trump’s January Sixth charity recording
two years ago: the high cost of mineral extraction, customised browsing plus Jesus Christ Price
three years ago: Nosferatu (1922), more on the 1918 Influenza Pandemic, a visual search engine, American state birds plus Icelandic names
four years ago: stream-climbers plus Robert Mugabe elected (1980)
five years ago: outsider artist Adolf Wรถlfli, closed Italian shops, music from a Bosch triptych plus a Brexit phone booth to call Europe
Given the potential, inevitably of quantum computing to break even the hardest encryption and pose an 
existential threat to the digital framework of privacy and security that we’ve become accustomed to, a possible reprieve in the form of aperiodic tiling is welcome news. Rather than focus on the symmetrical and repeating approaches to tiling a surface, polymath and Nobel laureate Roger Penrose and others began to study inflation and deflation of imperfect coverage in the 1970s, and anticipating the models of quantum computing, physical qubits and the superimposed virtual states, the never-repeating mosaics are not in themselves a place to hide information but a check-digit redundancy to ensure calculations stay on course. Given the nature of quantum mechanics—measuring the in-between state, neither zero or one and both, will cause the value to collapse, making the circuitry a rather delicate and unreliable thing and could lead to a more robust and internally consistent way for encoding and encryption as we know it. More at the links above.
With aides believing he had been intoxicated for at least the week prior, drinking heavily throughout and downing at least three glasses of whisky or brandy the morning of the ceremony, vice president Andrew Johnson delivered his drunk inauguration speech on this day in 1865, witnesses describing it variously as rambling, repetitive and self-aggrandising. 
Kissing the Bible presented to him for the oath of office, Johnson was too incapacitated by the time in came to swear in the incoming class of senators. Upon the assassination of Abraham Lincoln forty-two days later during his second term, Johnson ascended to the presidency, his challenges foreshadowed by this incident. Picking the populist Johnson as his running-mate was a concession to secessionists—the choice turned out to be a rather grave political miscalculation, especially for the post-civil war period of reconciliation and Reconstruction with Lincoln’s own request that the ceremony be delayed until state governments of the readmitted polities were fully operational. Officially trying to cover up his sprees by confining Johnson to his quarters and issuing statements regarding an unspecified illness but the truth soon outed itself. Escorted to the Capitol to be sworn in by the outgoing vice president Hannibal Hamil, Johnson implored the officiator for a stimulant, begging off that he was unwell. Hamil offered that he had prohibited the serving of whisky in the senate cantina but offered to procure him a bottle from an establishment across the street, downing tumblerfuls until time for the event. Though there is no surviving, verbatim transcript of the speech, those present were incredulous at the spectacle as Johnson berated them with an incoherent lecture on the executive branch’s power and called out several present with insults. Hamil finally was successful in getting Johnson to stop when it was past due for the swearing in of Lincoln.
a bridge too far: German authorities pledge investigation into embarrassing leak of confidential military talks about Ukrainian aid
heteronyms: the Portuguese writer Fernando Pessoa with seventy pen-names
solar symbology: a survey of the various cartographic representations of North America’s upcoming total eclipse
phrixus and helle: newly excavated fresco in Pompeii retells the myth of the Golden Fleece
re:design: Jason Kottke unveils his new website with fresh 2024 energy—maybe we could all use a face-lift
replevin: Trump fraudulently overvalued his Scottish golf course and resort by £200 000 000—see previously
club remix: annual competition that invites doctoral candidates to dance their dissertation
airdrop: US begins aid delivery to a beleaguered Gazan population on the verge of famine
one year ago: TIME magazine (1923) plus assorted links to revisit
two years ago: more links to enjoy plus the largest capacity cargo plane
three years ago: more links worth the revisit, an artist’s message to get vaccinated plus Rocket Man (1972)
