writ of mandate (11. 822)

Having often wondered ourselves how specialised jargon in general was some sort of professional wizardry (tech, medicine, economics, the clergy) to make their practise impenetrable or inscrutable for non-experts, via Language Hat, we enjoyed this study that postulates that the embedded, dependent clause-rich sentence structure of legalese—forgoing even the spellbinding elements of legal Latin—is like a magical incantation. This obfuscation by design, parsing thousands of court documents, holds despite even lawyers decrying and disavowing this style and repeated calls for “plain language” laws (decisions don’t have a specific requirement for florid and what’s perceived to be “exacting” and only precedent and simpler worded ones are equally enforceable on appeal) and seem to have a performative aspect—a capacity for proscription rather than just description—that lends a sense of a magic formula above the ken of outsiders. More from The Conversation at the link above.

 synchronoptica

one year ago: the debut of Star Trek: The Animated Series (with synchronoptica)

seven years ago: newspapers in movies, Hurricane Irma’s path of destruction, Saturn’s rings, London’s Garden Museum, an illustrated ship’s log plus Ford pardons Nixon

eight years ago: a patriotic art counterfeiter, assorted links worth revisiting, more spirit drawings plus New Amsterdam becomes New York

nine years ago: the curious names of US court justices

ten years ago: Scotland’s independence referendum

8x8 (11. 821)

i voted: the state of Michigan let the internet choose the redesign of its election sticker given out at the ballot box and it’s a werewolf clawing off its own shirt  

selective foresight: the “marshmallow longterism” of conservatives—see also  

turn on subtitles: animated videos using only the closed captioning feature  

psycho a capella: Korean ensemble MayTree shows off their vocal abilities with an excerpt from the film’s tense main theme—via Everlasting Blört  

backchannel: YouTube removes Tenet Media content following US justice department indictment linking them to Russian election interference  

slipstream: the amazing achievements of cyclist José Meiffret 

eidophone: voices made visible by Welsh singer and scientist Margaret Watts Hughes  

the kamala and tim show: the Democratic ticket is bringing 80s sitcom energy—via Kottke

where we’re going we don’t need stroads (11. 820)

Whilst happy to live in a country that has not privileged cars over pedestrians completely where services are walkable and there’s a robust network of public transportation, there is always room for improvement at the margins—parking lots take up a lot of real estate and can be sweltering heat islands that could surely be put to a better use and there’s signs that some mid-sized cities in Germany are tending towards their American counterparts with the same horrendous corridors of strip malls, gas stations, automobile lots and fast food and plenty of investment in infrastructure has been invested in making the car king. Courtesy of Kottke, we are directed towards this reflection on how the car-centric focus of the US is like an addiction impossible to kick because of all the sunk costs and the ingrained and perpetuating cycle of more roads, more traffic and more destinations. The urban planning for the overwhelming majority of places built up post the introduction of the car is going to take a long process of unbuilding to make them liveable, and this is the American experience with hardly any exception—the article quoting Tennessee Williams’ observation that the country only has three cities: “New York, San Francisco and New Orleans—everywhere else is Cleveland,” which unfortunately rings very true for all that are consigned to be stuck in congestion and forever en route and whose errands and commute affords no chance for serendipity, divergence or nature. The title portmanteau of “street” and “road” was coined in criticism to the spreading failures of American civil engineering.

10⁶⁰⁰ (11. 819)

Via Things Magazine (lots more to explore there), we get the chance to revisit the electromechanical rotor cipher machine, the advanced HX-63 developed by a private Swiss firm, which would prove difficult to crack even by contemporary standards and in 1952 was exponentially more secure than the CIA’s top model. Over the course of a decade, only about a dozen of the units were manufactured and though most clientele remained anonymous, the French defence ministry was one known buyer and a defence contractor found the device in a Cold War communications bunker and restored it to working order. The potential of those above undisclosed purchasers to be forces not aligned with Western interests caused the intelligence agency to intervene and not only eventually stop their sales but also to enter into a partnership with the company to produce a model with a backdoor so the CIA could decrypt any transmission. More from IEEE Spectrum at the link above including a video demonstration of the restored, uncompromised model and more on how the technology works to encode messages.

