9x9 (12. 340)

us agency for global media: Voice of America director files lawsuit over ordered closure—a federal judge issues a temporary stay   

pecksniffian paragraph: Trump as a Dickens’ stock character over his sermonising on transgender military service members   

entomological adultery: the 1912 Cameraman’s Revenge painstakingly animated by Władysław Starevicz 

deterministic bit generator: a financial institution’s experiment with quantum computing generates certifiably random numbers with applications in auditing and encryption—see also   

the memes have entered the chat: the internet responds to Signalgate (aka whiskeyleaks)

arts décoratifs: rediscovering Betty Joel, Britain’s forgotten maven of Art Deco design—part of a centenary celebration of the movement—see previously

the population of an old pear tree: an 1870 work by Belgian author Ernest van Bruyssel celebrating biodiversity and insect life 

import/export: ahead of the planned tariff action for 2 April “Day of Liberty” Trump announces twenty-five percent duties on foreign cars and components, triggering retaliation 

are you sure ms kerger—because he is red: NPR and PBS testify before congress with its federal funding at stake—see previously

synchronoptica

one year ago: anatomised police lineups (with synchronoptica), assorted links to revisit, a classic from U2 plus a Nordic Easter witch

seven years ago: the dynamic Cosmos, more links to enjoy plus Everything’s Coming Up Simpsons

eight years ago: backmasking and the Satanic panic, the show with the mouse plus the Bombay Sapphire distillery

nine years ago: Easter greetings, revisiting the Leipzig Panometer plus a canting dialect

ten years ago: Holy Blood, Holy Grail, even more links, poet Paul Verlaine plus affecting a holiday accent

9x9 (12. 339)

debonair: an amazing and comprehensive collection of flight attendant uniforms—via Things Magazine  

contrapoints: a documentary contextualising misinformation to point out it is misinformation 

shortened itinerary: second lady’s tour of Greenland (now joined by her husband) is limited to inspecting the troops at Pituffik Space Base  

seagram’s vo: pallets of American alcohol being returned to the manufacturer  

jug band: a fun cover of Beat It!—with a powerful solo bridge by the Bottle Boys 

boilerfaker: a new trend in microdosing alcohol—via tmn  

duty to report: the 1890 attempt to coerce Canada into joining the US backfired spectacularly  

signalgate: The Atlantic editor inadvertently added to a national security counsel group chat publishes transcript in full after Trump administration downplayed the seriousness of the breach 

hmnd: an incomplete bestiary of humanoid robots

kalaallit nunaat (12. 338)

As the autonomous overseas territory has been garnering some welcome and some unbidden attention lately with the US determined to annex the artic island and sending an entourage to engage in election interference and meddle with self-determination, Tedium presents a celebration of Greenland’s unique pop culture, informed but untethered from its history as a colonial dependency. From the first piece of cinema entirely produced on the island with a cast of local actors to the psychedelic, prog rock band Sumé, critical of the Danish government, past policies of assimilation and an anthem for the independence movement, the national artistic output is couched on the struggle for recognition but also stands on its own outside of any context. There’s a coda linking back to the US vice-president through Richie Cunningham’s character enlisting in the army stationed at Ultima Thule—to get away from Happy Days—and director Ron Howard assaying Vance’s autobiography. Much more at the link above.

synchronoptica

one year ago: AI search (with synchronoptica)

seven years ago: gerrymandering, suicide prevention plus the buccaneers of America

eight years ago: a coopted meme, studio MUTI plus more on technological redundancy

nine years ago: ambitious Hyper-Loop plans for Europe 

ten years ago: crusaders sack Constantinople, a roundup of patriotic cartoons plus the rise of the smart-watch

dim sum and then some (12. 337)

Via the New Shelton wet/dry, we are directed to problem of how most cuisine is reduced to a flag and cordoned in by national borders, which is serviceable to an extent but results in a monolithic understanding when regional dishes are in reality much more granular foodways. Chinese cooking has been categorised in popular culture into eight styles, Sichuan, Cantonese, Anhui, Hunan, Jiangsu, Shandong, Fujian and Zhejiang as a start (based off the order of courses presented in banqueting tradition) but is far more rarefied in reality, even to the exclusion of standard dishes which so far not been subject to an official count but seems conservatively to number in the scores with this “coffee table” enumeration of representative recipes, ingredients and trajectories.