four years ago: the French version of the Dallas theme, Super Tuesday, Nigerian contributions to English plus more on the Human Interference Task Force
five years ago: graphic designer Alvin Lustig, Apollo IX (1969), an example of Celtic Revival architecture, McLaren’s Imperial Cheddar Club Cheese plus artist Pokey LaFarge
The always excellent Language Log, ruminating over the cycle of linguist extinction and the propagation of artificial or constructed languages after being directed toward a lengthy piece on making fictional dialogue for cinematic features and how Arabic influences and signifiers from Frank Herbert’s original novel were in 
large part removed from the latest adaptation, afforded us the chance for the same reflection and to revisit linguist David J Peterson, one of the foremost talents in the field of alien speech. Off-world and removed from outside influence for generations, the Fremen are not extraterrestrials but descendants of the original diaspora of Earth settlers and adherents of the fusion Zensunni faith—which is in itself a controversial suggestion of a hybrid faith—and apparently the production crew wanted to blunt some of the Islamic undertones, despite some of the main concepts of the native society of Arrakis being directly derived from Arabic words, creating a diglossia of Chakobsa and their unique, secret language. Set twenty thousand years in the future, Peterson’s challenge was to imagine how grammar and vocabulary might shift over the countless generations within isolated colonies and considering the depth and fullness of time and space, decided when authoring the exchanges, no directly corresponding or recognisable words would remain, causing some to criticise the change as further whitewashing and continuing the colonial narrative. It is a delicate balancing act. What do you think? Should the Fremen language have stayed truer to Herbert’s vision? There are plenty of other anachronisms and contemporary artefacts that require suspension of belief.
With motives never clearly articulated and sparking an international crisis, a US soldier, Specialist William A. Thomson, Jr of Columbus, Georgia, stationed in West Berlin’s Turner Barracks broke into the 
heavy armour motor pool and commandeered a fifty-tonne M60 tank. Proceeding to destroy the main gate of the post, Turner crashed through Checkpoint Charlie entering East Berlin. For some seventy very tense minutes, chaos ensured as Thompson swivelled the turret and took aim at East German and Soviet troops—no shots were fired—and then drove to the crossing at Drewitz. Diplomats and officers from the barracks were getting involved and eventually Thompson’s superiors were allowed into the Soviet sector and persuaded him to surrender and remand him to custody. The Americans were later permitted to retrieve the tank. During his court-martial, Thomas was characterised as a quiet individual with no history of wrong-doing or insubordination.
one year ago: An Imaginary Report on an American Rock Festival (1973) plus another MST3K classic
two years ago: the Moldo-Russian War (1992) plus The Starlost
three years ago: a satanic variety show, Pioneer 10 (1972), a line-of-sight telegraph (1792) plus telegraph abbreviations and shorthand
four years ago: comics cartography, a more environmentally friendly brick plus Plato’s Allegory of the Cave
five years ago: Bauhaus style logos for modern companies, a study of the Mosaic Virus by AI, the Overton Window, cleaner-burning trains plus the Communist International (1919)
Already subjected to a series of nuclear weapons tests as host to Operation Crossroads (see previously, see also), on this day in 1954 the United States conducted the first in the battery of design experiments with Operation Castle, detonating the a high yield thermonuclear, fusion bomb on an artificial island platform in the lagoon of Namu in the Bikini Atoll of the Marshall Islands. The strongest tactile explosion in history, the bomb was more than one-thousand times stronger than those dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, exceeding expectations of developers and spreading fallout (the heaviest in the form of pulverised and irradiated coral) across the region and far beyond. Residents were not evacuated and the decision was made not to abort the test despite wind shear that imperilled the islanders as well as personnel involved in the research. Trace amounts of radioactive material detected as far away as Australia, Europe and North America turned Castle Bravo into an international incident, prompting worldwide monitoring of fallout levels and a ban on further atmospheric tests.
