one year ago: a US supreme court justice flies provocative flags (with synchronoptica), a WWII battle for an Aleutian island, the anatomy of a limerick plus Trump found guilty of falsifying business records
seven years ago: all about Ostheim
nine year ago: a wearable, in-ear translator plus giving Tumblr a try
ten years ago: Swiss cheese goes blind plus Alf’s hip-hop album
eleven years ago: mourning a ruined laptop, semi-conducting cement plus getting ready to travel to Lake Como
synchronoptica
one year ago: laundry lessons from Japan (with synchronoptica), assorted links worth the revisit plus a post-war postscript from Thomas Mann
seven years ago: Native Americans granted citizenship
ten years ago: the founding of Leipzig, more links to enjoy plus acceptable facial hair for Norwegian sailors
twelve years ago: furloughing federal workers
thirteen years ago: Germans and joy plus counterfeit wine
Having known just a little about the development and integration of closed-captioning technology, we really appreciated this fascinating deep dive from Radio Lab into its history and struggle for equal access that followed, with accommodation, advances in hardware and software, representation and mandates all intertwined and informing one another, concluding with a reflection on how the process is being automated with artificial intelligence and how in training the machine, we ourselves are transformed through the collaboration. Of course the story didn’t end with triumph of accessibility through the above first demonstration, as the advances for the hearing impaired community were not widely accessible: most programming was not captioned and for those that were an expensive decoder was required as a television peripheral. The situation gradually improved and after the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, TV sets were required to include closed captioning technology and all broadcasts were mandated to include subtitles. 
A workforce of thirty thousand transcriptionists were at work to capture all stations’ content and in order to reach all of the growing market with the rise of cable programming, institutions providing the service turn to emerging voice recognition systems. These early versions were too bug-prone to be useful, especially for realtime applications and failed to keep pace with live dialogue, seizing up at the slightest accent. Researchers, however, discovered that they were more responsive and accurate with the voices of the trial participants, and soon one devised helping the computer by reading back the words in a steady, well-enunciated manner that it could manage. A team of voice writers across the States repeated scripted shows and news reports as they were aired and achieved a pretty good level of fidelity by 2003. Even with only their master’s voice, the programme still had its shortcomings and the voice writers developed a code of substitute words to clear up homophones and short prepositions, for example: echoing, “She has tootoo daughters inly college comma tootaloo period” would yield the yield the desired text, “She has two daughters in college, too.” Two decades on, the software has advanced to the point where it can transcribe instantly without the help of an interpreter and is improving with AI refinements.
Traditionally made for bottling Chianti, the style of glass vessel from Tuscany with a rounded body and wrapped tightly in a straw basket—designed for ease of transport (see also), cushioning the wine and stackable with inverted bottles fitted into a row of upright ones—over the centuries became subject to various regulations to discourage counterfeiting and filling used bottles with new wine by fiascaio (fiasco-makers) resulting in substandard containers, hence bare from the shoulders up to show the vintner’s label and seal. 
The etymology in English usage for failure or scandal was perhaps transferred via the French faire fiasco from Italian theatre jargon for botching a scene—to “make a bottle—a glassmaker humiliated when an intended more elegant piece didn’t come together and they settled with the simpler but utilitarian form. The sense could also come from card play in which the loser having to buy the next round of drinks. Fiaschi are mainly nowadays for decorative purposes or souvenirs, the Bordeaux-style of bottle (bordolese—see previously) becoming more popular with automation and easier to manufacture.
synchronoptica
one year ago: an epic murder-mystery puzzle book (with synchronoptic) plus US women allowed to wear pants in public
seven years ago: more customary units plus the EU bans plastic drinking straws
ten years ago: the US special envoy to Britain during WWII
thirteen years ago: American propaganda turns inward
fourteen years ago: extraterrestrial prospecting
Realising I had taken for granted knowing what the unit of measurement was, or what exactly it was gauging, we appreciated this introduction and overview of the decibel—via Quantum of Sollazzo. Sort of like the distinction between mass and weight, sound intensity is measured in terms of pressures in pascals as the deviation from the ambient caused by an acoustic wave through a given medium, and the decibel as a way of expressing the ratio between two values logarithmically—with the silent partner being the threshold of human hearing. 
