the secret of the selenites (10. 965)

The first of a series of six articles published on this day in 1835 by the New York newspaper The Sun, blatantly plagiarised from a short story from Edgar Allen Poe began just a month prior in a literary journal though further instalments were pre-empted by the appearance of this series about a voyage to the lunar surface in a balloon, The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall (lifting some of the tropes in turn from The Adventures of Baron Munchausen), what became subsequently known as “The Great Moon Hoax,” rather libellously attributed to Sir Jon Herschel, one the great astronomers of the day, caused a not insignificant bump in circulation with its account on observations that revealed various selenographic features with terrestrial analogues and the existence of flora and fauna and lunarians—bat-winged humanoids described as “Vespertilio-homo.” Further studies were called off when the magnifying power of the telescope caught a glimpse of the sun’s rays and burned down the observatory. Herschel found the stories exciting and aspiration at first but became annoyed with the press coverage once people started to take it seriously.

proteus effect (10. 964)

Via Web Curios (a lot more to explore in the weekly bulletin), we are directed towards an AI assisted photo editing platform—yes, these are probably a dime-a-dozen and we subject ourselves to a feedback loop of recursive learning and the quandary of creation with such digital personae, indulging a kind of perfection in imperfection and uncanniness, the fidelity degrading over the iterations—but this Human Generator is kind of fun. Like playing with paper dolls, Sims, Miis or Yahoo! Avatars, the application which maps to one’s face if you choose, can be dressed up and altered in a variety of ways with textual and preset inputs to experiment with. Give it a try and share what you come up with—especially if you don’t mind looking a bit thirsty and swole, accounting for bias.

 synchronoptica

one year ago: colour television in West Germany plus assorted links to revisit

two years ago: Rashomon (1950), St Genès, the feud between Salieri and Mozart, more links plus how to cut every cheese

three years ago: Voyager I leaves the Solar System (2012), more links to enjoy, more traditional units of measure plus a Number 10 stand-in

four years ago: premier of The Wizard of Oz (1939) 

five years ago: weekly word watches from the OED,  Letters from Iceland (1937) losing one’s marbles, an early attempt at weather control plus a local kite fest

7x7 (10. 963)

miracle house: a singular property that survived the devastating wildfires opened up to the community as a beacon of hope for a destroyed Lahaina neighbourhood 

service manual showcase: a growing curated archive of quirky and niche instruction guides—via Waxy  

book ‘em danno: Trump arrested and released on bail in Fulton County in the US state of Georgia—with a historic mug-shot 

take the d-train: artist Stipan Tadić documented a year long route from the Bronx to Brooklyn and back—via Nag on the Lake 

spaghetti mayhem: Jan Hakon Erichsen has fun with uncooked pasta 

word of the day: Susie Dent’s logophilia  

υγρό πύρ: emergency responders struggle to contain fires ravishing Greece—the largest in the EU

elephant in the room (10. 962)

Beginning with counter-programming parallel to the actual televised Republican primary debate in the form of an interview with fired Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson and staging an encore the next day with his arrest and release on bail in Georgia that will surely negate the spectacle and grandstanding, Trump was conspicuously absent from this quorum of contenders, carefully vying for cabinet positions yet haunted the pundits and hopefuls who could focus their attacks on a surrogate, political outsider and Trump apologist in the form of businessman Vivek Ramaswamy—described by Fox hosts as a “skinny guy with a funny last name,” exactly the same words used for Barack Obama. While not a forgone conclusion, Trump calculated sitting out this debate would be to his advantage, leading the polls for the GOP nominee by a compelling majority, with his major rival, Florida governor and cultural-crusader DeSantis seeming much diminished in this forum. And while the split-screen seemed not garner the attention wanted or expected, all but one of the candidates pledged (albeit meekly) to support Trump for re-election should he be convicted on one or all of his four indictments and ninety-one criminal charges and no one on stage really addressed policy but rather personality and credentials.

