kid, have you rehabilitated yourself (11. 133)

Courtesy of Open Culture, we are treated to an animated version of Arlo Guthrie’s counter-culture Thanksgiving tradition—the talking blues spoken-word track for his eponymous 1967 album, a lightly embellished account of the artist’s arrest for littering, illegal dumping, a run-in with the law that jeopardised his suitability for the draft for the Vietnam War, the record protesting US involvement in the conflict. Alice Brock, the titular hostess, bailed Guthrie and his co-accomplice out of jail. Despite violent content and outdated, objectionable language bordering on slurs, no radio station observing the tradition of airing it on the holiday, no fine has ever been issued by the American Federal Communications Commission and with subsequent performances, the artist has changed a few lyrics and lines and inserted some topical asides. The arresting authority, William J “Officer Obei” Obanhein, whom became a life-long friend with Guthrie after the song was released, was a model for Norman Rockwell (previously) appearing as a police figure in his depiction of the inauguration of John F Kennedy and schools de-segregation but not, despite popular and fitting misconceptions, The Runaway, which featured another state trooper at Joe’s Diner in a neighbouring village.

q* (11. 132)

Though unable to independently verify the existence of the supposed memo circulated to the staff and board of OpenAI, sources suggest that the catalyst for the abrupt ousting and re-hiring of founder and CEO Sam Altman was a potential breakthrough towards artificial general intelligence, gauged not by simply stringing words together in a convincing way but rather by solving maths problems, albeit rudimentary ones but exercises that are transparent and comprehensible enough for human minds to know that the answer was correct and not merely persuasive and betraying a real understanding of the task the computer was given. The organisation has been forthcoming with the research project (pronounced Q-Star) and its aims to apply it to scientific application (fields where only one, non-trivial answers exist) but reports suggest that the board was harbouring reservations about releasing the new application. The next day the board fired Altman.

synchronoptica

one year ago: the Festival of the Five Grains plus Bohemian Rhapsody (1975)

two years ago: artist Agnolo Cosimo

three years ago: your daily demon: Crocel, St Felicity of Rome, the invention of acting (534 BCE) plus Project Cybersyn

four years ago: a foundation document for press freedom, The Bounty Hunter’s Tale, Simpsons’ memes of the 2019 box office plus Disney streaming options

five years ago: assorted links to revisit, the eight-hour work day plus the premiere of Dr Who (1963)

freiwirtschaft (11. 131)

Proposed by German-Argentine economist and proponent of market socialism Johann Silvio Gesell—detailed though eventually acquitted by authorities impressed with his argument in his own defence for his part in the in the short-lived, experimental Bavarian Soviet Republic, Freigeld (that is money free from the temptation for hoarding it without the incentive of interest) that decayed and depreciated over time, thus rather than a store of wealth made “worse as a commodity if we wish to make it better as a medium of exchange.” Considering himself a world-citizen and constantly relocating, Gessel arrived in Buenos Aires to open a franchise of a family member’s business coinciding with the 1890 economic depression and the experience informed his thoughts on property and welfare and sought to balance self-interest and liquidity. Like a form of negative interest or demurrage (the cost of holding money subject to a periodic tax), Gessel’s proposed currency would have a limited purchase—before expiry—of a constant value, subject to neither inflation nor deflation, freely exchangeable among other currencies and bear a grid on the obverse of fifty-two spots for monetary authority issued stamps for which the holder must affix one per week for the note to hold its value, the bill losing value as long as it was retained and not spent at the holder’s expense. The experiment was trialled (with certificates and scrip) to some acclaim and continues for a certain extent with limited-time-offers, coupons and local complementary currency.

synchronoptica

one year ago: a proposal for a broadcast energy transmitter, assorted links to revisit plus the Beatles’ White Album

two years ago: Angela Merkel becomes chancellor (2005) plus a Harry Belafonte classic carol

three years ago: more on script and spelling reform, the Battle of Ballon (845), more on Angela Merkel, the resignation of Margaret Thatcher, the BBC motion graphics archive plus the Feast of St Cecilia

four years ago: Our Sandman plus more public testimony over the Trump impeachment inquiry

five years ago: Plato’s Stepchildren plus a Thanksgiving greeting

we already feel (11. 130)

The latest Linkfest introduces us to the previously unpublished early music of Carola Baer, a UK-extract relocated to San Francisco in 1990. Homesick and isolated, Baer recorded an album over the course of several months on cassette and gave it the studio treatment, photocopying a cover for The Story of Valerie. Never releasing it, Baer lost the only copy—for it only to turn up in a rummage bin of a charity shop in Oregon twenty six years, and with the finder’s help, Baer was not only reunited with this personal artefact, it was also given a limited release with five hundred vinyl pressings. Much more at the links above.