Originally stemming from a technique to measure and compare signal loss over telegraph lines and later telephone circuits, first expressed as loss per miles of standard cable, the new definition developed by Bell Labs was received favourably by operators and long-distance providers, named in honour of the communications pioneer Alexander Graham Bell. Still used chiefly to calibrate signal strength and fidelity as power passes through different exchanges across a network (mathematically, it is easier to process and account for the changes in transmission media and resistance by their additive properties rather than cumulatively by logarithms, which is incidentally the reason why older hardware and appliances last longer being over-engineered by dint of material and electrical tolerances calculated with a slide-rule and rounding up adding up to machines built to a more robust standard than for their planned lifecycle. Because humans perceive an increase in loudness exponentially rather than linearly (per studies in psychophysics known the Weber-Fechner laws that demonstrate gradual increases are likely to go unnoticed by the senses, the contrasted stimuli also seen to carry an effect in registering numbers and statics, in placebos—titration of all types through interoception and voting), the dB scale became a useful measure, as with the Richter scale for earthquakes and the Fujita scale for tornados, for when a in situ judgment might fail.
synchronoptica
one year ago: assorted links worth the revisit (with synchronoptica) plus the discovery of Troy
seven years ago: mythemes, a global weather service, the GDPR goes into effect, drowning does not always look like drowning, the founding of St Petersburg, ancient and modern trade routes plus a walk along the former inter-German border
nine years ago: the classified section, petty commodification, French-Canadien curses plus pizza as alimony
ten years ago: more links to enjoy, a supernatural dating society, the upcoming G-7 plus a new city in Mongolia
Echoing today’s previous posting, we very much enjoyed making the acquaintance of an omnipresence and prolific graphic design artist and illustrator called Takashi Mifune—whose work, anonymous for its ubiquity and described as unpinning “social infrastructure,” has influenced Japan’s public aesthetic and visual vernacular. Though not unique in offering clip-art, the website maintained by Mifune Irasutoya (ใใใใจใ, illustration shop) makes his cast of iconic characters and symbols freely available to for personal and commercial applications, with the large range covering every conceivable situation and occupation—from the everyday to the niche—and consistency of style (see previously) has garnered the artist’s momentum and reputation as the standard for signage. 
Featuring highly specialised jobs, current events, cultural neologisms, maladies, warnings, restrictions and artefacts with far more briskness and particularity than other catalogues of stock images, inspiring contests to recreate works of art with Mifune’s drawings, subject matter easily summoned up from the commonplace to centrifuges, Prototaxites (an extinct plant life-form between fungi and trees), traditional dress of La Sape subculture, wisdom teeth, both bipedal and quadrupedal versions of chupacabras and the Antikythera mechanism. Much more from It’s Nice That at the link up top.
Despite being last updated in 2012, the announcement from Japanese wireless carrier Docomo (a subsidiary of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone) that it is officially discontinuing support for its emoji set marks the end of an era that spanned decades and played a foundational role in emoji communication and native texting environments. 
Beginning in 1995 with the simple inclusion of a ❤︎ icon that could be displayed on pagers (see previously)—and the user outcry when the option was quietly removed in a subsequent update demonstrated to the concern public interest not only in symbolic shorthand but also a way to accent missives when not communicating face-to-face, the reaction informing the glyph collection to come. In 1999, Docomo introduced a set of one hundred seventy-six character syllabary of supplemental monochrome, twelve-by-twelve pixel icons designed by Shigetaka Kurita (ๆ ็ฐ ็ฉฃๅด), which inspired by universal street signage, pictograms and the mood and emotional cues employed for manga protagonists called manpu (ๆผซ็ฌฆ, a bead of sweat to signal accomplishment or apprehension), created the base lexicon and grammar that Unicode adopted later. Although limited to the network, the emoji set, growing colourised and more articulated, saw its legacy enlivened by platforms with greater interoperability and customisation and is honoured as a linguistic fossil and the emoji equivalent of Latin.