synchronoptica

one year ago: INTERPOL (1923)—with synchronoptica—plus divination through cheese

seven years ago: an appreciation of composer Edvard Grieg,  a meditation on the dacha plus cabmen’s shelters

eight years ago: restoring the Houses of Parliament, the debut of Star Trek, a Buddha-inspired knitted cap plus the debut of Voyager

nine years ago: a partially submerged art installation in the Thames is a statement on climate change

ten years ago: window displays, NATO talks on the Russian invasion of Ukraine plus a visit to Bad Vilbel

d-minus (11. 818)

Beginning on this day in 1962 and concluding at the month’s end just weeks before the Cuba Missile Crisis, Exercise Spade Fork was part of a US federal emergency preparedness plan to mobilise and reconstitute the government in the aftermath of a nuclear attack (see previously). In this scenario, run parallel to the military exercise codenamed High Heels II, America was hit first with a pre-emptive, decapitation strike targeting the presidential retreat and childhood home of Jacqueline Bouvier, Hammersmith Farm in Newport, Rhode Island. Comprised of a force of seventeen hundred civil servants, an “Executive Reserve” received specialised training to maintain command and control and manage resources. Subsequent strategic doctrine, however, has superseded such a sequence of events, since taking out another power’s leadership is prone to failure and backfire as the easiest contingency to prepare for and without the central authorities in place, belligerents lose the ability to negotiate and put the decision to retaliate in the hands of rogue elements. Midway into the drill, plans were modified in order to provide cover for the mobilisation of army units to deploy to Mississippi in order to enforce the ruling of desegregation of public schools when the governor refused to honour the court order to integrate the state university.

synchronoptica

one year ago: a banger from The Jam (with synchronoptica), Keith Haring’s computer art plus a musical number about medication from Ginette Garcin

seven years ago: assorted links worth revisiting

eight years ago: Powers of Ten, The Great Fire of 1666, colonising Venus, discarded shopping lists plus a tree house in Stuttgart

nine years ago: more links to enjoy, a more accurate tree census, Aloha attire plus an antonym for omnipresent

ten years ago: the life of Caesar, the new temperance laws plus common misconceptions

doge (11. 817)

Trump has announced that Elon Musk has agreed to head a commission for his potential administration, named the Department of Government Efficiency in reference to Musk’s favoured meme-based cryptocurrency, tasked with reducing US federal spending and the deficit. Musk’s businesses not only benefit from government subsidies and also counts NASA, the Pentagon and several intelligence agencies among his direct clients, which raises the spectre of a conflict of interest in line with Trump’s imperial presidency. Musk was formerly a member of a White House advisory council but resigned in protest in 2017 after the US withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement, although has recently recanted that decision, saying the climate catastrophe was not in need of immediate attention and has softened his opinions of the petroleum industry.

schnelling points (11. 816)

Humans have a seemingly uncanny knack for solving complex coordination problems when communication and prior planning is limited by uncovering the shared cultural or knowledge-based default in a such situation, concerting the intentions and expectations and land on the above foci, named after economist and game-theorist Thomas Schelling. 

Cooperative experiments demonstrate that a team of individuals acting towards shared end will pick the same time and place for a rendezvous. Part of the allure of AI models is that they seem also quite good at coordination problems—from predictive text, to routine emails to proofreading to peer-review, insofar as they have been trained on the social norms that we draw on as well to achieve a common goal. Artificial intelligence has a worse track record when it comes to something genuinely innovative or unprecedented, and moreover may erode the implicit social bargain that underpins cooperative efforts. The routine is also ritual and outsourcing them, like the above onerous tasks, dulls not only the refining practise when it comes to composing an email—which is also the author’s assessment of their audience—but of course lands as disingenuous and meritless when one can’t be bothered to dash off a good reference or buy someone a gift that was not generated by algorithm. What do you think? We’ve always been taking short-cuts but subverting ceremony altogether seems more serious. More from Henry Farrell at the link above.

in my considered judgment, we have comported ourselves in a manner faithful to our history (11. 815)

As the first major celebration of the bicentennial of the American revolution, the contemporary governors of the original Thirteen Colonies were invited to reenact, reconvene the First Continental Congress (see also) in Philadelphia, gathering for an event at the original venue of Carpenters’ Hall on this day on this day in 1974.

