billions and billions

Writing for The Atlantic, correspondent Adrienne Lafrance share her extensive and dogged research in solving a mystery she encountered while studying the resurgence in interest in the Voyager programme, those two message in bottles dispatched and committed to the void four decades ago.
Generally, I am not one to hold others in suspense but I also don’t want to spoil the surprise that’s revealed in an excellent crescendo of engineering ingenuity and curating the gallery of sounds and images that will our ombudsmen to a future alien civilisation. The Golden Records, whose makers believe that if the crafts are not catastrophically destroyed will be playable in the for at least the next billion years, contain a sampling of Earth sounds meant to convey a sense of culture and the ecology of the planet. Many of the Foley artists are credited and known (go to the link to hear the whole album) but not for the voice behind the genuine laughter close to the beginning. The investigation teaches a lot about the production of this mission and the identity of the laugher shows that Voyager was not just a scientific expedition but also a cosmic and timeless love letter, which is probably the best sort of message to send out and hope that it’s a representation that we can live up to.

6x6

underground sundae: recreating the lost psychedelic commercial that Andy Warhol made in 1968 for a Manhattan family restaurant franchise

lad culture: Sir David Attenborough narrates a typical British night out

dumpster honey: revisiting a disturbing requiem for Nature in the Anthropocene epoch—and yes, it was the insecticides all along

chiaroscuro: stunning night time photographs of Japanese playground equipment

cubismo: Spanish street artist Belin produces hyper-realistic graffiti portraits that evoke Pablo Picasso’s elements of cubism and the surreal

alive, son of awake: a look at the tradition of fantasy and speculative fiction of the Muslin world that precedes European Romanticism by centuries

ehe für alle

Of course there’s pragmatism and politics behind the passage of equality of marriage for everyone as some wonkier kill-joys are pointing out but it’s also pride month and the Chancellor herself states she had a change of heart by an encounter with an inspiring lesbian couple (despite voting against the measure) and there has been overwhelming public support for the issue for a long time.
Critics are not particularly upset with the issue at hand and knew it was inevitable to join the rest of the European community where it’s already been legalised for some time: Denmark (with the exception of the Faroe Islands), Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, the Netherlands, France, Belgium, Spain, Luxembourg, Portugal, Ireland and the UK (minus Jersey and Northern Ireland)—but rather because by reaching out to her opposition, the Chancellor is making politics too boring by defusing any real stakes and ensuring she holds onto office due to voter apathy. That’s strange logic but the measure nonetheless that passed with typical German efficiency insofar as it was not even on the legislative agenda until earlier in the week.  Though civil union status has been accorded to same-sex couples in Germany since 2001 and extended most of the benefits and rights of matrimony to same-sex partners, being equal in the eyes of the law creates uniformity in inheritance, taxation and adoption. Gut gemacht, Deutschland!

hug of death

In a brilliant encore to the outlet’s most popular post from a year ago on telephone number trivia and other artefacts of the exchanges, Tedium expounds on more weirdness—for American audiences, to be found be found on the line. Ranging from the history behind automated services, like dialling a number to get the time and temperature (which people could not get enough of and often broke the switchboards), familiar operator voices, to unusual numbers to call (mostly the antecedents for humourous 404 landing pages) and how one used to request web pages by facsimile, the article covers a lot of ground and offers a lot of avenues for further investigation and entertainment.

snake-oil

As Quartz magazine reports, no matter where one is on the political spectrum, Americans are still united in quackery. An analysis of ingredients show that most of the “wellness” products hawked as advertising marginalia on the websites of both left- and right-leaning propagandists are the same—just packaged and touted differently.
This natural and mostly unproven, untested pharmacopœia is derived from Ayurvedic herbs, exotic minerals and obscure mushrooms and make pretty dubious, miraculous claims. Any of us want would want a shortcut to achieve our better self—and perhaps the popularity of alternative treatments is grounded in the precarious state of healthcare in America (though by no means do they monopolise the market on gullibility) and has ylang-ylang punching above its weight—but the shortcomings or successes of arriving at a goal without taking the necessary intervening steps can From colloidal silver to nascent iodine, explore in depth how the differing “nourishing tonifiers” and tonics are able to cross the aisle and bridge the political divide.

le tiers état

Graciously the President of France has invited Dear Leader to Paris for Bastille Day celebrations, which he and his wife will join after his meeting with Russian leadership in Moscow.
Both couples will attend the traditional military parade that takes place on the Champs-Élysees, which will include American troops this year to commemorate the centenary of the US entry in World War I. The revue and joint honours aside, the charity of Macron really strikes me as something really extraordinary—and not just in comparison to the imperial idiocy and ignorance of his guest, given that 14 July not only marks a revolutionary break with the past that did away with feudalism and fealty but also solemnly one year after the horrific truck attack on crowds celebrating their national fête and the World Cup finals along the Promenade des Anglais in Nice.

bromide

Via Boing Boing comes a very timely and tangible example of how dangerously destructive Dear Leader’s minions can be with his top environmental officer swayed by industry to rollback regulations that prohibited use of a pesticide that was originally developed during World War II for chemical warfare.
Despite the fact that dozens of scientific trials have demonstrated that the substance causes brain damage in young children and would drive hundreds of precarious species to extinction, the EPA administrator took the recommendations of the company’s corporate directors (who have brought us such delights as napalm, dioxins and leaky breast implants, but since they donated a million dollars to Agent Orange’s inauguration, everything’s OK) under advisement and reversed prevailing regulations. If the going-rate for influence is such a paltry sum, I wonder that there’s not more fawning, flattery and vying for attention.

the second arrow

Writing for Big Think, correspondent Philip Perry introduces us to the Buddhist parable of the second arrow—which has the simple exposition of walking through the woods and finding oneself suddenly struck by an arrow. This ambush is to be understood as an allegory for any unexpected misfortune, but the archer isn’t quite finished and has one more arrow in his quiver for us. The first strike was unavoidable but if we keep our wits about us and don’t collapse in an emotional heap, we can dodge the second volley and forego a good deal of extra grief. The visceral pain of the first arrow is rather inevitable but the suffering and sorrow (duḥkha) of the second is voluntary. Read more about the morale tale and Buddhism at the link up top.