Those Germans have a word for everything—including one that perfectly captures the FOMO (the Fear of Missing Out) effect compounded with panic-buying, from the reputation that the humble rodent has for hoarding food within its own cheeks. Supermarkets are displaying notices that yes we have no Desinfektionsmittel, Toliettenpapier, und so weiter. Perhaps reflective of the Zeitgeist, the term—or its verbal form hamstern, gehamstert, will join the borrowed ranks of Zivilcourage, Schadenfreude and Doppelgรคnger soon.
Saturday, 7 March 2020
hamsterkauf
panoseti
While primarily designed for the study of natural phenomena like pulsars and evaporating black holes two experimental telescopes at San Jose’s Lick Observatory, due to come on-line soon, are also being conscripted for the search for extraterrestrial intelligence as part of a pulsed all-sky near infrared optical survey.
As laser beams are less energy intensive and less susceptible to degradation over great distances researchers postulate that coded pulses of light might be a preferred form of communication, especially on an interstellar scale, and something outside of the radio range where SETI has traditionally looked. Although not specifically calibrated to search for alien megastructures, looking in the infrared spectrum might pick up on the residual heat of a Dyson Sphere, a theoretical construct popularised by the recently departed Freeman Dyson (*1923, first proffered by science fiction writer Olaf Stapledon in a 1937 novel) of an alien civilisation advanced to the point that they could contain and harness the output of a star’s power.
operation lumberjack
On this day in 1945, during the Battle of Remagen, Allied forces unexpectedly captured the Ludendorff Bridge, by the United States Twelfth Army Group under the leadership of General Omar Bradley, that spanned the Rhein and enabled them to establish a bridgehead on the eastern shore—essential to the success of Field Marshal Montgomery’s Operation Plunder that hinged on the smoothly timed advancement of several flanks to carry out a decisive invasion of Nazi Germany and hastening its surrender. Under constant assault and bombardment by Nazi forces until its ultimate collapse ten days later, the crossing remained intact long enough to allow forces to gain a foothold in the strategically important territory, taking the Mosel, Eifel and Kรถln and preventing German units there from re-grouping and launching a counter-attack.
Friday, 6 March 2020
subpar parks
the winnowing oar
Via Kottke’s Quick Links, we really enjoyed this thoughtful farewell send-off that the intrepid explorers at Atlas Obscura created for their out-going boss in a small shed on a plot of land not far from the crossroads of the historic highway Route 66 as a ritual repository inviting individuals, as their CEO did as the collection’s first contributor, to leave parts of their former selves behind to acknowledge and honour life’s transitions and pivot points. We really liked this idea, especially after charting out so many curious places and compendia to have created a spot of their own. It reminds me of Tiresias’ instructions to Odysseus as an act of propitiation to take an oar from his ship and to walk inland until he reaches people who’ve never heard of the sea and mistake the implement he is bearing for a cradle to separate the wheat from the chaff (แผฮธฮทฯฮทฮปฮฟฮนฮณฯฯ)—and there make sacrifice to Poseidon for making it home. Much more to discover with Atlas Obscura at the link up top.
pilier des nautes
Rediscovered on this day in 1710 whilst performing excavation beneath Notre Dame for a new crypt, the Pillar of the Boatmen is a monumental Gallo-Roman column made during the first century and found re-used as building material for the fourth century defensive wall of the รle de la Citรฉ.
Originally raised on the embankment of Lutetia (Paris) by the guild of sailors and ship wardens of the Seine as tribute to Jupiter (Iovis Optimus Maximus) the dedication and inscription mix some of the Roman pantheon but the other deities invoked and depicted, one singularly or as part of an ensemble to each side of four stacked blocks, in bas-relief are distinctly Gallic and have Gaulish vocabulary. Aside from Jupiter, and the twins Castor and Pollux, the others bear their native theonyms, as far as the incomplete and reconstructed inscription can be deciphered with certainty, and not epithets for their Roman equivalents, like Cernunnos, the Celtic horned god (second from the top, facing left) of commerce and fertility often portrayed but only named on this artefact—the city’s modern name itself coming from the tribe the Parisii which the Romans displaced with their occupation. The pillar is now displayed in the Thermes de Cluny, the ruins of an ancient spa in the heart of the city, in the bathhouse’s former cold pool—that is the frigidarium.
Thursday, 5 March 2020
el gaucho goofy
The US State Department commissioned Walt Disney and others to peddle the soft diplomacy of Mickey Mouse and company to counteract ties that Central and South America was forming with Nazi Germany—a job that Disney and much of Hollywood readily accepted since European markets were closed off to them due to the war. The propaganda film by most estimates was well received by audiences in both Latin America and domestically, instilling a sense of continental cohesion and giving US cinema-goers a taste of some the refinement of the culture and scenery that they’d been previously ignorant of—and was enough of a commercial success to inspire a sequel The Three Caballeros two years later. Curiously the version of the film currently on offer contains a warning about tobacco-use being depicted—despite the smoke rings being edited out—and we can only surmise that refers exclusively to parrot Josรฉ Carioca chomping on a cigar. Addicted to the habit and eventually succumbing to lung cancer, like Disney, himself, the voice actor Vance DeBar “Pinto” Colvig Sr (*1892 – †1967) whom played Goofy was a vocal anti-smoking campaigner whose efforts were instrumental in getting Surgeon General warnings on packs of cigarettes in the US. Past behavior, judged through the lens of the present, is less than model in a lot of ways but it cannot be discussed and condemned if it’s not visible and addressing the off-colour and antiquated can be productive in establishing an enduring change in attitudes.
zx81
Launched in the United Kingdom on this day in 1981, Sinclair Research’s innovative, intuitive and inexpensive (kits for self-assembly consisting of a slim and compact keyboard and an external cassette recorder for memory retailed for a mere £49,95) micro-computer was one of the first to be successfully mass-marketed and introduced the public to the idea of having a home computer, outside the bailiwick of business executives and hobbyists. Aside from the tape player, there were no moving parts and plugged into a television set as a display.
Despite perceived technical shortcomings—like the impractically low amount of memory, the unit truly prized open a path to better computer literacy, coding (see previously) and importantly the measure of confidence to see broader applications. Clones and variants soon proliferated—I remember using a Radio Shack derivative in a beige casing and flipping the VHF/UHF switch and felt I was entering programming mode, and the community of enthusiasts the ZX81 fostered was self-perpetuating, the early-adopters creating, sourcing software and hardware compatible with the computer. Founder and business executive Clive Marles Sinclair (*1940) amassed a fortune with this pioneering success and was given a knighthood for it in 1983. Later projects launched by Sinclair have focused on personal transportation and solving the last-mile problem with inventions like his folding bicycle that commuters can easily take on trains, the A-Bike debuting in 2006.