 synchronoptica

one year ago:  assorted links to revisit plus the party’s response to the 1991 attempted coup in the Soviet Union

two years ago: more links to enjoy, ant architecture plus Bohemian Rhapsody (1975)

three years ago: cocktails for on-line courses, the International Garden PoTY plus vintage Soviet pop

four years ago: a sorceress’ trove found in Pompeii 

five years ago: Kalashnikov makes an electric vehicle,  a White House press briefing, drought in Europe reveals ominous Hunger Stones plus one community’s fight to keep a fast food giant at bay

rosaviatsiya (10. 961)

Unsurprisingly given the series of defenestrations and accidents involving those critical of the Russian government and how the mercenary chief signed his own death warrant and was living on bored time with an aborted coup—angry with the direction that the invasion of Ukraine had taken and his march on Moscow halted, charges of treason in exchange for disbanding the Wagner Group and exile to Belarus, the crash of a private jet travelling from the capital to St Petersburg was still a chilling reminder of Putin’s vengeance and a stark warning to the opposition. The civil aviation authority immediately reported that Yevgeny Prigozhin was on the manifest of the flight and that he and nine others (among those other senior leadership from the private army) on board were dead—though it is still unclear what exactly has transpired. Putin, in South Africa attending a BRICS conference, has not yet responded to the news. Mr Prigozhin, related to the summit of emerging world economies, recently produced a recruitment video for soldiers of fortune on the continent.

678 heartbreak (10. 960)

In the tradition of this literary clock by Johannes Enevoldsen and other fun ways of expressing data-sets, Pudding project contributor Russell Samora has created this time-keeping device that scours catalogues of songs to find tracks containing the hour and minute in the title. It’s rather incredible how many there are to pick from though not every minute of the day is covered (filled in with a random tune) and how certain times (not the above though I thought it would be on the playlist) have an abundance of choices.

teraflop (10. 959)

Via Kottke, we are directed to a rather engrossing exercise by writer Nikita Diakur (winner of the Deutsche Kurzfilmpreis last year) where by trial and error an AI avatar in a virtual environment learns about physics and human anatomy in order to perform a backflip in emulation of vloggers practising the stunt. Some of the contortions look really tortured and there’s an element of body horror to see it glitch and fail but its really fascinating to watch and unpack the process. Acknowledging that as an animator, the artist is in total control of the environment, the simulation afforded a way out of their domain and it is interesting how the computer needs twelve-thousand repetitions, like the human capacity to develop and hone a reflex, to master a move.

synchronoptica

one year ago: the Elvis 1968 Come-Back Special plus the European Day of Remembrance of Victims of Nazism and Stalinism

two years ago: your daily demon: Furcas, Vulcanalia, Ashes to Ashes (1980) plus the it of it’s raining, it’s sunny

three years ago: assorted links to revisit, the cult of conspiracy theorists, the beach photography of Harry Gruyaert, Stockholm Syndrome (1973) plus a short by Saul Bass on the nature of creativity

four years ago: another funeral service for a glacier, a classic music mashup plus a refuge for pollinators amid expansive fields

five years ago: NYC’s Trinity Church, customary units plus more links to enjoy

8x8 (10. 958)

☃️: brr (previously) on electricity and power generation at the South Pole 

blogoversary: Miss Cellania reflects on eighteen years of blogging  

©️: judge rules that generative art is not subject to copyright protections 

ascertainment bias: people who submit to genetic testing and studies are predisposed for it—via Kottke  

pulmonic egressive sounds: an individual who can talk backwards—via the new shelton wet/dry 

lending-library: appealing an injunction, the Internet Archive removes commercially available titles from its public database—via Waxy 

it’s-a me: the voice of Mario, Charles Martinet, retiring after a quarter of a century 

əʊ: lignuists observe the birth of a new accent forming among Antarctic communities

 synchronoptica

one year ago: the State of Idaho, assorted links to revisit plus the plague of overtourism

two years ago: Petra rediscovered (1812), the moon Iapetus, more links to enjoy plus My Little Occult Book Club

three years ago: a canine saint,  AI poetry plus happy birthday Ray Bradbury

four years ago: returning to the Bretange

five years ago: dualling Trump trial coverage, a Romano-Gaul called Ultragoth plus gravity wells and potential energy