synchronoptica
one year ago: more adventures in the Thรผringer Forest (with synchronoptica) plus a notable Shiba Inu passes away
seven years ago: between distraction and anxiety, Dune product tie-ins plus digitising the Munch Museum
eight years ago: Elton John and Bernie Taupin, Trump calls NATO partners deadbeats plus preparing for a short sabbatical
nine years ago: shooting stars on demand, Wundarr the Aquarian plus rabbits doing violence in medieval manuscripts
ten years ago: a visit to the Neckar valley plus assorted links to revisit
Not content with being partially lionised over the yet unproven claim that the COVID pandemic might have been caused by a lab leak from a facility studying corona viruses in Wuhan, the new head of the US National Institutes of Health is not only suggesting that the NIH itself created the novel virus, 
triggering a mass walkout during his first all-hands meeting, like-minded cohorts in the US Food and Drug Administration have severely restricted access to vaccines for the vast majority of Americans, as if we needed another reason not to travel—or to erect a cordon sanitaire to stop the spread of vectors for measles, bird flu and any number of preventable maladies, quitting the WHO and the media blackout when it comes to monitoring emerging outbreaks—insisting on amplifying warnings of side effects, despite the efficacy of treatment and the low incidence. Having missed crucial windows to ramp up production for the next season, many major pharmaceutical companies gave up altogether. Click through for important reminders on how Long COVID is the retronym of the polio generations endured—and yet another reemergent illness that had been eradicated—and one’s first line of defence.
Courtesy of Futility Closet, we enjoyed this moment of logophilia with an selection of obscure words from the personal collection of Eric Albert, frequent contributor to Butler University’s journal of recreational linguistics, Word Ways, specialising in research and demonstrations on palindromes, tautonyms (reduplication like aye-aye or namby-pamby), anagrams, pangrams and lipograms. 
We especially liked supermuscan defined as having the qualities greater than which is typical of a fly; alkahest, a universal solvent—chiefly in the alchemical sense; titivil—a demon who collects dropped or mumbled parts of the mass and bears them off to hell as evidence against the offender—see previously; brotus, any extra measure given without charge, as in a baker’s dozen; ecdysiast, one who rhythmically disrobes as in a strip-tease artist; holmgang, a duel fought on an island; velleity—the lowest degree of desire, a slight wish; microlipet, one bothered by trifles; palinode, retracting or recanting something formerly praised; supellectile, pertaining to furniture; and poliad, a nymph that lives in the city. Some in the catalogue were familiar to us but there’s a surplus of choice news terms to be found clicking through. Let us know your new favourites.
Being for a long time fascinated by the idea of the crowded, lawless and ungoverned exclave within an enclave called Kowloon Walled City (see previously), we were astonished to be referred this recorded walk-through captured in the space of an afternoon (no daylight reaching the lowest storeys) by University of Hong Kong architecture student Suenn Ho, 
having no idea that such footage and interviews existed, taken in 1991, a couple years prior to its demolition, evicting the some thirty-five thousand who lived and worked within the confines of less than three hectares—translating to an incredible population density of over one and a quarter million residents per square kilometre. The former footprint now a park and its reputation sanitised, Hong Kongers, formerly condemned Kowloon as a dangerous slum when mass-urbanisation started in the 1960s, are now romanticising this dystopian neighbourhood and we are happy this documentary has been preserved for posterity. The Japanese film crew mentioned early on also produced a short piece, available here.
