🥐 (11. 932)

Again via Web Curios, we find ourselves directed to a venerable web forum (circa 2000) that’s still active with the simple premise that anyone can submit an idea—no matter how rough and not thought through, hence the half-baked—of dumb to occasionally brilliant inventions, business models, policies and practises and frankly pranks and have them up- or down-voted by the community and invite feedback. Spare a moment to browse around the incubator—just from recent submissions art that reacts to viewers’ feelings about it, hedonistic tax schemes, graphic sugar warnings on food items, a crown-shyness relaxation regiment, a breakdance stage for chickens—and find your calling to bring one of these notions to fruition, just be sure to give credit.

t-800 (11. 931)

Released on this day in 1984 in the United States cinemas, the James Cameron and Gale Anne Hurd (Roger Corman’s assistant) production starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton, and conceived from the former screen-writer’s credit in a fever dream (a metallic torso wielding kitchen knives and made of liquid metal and impervious to conventional weapons but deciding that special effects were not that advanced, deferred the T-1000 to a later instalment) experienced with the release of Cameron’s first movie, Piranha II: The Spawning two years prior. The film franchise is premised on the idea that a cyborg assassin is sent back from 2029 to prevent the birth of John Connor, who in the Terminator’s time-line saves humanity from destruction by Skynet, an out of control and hostile artificial intelligence bent on self-preservation at all costs. Shooting scenes was delayed due to the principle’s commitment to Conan the Destroyer (OJ Simpson was also in consideration but the director thought he wasn’t a convincing killer), affording Cameron a chance to work on the script for Rambo: First Blood Part II and Aliens, and when filming finally began, it was mainly on location in Los Angeles and without permits—leading to low expectations (coupled with the low budget and other problems)—but was received as a cult classic and launched a franchise and multiple careers.

*     *     *     *     *

 synchronoptica

one year ago: a rare Japanese-made electronic synthesiser (with synchronoptica) plus AI-generated Halloween candy

seven years ago: sonic sands, plates for classic cars, an infernal dictionary plus the royal we

eight years ago: hoop earrings plus some notes

nine years ago: Adam’s first wife

eleven years ago: kettling, Art as Therapy plus precarious jobs

k kilo (11. 930)

 

Via Kottke, we thoroughly enjoyed this hand illustrated overview of international maritime signal flags—developed and standardised to facilitate communication between ships over distances and language barriers, like the radio spelling alphabets (for both letters and numbers) which follow similar conventions to the same ends. The exercises in morphology and conveying more complex messages with heraldry (the above, per pale or and azure, has the lone syntax, “I wish to talk with you”—see previously on how such language has shifted) were fascinating and Rabbit Waves gives similar treatment to day-signs, markers used in lieu of signal flags, and semaphore. 

costa-del-home (11. 929)

Dissecting this article about the trending popularity of cruise vacations by people identifying with the cohort of Millennials and GenZ—via Web Curios—left me depressed and angry, not knowing whether to lay the onus on the industry catering to a different demographic, sensational generational baiting characterising progenitorial peers as stay-ins and homebodies or latch it to the holiday-makers finding appeal not in the port-of-call but never leaving the house, reliably fed and bed with the opportunity for a few no stakes sharable moments. What do you think? What hit as really was the commiseration over vacations that had no gone to plan and finding such a preferable alternative in the safe and secure with all the familiar comforts, especially after revolts against this mode of tourism.

synchronoptica

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

seven years ago: crony capitalism hindering Puerto Rico’s recovery 

eight years ago: a half-buried church in Helsinki

nine years ago: banksters sentenced in Iceland, Germany’s little reunification plus Dutch bubble houses

twelve years ago: vampiric gourds 

9x9 (11. 928)

star crystal, 1986: the manifesto of the Committee to Abolish Outer Space—via jwz 

sorry charlie: a 1961 patent for advertising on fish—perfect for aquariums in waiting rooms  

ghost mall: the story of Spirit Halloween bear and lampshade: an electronic medley of Queen songs 

bear and lampshade: an electronic medley of hits from Queen

ghost with the most: the psychological profile of people who cut off communication 

carbon capture: a covalent organic framework that binds CO₂ in ambient air—via Damn Interesting’s Curated Links 

vội vàng: the legacy of Edgar Allen Poe in Vietnam  

extra-toppings: Pizza Hut is offering to print one’s CV on a box and deliver it (along with a pizza) to prospective employers—via Pasa Bon!   