Chaired by Virginia governor Mills E Godwin, Junior as presiding officer, delegates re-legislated the several grievances lodged against the Crown, not quite revising history and remaining patriotic but coming to some re-evaluation and different conclusions on oppression and tyranny. The original 1774 summit, whose delegation makeup was more diverse than that of two centuries prior and included women and minorities, adopted among other things the Articles of Association that called for a general boycott of British goods, which was soon escalated by punitive sanctions against the Colonies.

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth the revisit (with synchronoptica)

seven years ago: the first in-flight movie (1925) plus Excalibur found

eight years ago: the flak towers of World War II, weather at Jupiter’s pole, more on Merkel’s hand posture plus Michaelmas

nine years ago: the innovation of the stirrup, a vintage arcade in Saint Petersburg, a Bell logo redesign, emoji urls plus more on stave architecture

ten years ago:  the NATO summit in Wales

9x9 (11. 814)

unpodcasted: one hundred ninety nine ideas about etymologies, idioms and eponyms that Helen Zaltzman has not produced an episode for—yet  

book club: Oprah Winfrey’s upcoming special on Artificial Intelligence with Sam Altman, Bill Gates and other AI-evangelists has critics of the tech sector up in arms  

blue chip index: Intel’s earnings slump could see it removed from the Dow, possibly putting a wrench in plans to increase US domestic manufacturing

sleepy grendel’s mother: Beotrump by Christopher Douglas  

jevons paradox: even if autonomous vehicles worked perfectly, they will still lead to more pollution, congestion and accidents—see previously—via tmn  

oslo—is it even a city: a wonderful bit of anti-advertising for the Norwegian capital plus more news and jokes 

intel inside: Pentium microprocessor as Navajo weaving—via Waxy 

nanowrimo: the organisation behind National Novel Writing Month criticised over labelling aversion to generative texts as classist and ableist 

unblogged: fellow flâneur Diamon Geezer lists a month’s worth of explorations not posted

 synchronoptica

one year ago: The Eye of the Tiger (with synchronoptica),  Kenneth Anger’s first film plus hot labour summer

seven years ago: the Little Ben of Victoria station

eight years ago: a visit to Churfrankenland plus an ant colony thriving in nuclear waste

nine years ago: assorted links to revisit plus algorithmic eavesdropping

eleven years ago: Germany votes plus pirate patches

petrolgrad (11. 813)

On his first visit to a signatory member of the International Criminal Court since the issuing of a warrant for his arrest in 2022 for war crimes—specifically the forced deportation of Ukrainian children to be raised by Russian families—Vladimir Putin is flagrantly testing the limits of the infra-national judicial body’s jurisdiction by his welcome in Ulaanbaatar. Although there is no framework to enforce compliance, state parties like Mongolia are expected to uphold the court’s pre-trial rulings and detain those summoned. Kyiv is urging compliance as well as several protests organised locally. Putin’s presence is for among other things to promote the building of a new pipeline to China, called the Power of Siberia 2, to make up for lost sales to Europe following the boycott of Russian oil.

night owl (11. 812)