synchronoptica
one year ago: exploring the Vesser valley (with synchronoptica)
seven years ago: photographer Zofia Rydet plus potentially eliminating the deadliest disease vector
eight years ago: a poem for Manchester, Trump to visit the Pope, micro-mastery, diplomatic indiscretions plus America’s designs on its southern neighbours during the US civil war
nine years ago: Kraftwerk animated plus that proposal for an elevated bus
twelve years ago: a day-by-day account of World War I
Having previously looked at other visual language compliers expressed through artistic elements and other than the usual strings of functions and conditions of coding, and very much reenforces overdue acknowledgement that the jargon of computing can act as a gatekeeper and that unnatural language can create an out-group (see also) for whom these incantations seem like wizardry, and given our preoccupation with secret signs, we were very much 
intrigued by this mystical platform of magic circles, via Clive Thompson’s latest Linkfest (a lot more to explore there) under development by Denis M Moskowitz. The sampled, quicksort spell is a rendering of the Euclidean algorithm for calculating the greatest common divisor of two numbers—that which divides them both without a remainder—a benchmark test for the logic of a new programming language with an intuitively visual component. Moskowitz has also created a character set of glyphs or monograms after the chaos magic of Austin Osman Spare (previously here and here) whose seals unlock the basic grammar of coding. Much more at the links above.
Venerated on this day in folk Catholic traditions, sharing it with her companion and co-worker St Joanna though not officially recognised by the Church, as the patron protectress of the Romani people, particularly in the Camargue region of southern France with her shrine in Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer 
considered a place of pilgrimage, St Sarah, according to legend, was a servant of the Three Marys, a maid of Mary of Clopas (sister-in-law of Joseph) from descendants from the coastal area of Malabar and brought to Egypt through Indo-Roman trade, where they landed after the Resurrection fleeing persecution and to work as missionaries to the continent. “Sarah the Black”—Romani Sara e Kali, she shares her name with the Hindu goddess worshipped in the northern part of India where the Romani originate. This religious syncretism is unique in Europe, though many pagan customs were adopted by Christianity, and on her feast, her statue is taken to the sea for a ritual bath with the ceremony paralleling worship of Kali and solemn ablutions.
Although also slightly peeved that the em-dash has become the signature punctuation of artificial intelligence chatbots (see also, scroll down for an act of malicious non-compliance with an agent) and sad to see the way I write coopted—though maybe leaning too heavily on a brittle linkage and perhaps should rely more on brackets or the semicolon, I was naturally intrigued by this proposal for a separator available exclusively for human use to signal that it was not penned by machine, the am-dash, via Web Curios and as in cogito ergo sum. Superficially like the title swung dash (used primarily, however, to set apart a list of alternatives or approximates or in dictionary entries to avoid reprinting the term being defined), the am-dash would be but of a restricted character set—see also. 
First widely used in the Nicholas Okes’ publication of Shakespeare’s plays to capture pauses, interruption and epiphany of the staged performances in the early seventeenth century, Jonathan Swift’s 1733 verse On Poetry later encapsulated the style as:
Blot out, correct, insert, refine,
Enlarge, diminish, interline;
Be mindful, when Invention fails;
To scratch your Head, and bite your Nails.
Your poem finish’d, next your Care
Is needful, to transcribe it fair.
In modern Wit all printed Trash, is
Set off with num’rous Breaks⸺and Dashes—
Much more at the links above.
leaderboard: an exclusive look at the $TRUMP memecoin banquet
leap together: Kermit the Frog delivers a commencement speech at Jim Henson’s alma mater
biosignature: potential signs of alien life on exoplanet K2-18ฮฒ raises the question of when evidence becomes definitive
industrial light and magic:
Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, founded by Star Wars franchise creator
and slated to open next summer, made redundant fourteen percent of staff
mr tompkins in wonderland: after attending a lecture on relativity, a bank clerk discovers the ability to perceive quantum phenomena and the foreshortening of spacetime
liquidity squeeze: collaborative scholarship and the fake Roman financial panic of 33 AD—via Strange Company
yeah—it has been hard, mainly because of the numbers: a vintage 2005 spoof on every television news spot on the economy
matriculation: graduates answer questions posed by their past selves
insider trading: US attorney general divested herself of between one and five million dollars worth of shares ahead of Trump’s “Liberation Day” announcement
synchronoptica
one year ago: Phyllis Diller’s garage sale guide (with synchronoptica), an alternative space shuttle design, AI can’t do minor edits plus assorted links worth the revisit
seven years ago: more removing science from the classroom, a cosmic interloper, eyeball worlds, wine windows plus the Dear Leaders fail to meet
eight years ago: corporate welfare
nine years ago: transparent wood plus a visit to Weimar
thirteen years ago: the chemistry of wine
The masthead logo of the counter-culture alternative newspaper in print from 1966 to 1973 featured the image of vampish 1920s silent film start Theda Bara—intending to use a picture of the It Girl Clara Bow of the same era but didn’t stop the presses over that mistake and left Bara through its thirteen year run, the International Times having been cowed into shortening its name into an initialism standing for nothing (like KFC, an orphaned acronym) after the threat of a lawsuit by the venerable newspaper the London Times. 
