test audience

Having recently indulged the imagination by envisioning how iconic film directors might stage a meal presentation in their signature styles, we appreciated Open Culture’s showcasing of the very non-hypothetical compilation of television commercials (previously) created by David Lynch. Some were targeted for specific markets only, like advertisements for a very early incarnation of canned coffee in Japan featuring the cast of Twin Peaks (including the Log Lady) and a duly disturbing anti-litter public service announcement for New York City, but there are also some pretty anodyne and universal ones as well.

i would return to criticism that it wasn’t good enough—that i should have gotten saint petersburg in addition

After reducing relations between the United States and its NATO partners to the worst state since the founding of the alliance (calling the EU a “foe”), Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin convened for a private meeting in neutral Helsinki.
Uncertain about objectives or talking-points, I think that this event was orchestrated not only to inflame Europe but also to disrupt (maybe primarily) Amazon Prime Day—to uncut the press outlet owned by the same entities, which Trump again called the enemy of the people. In his preamble, Trump made no mention of the annexation of Crimea, treatment of dissenting voices, the proxy-wars in Syria and Iran or the broad subterfuge operation directed in order to skew outcomes in the US presidential and other elections as cause for tensions but instead choose to blame “many years of US foolishness and the stupidity, and now the Rigged Witch Hunt!” for strained relations characterised as never worse—eliding over the entire history of the Cold War and dashing hopes that Trump will make any demands of his Russian counterpart or again don the mantle of leadership befitting a super power, rather than stooping to elevate tyrants.

relativistic astronomy

Ambitious projects like Breakthrough Starshot (previously)—which aims by means of a laser propelled solar sail to achieve a velocity of twenty percent of the light-speed and to reach the nearest star system to our own, Rigel Kentaurus, within two decades—could yield unimaginable scientific data even prior to arriving at their destination, as Universe Today reports, by demonstrating what traveling at low-warp looks like to for the vessel and payload of instruments.
In other words, the voyage itself becomes a practical exercise for the thought-experiment of imagining what a photographer finds in the scope of a camera accelerating to such speeds.  It’s difficult to say how much distortion that this so-called method of Doppler boosting might have, but the speed of the probe should result in observations that overcome—to a degree—the predominating red-shift (caused by cosmic expansion) and turn the light of distant stars bluer and to ranges easier to measure, bringing our picture of the Universe into sharper focus.  Furthermore, testing some of the tenets set forth in the theory we would be wiser for the journey, either reinforcing or causing us to revise our understanding of the Cosmos.

he told me i should sue the eu

purl 2.0

We were delighted to discover that among the wide array of peripheral devices and accessories (previously) for Nintendo’s range of video game consoles included a full-sized, functioning sewing machine, manufactured by the company Jaguar and licensed by Singer, that plugged into the Game Boy Colour handheld and could be programmed to produce elaborate stitches and embroidery—as well as learning a practical skill.
It would have been pretty keen to monogram all one’s clothes. There’s a really in depth and well-researched video documentary of the sewing machine’s history, available in Japanese, European and America markets back in 2001. A fitting sort of homage to the fact that the first punch card readers were used in industrial looms to produce increasingly sophisticated textiles and patterns, there was also a video game (apparently only for domestic markets) called Mishin Sashi Senyou (みしん さし せにょう, Let’s have a Seat!) Soft: Mario Family that was a sewing sampler challenge of Mario Brothers goodies and baddies.