quid pro quo-so little time, so much to know

Though the White House vehemently denies the claim and only knows the messager as an ex-congressman from California, a member of Julian Assange’s defence team, during a preliminary hearing at the Magisterial Court of Westminster, intimates that his client was visited by Trump cheerleader and noted Russian apologist Dana Rohrabacher while still given sanctuary at the Ecuadorian Mission to the UK back in 2017 at Trump’s biding to offer ‘a pardon or some other way out’ if Mister Assange goes along with the administration’s counter-narrative and state that Russia had no involvement in breaking into the Democratic National Committee's services during the presidential campaign and releasing compromising emails.
Although the tranche of messages were published on the same WikiLeaks platform, the charges that the US government is levying against Assange predate the DNC hack and exposed systemic war crimes perpetrated evinced by diplomatic cables and communiques, and his attorneys are challenging his extradition to America to face charges and a potential prison term of one hundred and seventy-five years. Assange maintains that he will never reveal a source, neither confirming nor denying Russian participation, and that he would never address the public through a third-party emissary.

‘lil proportional globes import/export map

Musing for Medium, geographer Tim Wallace takes us, courtesy of tmn, on a disorientating windshield tour of superannuated mapping and chart styles. Many of these data visualisations, in the same vein as persuasive, political maps, are sobering reminders that we did not invent obfuscation but are rather heirs to a long tradition of it and many of these representations are rightly consigned as forgotten but also serve to make one appreciate excellence in interpreting and communicating trends, facts and figures. Check out the whole collection including the “air mass potato,” “oversized presidential lollipop” and “swoopy arrow planet” maps at the link up top.

crtl-c

Via Slashdot, we are referred to the obituary of the recently departed computer scientist Larry Gordon Tesler (*1945), whom while possibly not a household name like other pioneers helped make invaluable contributions for human-machine interaction and defines how we interface with computers today.
While working at the Xerox’ Palo Alto Research Centre (also the birthplace of the mouse), Tesler developed the first object-based programming language, the first word processor with a graphical, WYSIWYG display and perhaps most famously and introduced the concept of copy-and-paste functionality. After leaving Xerox, Tesler went on to work for Apple—one of the architects behind the Lisa and the Newton—consulted for Yahoo!, Amazon and the genetics company 23andMe

priority seating

Via Super Punch, we are directed towards a growing feed that curates public transportation upholstery from mass transit systems around the world (see previously here, here and here). We were especially taken with this textile pattern detail from the extensive, well-serviced transport network of tramlines in the city of Kraków. Much more to explore at the links above.

georgium sidus

Writing for Æon magazine, historian of astronomy Stephen Case guides us on a fascinating and convoluted process on how the naming conventions of the planets came to be through the lens of the discovery of what we now know as Uranus by William Herschel in March of 1781–the first new planet since antiquity and in (relatively) quick succession what we now call Neptune by Urbain Le Verrier. Whereas Uranus had been marauding through the night sky unrecognised for the planet it is and mistook for a star of the firmament and initially reported as a comet and left to the discoverer’s son to champion, Neptune existence was mathematically derived and then verified through observation, the only standing precedent for naming rights came from the Galilean moons of Jupiter named the Stars of the Medici after Galileo’s patrons.
To the extent that one bothered to differentiate the satellites at all, co-discoverer Simon Marius, astronomer royal of the Margraviate of Ansbach, suggested that they be named after their planetary analogues: the Mercury of Jupiter and so on—before ultimately being named for paramours of Zeus. The elder Herschel had named his discovery after George III, somewhat of a consolation for loosing the American colonies, a decision his son and intellectual heir regretted but was adamantly against the counter suggestion by Le Verrier that they name the planets after themselves. The younger Herschel found a way out of this impasse by returning to the subject of naming satellites—specifically for those orbiting Saturn, a couple of which he had discovered himself. Mythologically awkward to name the moons after family members of the Titan who deposed his father—Ouranos, Uranus incidentally—and devoured his children, Herschel proposed naming the moons after peer giants and giantesses. The matter was settled and extended to keeping the planets named after Greco-Roman gods—rallied by choosing to call a newly isolated element uranium after the ancient sky deity. By dint of the sheer number of Cronian satellites, giants from other pantheons are admitted as well. Though arguably installing an Anglo-American hegemony among the stars, the International Astronomical Union while not neutral does promote inclusion in its work. Though eschewing the honour himself, the Hawaiian term (whose own legends are enjoying more representation) for Uranus is Hele’ekala, a loan word for Herschel.

brothers and sisters, welcome to the temple of the gnostic sonics

BLDGBlog has a nice memory and appreciation of recently and very much prematurely departed DJ, reporter, zine publisher, remix artist and record producer Andrew Weatherall (*1963). The pioneering Weatherall whose eclectic tastes and experimentation helped forward the rave and acid house scene bore at least two famous tattoos on opposite forearms: Fail We May but Sail We Must. Sample some of his sets below and more at the link above.

level-up

Pasa Bon! refers us to a tragically underreported 1997 interactive installation from Berlin-based artist Hans Hemmert of the art collective Inges Idee that outfitted guests with platform shoes, chosen from the rack to elevate all to the height of two meters before socialising. As distant as this experiment seems and how much of human interaction is not necessarily conducted in person, it seems very resonant to get a new perspective and place others on equal-footing.

it’s entirely possible that you might have trouble remembering a time before christian sonic the hedgehog fanart

Via tmn, the above headline, excerpt certainly grabbed our attention, not knowing what sort of rabbit hole we might be prizing open—and we’re relieved to find how for all its power and reach domestically, Corporate Christian America, has a heretofore unbridgeable handicap when it comes to popular culture, though the Good News Gospel and prosperity theology has enjoyed a long-term ally in that liminal space between casual engagement, aficionados and fandom of video game franchises. As strange as it seems, given religion’s aggressive way of inserting itself into the conversation, there’s an unexpected place to gain a purchase that strikes as sincere (despite cynical origins during in the consoles’ competition for supremacy—see also), inevitable and self-perpetuating in the way that gamification is both habit-forming and highly specific yet forgiving at the same time.