Tuesday, 17 October 2023

6x6 (11. 064)

narnia: the wardrobe portraits of Sarah Ainslie 

there’dn’t’ve: an exploration of contractions—both the probable and the practical  

ghost swing: Louie Zong returns with another spooky symphony—via Waxy  

an mj winkler production: the Independent film studio behind the centenary of Disney  

compound pejoratives: the affixes of insult and their pattern distribution—see also 

 murphy tub: a folding bath from the 1930s—via Messy Nessy Chic

sun electric (11. 063)

Via Kottke, we are directed to a fascinating technological artefact and possible point of departure, contra-factual in this profile of entrepreneur and inventor George Cove, an early advocate of renewable energy who developed solar panels (and battery storage) not much different from those systems employed today. In 1905. There was a significant interest in this new technology and its potential fuelled by no shortage of media coverage and incremental improvements with attendant cost savings and greater efficiency. Yet the enterprise and Cove’s prospects came to an abrupt halt in 1909 when he was kidnapped and would only be released if he withdrew his patents and shut up shop. Though Cove reportedly refused to give in to these conditions, he was nonetheless released. Whilst some contemporary accounts say that the inventor staged his ransom to generate publicity or was victim of a jilted investor, it seems more likely he was roughed up by a thug sent from nascent Oil, an industry not known to be a friend of the democratising effects that virtually limitless and unfettered energy could provide or willing to pull any punches with the threat of competition. Solar power had no more champions for decades, and although it might be painful and disheartening to contemplate alternate-histories in the face of squandered time, resources and a planet that is burning, the fact that dependence of petroleum wasn’t a foregone outcome of industrialisation and modernity and that energy alternatives always had an uneasy coexistence is something for one’s quiver of hopes and disabusing. More from The Conversation at the link above.

synchronoptica

one year ago: St Andrew of Crete,  assorted links to revisit plus RRR

two years ago: the tragical death of an apple pie

three years ago: the taking of Harper’s Ferry (1859), the 1973 OPEC oil embargo, change what the bunny is holding plus more links to revisit

four years ago: The Dinner Party by Judy Chicago

five years ago: pumpkin spice in everything, early Uber, The Republican Club plus more links to enjoy


Monday, 16 October 2023

a venezia…undicembre rosso shocking (11. 062)

Adapted from the short story by Daphne du Maurier and starring Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie, the classic occult thriller Don’t Look Now premiered on this day in the UK and Italy. Grieving over the accidental and tragic drowning death of their daughter, the couple accept a commission from a bishop to restore an ancient church in Venice. The wife Laura encounters two elder sisters, one of who claims psychic sight and persuades the mother to hold a sรฉance to contact the deceased daughter, behind the back of her husband, John. The latter begins to experience premonitions as he continues to work on his project and the former begins to interpret everything as an omen. Atmospheric and disorienting, this enduring horror film explores the psychology of loss and the fragility of the mind. A quite explicit sex scene between Sutherland and Christie prompted her then-boyfriend Warren Beaty to travel to the set and demand it be cut but the director successfully championed it to Beaty and to the censors as non-gratuitous and as integral to the movie as the Venetian setting. In general release a few weeks later, it was often screened as a part of a double feature with the equally iconic The Wicker Man.

electric boots, a mohair suit (11. 061)

Vis-a-vis this expo coverage from Adobe that included this animated, chameleon dress called Project Primrose as well as a host of other prototype features previewed from the sandbox like a translator that automatically dubs and lip-syncs one’s speech in other languages and posable figures for generative tableaux, we quite enjoyed this look back to the mid-1960s at the dynamic fabrics of engineer, fashion model, wardrobe artist for Joan Baez, and e-textile pioneer Diana Dew. Her miniaturised power source was eventually acquired by the US military for further research applications. Much more from Weird Universe including an appraisal of one of Dew’s dressess on Antiques Roadshow at the links above.

 synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links to revisit plus the revival of Brigadoon

two years ago: St Gall, distilling writing down to its punctuation,  a mushroom atlas plus more links to enjoy

three years ago: Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970) plus more studies of the human face and emotional expression

four years ago: consequential pieces of code

five years ago: airfields from aboverestoring Nightwatch, John Paul II chosen as pope (1978) plus recruiting for jobs in the Iraqi government

Sunday, 15 October 2023

the battle of the chinese farm (11. 060)