Wanting to garner greater influence in Nevada feeling past his prime in California, a reclusive and withdrawn Howard Hughes (see previously), at sixty, took up permanent residence at the Desert Inn of Las Vegas, occupying both upper storeys of the hotel—eventually to the proprietor’s consternation over the extended stay to which Hughes responded by purchasing the entire building—and remained holed up there. An avid fan of television, particularly movies, Hughes’ tendency towards insomnia turned into an acute frustration, given the limited choice of three networks and broadcasters signing off at 2300. Leaning heavily on his preferred local CBS affiliate KLAS (channel eight on the dial), Hughes had his employees often make requests to the station, Westerns or aviation dramas, and even would have regularly scheduled programming preempted or replayed if he happened to miss a part. Rather than dealing with upset sponsors, the network’s manager eventually suggested that Hughes buy the station and run things his way, which in 1967 he did, essentially turning it into a personal streaming service. The daytime schedule mostly stuck to CBS shows but late nights (the station airing on a twenty-four schedule) were Hughes’ playlist, to the confusion of other viewers, with films (including ones still in theatres through special deals with studios, owning RKO Pictures personally) sometimes paused, rewound or switched to an entirely different one without warning. It sounds like a more benign version of other contemporary vanity projects though just as audacious. More from Mental Floss at the link above.

synchronoptica

one year ago: the life of a DJ (with synchronoptica)

seven years ago: a top-down review of quantum mechanics plus a trip around the Rhön

eight years ago: the Frank Reade Library specialising in the genre of science fiction

nine years ago: the myth of medieval torture chambers, assorted links to revisit plus the Albigensian Crusade

ten years ago: the gig-economy versus registered taxis, accommodations 

8x8 (11. 811)

two minutes of hate: Trump stokes more violence against the press at his rallies, hosted at former/current sundown towns  

don’t ask, don’t tell: Poseidon’s Underworld reviews the 1969 film The Gay Deceivers about two straight men’s attempts to avoid conscription  

crate digging: one individual’s project to rescue forgotten songs from oblivion by persuading labels to release them online—via tmn

bündis sahra wagenknecht: populist parties from both ends of the political spectrum gain support in Thüringen and Sachsen and may need to work together as no other is willing to caucus with Alternative für Deutschland—see more, see previously  

big rigs: electric-powered excavators and other heavy machinery convincing more industries to de-carbonise—via Damn Interesting’s Curated Links 

the treaty of aigun: Taiwanese president Lai says if China was concerned over territorially integrity, it should begin with Outer Manchuria ceded to the Russian Empire in 1858, including what’s now known as Vladivostok (海参崴, Sea Cucumber Bay)  

dumpster diving: the modern archeology of trash  

choose your gear: the evolution of the action movie poster and how it reflects our view of masculinity  

ultra vires: season two of Rachel Maddow’s series (previously) on the history of assault on democracy profiles senator Joseph McCarthy’s beginnings as a Nazi apologist—well before the Red Scare

union label (11. 810)

We enjoyed this celebration of the American Labour Day holiday (see previously) through this collection of standard-bearers, banners carried on marches and strikes to unite workers for the common-cause of fair wages and bargaining rights, drawn from various archives and industries. Most of the oldest historical emblems—many still extant—comes from garment and textile workers, with delightfully florid iconography that harks back to the professional guilds of the Old World, like the New York Journeymen Tailors’ Protective and Benevolent Chapter. Much more from Hyperalleric at the link above.

synchronoptica

one year ago: anthropomorphised food mascots (with synchronoptica) plus Badger, Badger

seven years ago: reposting World War II as it happened plus the companies contracted to build Trump’s border wall

eight years ago: no more McDonald’s in Iceland plus arctic tourism

nine years ago: NASA’s graphics standards manual

ten years ago: a kissing flower 

the farnborough international airshow (11. 809)

