geomancy

Via Things Magazine, we learn that phantom islands and trap streets may be making a resurgence in an awful and insurmountable way with deepfake satellite imagery, with making a Potemkin neighbourhood be it for misrouting traffic, boosting property value, lowering tax liability or for disguising a nuclear refinement plant or concentration camp an easier task that creating a passably convincing human—not to mention undermining useful demographics and economic trends that can be gleaned by such monitoring as well as engendering distrust in what previously was accepted as irrefutable evidence. Artificial intelligence and generative adversarial networks are able to create virtual empires and dystopias to dupe us all.

colin’s bear revisited

Andy Baio at Waxy noticed a viral resurgence of an animated dance moves of a thirteen-year-old short clip, rediscovered and remixed though sadly without any deference to the creator—which Baio seeks to remedy the record by recontextualising and exploring the evolution of the meme that untethered certainly carries the sentiment idk—ive never seen the show its from. Whatever iteration you prefer, you can make your own joyful celebration of International Dance Day, held annually of this day, marking the birthday (1727) of Jean-Georges Noverre, creator of modern ballet.

midden-aarde

First spied by Super Punch, we are referred to a nice appreciation of the recently departed, prolific Dutch artist Cor Blok (*1934), particularly well known in the Netherlands for illustrating J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings (In de ban van de Ring) in the early 1960s.

Later creating a tapestry out of Middle Earth’s characters to showcase his repetoire, Blok went on to become docent of the school of modern art at the University of Utrecht from 1977 to 1999, retiring as professor emeritus at the University of Leiden.

billiard balls & bowling green bowles, turnt correctly

We quite enjoyed perusing these antique furniture trade cards (see previously) from the shops and emporia of old London—reportedly discovered in a secret drawer of a hypothetical cabinet. There are carpenters and casket-makers, upholsters as well as looking-glass and chair manufacturies. 

cul-de-sac

Via Messy Nessy Chic, we learn of one committed flâneur (passante, flâneuse) and her mission to document a sizeable portion of the more than six-hundred impasses—blind-alleys, dead-ends of the pedestrian streets of Paris, offering a unique and probably often overlooked perspective on the city’s arrondissements. Find out more about Karin Borghouts’ personal projects at the link above.

the planet on the plate

Via Kottke’s Quick Links, we are directed towards the announcement of one influential cooking website that going forward (the policy change has been essential in effect for over a year to overwhelmingly positive reception) won’t promote any new recipes with beef as an ingredient—the decision based on sustainability and “not giving airtime to one of the world’s worst climate offender.” Rather than being anti-cow, Epicurious—whom hope others follow—acknowledges that giving up meat alone is not a panacea for our predicament and that in a broken food system, soy, seafood and most everything else is potentially problematic but it’s definitely a start and a signal to the industry at large.

origin story

Rather pleased with this new knowledge, we garnered a bit of insight into the etymology of company names and brand identities (see also) and learned that the first web mail, e-mail accessible via the internet from any computer with one’s log-on credentials, was called Hotmail for its inclusion of the initialism for Hypertext Mark-up Language and originally stylised as HoTMaiL. Acquired by Microsoft, those domain addresses are now supported by Outlook servers. The graphics card manufacturer NVIDIA comes from the Roman concept of invidia, envy in the sense of “looking upon” with the evil eye and feeling objectified and offending. There are aspirational, folk etymologies attached to legacy brands as well, like with MG Cars, from Morris Garages, now under new ownership that tout the label as “Modern Gentlemen.”

dr mabuse, der spieler

The first cinematic treatment of the character Dr Mabuse the Gambler, adapted from the novels of Norbert Jacques, had its opening on this day in 1922. 

The four-and-a-half hour spectacle by Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbou was released in two parts a month a part with the sequels The Testament of Dr Mabuse following eleven years later and The Thousand Eyes of Dr Mabuse coming nearly three decades after that. A criminal mastermind and mob boss oversees the counterfeiting and illicit betting in the underworld of Berlin, Dr Mabuse sets out to take on higher stakes than his organised crime racket and manipulates the stock market through short-selling and takes advantage of the panic to amass his fortunes.