supper mario broth (11. 954)

Via ibīdem, we are acquainted with the indisputable number one fan of the Nintendo franchise lore, who in gratitude for a kindred community that rallied to their support during trying times that threatened to shut down the whole project produced a primer of some of the very footnoted, well researched deep dives into the mythos, with news, concept art, outtakes, spin-offs, side-quests, cross-overs, biographies and bonus-rounds. Manual and memoir, whether or not of that cadre, certainly worth the visit.

extended character set (11. 953)

Finding the diglossia between written and spoken Japanese and Chinese languages to be a highly engrossing topic, we really appreciated being directed to this essay on what’s been termed “character amnesia”—coined and studied by our friend Victor Mair from Language Log for the past decade—from the universal and age-old lapse called ‘lift the pen and forget the character’ (提笔忘字, tíbǐwàngzì). Given over thirteen-thousand glyphs (four-thousand required for basic proficiency) and the relatively high learning-curve, various attempts (with varied success and reception) have been instituted for reform—<from the introduction of an alphabetic script to character simplification, reducing the complexity and number of brushstrokes, though literacy rates for mainland China and Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macao (that maintain the classical characters) are about the same. Hanyu Pinyin (漢語, spell the sounds) was formalised and introduced post war to facilitate trade and teach standard Chinese to non-Sintic speakers (see also) and unlike previous systems of phonetics accorded for tonal qualities and aided the nation’s transition into the digital age—but with the drawbacks that come with outsourcing one’s knowledge and the code-switching of such short-cut keys. The article compares it to the recognition of the treble clef (🎼) plus an array of symbols used alongside out activity of composition and committing ideas to the page, which typing reinforces, whereas the others must be learnt and it would be a challenge to draw such a symbol from memory—plus the lost art of penmanship. The pictured shopping list from Mair illustrates the tip-of-the-tongue frustration with the person who jotted down these items eventually giving up, and I can attest to doing the same forgetting the English or German—Kuchenrolle paper towels. Perhaps rallying against the inevitable (though a worth fight to choose), the government of China is trying to combat amnesia through a variety of programmes, including a rather tense, televised game show competition to render characters correctly, as nerve-wracking as a spelling-bee with the contradictory, inscrutable conventions of English.

i’m feeling lucky (11. 952)

A court in Moscow has imposed a symbolic fine of ₽2 undecillion (around $20 decillion, a thirty seven digit figure that far exceeds all the money in the world but still magnitudes less than a googol) on the parent company of search engine Google and YouTube for blocking seventeen of the country’s media outlets and news channels following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, to curb the spread of disinformation and propaganda. The calculation comes from an original ruling that penalised the company with one hundred thousand roubles per day (around a thousand dollars) per plaintiff that the channels were not restored, doubling weekly—hence the exponential growth—for non-compliance. Youtube remains available within Russia though threats to ban it for not showing state-controlled broadcasts remain on the table. For its part, Alphabet is not to concerned about on going litigation.

floating instrument platform (11. 951)

Originally launched in 1962 by the Scripps Institute of Oceanography and the US Office of Naval Research and decommissioned since 2017, the R/P FLIP, the vessel (see previously) designed to partially flood its ballast and capsize to pitch it backwards ninety degrees, was headed to the scrapyard but has now been saved and will see a second incarnation as an environmental research ship. Past studies included whale behaviour, ocean turbulence and effects on intensity and directionality of underwater acoustics—presumably to track the movement of submarines—see also. The engineering marvel able to reorient its labs ninety metres under the surface and shield experiments from the wind and waves is being purchased by DEEP, a private consortium devoted to exploration and developing subsea habitats, and is being retrofitted in France. More from the CBC at the link above.

9x9 (11. 950)

hotwired: an oral history of Wired! magazine and the choices made with its 1994 launch—via Kottke 

enjoy it while you can: duo forms political action committee to appeal to inconsistent voters through ads on porn sites

affaire des poisons: a murder scandal with accusations of witchcraft in the court of the Sun King, Louis XIV  

nutty narrows: a catenary suspension bridge built over a busy road in Washington state to give squirrels safe passage 

oh brave new world with so many goodly creatures: Uranus’ moon Miranda may harbour a subsurface ocean 

la jetée: an influential time-travel movie made of still images  

scope of practise: a new museum dedicated to the paranormal and Victorian spiritualism opens in Carmarthen’s Penuel chapel 

if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed: a terrifying theory on the truth behind Trump and Johnson’s ‘little secret’ that defers the election to 11 December  

ghost jobs: banking resumes for vacancies that don’t really exist are haunting already demoralised tech workers

synchronoptica

one year ago: Three Wishes for Cinderella (with synchronoptica), McDonald theogony plus assorted links to revisit

seven years ago: books and things, art entrêpots plus assorted links worth revisiting

eight years ago: US sending troops to Norway to counter Russian aggression, mobile office space, high-fives plus synthehol

nine years ago: esotericism in the Third Reich plus advances in fusion power

ten years ago: Rome abandons the West

lay all your blood on me (11. 949)