Featuring regular contributions from William S Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Germaine Greer along with kindred publications also based in London—Oz under the editorship of Felix Dennis, who later became a more mainstream publishing mogul of Maxim, Stuff and Blender, and Durham’s own Muther Grumble issues challenged the UK obscenity laws and were an outlet covering everything from the environment, emerging bands, sex, drugs, protesting the Vietnam War, feminism and social justice and the trio of newspapers were accused of corrupting the youth of the city, offices raided on multiple occasions which temporarily halted distribution—but as ever, a sign that you are doing something right. More at the archive links above and from Print Magazine’s Daily Heller.
ฮฝ octantis: astronomers discover a tight binary star system with a lone exoplanet wedged in the middle
{sum free sets}: Cambridge graduate student proves an conjecture of Paul Erdลs on the limits of the additive property—via Damn Interesting
gorgoneion: the backstory of Medusa
market instability: complaining that negotiations have stalled, Trump threatens to impose a fifty-percent tariff on EU exports to the US
ambigram: more invertible messages—made by impossible letters (see previously here and here)
the old, old, very old man: the sudden death of super-centenarian Tom Parr in 1635 illuminates our long quest for longevity—see also
marked decline: the precipitous drop in the use of semicolons—with a quiz to celebrate its proper placement
urban renewal: arborists are planting giant sequoia (previously) in blighted Detroit neighbourhoods—via Kottke
pandemonium: when the pantheon of gods and goddesses came into the world, they already had company with a multiplicity of daemons acting through human agents
exchange programme: US Department of Homeland Security revokes Harvard’s ability to enrol foreign students
brown dwarf: in the distant past, Jupiter was nearly twice its present size with a much stronger magnetic field, revealed by the orbital dynamics of its constellation of satellites—see previously
The massive thousand-page long budget bill (long title, “To provide fir reconcilation pursuant to title II of the Concurrent resolution of the Budget for the fiscal year 2025, House of Congress Resolution, or OBBA, “One Big Beautiful Bill Act”) that just narrowly passed through the US House of Representatives and now up for debate in the Senate after days of contentious negotiation and garnering scepticism from economists and the stock markets as insoluble and untenable, extending Trump’s 2017 tax cuts set to expire with the fiscal year and solidifying his domestic agenda, contains a provision buried deep within the legislative language that would in effect render judicial purview unenforceable—making the second prong on the assault against the courts after trying to undermine “advocate judges” and halt universal injunctions against the administration with a Supreme Court hearing ostensibly disguised as judgment on birthright citizenship. 
With the potential to make most mandates in antitrust, police reform and desegregation cases impossible to compel or constrain, the provision states that no court may make use of appropriated funds to enforce a citation of contempt for failure to comply with an injunction or temporary stay unless security, collateral was given at the time of issuance—in other words and a situation brought up in the above case by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson where everyone would be expected to lawyer-up unless a bond was paid up front by the plaintiff, something that does not happen in a suit against the government and an unfair requirement for judgment. Not only do parties seeking relief from unlawful acts have a high bar to access the courts (retroactively applied), the courts themselves would be rendered powerless when it comes to litigants contemning (the verb form of committing contempt) and ignoring their orders, downgraded to recommendations to take into advisement.