cruelties, collusions, corruptions and crimes (12. 336)

Via JWZ, the crew at McSweeney’s Internet Tendency has regrouped after that initial and unending force majure of flooding the zone to again catalogue the daily horrors instigated by the Trump administration, like last time around, lest we forget. The atrocity legend has been updated with several new and dreadful categories to work into the schedule.

synchronoptica

one year ago: the calculus of Easter (with synchronoptica)

seven years ago: Woozle hunting plus a local beverage

eight years ago: art projects informed by the Rijksmuseum collection

nine years ago: digital colonialism,  an AI chatbot comes to a disastrous end plus the Satan-Leaf Gecko

ten years ago: assorted links worth revisiting plus hipster animals

6x6 (12. 335)

reading between the lines: Trump regime shutters access to border-straddling opera and library, the Haskell House, which served as neutral territory for family reunions and marriages during his first term’s travel ban  

shreve, lamb and harmon: hidden details of New York City’s iconic buildings—via Damn Interesting 

kennedy center honors: Conan O’Brien awarded the Mark Twain prize for American humour, embracing the irony and tension of the moment 

backstroke of the west: an incomprehensible translation and re-translation of a Star Wars bootleg DVD  

free spaced repetition scheduler: geography with positive reinforcement—via Maps Mania 

opsec: Trump administration inadvertently shared its plans to to bomb Houthi targets in Yemen with a journalist from The Atlantic

politikkimut akuliunneq (12. 334)

Framed as a bald demonstration of power and meddling in its political affairs and right to self-determination, out going prime minister Múte B Egede has denounced a pair of upcoming visits by Trump’s national security advisor and the second lady as “foreign interference” and has called for the international community to step up its support, warning that appeasement and retreating whispers will only embolden America’s imperial ambitions. Others should take up this example and be bold enough to call the regime what it is. Fresh from recent elections that saw a shift in power to the Democratic Party, the incoming leader called the delegation disrespectful amidst deliberative coalition talks to form the next government and an unbidden charm offensive as talks of annexation persist. Though the itineraries are separate, the security advisor and energy secretary will join Asha Vance to attend the Avannaata Qimussersu, the territory’s premier dogsled race.

mercury-redstone booster development (12. 333)

On this day in 1961, the rocket prototype built in Alabama under the guidance of Wernher von Braun (previously) was launched from Cape Canaveral for one final test-flight to certify its safety and fitness for human transport—using a dummy as the occupant as with concurrent Soviet trials. The rocket reached an altitude of one hundred eight five kilometres in low Earth-orbit and was successfully salvaged in the Atlantic approximately eight minutes later. Alan Shepard had volunteered to fly himself but was strongly discouraged y von Braun because of the risk—had Shepard been allowed to go, he would have become the first human in outer space, instead of the second, Yuri Gagarin achieving that milestone less than three weeks later. 

synchronoptica

one year ago: The Breakfast Club (with synchronoptica), assorted links worth revisiting plus The Initiation of Sarah (1978)

seven years ago: quitting Facebook, the train from Pyongyang plus the March for Our Lives

eight years ago: ISPs allowed to sell browsing history plus Canadian schools cancel field trips to US over concerns of protecting students with immigrant backgrounds

nine years ago: The New Yorker mascot plus a quantum loophole in causality

ten years ago: more links to enjoy, fonts that promote recall and proofreading plus crusades against the unorthodox

where the axe is buried (12. 332)

