day two hundred twenty one (13. 886)

Having ruled out further military attacks on Iran until after the 03 November elections, Trump tells a press gaggle that he has ruled out using a nuclear bomb on the Islamic Republic or committing ground troops—though deployments to the region increase. The president also tells reporters that the joint Israeli-US coalition may have gone too far in killing Iran’s leaders. Saudis and Houthis clash, each side intercepting the other’s drones with heavy shelling in the government capital of Aden. Chinese foreign ministry tells Israeli to open up Gaza immediately and reverse settlement policy in the West Bank. US secretary of state pressures Lebanon to confiscate weapons from Hezbollah. After ending sanctions on Russian diesel, the American president suggests he will unfreeze assets. Ukraine declares that the US is no longer an ally, vowing to destroy Moscow’s oil infrastructure, as Musk blames Trump for the slow-down of telemetry.

8x8 (13. 885)

name shame: nominative-antideterminism—see previously here and here  

wiener werkstätte: the greeting card grotesques of Rudolf Kalvach 

three steps off the coast: ten adventures celebrating a decade of travel blogging  

most favoured nation: the Amazon listing policy that locks retailers into their marketplace 

the naked zoo: the 1970 sexploitation film starring Rita Hayworth gets the Poseidon’s Underworld treatment  

voiceless postalveolar fricative: Filipino municipality of Sexmoán changed its name—see also  

pebete: eating through Wikipedia’s list of notable sandwiches—this time with World’s Fair fare of the 1873 Vienna Weltausstellung  

his mayorship: Hitler Mussolini Simeón Flores of Peru’s centre-left Ahora Nación party wins election in Queropalca

synchronoptica

one year ago: Brazilian vernacular graphic design (with synchronoptica) plus assorted links to revisit

two years ago: an incredible Trump rally plus a creepy featurette 

three years ago: mortgaged-money to fight inflation, Adelaide Hall plus the Battle of the Sinai (1973)

four years ago: most popular Halloween candy by state according to AI, a UB40 classic from 1988, the cemetery of Old St Pancras plus a menu à la carte

five years ago: assorted links to revisit, more unaired television pilots, Mouldy Old Dough plus dialling up the fright factor with AI

six years ago: more obscure and choice insults, a musical selection from Bronski Beat, more links to enjoy, Jack the Ripper’s From Hell letter, word nuance in cooking plus The Great Dictator (1940)

seven years ago: high-energy cosmic rays

eight years ago: a fun Star Trek musical mashup, more links plus discovering the convenience of public transport

 

day two hundred twenty (13. 884)

Following more dementia-laced claims, Trump posts that drilling will soon begin in our Greenland. Increasing surveillance and sinking more ships, Tehran vows to keep fighting until the US concedes to their conditions. The UN issues more warnings of a food crisis as as plans to allow shipments of fertiliser through the Strait of Hormuz stall. Houthi rebels are positioned to take the city of Taiz as residents caught in the crossfire of the civil war experience deteriorating conditions. After raids on her home, the Trump administration seeks to strip congressional representative Ilhan Omar of her citizenship and deport her. Russian attacks leave hundreds of thousands without power in Kyiv and Ukrainian forces find their military response hampered over throttling Starlink access. Israel blocks the construction of key base to house one hundred fifty international troops for Trump’s Board of Peace in Gaza.

9x9 (13. 883)

distressed assets: Disney to acquire chatbot that allegedly encouraged a fourteen-year old to commit suicide  

id 400: a profile of artist Tomoko Sawada’s self-portraiture 

forrester’s pictorial miscellany: the stilted knitting shepherds of Basque Les Bas Landes, a lovely rabbit-hole to tumble down 

nächster halt: digital train journeys with passing scenery from footage of the route—via Web Curios  

spruce wench: Tom Jones’ “Sexbomb” arranged as a chanson from the 1500s—see also  

please and thank you don’t cost a thing: the language for abusing machines is drawn from the human one  

step into the light: a longitudinal study on belief in the great hereafter—via Nag on the Lake 

