7x7

exascale: the world’s super computer might be surpassing benchmarks in secret  

hub and spoke: a suite of interactive maps that lets one scour the globe with creeping data spiders  

viral nightmares: more trials of an AI text to image generator  

witkar: a ride-sharing demonstration projection that ran from 1974 to 1986 in Amsterdam  

the firth of forth: some of the world’s best bridges for driving  

whiskey war: the fifty yearlong territorial dispute between Canada and Denmark over Hans Island has been settled  

zeroth law: an AI ethicist believes Google’s LaMDA has attained sentience

numb & spicy hot pot

Via our peripatetic friends Messy Nessy Chic and Present /&/ Correct, we are introduced to a world of flavours in these Lays potato chips attuned to local tastes and palettes. Whilst not really a crisp person and generally a little repulsed by the anticipation of the diminishing returns and remorse of processed savours, I would stake my snacking reputation, untasted, on some of these combinations, like Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup, Vintage Cheddar & Caramelised Onion, Yogurt & Herbs from Jordan or Seasoned Seaweed plus fifty-five other varieties available in Thailand—each regaled with a haiku.

mccartney ii

Paired on the double single release with “Check My Machine” and first in record shops on this day in 1980, “Waterfalls” is a minimalist ballad from Paul McCartney’s eponymous second solo album. Failing to match the success of the lead single “Coming Up” and first song that failed to chart, McCartney was questioned in 2009 whether he regretted that it were not more memorable, responding that, “There are quite a few, actually—Watersfalls, and I think that’s nice,” referring to the 1995 TLC signature tune that was a resounding international hit which incorporates the opening lyric and stylistic elements. The following single put out in September, “Temporary Secretary,” was again a musical departure and an outlier, futuristic and complex, about a disposable, cyborg administrative assistant, sampled and re-sampled with sort of an experimental mania with cult appeal. Don’t go chasing polar bears into the great unknown. Some big friendly polar bear might want to take you home.

myoclonic contraction

Whilst attempting to restrain a hog to weigh it before slaughter, one Charles Osbourne (*1894 - †1991) of Anthon, Iowa caught a case of the hiccups on this day in 1922 which lasted for sixty-eight years, forty a minute and eventually relenting to around twenty over the decades for an estimated four hundred and thirty million of them, theorised as a result of an aneurism caused by the exertion that damaged the part of the brain that normally inhibits the response. Adopting a breathing technique that made the constant ordeal more bearable and a manner of speaking that swallowed the hic sound, Osbourne became a minor celebrity, appearing on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and That’s Incredible and inscribed in the Guinness Book of World Records. This chronic, intractable attack ended abruptly a merciful eleven months prior to Osbourne’s death.

good wine needs no bush

A shared image of a Japanese supermarket’s libations section seems at first to illicit a mangled, machined translation or poor command of English whereas this example is no case of Engrish to be  ridiculed but rather a pretty apt quotation from William Shakespeare in, recursively, the epilogue to As you Like It. With the term bush denoting the sprigs of a grapevine that symbolised a vintner’s shingle, the phrase meant that quality speaks for itself and does not need to be advertised—with the reference all but lost to English-speakers: delivered by Rosalind, “If it be true, that good wine needs no bush, ’tis true, that a good play needes no Epilogue.” The French equivalent, still in common-parlance, is à bon vin point d’enseigne or the German—not beating around the bush—gute Ware lobt sich selbst.

you dare ask the proconsul of rome to kneel—i asked it of julius caesar. i demand it of you

Among the most successful sword-and-sandal epics filmed in Cinecittà and lavished with well-deserved critical acclaim—though not a commercial success and nearly bankrupting the studio, the Joseph L. Mankiewicz adaptation of the 1957 historical novel The Life and Times of Cleopatra by Carlo Maria Franzero (with additional material from Plutarch and Shakespeare) featuring the acting talents of Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Rex Harrison and Roddy McDowall opened in US theatres on this day in 1963. After decisively suppressing rebellion in Greece and earning the title of dictator for life, Julius Caesar travels to Egypt as the executor of the late pharaoh’s estate, where Cleopatra successfully petitions Caesar to restore her to the throne and banish her younger brother the usurper. Both with imperial ambitions, they marry and have a child, Caesarion, publicly proclaimed as Caesar’s heir—disquieting for the Senate as the idea of returning Rome to a heredity monarchy is an anathema for democracy. Stemming from this fear, a conspiracy of senators assassinate Caesar, precipitating a revolt, put down by an alliance formed by Octavian (Caesar’s adopted son and to Cleopatra’s betrayal named in the will as opposed to their child), General Mark Antony and Marcus Ameilius Lepidus. Mark Antony, short on funds after the civil war, turns again to Egypt and forges his own personal allegiance with Cleopatra.

draisine

Again begging the question why it took all of human history and endeavour up until this point to invent something so useful and practical and democratising as the bicycle—see previously—it was this fine day in 1817 that Karl von Drais took his Dandy Horse (Laufmaschine) out for a long and leisurely test-drive from his home in Mannheim to the Relaishaus (ironically a relief, relay station for coach-drivers to refresh their horses) in Schwetzingen, a half a day’s journey on foot reduced to one hour, speedily executed at the respectable pace of thirteen to fifteen km/h without exertion.

pfarrdorf, kirchdorf

H and I took a quick tour of Nordheim von der Rhön (previously) and snapped a few images and got an aerial perspective of the picturesque village on the Streu. Parking outside of the former Zehnthaus (tax, tithing authority), we took a moment to admire its decorative half-timbering and reliefs and inscriptions on the balustrade of the second storey dated to 1681. Several of the historic buildings feature figurative columns and corner posts. We climbed up through the fortified Kirchberg to the parish (pfarr-) seat (the outlying community of Neustädtles with the auxiliary place of worship is the Kirchdorf) dedicated to John the Baptist (Sankt Johannes der Täufer) from the fourteenth century. The exterior and forecourt were renovated in the mid 1970s but the overall structure and interior elements are true to the original with the high altar and pulpit crafted in the 1700 by artist and sculptor Benedikt Lux from Bad Neustadt an der Saale in Rococo style.