apollo xvii

On this day, in 1972, the Lunar Excursion Module Challenger touched down in the Taurus-Littrow valley with commander Eugene Cernan (see previously) and pilot Harrison Schmitt and five mice, undertaking three moonwalks, conducting several experiments and taking surface samples. Once the two members of the landing party and the mice rendezvoused with Ronald Evans flying the circling command module two days later, they became the last visitors to the Moon (see above) and marked the last time humans had gone beyond low Earth orbit.

very peri

Possibly at the risk of sounding quite misaligned with the current Zeitgeist wherein COTY, WoTY could do better to provide a reprieve from the destruction of the planet and erosion of democracy Pantone nominates a lilac, periwinkle shade as the Colour for 2022, informed by the, according to the press-release, by the metaverse and as well as the “impact of coronavirus lockdowns.” I don’t know—what do you think? Not everything has to be on fire and dread serious but this strikes me as particularly disconnected and fraught with associations of social distance and hierarchies.

fuzzwords of the year

Differentiated from buzzwords as something intentionally euphemistic or vague and so perhaps under the radar of censors and above a certain level of reproach, we enjoyed learning some of the current slanguage vocabulary of China. We especially liked the Mandarin / Putonghua near equivalent for the English acronym GOAT—that is, greatest of all time—in yǒngyuǎn de shén (永远的神) YYDS, “eternal god” and used to heap praise for excellence. As the author points out, the same transliterated, four-letter initialism is also employed for yǒngyuǎn dānshēn (永远单身), essential “forever single”—so context counts. Much more at Language Log at the link above.

everybody always confesses—you can’t help it

Slated to be released on the seventy-fifth anniversary of the original publication of nineteen eighty-four on 8 June 2023 and greenlit by the estate of George Orwell, the dystopian, cautionary tale will be retold from the perspective of Julia, Winston Smith’s erstwhile subversive, thoughtcriminal, inculcated to the Party at a young age and avid member of the Junior Anti-Sex League and the Two Minutes Hate directed against those who would betray the revolution but who quickly redirected her fervour to rebellion, though knowing they will eventually be caught and betray one another’s confidence.

say, say, say

On this day in 1983, the duet between Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson, first released in October of that year, rose to top the US singles charts, holding the number one spot for six weeks—enjoying comparable success in Canada, Norway, Australia, Switzerland and the UK. The narrative of the music video profiles a team of con-artists, patent medicine sellers called Mac and Jack.

nobelfesten

Cancelled for a second year due to the pandemic, normally the Nobel Banquet (previously here and here) is held annually on this day (the anniversary of the death in 1896 of its benefactor, inspired to become a philanthropist after reading a premature obituary of himself that described him as a war profiteer, indeed having amassed his fortune from dynamite), the fête hosted in the Blue Hall of the rathaus of Stockholm for 1971 would have included amongst its guests Willy Brandt, chancellor of West Germany, Pavlo Neruda, Chilean poet and diplomat, Simon Kuznets, responsible for turning economics into an empirical, cyclical science, and Gábor Dénes, inventory of among other things holography.

sex-postive

Perennially indebted to our faithful chronicler, we are reminded that on this day in 1994, that US Surgeon General under Bill Clinton, VADM Dr. Minnie Joycelyn Elders, was forced to resign for expressing her views frankly on what at the time was considered taboo topics of discussion including drug legalisation, distributing contraception in public schools and most controversially introducing masturbation (on World AIDS Day) to sex-education curricula. Championing control of reproductive rights and decriminalisation of drug offences during her sixteen month tenure, Elders’ ideas for visionary for a stage in American cultural that pivoted particularly in the prudish direction, though rather than being about what’s discussed in polite company was never the issue but instead the societal norms and strictures put in place to uphold and perpetuate the patriarchy and class-structure.

legacy software

With a possible folk-etymology referencing Harvard’s Cruft Hall with its preponderance of superannuated electronics from its role during wartime research and development, cruft is a collective noun for a group of hackers. The term, however, has negative connotations of slapdash and shortcut programming which leaves large sectors of unneeded, redundant code.