zx81

Launched in the United Kingdom on this day in 1981, Sinclair Research’s innovative, intuitive and inexpensive (kits for self-assembly consisting of a slim and compact keyboard and an external cassette recorder for memory retailed for a mere £49,95) micro-computer was one of the first to be successfully mass-marketed and introduced the public to the idea of having a home computer, outside the bailiwick of business executives and hobbyists. Aside from the tape player, there were no moving parts and plugged into a television set as a display.
Despite perceived technical shortcomings—like the impractically low amount of memory, the unit truly prized open a path to better computer literacy, coding (see previously) and importantly the measure of confidence to see broader applications. Clones and variants soon proliferated—I remember using a Radio Shack derivative in a beige casing and flipping the VHF/UHF switch and felt I was entering programming mode, and the community of enthusiasts the ZX81 fostered was self-perpetuating, the early-adopters creating, sourcing software and hardware compatible with the computer. Founder and business executive Clive Marles Sinclair (*1940) amassed a fortune with this pioneering success and was given a knighthood for it in 1983. Later projects launched by Sinclair have focused on personal transportation and solving the last-mile problem with inventions like his folding bicycle that commuters can easily take on trains, the A-Bike debuting in 2006.

7x7

goetheanum: a visit to the seat of the General Anthroposophical Society in Dornach in the canton of Solothurn

0107 – b moll: a brilliant short by filmmaker Hiroshi Kondo on cityscapes, commutes and light—via Waxy

musical instrument digital interface: every possible melody has been played in MIDI format, copyrighted and promptly released into public domain

pivot point: we are entering the era of Peak Car—see also

gratuitous diacritics: a peek inside the world of extreme heavy metal logos—via Things Magazine

autoritatto: an artist commissions a neural network to generate her a self-portrait out of thousands of selfies

it’s big, it’s heavy, it’s wood: documenting the wildlife traffic over this log bridge in Pennsylvania enters its second year

ishe komborera zimbabwe

In national leadership roles until 2017, Robert Gabriel Mugabe was elected Prime Minister of Rhodesia on this day in 1980, his predecessor and first head of state after independence, Canaan Banana (*1936 - †2003), mainly a caretaker figurehead.
Sworn in and taking his oath office a few weeks later in mid-April, Mugabe proclaimed that the country would be renamed Zimbabwe and across the land statues of Cecil Rhodes, the former namesake, were taken down as the nation progressed from apartheid towards racial reconciliation. After a reign of nearly four decades, Mugabe’s legacy is a fraught and mixed one, controversial and depending on who one asks, either the world’s greatest revolutionary freedom fighter or one of its most ruthless tyrants.

沢登り

Via tmn, we learn about a particular subset of mountaineering called sawanobori—literally stream-climbing that involves ascending a tributary to its source be that up and over ravines and waterfalls and always against the current. Although speciality gear is usually now employed—as the video advertises—traditionally climbers wore straw-rope shoes called waraji (草鞋), differentiated from other sandals by how the toes protruded over the edge to help one gain a purchase whilst hiking up an incline.

bless this mess

Writing for Neatorama fellow internet caretaker Miss Cellania directs our attention to this malediction suitable for framing in this cross-stich embroidery and its Live, Laugh, Love antecedents while not quite mockingly do somewhat undermine the concerted efforts of many wise people devoted to the problem of long term storage of our radioactive waste and how to dissuade far future generations from exploration. 
Whilst considering everything from a spiky metal forest and an atomic priesthood to endure the ages, the Human Interference Task Force—and of course the verdict is still out there and no optimal solution has presented itself—aimed to communicate the message, non-linguistically: This is not a place of honour... no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here... nothing is valued here... This place is best shunned and left uninhabited.

to rub minds

Via TYWKIWDBI, we learn that lexicographers at the Oxford English Dictionary (see previously) have added—not without controversy as some question what qualifies for proper English and possibly a misguided push for inclusivity that netted street slang along with useful and unique turns of phrases—twenty nine terms to acknowledge the contributions that Nigeria has made to English as a global language and not the exclusive domain of any single authority as well as taking a survey of the some five hundred native languages spoken there, like the above example meaning to brain storm and collaborate, including senior wife, okada—a motorcycle taxi service, a send-forth—a farewell celebration, a mama put—a food vendor and ember months, the last third of the year. A few Nigerian English coinages have already come into common-parlance, such as to come of age, free and fair and a no-go area.

super tuesday

Ahead of the first national primary to secure the candidacy of the Democratic Party, the field of contenders has thinned significantly with former South Bend, Indiana mayor Pete Buttigieg, Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar and former hedge-fund manager Tom Steyer—after spending a quarter of a billion dollars of his personal fortune—have dropped out of the race. Klobuchar and Buttigieg (whom polls consistently showed him roundly unseating Trump in a one-to-one race) have yielded the party’s central constituency and endorsed former vice president Joe Biden for the high office.