ipa

Courtesy of our friendly artificial intelligencer (previously), not only are we reminded that the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA, pronounced Noah like the biblical figure) assigns names to hurricanes years in advance, we also glean some insight as to how a neural network might interpret this list with non-international phonetic alphabet guide to enunciation. Some delightfully mispronunciations ensued, especially when assigned storm seasons further in the future. 

Following the protocol, by 2051:
Harry HARR-held
George jar-ZHAY

By 2070:
Wanda way-DAHN-uh
Jason JAY-dree
Scott wess-tra 

And by the next year:
Georgia zheh-DRO-luh
Nelson NEH-suh-lihn
Victor VIK-suht 

We too would need these names spelt out for us the first time in order to say them right and with the . Much more to explore from AI Weirdness at the link up top.

villa la grange

 

8x8

what sophistry is this: Mark Liberman discusses the rhetoric of “elevated stupidity” 

truly toastmasters: a virtual toaster museum with fine exhibits from many eras and manufacturers  

water shrews: the BBC Science & Environment desk examines these superb divers of this large group of insectivores called collectively Eulipotyphla, “the truly fat and blind”—via Super Punch 

les cités obscures: revisiting the imaginative utopias of architect Luc Schuiten (previously)  

games for crows: like Where’s Waldo but with emoji—via Waxy red rover: Zhurong Mars explorer sends a selfie  

letragraphia: the sleek, revolutionary graphic design of Felix Beltrán

urbane dictionary: a gloss of cancel-culture terminology

don’t give away the ending—it’s the only one we have!

Premiering in New York on this day in 1960 ahead of general release in US cinemas in September and a departure from the director’s previous films choosing to use the crew and black-and-white cameras from his eponymous television series, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Psycho, at first panned but subsequently subject to critical re-evaluation, was ground-breaking for its portrayal of sexual deviancy and the pioneering piece of slasher genre. Unable to financial commit to marriage, Janet Leigh’s Marion Crane, a secretary for a real estate brokerage, pilfers a substantial down payment and flees with the money in hopes of starting a new life with her partner, though a necessary rest stop significantly complicates matters.

your daily demon: bathin

Ruling from today through 21 June, this eighteenth spirit is an mighty infernal duke who presents as a mounted muscular man with a serpent’s tail and imparts knowledge on plants and stones and has the power to transport people across wide swaths of land or sea instantaneously through astral projection. Governing thirty legion, Bathin is sometimes conflated with the Egyptian goddess Nephthys, sister-wife of Set, associated with funerary rites and the preparation and preservation of mummies and by the process of syncretion, patroness of the mourning, magic, health, embalming and beer. Bathin is opposed by the angel Caliel.

durgan script

The always engrossing Language Log of the University of Pennsylvania acquaints us with a endangered and diffuse language—spread across Kazakhstan, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Ukraine and Mongolia—in the Sinitic (Chinese) family but written with Cyrillic and uniquely not Sinographic characters (see also). The continuum of Gansu, Mandarin and Dungan (Kansu) is mutually intelligible to a large extent. Tones are marked with the glyphs front yer and back yer (Ь / Ъ) from the Old Church Slavonic (see above and here too) and the current orthography is a compromise dating back to the 1920s when the Soviet Union banned Arabic and Persian-based writing systems, looked on disfavourably from the beginning as merchants along the Silk Road could conduct trade deals in a language that was secret to their neighbours.

the rashomon effect

Via friend of the blog Nag on the Lake, we are introduced to eponymous phenomenon named after the one of the greatest films ever made in Akira Kurosawa’s 1950 masterpiece, based on Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s short story “In a Grove.” The framing narrative has various relatable, archetypal characters whose contradicting testimony speak to the inherent unreliability of eyewitness accounts (see also) and the malleability of memory, clouded by motive, mechanism, interpretation and the act of remembering itself changes a memory. Much more to explore at the link up top.

ripped from the headlines

Via the Awesomer, we are treated to a visual, gradated chronology of the New York Times (previously), publishing the news daily since 1851 in this 2017 short by filmmaker Josh Begley that’s a supercut that cycles through the changing look and layout of the newspaper as printing and photography advance. We agree that this ought to be an annual update and year-in-review to stream past.