the candy-stripe of incident tape

We’ve encountered several compilations of tape measures, interventions (see also) to remind people to practise physical distancing in order to lessen the spread of COVID-19 and found this round-up from My Modern Met to be one of the more comprehensive and visually compelling. For as much as we seem accepting and even complicit of the figurative and literal velvet rope for enforcing order and norms, it is truly outstanding how we can turn on a dime and respect those marks laid out for us.

for all intensive purposes

We’ve previously explored the idiosyncratic contextualisation and substitution of a word or phrase to something more familiar or plausible in the speaker’s own experience termed an eggcorn and liked revisiting the concept with more examples, including a growing database of citations.
A whetstone does not lubricate a dull blade but rather gritty and sharpens it and hence the often mistaken idiom “to whet one’s appetite”—one wonders what else might be properly described as such when one understands wet. A penthouse apartment derives from the Anglo-Norman pentiz and ultimately traced to the Latin appendō for something I attach and was originally referring to something akin to an outhouse and through eggcornisation and folk etymology the suite appended to the top of a building was understood to be a compound form of house.

the east is red one

On this day fifty years ago, carried aloft by a Changzheng (long march, CZ-1) rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre of Inner Mongolia, China became the world’s sixth space-faring nation (see previously, the UK launched Ariel 1 with American cooperation) with the Dongfanghong I (东方红一号, meaning the eponymous national anthem during the Cultural Revolution, 1966 - 1976) which the research vehicle broadcast continuously back to Earth (along with telemetry data) on an ultra-shortwave band during its planned twenty-day life span. Though the tune is used by broadcasters as an interval signal, like the pips, and remained popular with the public, it was dropped later in the decade with the ascension and reforms of Deng Xiaping in favour of the original “March of the Volunteers” for its associations with purges, imprisonment and factional strife. In May 2016, an updated version was circulating on the internet “The East is Red Again,” suggesting that Xi Jingping is the political heir of Mao Zedong, whom while the mentions of the songs went down a memory hole, Xi failed to refute the comparison.

stunt-double

Quarantined stuntmen, bruh... pic.twitter.com/nYSOqzAzBs

— Rex Chapman🏇🏼 (@RexChapman) April 22, 2020

Via Cynical-C, we enjoyed this flowing, action packed montage nearly as much as this other collaborative and international bucket brigade, of stunt performers self-isolating, yet keeping their talents exercised.  The earliest practitioners of this discipline were the acrobatic acts of travelling circuses and were known as cascadeurs, trained to fall according to a pre-arranged sequence.

the mitigation of world tension through the exercise of humour

With its act of secession from Key West tolerated as a boost for tourism and the above motto, the Conch Republic declared its independence on this day, St. George’s Day, in 1982. While motivated out of genuine displeasure on the part of residence regarding inconvenience incurred with federal authorities combating the narcotics trade, the movement’s organisers, a “Sovereign State of Mind” have portrayed the micronation as a prevailing attitude and way of life exclusive to the Keys and have subsequently staged and invasion and surrender ceremony with a brokered peace. Though unimpeachably a nice place to live, the Conch Republic’s break-away status has only made its relationship and allegiance to Florida closer.

yngismeyjardagur

According to the old Icelandic calendar’s reckoning, the first Thursday after 18 April marks the first day of the month of Harpa, Sumardagurinn fyrsti, a public holiday—the beginning of the Náttleysi (nightless) time.  Meteorological projections for this season happen to align with folk beliefs that project that summer will be a mild one should there not be a freeze on the night before.

open office

From the latest link round-up (a lot more to explore here) at Pasa Bon! comes this ambient office noise machine—fully adjustable and importantly mutable once one has had enough—for those of us pining in a sense for the familiar routine of going into work and dealing with the patter of colleagues, traffic as the white noise that would at other times be a jarring distraction. I for one have never had to try to function in a sea of infinite cubicles and am not feeling compelled to ever not in the future telework—and hope that no one else is put in harm’s way by returning prematurely—and am grateful for that but do miss a bit of the atmosphere and commiseration.

hydrological regime

While meandering for just over a kilometre, the shortest river in France that we visited several years back dwarfs these watercourses, it is nonetheless interesting to hop about the map and consider these shortest of rivers around the globe and wonder how we define our topography. For instance, the pictured Ombla, stout though only thirty metres in length, satisfies all the essential criteria plus supplying neighbouring Dubrovnik with drinking water.  More to explore with Amusing Planet at the link above.