The biggest aerospace exhibition behind Paris, the showcase of civilian and military aircraft hosted on even years in Hampshire (the French take the odd) has debuted the Concorde, the Vickers, Airbus 380, the F-35 and the Eurofighter. The week-long event for clientele and only open to the public on the ending weekend on this day in 1974 hosted the arrival of a US Air Force reconnaissance jet setting a new transatlantic crossing record (still unbroken), from the environs of New York to London in just under two hours for a subsonic flight. Unfortunately this achievement was overshadowed by a fatal accident by a prototype Sikorsky Blackhawk attack helicopter that crashed with attempting an aerobatics demonstration. Both test pilots were killed and development of the aircraft ceased afterwards. A later model was eventually chosen in 1976 for the programme, named after the epithet and nom-de-guerre of Native American Sauk leader Mahkatêwe-meshi-kêhkêhkwa, whom fought alongside British forces during the War of 1812 in hopes of ridding his tribe’s lands of American settlers.

sunday drive: schwickershausen (11. 808)

We visited the small village in the southern district of Schmalkalden-Meiningen just over the border, formerly an independent municipality under the imperial knighthood of the Hennebergs until from the late tenth century 1836 under the cadet matrilineal line that split jurisdiction between Römhild and Schleusingen and the Bishopric of Würzburg giving the tiny community three mayors for most of its existence. 

 We took a walk around the reservoir (Talsperre) built up in 1968 primarily for agricultural use but we were a bit baked in the sun and there no shade crossing over the fields. The setting was nice however and the water looked inviting for a hot day. 

Passing back through the village, we found the gatehouse and Wasserburg—not far from the ensemble in Roßrieth we had visited a few years earlier, built originally in the twelfth century by Konrad von der Kere for the courtly office of Truchseß(e)—owing to its female dynasty, from the Latin dapifer, a server responsible for the royal table and feeding of guests and evolving onto the often ceremonial and inheritable role of steward, seneschal with administrative duties including the appointing bailiffs and supervising domestics—destroyed during the Peasants’ Revolt and rebuilt around 1540 in Renaissance-style, restored extensively in 1992. The algae filled moat, however, did not looks so inviting.

9x9 (11. 807)

city corridor: Metropolitan Museum of Art to exhibit the built and unbuilt visions of architect Paul Rudolph—see previously  

move over miss marple: German television mystery series imagines what the former Chancellor is doing with her retirement 

batteries not included: peruse the complete catalogues of Radio Shack produced over its six decades of business—plus this theme song 

mizzenmast: experimental solar sail prepares for its first voyage—see previously 

a copy of a copy: AI’s synthetic data is its downfall—via Damn Interesting’s Curated Links  

marshmallow test: the heuristic for delayed gratification and executive functions is fraught with bias and harmful assumptions—via Hyperallergic  

preowned platform: IKEA launches a second-hand marketplace to become a circular company within the decade—via Nag on the Lake  

substantially worse than random chance: seemingly counterintuitive probability puzzles are perplexing social media—see previously  

cerceri d’invenzione: the aesthetic and romance of imagining ruins of foregone civilisations

the tour of dr syntax through the pleasures & miseries of london (11. 806)

Published anonymously in 1820 but believed to be authored by William Coombe and illustrated by Robert Cruikshank (see previously), the popular comedy epistolary series is about a rural school master and pastor who attempts to make his fortune by travelling and then writing about it. Coombe—or often Combe—was himself an adventurer produced most of his works from debtors’ prison, with his first success dispatch from behind bars was a satire called The Diaboliad that attacked and defamed his creditors with thinly veiled allegory, and due to others trying to capitalise and plagiarising his Dr Syntax character (including as Derby porcelain figurines), the author, in the style of Cervantes and the false Don Quixote, put out a collection of spurious letters attributed to the fictional late Lord Lyttelton of Syntax’ continuing misadventures aboard—the plagiariser’s supposed correspondence taken as an admission to seditious speech against the government of King George III but later scholarship confirmed it was another tout to push pamphlets. More from Spitalfields Life at the link above.

happy bell’s riot day—to all who celebrate (11. 805)

