conlang

From the cabinet of hypertext curiosities of Mx van Hoorn, we are not only introduced to the linguist David J Peterson, whom after JRR Tolkien and lexicographers behind Klingon is probably the most celebrated contemporary figure in constructed languages (see previously) with Dothraki from Game of Thrones, we make his acquaintance in the greatest of fashions—namely, through his handmade landing spot for his various projects. Pictured is a bit of orthography for the invented script of the imagined Njaama culture and the entire enterprise has a lot to explore and is a prompt for reflecting on the organic and inspired development of communication and how that might be resonant and rendered.

reading the room

In an example of Poe’s Law—the adage that extremist views and satire ultimately converge and make them virtually indistinguishable, we learn that the deplorable couple who trained guns at peaceful protestors (see previously) earlier this summer are slated to speak at the virtual Republican National Convention, scheduled for next week after the DNC concludes. Check out the reporting from CNN above to see who else is lined-up to showcase party values.

well done sister suffragette

On this day in 1920, a long struggle and organised campaign came to fruition with the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the US constitution extending the franchise and right to vote to women (see previously). Instrumental to the success included such activists as Alice Stokes Paul (*1885 – †1977), whom after 1920 spent five decades as chair of the National Woman’s Party championing the Equal Rights Amendment, among other causes. Here pictured toasting their achievement, Paul is brandishing grape juice as Prohibition had recently come into effect.

it is what it is

Former First Lady Michelle Obama gave one of a number of rousing speeches during the first night of the Democratic National Convention—harnessing the handicaps of having only a virtual audience to appeal to voters at this crucial juncture for the future of America with many impactful take-aways including:
“A president’s words have the power to move markets. They can start wars or broker peace. They can summon our better angels or awaken our worst instincts. You simply cannot fake your way through this job. As I’ve said before, being president doesn’t change who you are; it reveals who you are.” Watch the whole of the prepared remarks, read the transcript and find more coverage from NPR at the link above.

ai claudius

Via Kottke—we are directed to the Roman Emperor Project of Daniel Voshart—Star Trek set designer—who has taken a dataset of over eight hundred sculptures and busts to seed a neural-network to create photo-realistic images of the fifty-four caesars of the Principate, the first period of the Roman Empire that began with the reign of Augustus and ended with the Crisis of the Third Century, which nearly led to its collapse buffeted by civil wars, invasions, economic depression, plague and political instability.
These early days of the Empire were no salad days to be sure but this period prior to the crisis is in contrast to the following one referred to as the Dominate or the despotic phase, beginning with the reign of Diocletian and the downfall of the West. The algorithm was guided and informed by written descriptions in the histories to take into account other physical characteristics in efforts not to flatter or romanticise but show diversity as well as the ravages of rule, age and indulgence. Here is our old friend Claudius, who was rather unexpectedly elevated to the role after his nephew Caligula was assassinated by a conspiracy between senators and the Praetorian Guard. Much more to explore at the links above.

point suscrit

Noticing an all-caps headline with BİDEN rendered as such with the dotted i (called the tittle in English though there’s no case for the letter j in Turkic scripts, see also) as opposed to the dotless that appears later in the word for asylum, I was intrigued about the distinction and wondered how Turkish orthography treated these letters. As with İstanbul, the dotted version usually represents the long vowel sound, close front unrounded, whereas ı most times denotes an oo sound, close back unrounded. Not all computing platforms are able to encode this difference properly—sometimes the numeral 1 is substituted for the dotless ı—resulting in consequential miscommunications.

a pound of cure

Via Super Punch we discover that the joint COVID-19 response and recovery mission of the US government (which is already oxymoronical without even finishing the thought) has created a mission patch for Operation Warp Speed, the public-private venture to fast-track and prioritise vaccines and other therapies against the virus.

The ten-billion-dollar project—which seems rather underfunded considering the toll that inaction has taken for hundreds of thousands of lives and untold livelihoods—could have most likely taken a different, more effective tac had the administration taken the threat more seriously to begin with rather than making the measures that could have controlled the outbreaks into another totem of American cultural wars, and putting forth an effort at least commiserate to that which went into making this logo. The Q is probably accidental, the result of attempting to merge the seals of the Department of Defence and the Department of Health and Human Services but we wouldn’t put it above the graphic design team to reference a conspiracy theory in their work.

dingos ate my baby

Though more likely the mother cried to her husband, “A dingo took my baby,” the phrase attributed to Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton originated tragically on this night in 1980 whilst the couple were out camping at Uluru (Ayer’s Rock) with their two-month old daughter, Azaria.
Though the media and authorities found the claim incredulous initially and the grieving parents were prejudged and stigmatised, the coroner’s inquest later corroborated the mother’s account. In addition to the 1987 Coen Brothers’ Raising Arizona, there have been a whole host of cultural references—mostly with the implication that the assertion is unbelievable (myself included), like the excuse the dog ate my homework.