gin and juice (10. 691)

Last week after the culmination of more than a decade’s development and waiting for the right launch window to achieve the needed gravitational sling-shots to bring the space probe to its destination amongst the orbital pathways of Jupiter’s icy moons, the JUICE mission (see previously here and here) off from French Guiana in search of signs of life. The European Space Agency is celebrating its achievement and start of the exploration with a collection of mocktails inspired by the astro-geological discoveries that the mission might uncover. We especially liked the pictured agency faavourite and some rather beautifully composed concoctions inspired by Ganymede and Callisto—all the recipes (which could be modified to taste) can be found here plus more at the links above.

10x10 (10. 690)

shave and a hair-cut: a collection of personalised nineteenth century barber shop occupation mugs

culture wars, cola wars: of course that anti-woke beer is just a huge pandering grift  

architecture in music: the photography of Charles Brooks makes the interiors of instruments appear like megastructures  

million dollar homepage: tout your website for one second of the day—via Web Curios  

knit grotesk: a sewable font

yes, virginia, there is a santa claus: the adaptation of Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret does not disappoint  

intuitive daily stitching: Karen Turner’s knitted visual diary infographics: compelling visualisations that changed public opinion and scientific consensus 

high life: directed by the Comité, Belgian customs officials crushes a shipment of two-thousand cans of Miller over its “Champagne of Beers” motto 

hairdressers: a BBC videography library on different aspects of the industry

wilson! (10. 689)

Carrying around this steadfast hitchhiker for the past odd four hundred sols—some three-quarters of a Martian year—and over a distance of ten kilometres the rim of ones of its wheels, the rover’s monitoring team has reported that Perseverance (previously) has lost his companion, affectionately followed by the engineers as its Pet Rock, noticing its absence overnight, finally dislodged.

ubi et orbi (10. 688)

Mirroring efforts of the United States to disassociate Labor Day celebrations with socialism, on this day in 1923, fascist dictator Benito Mussolini directed the celebration of the founding of Rome, not observed since the times of the Empire, on the traditional anniversary of the city’s establishment in 753 BC—possibly in parallel attempts to suppress a far older fasti that also fell on this day, the Palilia dedicated to the cleansing of sheep and shepherds, to distance its newly attained cosmopolitan character from these rural and pastoral roots. With a military parade of fifty-thousand Black Shirts through the streets on a a route from the Forum to the Baths of Caracalla under the Triumphal Arch of Titus, Mussolini decreed that this holiday would replace International Workers’ Day.

126³ (10. 687)

Via Present /&/ Correct, we are directed to the superb Tiny Voxel Shop series by Shin Oh. Working with three-dimensional pixels—from volume + pixel, which in turn is from pics + element—became therapeutic for the artist working through depressed and dispassionate point and hopes the collection of typical Malaysian shops and stalls will be an inspiration for others to cherish and conserve small local businesses and the distinctive character that they bring to communities, once lost gone forever.  More at the link above.

a rapid unscheduled disassembly (10. 686)

After action reports reveal that the cause of the explosion of the uncrewed test flight from an aerodrome in Texas, Star base on the Gulf of México, of the SpaceX Super Heavy reusable booster rocket was the triggering of a safety mechanism that caused the launch to abort. What was scheduled to be a sub-orbital trial on 4/20 (get it?) was one of the preliminary blast-offs of the largest and most powerful rocket made, surpassing in size and thrust both those designed for the first and return voyages to the Moon, Saturn and Artemis, that its makers believe will one day enable a journey to Mars and back.  The original flight-plan was for the rocket to fly over Florida and make a hard splashdown in the Pacific Ocean just off of the Hawaiian archepalgo, nearly circumnavigating the globe.

elevator operator (10. 685)

In the latest from Neal Agarwal, we are taken on quite a captivating journey from the Earth’s surface through the layers of the atmosphere up to the edge of space on a guided lift that features limits and milestones at all altitudes, like this previous tour at all depths.  Congratulations, you are 1% to the Moon.  Scroll up and see what you learn.

come up off your colour chart (10. 684)

Topping US charts for six consecutive weeks beginning on this day in 1980, the collaboration by Debbie Harry and Giorgio Moroder (originally pitching the number to Stevie Nicks, see previously) was the theme for the neo-noir crime drama starring Richard Gere and Lauren Hutton American Gigolo about an elite male escourt who gets entangled in a high-profile murder.  Presented with an instrumental arrangement provisionally titled “Man Machine,” the lyrics where written from the perspective of Gere’s character as a prostitute and bookended the movie.