the one with all the war mongering (11. 108)

In the latest in her ongoing series of US presidential debate recaps, McSweeney’s contributor Maura Quint presents the third Republican session from Wednesday, again absent the forerunner in this race for sloppy seconds, moderator reminding the audience “that this is all a farce performed by unloved toddlers and that Donald Trump will undoubtedly be the nominee.” After placing blame on the corrupt media and Democratic leadership for America’s wayward trajectory, brinksmanship built over how to deal with China, Russia and the active conflicts in Ukraine and the war in Palestine between Israel and Hamas—satire that corresponded with the actual exchanges on the dais, the debate concluded with the closing remarks of hopeful Chris Christie: “It’s a gift to be an American. Maybe it’s not what you wanted but your parents gave it to you and they expect you to be grateful for it anyway. So show some respect, you ingrates.”

laterne, laterne, sonne, mond und sterne (11. 107)

In anticipation of the Feast of Saint Martin and the tradition of a lamp-lit procession, welcoming rather than ushering out the darkness and gloam of autumn formerly having roughly corresponded to the first of the month and a continuation of Halloween celebrations prior to calendar reform, we enjoyed this small sampling from a catalogue of chromolithographs of paper lantern designs from 1880 from the Tübingen booksellers Riethmüller—which still sells paperware and party favours. More at the links above.

synchronoptica

one year ago: Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (1973) plus Radiation Baby

two years ago: sinking nations plus Chaka Khan (1984)

three years ago: Toot, Whistle, Pluck and Boom, the US election, the Friends theme song, expecting more from America, voting irregularities plus an early edition

four years ago: an Art Nouveau printmaker, more Inktober maps, film composer Carlo Savina, a racing bar chart of the biggest musicians plus the debut of Sesame Street

five years ago: more unbuilt architecture, AI writes news copy, The 5000 Fingers of Doctor T plus a historical film lot consumed by wildfire

button copy (11. 106)

Via Curious Brain, we enjoyed this short montage from Daniel McKee (previously) to music by Resonate that cycles through international traffic signs, showing the variations through different countries on warnings and restrictions. The title refers to the retroflective elements that follow the contours of sign legends caught by oncoming headlamps.

zaglossus attenboroughi (11. 105)

Rediscovered during a lengthy expedition in Indonesia’s Cyclops mountains six decades after its last reported sighting, the long-beaked echidna—named after the famed naturalist, feared extinct (taxidermied specimen pictured), the nocturnal, burrowing creature, a monotreme that lays eggs like the equally unusual duck-billed platypus, is a living fossil (see also) that coexisted with the dinosaurs, branching off from the mainstream emergent mammals over two hundred million years ago. Named for the mythological Ἔχιδνα—She Viper and mother of all monsters—due to their shared reclusive and chimeric nature, the mammal is embedded in local Papuan culture as a conflict resolution mediator, one side of the disputing parties dispatched on an errant quest to the remote and wild mountains to find an echidna and the other to the sea to find a marlin, a task that could take years and removes the conflict from the community and gives an enduring reprieve from fighting.

pin (11. 104)

The startup called Humane, launched by two former Apple engineers, hoping to introduce an alternative to time-stealing smart phones and touch screens, has unveiled its brooch-like wearable, powered by AI that does not need to be paired with other gadgets, and designed for interfacing with large language models rather than apps, geared towards talking and voice commands (also through gesture and showing it objects) rather than focusing on typing and visuals. Though there is no display, AI Pin can project images with a laser onto the user’s hand. For privacy and disclosure to others within ear-shot, the “Trust Light” blinks when the badge is activated (no listening for a wake word) and collecting data. Though the question remains whether this new device, a lapel pin, might meet the same fate as Google Glass and other augmented reality accessories, the launch demonstration included a round of feats, including an email inbox, message summary, presenting one’s meal to it for nutritional information, navigation and real-time translations.

synchronoptica

one year ago: the Lateran Basilica, an archaeological discovery in the muddy ruins of a bath house plus assorted links to revisit

two years ago: another MST3K classic plus prioritising driverless technology over pedestrian safety

three years ago: World Freedom Day, unfortunate juxtapositions, a vaccine for COVID under development, a synonym for Schadenfreude plus Poe’s Dream-Land

four years ago: the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989) 

five years ago: a resort on the Adriatic, single-use as Word of the Year, the veil of ignorance plus Kristallnacht (1938)

