mandatory syria

Negotiated and ratified in secret in May of the same year, the Manchester Guardian published an invective report detailing the memorandum of understanding between Britain and French ambassadors Mark Sykes and François Georges-Picot (see previously here and here) on this day in 1917 regarding the partition of a soon to be defeated Ottoman Empire days after it was presented to the Bolshevik government of Russia, whom first exposed it to the public, the arrangement contingent on its assent. With parallels to the present and storied abandonment of the Kurds, the terms of the treaty amplified and circulated to the British readership, the government was embarrassment by its betrayal to the Arabs, whom had been promised an independent homeland in the Levant (which was not on the map) in exchange for their revolt that destabilised the Empire and precipitated a victory for the Triple Entente. The consequences of this line in the sand are still informing and shaping geopolitics more than a century later.

i want to destroy the passerby

Later included on their eponymous first album Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols, the band’s debut single Anarchy in the UK was released on this day in 1976. Giving voice to a generation of disenfranchisement and poor prospects, this anthem launched the genres of punk- and anarcho-rock, reclaiming and reshaping pop music from its nadir of blandness and timidity, called out in the lyric—“I use the enemy” or NME, the New Musical Express, a rather tame hit digest that would later come to champion the Sex Pistols and similar groups.

 

hanging chad

Though George Walker Bush would not be officially awarded the presidency until the Supreme Court issued its split-decision nearly a month after election day and halted ballot re-count, on this day in 2000 Secretary of State of Florida, Katherine Harris certified Bush as the winner, having purged many voters (felons and other disenfranchised individuals) from the rolls, narrowly defeating contender Albert Arnold Gore Junior and losing the overall popular vote but thus able to carry the majority of the Electoral College. Coverage of the debate and controversy cemented the colour-coding conventions of US political parties (previously), whereas prior media coverage had been inconsistent or idiosyncratic, often following UK schemes which portray conservatives as blue and liberals as red.

6x6

four-score: an exploration how the language of counting might influence numeracy

sundowning: museum visits as therapeutic interventions seem to ease symptoms of dementia

look, a fruit-loop: the actual libretto—you’ve been singing Dies Iræ all wrong (see also)

satellite nyetwork: a retired gentleman elaborately decorates receiver dishes informed by traditional Russian folk art, via Nag on the Lake

dataviz: Information is Beautiful curates the year’s superlative infographics, via Kottke’s Quick Links

zero-to-sixty: a century of evolving European motorways as part of the Victoria & Albert’s series on Accelerating the Modern World, via Things Magazine 

musical instrument digital interface

Unless you’re backup keytar, strings and frets are usually the essential parts of the instrument, the exception being this rather clever barcode guitar from designer and musician James Bruton. Scanning chords across the four necks feeding information to a MIDI synthesizer, Bruton is able to create some interesting sounds and shares how you might be able to create something similar.

low poly

In addition to the all-terrain mobile unit as an accessory to Elon Musk’s newly released prototype Cybertruck—which people joke looks like a computer rendering from a time when graphics processing with polygon mesh (see also) wasn’t nearly so advanced as it is presently—will have the optional package outfitting the cargo bed as a pop-up camper for exploring the actual outdoors and not CGI side-scrolling.
What do you think? Critics are bashing the design, forgetting about the experimental wedged wonders of the Italian automotive tradition that were all the rage not so long ago, but we’d seriously support getting such a car for our next vehicle—especially considering a range of nearly eight hundred kilometres to a charge and over-engineered performance that allows the truck to zip about faster than finest luxury cars, not to mention the target price that’s half of the suggested manufacturer’s asking-price.

lama glama

Via Pasa Bon! we are treated to designer and carpenter Ashley Fuchs’ Llama bookcase with detailed instructions on creating one of your own with some plywood and a jigsaw. I think the project and figuring out the pattern would also be an intensive study in llama anatomy, heel, fetlock, pastern, elbow, flank, barrel, gaskin, hip and hock. More library bookshelf and bookshelf-adjacent ideas curated here too.