Though quickly degenerating into internment camps run by gangs—in their particular argot: gimmies, dims and ghosts—the US government’s attempts to redress endemic problems with homeless and unemployment in major urban areas by creating closed Sanctuary Districts began in the early 2020s and was regarded as a way to shield the general public realising the extent of societal collapse (the re-settlement zones were also cut off from the planetary computer network) and curbing the risk for political upheaval. In accordance with Starfleet’s temporal displacement policy, crew from outpost Deep Space 9 travelled back in time to the end of August 2024 to try to rescue an abducted colleague without impacting the history, however, one of the revolutionary leaders is killed while saving the life of Dr Bashir and Commander Sisko, prompting the latter to take on Gabriel Bell’s identity (clips from the 1995 episode at the link) and repair their timeline. The riot occurring on this day, the inmates took over the district’s processing centre and with the help of Chris Brynner, owner and proprietor of Brynner Information Systems (Channel 90 on the Net), reconnected the Sanctuary with the outside world with many imprisoned inside able give testimony, sparking wider rebellions and eventual justice reform.

 

synchronoptica

 

one year ago: factoids about every number (with synchronoptica), warning signs, a walk along an ancient footpath plus assorted links worth revisiting

seven years ago: resorts in the Catskills then and now, more Trump merchandising, Victorian era cabinet cards plus North Korea challenges US to a dance-off

 

eight years ago: exquisite glass sea creatures plus 7-Up psychedelic advertising 

 

nine years ago: more links to enjoy plus free will and microscopic chaos

 

ten years ago: a visit to a Roman outpost in Germany 

halleluja, hare, hare (11. 804)

As our faithful chronicler reminds, George Harrison was found guilty of unintentional plagiarism on this day in 1976 for his 1970 hit single My Sweet Lord (previously) of The Chiffon’s, Ronnie Mack 1963 song He’s So Fine recorded with an ensemble from Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton and Bad Finger, becoming the top release in the US and UK of any ex-Beatles artist. Produced by Phil Spector, whom had underwritten the hits of many girl groups from the 1950s through the seventies, there was a failure to note this inspiration—which Harrison subsequently attributed to the out-of-copyright gospel hymn “Oh Happy Day” during sessions for the triple album, All Things Must Pass. Despite the judgment in favour of infringement and later cases to define homage and sampling, the tune of universal religiosity and discovery endures.

eingungsvertag (11. 803)

Approved by both the Bundestag and the Volkskammer later in September, the Unification Treaty between East and West was negotiated and signed on this day with the then Federal Minister of the Interior Wolfgang Schäuble for the Federal Republic and Parliamentary State Secretary Günther Krause for the Democratic Republic. The terms of the agreement led to the dissolution of East Germany and its accession into the unitary state (see previously) following a series of gradual steps to reintegrate monetary, economic and social policies, with both parties choosing an interstate ratification and transitional legislation rather than drafting a new all-German constitution as the options available under the Basic Law. The articles divided the DDR into five states and merged East and West Berlin into one polity and national capital under the above Grundgesetz, the right to bi-lateral self determination guaranteed under the Two Plus Four Treaty without prejudice from or to the occupying Allied rights and responsibilities ongoing at the time of signing and the treaty going into effect.

 synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth revisiting (with synchronoptica)

eight years ago: van life plus Icelandic elfin habitats

ten years ago: the sanctity of the Roman senate

thirteen years ago: electronic monitoring plus Wikipedia loves monuments

fourteen years ago: exporting the financial crisis plus self-same Celtic tigers 

republic of letters (11. 802)

Via Super Punch, we are reminded of the notoriously weird and incongruous book covers (previously) of academics publisher Routledge, founded in 1836 to capitalise on the market of holiday by train and known as the “Railway Library” and later acquired the rights for printing the collected works of Edward Bulwer-Lytton before after flirting with insolvency entered the scholarly field buying out the the backlists of several university presses and journals and acquiring the imprint of several influential humanities and social sciences titles. The image references last year’s meme about the frequency among men thinking about Ancient Rome.

