das manifest der kommunistischen partei (10. 561)

First published without attribution on this day in 1848 by the Workers’ Educational Association (Kommunistischer Arbeiterbildungsverein) in Bishopsgate Without in London, the twenty-three page pamphlet authored by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels under contract of the Communist League is a systematic summary of class struggle and the estrangement of labour. While envisioning the potential future forms of political economy was beyond the scope of the brief synopsis, the invocation in the ultimate paragraph calling for the “overthrow of all existing social conditions” would go on to spark revolutions across the globe. With the initial revolts in Europe of the spring suppressed, the work did not reemerge until the early 1870s, culminating in the October Revolution in 1917.

7x7 (10. 560)

posse: Cory Doctorow’s Pluralistic turns three  

surprise visit: President Biden makes unannounced appearance in Kyiv, just ahead of the one year anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine  

meta verified: other social media networks want to sell you blue checks 

the hawthorne effect: one of the most influential social studies of the past century is also the one of the worst—via Damn Interesting’s Curated Links  

architectural follies: a strangely satisfying collection of faux ruins—via Messy Nessy Chic  

msc: key points from the Munich Security Conference  

e pluribus unum: the numismatics of coppers and silver coinage of the American colonies

die fringer (10. 559)

Via the new shelton wet/dry, though the ring-finger finger-ring by conceptual artist Nadja Buttendorf from 2016 was intended as prosthetic extension and not anticipating our tenuous times and injecting doubt into what we perceive and are presented, criminals and others seeking alibis, plausible deniability and not be subject to dragnet surveillance might indeed don glitchy accessories (see previously) to call into question the admissibility of trackers and footage.

7x7 (10. 558)

wolf-whistle: the lexical corpus of canines and US supreme court justices  

deportment: how to act around books  

meres, lochs and llyns: regional variations in names for alleys and narrow walkways in the UK  

linkboy: living in a Dark Sky area, we enjoyed reading about the first town’s to be certified embracing that honour—via Nag on the Lake’s Sunday Links—which is also the source of the expression ‘cannot hold a candle to’ 

official state crap: legislature of New Mexico introduces a bill to create a state aroma, the first of its kind 

cher and charo: a duet of “America” from West Side Story—see previously  

nachträglichkeit: Jude Stewart on sticking with German and the pursuit on bilingualism

parts of speech (10. 557)

Although seeming a relatively straightforward challenge for a language model we learn via the new shelton wet/dry that because GPT-2 and similar chatbots work sequentially and is only capable of predicting only the next word, one word at a time, researchers didn’t really know how the latest cadre of neural networks had a pretty good track record of knowing when to use the English indefinite article “a” over “an,” which really points to what an inscrutable black box that artificial intelligence presents and makes me wonder how it would handle languages with a high level of declinations or synthesis. Computer scientist have isolated a “neuron” of sorts—something that they didn’t program—that explains this anticipatory capacity.

the sacred chao (10. 556)

Centred on the worship of Eris, the goddess of strife and founded in 1963 after the publication of its gospel Principia Discordia, Discordianism embraces elements of Taoist philosophy and a healthy dose of skepticism and absurdities and whose main tenet proffers that apparent order and disorder are illusions imposed on the Cosmos by the human mind and that neither is privileged nor objective. With a public papacy and an open process for canonisation, Emperor Norton being one of the better known second-class saints, upheld as an exemplary human for being beloved despite or because of his delusions and disregard for common reality, Discordianism has a caste of overseers called episkopses who speak to the goddess and relay messages and an elaborate mythology from Greek traditions and the “original snub” of her being disinvited from the wedding of Peleus and Thetis and so lobbed into the party the Apple of Discord, a golden prize reserved for the fairest (τῇ καλλίστῃ), with the intended recipient a matter of interpretation. Some adherents follow an alternate calendar, aligned with the Gregorian with 2023 CE corresponding with 3189 YOLD (Year of Our Lady of Discord) with today marking holyday Chaoflux (Chaos 50) and in ten days on the 29th of February and usually considered outside of normal time Saint Tib’s Day, with former being (for those who celebrate) observed by being an agent of chaos and persuading friends and loved ones to change plans that they have committed to throughout the day.

solubility pump (10. 555)

Via Slashdot, we learn that a team of researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is championing an appeal for carbon capture not from the air but rather from seawater in order sequester the CO₂ we’ve put into the atmosphere. Given the high price in terms of energy and will (no country save Uruguay has been to tax the tonnage of emissions at a rate approaching the true cost) the natural equilibrium that the oceans maintain, scientists believe that they can more efficiently extract the dissolved gas from beneath the waves and our allythe sea will happily suck in more from the air to keep that exchange constant.

8x8 (10. 554)

konekon no rakugaki: an imaginative 1957 cartoon from the studios that would become Toei Animation  

the riddle of today: Nelson Riddle’s “Sunshine Superman” and other tracks 

the six-triple-eight: the WWII all Black, all female postal battalion—via Strange Company  

the remorse of professor panebianco: a selection of short fiction one can read from its annals for the centenary (today) of Weird Tales—see previously  

ai mirror test: misattributing software for sentience to review before exploring this two-hour conversation with a robot interlocutor—via Waxy  

80s cold war techno thriller: the trailer for a Tetris movie—see previously, see also  

secondhand songs: an exploration of original versions upstaged by later covers—via the Awesomer  

my green crocodile: a 1966 stop-motion Soyuzmultfilm