8x8 (11. 190)

a portrait of justice: the iconography of Ruth Bader-Ginsburg’s judicial collars—see previously 

kreuz am bichl: a uniquely divided church in Carinthia  

oh little town of bethlehem: this year’s creche and other required reading—see more

location scouting: historical movies and filming sites mapped  

modern day umarell: Defector contributor unravels a construction mystery with the help amateur experts—see previously  

18¢ piece: making change, the Greedy Algorithm and the Shallit system of optimal coins  

penguin drama: two aquaria in Japan meticulously update a flow chart to document the changing relationships of their residents  

free mickeys: Disney’s flagship character (see previously) to enter the public domain following a US Supreme court ruling that copyrights cannot be extended with trademarks

 synchronoptica

one year ago: Kurt Cobain’s Unplugged session (1993), assorted links to revisit plus OpenAI authors Hallmark holiday specials

two years ago: a triple album from George Harrison plus the mental acumen of rarefied genius

three years ago: awards recognising the best of Quarantine Culture, the great apes, St Adelaide plus a classic spy story from John le Carré

four years ago: the seasonal designs of Jen Nollaig

five years ago: redundant acronym syndrome, Queen Medb plus the Moon on flags (and flags on the Moon)

radio silence (11. 189)

Weird Universe points us to an event that took place in mid-August 1924 in the US that reminds us this other potential coordinated effort to make astronomical observations more successful and reminds how from the earliest days of the communication medium, forerunners like Guglielmo Marconi, Lord Kelvin and Nikola Tesla believed that radio transmissions could be exchanged with extraterrestrial civilisations, the existence of intelligent life on Mars being widely accepted. With the Red Planet approaching its closest point to the Earth for nearly eight decades, scientists at the Naval Observatory used a blimp to lift a “radio-camera” to an altitude of three kilometres and arranging with broadcasters along the eastern seaboard to observe an hourly five-minutes’ cessation of transmissions in order to eliminate interference from terrestrial sources and increase the chance of intercepting a message from Martians. Military cryptologists were on stand-by to decipher any alien signals.

synchronoptica

one year ago:  assorted links to revisit plus Last Christmas

two years ago: Gingerbread Dreamhouses, artist Brad Holland plus more links to enjoy

three years ago: more links worth the revisit, Esperanto Day plus Trivial Pursuit

four years ago: more links, the Nobel banquet plus Lisztomania (1975)

five years ago: even more links, the mythos of Zermatism, Wort des Jahres plus early Home Office

memeification (11. 188)

We quite enjoyed the rather uniting distillation of the year’s news in meme form from Hyperallergic, covering topics from Barbieheimer, orcas attacking yachts, AI images of the Pope and how most men think about the Roman Empire on a daily basis, a viral moment of Karenness and the mugshot of Donald Trump all re-contextualised.

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links to revisit plus Dune (1984)

two years ago: Preserved Fish III, the Wall Street Charging Bull, more MST3K classics, mushroom-derived dyes plus pyrotechnic posters

three years ago: End Times,  Saint Nicasius, filming locations for Topaz plus Well-Armed Peasants

four years ago: first-flight (1782) 

five years ago: interesting trivia, the brief monarchy of Finland plus predictive text

operation red dawn (11. 187)

Codenamed after the 1984 World War III invasion scenario of the US by a coalition of the Warsaw Pact and Latin American countries—starring Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swayze as resistance-fighters—a task force of American soldiers apprehended deposed Iraqi president Saddam Hussein on this day in 2003, having disappeared and gone into hiding shortly after the US invasion, discovered in his hometown of ad-Dawr near Tikrik, holed up in a foxhole or spider-whole with guns and three-quarters of a million dollars in cash. The site where Hussein was captured, Wolverine 2, is also a reference to the teenaged band of guerrilla fighters of the movie. Put before a special tribunal called by the provisional authority and interim government (which many characterised as a creature of American jurisdiction and a show trial not representative of an independent Iraq) six months later and found guilty of crimes against humanity for genocidal campaigns against the Kurdish and Shiite populations during the war with Iran and subsequently executed at the trial’s conclusion and having exhausted appeals in November of 2006.

