1337 (10. 457)

A cache of behind-the-scenes Polaroid photographs from the 1995 crime thriller starring Angelina Jolie, Lorraine Bracco and Matthew Lillard film Hackers has been making the internet rounds again recently and is responsible for a whole range of nostalgia, like its debut that corresponded with the rise of the medium itself in the public consciousness and the manifesto of this new frontier authored a decade prior quoted at length: “This is our world now—the world of the electron and the switch… We exist without skin colour, without nationality, without religious bias and yet you call us criminals,” with the admission of guilt for the transgression of curiosity. These snapshots really capture a moment.  Much more at the link above.

civics lesson (10. 456)

Citing the precedence of public nuisance laws which stopped a vaping manufacturer from marketing to young people, a school district in Seattle, Washington is filing a non-frivolous lawsuit against social media outlets, alleging that TikTok, Facebook, Instagram et al are exploiting vulnerable psychologies and creating addicts for their own profit and precipitating a widespread hardship for students and the education system that services them. The attendant mental health crisis—a challenge for the best equipped and dedicated counselling professionals—is a distinct disservice, siphoning precious resources and time from curriculum for intervention and threat-response stemming from distressing and intimidating posts, compiling a growing list of intentioned maladies. What do you think? The school board hopes that this injunction is a first step for students everywhere.

zero-shot text to speech synthesis (10. 455)

Via Waxy, we are introduced frighteningly adept AI protocol from Microsoft called VALL·E that can extrapolate and convincingly simulate, imitate any voice with a sample of just a few seconds of audio. The underpinning code is not being published as an acknowledgement of its potential for misuse but there is a demonstration reel of its abilities that’s pretty amazing and are tuned for diversity, emotional maintenance and environment. Eleven benevolent elephants for your elocution.

a very rich lotterie generall, without any blankes (10. 454)

Officially chartered by Queen Elizabeth I three years prior as the earliest recognised state lottery notwithstanding earlier experiments with drawings and raffles to raise funds, as our faithful chronicler informs, the first drawing for the jackpot occurred on this day in 1569, designed to raise money for the “reparation of the haves and strength of the Realm, and towardes such other publique good workes.” At ten shillings a piece, the four-hundred thousand tickets issued—some three weeks wages for the ordinary subject and pricing most out of the competition—were essential an interest free loan for the government with the grand prize, a combination of fiat tender and valuable fineries such as silver and tapestries, assessed at around £5 000. The winner was also entitled to granted immunity from one arrest—a get out-of-jail free card, provided that the crime was not piracy, murder, felonious or treasonous. State lotteries in England ran through 1826, folding under pressure from parliamentary opposition and public ridicule for dignifying such speculative pursuits.

דצ״ך

A recent observation and question posted to Language Log brings us back to the cinematic experience of Vincent Price in his title role as The Abominable Dr Phibes who fiendish dispatches his victims and exacts revenge inspired by the biblical plagues visited upon Egypt to persuade the Pharaoh to let Moses and his people go. Phibes refers to the series of calamities by the term G’Tach, whose meaning appears illusive but is shown to be an abbreviation (indicated by the " sign), a mnemonic device to recall the order of water turning to blood, frogs, lice, hail, locusts, etc. formed by its initial and broken into three groups. More at the links above.

6x6 (10. 452)

picket lines: Sunak’s cabinet to implement anti-strike laws to enforce basic services during stoppages  

⭕️ 💯: draw a perfect circle   

camera obscura: the fantastic, “historical” photography apparatuses of Mathieu Stern

all maps at once: interesting and interactive cartographical overlays with the open-source viewing standard  

murphy desk: the flow wall workspace designed by Robert van Embricqs 

this is the sound of a gavel: a litany of concessions in exchange for the House Speakership

strange days indeed (10. 451)

Released posthumously as a single with video accompaniment from the album Milk and Honey by Yoko Ono and John Lennon on this day in 1984, the lyrics reference the poem The Green Eye of the Yellow God by J Milton Hayes, There’s a One-Eyed Yellow Idol to the north of Kathmandu, and are an inversion of the adage, “Mother said they’d be days like these.” Most peculiar Mama.

word of the day: gongoozler (10. 450)

Ostensibly from canal workers’ jargon to describe an observer watching the narrowboats ply by—from the Lincolnshire dialectical terms for gaping and staring, and interesting as its etymology is completely removed from gondolier, it’s now used as a gently chiding, reflexive way to describe such practitioners (see also) and their pastime—and by extension, any sort of keen spectating without appreciable contribution.