synchronoptica
one year ago: godfather of anime Osamu Tezuka (with synchronoptica), the patron saint of home economics plus the invention of the accordion
seven years ago: the designs of Raymond Loewy plus assorted links worth revisiting
eight years ago: lamenting the transformation of eBay, vintage bowling alleys, losing the ability to face the next pandemic, a closed-captioning mix-up plus energetic revolutions
nine years ago: wine without grapes plus Simpsons’ couch gag as an IKEA manual
twelve years ago: a visit to the Wiesbaden museum
Somewhat prepared for when the conversation goes of the rails and girded against ambush and entrapment taking notes after the Oval Office meeting with Zelenskyy, South African leader Cyril Ramaphosa managed to maintain his professional composure presidential bearing despite Trump’s incessant rantings of white genocide and the murder of thousands of Afrikaner farmers—just after taking fifty-nine in as refugees, rehashing without evidence the ahistoric grievances amplified by himself and Musk of a conspiracy circulated since the end of apartheid rule in 1994 and his most significant gesture to date pandering to Christian white nationalism. 
That says a lot already, but moreover he is using the false paradigm to illustrate where progressive DEI initiatives and restitution would take America. Subjected to this diatribe plus a surprise screening of a propaganda film, a misrepresented newsreel, Ramaposa tried to steer the talks back to trade and security cooperation, admitting to a problem with crime while dismissing a concerted assault against settlers, citing his entourage, and at one point, exasperated offered, “I wish I had a plane to give you.” After accusing his interlocutor of non-existent crimes which he in no way condoned, Trump replied that he would gladly accept such a gift.
Marking the first deployment of troops since World War II, Chancellor Merz visited Vilnius for a flagging ceremony of a German heavy armoured division to be stationed in Lithuania, comprising some forty-eighthundred soldiers with two-hundred civilian support staff once the unit is fully-stood up in 2027 and achieve full operational capacity at the training area (karinis poligonas, Truppenรผbungsplatz) Rลซdninkai on the border with Belarus. 
Accompanied by defence minister Boris Pistorius (previously) and the host nation’s president Gitanas Nausฤda, staunch critic of the leadership of its neighbours and of Russia’s historic revisionism, the tank unit will protect the eastern flank of the EU and the NATO alliance, as Baltic states fear incursions, directly or indirectly, in the wake of ongoing aggression in Ukraine. This Zeitenwende in defence policy and posture, proffered under Merz’ predecessor, and build up comes ahead of the next NATO summit as more members are expected to reach the suggested defence spending benchmark, and while the chancellor dismissed rumours that US troops might withdraw from Europe on Trump’s orders, contingencies are still under consideration.
Here is an interesting juxtaposition on bestseller recommendation from The Onion with the revelation that the Chicago Sun-Times with the help and hindrance of artificial intelligence crafted a “Best of Summer” reads that featured fake books by real authors. Authored by a freelancer brought on for content after the venerable newspaper let go a fifth of its writing staff, it hallucinated titles like Tidewater Dreams and Nightshade Market respectively attributed to novelists Isabel Allende and Min Jin Lee bookended by genuine literary works. The publication that it failed to proof or vet this section for their Sunday supplement and will do better to enforce their policies against the use of AI and going forward with label any syndicated material as coming from third party sources. Lawyers have faced disbarment for resorting to similar short cuts—citing made-up cases for precedent. I wonder if the machine was being aspirational and bored with the task it was given proclaiming it could write such a narrative in the voice of the living author.
Via fellow internet peripatetic and caretaker Messy Nessy Chic, we directed towards an archive of antique blueprints for perfume bottles from a forgotten French crystal works was rescued from an abandoned factory. The firm, rising to prominence and one of the nation’s leading glass manufacturers after the end of World War I and the following the emancipation of women with the right for political representation was active from 1921 until dissolution in 1936 during the Great Depression when demand for fineries and luxury items collapsed. The illustrations that include exquisitely detailed of Art Deco cut-glass bottles and atomisers made for fragrances all over the world as well as the company’s catalogue of vases and drinkware. Much more at the links above.
synchronoptica
one year ago: the national park of Greenland (with synchronoptica), newest batch of emoji, the perishable internet plus a hospital’s wine cellars
seven years ago: all equal under the law plus a missile launch facility immediately mothballed
eight years ago: Trump in the Middle East, the people’s pope plus an elevated walkway in Seoul
nine years ago: art in transit, early USSR rocket tests plus a visit to Seaford
ten years ago: a visit to Dotzheim, more on keyboard dining tray inserts plus memeplexes
On the corner of Broadway and West 112th Street, above the iconic neon-lit Tom’s Diner used as the establishing exterior shot for the sitcom Seinfeld and in the Susan Vega song, NASA research facility, the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, has occupied the six upper storeys of Armstrong Hall since 1966. 