Occurring this day in 1973 after Egyptian forces had advanced beyond the Israeli line of defence during the previous engagement, the Battle of the Sinai, ultimately repulsed but with Israel sustaining significant losses, the titular battlefield that marked a turning point in the Yom Kippur War was given the misnomer for an Egyptian agricultural research station equipped with Japanese-made technology and over the next two days managed to push Egyptian forces back across the Suez Canal in one of the deadliest and brutal clashes of the conflict. Plans for crossing and securing a corridor for re-supply and relief were considered too ambitious and exacting with deviations from the established dead-lines resulting in losses for the Israeli Defence Force, but the Egyptians girded the exposed flank of their forward division (as the IDF had hoped, misinterpreting their objective) and were cut of from re-enforcements, causing Egypt’s withdrawal from the Sinai and abandon its attempts to re-establish control over the peninsula.

queen of jazz (11. 059)

Having recently learned about the career and contributions of the Jazz Age legend Adelaide Hall, we appreciated having her biography limned more fully by the British Newspaper Archive (via Strange Company), gaining an appreciation of how Hall achieved the status of true superstardom in her adoptive UK and was remarkably resilient in her touring and performance schedule, appearing everywhere and adored by audiences. Spanning more than seven decades, Hall was inscribed inscribed in the Guinness Book of World Records among the most enduring recording artists and collaborated with Cab Calloway, Rudy Vallee, Duke Ellington, Josephine Baker and Louis Armstrong among countless others. Here is Hall in 1948 performing one of her signature songs, “A World is Turning,” at the Nightingale Club. More at the links above.

rentenmark (11. 058)

In order to combat runaway hyperinflation after World War I and the the subsequent occupation of the industrial Ruhr region by French and Belgian forces that caused a major slump in economic activity and an attendant drop in government tax revenues that the Weimar Republic tried to compensate for with quantitive easing (that is—printing more money), finance minister Hans Luther, working with the Reichsbank, introduced a new currency on this day in 1923 to replace the Papiermark. Money had become nearly worthless and subject to precipitous devaluation on a daily basis due to lack of gold and other stable assets to back it, and Luther, whose plans for reform were grounded on the economic principles espoused by Karl Helfferich who suggested floating, indexing monetary value on rye and other agricultural commodities, devised a mortgaged-mark not tied to produce and crop yields (the original idea rejected due to inherent instability) but rather to the land that produced them, backed by biannual payments on farmland and business properties. With the first notes issued on 1 November, one trillion Papiermark could be exchanged for one Rentenmark and the relatively successful transition provided the stability for a recovery in the national economy. 

synchronoptica

one year ago: most popular Halloween candy by state according to AI, a UB40 classic from 1988, the cemetery of Old St Pancras plus a menu ร  la carte

two years ago: assorted links to revisit, more unaired television pilots, Mouldy Old Dough plus dialling up the fright factor with AI

three years ago: more obscure and choice insults, a musical selection from Bronski Beat, more links to enjoy, Jack the Ripper’s From Hell letter, word nuance in cooking plus The Great Dictator (1940)

four years ago: high-energy cosmic rays

five years ago: a fun Star Trek musical mashup, more links plus discovering the convenience of public transport

 

Saturday, 14 October 2023

foia, foil (11. 057)

Given that large language models are designed to guess the next word and fill in the gaps in strings of text, it shouldn’t come as a big surprise that ChapGPT has been enlisted to try to unredact partially declassified documents. Of course, it would be difficult to impossible to check the accuracy of the AI since that information has not been released. What is surprising, however, is that users seem to primarily if not exclusively using the these capabilities to read censored names and locations on documents from NASA on UFO sightings—not that that isn’t an exciting topic worthy of pursuit, at least it used to be, until congressional hearings that seemed to be directed by The History Channel (a rather low information operation posing as educational television) turned apparent government secrecy about the nature of unidentified aerial phenomena into a seminar for the aggrieved in general. I wonder what happens when someone takes on more consequential redactions and what that might mean for future disclosures.  

synchronoptica

one year ago: Denmark plans a Synthetic Party led by an AI,  the first rail route in Japan (1872), more radio calling cards plus a song from English Beat

two years ago: Faust (1926) plus the architecture of Hรฉlรจne Binet

three years ago: special meal requests plus more natic movements in plants

four years ago: nominees for Word of the Year, Germany’s Mushroom of the Year plus New York City through an AI lens

five years ago: the world’s first motion picture (1888),  Apollo 7 transmits from the Moon (1968), The Watersons, The Bells of Rhymney plus diplomatic tensions between the US and Turkey