manhattanhenge

Because the concrete and steel canyons of New York City follow a grid that’s offset from true West by twenty-nine degrees, the sunset does not align with the summer and winter solstices but rather on dates spread out evenly around them, namely 31 May, 12 – 13 July and on 22 December, drifting slightly from year to year. Here is a picture courtesy of Space Weather from last evening taken from one of the best vantage points in the city, looking down 34th Street. Relatedly, when planning the layout of Milton Keynes in the early 1960s, developers consulted Greenwich Observatory to arrange the corridors of the town centre to frame the rising sun on Midsummer and sunset on Midwinter

7x7

fly me to the moons: an interactive atlas of the Solar System’s two hundred known natural satellites—via Maps Mania

favourite things: ten things beloved by US president John Quincy Adams

canopies: stunning forest photography from Manueli Bececco—see also

placă ceramică: an introduction to the incredible geometries of Romanian socialist era tilework

fine deerscald: a neural network brews up a cuppa—previously

sinistral teichopsia: antique illustrations of aura signatures (scintillating scotoma) that precede the onset of a migraine

republic of minerva: how an utopian micronation and sea-steading caused an international incident in the early 1970s

orrery: four thousand confirmed exoplanets charted in sight and sound

plainsong or novum organum

Via Kottke’s Quick Links, we are invited to remix a studio session of Gregorian chant, adding hum, reverb and more church bell as well as a number of preset modes and voices.  Although traditionally credited to Gregory I, the musical style is likely a synthesis of Roman and French choral customs, evolving into an elaborate, articulated system of chords and cadences as performers and composers became more keenly aware of the numeracy of song, though assuredly championed by the music-loving Pope. Notation and scale developed from this chant tradition, with the eventual eight modes being Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian and Mixolydian and their (hypo-) subordinates.

herd immunity

As the Chorus bemoans in Sophocles’ Antigone, “Nothing that is vast enters the life of mortals without a curse,” technology—impelled in part by not only the forces of capitalism and the need to maintain market and industry dominance but also by dint of our own inclination to laziness and decision-fatigue—has been an incredible support and source of solace and progress but likewise delivers a vehicle for remorse and helps us to bite off far more than we can chew. We are not good at self-assessment and postponing gratification. This latest edition of NPR’s TED Radio Hour explores the topic of digital manipulation and what lies behind the screen from several angles and is definitely food-for-thought.

遍地開花

After the storming of the Legislative Council building on the 1 July anniversary of the 1997 return of the former UK crown colony of Hong Kong to China, protesters have embraced non-violent ways of continuing to express their displeasure and fear that the residents of territory will see liberties erode further.
Taking a cue from the Lennon Wall in Prague, activists have canvased any available space with colourful self-adhering notices, an outlet that’s passive and anonymous enough to keep most individuals out of danger but still one that the authorities cannot easily ignore and now the symbols themselves incite rallies around pro- and anti-government camps. The title refers to the spontaneity of the walls as “blossoming everywhere.” These mosaics, with tens of thousands of missives advocating for freedom and democracy, originate from a central display in Hong Kong five years earlier, erected during the Umbrella Movement, a seventy-nine day occupation of the city to demand transparency in municipal elections—which were perceived to be controlled by Beijing. Protesters carried umbrellas to shield themselves from tear gas that the police lobbed at them to break up the crowds.

running up that hill

Via the always excellent Nag on the Lake, we are treated to this stunning music video, Meg Myers’ cover of Kate Bush’s classic composed of thirty-two hundred frames illustrated by over twenty-one hundred school children.  Director Jo Roy achieved the rotoscope-effect by first filming Myers and then printing each of the soon to be decorated cells as a colouring-book page, which were artfully completed by elementary school students in Canada and the US. Much more to explore at the link above.

yo gafa gafa

Despite US threats and the spectre of more retaliatory tariffs from a regime that has a diminishing quiver of tools of statecraft at its disposal, France has voted in favour of a retroactive digital services tax regime (previously) that would seek to recuperate and going forward glean revenue from multinational—though nominally America when it’s convenient—corporations, who currently pay little to no corporate tax domestically, despite demonstrable earnings in the country. France will net an estimated four hundred million euro this year and hopes other nations will join in demanding that the tech, social media giants pay their fair share.

skyfall

At around four-thirty in the afternoon universal coordinated time (plus eight hours local time) on this day in 1979, debris from NASA’s abandoned but not unsuccessful space station project Skylab that was not incinerated upon its uncontrolled re-entry landed in the Shire of Esperance on the coast of Western Australia.
Fortunately the space junk caused no injury or damage and there was a media frenzy of speculation of where and when the craft might crash-land with contests and wagers made. A few days afterwards local farmers recovered a huge oxygen tank and it was decided by show masters-of-ceremonies to display it as a prop on the stage of the Miss Universe pageant that had been scheduled for later in the month in nearby Perth—hosted by The Price is Right’s Bob Barker—whose weight combined with seventy-five contestants assembled to sing a rousting rendition of Waltzing Matilda made the dais a little structurally unstable. Fortunately no beauty contestants were harmed in this mission either. Having garnered valuable lessons from the first attempt, the US planned next for Space Station Freedom whose programme would eventual merge with the International Space Station, commissioned in 1998.