proclamation of neutrality (11. 556)

Though granting legal recognition to the Confederate States of America as belligerents, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland under Queen Victoria, announcing the stance on this day in 1861, never accorded the breakaway southern states with the status of a nation, negotiated treaties or exchanged ambassador and trade came to a halt. Despite massive losses in the textile sector, particularly in Manchester, due to loss of imported cotton, most Britons, maintained their fidelity to the Union and Abraham Lincoln, and CSA president Jefferson Davis’ wager that dependence on “King Cotton” would lead to diplomatic recognition, mediation or intervention militarily, fell far short of hopes. After the costly war in the Crimea, European powers wanted no more entanglements. Some smuggling of cotton occurred (see previously) with privateers running bundles across the Atlantic in exchange for munitions and luxury goods, but most mills—even threatened with bankruptcy and famine for the workers—refused to process the Confederate contraband.

meant for each other (11. 555)

Once the top-vetted hopeful for Donald Trump’s ticket for vice-president who has since seen her reputation tarnished (but probably irreparably—amazing that one could recover from something so heinous—due to the American values wars and backlash against cancel culture) by an autobiographical account of killing a family dog and a problematic goat as well as exaggerated or outright fabricated geopolitical meetings, South Dakota governor Kristi Noem has been banned from twenty-percent of the state’s territory as six Native American reservations exercise their sovereign right to declare Noem an outlaw and refuse her entry. The Tankton Sioux Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate joined the Oglala, Rosebud, Cheyenne River and Standing Rock tribal branches for on-going jurisdictional feuds that began with suppressing the opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline in 2019 and recently suggesting that the independence reservations were dens for organised crime—drugs trafficking and illegal migration.

 synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth revisiting, the Pantheon plus a classic from Boney M

two years ago: Our Lady of Fatima (1917), more links to enjoy plus Gödel and Einstein

three years ago: common areas of Singapore’s public housing plus St Glyceria

four years ago: anonymous scholarship, a quiet black hole, unmasked assailants plus an ancient herbal

five years ago: mushrooming traditions, technological middlemen plus open-sky requests from the incarcerated

about some useless information supposed to drive my imagination (11. 554)

Recorded at the RCA Studios in Hollywood on this day in 1965 a week after Keith Richard’s wrote the song and played a rough version of the introductory and driving riff in his sleep captured on a cassette recorded, two-minutes of acoustic guitar strumming before hearing the pick drop and the rest of the tape was filled with Richards’ snoring and Mick Jagger’s lyrics contribution poolside in Clearwater, Florida, the single’s release on 4 June immediately solidified the success of The Rolling Stones with an iconic and recognisable musical hook, ranking on charts internationally and is consistently counted among the greatest rock songs of all time, whose themes critiquing commercialism, dithering between cynicism and a plaintive protest, were quite revolutionary and could be perceived as threatening to older audiences.

 

synchronoptica

one year ago: philosophy bros plus early computer art

two years ago: a celebration of locomotives

three years ago: the affection of felines, an NFT defined, assorted links to revisit plus putting one’s website to bed

four years ago: the united states of Voronoi, an AI entry for EuroVision, a socially-distanced press conference plus the soundtrack to Flash Gordon

five years ago: a list of silent letters plus a way to help out the unbanked

ampas (11. 553)

Founded on this day in 1927 by head of the studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer producer Louis B Mayer in order to create an organisation to mediate labour disputes without the need for outside, independent trade unions and improve the image and reputation of the film industry with input from prolific actor and matinee idol Conrad Nagel (who would six years later go on to establish the Screen Actors’ Guild) and thirty-five other professionals including Mary Pickford and Harold Lloyd, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was to hold an annual banquet but no mention of awards at the time. During the Great Depression, the Academy lost credibility as an arbitrator when it came to labour negotiations and gradually pivoted towards its present role as an honours society, with meritorious awards for “distinctive achievement” in one five branches—acting, directing, writing, technical accomplishment and producing—eventually becoming known as the Oscars. Around the same time, the Academy founded the first film school in collaboration with the University of Southern California, a library charged with collecting all publications about movies and state-of-the-art screening venue for members.