Cory Doctorow’s Pluralistic has an intriguing book recommendation from scifi author Ray Nayler, just the third novel from former Peace Corps volunteer and press attaché and consular officer, that follows his previous works in engaging with themes of artificial intelligence, animal ethics (after several short stories published in prestigious anthologies, his debut book The Mountain and the Sea dealt with the discovery of an octopus society off the coast of Vietnam where Nayler was a special envoy for environment, science and technology in Ho Chi Minh City) his titular latest writing is a geopolitical study that could well be set in the present as a meditation on oligarchy and activism in a polarised world consisting of two competing blocs. In the aligned west, the branches of government have been replaced by AIs referred to PMs who have managed to optimise the messiness of politics and have seemingly solved the ungovernable problems, striking a balance between climate stewardship, modest growth and keeping the populace generally placated. Their foil is known as “the Republic,” a massive state under the tyranny of a immortal despot, whose consciousness has been digitised and is transferred into a replacement body periodically once his current one wears out (with some ill-advised modifications that ultimately reject reincarnation)—though presented to the people as the leader’s intellectual anointed heir. Contrasted with the apparent freedom of the AI governed world, which nonetheless uses inscrutable, paternalistic algorithms for social-engineering and entrapment, subtly limiting the chances of certain for the collective good, the Republic is a totalitarian regime that suffers no dissent or illusory freedom of choice with both systems are on the brink of collapse, betraying their mutual fragility.

8x8 (12. 331)

fork in the road: AI misapprehension of a machine translated simple yes/no survey from Spanish rendered ‘i griega’ (upsilon) as a y-junction and all affirmative responses as the utensil   

hunter-gatherer: the handbag theory of human advancement—via Strange Company   

signature authority: after declaring his predecessor’s pardons invalid over the use of autopen, Trump faces scrutiny over unsigned deportation orders 

certificato di buona salute: pope discharged from hospital and sent home after five dicey weeks   

spring issue: the fourth instalment of the achingly beautiful HTML Review—see previously—is out, via MetaFilter   

vexatious lawsuits: mob boss Trump partially reverses executive order rescinding law firm’s contracts and security clearances for millions in pro bono services, prompting mass resignations 

schlachthof: ancient butchery for mammoths discovered in Austria   

cousin german: a comparison between English and Lower Saxon

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth revisiting, Cityspeak in Bladerunner plus The Grateful Dead’s Wall of Sound

seven years ago: the Ecosia web browser, an ancient passing red dwarf plus Cambridge Analytica

eight years ago: Trumpland, Trump’s triumphs, recreating the bedroom from 2001 plus more on concrete poetry

nine years ago: the christening of Boaty McBoatface, humorist Richard Littler plus a tubular tree house

ten years ago: God Bless You Mr Rosewater plus the crusades and the reconquista

joak (12. 330)

On this day in 1925, after a concerted government effort to subsidise the nascent technology following the successful, pioneering launch of KDKA in 1920 out of Pittsburgh, radio broadcasting began with the announcement of the above call letters for station identification from a studio Tokyo, a simulcast with transmitters in Osaka and Nagoya. The inaugural programme featured a live performance by the naval band and a recording of Beethoven’s opera Fidelio. Early broadcast included educational lessons, coverage of baseball games and radio calisthenics—see previously.

the eagle has landed (12. 329)

Dropping its own diversity, equality and inclusion plans announced for the return trip to the Moon back in 2019, NASA administrators are left on a backfoot struggling to comply with the executive orders memory-holing real and perceived affirmative action and the original symbolism that the crew would include the first woman on the lunar surface and “the first person of colour” for the third mission of the Artemis programme, named after Apollo’s twin sister. One of the last official acts of his first term, NASA had ironically developed a graphic novel series celebrating the contributions of women to space exploration, including a fictional understudy to lead the diverse crew for the upcoming journey, slated for November 2027 but likely delayed further due to not having choose the landing crew and further cuts to the space agency’s workforce under DOGE—which has expressed a shift in priorities to go straight to Mars.

sylvanian families (12. 328)