호아 (11. 801)

Via Web Curios, we are referred to the musical stylings of the K-Pop Fab Four known as HOA, a Beatles revival and cover band that has produced plenty of their own original songs inspired by vintage rock. The quartet formed back in 2015 but have recently been attracting attention and garnering quite a fan following after their latest album, extended-play I Don’t Know Why, which is pitch-perfect as an homage to some of group’s earlier standards, including the mannerism and cinematography. A push man is the attendant that corrals passengers on a packed train as the doors closed to keep things on schedule.

  *   *   *   *   *

synchronoptica

one year ago: artist Victor Ekpuk (with synchronoptica) plus a classic from Steve Winwood

eight years ago: side-scrolling, RIP Gene Wilder plus assorted links worth revisiting

nine years ago: the 1932 World’s Fair, divine fowl plus Julia Child’s shark repellent

ten years ago: a visit to the museum plus the Battle of Zama

twelve years ago: an Icelandic urban legend plus contemplating a link-tax for news aggregators

dear mister ward (11. 800)

Via the excellent podcast presented by Josie Long on adventures in found sounds Short Cuts (show segment embedded with selected readings at the link), we are directed towards the title project to curate correspondence collected, answered, conserved and later transcribed by the author’s grandmother during her stint at the Complaints Department at pioneering mail-order catalogue company Montgomery Ward, whose returns-policy and philosophy that the customer was always right from 1932 to the beginning of World War II. Customers reliant on such retail services revealed a lot in these letters, which not only provided a glimpse into the lives and preoccupations of rural America during the Depression but many are also quite funny and poignant—especially the ones asking for one of the few items the company did not sell. Much more at the links above.

8x8 (11. 799)

heatwave toolkit: applying yogurt to one’s windows to cool homes and offices  

calculating empires: an exploration of the genealogy and evolution of technology and power from the fourteenth century on—via Pasa Bon!  

better than binary: a look at the potential for base-three in computing applications and security—see previously  

coriander, comfits, confetti: Italian cuisine, shifting tastes and etymology  

campaign photo op: Trump staff had a violent altercation with Arlington National Cemetery officials—see previously  

chaos rainbow: an unusual monochrome optical meteorological phenomenon over a baseball stadium  

license to travel: the three thousand year history of the passport, linking bureaucracy with our hopes and aspirations  

süßwarentechnik: Swiss researchers discover a way to produce chocolate using the whole cocoa fruit rather than discarding most of it

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth revisiting (with synchronoptica)

seven years ago: an optimised crash-test dummy, the backstory on the distracted boyfriend meme plus a villa modelled on the White House in Germany

eight years ago: moving a museum plus Calais’ Jungle encampment

nine years ago: the reproducibility crisis, more links to enjoy plus a squishy map

eleven years ago: Italian Ghostbusters 

nickle, nickle (11. 798)

Originally sold in the inventor’s drugstore in North Carolina in 1893 as Brad’s Drink, Caleb Bradham rebranded his tonic as Pepsi-Cola on this day in 1898, as our faithful chronicler informs, to emphasise its reputed benefits in aiding digestion (not the enzyme pepsin but rather as a relief for being dyspeptic, the former never being an additive, neither cocaine). Expanding bottling operations and recovering from bankruptcy—during which a merger was proposed with rival soda brand Coca-Cola, the drink especially flourished during the Depression by undercutting the competition and doubling its serving size, the thrifty and smart shopper vindicated by the above radio jingle. Afterwards, Pepsi pursued sports and entertainment sponsorships and received several celebrity endorsements, beginning with Joan Crawford who was married to the company president and agreed to product-placement in her films (a tradition carried on) as well as being a general spokesperson and appearing in advertisements, followed by Duke Ellington and others. The soft drink in 1972 became the first Western product to be given official sanction by the government of the Soviet Union (see also), PepsiCo granted export rights in exchange for marketing and import of Stolichnaya in the US.

synchronoptica

one year ago: a tour of a nuclear waste depository (with synchronoptica) plus AI versus a giraffe with no spots

seven years ago: climate change and tourism, forced reunions in Chechnya plus maths in corals and crochet

eight years ago: a Victorian pumping station, the Wright Brothers’ sister plus spying on Turkish diaspora

ten years ago: Rome against Carthage

eleven years ago: consulting medieval texts for modern advice

mister boddy (11. 797)

