context collapse

Disturbing we learn, via the Morning News, that whilst perhaps less immediately dangerous and radicalising than some other conspiracy theories, with may possibly started as a tasteless joke, there are some who doubt the existence of Helen Keller—an individual who was able to overcome significant obstacles and go on to author a dozen books including one on socialism that was put on the Nazi biblioclasm and campaigned for civil rights, perhaps desperate for the incredulity of a biography having accomplished more than their able-bodied selves. While it might be tempting to fault this latest theory on the naïvety of digital natives, it is endemic to older generations of course as well—found in the sensibilities of those who ascribe the ingenuity of Antiquity to Ancient Aliens, those triggered by climate activism and those who make the ‘Mandela Effect’ not the statesman’s accomplishments and social reforms but rather misremembered childhood memories of the shared delusion of a cohort and not wanting to admit that it is dismissively, demeaningly racist to not accept Shaquille O’Neal as a genie in a movie rather than the comedian Sinbad and some paranormal phenomenon must be invoked.

7x7

forty winks: this Pokémon Gengar sleeping companion 

flair: the outsized legacy of a 1950 graphic design magazine  

per my previous tweet: Trump silent on continued damage and defacement of federal monuments 

nangajo: ushering in the Year of the Metal Ox with this blended Japanese New Year’s tradition—previously  

👍: anti-social media removes ‘like’ feature (see also) from public-facing sites—via Slashdot

r/obscuremedia: enjoy this soothing VHS tape from 1984 “Escape to Nature’s Beauty” 

witchfinder general: King James’ other book—Demonology

rats, ships—you know the drill

Two of the few remaining long-time Trump Cabinet Officials, Secretaries of Education and Transportation Betsy DeVos and Elaine Chao (wife of Palpatine—previously, I look forward to having never to mention or think about these people again) found Trump’s role in encouraging violence and treason inflection points and have joined a dozen of other officials by resigning in protest, taking advantage seemingly on the radio silence imposed on Trump by social media. As calls for removal mounted, either by a second impeachment or the vice-president and the remaining Cabinet staff invoking Amendment XXV—addressing presidential succession and disability—to declare him unfit to govern, Trump reportedly has issued assurances for a peaceful transition of power but was otherwise quiet, preparing to award Presidential Medals of Freedom to three professional golfers, one posthumously. Senior security council members and the special envoy to Northern Ireland (former chief-of-staff) quit, possibly with many more to follow.

dall·e

Via Waxy, we make the acquaintance of a namesake (a portmanteau of the Pixar character and Salvador Dalí) neural network that generates, using Open AI, images from captions. It’s still too brittle, its minders say, for free-text (see also) but one can play Mad-Libs with a certain string of prompts to get an idea of its virtuosity and capabilities. 

This first array of images is in response to the cutline a triangular, yellow manhole cover. The second, poetically, is a fox—made of voxels—sitting in a field. The network even demonstrates learning in geographical facts, fashion and dating styles and technology, though some seem better informed than others. 

 

 

contranymy

We quite enjoyed the panel discussion and examples explored in the descriptive phenomenon also called Janus words of enantiosemy—that is when term carries multiple meanings and can be its own opposite in a sense. 

Whereas some cases in English were distinct words with different spellings that converged over the years, like cleave which can signify both to separate and to adhere, others are single words, usually nouns made verbs, with the understanding that one can either suffer or permit—take away or add to, like sanction, oversight, dust, seed and bolt and left—to fix and to flee. The concurrence, which is surprisingly not taxing to understand given context, is not limited to linguistic fossils and the drift of centuries but is still occurring with terms like table, to bring up a topic or postpone its discussion, negative taking on their opposite connotations and drop in the sense of to abandon or to premiere. German has a few Beispiele other than equivalents to the English language ones as well including allerdings which is both however and naturally, of course and the term ausleihen—common with a few other languages—that is literally (another and sometimes dread-inducing auto-antonym) will you borrow me a dime, a distinction reliant on context.

the thirty-seventh of december

Being quite chuffed with the results of the run-off elections in Georgia which takes control of the Senate out of the hands of the GOP under leadership of Kentucky Palpatine and making the chamber evenly split with Vice President Harris the deciding vote in case of a draw and just having finally watched a poignant, humorous send-off the past year with Death to 2020, seeing an armed mob of pro-Trump extremist storm the Capitol during the joint session of Congress to affirm the ballot results of the US Electoral College was a bit of whiplash. Incited by Trump’s urging a crowd of supporters to march on the legislator to oppose the certification process and reverse the results, the clashed with and overpowered police forces, four individuals dying during the violence, and broke into the chambers of the House and Senate. Representatives were evacuated but four hours later, the joint session was re-convened with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris declared victors in what is generally an anodyne and sedate formality—with objections and abstentions entertained in due process. Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, overseeing the process along who had her office ransacked by an insurgent said, “We know that we’re in difficult times but little could we have imagined the assault that was on our democracy today. To those who strove to deter us from our responsibility, you have failed.” Most challenges failed to garner a champion and the votes stood, with the joint session adjourning for Arizona and Pennsylvania with the separate chambers debating the objection for an allotted two hours. Legislative business will continue overnight and into the morning until all the votes are certified.

climb the ladder with you

Via our peripatetic internet caretaker, Things Magazine, we are treated to the fine company of the Bad Drawing Club, an alternative artistic association, that strikes us as anything but not good at what they do and brimming with motivating advice. We especially liked the series of illustrations for English Heritage and the house plant care guide for Hackney Botanical Gardens. 

 

if your friends don’t mask—and why they don’t mask, well they won’t fly this airline

Though I think it is going to take a lot more than a catchy commercial to restore my confidence in plane travel, we did like this promotional piece from Alaska Airlines, whose residents are arguably more reliant on that form of travel than many of us—via Pasa Bon! to the tune of Safety Dance. I admire their energy and commitment to mitigating as much risk as possible, in any case. If you let the video play through and forward to the next, there’s a quit good supercut of 1980s television spots for the carrier to watch.