First eleased on the Spring Equinox in 1985 and marketed elsewhere as the most concise translation of the play-figure line, Pleasant Friends of the Forest Epoch System Animal Toy (森のゆかいな仲間たち エポック社 システム・コレクション・アニマルトーイ・シルバニアファミリー after the Roman god of the woods Silvanus), I recall that haunting refrain (the jingle now come home to roost again) from the commercials and never really understood the concept, having missed out on their backstory as presented in a cartoon series by Haim Saban exclusively on American family-friendly/evangelical programming networks a couple years after their debut. Now, however, we’ve occasion to take a peak into the rather elaborate lore and legacy, thanks to Happy Mutant contributor Popkin, who informs that there is a theme park in Osaka (see also) that gives visitors an immersive experience of the franchise, set in Shirubania originally somewhere in North America though later revised as Great Nature patterned off of Richard Scarry’s Busy Town with firmly middle class anthropomorphised hedgehogs, foxes, deer, mice, rabbits, raccoons, etc running successful local businesses or with professional callings with a certain 1960s aesthetic with their nuclear, four-member families that were never inter-species. The characters, despite the decline of the toyline has been sustained throughout with a series of video games (see above), theme-restaurants and making the discontinued family clans mascots for various corporations and events.  Accessories sold separately.

synchronoptica

one year ago: truth windows (with synchronoptica), the HTML Review plus pharmaceutical contraindications 

seven years ago: assorted links worth revisiting, Outlook snitching on leakers, typographer Herb Lubalin plus Biden’s threat to beat some sense into Trump

eight years ago: The End of History, an appreciation of the VW bus plus Trump dismantles NASA

nine years ago: Walk of Life improves any movie ending, algae as a plastic alternative plus a terror attack in Belgium

ten years ago: more links to enjoy

i love king charles—sounds like a great idea (12. 327)

In between issuing two new executive orders designed to further undermine recent judicial decisions against the assault on the administrative state to void rulings that the OPM could not order another agency to terminate employees and affirm loyalty oaths and that DOGE could not be refused access to “siloed” data, Trump, on his social media website, linked to an article from a UK tabloid suggesting that during his upcoming, second state visit, Charles will make a “secret offer” for the United States to join the Commonwealth as its fifty-seventh associate member, connected as former territories through historic and cultural ties, in order to dampen tension over pulling in Canada as the fifty-first state and escalating trade disputes and might be received as an alternative to the tenuous relationship to NATO and the EU. While floated and endorsed by the Queen, reportedly, during Trump’s first term, claims that it is being entertained at the highest levels challenge veracity. Charles III as the titular head of state with the wanna be king in fealty sounds preferable however symbolic and outside the realm of possibility and would possibly deflate tariffs by placating his ego. PfRC has reached out to the Commonwealth for comment.

tv.garden (12. 326)

Via the always stupendous Web Curios we are directed to a rather amazing resource that brings together thousands of live-streaming stations from around the world, covering nearly every country with dozens of free-to-air broadcasting for each. Point to a country and flip through the channels for a compelling glimpse of local reporting, talk-shows, soap operas, music videos and commercials with the obligatory home shopping networks. I’m not one to have television on in the background generally or with the patience to channel-surf but found this surprisingly absorbing and like a mini-vacation with a much broader selection than on hotel tv.

10x10 (12. 325)

isolated dictatorship: Canadian MP urges citizens to avoid travel south of the border  

sykkelinfrastruktur: an amazing bike tunnel in Bergen  

incel camino: a new make and model for the Swasticar for all the domestic terrorists 

four of swords: Hyperallergic’s tarotscope for the coming of Spring  

fabio and the goose: Bobby Fingers (previously) reconstructs the encounter of harlequin novel author and pin-up’s encounter with a migrating bird whilst on a rollercoaster  

arbour day: tree planting activities cancelled over anti-DEI posture  

cats in outlines: the strangely gratifying effect of felines freezing in place 

sorry—not sorry: a study of apologies gleaned from reality television 

scylla and charybdis: the millennia-long aspirations to link Sicily with the mainland may soon come to pass  

pin: an unnerving psychosexual horror Canadian horror film from 1988

gentlemen—you can’t fight in here—this is the war room (12. 324)

Though denied as rumour and fake news, the Pentagon had set up a briefing for Elon Musk it seems on the potential for conflict with China. This meeting, if it occurs as scheduled, follows the abrupt and unexpected closure of the Office of the Secretary of Defence’s Net Assessment group, an internal think-tank projecting decades into the military’s future and produced prognoses and reports of long-term threats based on their research, and the meeting in the Tank, a secure conference room, privileging the unelected bureaucrat to unprecedented information on American strategic capabilities and its intelligence on China’s perhaps is the armed forces’ five bullets to DOGE to keep them from culling vital positions and funding within the military needed for such a stand-off—already having pressured the Pentagon from buying jet fighters made by one of his space-launch competitors. Giving the CEO of a defence contractor access to this level of information and a role in influencing direction, plus wanting to infiltrate Chinese markets, is certainly a conflict of interest and presents grave consequences for forward posture.

