007 q2

In anticipation of the latest iteration of the James Bond franchise (originally slated to be in cinemas soon but now postponed until April 2021), Leica (previously) is offering a luxury, limited edition of its high-end, state-of-the-art Q2 model digital compact. The lens cap evokes the iconic opening title arrangement.

The Q refers to the sequential series designation that the manufacturer follows and not the Quartermaster character of the research and development division of Her Majesty’s Secret Service despite having all the whistles and bells. Though a fictionalization, the use of one letter pseudonyms for senior leadership was started by the intelligence branch’s first director Captain Sir Mansfield George Smith-Cumming—whom for the sake of expedience signed off with a C of green ink now by convention for “Chief” for the present office-holder.

headcase

Collaborators in Berlin and Munich have teamed up to produce a smart safety helmet for cyclists that links to one’s phone and delivers audio content via bone conducting speakers that are less intrusive and help ensure that the rider is also attuned to their surroundings.

Proximity sensors monitor the area immediately behind and give haptic cues if there’s something approaching from behind or the sides. It has directional lights and can understand simple voice commands to interact with one’s smart phone and an electric drive is actuated to adjust to an optimal fit once donned. Called ESUB tracks, the outer surface is a photovoltaic cell powering the helmet. More—including a video demonstration, at designboom at the link above.

household botanics

Born this day in 1744 (†1819) and enjoying the patronage of Queen Charlotte, Mary Moser was to become one of the most celebrated women painters of her time, famous for her portraiture and her depictions of flowers especially. Her initiative for artists to receive professional recognition led to the formation of the Royal Academy (previously) in 1868 after an earlier attempt championed by William Hogarth failed to come to fruition. Of the thirty-six founding members, only two were female—the other being Angelika Kauffmann who also took an active role in the new society.

To celebrate fellow member Johan Joseph Zoffany painted a group portrait of the academicians (1772) studying male nudes presumably for a future project, and current social mores restricted from engaging in such activity—both posing and viewing—and to circumvent this prohibition, Zoffany (known for this style of painting called the “conversation piece,” Konversationsstück) added framed pictures of Moser and Kauffmann on the wall.

heliostat

Originally intended to be an experimental solar sail, the Znamya (Знамя, “Banner”) programme shifted its focus towards artificial illumination and extending day-light hours and thus the potential for photovoltaic power, the second and unfortunately final mission in this series was launched on this day in 1992 aboard a cargo craft during a resupply mission to Mir.
In a very technically complicated and precision operation, once the re-supply ship undocked, the twenty-metre in in circumference mirror was deployed and mounted on the fore of the craft and slowly navigated into position over the course of the months. Its orbit finally aligned with the rising sun on the pre-dawn hours of 4 February 1993, it beamed down the reflected light of the sun—still well over the horizon for terrestrial observers, on patch of Earth with a five kilometre radius with the apparent glow equal to a full Moon (despite the cloudy weather that night) that passed from southwest France to Moscow, the spotlight zooming by at a speed of eight kilometres per second. A follow-on, more ambitious mission in 1999 had to be aborted when the mirror failed to unfurl. Learn more at Amusing Planet at the link above.

and scene

Though over a month behind us, considering how America, mercilessly, has no concept of purdah before an election that’s a scant nine days away, we still rather enjoyed Bad Lip Reading’s (previously) take on the first presidential debate, described as a food-fight, that reframes the contest as a game show with a very beleaguered moderator, sort of like poor Alex Trebek hosting an insufferable match of celebrity JEOPARDY! on a Saturday Night Live parody—albeit an extended version with really high stakes.

7x7

letterpress: an appreciation for Peter Pauper publishing  

no retiring wall flower: a fascinating look at the hydraulics of star fish  

geologic record: a gallery of some of the stranger amber fossils found  

truly toastmasters: learn effective communication techniques from a Massachusetts Institute of Technology lecture honed over four decades  

jindřich halabala: rediscovering the classic furniture and signature style of a Czechoslovakia designer  

via di propaganda: the history of the street in Rome speaks to design and dogma  

hot off the presses: Distributed Proofreaders celebrates the uploading of its forty-thousandth volume

inkubo

Considered lost for decades only for a copy to re-emerge in 1996 in a film archive in Paris, the horror movie by Leslie Stevens with cinematography by Conrad Hall (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Cool Hand Luke, American Beauty), starring William Shatner and Milos Milos (*1941 – †1966, the titular incubus and in life the lover of the estranged wife of Mickey Rooney and died in a murder-suicide pact), had its debut on this day in 1966.

Months before Shatner would begin his work on a television series filled with other constructed languages including Klingon which has also become a fully-formed and informed language in its own right, this cinematic experiment was only the second wherein all dialogue was in Esperanto. Though dubbed versions were prohibited, the creator’s use of the auxiliary language was not to make a single cut for all international markets but rather to convey an atmosphere of other-worldliness—Esperanto speakers disappointed with representation of the language by the actors’ poor pronunciation and the script’s grammatical failings. The setting is a pilgrimage destination, a village called Nomen Tuum (“your name”) with an enchanted well that can heal and enhance one’s looks—attracting a rather vain and corrupt patronage that crowds out those legitimately ill. In turn demons are drawn to pander to those who would treat this miraculous place as a beauty parlour and recruit them for the side of darkness. First shown at the San Francisco Film Festival and screened to a group including those above Esperanto enthusiasts and the scandal of Milos prior to release, the only willing distributor was in France, which premiered the film in November. Watch the whole film here or see a clip below. >