the city of orion: Hannsjorg Voth’s monumental structures in the Moroccan desert like the Earth and sky—via Messy Nessy Chic

synchronoptica

one year ago: Bob Sinclair’s Stardust (with synchronoptica) plus a data-poisoning tool to fight against AI scraping

seven years ago: the typography of Vinicius Araujo, cheese in China, innovative underground maps, an underwater restaurant in the works, Japanese delivery boxes plus more presidential merchandise

eight years ago: problem-solving paradigms plus a thriving orchid

nine years ago: grand tours, assorted links to revisit plus a Lenin monument transformed

eleven years ago: German chancellor’s phone tapped

rota fortuna (11. 927)

Though limited in recognition to his home diocese of Pavia (Ticinum, the capital of the Kingdom of the Ostrogoths, officially Regnum Italiae, after Theodoric the Great killed Odoacer following the deposition of Romulus Augustulus—the final Western emperor and entombed alongside fellow philosopher Augustine of Hippo), Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius is fêted on this day, according to tradition on the occasion of his martyrdom in 544 AD, ostensibly put to death by bludgeoning for treason for his outreach to the court of Constantinople in attempts to harmonise their divert practises with the traditions of the Roman See (the Great Schism did not happen for another five hundred years) but likely for being critical of the extravagances and corruption of both. A senator, consul and advisor to Theodoric, Boethius came to age during the fall of the Western empire and well educated, fluent in both Greek and Latin, sought to reconcile the teaching of Plato and Aristotle with Christian theology, translating the entirety of the classics along with a great volume of glosses, commentaries and original scholarship, keeping the great thinkers . Imprisoned for a decade awaiting his sentence—also on the order of the king, Boethius completed his final and best known work, The Consolation of Philosophy, written in the style of Platonic dialogue and premised on the condemned’s fall from grace and questioning how injustice can prevail in a world governed by God, the author’s interlocutor is Philosophy represented by a wise and beautiful woman. In response, Lady Philosophy says that fate is a capricious thing and the only force not reduced to dust by this Wheel of Fortune (conceptualised as the cycle of history, both personal and on the macroscopic scale), a trope informing thought through the Middle Ages to the modern day.

kild by severall accidents (11. 926)

With casualty data drawn from the London weekly “mortality bill,” reporting on the causes of demise from most of the city’s parishes during 1665, Open Culture directs us to a morbid little diversion in a seventeenth century death roulette, which delivers the croupier (originally meaning rump or one who stands behind the gambler with extra cash reserve to back them up during play but now spins the wheel—that too originally a study in perpetual motion machines from Blaise Pascal) their grim fate. Given the state of medical science, the causes listed are vague at times and ring more like curses than disease but provides an engrossing glimpse at historical demographics and record-keeping (compare to this treasury of antique prescriptions and treatment plans that may or may not have improved one’s condition). Spin at your own peril and probably it is best to remain ignorant of what such terminal ailments like the riſing of the lights (lung disease, using the term for the organ as an ingredient), strangury (the inability to empty one’s bladder despite the urgent need to do so), surfeit (over indulgence), kingſevil (scrofula, an infection of the lymph nodes supposedly cured by the touch of the sovereign), etc. as those were that compiled these list. There was also the Plague and any number of environmental hazards.

technological redundancy (11. 925)

While I used to joke about most of us having jobs because these systems can’t talk to one another—and albeit there have always been keyboard macros and batch scripts and more recently sophisticated programmes, without the fraughtness of AI hallucinations after repetitive, reflex tasks—relatably getting bored at one point and surfing the internet, for more complex, multistep routines, news that Anthropic (makers of large language models Haiku and Claude) has publicly released a tool that can accept any number of procedures to finish tasks by looking at the contents of a screen, moving the mouse, clicking buttons and typing text. Though still being trialled in the wild, automation of menial jobs, quality-control and optimisation—if it proves effective (and more than hype and cheerleading) and relatively reliable could make a significant number of jobs that involve translating and transcription from one platform to another something of the past in terms of human labour.

 synchronoptica

one year ago: Happy Mole Day (with synchronoptica) 

seven years ago: assorted links worth revisiting

eight years ago: a mock crime scene real estate open house, the slowest, punch-cardiest computer in government, social media choking off news sources, more links to enjoy, a Trumpian typeface plus Brexit and Northern Ireland

nine years ago: nine life lessons distilled from years of reading plus history through flour-sack dresses

ten years ago: author Paul Auster