spaghettification (12. 323)

One might be familiar with the above transformation when one wanders too close to a black hole but there’s more physical properties to ponder in pasta that touch on the broader mysteries of the Cosmos. Noting the expertise required to produce the finest and most delicate varieties of angel hair, researchers applied science to create a matrix of nano-noodles to study the limits of dough and starch, inadvertently finding the resulting pasta to have enhanced stiffness and with possible applications as a biodegradable substitute for plastic. Enduring conundrums also present themselves in the form of the slurping problem—and variants—and Richard Feynman’s obsessive quandaries (previously) over why dry spaghetti always snapped in two and the physics behind stress and tension, which after a quarter of a century yielded a three way fracture with some mechanical finesse. More from BBC contributor Joseph Howlett at the link above.

synchronoptica

one year ago: World Puppetry Day (with synchronoptica), the Loyalty Order (1947) plus a Disneyland Dream (1956)

seven years ago: Karl Marx pedestrian signals, Tanglewood Tales plus Lewis Carroll’s logic game

eight years ago: assorted links worth revisiting 

nine years ago: pixelated palettes plus artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder

ten years ago: Russian disinformation campaigns, the Reeperbahn and the Order of the Garter, more links to revisit plus Frida Kahlo in Detroit

oh zaporizhzhia—i don’t know (12. 322)

Following a telephone call with Putin ostensibly securing a ceasefire on Ukrainian energy infrastructure and rather unrelenting overtures for the embattled nation’s mineral wealth, Trump called Zelenskyy to dictate the terms and to introduce a new dimension to the deal, suggesting that the United States (as with Gaza now exploding back to a state of war) assume ownership of nuclear power plants. The proposal was met with surprise, Kyiv politely mooting the offer, saying that the reactors were state-owned and could not be privatised, having only discussed during the call the one facility under Russian control but again reenforcing the idea that American economic stakes are their best protection—as with his earlier bid for control of country’s rare Earth resources. American defence conglomerate Westinghouse was in talks, prior to the start of the war, but the deal has since fallen through.

epicentre (12. 321)

Initially really taken by the wire-frame geopolitical globe overlay (I can remember playing with such a model in a computer programme ages ago), this 3D quake-watcher—via Pasa Bon!—monitors seismic activity in real time. In full-screen mode, it delivers a cinematic visualisation (with sound) as the transparent Earth rotates with a sidebar of live events, listing location, depth (hypocentre), magnitude, alerts and tsunami risk plus an explorer mode to track hotspots.

reference epoch (12. 320)

Via Waxy, we are directed to a single-purpose website that untethers dates from the common era (which still is predicated on AD and BC) an makes time relative to whatever historical (or prehistorical) marker one wishes to use. In addition to showcased epoch events, there is also a simple script to install for one’s own project. 2025 is 7,5kAC—that is After Cheese.

auswärtiges amt (12. 319)

Following the detention and expulsion of three nationals (two tourists and a green-card holding permanent resident), the Foreign Office has issued a travel advisory for Germans travelling to the United States. While in most cases residents of the EU can enjoy visa-free travel in America for up to ninety-days, the decision on whether a traveller can enter ultimately lies with the host country’s border authorities, the enforcement reciprocated. Tantamount to a warning only in degree, Berlin advises prospective vacationers to prepare for arrest, holding (in the cited cases, for periods exceeding two weeks in austere conditions, far beyond just ruining one’s holiday) and deportation even with documentation and pre-flight vetting through ESTA (their Electronic System for Travel Authorisation visa-waiver programme).

