suiko t-50 (11. 075)

Via Pasa Bon!, we are directed towards a rare, vintage synthesiser hardly known outside of the Japanese specialists’ market made as a training device for Koto (箏) players, the plucked zither-like instrument, and as accompaniment to recited, classical poetry, with a keyboard following the fret and bridge layout of the strings and tuned to the minor Hirajōshi scale and mode. More at the links above. 

synchronoptica

one year ago: more adventures in Crete

two years ago: a Roger Corman classic (1958),  Austria declares neutrality (1955) plus assorted links to revisit

three years ago: William Shatner in an Esperanto language film, more links to enjoy plus the Trump-Biden debate

four years ago: more links worth revisiting 

five years ago: Monster Mash, time travel with the dictionary plus Star Trek: Lower Decks

8x8 (11. 074)

hilma af: a planned towering gallery for the Swedish artist realised as a virtual reality experience  

papercraft: gorgeous moderne four palette architectural models to make 

the book of hallowe’en: a 1919 illustrated, syncretic study of the appropriated holiday in the spirit of the Golden Bough  

swarm charms: a go-to guide of medieval bee spells 

trainspotting: an omnibus post on avoiding rail collisions including a nineteen century timetable still in use 

reconstruction: the sounds of ancient languages—see also 

the logo is formed from minifig hands: the new LEGO Dune playset  

flow-chart: a study on the abandoned shopping-carts of America  

you may touch the artefacts: a gallery of early internet relics from Neal Agarwal—see previously

 synchronoptica

one year ago:  further adventures in Crete

two years ago: the US Invasion of Granada (1971)

three years ago: a hexadecagonal country retreat, SS Crispin and Crispinian plus pandemic gods and heroes

four years ago: a lyrical headline (1924), a video game atlas plus the world’s first erotic boutique proprietress 

five years ago: The Master Key of Futurity, virtual restaurants and ghost kitchens plus programming a more ethical Pac Man

digitalis (11. 073)

A new data-poisoning tool allows artists to fight back against generative AI by allowing them to make invisible alterations to pixels so when their data is scraped—without consent or compensation—for training, causing the output to verge in chaotic directions. Called Nightshade, these subtle changes could have significant down-stream effects for later iterations of what’s become mostly recursive machine learning. The industry faced with numerous lawsuits over this unauthorised sampling, the application’s creator hopes that this method—which reminds me of trap streets on maps, fake entries in dictionaries and other honeypots—will create a deterrent for such infringement.

gym and tonic (11. 072)

Originally a co-production from Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter and Bob Sinclar (officially unreleased as Jane Fonda objected to being sampled), the Spacedust cover—with re-recording by a session vocalist—reached the top of the UK singles chart on this day in 1998. The accompanying music video, intentionally made to look cheap in homage to the aesthetic of 1980s work out videos, was frequently voted among the worst of all time. Both versions became extremely popular in clubs throughout Europe. And bounce!

 

synchronoptica

one year ago: a visit to Knossos 

two years ago: the hymn of the United Nations plus Trog (1970)

three years ago: When the Wind Blows (1986), assorted links to revisit plus the Centre for American Politics and Design

four years ago: chaos erupts as Trump impeachment hearing as supporters disrupt testimony 

five years ago: an audio grimoire read by Vincent Price, the 2008 Recession, more inventions from Simone Giertz, more links to enjoy plus an interesting case of tort law

mol (11. 071)

As the unit of measurement for the amount of substance—proportional to the elementary entities (atoms, molecules, ions or other particles) within a volume, a way of bundling masses of into a magnitude of quantity after the conventions of a teaspoon, a dozen, a baker’s dozen or a gross so that chemical reactions, scientists can accurately express the concentration—recipe—of reactants. Despite the different natures, a mole of water (a chemical compound) and a mole of mercury (an element) have the same number of discrete particles in them—which is Avogadros’ Number, 6,022 ｘ 10²³ mol, six hundred two sextillion, two hundred quintillion. It’s useful to have such a normalising proxy for grasping the number of atoms in a given object. Enthusiasts and educators celebrate Mole Day on this day (US calendar conventions) from 06:02 in the morning until two after six in the evening as a way to drum up interest in chemistry and scientific literacy.

synchronoptica

one year ago: visiting Crete 

two years ago: your daily demon: Sabnok plus assorted links to revisit

three years ago: circuit judge Roy Cohn, a pretend Communist coup, more links to enjoy, the beginning of the world plus an appreciation of the colour russet

four years ago: more links worth revisiting plus more on the far future night sky

five years ago: the canals of Mars, swing sixties cover of Red Hot Chili Peppers, the first Russian rapper plus noteworthy files from the US National Records Archive