space and place: the artwork of Ann Toebbe  

1up: a toxicologist tries to find out how and why amanita muscaria gummies exist—see previously here and here

synchronoptica

one year ago: Moog-artist Mort Garson (with synchronoptica) plus AI over-confidence and latent belief

two years ago: Pulp Fiction, a simplified LED typeface plus a mysterious visit from Mr Babbage 

three years ago: AI can unredact documents 

four years ago: Denmark plans a Synthetic Party led by an AI,  the first rail route in Japan (1872), more radio calling cards plus a song from English Beat

five years ago: Faust (1926) plus the architecture of Hélène Binet

six years ago: special meal requests plus more natic movements in plants

seven years ago: nominees for Word of the Year, Germany’s Mushroom of the Year plus New York City through an AI lens

eight years ago: the world’s first motion picture (1888),  Apollo 7 transmits from the Moon (1968), The Watersons, The Bells of Rhymney plus diplomatic tensions between the US and Turkey

 

day two hundred nineteen (13. 882)

As Trump issues apologetics for China and Russia over helping Iran, Kyiv sustains blows from Moscow without the usual pre-warnings from NATO. Houthi rebels report attacks in Sanaa on Yemeni petroleum infrastructure from Saudi-led forces—more airports and oil installations came under fire as the US leans on Ankara for protection. After a Bulgarian tanker was sunk in the Black Sea by a Russian submarine drone, Sophia recalls its ambassador.

sonnenobservatorium goseck und naumburg (13. 881)

Discovered through aerial photography of a wheat field whose cropmarks were particularly visible due to recent drought conditions in the 1990s and not disclosed to the public until archeological excavations were completed—having drawn the lesson from the nearby artefact, the Nebra Skydisk—in 2003, the Goseck Circle is a Neolithic enclosure, approaching seven thousand years in age and the oldest such solar observatory known in Europe. The reconstructed alignment just a few kilometres north of Naumburg near the confluence of the Unstrut and the Saale consists of wooden posts following the concentric rings of the structure’s foundations and has openings that mark sunrise and sunset on the summer and winter solstices. A tourism route, Himmelswege, links the circle to the Himmelsscheibe von Nebra and other astronomical archeological sites in Saxon-Anhalt.

The village also has an impressive eleventh century palace, built on the grounds of a secularised (previously here and here) Benedictine monastery, with the castle church dating back to its original founding.

On the way back to the campsite, we stopped at the main city of the region, Naumburg (previously), established in 1012 by the Margrave of Meissen at the crossroads of two important trade-routes, the Via Regia and the Regensburg Road and took in some more impressions of the Naumburger Dom Sts Peter und Paul and market square. The tenth century Late-Romanesque cathedral became the first see of a German Protestant bishop, remaining an evangelical parish to the present, in the course of the Reformation in 1542, whose later Gothic embellishments, including architectural and figural elements by an anonymous mason known only as the Master of Naumburg, have earned it a place on the UNESCO’s register of World Heritage.

synchronoptica

one year ago:  reprogramming government funding to dull the public pain of the US government shutdown (with synchronoptica), penmanship instruction plus more oblique strategies 

two years ago: university commas, Peabody visual aides, an out-of-season bloom plus Dungeons & Dragons as group therapy 

three years ago: assorted links to revisit plus unlucky thirteen  

four years ago: another MST3K classic,  the world’s first personal data protection law plus assorted links to revisit

five years ago: your daily demon: Focalor, The Style Council plus a psychedelic design collective

six years ago: a fashion show with puppets plus Witchtok community doing the Lord’s Work

seven years ago: the introduction of the Ampelmännchen (1961), more links to enjoy plus more mushroom finds

eight years ago: democracy by lottery, vintage Sainsbury’s packaging plus a music video from Bob Sinclar

 

day two hundred eighteen (18. 880)