synchronoptica 

one year ago: an intemperance scale (with synchronoptica)

seven years ago: the Game of Life, an evacuation collection plus a profile of Atlantic City

eight years ago: mandalas from sifted red earth, plans for a paperclip skyscraper plus more on map projections

nine years ago: duelling constitutions plus belated pi day

ten years ago: assorted links to revisit plus collaborative human-robot experiments

8x8 (12. 318)

first comes the performance, then comes the repetition, then comes the integration: thirty lonely yet beautiful acts of defiance—even including social media—via Kottke 

fubar: Muckrock presents its FOIA Foilies awards for 2025—probably too early—see previously  

not shuttered, per se, just considered complete: venerable UbuWeb started back up after closure last year  

audible enclaves: researchers have discovered how to beam sounds to a targeted listener—via the New Shelton wet/dry 

it’s peanut butter jelly time: froghorn.exe is an homage to what used to be the internet’s biggest draw  

programmable mutterer: the allure of magical thinking and how the displaced grace of AI could prove more analogous to markets and institutions steering better than individuals  

smoking gun: Trump declassifies a tranche of documents on the JFK assassination, unredacted and “ushering in a new era of maximum transparency  

greeks bearing gifts: Senator Schumer votes to let the wooden horse into Troy

georgia claimed her—georgia named her (12. 317)

Recorded on this day by Ben Bernie and the Hotel Roosevelt Orchestra and released the following day, spending five-weeks at number one on the American charts, the jazz standard was inspired by a chance meeting with the composer and longtime state house representative Dr George Thaddeus Brown, pledging while in office to name his daughter in honour of his constituency—the anecdote reflected in the above lyric. Renditions include performances by Bing Crosby, Cab Calloway, Django Reinhardt, a more empowered version by Roberta Flack, the Harlem Globetrotters’ theme from the instrumental rendering by Brother Bones and His Shadows featuring whistling and rhythm spoons and the below opening scene (which lives rent-free in my head) from the 1983 film To Be or Not To Be featuring Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft dancing and singing in Polish.

america the unbeautiful (12. 316)

Guardian contributor Alexander Hurst, reflecting on a recent roadtrip with a friend from Washington, DC to New Orleans—in part retracing the path of Alexis de Tocqueville—presents a thoughtful travelogue that encapsulates the aesthetics of sprawl and alienation that informed the MAGA mindset—those without an internal moral compass—long before it came home to roost with the return of Trump. “Like fish in water, I wonder if Americans are even aware how they swim in it,” Hurst writes of the inuring indignities of suburban living—sold as a dream still despite the nightmare monotony, congestion and estrangement of off-ramp after off-ramp leading to “rectangle islands of stuff, surrounded by parking lots leading to other little islands.”

synchronoptica

one year ago: Sagrada Família (with synchronoptica)

seven years ago: the origins of tempura, email for trees, Google’s Art Palette plus Expo '70

eight years ago: FOIA inspired cocktails plus next generation phreaking

nine years ago: Italy’s answer to absinthe plus the Butcher’s Broom

ten years ago: the Fourth Crusade

see you next wednesday (12. 315)

Via the New Shelton wet/dry, we learn that a fairly innocuous, throw-away line from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey as the titular closing line spoken by the father of Frank Poole in a video letter to his son became the working-title for the first screenplay of director John Landis. Self-described as terrible and unfilmable but with a few redemptive though underdeveloped ideas (a musical autobiography as if he himself had died aged nineteen), this beginning effort was never produced but Landis made sure to give it a cameo appearance in later films as he established his credentials as an auteur as a running gag, rarely screened and never in its entirety and recast each time. A frame story, it appears in Landis’ 1977 The Kentucky Fried Movie as a 4D experience with each audience member attended by an usher acting out what is occurring on screen, on a billboard in The Blues Brothers as a King Kong knock-off, a porn film presented in a seedy theatre in An American Werewolf in London and as the pictured poster in 1983’s Trading Places. Outside of Landis’ filmography, it is also a line of dialogue in the monster movie Michael Jackson and girlfriend are watching his in Thriller extended music video as well as numerous other easter eggs to watch for in his other works and homages by other creators—which pretty good for an unmade freshman project.

