iso-8601 or fifty-two weeks make a year

Kottke once again rings in the season of superlatives with this thoughtful week-by-week catalogue of new things learned in this past year by Tom Whitwell (previously). Aside from being acquainted with the origins of getting one’s steps in, most of these interesting facts and figures were new to us and bare reflection and expanding into posts of their own.
We found especially enlightening and discouraging that the act of finding a clean and safe place to use the restroom for the world’s females takes no less a workforce equivalent equal to the size of Germany’s economy per year and the discovery that some visually impaired individuals can process speech many times faster than sighted people can, suggesting that the visual cortex can be remapped and repurposed. Do give the whole annotated list a look and let us know what you’ve learned that’s really shocking or resonant. What new fact you’ve learned (or remembered) from this past year would you add to the register?

wkrp

Dangerous Minds showcases an authentically rare and obscure sampling of recordings from Cincinnati’s musical—punk, ska, rockabilly—underground, vintage 1975-1982. Like anything on the internet of course it’s a point of departure for further research and exploration and the featured tracks are barely scratching the surface, but we did quite like the references to Debbie Harry throughout.

rip: gun-marie fredriksson

We’re all magic friends.

абетка

Though never a serious contended to replace the Cyrillic variant of the Ukrainian alphabet, several times throughout history Latin scripts have enjoyed compelling fashionability and, always politically fraught, prompting studies into ornithological reform (see also) and sometimes the outright Romanization of the language.
A generalized Latin script called Łatynka was proposed and precipitated an intense public debate, the War of the Alphabets, especially along the country’s western frontier regions where there was an abrupt divide between writing traditions in the mid-nineteenth century and again became en vogue during the early years of the Soviet era—at one point some seventy new scripts were adapted for the Uralic, Iranian, Slavonic, Mongolian, Korean and Chinese written languages of the USSR, following the lead of Turkey. Publications, mainly for the benefit of border communities, during that phase—until development was halted and reversed by Joseph Stalin—incorporated letters from Czech and Polish alphabets and was called Abecadło.

resolution 217

The United Nations’ first major legislative achievement came on this day in 1948 with the General Assembly’s adoption and proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, later each article committed to these stone pillars in Nuremberg, Straße der Menschenrechte.

The annual commemoration coincides with signatory and founding member state Sweden’s Nobeldagen, the date established in 1901 on the fifth anniversary of the death of the benefactor Alfred Nobel and first award ceremony (see previously) took place. All laureates, other than the recipient (including organisations) of the Peace Prize, are banqueted at Stockholm City Hall—with the exception, usually on the same day, presented in Oslo.

apostrophe s, apostrophe s, it shows the things that we possess

An attested grammar vigilante—though not a total pedant as the retired journalist admits there is an element of style when enforcing rules, had conceded defeat but is heartened by an overwhelming surge of interest in his Apostrophe Protection Society, founded in 2001 to champion the much-maligned (the green-grocers’ mark for touting apple’s and pear’s), misused punctuation—as often as not, made a pariah in some municipalities willfully promoting improper syntax, and even transmitting political overtones in its omission or inclusion. What do you think? Language evolves as does our load-bearing diacritics but I think there’s still quite a bit relevance in these tics and their placement.

alphabets heaven

Via Everlasting Blört and the Curious Brain, we are treated to a musical animated short by artist Natalia Ryss called Comte, musically and visually a bit reminiscent of the dream figures and engines set in motion in the music video accompanying Los Lobos’ Kiko and the Lavender Moon.  Much more to explore at the links above.

Alphabets Heaven - Comte from Natalia Ryss on Vimeo.

gumdrops and gatehouses

Carrying on a holiday tradition of crafting and featuring Modernist and Brutalist confectionary miniatures, Present /&/ Correct juries a new selection of gingerbread architectural models. It’s fun to try to identify the individual candy-types that make up the different architectural elements and appreciate the designers’ resourcefulness. According to lore, ginger was to be among the gifts of the magi but this particular wise man had to convalesce in Syria (see also) and did not make it to Bethlehem with the others but propelled his gesture onward with the baking custom.