iceman

Discovered on this day in 1991, the human, natural mummy named Ötzi (previously) was found by a pair of German tourist on the east ridge of the Ötztal (Venoste) Alps spanning the Italo-Austrian border believing that this five thousand year old corpse was the remains of a more recently departed mountaineer and immediately summoned the authorities, the forensics department turning the case over to the archeologists. Frozen and exquisitely preserved, scientist were able to study his clothes, shoes and tools as well as the contents of his stomach, bodily composition, toxicity and glean a lot of about his civilisation’s lifestyle, diet and technical prowess.

make it another old-fashioned please

We quite enjoyed this guided tour of the digitised holdings of the Wine and Spirits Museum of Île de Bendor in south France from Messy Messy Chic with a trans-Atlantic focus on the American invention—or convention rather of the cocktail in their extensive archive of vintage mixology guides from dating from the 1820s to the 1940s, richly illustrated and full to the brim with drinks and sometimes substitute ingredients that limn a certain slice of history.

There are volumes with celebrities’ favourites, menus of famous watering-holes, all gauged for home entertaining (perhaps for us scoff-laws), like the above and rather forlorn frontispiece from William C. Feery’s 1934 Wet Drinks…. for Dry People, which includes one called the Bee’s Knees, one part gin to one part honey, well-mixed and served over ice shavings. Each of the dazzling covers opens and lets one browse the recipes and other tips inside. Peruse these guides and let us know if you discover a new and intriguing favourite. Leave out the cherry, leave out the orange, leave out the bitters and just make it straight rye!

the woodcutter

Faithfully conserved by Kicks Condor by making an archival backup of the interactive artistic exploration that relies on the sunset rich web application Flash protocol by comic milieu pioneer and author of the early web classic (with cul-de-sacs and hidden corners to poke and prod) launched in 1997 by Josh Kimberg, utilising preservation projects that matured sufficiently for the task at hand which would otherwise see large swaths of the foundational and essentially experimental internet lost to the ages. Aside from the impression that The Woodcutter made for contemporary discoverers, Kimberg’s creative collective Bullseye Art created many early web cartoons as well as the opening title sequence for The Rosie O’Donnell Show, twice Emmy-nominated and the first Flash work to air on television.

watery fowls

Despite airing for only two series of six episodes each, the BBC2 sitcom written and starring then-couple Connie Booth and John Cleese looms large in the pop cultural conscience of British and American audiences, and was first broadcast on this day in 1975 with the pilot, “A Touch of Class.”

Set in the fictional town of Torquay on the English Riviera, the show’s couch gag was having the letters of the hotel’s sign rearranged in rude anagrams by the paperboy as an establishing shot. The co-creators’ decision not to produce a third-series despite drafts for later stories was precedent-setting for British television with other successful and iconic shows bowing out after a short-run. 

 

avoirdupois

Via Slashdot, as the Independent reports because of Brexit—as if EU standards were the sole compelling reason that the UK was harmonised with the standard that (nearly) the rest of the world uses—that should legislation pass, markets and shops will be able to opt out of metric units and regress to customary measures. Albeit as valuable as the colour of one’s passport, in reality the matter is more complicated and bound in other treaties including with the International Organisation of Legal Metrology, agreeing that only one official system of measurement be used.

citation needed

Though many go beyond pettiness and pedantry and grow rather partisan in championing one authoritative version over another competing editor, we enjoyed a selection from Web Curios of what’s been deemed the most trivial debates when it comes to framing, contextualising and disambiguating topics in the Wikipedia community of devoted feuding (see previously) and upholding free knowledge. Topics of no consequence include matters on canonicity or fandom, the nobility of micronations and appropriateness of redirect. Not a style-guide, this Wikipedia page (see a sortable version here) of protracted disputes is meant to be humorous and a look at the tenacity of academic convictions, no matter the height of the hill one decides to die on.

gastaloops

Via Swiss Miss, we quite enjoyed being introduced to the extensive, animated portfolio of graphic designer and motion artist Gasta whose GIFs cover a variety of themes, including a healthy dose of 80s and 90s arcade and adventure nostalgia as well as different projects, commissions and data visualisations. It was of course impossible to pick just one representative piece but we liked this mesmerising volley of Super Breakout! clone Arkanoid.

amerithrax

Beginning a week after the 9/11 attacks and continuing over the next month, a bioterrorist—likely a scientist at the US government’s biodefense and research labs in Fort Detrick, Maryland—posted letters laced with anthrax spores to several media outlets and the offices of two US senators, killing five individuals, mostly mailroom staff and infecting a further dozen with the bacteria. Compared to the hunt for the Unabomber for its range and time to identify a culprit and motive, the FBI operation named with the above portmanteau pursued a number of false leads, the attacks spawning, several copycat hoaxes. The notes in the envelops which purported to come from a non-existent grade school contained variations on the message:

09-11-01
YOU CANNOT STOP US.
WE HAVE THIS ANTHRAX.
YOU DIE NOW.
ARE YOU AFRAID?
DEATH TO AMERICA.
&c.

Al Qaeda and Iraq initially blamed, focus not turning to the possibility that it was a domestic actor within the government until 2006, forensic geneotyping just reaching the sophistication needed to trace the particular bacterial strain back to its source, though the ordered destruction of all anthrax stockpiles limited the chance for future research into the crime. The US mail service is still hyper-vigilant over suspicious packages and prone to false-alarms.