Ignoring Trump“s unilateral truce (which the American president admits to fabricating) on energy infrastructure, Russian immediately strikes nuclear facilities at Kharkiv and Ukraine continues to lob missiles and drones at Russian oil fields and refineries. Kyiv also targets Yandex data centres, reportedly blunting disinformation bots’ activity with noticeably less campaign engineering than usual. Houthi rebels shut down Saudi airspace again and Iran, reputedly, disables Qatari natural gas exports. Ship-spotting suggests that Moscow is buying diesel from Tehran and selling it to America.

bad kösen, schulpforte, freyburg (unstrut), an der poststraße (13. 879)

 We went into Bad Kösen to explore the massive Gradierwerk (see previously here and here, a graduation tower—sometimes referred to as a thorn house that produces salt through evaporation, a tall wood frame structure that contains bundles of brushwood, blackthorn, encrusting the twigs with mineral deposits over time. The three hundred twenty five metre installation in a park on a hill at the top of the town dominates the skyline and is a nice promenade to stroll, the sea air having health benefits, saline continuously pumped in from a well station via an additional one hundred eighty metre Stangenkunst (a flatrod system driven by a water wheel). When the extraction of salt became no longer profitable, Bad Kösen, as many other spa locations, marketed itself as a health resort, aided by the rail line that runs through the town on the Leipzig to Erfurt route.

Next we went just a few kilometres further to see the campus of Schulpforte on the grounds of a former Cistercian abbey, named for its impressive Torhaus, gatehouse facing the road between Bad Kösen and Naumburg—secularised with the Dissolution of the Cloisters in 1543 and becoming the personal property of Duke Moritz of Saxony, an institute of higher learning was founded there, eventually as an agricultural school with the vast tracks of farmland enclosed. The religious buildings are still intact, it made of think of Hogwart’s from the Harry Potter franchise with students rushing to classes. 

 

Afterwards, we took a nice stroll across through the fields and pastures up to the foothills of the vineyards. The community of Roßbach has several wineries (Weingutter) with tasting and direct sales, but it being a Monday at the end of the season, most had closed up shop, even the automats empty, so we decided to drive a bit further to visit Freyburg on the Unstrut, a tributary of the Saale.

Overlooking the town from its high promontory is the fortress Neuenburg, constructed from the ninth through eleventh centuries, which remains mostly in its original condition. We parked on another high hill of Freyburg opposite with a view, next to the old photography studio since converted into a luxury hotel and wandered the streets of the Altstadt until we came to the headquarters and main manufacturing and distribution site of one of the world’s largest sparkling white wine producers, Rotkäppchen—now merged with Mumm’s since its acquisition by Canadian beverage giant Seagram’s. We had a drink and checked out the vistas of the Neuenburg and Unstrut valley below. On the way back, we passed the first fitness studio and mauseleum of the founder of the German gymnastics movement, Turnvater Jahn.

On the way back through Naumburg, we hit an unsuspected traffic snarl, discovering that the safety gate blocking the railroad crossing had not lifted in over an hour, and turned around for a lengthy detour back towards Bad Berka, taking us through the county, municipality called An der Poststraße (Along the Mail Route, the old post road between Leipzig and Kassel) for a nice drive through the countryside in during the autumnal Golden Hour, touring a string of villages along the road (see also), including Burgheßler with it 1493 Gothic Haus, a manor successor likely to a medieval castle for the local gentry—later used as a granary and warehouse by the locals.

synchronoptica

one year ago: a never-ending, generative Wikipedia (with synchronoptica) plus Edwardian scrapbooking

two years ago: assorted links worth the revisit 

three years ago: macroscopic seeds plus first kindergarten in the United States and its pedagogical method

four years ago: the lingua cosma of SETI, assorted links to revisit plus building the fake, composite bridges shown on euro bill

five years ago: typographical ornament, a plan for Italy to be annexed by the US plus Jesus Christ Superstar

six years ago: an AI makes memes, Free-Thought Day and other celebrations, a Khrushchev colouring book plus foliage studies

seven years ago: Étienne de Silhouette,  the founding of Iran plus social media’s sins of omission 

eight years ago: more links to enjoy, mapping returns on solar panels plus the miniature world Tatsuya Takana