blackbox (11. 151)

Via the always interesting Things Magazine, we are given some insight into in-flight entertainment with the audio selections until very recently and probably still on some airlines being a curated mix-tape played on a loop arranged for the different channels, stations that one could choose from. Such a technical legacy endures in part because of flight regulations (sort of like the armrest ashtrays and coffee-maker that runs on jet-fuel), reliability and ease of maintenance.

countdown (11. 150)

In anticipation of Advent, our trusted AI-wrangler Janelle Shane (see previously) has created their own interactive calendar with the help (or hinderance) of the latest iteration of ChatGPT integrated with the image-creator DALL ᐧ E. Having no luck getting it to follow labelling instructions in the usual format, Shane took the alternate tactic of asking for seasonal items captioned as for language learners and compiled those uncannily close or far off, Hot Choclate, Hoy Choclæ, Gingerboman and Ice Smat—verging towards even weirder territory when asked to generate a whole holiday spread around the hearth, which prompted me to request a Nativity Scene (on the older, free version) with some rather glitchy outcomes.

 synchronoptica

one year ago: the first modern ban on capital punishment, assorted links worth the revisit plus AI poetry

two years ago: a historic public health mission 

three years ago: another MST3K classic short, more links to enjoy, a nuisance filing, weasel words plus a troupe of abstract dancers

four years ago: the hallowed ground of native Los Angeles plus the Feast of St Andrew

five years ago: Datarama, stupendous pipe organs plus pictures of an empty laundromat

remainds of the day (11. 149)

The three-storey mural by Banksy critical of UK Brexit policies from 2017 executed on an old, condemned property in Dover has been demolished along with the building. Efforts were made to salvage elements like the stars and stencils and a team using LiDAR and photogrammetry technologies was commission to make a three-dimensional scan of the art work earlier in the year—capturing a digital facsimile of the physical wall and paint, but it is unclear whether these attempts at conservation were successful or if the digital reproduction good, with the artist’s consent, be recreated elsewhere.

32/40 b (11. 148)

Commemorated since 1978 on the anniversary of the passage of the United Nations resolution 181 on the partition of Mandatory Palestine, which proposed the creation of independent Arab and Jewish states with a special, international regime governing the city of Jerusalem, the UN-organised observance, a day of solidarity, calls for immediate steps to be taken to grant the Palestinian people full sovereignty and independence. The declaration also established a commission to study The Origins and Evolution of the Palestine Problem to couch regional conflict and contemporary violence and displacement in terms of historical perspectives and past miscalculation and transgression.

merriam-webster defines (11. 147)

The US reference book publisher offers Authentic as its Word of the Year, which whilst at first glance not seeming so novel does serve to encapsulate the trends of the past twelve months, informed by discussions regarding both identity, frankness and the rise of synthetics in arts and writing. Runners up for the choice, bolstered by the dictionary’s data and up-tick in research, also serve to chronicle recent news and events, and include coronation, deepfake—vis-a-vis the winner, dystopian, indict, deadname with the rash of American school districts proposing and enacting “Parental Rights” bills that requires instructors to address pupils by their birth names and gender regardless of their preference and the term rizz—possibly originating from and suggesting charisma.

synchronoptica

one year ago: Schrödinger’s Cat, assorted links to revisit plus Fly, Robin, Fly

two years ago: Britain’s Got Talent

three years ago: The Public Universal Friend,  fifty years of Tatort, Saint Saturninus, Pong (1972) plus more constructed language

four years ago: some uplifting statistics, Mid-Century style in the Peanuts plus the speech prepared for Nixon in the event of a Moon disaster

five years ago: more links to enjoy 

9x9 (11. 146)

the big easy: Bonapartist diaspora had designs for Napoleon to retire in New Orleans—via Messy Nessy Chic—see also courtesy of Super Punch  

holiday emporium: Kottke’s annual gift guide returns after a hiatus  

triple word score: players and lexicographers are a bit mortified with Scrabble’s new tournament rules  

colophon: the rise and fall of Borders Books 

moonlight towers: during the infancy of electric lighting, there was a predecessor to serial lamps  

pump and dump: insurance companies are exacerbating the climate crisis 

fiat: during the bank strikes of Ireland in the 1970s, pubs stepped in to fill their function—via the new shelton wet/dry  

ai garage sale: haggle with robots for real items—via Waxy  

pas de goulots d’étranglement dans la production: a strange 1940 diagram from linguist Benjamin Lee Whorf presenting French as a factory assembly line

the battle of versailles (11. 145)

Similar to the surprise coup of this other culture rafinée, high stakes challenge from earlier in the same year, the historic fashion show held on this day in 1973 at the famous venue in order to raise funds for its restoration. Organised by the museum and government forum’s curator, the event pitted French designers, Yves Saint Laurent, Pierre Carin, Marc Bolen and others against Americans Bill Blass, Anne Klein, Halston and Oscar de la Renta before an invited audience that consisted of artists and celebrities like Andy Warhol, Princess Grace, Marie-Hélène de Rothschild, Jane Birkin, Liza Minnelli and Joséphine Baker (the last two performing for their respective sides). The show was legendary (more here) and the mostly French spectators were stunned with the American designs and models, a new benchmark set for representation with eleven Black women on the catwalk and shifting the industry in a way that brought respect and legitimacy for the US contribution and the palace which had seen better days was rebuilt.

synchronoptica

one year ago: Christopher Isherwood’s I am a Camera plus Word of the Year: Gaslight

two years ago: the duet from Dirty Dancing,  Advent season plus some COVID comic-relief

three years ago: your daily demon: Furcas, Trump at the kiddie-table, assorted links to revisit plus the Great Bed of Ware

four years ago: a visit to a local museum plus a Thanksgiving pageant

five years ago: barely maps plus a proposed change to the UN Security Council

radio ripping (11. 144)

The campaign given its soft-start the month prior, the British Phonographic industry trade group under the chairmanship of Christopher Wright began placing its slogan in the press on this day in 1981, believing that the rise in the availability and popularity of the cassette and recorder would cause a precipitous decline in record sales—recruiting a few celebrity spokespeople to support their initiative against the new media, like the Boomtown Rats and Elton John. Others, like Bow Wow Wow, the Dead Kennedys, Devo and Sonic Youth actively encouraged the practise, some releasing titles with blank b-sides for the buyer to record whatever they wished. The propaganda and rhetoric (often subject to parody over the manufactured hysteria) have re-appeared numerous times as an invective against VCRs, “Don’t Copy that Floppy,” and file-sharing even for art and entertainment that’s meant for public enjoyment and made more robust by its channels of propagation and retention.

 

 synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links to revisit plus Makhno’s Movement (1920)

two years ago: an AI take on traditional wedding gifts

three years ago: an Italo Pop nonsense song meant to sound like English plus St Josaphat

four years ago: a font inspired by Trump’s handwriting, VR for happier cows, St James Intercisus plus a Monkees’ movie

five years ago: CARE packages, the collaboration between Stan Lee and Pablo Ferro, another Trump Dump plus Misinformation as Word of the Year