9x9 (12. 314)

👀: a “half-swipe” feature that allows recipients to screen messages with them being marked as read is exacerbating dating anxiety amongst teens—via Superpunch 

rabbithole: global styles of curiosity survey as revealed by Wikipedia app usage—via Clive Thompson’s Linkfest—are you a hunter, dancer or busybody?   

we have urinated in our beds—there was no chamber pot: a survey of the graffiti of Ancient Rome that’s very much like a contemporary comments section 

quotidiano: Italian news paper prints all-AI edition   

derezz: local club hosts a TRON party during a gaming developers’ conference as a history lesson   

gulf-stream: a mesmerising overview of the world’s ocean currents and eddies   

let your fingers do the walking: the typography of the telephone directory, the Yellow Pages, and its antecedents 

patrimonialism: running a state as one’s family business   

forbidden unlawful representation of roleplaying in education: legislation in Texas would outlaw students presenting as other than human, check out the acronyms of the bill, including fursonæ

synchronoptica

one year ago: the science behind sippy-birds (with synchronoptica), another 3D rendering challenge plus assorted links worth revisiting

seven years ago: the allure of old books,  The Gods of Japan (1943), more links to enjoy plus artist Grant Wood

eight years ago: the architecture of choice,  Trump defunds agencies plus Trump’s foreign policy

nine years ago: more on state fossils plus collected quotations

ten years ago: the new EU central bank headquarters, job redundancy, even more links, animals on trial plus local galleries

polygraph (12. 313)

In an angry late-night post to his social networking platform, Trump said that Joe Biden’s preemptive pardons for individuals associated with the investigation of the January Sixth Capitol insurrection were “hereby declared VOID, VACANT AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OF EFFECT, because of the fact that they were done by Autopen.” Unclear if the clemency grants were not signed by hand in the first place, the claim is baseless, because if so, the exercise of this broad and magisterial presidential power requires no signature, just that the recipients accept the pardon—Trump then pivoting his accusation that Biden’s diminished mental capacity meant he was unaware that his endorsement was being mimeographed. The tool has been used by many in high office to personalise correspondence as well as by institutes of higher learning to confer diplomas and certificates and at least once—that we know of—to sign legislation, Obama telegraphing his approval of the extension of the Patriot Act whilst in France in 2011. And while bills have been flown around the world for the executive signature in order to suppress any doubt of legality, still the language of the constitution stipulates that legislation is to be accepted or returned, vetoed without outlining how it is recorded. Patented under the title trademark, Thomas Jefferson was an early-adopter of this prototype, allowing two pens to move simultaneously and doubling efficiency. The pseudo-scientific technique of lie-detection shares the name because of its range of physiological indicators.

alien enemies act (12. 312)

Over the weekend, Trump deported over two hundred alleged Venezuelan gang members to an infamous prison in El Salvador, despite the a temporary stay issued by a judge stating that the right to due process for the detainees, the president saying the block was not lawful, delivered verbally and not in writing and coming after the planes had already departed the US (which according to flight records seems not to be true). Marking perhaps the first time Trump ignored a ruling, lost in the midst of everything else going on, these expulsion seem to inform—re-enforce if not merely signal loudly (though out-shouted by other news) the constitutional crisis on display in America. Citing an 1798 law codified when tensions were high with France that has only been invoked during times of war, all “subjects of the hostile nation or government shall be apprehended, restrained, secured and removed as alien enemies,” with the infamous Japanese interment camps of World War II. Gang membership or criminal association was not established during immigration proceedings and this initial dragnet detention and deportation seems based on national origin rather than a substantiated threat to the country.

synchronoptica

one year ago: a maglev train on existing tracks (with synchronoptica), a chatbot on a spreadsheet, an arch insult generator plus revisiting some abandoned settlements along the former border

seven years ago: Japanese lessons 

eight years ago: the Spanish civil war and WWII, assorted links worth the revisit plus tensions on the Korean peninsula

nine year ago: EU appeals to Türkiye to stem immigration, the distribution of primes, the knock on effects of food waste plus stochastic engineering

ten years ago: Mister Linea, a partial solar eclipse plus more links to enjoy

the hostess with the mostess (12. 311)

