the medium is the message

Though interest in his work and commentary waned in later years as alarmist or rallying against the inevitable, appreciation for the perspective and insight of philosopher and lecturer Herbert Marshall McLuhan (*1911, dying on this day in 1980 after a long convalescent period from a debilitating stroke) regained their purchase once his predictions started coming true some three decades after he introduced them. Coining his famous aphorism above in his doctoral dissertation expanded to his 1951 The Mechanical Bride: Folklore of Industrial Man, McLuhan also championed the idea of a “global village” and defined cool and hot media—the former more demanding with less stimuli for engagement with the latter being more prescriptive and therefore tribal in nature.

sōsaku kanji kontesuto

Language Log shares some of the top entrants for this eleventh annual Kanji Creation Contest submitted from the general public and school age participants during this past year. Many of these modified character forms—absolutely brilliant in their subtle transformation to imbue them with more meaning—are of course informed by the year’s course of events, like the overall winner, a reworking of the standard glyph 座 (za—to sit). 

With social distancing in mind, the 人 elements are spaced further apart. Similarly, for 会 (kai—to meet), the bottom supporter has been replaced with a Z for Zoom. See more at the link up top, including some non-pandemic-related words that could be classified as sniglets—words (see also here and here) and symbols to convey concepts that ought to already exist yet don’t, leaving a lexical gap for the filling.

see what one or toucan do

For a not so princely sum amounting to just over four-hundred thousand pounds once the lease lapses in the year 10759 CE (by which time the red giant Antares is expected to have gone supernova and is visible in the daytime sky of the Earth), Arthur Guinness (*1725—†1803), entrepreneur, brewer and philanthropist took over facilities established just outside of Saint James Gate in Dublin by Sir Mark Rainsford in exchange for an annual rent of 45£ on a contract to span the next nine-thousand years. Having wisely invested an inheritance from an uncle who was the archbishop of Cashel, Guinness first leased a brewery in nearby Leixlip on the Liffey, County Kildare (ᛚᛅᚼᛋ ᚼᛚᛅᚢᛒ—meaning salmon leap), and perfected his craft at ale and then porter, stout.

to moscow chicks he was such a lovely dear

In a strange twist of fate, Russian mystic Grigori Rasputin (previously) was killed on this day (New Style, 1916) coinciding with the passing with the Aruban performer Bobby Farrell (2010), whom with the disco ensemble Boney M. produced possibly the finest musical homage in the 1978 hit single (see link above) from their album Nightflight to Venus, often dressed as the charismatic for concerts. Farrell died of heart failure whist on tour in Saint Petersburg. Here is a video from the variety show TopPop.

MMX

For those of you who’d like to pre-emptively escape to another time and place, just so you know you can reuse your wall calendars from 2010 for 2021 and all the days and dates will align, justifying holding onto this VeggieTales biblical, quotable version. Asparagus Junior and Scooter the Carrot—as with most other results that a quick search yielded—were well outside of my shibboleth.

Even if you’re not a hopeless pack-rat, it’s still amusing to google for cultural touchstones more than a decade on.  It was quite the cavalcade revisiting Dexter,  Disney’s Cars,  365 Kittens in a Year, High School Musical, Glee, Maxine and Robert Pattinson.  Let us know if you can find an actual wall calendar from that year you received as a gift.  Going forward, I wonder what artefacts we’ll be reflecting on, in pin-up form, from 2021.

8x8

persons of the year: more Year End lists from Miss Cellania—see previously  

75x75: seventy-five superlative photographs captured by as many photographers  

mys: the Swedish word without an exact translation compliments hygge when it comes to coping with the prospect of a long, dark winter  

benedict donald: more fine art work (see also)—suitable for framing  

the twenty most powerless: the disenfranchised and estranged of the art world 

she said see you later, boy: McSweeney‘s most read monologues, vignettes and confessionals of 2020  

dance, dance revolution: a dance number from a trio of Boston Dynamics robots—see previously  

refreshing your feed: fifty superlative podcasts according to The Atlantic—via Super Punch

space waste

In order to combat the accumulation of more space junk and the inevitable future consequences of it returning to Earth, the company Sumitomo Forestry is collaborating with Kyoto University to create satellites with a wood housing, experimenting with what types of lumber fair best during launch and in orbit. Appreciating the long-term impact is particularly important as swarms of microsatellites are deployed with a very specific and limited life-span. There is presently some nine-thousand tonnes of human-made debris poised to rain down on us or leave us grounded someday.

secure socket

Via Slashdot, we discover that the freshly-inked Brexit Deal references decades old and defunct software and platforms described as modern services, including Netscape Browser and Communicator, the last version released in 1997. The cut-and-paste job does not just imply laziness or a rushed job but moreover belies a lack of understanding verging on contempt and disdain for technology and the issues that underlie secure communication while upholding these examples as tools to ensure compliance and cooperation going forward. What do you think? More details at the links above.