11x11 (11. 070)

post-amazon era: monopsonic retailer’s workers’ are writing about the dystopian company to fight back—via Slashdot  

sublet: tech startups are relinquishing office space office space back to their landlords  

stop making sense: negative manifestos, rule-breaking and by defined by what one is not  

deci-lon 10: an outstanding collection of slide rules curated by the analogue computer’s appreciation society—named after their seventeenth century inventor, William Oughtred of Cambridge—via Web Curios  

dancing delicacies: 3-D printed plate and nano technologies promise interactive meals  

primer simposium tecno: a 1981 electronic music concert in Madrid  

piramida: updated plans for the restoration of Tirana’s Brutalist landmark  

destroilet: an automatic combustion plumbing solution popular in the 1960s and 70s 

down in the underground: agencies of the subsurface 

fiver: a new adaptation of Watership Down as a graphic novel 

proposition m: San Francisco passes a punitive tax of vacant housing speculation  

the faanmg index: the blush has worn off Amazon’s rose—via Nag on the Lake’s Sunday Links (lot’s more to explore there)

 synchronoptica

one year ago:  brittle egos bristling at Karen’s Garden plus modern sundials

two years ago: the International Meridian Conference of 1884, The Last Picture Show plus an early alternative currency

three years ago: the father of psychophysics, red food dye, another failed doomsday prophecy plus the Humument series

five years ago: the US Gun Control Act of 1968, the WWII bombing of Kassel, the spread of disinformation, anticipatory libraries for other worlds plus RIP to the inventor of the Little Library

das land der ein tausend teiche (11. 069)

Taking out the trailer for a quick trip, we traveled to Plothen not far from the Bleilochtal reservoir but got to explore a quite different geography and landscape in the local pond region. One of the primary examples of aquaculture and intensive geo-engineering predating the industrial age, the first ponds and fisheries were established by monks in the eighth century in order to provide a meat-substitute for Lent and numerous holidays and commemorations that called for fasting and abstention. Within a radius of just a few kilometers, some six hundred of these artificial ponds remain of sixteen hundred, lost over the generations through mergers and drainage to harvest fertile sediment. Fish farming was managed from so called Pfahlhäuser—pile houses—one three hundred year old example remaining on Hausteich near the campgrounds hosting a museum dedicated to the place’s history. 

Owing to the rich soil, during East German times, the area was given over to raising pigs, but has since been rehabilitated (rather a remarkably quick turn around given it was not that long ago) and reclaimed as a tourist destination and an important rest stop for migratory birds and other wildlife.

Afterwards we went to nearby Ranis to visit the Burg, a hilltop fortification for the administration of the Saalfeld area articulated and expanded since the eleventh century.

 synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links to revisit,  Livre de Thot plus a feline opera

two years ago: St Ursula, the first Vikings in North America plus more vocabulary building

three years ago: the origins of Op-Ed, the Dutch art of doing nothing,  NYC’s digital subway map, app, the sentō culture of Japan, the Royal Meteorological Society’s PoTY plus coppicing and pollarding

four years ago: IKEA tarot 

five years ago: artist Barbara Kruger plus leaf-peeping in the Rhön

 

the patterson-gimlin film (11. 068)

Shot on this day in 1967 along the Bluff Creek tributary of the Klamath River on a logging-road in near the California-Oregon border, the short film, under a minute, captures a few frames of purportedly a Sasquatch and has subsequently been subject to numerous attempts to both authenticate and debunk it as a hoax. The iconic image of the cryptid was the result of a years’ long expedition through Bigfoot territory in the Pacific Northwest, a docudrama that failed to garner much interest, several creative fund-raising attempts and trademarking the term, when Roger Patterson and Robert Gimlin reportedly encountered an unknown figure, hairy and apelike and approximately two meters tall, they nicknamed “Patty,” who they tracked for some distance before loosing her trail and made plaster casts of her footprints. Scientist and consulted special effects artists concluded the footage was of a man in a hair suit.

 synchronoptica

one year ago: jungle gyms of East Germany,  more spectacular images from the JWST plus Liz Truss resigns

two years ago: St Artemis of Antioch,  Play Misty for Me (1971) plus the dedication of the Sydney Opera House (1973)

three years ago: assorted links to revisit, the execution of Klaus Störtebeker plus a remembrance of artist Enzo Mari

four years ago: synthwave Star Wars,  documenting car crashes plus the end of grazing season

five years ago: the Saturday Night Massacre,  artist Giacomo Balla plus more links to enjoy