Dying on this day in, aged 76, in 1975 at her home in Oklahoma City, Perle Meste heiress to an oil fortune from her late husband—widowed since 1925 from the one of the original participants in the Land Rush of 1889 on the former Indian territory (Boomer-Sooner)—is best known in Washington, DC high society for her lavish parties that included artists, celebrities and national political figures from both parties and was portrayed in the title Playhouse 90 CBS anthology feature by Shirley Booth, as well as by Ethel Merman on Broadway and the cinematic adaptation of the Irving Berlin musical Call Me Madam. Eventually relocating to the capital in 1940, feeling out of place elsewhere, Mesta was active in the National Women’s Party, an early champion of an Equal Rights Amendment and an ardent campaigner for Harry S Truman—for which the administration awarded her the ambassadorship to Luxembourg out of gratitude. An invitation to one of her many gala parties was highly coveted and a sign that one had reached the upper echelons of DC high political society, bringing together senators and congressional representatives from both sides of the aisle. And while continuing to host glamorous soirées through the 1960s, Mesta ceded her role to Jacqueline Kennedy when it came to bipartisan entertainment. Featured on the cover of Time magazine (note the candelabra on the Washington monument), the Black Russian was created by barman Gustave Tops in 1949 as Mesta’s signature cocktail, who frequented the Hotel Metropole in Brussels during her time as ambassador.

digital flâneur (12. 310)

We really enjoyed this essay, courtesy of fellow peripatetic Messy Nessy Chic, on how to rewild one’s browsing experience chocked full of helpful navigation analogies of avoiding congestion, breaking out of the walled garden, by taking the side streets and adopting the regular commute of another (we all have these routines and sources we check in with on a daily basis but it might be refreshing and eye opening to realise that there are whole unexplored routes to the same end) to add to serendipity. There are numerous suggestions and resources for taking this internet walk from the Syllabus Project at the link above, including gifting a mixtape to your friends and followers of places you’ve discovered, leaving a trace, taking more than just photos, bringing a satchel along to collect what we’ve encountered and cultivating the practise of derivé to map one’s local IRL wanderings to their online spaces.

take me to the river (12. 309)

Watching the Netflix production The Electric State about a retro-future dystopia where the thinking machines have been locked away in a no man’s land, under the leadership of Mister Peanut, and noticing stacks in a warehouse of presumably contraband Big Mouth Billy Bass, we couldn’t resist reposting this clever modification to this novelty animatronic trophy catch from Austrian hacker Charlie Diaz that greatly expands its vocabulary with the the help of ChatGPT, responding in a voice inspired by Arnold Schwarzenegger. This benevolent vision of things to come with AI shoehorned into everything is not yet commercially available but Diaz helpfully includes builds for all of his projects.

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synchronoptica

one year ago: Stile Bertone (with synchronoptica),  a pronunciation guide to British surnames plus a walk in the countryside

seven years ago: more on Fluxus, US school shootings, Balinese New Year traditions plus propaganda and reality television

eight years ago: feline hybrids plus a constellation calligram 

nine years ago: the Mah Nà Mah Nà song, culinary mushrooms, outdoor classrooms plus the original vision for Star Trek: The Motion Picture

ten years ago: intermediate geologies, the sugar trade plus assorted links worth the revisit

pocket veto (12. 308)

As of this posting (timestamps are important as we’ve gleaned from every episode of the NPR Politics podcast), the continuing resolution to keep the US government funded and in operation has yet to be signed into law by Trump. Normally a failure to endorse after a ten day period, de facto the bill becomes law, but the titular technicality occurs when the president cannot return the bill to congress because it is adjourned, as it is for Monday (Sundays also excepted)—and the language of the CR has the provision that for the purposes of the bill that the remainder of the fiscal year constitutes one congressional day (with no pro-forma members present to keep the legislature open) despite returning in session on Tuesday, meaning that deadline never arrives—an unusual proviso perhaps to hedge his bets. Something legally ambiguous that cannot be overridden that Trump could keep in his quiver to exercise at will, the GOP were perhaps expecting more resistance from the Democrats, which could explain the reversal of party leadership—with a shutdown, which is in effect, and solely owned by the Republicans.