μ☉

From the curated newsfeed of Damn Interesting, we learn that astronomers by reverse engineering present conditions and vectors have worked out that the Solar System was grazed by a passing red dwarf some seventy thousand years ago.
Though fifty thousand times further than the Sun is from the Earth, the flyby of Scholz’s star (named for its discoverer Ralf-Dieter Scholz of the Leibniz-Institute for Astrophysics in Potsdam who also worked out the prehistoric trajectory) came within one light year’s distance and was probably visible as a dim red smudge in the night sky. The red dwarf is also suspected to be a binary system, paired with a non-luminous, invisible brown dwarf, or giant planet and those gravitational disruptions the visiting star caused will eventually—in about another million years—send a volley of comets into the inner Solar System. It’s an intriguing comfort to know that humans and Neanderthals that shared the Earth looked up and into the night and made up stories about what that red, marauding blur might be—but that mythology is only conjecture, just as how humans or other beings might interpret the omens of those future comets.

yes, I am the lorax who speaks for the trees, which you seem to be chopping as fast as you please

Via Kottke’s Quick Links, we are introduced to a Berlin-based internet search engine called Ecosia whose simple and transparent business model based on advertisement revenue (if they’re going to profile you, invade your brain and vie for your attention anyway, then let it be at least for a good cause) has so far managed to underwrite the planting of approaching twenty four million trees—with a goal of a billion more trees by 2020.
We’ve grown keenly aware  of the contribution of forests to ecological balance, biodiversity and climate stabilization but we’ve got a long way to go to make up for our thoughtless past behavior. Join the team at Ecosia on their journey to achieve this good turn for the planet.

horatory subjunctive

Not to draw more attention to the antics of the Trump regime, but by responding to former US vice-president Biden’s retort that he’d rather beat some sense into Trump before he’d deign to debate him with raw violence decontextualized—as Biden framed his “threat” as an abstraction that if they were in high school—a liminal age when such behavioural is not excusable but allowances are to be made and lessons learnt—illustrates that the subtlety was squandered on Trump.
Not that women are damsels in distress and cannot defend themselves from such tormentors, our money’s on Joe rather than the lazy blob of fat-calloused bone-spur who believes that exercise is unhealthy as it’s an unnecessary depletion of a body’s finite amount of energy.

avant garde gothic

To honour visionary typographical founder Herb Lubalin on what would have been his hundredth birthday on Saint Patrick’s Day, as Hyperallergic expertly reports, fellow font fanciers from his alma mater are issuing a hundred day Advent calendar of sorts to showcase the artist’s various contributions, including some rejected work never published before.
Though some of his calligraphy work may appear a bit dated, Lubalin’s most enduring and pervasive gift to graphic design is probably the typeface ITC Avant Garde Gothic, which is surely familiar and everywhere we look and now we can know a bit more about the individual behind it—ITC being the International Typeface Corporation started in 1970 in New York City by Lubalin and partners and responsible for the development of many font families. Lubalin Graph, a derivative font, was created especially for the US Public Broadcasting Service to give the network a brand identity and uniform recognition for their 1974 promotional campaign and developed over the following decades.

some settings are controlled by your network administrator

Helpfully the custom-edition of Outlook for Windows 10 issued to the US government—and perhaps other discerning clients—by default will analyze one’s sent emails to ascertain frequent contacts and typical subjects and offers to upload that information for no particular reason. Though it looks like one can opt out, I suppose that that would somewhat frustrate future investigations and hamper the identification of leakers if one did.

6x6

petrograd: a guided tour of the all the Russian cities playing venues to this summer’s World Cup Games

guidon: a clever little programme that allows you to fly your own flag (try an image with transparency), via Boing Boing

best of show: a world map depicting most of the World Canine Federation’s three-hundred-fifty recognised breeds and their place of origin

outside looking in: Lithuanian design studio pays homage to Soviet style apartment façades with custom washroom tiles

shortlisted: the winners and runners-up of the eleventh Sony World Photography Awards (previously)

off-kilter: the witch-proof windows of Vermont and related architectural elements

curiouser and curiouser or hit or miss

Writer and logistician Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll (previously), concluded his 1886 The Game of Logic—which challenged readers in an engaging way to parse out Boolean inferences and propositions by means of a table top game that the book instructed players to make—with a chapter subtitled “Thou canst not hit it, hit it, hit it,/Thou canst not hit it, my good man.” Ninety one pairings of seemingly logical premises ensue but there’s no key or solutions to be found, so one is expected to draw his or her own conclusions. Though these aphorisms might be debated at the Mad Hatter’s table, they are also quite poetic and enigmatic. Be sure to check out Futility Closet at the link above to browse the whole list and nominate your favourite.
Some oysters are silent;
No silent creatures are amusing.

No frogs write books;
Some people use ink in writing books.

His songs never last an hour;
A song, that lasts an hour, is tedious.

Some mountains are insurmountable;
All stiles can be surmounted.

All wasps are unfriendly;
No puppies are unfriendly.

All owls are satisfactory;
Some excuses are unsatisfactory.

Caterpillars are not eloquent;
Jones is eloquent.

golden thread or tanglewood tales

Named after a stately mansion whose grounds were the venue for outdoors summer concerts—a tradition in the Berkshires, a prime destination for industrialists in the Gilded Age—that the author had a view of from his humble rented cottage, Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote the book Tanglewood Tales for Boys and Girls as a sequel to A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys in 1853.
The introduction to Greek mythology’s most celebrated edition was issued in 1921, accompanied with beautiful Art Nouveau illustrations by artist Virginia Frances Sterrett. This image depicts a scene from Circe’s palace—the sorceress who was the sister of Aeetes, keeper of the Golden Fleece, and aunt to the Minotaur—when Odysseus and his crew first enter to investigate, hearing Circe singing sweetly as she worked her handloom, an episode that foreshadows his eventual reunion with his faithful wife Penelope who was forever weaving and unweaving a burial shroud in anticipation of the death of her aged father-in-law Laërtes, offering that she is deferring picking from her many suitors until she is done with that task.