1619

Via the inestimable Nag on the Lake, we are introduced to an interactive project from the New York Times that reaches back to August of the year 1619 to Point Comfort where the first Africans (from Angola) disembarked in the colony of Virginia in order to raze and reframe America’s founding myth and help understand, through the contributions of many journalist, that the country’s origin and counter-narrative are firmly rooted in and determined by enslaved labour.
All of America’s the societal dilemmas and asymmetries are profoundly and deeply informed by this awful legacy and disingenuous reform that still leaves many marginalised and seeks to preserve the privilege of others at any price, from mass incarceration, sugar over-consumption to the US’s broken healthcare system. We would like to think humanity, like many compatriots, as a whole has moved beyond such petty squabbles over skin colour and heritage but obviously that’s not the case and it’s very difficult to find solutions to improve problems that one does not think exists. The consequences and contributions of enslavement defines the character of the nation and coming to terms with the council of the past however estranged empowers one to affect real change for individuals and institutions.

2.0

The always engaging Kottke directs our attention to an online museum that documents and curates various social media and productivity platforms, operating systems and video games from their earliest forms (see also) until the present. Much more to explore and reminisce over at the links above.

seward’s folly

Though not a wholly original idea as most of the nihilistic non-policies of this government-by-disaster of the Trump regime are, via Boing Boing, reportedly the failed real estate magnate is interested in acquiring Greenland to exploit it for its natural resources and strategic location. With the catastrophic climate change which Trump does not believe in already arrived, the world’s largest island could be a rather shrewd investment. The Kingdom of Denmark has not yet responded to the proposal, nor Greenland’s fifty-six thousand residents.

cathedral-thinking

Declared complete a day earlier but six hundred thirty-two years later (though the project in terms of maintenance is unending) the cornerstone of the Cologne Cathedral was laid on this day in 1248 by Archbishop Konrad von Hochstaden, medieval planners envisioning a place of worship for the Holy Roman Emperor and a pilgrimage destination housing the relics of the Magi, which Barbarossa had plundered from Milan, though since repatriated though the golden reliquaries remain. Inspired by the Gothic cathedral of Amiens and sustained across generations, Kölner Dom was the tallest man-made structure in the world upon completion in 1880 for four years until the Washington Monument was finished, rising just a few meters above though certainly not surpassing in stature.

jewel voice broadcast

At noon on this day in 1945 radio stations in Japan played a phonographic recording of the Showa Emperor reading out the Imperial Rescript on the Termination of the Greater East Asian War, effectively announcing Japan’s surrender under the terms of the Potsdam Declaration.  Recorded at the royal palace the day before, some members of the military thought Hirohito’s capitulation was dishonourable and one thousand soldiers and officers raided the compound to seize and destroy the record. The recording was hidden and later smuggled out with the laundry and eventually made it to a radio station.  Suboptimal sound quality and the formal, courtly language of the Emperor (hearing one revered as a deity, akitsumikami, for the first time) made the message confusing for the public and was clarified afterwards by a radio announcer.

wonderful.successes.devoured

We very much enjoyed reading this follow-up story on the mapping tool that redresses some of the shortfalls of addresses and directions. what3words (previously) parcels the world into fifty-seven trillion three-by-three meter squares and uses a vocabulary of forty thousand random but memorable word combinations to identify exact coordinates, and search-and-rescue authorities urge people to have the tool at their disposal in case they get lost, on land or sea. There have been several lives saved using this programme.

blogoversary

As the blog birthday of beginning this project rolls around once again, we wanted to pause to express our gratitude for your unflagging interest and for your continuing visits—hoping that we’ve provided just a little bit of insight, hope and motivation for our readership. Since last year, our most popular entries have been:

10: The discovery of the Nebra Skydisc

9: Soviet-era bootleg recordings

8: The cartographic creations of Daniel Huffman

7: A very German penchant for abbreviation

6: A reflection on cosmic time-scales

5: Misinformation nominated as word of the year

4: The launch of Luna 1

3: Alien shorts

2: A lampooning of America’s state flags

1: Twitter for social justice