11x11 (11. 552)

syntax error: AI co-pilots are changing the way coders operate 

baby lasagne: a preview of Eurovision acts to watch for—see also here and here  

spaghettification: a NASA simulation shows what it’s like to be sucked into a Black Hole  

high-fidelity photogrammerty: how Google’s enhanced Street View with 3-D panoramas could again change the world of navigation and virtual exploration—see also 

breakfast of champions: the drawings and doodles of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr—see previously 

not a shared universe: a meta study on the perceived beliefs of fictional characters regarding other fictional characters  

early machinations: development notes on xkcd’s collaborative Rube Goldberg machine, an annual tradition—via Waxy 

my colours are blush and bashful, mama: Poseidon’s Underworld rewatches the 1989 star-studded Steel Magnolias  

coronal mass ejection: strongest solar storm in two decades lights up the night sky in Europe  

hind’s hall: the refreshing and unexpected entrée of Macklemore’s protest rap—see more  

syntax error: English being proposed as the new top-level coding language with the ability to articulate one’s wishes (as with a jerk genie) is of utmost importance

 synchronoptica

one year ago: Sweden passes world first personal data protection law (1973), those omnipresent cafe celebrity murals, a Trump townhall plus Nixon tries to strengthen the powers of the executive branch (1973)

two years ago: assorted links to revisit plus M (1931)

three years ago: more links to enjoy, Cats (1981), more on the Ice Saints plus the revival of night trains

four years ago: St Gangolf plus more links worth the revisit

five years ago: a sleep-over cinema plus a classic from Ottawan (1979)

tea party (11. 551)

Passed on this day in 1773 by the parliament of Great Britain, the Tea Act was principally designed to help the British East India Company remain profitable and offload some of its surplus by undercutting the price for illegal imports, mostly smuggled into the American colonies through Dutch suppliers, by enabling direct and duty-free exports. The supplemental tariff under the Townsend Acts meant to generate revenue for colonial administration and the paid the salaries of governors (to ensure allegiance) as well as leverage to obtain better terms of trade with transportation companies. Although the quality of the black market tea was inferior to the British, it was considered patriotic to drink the smuggled tea by some groups as a political protest to the taxes levied. Despite the elimination of elimination of duties with the license for direct sales that bypassed the need for middlemen (these merchants also angered because they were rendered superfluous as were the marketeers) resulting in lower prices for higher quality tea, colonists were still upset on principal of the retention of the nominal tax used to pay the salaries of crown officials. Harbour masters in New York and Philadelphia were refusing delivery of tea shipments and reached a crisis point in December that year when the Sons of Liberty (cosplaying Native Americans, the tax was set to expire if not renewed by Parliament) raided ships docked in Boston and dumped the cargo overboard—an event known later as the Boston Tea Party, mythologised, which resulted in the embargo and closure of the port until the destroyed shipments were paid for.

† (11. 550)

Via Web Curios, we are referred to a collection of abandoned blogs, personal projects a decade or more moribund and neglected for various and unknown
reasons, like succumbing to the ease and convenience of social media, loosing focus, growing beyond and dying in some cases surely but all present as an abrupt mystery them that were once obsessively curated and betray a lot of earnestness and energy on all sorts of interests from fashion, to cooking, to travel and more niche pursuits. In part due to the privilege of having such a perfectly (mostly) preserved perspective on these relics that don’t age or crumble, pursuing these posts (yes, with some old school mommy blogs and sites built on Blogspot, click next for serendipity) is indeed not like a wistful walk amongst the tombstones exactly though one appreciates the unfinished business once so carefully tended and the placeholder did strike me as a bit plaintive: “if i hadn’t deleted my old blogs, then they would go here too…” More at the links above.

synchronoptica

one year ago: a classic from Duran Duran plus assorted links worth revisiting

two years ago: Walter Defends Sarajevo (1972), the first US female presidential candidate plus a classic from Falco

three years ago: your daily demon: Gusion, introducing the Incredible Hulk, nuclear engineering wall charts, Aristotle and Phyllis plus grunge slang

four years ago: the UK invades Iceland, tomatoes legally defined, an AI makes music, Trump and the pandemic plus superblooms

five years ago: a Chinese space camp, chumbox advertisements, Nazi book-burnings (1933) plus the Frankfurt kitchen

nailed it! (11. 549)

Via Super Punch we learn—and on par with the Finnish practise of awarding a hat and a sword—that Sweden carries on with the unique and obligatory tradition, described as “Lutherishly,” for PhD candidates to nail one’s thesis, disseration to a wall or plank a few weeks prior to one’s defence. Referred to a spikning, students will post their paper (nicely bound by the university’s library press, and with the written approval of their advisor, signed off as Må spikas, “May be nailed”) in the halls of their respective departments for others to pursue and dispute. The comparison to the sixteenth century revolutionary protest against the selling of plenary indulgences seems apt but Martin Luther took the idea from academia and not the other way around.