nightingale floors

Amusing Planet introduces us to the ancient Japanese method for detecting intruders by fitting corridors with specialized flooring that squawked and chirped when trod across. Employed in select temples and palaces, these nightingale floors (鴬張り, uguisubari) were designed with special joints within the floorboards that move and rub against the clamps when pressure is applied. Learn more about where you can experience the cleverly crafted floors yourself and listen to them the warbling sound at the link above.

autozam

Writing for Ars Technica, Devin Holody gives us a nice, circumspect primer on the strange and stunning Japanese domestic automotive market that due to administrative embargoes and stringent inspection standards that have no mercy for vintage cars matriculate to the US market after a significant waiting period that lends new-arrivals this fantastic air of nostalgia.
Though used models filter in elsewhere around the world (we’ve encountered some twee and tiny Subarus), Japanese drivers giving up on their older cars earlier than most, motivated by those frequent check-ups, exports to America are subject to a twenty-five year wait due to a 1988 safety compliance act that blocks the importation of foreign cars that weren’t originally meant for American roads. The guide is full of glorious images of the latest class of quarter century-old cars that can now be acquired by people living in the US and has plenty of tips and resources to connect interested-parties.

fomo or the diderot effect

Our gratitude to Open Culture once again for enlightening and equipping us with a dual-pronged sociological term that was coined by anthropologist Grant McCracken to describe the phenomena of consumption spiraling out of control called the Diderot Effect.
Named after sixteenth century encyclopedist and philosopher Denis Diderot who first described the mechanism that’s similar to the notion of buyers’ remorse, he experienced personally upon regretting for having parted with his old dressing gown, not merely for having indulged in the purchase of fancy loungewear but how the new garment’s fineness clashed with the rest of his wardrobe and made everything else feel a bit tawdry. The only way to remedy this feeling of unease was to get more new clothes leading him to discount the rest of his possessions in a vicious cycle of upgrading that left him bankrupt—financially and morally. The compulsion for rampant and senseless consumption plus ostentatious brinksmanship of course negatively impact the environment and undermines the collective psychology, and it is bound to only be more out of control when people are more and more immersed in a platform designed to optimise the unease of missing out and make one feel inadequate.

嫦娥

Like its counterpart Apollo, the Chinese lunar exploration programme has a divine namesake and their space agency has presented an ambitious plan to turn a bit of lore into reality with its aim to construct a “palace” near the Moon’s south pole by 2030. The lunar base or rather tubular palace is in reference to the abode of the immortal Chang’e (嫦娥)—a rather reluctant goddess, who had divinity thrust upon her, estranging her from her mortal husband.
In the distant past, ten suns came to dominate the skies and threatened to scorch the Earth, but the heroic archer Yi shot down all but one, saving the planet. As reward, the gods gave Yi a single portion of the elixir of life, which would render the imbiber undying. Yi didn’t want to live forever if he could not be with his beloved wife Chang’e, so hid the potion. One of the archer’s apprentices, however, attacked Chang’e while her husband was out hunting and tried to force her to give him the elixir, and overpowered, Chang’e escaped by the only means she had—drinking the potion herself. Instead of allowing herself to ascend to the highest heaven in the company of the other gods, Chang’e settled on the Moon to be as close to her husband as possible. Inconsolable, her only companion for the past four millennia has been a white rabbit Yutu—which was the name of the rover vehicle that was delivered to the Moon’s surface by the mission Chang’e 3 when mankind returned to the satellite for the first time in nearly four decades in December of 2013. Read more about the programme at the link up top.

de la démocratie en amérique

Yesterday, before a joint session of Congress, the US legislature and executive got the address that it needs to heed but probably didn’t deserve in the parting words of French President Emmanuel Macron, who laid bare a world-view in sharp contrast to what the disengaged, raging nationalist policies of the Trump regime, bromance aside.
There being no “Planet B,” Macron urged America to rejoin the Paris Accords and not to withdraw from the Iran nuclear settlement. The spread of fake news (fausses nouvelles) and the atmosphere of distrust it sews is also getting to be a bit much.  Macron’s speech happened to fall of the same day in 1960 when Général Charles de Gaulle had the opportunity to convey the same message of friendship and unity to the same audience, and of course follows quite a long tradition of French thinkers mediating on democracy in America—beginning with Alexis de Tocqueville’s travels in the newly-minted republic.

block party

Lukas Valiauga, designer of interactive installations and digital interfaces, pays a playful homage, we learn via Present /&/ Correct to the game of Tetris, but instead of the traditional tetrominoes, the geometric pieces are composed of the façades of Brutalist apartment towers. Players are invited to demolish or build up blocs as they see fit.

6x6

the fable of the dragon-tyrant: a parable from philosopher Nick Bostrom—humans have many perched on the mountaintops

as was the fashion at the time: à la mode is one of the last remnants on American menus of a once rich Francophone culinary code, via Nag on the Lake

we are the laughing morticians of the present: Dangerous Minds takes a look at the short-lived satirical magazine Americana that lampooned geopolitics of the early 1930s

great glavin in a glass: Simpsons’ meme generator, the Frinkiac (previously), has a random-feature

patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel: Trump regime challenges dissenters to love their country more than they hate the leadership

stellar cartography: the European Space Agency’s on-going Gaia project updates its map of the Cosmos

mockbuster

After two years of restoration of the last known reel of the movie in existence and digital conversion, the atrociously campy cult film that’s better known by the moniker “Turkish Star Wars,” the 1982 Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam (previously) or The Man Who Saved the World will be enjoying a limited theatre run in London and Glasgow later this summer (May the Fourth be with you).
The movie—hitherto only watchable on bootlegged video cassette copies—gained notoriety for its unauthorised use of footage from the actual Star Wars, with other science fiction films and space programme scenes spliced in, has quite an incoherent plot and was roundly panned by critics at the time. Despite its poor reception, a sequel was produced in 2006, Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam'ın Oğlu (The Son of the Man who Saved the World—otherwise “Turks in Space”) but audiences (never easily satisfied) were also critical of the second movie for having professional actors and special effects and was no longer true to the original. Visit the link above to see a video of a few scenes.  I think it’s fun that there’s a revival of such an unambiguously bad movie, but I also hope that the attention it garners directs more people to the finer side of Turkish cinema and film-making, as well.