overcranking

A team of researchers Lausanne Polytech’s Laboratory of Engineering Mechanics of Soft Interfaces are developing a method to reconstruct detailed slow-motion videos from blurry still photographs.
The title references the cinematic term for capturing extra frames, hand-cranking the camera at a faster than normal rate, but playing it back at speed. Whereas formerly blurred photos were chiefly caused by being out of focus, the autofocus speeds of modern cameras have eliminated that and instead the problem is one of shutter speed, with the smeared image captured as an action shot. As of now the method only can reverse-engineer high-contrast vignettes but could one day interpolate and forensically rebuild entire scenes.

a blend of nordic boosterism and fearmongering

Writing for the Atlantic Adam Serwer compels us to take a long and uncomfortable look at the ideology of xenophobia that tragically does not expire with its vocal and violent ideologues. Through the lens of a 1916 screed that promoted the inherently false doctrine of “race suicide” by appealing to concerns about immigration, which in turn informed the addled thinking of Adolf Hitler—who credited US policy in that regard as the template for Nazism, we hit every revolting point that still has traction and tread and speak to a certain audience and perhaps come closer to understanding the durability of such hatred and closer to living in a world where such behaviour is not tolerated.

meet cute

Via Coudal Partner’s Fresh Signals, we are greeted by the disembodied and non-gendered voice of Q, meant to be the identity overlaying the interactions of virtual assistants who’ve been so far unable to distance themselves from a female persona.

Though decidedly feminine if one is looking to assign gender (and with Q, depending on how hard one, I suppose, wants a voice to be either or and it seems to modulate between the two), it reminds us of the ship’s computer on Star Trek, warm and authoritative and voiced by actor and producer Majel Barrett-Roddenberry (*1932 - †2008) who also played Nurse Christine Chapel and Lwaxnan Troi on three series of the franchise.

tredjelandsborger

Though these allowances for cross-border commuters post the UK’s seemingly imminent departure from the European Union seem rather niche, we’re pretty confident that the ex-patriate community who live and work on opposite sides of the Øresund/Öresund strait that separates Denmark from Sweden is not quite the unique situation that it seems at first glance and illustrates how fraught and precarious that Brexit has been for UK citizens living on the continent. Swedish residents working Copenhagen will be allowed to keep their jobs and move from country to country without impediment and even change Danish jobs but no guarantees are extended for the right to seek employment elsewhere or in Sweden.

equilateral-curve heptagon

As part of an ongoing series to recognise significant contributions to the sciences and humanities in UK coinage, the Royal Mint is issued a commem-orative fifty pence piece with a reverse honouring the late Professor Stephen Hawking, with the seven-sided coin depicting one of his most important formulations—aside that is from making astrophysics accessible and increasing general literacy and numeracy—that the conservation of information is not a constant and dissipates as does an aging black hole.

the world situation in 1970

The intrepid team at Muckrock debriefs us regarding the Central Intelligence Agency’s geopolitical assessment and projections and how that narrative was packaged and presented to Nixon and Kissinger—previously.
Facing the fact that universal goodwill and wartime capital were finite and fickle things, notwithstanding the country’s already demonstrable bad behaviour on the world stage—the CIA was more prone to rely on soft power and was willing to factor in the proliferation of soft drink sales, American music and cinema in its quiver of statecraft and as a measure of diplomatic success. When told, however, that cooler heads would prevail in Eastern Europe and that tensions would settle, Nixon asked instead what could be done to sew more chaos and discontent in the region—proposing a recalibration of Radio Free Europe.

outro music

Via Dave Log Version 3, we are treated to the sign-off, closedown message that HBO sent to its viewers to thank them for their patronage and to bid them a goodnight from 1975 to 1981. I quite like how there’s a responsible ritual portrayed to divide the broadcasting day from overnight (I was never up so late) and reinforces that we ought to have a routine and regard for our respective bedtimes.