7x7 (11. 129)

last mile-problem: 2003 ad from a defunct automotive line lampooning the absurdity of cars—especially redesigning cities around them 

broken record: the cover of the UN’s Environmental Programme Emissions Gap Report  

whistle-blower: ufologist who testified before the US Congress urges declassification of documents on alien technology for America to get ahead of the coming, catastrophic leak  

whole heap of zing: new studies may have found the culprit in the phenomenon of the red wine headache  

oculi mundi: a gorgeous and interactive collection of antique and ancient depictions of the world to peruse—via Maps Mania  

keith number: seemingly recreational, rare and hard to find repetitive Fiboncci-like digits whose sum are a whole of its parts 

the marshmallow test: famous experiments in psychology recreated in LEGO

synchronoptica

one year ago: an early exercise craze

two years ago: assorted links worth revisiting

three years ago: the Nurnberg Trials (1945), more links to enjoy, artist Magritte plus cardboard cat shrines

four years ago: more Words of the Year, a Trump appointee turns, Martha Gellhorn plus reforming Ukrainian exonyms

five years ago: the Mayflower Compact, more links to enjoy, a ram registry plus the backstory of an IKEA poster

▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ (11. 128)

Our faithful chronicler informs that on this day in 1983, ABC aired The Day After—portraying a skirmish at the East and West German border that quickly escalates in a full-scale nuclear war between the Soviet Union and the United States told through the lens of several farming communities seemingly far-removed from the front but near American missile silos. Starring Jason Robards, John Lithgow, Steve Guttenberg and JoBeth Williams, the made for TV-movie garnered an incredible audience-share of over sixty percent of households (no commercial interruptions) and showed the struggle and aftermath of nuclear fall-out for the survivors—see also—and was rather incredibly re-broadcast by Soviet state television (dubbed but true to the original dialogue) just four years later during the negotiations for the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Force Treaty between Reagan and Gorbachev. The film ends with a disclaimer right before the closing credits that the work is fictional and the actual outcome of a nuclear war would be far worse.

 synchronoptica

one year ago:  Cabaret (1966), assorted links to revisit plus Incense and Peppermint (1967)

two years ago: Dasius of Durostorum plus more adventures in Poland

three years ago: more links to enjoy, Italy’s fateful day plus St Felicity

four years ago: emoji storms plus the Occupation of Alcatraz and Unthanksgiving

five years ago: a variation on Nyan Cat plus another lesson in Slang School

laserium (11. 127)

Premiering on this night in 1973 at the Griffith Observatory in San Francisco when Ivan Dryer arranged to lease a laser projector from CalTech after disappointment upon reviewing a film he had commissioned as a laser-light show, insisting the audience experience the beauty and brilliance first hand, his presentation inspired companies and individuals to produce their own versions for various venues while launching his own national tour that lasted until 2002 and continues as special events through to the present. Though not certain if it was a part of the officially sanctioned road-show, I recall somewhere in East Texas circa 1992 seeing a rather nice spectacle beamed onto the façade of a court house or some big brick municipal building in the lead-up to Christmas when we’d drive around looking at decorations with musical accompaniment by the Indigo Girls (possibly just on the car’s radio though I’d like to remember it as on the PA, synchronized to the music nonetheless and that made me gay). I call on the resting soul of Galileo, king of night vision, king of insight.

milbenkäse (11. 126)

Strange Company directs our attention to an attempt to revive a foodway, a half a millennium old tradition that had all but died out during East German times when the government (perhaps wisely, and continues to inhabit a grey regulatory area) banned the production and distribution of live-mite food, thanks to the concerned efforts of two individuals in the village Würchwitz, south of Leipzig. Also known as Spinnenkäse, it was discovered accidentally (see also) by leaving curd (Quark) to age in a wooden box and then finding it ripened and edible, with a bit of a zesty after-taste thanks to an infestation of microscopic arachnids (Tyrophagus casei, memorial erected in 2009 in the only locality that makes it) whose bodies form the rind. It wasn’t until much later that people understood how it was being formed and apparently pairs well with beer or wine. More from Atlas Obscura at the link above.

synchronoptica

one year ago: ASCII meme templates, the micronation Rose Island, an Egyptian surrealist movement, a word-generating bot plus vox populi out of context

two years ago: visiting Gdańsk

three years ago: the Arecibo radio telescope decommissioned, a sad Christmas tree plus an just passed, much anticipated wine release

four years ago: the first Monégasque television station plus assorted links to revisit

five years ago: The Last Unicorn, a 3D printed architectural pavilion, the German Youth Word of the Year plus artificial flowers to help the pollinators