unauthorised avatar: Ukrainian individual discovers her likeness from her self-help videos have been cloned to sell Russian goods, friendship with China
criterion collection: a curated series of great moments from the film company’s archive of Closet Picks
il galateo, overo de’ costumi: the age of impoliteness—an influential sixteenth century Venetian treatise of delicacy and manners
the weeknd stroke psa: a song parody about signs and symptoms of a cerebrovascular incident
@smalin: graphic artist Stephen Manlinowski creates beautifully animated classical and jazz score—via Web Curios
the hero’s journey: “the chosen one,” coming of age narratives of Dune, Star Wars, Harry Potter are mostly about adolescent boys coming to grips with their sexuality—via tmn
dark currents: a 1992 public access occult soap opera from Marrawamkeag, Maine inspired by Dark Shadows, Twin Peaks
thimblerig: internet retailer’s financial shell game and predatory pricing enabled it to create an untenable monopoly not thought sustainable
A robotic submarine exploring the seamounts off the Chilean coast in a recent expedition sponsored by the Schmidt Ocean Institute has netted the discovery, an international group of researchers believe, of a hundred new species never before seen, from deep sea corals, urchins, sponges, amphipods and the above ten-legged type of crustacean related to hermit crabs. Specimens were observed off the plunging cliffs of the Nazca Ridge in the southeastern Pacific and reveals how ecosystems change with depth and how to optimise conservation efforts. More from Voice of America at the link above.
synchronoptica
one year ago: the Xerox Alto (1973) plus the mummers of Sardinia
two years ago: assorted links to revisit
three years ago: your daily demon: Abraxas, botanist Catharina Helena Dรถrrien, St David’s Day plus bringing back the North American chestnut
four years ago: Steve Jackson Games (1990) plus Easter Eggs in Swiss maps
five years ago: Prohibition in Iceland, Nixon in Latin America plus Lake Erie gets personhood
As with other disastrous and disappointing venues, last week’s fiasco surrounding what was billed as an immersive family event organised by the House of Illuminati did not fail to garner a viral attention over 
this sad and pricy—up to £ 40 for a group ticket and spurring angry visitors to call the police and shut down the attraction that same afternoon (I recall similar reportage over dull and expensive Christmas Carnivals and Winter Wonderlands—Willy Wonka Chocolate Factory Experience. Contrary to an advertisement campaign aggressively enhanced by AI, the venue was in a largely empty warehouse in Glasgow sparsely festooned with a few candy-themed props, a bouncy castle and some vinyl printed backdrops from the above ad guided by poorly costumed actors. One photograph that emerged of this Oompa Loompa, looking herself rather humiliated to be party to this all around flop, adding insult to injury by framing her as some dreary technician at a meth lab, but awarding (or cursing) her with some standout meme-treatment and twice interviewed about the mortifying few hours. Rightfully skeptical about the gig posted on a jobs site, the professional actor, children’s entertainer and yoga instructor, she walked into a slapdash production not fully thought out but couldn’t back out of the contract (none of the cast was paid ultimately) and hope she might bring a little redemptive fun to the show. Much more from Super Punch at the link above.
Supposedly using his foreknowledge of a lunar eclipse that night, Christopher Columbus (previously) on 
this day in 1504 frightens a group of hostile Jamaican natives. The ominous but not singular celestial was predicted by astronomer Regiomontanus, where the Moon passes through the umbra of the Earth turning shades of orange and red, enough to rattle superstitious sailors, and reportedly Columbus hoped to convince the caciques, the group’s leaders, of his supernatural prowess and threaten them divine retribution from their Christian god if they didn’t agree to barter for supplies, the crew facing starvation without their help. Cowering in fear once the eclipse started, so the account goes, Columbus fabulistically forgave them their indigence and restored the Moon, promising that they would be spared pestilence and failed crops.
365,2422: an explanation of leap years and calendar alternatives
ladies’ privilege: leap day customs—via Strange Company 29 february: more on the necessity of quadrennial correction—see previously
la bougie du sapeur est sans reproche: the satirical French newspaper published only on leap days, making it the most infrequent publications in print, with its next Sunday supplement not out until 2032
intercalary days: holiday drift and other events that happen every four years
366: a scheduled agenda and play-list list how one might celebrate the day from the last time we had one—be happy that tomorrow is not 30 February
synchronoptica
four years ago: the sacrifice of the village of Elam in Plague Times
eight years ago: a vocabulary lesson, lodges of the Hakka region plus on trial for destruction of precious cultural property
twelve years ago: more quadrennial events