Affiliated with Columbia University’s Earth institute, from whom it leases the laboratory space, GISS has embarked on a broad programme of astrophysics and climate dynamics and advanced public understanding of phenomena like El Niรฑo and first synergised ideas such as plate tectonics, quasars and black holes—introducing the terminology to common parlance. The institute also issued a vocal warning regarding global warming’s trajectory and involved with numerous solar system exploration missions dating from Mariner, Pioneer and Voyager to the present. This impressive list of accomplishments and continuing projects, both theoretical and applied, however, is failing to secure the lab’s legacy for the the Trump administration, which has cut overall science funding by half and is sceptical of climate change, and through the auspices of DOGE and the Government Services Administration is terminating the lease effective at the end of the month (or at least pretending to in the name of efficiency as the contract cannot be broken early and the building will sit empty until it expires) and is directing the staff of one hundred thirty to work from home until they can be dismissed or placed within another part of the agency. More from the Guardian at the link above.
The culmination of tense relations between traditional collegiate fraternities and members of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (with its student league, NSDStB), the series of public demonstrations began on this day in 1935 at the University of Heidelberg directed against the leadership of Adolf Hitler. While many student groups had expressed views aligned with Nazi ideals and outlook, many university associations were targeted as elitist and counter-revolutionary, their self-administration and hierarchy (see also) as contrary to the Fรผhrer principle of Gleichschaltung. 
The rally began when members of the Corps Saxo-Borussia gathered at a local student pub, Seppl, to heckle a radio re-broadcast of Hitler’s “Friedensrede” (Peace Speech, stating that they only sought to build up marine forces to the level of thirty-five percent of that of British naval tonnage). Though excused for their riotous behaviour after an apology, the same fraternity, emboldened by being let off easy and press coverage, the same fraternity provoked patrons further with harsher criticisms during an asparagus dinner at the guesthouse Hirschgasse (a popular hangout), and saw their organisation immediately banned with members subject to expulsion and senior leaders arrested. Portrayed as reactionary and bourgeois, fraternities were dissolved later in the summer and reformation outlawed.
synchronoptica
one year ago: assorted links worth revisiting (with synchronoptica)
seven years ago: countries shifting to fare-free mass transit, inherited learning, graphic designer Reagan Ray, artist Josef Albers plus the movie posters of Bill Gold
eight years ago: DC’s boundary stones, drone photography, superlative new species plus scientist Clair Cameron Patterson
nine years ago: a class-action lawsuit against the Devil, Venice of the North, shock graphics for cigarette packs plus a visit to Glastonbury
ten years ago: more links to enjoy
Recalling how their leak of the covert Zimmermann telegram with the German Empire promising to award the lost territories of Texas, Arizona and New Mexico to Mexico if they invaded the United States and created a new front in the Great War in early 1917 pushed the US to engage in World War I, British intelligence forged (see also here and here) and publicised counterfeit attack plans allegedly by Nazi Germany for Central and South America—still very much considered within the US bailiwick as part of the Monroe doctrine—to motivate the administration of FDR to abandon its policy of neutrality in 1941 as Axis forces reached the French coast. The operation likely conceived by Canadian veteran flying ace and spymaster William Samuel Stephenson, responsible for British security on the continent who oversaw covert intelligence and propaganda efforts in South America, originally intended to leave a copy of the map in somewhere in Cuba in the hopes that American authorities would come across it of their own accord but it appears that Britain presented it to Roosevelt through intelligence channels directly, reportedly seized from a diplomatic courier in Buenos Aires. Presented to the American public as cautious not authentic bur rather secret (note the marking GEHEIM), it is unclear if the president was aware of its true nature.
