worldle

Always game for a geography challenge and admittedly a Wordle enthusiast (see previously), we are now obsessed with this puzzle from Maps Mania that invites players to guess a country by its cartographic outlines, as opposed its place in the gazetteer, with prising out world cities becomes a fun expanded version too. Just as with the original challenge, there is only one country listed per day.

the dread pirate roberts

Killed during the melee of the Battle of Cape Lopez (off the coast of modern-day Gabon) on this day in 1722, Bartholomew Roberts (*1682, also known by the Welsh monicker Barti Ddu, Black Bart) was the most successful privateer and defining figure of the Golden Age of Piracy, capturing over four hundred ships in his relatively short career and terrorising merchants in Newfoundland, the Caribbean and West Africa. Roberts and his compatriots developed one of the first Pirate Codes of Conduct that outlined pay, recompense, responsibility and punishment and flew under a variety of rogue banners that eventually came to be the familiar skull and cross-bone flag.

the tavistock letter

We learn that aided by machine learning, researchers have been able to finally decipher the “savage stenographic mystery” (see previously) of the brachygraphy of Charles Dickens, a shorthand he learned during his first career as a court reporter and developed into an idiosyncratic script of his own design for taking notes on his working manuscripts during his later literary career. Though select correspondence and marginalia has been cracked, there is quite a huge corpus of drafts left to decode. Much more at Open Culture at the link above.

da da da ich lieb dich nicht du liebst mich nicht aha aha aha

Released as a single on this day in 1982 from the band’s eponymous debut studio album, Trio’s hit song (I Don’t Love You—You Don’t Love Me) was a worldwide sensation, topping the charts in over thirty countries. With repetitive lyrics by Stephan Remmler and set to minimalist music by Gert Krawinkel, it is categorised as a product of the Neue Deutsche Well—New Wave—though the group would rather it be classified, despite the subject, as Neue Deutche Fröhlichkeit—that is cheerfulness.

7x7

desert fox: play-through for a complex, WWII-themed board game, The Campaign for North Africa, that requires over fifteen hundred hours to complete  

hill house: a giant drying-box that preserves an Art Deco marvel by Charles Rennie Mackintosh—via Things Magazine 

the greatest thing since sliced bread: a satisfying video showing the steps in production in an industrial bakery in South Korea  

lightsaber flavour: alternative designations from young people that far surpass their proper names—via Miss Cellania’s Links 

rip: a celebration of the life and vision of Douglas Trumbull, special effects artist behind Silent Running, Close Encounters, 2001 and many others

multiple arcade machine emulator: after a quarter of a century, the MAME project is still releasing monthly new additions for home play—via Waxy  

ltee: the E. coli long-term evolution experiment has been running since 1988 and monitoring the mutations in twelve original strains over tens of thousands of generations

r·s·f

The pop duo that the Fairbrass brothers formed in 1989, named after a novelty song from the early 1960s about moving house, had their breakthrough hit acknowledged by reaching number one and number two on the US and UK charts respectively (having the distinction, shared with Father Abraham’s Smurf Song of being on the charts for the longest stretch of weeks without attaining the top spot) on this day in 1992—the debut single recorded and released in July of the previous year. Running a fitness studio in London on the side, the concept for the song came about as their way of poking fun at all the casual posing and narcissism they witnessed, especially by aspiring models who would patronise their gym.

giuseppina bakhita

Declared a saint of the Canossian order in 2000, Mother Josephine Margaret Bakhita—the first Black woman to be beatified by the Catholic Church in modern times—escaped from a life of enslavement in Darfur (*1869 - †1947) and eventually entered a sisterhood at a convent in Schio outside of Vicenza. Credited by villagers as sparing the town from casualties when it was bombed during World War II, Josephine Bakhita ( بخيتة ) Arabic for lucky, Fortunata, her family name lost to the trauma of her early life) is the patron protectress of Sudan, South Sudan and survivors of human trafficking. Upheld as an example of hope and determination, her legacy includes several charitable and social justice causes in her original and adopted homeland.

falò delle vanità

Though mostly used in the figurative sense, the term bonfire of the vanities is sourced back to an actual auto-da-fé of thousands of articles condemned as “occasions of sin”—that is, externalities that appeal to human frailties and lead to temptation—which occurred on this day in Florence in 1497. The Shrove Tuesday bonfire held in the central square saw the destruction of countless mirrors, cosmetics, finery, playing cards, musical instruments and works of art was organised by Fra Girolamo Savonarola, personally dedicated to combating luxury in all forms and the indolence it brought, but his zealotry and aestheticism didn’t win him many friends with Pope Alexander VI condemning Savonarola to death by crucifixion and immolation in that same public square a year later.