double-click (11. 680)

Language Log presents an interesting discussion on the latest polarising and overused corporate buzz-word in double-click—as in to focus or drill-down on some matter, which admittedly didn’t at first blush register as a term I’ve heard employed inside or outside the office but then realise that I might just have a blindspot for such phrases—moreover leading to see how quickly technological neologisms are adopted and have staying power, like way English has a whole is peppered with rather fossilised sports metaphors that can have an othering effect for non-native-speakers. Offline (as in a sidebar discussion) and bandwidth (mental capacity) have become pervasive and we use this jargon without noticing it. The article also includes an interview with the inventor of the rapid tap mousing, engineer Bill Atkinson who conceived it for Apple’s Lisa Project back in 1979, who would eschew such talk—buzzwords quickly lose their buzz—and has some regrets about the gesture he designed, thinking that a shift key for computer mice might be more ergonomic and user-friendly.

 

synchronoptica

one year ago: military weather modification programmes (with synchronoptica), The Specials plus assorted links to revisit

seven years ago: May’s Little England, more model villages and company towns plus a capital ß

nine years ago: the collective amnesia of nationhood plus imagining parallel ecosystems

ten years ago: off to Croatia

eleven years ago: graffiti terminology, images of borders plus a spyware roundup

surréalisme (11. 679)

In anticipation of the centenary of the publication of the rival manifestos of opposing factions of the art movement in October of 1924 by Yvan Goll and André Breton, we learn via PRINT magazine that there’s been a call for submissions to reinterpret modern corporate logos in the style of the multidisciplinary group following arising from the liminal space between full awareness and the subconscious (see also),
all emergent after the horrors of the Great War, the 1918 Pandemic and the popular psychiatry of Sigmund Freud. We especially liked the Magritte-inspired reimaging of the Youtube brand with reference to Salvador Dalí and the Belgian artist’s own 1929 “False Mirror,” Le faux miroir, which was also the inspiration for the American television network CBS eye logo.  Much more at the links above.

gallery of the louvre (11. 678)

On the occasion of the record-setting auction in which the pictured painting fetched an incredible three-and-a-quarter million dollars on this day back in 1982 (going to a private collector but on public display), we take a look at the artist, better remembered for his contributions to telecommunications, Samuel Finley Breese Morse. 

First establishing his credentials at a portrait artist and having a success career, several US presidents sat for him, Morse turned to invention in his late forties after encountering a fellow-passenger on a steam ship back from Europe who taught him about electromagnetism and demonstrated some experiments for him. Setting aside the subject painting in 1832 (finished the following year and contains thirty-eight miniature versions of the museum’s treasures—see also), Morse developed a single-wire telegraph, improving on European systems, and overcame the problem of signal-strength and range, a limiting factor, by the addition of relays to boost the distance transmissions could be carried from a few yards to dozens of miles. Patents were awarded but Morse’s invention was not unique or as foundational (see previously here and here) as he liked to present it. Adopted as the international standard for telegraphy, Morse would go on to contribute to his eponymous Code a few years later.  The first public demonstration was held at a steelworks in Morristown, New Jersey with an electronic missive—rather cryptically the message was “A patient waiter is no loser,” sent to a factory two miles away. 

stripware (11. 677)

Via Waxy, we enjoyed this look back at the briefly popular method of scanning code from paper from Cauzin Softstrip. A precursor to the modern QR-Code, programmes were printed in bands, highly compressed so encoding wouldn’t take up too much real estate in the periodicals that carried them (see also), most distributing computer games, like this early version of Minesweeper, Othello, Checks, Free Ski, etc. The scanning wand itself was about the size of a baguette and didn’t always produce the right output—and the games themselves in retrospect didn’t quite deliver in terms of play, though the cover art, illustrations and gaming manuals (plus a little imagination) completed the experience. More from Ironic Sans (previously) at the link above.

synchronoptica

one year ago:Django Reinhardt’s jazz band (with synchronoptica) plus assorted links worth revisiting

seven years ago: more links to enjoy

nine years ago: even more links to revisit

ten years ago: the linocuts of Edward Bawden

eleven years ago: more public outrage over mass-surveillance 

in the year twenty-twenty-five (11. 676)

By inference, example and declaration, the American people and the world has been warned repeatedly, relentlessly of what a second Trump term would entail, a conservative agenda of policy proposals that failed to coalesce on the first attempt radically transforming the republic into a regressive evangelical hypocracybased on the rule of tribal grievance and restoring the patriarchy. With the express aim of purging what’s characterised as “woke propaganda” in regulation and curriculum under a Trump regime, emboldened and enabled, the administration not only is plotting to gut the administrative state under a unitary executive with autocratic powers, eliminate environmental regulation (framing global warming as a hoax), consumer safety, civil liberties and protections (framing affirmative action and equality as “reverse racism”), mass deportations, stripping of citizenship, abortion access, pornography as well as no-fault divorce—essentially rolling back the hard-fought progress of the past seventy years and this all, with the extensive blueprint pre-positioned, might happen on day one.

städtebilder (11. 675)

Via the always wunderbar Nag on the Lake, we are referred to this lovely montage of West Berlin on a nice summer’s day in 1977 (see more, see also), composed of rediscovered vintage, full-colour footage (including aerial sweeps and shots) with a catchy, jaunty soundtrack presented by Chronos Media, the country’s largest, independent private archives—with more documentaries about Germany and several other historical, nostalgic city portraits at their Youtube page.

your good and your evil use the same methods, achieve the same results (11. 674)

Bob Canada presents a highlight reel of some of the more bizarre images that the crew of the Enterprise saw on the ship’s viewscreen during the course of the original run of Star Trek: TOS, with their encounter with Space Lincoln in “The Savage Curtain” (S3:E22) with the super-intelligent rock-like Exclaiban having created the presidential look-alike (along with a facsimile of the renowned Vulcan philosopher Surak) to better explore the concepts of good and evil, pitting these two upstanding figures against a cast of villains, including Genghis Khan and Klingon warlord Kahless with Kirk and Spock as seconds in the duel. Despite knowing that the great statesman is an artifice of matter-energy conversion, the Captain accords his personal hero with full honours upon boarding the ship.

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth revisiting (with synchronoptica)

seven years ago: neutral facial posture plus the fall of Constantinople

eight years ago: Stephen Hawking’s stalker plus a short hiatus

nine years ago: absquatulate, cartoon tropes plus Freedomland, USA

ten years ago: peace vigils in Germany

olive branch petition (11. 673)

Signed following adoption by the Second Continental Congress on this day in 1775 after, formal request was last ditch effort to avoid open conflict between Great Britain and the Thirteen Colonies. The fact that the same group of delegates had just authorised the invasion of the Dominion of Canada and passage of the resolution titled the Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms over the perception of parliament extending its influence across the Atlantic rather made its favourable reception unlikely despite its pledge of fealty to George III—the king refusing to read it and declaring the colonists traitorous. Interpreted as intransigence on the part of the British government—the signature page along with the rest of the missive in the US National archives features the prominent signature of John Hancock—it’s ignored read-receipt helped limn the choice for American settlers, entrenching a litany of grievances, and legitimising rebellion, informing Thomas Payne’s Common Sense. You say—the price of my love’s not a price that you’re willing to pay, you cry in your tea which hurl in the see when you see me go by. Why so sad?