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First observed by sky-watchers in China on this day in 1054 (such temporary spectres were called generically “guest stars” 客星) and visible, easily to amateur astronomers to this day as the stellar remnant known as the Crab Nebula Supernova (SN) 1054 is perhaps one of the best known examples, though it’s nature and origin were unknown until very recently. Anticipating the return of Halley’s Comet in 1758 (see also), Charles Messier confused the static plerion for the returning traveller and was motivated by his mistake to create a catalogue of the celestial sphere, with the Crab Nebula labeled as the first Messier object, M1.

my cup of tea

Having encountered DALL·E Mini (the image generating AI model that responds to natural language prompts now known as Craiyon) return recursive text overlaid with the visual results or that somehow was off in an insightful way in the past, we were intrigued by Janelle Shane’s latest experiment (see previously) that calls on deep divining and reading the tea leaves. 

The algorithm recognises that flavour of divination, tasseomancy—so far, so good—and how one might represent a message or prophesy obtained wherewith, but I did need to try a few variations, iterations of “a message in the tea leaves at the bottom of a cup”—the first go around underneath the cup and in the saucer, and still wasn’t receiving clear signals that I could feed back to Dall·E and ultimately tried “Magic Eight Ball” and “Fortune Cookie Text” for a mysterious message and for a prompt to feed back but none were forthcoming. 

One should not try to force an oracle or wrestle an angel.  Be sure to check out AI Weirdness for what happens when you get the chance to feed these seemingly random strings of characters back to the machine that generated them.

8x8

el vehículo compartido: personal aerial shots by photographer Alex Cartagena in pickup truck beds reveal the hidden lives of day labourers off-duty  

skate expectations: concrete sculptural parks by Amir Zaki—via Present /&/ Correct 

roséwave: a playlist from NPR to invoke relaxed summer afternoon vibes

press key when ready: the 1985 British children’s sci-fi series The Whizz 

i am your atypical neighbour: in an exhibit, Her Window, artist Dayu Ouyang broadcasts bold statements from her bedroom’s view  

hot slot: the escapingly small feasibility that Jeff Goldblum could have uploaded a computer virus to alien technology and win Independence Day plus other dei ex machinis  

friend-shoring: reprioritising globalisation and a metallic NATO to ensure critical rare-earths supply chains are kept viable  

a rising tide lifts all boats: laid out in a grid meant to resemble brain coral from above and protected by the sinking atoll, the Maldives is building an ingenious floating city that will rise with the oceans as perhaps a model for other threatened communities

double indemnity

Premiering in Baltimore on this day in 1944 before nation-wide release three days later, Billy Wilder’s (see previously) noir masterwork starred Fred MacMurray as an life insurance salesman and Barbara Stanwyck as a provocative housewife who conspire to murder the latter’s husband for the survivor benefit of his insurance policy, which has a clause that doubles the pay-out for freak accidents. Told in flashback, the score by Miklós Rószsa has a leitmotif of a running string tremolo to introduce the criminal activities of the partners against the husband.

dies caniculares

A calque, a near word-for-word translation of “the puppy days”—from today through mid-month in the northern hemisphere mark the beginning of the hottest, sultriest period in the summer and a time for extreme heat, drought, sudden thunderstorms as well as the maladies of lethargy, mad dogs and poor luck and is heralded by the annual reappearance of the brightest star in the night sky α Canis Majoris, called Sirius, “the Scorcher” in the Greek tradition and Sopdet in Egypt and venerated as the precursor to the flooding of the Nile. Lasting through mid-August, the waning of this oppressive, uncomfortable time of high summer is marked by the Feast of Roch, patron saint of dogs.

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a$ap pocky: Ardnira Putra creates immersive, nostalgic Nintendo 64 vapour wave landscapes  

clean air act: the US Supreme Court curtails the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate carbon emissions, pollutants 

kopen op afstand: the auction clock of royal FloraHolland—and how it was victim of its own popularity  

forty text-tone compilation: a duo expressively dances to all the iPhone alerts  

tpv: researchers develop thermophotovoltaic cells that passively converts white hot heat into electricity—via Slashdot 

biaoqingbao: the lexicon of emoji and memes are being admitted as evidence in more and more lawsuits in China—see previously

riaghaltas na h-alba

Coming into effect on this day in 1999 following a 1997 referendum, devolution meant that legislative powers for the constituent nation within the United Kingdom were transferred from the old Scottish Office in London (where the Lord Advocate had been responsible for many of the executive decisions of Scotland) officially to St Andrew’s House in Edinburgh where a cabinet of ministers accountable to the Scottish Parliament (previously here, here, here and here) are responsible for domestic policy and administration. While legislatively foreign and economic policy, consumer rights, pensions and trade are reserved matters for the UK parliament, major aspects regarding healthcare, education, justice, environment, policing and housing are devolved. That inaugural session of Parliament opened by Queen Elizabeth II also falls on the anniversary of the 1543 that united the kingdoms—though not before the terms were ultimately rejected by Scotland, leading to eight years of conflict known as the Rough Wooing.

creeping normality

Arrested on this day in 1937 accused of activities against the Nazi regime, theologian and Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller had initially supported the ascent of Adolf Hitler for his stance against communism and assurances of no interference in church matters (the Weimar Republic supposedly had a secularist agenda that including abolishing church subsidies, confiscating church property and banning mandatory religious education), embracing nationalism and acknowledged having harboured past prejudice and anti-Semitic views. Renouncing his old ways and narrowly escaping with his life after imprisonment in Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps, Niemöller was deeply remorseful that he was not able to do more to more to help victims of the Nazis and devoted the rest of his life towards championing peace and disarmament. The confessional poem “First they came…” was penned by Niemöller and adapted from a sermon delivered in January of 1945 to speak to the collected inaction and silence of much of the clergy and general population—himself included. “Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak out for me.”