 

but things are not what they teach us—for the world is hollow, and i have touched the sky (11. 103)

First airing on this day in 1968, season three, episode eight of Star Trek: TOS, the Enterprise intercepts an asteroid on a collision course with the planet Daran V, only to discover it is a generation ship (see also) populated by descendants of the original crew unaware that their former homeworld of Yanda is no more, engulfed by a supernova ten thousand years ago, and within the confines of malfunctioning space craft, reliant on automation whose technology they no longer grasp and refer to as the Oracle. The principle officers on their away-mission are subdued by this life-support system, and as they recover from this introduction, they encounter an old man who confesses that he has climbed the mountains (see previously) of this world and things are not what they seem. Immediately his temples glow red and is terminated for his heretical thoughts, revealing that the Oracle dictates obedience devices be implanted in all members of the ship’s manifest to maintain the illusion. Ostensibly skirting the Prime Directive, Spock and Kirk (with a B-story of an ailing McCoy cured by the civilisation’s ancient records and an infatuation with the High Priestess) steer the vessel back on court to a rendezvous with its destination for a new home.

syllabus (11. 102)

Though familiar with the foundational novel, lore and later adaptations, one forgets that Frankenstein’s Monster was not a mindless brute with no internal life or ambitions, it’s easy to forget that unlike in many film versions, the Creature is portrayed by Shelley as sensitive and contemplative, literate and even eloquent, and so we appreciated this reading list of Bildungsroman that the Creature stumbles across and finds particularly resonant, informing the search for humanity through the humanities with a brief but indelible curriculum. The books discovered in a satchel that introduced our monster to literature were Johann Wolfgang Goethe’s Strum und Drang epistolary work The Sorrows of Young Werther, John Milton’s Paradise Lost and Plutarch’s parallel biographies—which when written on the spine I always read as Plutarch LIVES!, as in the experiments of Dr Frankenstein. More from Public Domain Review at the link up top.

 synchronoptica

one year ago: Take My Breath Away (1986), The Cher Variety Hour, assorted links to revisit plus an orchestra recreates Berlin’s soundscape

two years ago: the Tree of Ténéré, the history of Sanctuary Cities plus more links to enjoy

three years ago: a false-friend, more minimalist movie posters, hyper-realistic art, the first internet murder plus an audio recording of a sadly extinct, unique dialect

four years ago: more links worth the revisit

five years ago: Trump’s Attorney General resigns, Leipzig by street car, East of the Sun, West of the Moon, attempts to suppress the Church Committee on intelligence abuses plus the Beer Hall Coup (1938)

 

9x9 (11. 101)

dark universe: Euclid space mission to map the Cosmos and glean insights into the mysterious majority of matter and energy composing it  

the earth dies screaming: an effective but bare-bones 1964 British apocalyptic horror flick from 1964  

go fish: the (possibly apocryphal) origin of the name of the city of Slow Low, Arizona  

qr-monster: the artistry of AI prompters—see previously  

🚉: a teaser for a Backrooms-like game taking place in the Tokyo metro Shinjuku station 

lignum vitae: looted leaves of the Golden Tree of Lucignano recovered 

purity pals: new US Speaker of the House of Representative announces that he and his seventeen year old son monitor each other’s web consumption  

future imperfect: a strangely engaging 1974 series of filmstrips warning against the utopian novel and utopian-thinking orbital plane: an exoplanet’s singular path around a binary star system—via Damn Interesting’s Curated Links  

synchronoptica

one year ago: Operation Able Archer (1983), Ukraine to change the date on which Christmas is observed plus a gallery of bad Jane Austen book covers

two years ago: a documentary on picking the wrong venue, a bombing in the US capitol plus the Riace bronzes

three years ago: your daily demon: Bifrons,  awaiting US election results, the collection point for cataloguing art looted by the Nazis plus the first female US vice-presidential candidate announced

four years ago: an unused deck of tarot cards by Salvatore Dalí

five years ago: assorted links to revisit, Nixon’s concession speech (1962) plus more from the Center for American Politics and Design