7x7 (9. 999)

featherbase: a consortium of ornithologists join their collections and make them freely accessible on-line—via Web Curios 

cut-up technique: Artbreeder (previously) creates collages with your help—via Waxy 

harry and the hitman: Oklahoma man pleads self-defence, claiming potential assailant had summoned a Bigfoot to kill him  

deep scatter library: stellar cartography mapping a billion stars in the Milky Way  

culmen > columna > compagna colonnella > coronnel > colonel: explore etymologies with this interactive tool from the creators of Interlinear Books and Language Hat  

unsleeved: an exhibit on the art of the record cover and designer Alex Steinweiss 

trainspotting: an obsessive database of European rolling stock—also via Web Curios

sinimustvalge

Officially adopted as the national flag on this day in 1922 after the country declared its independence in 1918 in the short interlude between the retreat of the Bolsheviks and German occupation just before the end of World War I, the tricolour of Estonia was banned in August of 1940 with its annexation by the Soviet Union, though used continuously by the government-in-exile based in Stockholm and Estonian diaspora groups continuously from 1940 to 1991. The three equal bands of blue black and white (as referenced in the title) represent the landscape of the Baltic nation and was readopted in August of 1990 with the restoration of the republic.

psy and the family stone

Released on this day in 2012 as the lead single off South Korea rapper eponymous sixth studio album, “Gangnam Style” (강남스타일, previously) refers to the class and sophistication associated with the posh district of the city of Seoul—flag pictured. The K-Pop song and video started going viral by the following month, charting in more than thirty countries and the most “liked” video on the internet, reaching a billion views by year’s end. Holding the title of most viewed Youtube clip, it was overtaken in July 2017 by Wiz Khalifa’s “See You Again.” The refrain “Oppan Gangnam style” (in a lyrical eggcorn admission, I always heard it as Rope ’Em) means Big Brother is tragically hip, insinuating that the genuinely fashionable would never need to proclaim it and is poking fun at posers. During the worst days of the COVID-19 pandemic, the song was temporarily restricted from being play in a gymnasium setting due to its beats per minute exceeding the one-twenty BPM ceiling health authorities introduced to discourage people from becoming too energzed by the music and breath and more intensely. Once it surpassed two billion one hundred forty seven million four hundred eighty three thousand six hundred forty-seven (2³¹-1, a Mersenne prime number whereas M_n = 2ⁿ-1) views, Youtube realised it needed to upgrade to sixty-four bit integers to store those counts.

hanoi jane

On this day in 1972, American activist and actor Jane Fonda was visiting Hanoi to survey the damage that bombing campaigns were having on civilian infrastructure—specifically the dams used to mitigate flooding by the Red River—and was photographed afterwards seated on a North Vietnamese Army anti-aircraft battery. The pictures were first published by a Polish newspaper before circulating widely and effectively ostracising Fonda from the entertainment industry and whilst pride for speaking out against the war was regretful over the bad optics of a momentary lapse of judgment that was both galvanising for those predisposed to hostility and jingoism and propaganda for the other side.

7x7

nag on the lake: a new viewing platform with spectacular views of the Falls  

smart brevity: the prevalence of bulletin-point journalism 

light cycle: the lost TRON (previously) arcade documents—via Things Magazine  

true colours: Metropolitan Museum of Art presents statues from Antiquity with their original paint jobs—see previously 

granite & rainbow: the book jackets of Virginia Woolf

restored to its polynesian/craftsman/medieval-colonial revival/queen anne glory: an architectural doppelgänger of the Little House  

bonne fête nationale: images from Bastille Day from over a century ago 

sluicehuis: a cantilever housing bloc in Amsterdam’s IJburg district

bringing up baby

Originally published on this day in 1946, the volume by pediatrician and psychologist Benjamin Spock and its subsequent editions (updated through 2018 to address same sex parents, gender identity and equity and advocating for a vegan diet) revolutionized and informed the post-war baby boom generation in the US and worldwide with his approach to child rearing that encouraged mothers and care-givers to trust their instincts and was a distinct departure from the conventional wisdom that emphasized regiment and regularity and withholding displays of affection. With the intent to disseminate a comprehensive primer to all parents and provide guideposts as to what to expect at various points of growth and development, Spock's book was made available broadly at a low cost of twenty-five cents so as to be affordable for any budget.

summer school

Sponsored and proposed by mathematics professor John McCarthy, Marvin Minsky (co-founder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Nathaniel Rochester (computer engineer who designed IBM’s first commercial mainframe) and Claude Shannon, the extended brainstorming called the Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence began on this day (or possibly 10 July) in 1956 and lasted eight weeks and was the foundational event that formed the field. The undirected group project, interspersed with lectures, broached the topics of computing, natural language processing, cognition, abstract concepts and neural networks and entertained various frameworks for testing their ideas—including playing chess against a machine. AI@50 was held at the same venue with half of the original delegates and attendees in 2006 to look back and reassess the challenges encountered and to better temper their understanding of the future.

(everything i do)

Released in mid-June, the power ballad by Bryan Adams for the soundtrack to the film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves topped the charts in the UK on this day in 1991 and remained at number one for an unprecedented sixteen consecutive weeks a record that still stands, and was an enormous success internationally in terms of sales and radio play. At the Academy Awards the following year, it won an Oscar for Best Original Song and, decades later, consistently tallies on soft rock countdowns.