Via Boing Boing, we are introduced to the synthesizer reinterpretation of the score to Star Wars by the late, accomplished electronic music and soundtrack designer Osamu Shoji (*1932 – †2018) released in 1978 in Japan only. Though not even the only homage to John Williams’ orchestral opus in this particular genre that’s worth checking out, Shoji’s remaking of the themes and the leitmotifs are singularly spectacular, especially the directions he went with the Mos Eisley Cantina music.
Wednesday, 1 January 2020
figrin d’an and the modal nodes
time_t
At the stroke of midnight universal coordinated time 1970, the Unix epoch began. Counting the seconds from that point on and treating everyday as if it had eighty-six thousand four-hundred of them (discounting leap seconds makes the logging events slightly asynchronous with time as measured by atomic clocks but this discrepancy is factored in later in dating), the calendar convention does not have the y2k problem built into the programming from the beginning.
However, under the current conventions for designating a timestamp, Unix will experience its own on 19 January 2038, when the thirty-two-bit integers that seconds are stored in exceed capacity and reset to 13 December 1901. The future implications of this bug weren't appreciated until around 2006 when programmers (a notoriously lazy group) began to realise that their kludge, a temporary solution—a quick and dirty work-around, for computer operations to never time out (substituting forever for after a billion seconds, about thirty-two years) started to cause an overflow error when the tumblers roll over.
Tuesday, 31 December 2019
visual basic
Via Boing Boing, we are introducing to an intuitive programming language called Piet, based on the geometric compositions of Dutch abstract painter Mondrian (previously here and here), allowing for a rather esoteric if not immediate and accessible way of encoding and decoding the syntax and logic operators that underpin coding.
The inventor hosts an extensive gallery of classical applications and test-programmes at the link above, like this elegant and aesthetically congruent prime number probe written by Kyle Woodward. There’s also a nice suite of variations on “Hello World.” I’ll owe that there’s a certain level of unfamiliarity to work through as with any creative interface but I really cherish such projects as these—striking me like all the fussy, complex and niche musical instruments that composers saw a need for even when something off-the-shelf might have done the job.
porf and potus
On this day in 1999 when the first President of the Russian Federation (ะัะตะทะธะดะต́ะฝั ะ ะพััะธ́ะนัะบะพะน ะคะตะดะตัะฐ́ัะธะธ) the guarantor of the constitution, commander-in-chief and highest office chosen by popular election, Boris Yeltsin resigned his commission over domestic dissatisfaction with his reform efforts (see previously), and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin assumed the presidency.
A statutory hiatus between Putin’s second and third terms (the law establishing that none can serve more than two consecutive terms) ushered in the caretaker government of Putin's own Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev from 2008 to 2012, allowing Putin again to stand in elections that year. Yeltsin is seen here bestowing Putin with the livery collar or chain of office, a ceremonial insignia of the presidency, like the sash, worn on special occasions. Although there is no law prohibiting a partisan presidency, by convention all incumbents have dropped party affiliation while in office.
Monday, 30 December 2019
you can turn the clock to zero, honey—i’ll sell the stock, we’ll spend all the money
Via fellow internet caretaker Miss Cellania, we learn the backstory to those novelty New Year’s glasses, concocted on one stoned evening in January of 1990 and put into production in time to herald in the next year by revelers and for the following years to come.
The duo behind the iconic variations, Richard Sclafani and Peter Cicero of Seattle, were schooled in the patent application process and realised that there was essentially no safe means of protecting one’s design from being knocked-off by competitors—yet they did register pairs of glasses for the next fourteen years and did have a good and profitable stint of success, until when the final year of the twentieth century appeared on the horizon with 2000 and too many opportunists saw the potential for easy profit. Those sales diminished and their marketing efforts undercut, both behind the phenomenon are grateful for their good run and the smiles they brought to people counting-down. Designers will again, after 2020, be challenged to come up with more clever frames.
8x8
getrรคnkekiste: photographer Bernhard Lang features bottle crates from novel perspectives, via Nag on the Lake
ัะพัััะผัะบะธะต ัะฝะธะฒะตััะฐะปัะฝัะต ัะพะฑะพัั: a 1979 children’s book series illustrated by Mikhail Romadin (*1940 – †2012) of Tarkovsky studios, whom went on to draw for Ray Bradbury and others
uranometria: stars captured on older stellar charts now seemingly vanished could point incognito alien civilisations, via Strange Company
accessory dwelling unit: architecture graduate creates prefabricated homes out of Hawaii’s problematic, invasive Albizia trees
fiat tender: giving cash as a gift but at the same time keeping the personal touch
i demand a recount: “Me and the Boys” voted community choice Meme of 2019, followed closely by “Woman Yelling at a Cat”
chinampa: a look at the fading, ancient practise of floating farming along the canals of Xochimilco
64x64: favourite photographs of the year by as many photographers