Vis-à-vis a recent post, we learn via Messy Nessy Chic (lots more to explore there) that the 1985 adaptation of the board game Clue (Cluedo) with Tim Curry, Madeline Kahn, Christopher Lloyd and Martin Mull was released with three different ending, randomly screened to cinema audiences. The VHS- and Betamax-versions for home consumption had the three variations among the uncountable permutations—Colonel Mustard with the candlestick in the conservatory—with all characters blackmailed and with a motive, and prompting “how it could’ve happened,” “how about this” and “here’s what really happened.” Recently toy company Hasbro has been in talks seeking a new rights deal for another adaptation after a series of failed reboots and remakes.

tube map central (11. 796)

Via Quantum of Sollazzo, we are directed this elegant concentric representation of the London Underground’s classic layout (see previously here and here), with this circle-and-spoke map that better matches the geography of the stops and stations, updated after eleven years. Although with the disclaimer that this has already been circulating on the internet, we can only recall one other such rendering of a mass-transit network. Much more at the links above.

lady death (11. 795)

Arriving in Washington, DC on this day in 1942 as a part of a tour of the US, Canada and the UK to encourage the Allies to open up a second front against Nazi Germany, at the invitation of Eleanor Roosevelt, Lyudmila Pavlichenko (Людмила Михайлівна Павличенко) of Odesa became the first official Soviet guest in the White House. Credited with killing three-hundred nine Axis soldiers—likely an undercount as confirmed kills required a witness and included thirty-six enemy snipers—after being retired after a blow from shrapnel, Pavlichenko was reassigned as a trainer and propagandist for the Red Army. Not particularly fond of her new role as a diplomat, shy and quiet and only wanting to get on with beating the fascists, Pavlichenko complained that she was not taken seriously by the press, but her blunt responses to sexist questions were well received by the public. Calling on Chicago with the First Lady, citing her credentials, she chided, “Don’t you think, gentlemen, that you have been hiding behind my back for too long?”

synchronoptica

one year ago: the Guinness World Records (with synchronoptica)

eight years ago: ghost malls plus duped by Brexit

nine years ago: assorted links worth revisiting plus the oracle of Delphi

ten years ago: work-life balance plus Austria hosts the Bilderberg conference

eleven years ago: social media and credit scores

lone eagle (11. 794)

Famed aviator, conservationist, isolationist and anti-Semite Charles Augustus Lindbergh died (*1902) on this day in 1974. Although like his father, congressional representative of Minnesota’s sixth district who was one of the few lawmakers to oppose America’s entry into World War I, and many other members of the public who promoted a non-interventionalist stance prior to Pearl Harbour, Lindbergh never explicitly endorsed the Nazi regime though his overarching comments on race seemed to suggest otherwise, a platform won by his historic transatlantic crossing, and public adoration was immense not only for his skilled piloting and goodwill tours but also in promoting transport and air-mail, with the enterprise expanding significantly during the 1930s with more than a fifty-percent increase of individuals seeking licenses to fly and a virtual Renaissance virtuosity demonstrated by contributions to the advancement of medical sciences co-authoring a procedure that made organ transplants more viable and charting routes that still make up airline itineraries to this day. US president Ford eulogised him, “In later years, his life was darkened by tragedy,” referring to the kidnapping and murder of his infant son, “and coloured political controversy, but, in both public and private life, General Lindbergh always remained a brave and sincere patriot.” A couple of weeks before his death at his seaside home in Maui, Hawaii from lymphoma, Lindbergh reached out to his secret families, seven children from three different women in West Germany and asked the mothers not to reveal his identity, only known by the alias Careu Kent—either the alter-ego of Superman or picked in honour of the place in England where he and his wife retreated after the abduction of their child and media circus—from annual visits—which all three women complied with and was not discovered by his offspring until over a decade after his demise.