manderley

Thanks to a tip from the Map Room, we can now explore Postman Pat’s delivery route and visualise where Dibley and Holby City is in relation to Hollyoaks and Little Whinging—though I suspect none of the listed venues take place in the same fictional universe—with this map of locations of the British isles from books, film and television. How many places do you recognise? A surprising number of places have fairly exacting space-time coordinates but there are a few nebulous and untethered ones as well. Click through for larger versions to pour over. We’re wondering which sagas and series do share reality and wonder what sort of cross-overs there are. I bet some aficionado has created that Venn diagram as well.

the new colossus

In a rather disturbing policy pivot that codifies and brings to the fore the uglier sentiments harboured along with calls for “merit-based” immigration and which does indeed have the undertones of the “social credit” scheme under development but not yet implemented in China, the US Department of Homeland Security—which oversees migration and border controls—is proposing to make eligibility for citizenship contingent on credit-worthiness.
Never mind the perpetuation of the myth that immigrants overburden state welfare systems or what the potential rules change signals to aspiring asylum-seekers about American hospitality and magnanimity, the metrics that credit rating agencies provide are notoriously fraught with problems and heavily skewed and biased—for both individuals and on national levels and would set up serious impositions to people already struggling to establish a new life (much less a history of good credit) for themselves. It seems rather inhumane to assess and pass judgment based on flawed data but it is also emblematic of broader trends that reduce our sphere of determination to a set of demographics.

we call it maize

Festively we learn thanks to Dave Log v 3.0 that the Trump administration is observing Thanksgiving not only through a brisk round of golf and definitely not in the spirit of gratitude or charity but is in fact actively tearing down one inconvenient pillar of the holiday in unrecognising the aboriginal tribe, the Wampanoag of Massachusetts without whom the pilgrims would have hardly survived the harsh winter in the new land. No tribe has been denied their sovereignty or territory side aside since the Truman presidency but Trump is not acting just out of malice in this case—characterising the group as not Indian enough, but rather, and unabashedly so, out of business interests. At least as far back as 1993, the real estate mogul whose business acumen isn’t sufficient to keep solvent a gambling operation has been using legal means and name-calling to try to get the Department of the Interior, which oversees the office of India Affairs to deascension the tribal lands in that particular area of the state in order to not undercut and compete with his own designs at casino and resort development.

little red dot

The always interesting Present /&/ Correct directs our attention to a new logographic resource in the Singapore Graphic Archive, showcasing dozens of vintage specimens from epherma like drink coasters and matchbooks to the emblems of corporations and professional associations of the city state. The title isn’t referring to a specific brand or establishment but rather to the way that the relatively diminutive manner in which the country is displayed on maps with its much larger neighbours—which punches culturally and economically well above its comparative stature. There are additional databases and galleries to be found at the links above.

100,000 bc

Understandably overshadowed by news of the tragic assassination of John F Kennedy the day prior, the first episode and story arc of Doctor Who (previously) was broadcast on the BBC on this day in 1963. An Unearthly Child (alternative title above) introduces the first incarnation of the Doctor and his original companion, his granddaughter Susan Foreman.
When Foreman espouses strange views on England in the classroom, her teachers, concerned, think to check on her home life. The address on file led them to a junkyard with a police box in the centre and hearing their pupil’s voice inside, they force their way inside. Fearful that the teachers will betray their secret identities as fourth-dimensional itinerants, the Doctor does not allow them to leave and transports them all back to Palaeolithic times.

achtstundentag

Though not the first in the world—those honours go to Bolivia and New Zealand—on this day in 1918, in the thralls of revolution and revolt at the conclusion of the Great War, the Imperial Office for Economic Demobilisation (Reichsamt für wirtschaftliche Demobilmachung) tasked as a caretaker government with enacting and enforcing reforms before the establishment of the Weimar Republic issued the decree that the workday would not be in excess of eight-hours without extra compensation.  The roots of the movement reached back nearly a century prior with Welsh philanthropist and welfare activist Robert Owen formulating a plan for his employees (Owen being a textile magnate) of “eight hours’ labour, eight hours’ recreation, eight hours’ rest.” The announcement by Germany was ratified as one of the terms of the Treaty of Versailles and became an international standard, one of the annexes establishing an office to monitor working conditions among the signatories.

7x7

font specimen: a look at the vintage typeface “Choc” that’s come to dominate storefronts all over—via Slashdot

ionic wind: world’s first solid-state aircraft takes flight

southern exposure: the Moon’s orientation flips depending on whether a terrestrial viewer is north or south of the equator

gas, food, lodging: business rules for US interstate next-exit signage—via TYWKIWDBI

wysiwyg: digitally editing reality by Vladimir Tomin

franksgiving: for those of you for whom the holiday snuck up on you, the year of multiple Thanksgiving observances

blue note release: crafting the iconic covers of 1950s and 60s jazz albums