7x7 (11. 186)

itsy-bitsy: a performance on the SpiderHarp, a large scale model originally developed to study vibrations and triangulation on a web  

origin story: how Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer began as a department store promotional giveaway  

owl001: BBC hacked live on the air in 1983—see also—via Damn Interesting’s Curated Links  

marie mathématique: the adventures of the younger sister of Barbarella, scored by Serge Gainsbourg—see more  

ggwp: the E3 gaming conference has been shuttered permanently  

the great toy robbery: an animated classic from the National Film Board of Canada 

ikea monkey: the happy life of Darwin the macaque after its moment of fame—previously

life is omniperiodic (11. 185)

Via Good Internet, we are directed towards a research paper that posits that in Conway’s Game of Life, the cellular automata within a defined framework of an environment demonstrates periodicity over a vast amount of generations and this repeating pattern is called an oscillator. Complex behaviour emerging from simple rules on a grid, oscillation (the hunt for these stable organisms, a wandering jam or mould pictured, beginning in the 1970s with such taxonomy as pulsar, tumbler, pinwheel, glider gun, queen bee shuttle, dirty splitters, toad hasslers) over all periods of the game. The full cycle of only two catalysts remained elusive until just recently with the final two being cribbage and 204P41, another reflector loop that looks like a circuit of marching insects.

synchronoptica

 

one year ago: assorted links worth revisiting, a Christmas Number One plus a collection of seasonal drinks

 

two years ago: Here Comes the Judge, marijuana decriminalisation plus ticks and meat allergies

 

three years ago: St Odile plus a Christmassy version of Hamilton

 

four years ago: the Feast of St Lucy plus a Ford concept truck

 

five years ago: young pioneers, more links to enjoy, Brutalist Brussels plus isogloss maps

10x10 (11. 184)

arrows of time: a timeline tracing the evolution of human understanding through various magisteria—via the new shelton wet/dry  

horary quandrant: oldest dated English time-keeping instrument goes under the hammer—see previously  

guten morgen: the newly launched Nightjet service between Berlin and Paris marks a return of sleeper trains—see previously 

the beef and dairy network: industry delegates and lobbyists triple at COP28 

theory of mind: researchers reveal a deep chasm in how perception varies from individual to individual  

animation v physics: Alan Becker’s follow on video to Animation v Maths—via Waxy  

oed: the joys of exploring the authoritative dictionary—see previously  

rewind: carbon removal technology is also a time-machine—though presently only able to move the needle a little—via Good Internet 

 the year in search: Google presents its annual review  

the great scrollback: the Verge’s features the best archived tweets

you’re going the wrong way—dammit—the bow’s underwater (11. 183)

As our faithful chronicler informs, the Irwin Allen disaster drama based on the eponymous novel by Paul Gallico from three years prior and capitalising on a spate of star-studded survival misadventures of the decade, like Airport and The Towering Inferno, had its debut in the US on this day in 1972. The acclaimed and high-grossing film featuring the talents of Shelley Winters, Ernest Borgnine, Roddy McDowall and Gene Hackman follows the passengers and crew of the SS Poseidon on its final voyage during New Year’s from New York City to Athens, where it will be decommissioned and scrapped. An undersea quake in the Aegean triggers a tsunami and the ship is capsized and turned upside down. Scored by conductor John Williams, the performance “The Morning After” (garnering an Oscar for best original song) became a hit single, prompting an album of the soundtrack to be released.

synchronoptica

one year ago: a modernist sanctuary plus more advances in fusion technology

two years ago: assorted links to revisit, the satellite Uhuru, the Human League plus Tilda Swinton as libraries

three years ago: your daily demon: Caim, vaccines and alcohol don’t mix, more Breton saints plus a daytrip to Bedheim

four years ago: Authority is a Necessary Evil, more words of the year, the Heritage Trust and Stonehenge, another UK General Election plus the etymology of Antwerp

five years ago: Persons of the Year, Beyoncé as HTTP codes, an auto graveyard plus a computerised sneaker