Writer, actor, musician (multi-hyphenate) and Youtuber Brian David Gilbert, in addition to making a comedy musical out of Stranger Things (Stranger Sings), has released a series of classic monster themed ABBA covers under the label AAH!BBA. His scariest video, by critical and popular consensus was entitled Earn $20K Every Month by Being Your Own Boss in October of 2020, though we think the accolade ought to go to a 2022 overview of the US health care industry.  Check out the artist’s website at the link above to discover the whole anthology.

the candy man (11. 948)

On this day in 1974 in Deer Park, Texas, optician and Baptist deacon Ronald Clark O’Bryan poisoned his eight year old son Timothy with a Pixy Stix laced with cyanide, ostensibly collected during neighbourhood trick-or-treating, to collect on a life-insurance claim and ease the family’s financial difficulties, O’Bryan having accumulated one-hundred thousand dollars in debt having problems holding a job longer than six-months and defaulting on several loans. While fears over tainted Halloween loot and accepting candy from strangers had been on the minds’ of parents beforehand, this gruesome, callous and senseless murder has perpetuated anxieties and is why candy is x-rayed for razor blades and carefully inspected for signs of tampering. Despite trunk-or-treat, the only occurrences have been cases of filicide with parents pretending it was the work of some mad poisoner. In order to make his crime seem plausible, O’Bryan and his son and daughter accompanied their neighbours and their children on the outing, and visited an apparently vacant house. No one answered the door and having grown impatient, the party left with O’Bryan catching up a few moments later, producing five packets of the sweet and sour powered confection that one pours into one’s mouth. Saying that they came to the door, O’Bryan distributed them amongst the children. On returning home, O’Bryan urged his son to eat some of the candy, claiming he chose the Pixy Stick—an unlikely first choice. Less than an hour after consuming the poison, a dose large enough to kill three adults, the son died, convulsing on the way to the hospital. The other children had not touched the poisoned candy (again, garbage candy). There was panic nationwide over the possibility of poisoned treats and investigators did not suspect O’Bryan initially, until his story began to fall apart—none of the homes in the two block radius of their trick-or-treating had given out Stix (...) and eventually locating the house with authorities that was slow to answer, O’Bryan maintained that the door only opened a crack and a man’s hairy arm emerged with the deadly candy but in implicating the owner, an air-traffic controller who had been working late that evening and had a solid alibi, police began to doubt his version of events. Undertaking a thorough inspection of his accounts and career history, authorities learned that O’Bryan was about to be dismissed from his current job and hid assets were on the verge of foreclosure and repossession—plus the high value of the policies he had taken out on his children and the purchase of two kilograms (the smallest unit of sale) of potassium-cyanide. O’Bryan was sentenced to death (given the title monicker and “the Man who Ruined Halloween”) and a decade later was executed by lethal injection.

synchronoptica

one year ago: International Savings Day (with synchronoptica)

seven years ago: a mythological horror plus the CIA and wax museums

eight years ago: campaign music, phreaking and toll-fraud plus Tales of the Unexpected

nine years ago: pale blue dot plus the hunt for the tomb and treasure of a Visigoth king

ten years ago: a prototype ambulance drone

 

if you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two impostors just the same (11. 947)

This is premium advice from Better Living through Beowulf. Though I did cancel our subscription over the decision for a non-endorsement and this is no apologetic for the owner’s behaviour, we could be swayed to rejoin by one disappointed but not defeated columnist’s argument that cites not only the accolades that the publication has been awarded and the as yet relative newsroom independence that the paper has enjoyed (the agnostic Bezos is no Musk and the Washington Post is no vanity project) but also the stoical 1895 poem “If—” by Rudyard Kipling—not only as a stance and signal for freedom of the press but moreover a way to combat election anxiety:

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
    And stoop and ‘em up with worn-out tools…

“If you can keep your head when all about you  /  Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,” recalls those above false councillors are not the ultimate arbiters and no victory or defeat is ever final; the struggle goes on and we have work to do.