Tuesday 19 March 2024

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 synchronoptica

one year ago: the history of paper shredding, more FOIA follies, the excavation of Knossos, Germany’s biggest union plus the Second Iraqi War (2003)

two years ago: assorted links to revisit plus Plagiarism Today

three years ago: more links to enjoy

four years ago: Spring is coming

five years ago: C-SPAN, Hitler’s orders to destroy Paris (1945), more links worth revisiting plus music for cheese

Monday 18 March 2024

7x7 (11. 435)

deadwooding: Banksy acknowledges authorship of a new mural bringing back some greenery to an aggressive prune tree in Finsbury Park  

subspace: an ultra high-definition video of a cat chasing a laser-pointer was beamed over thirty million kilometres to improve future video calls to the Moon and Mars 

running-stitch: beautiful embroidered portraits from Karola Pezarro  

deadspin: more on the internet’s undead, reanimated by private equity and name recognition—see previously, see more  

bunga bunga: Italy’s Foreign Press Association to move into former home of Silvio Berlusconi, who famously disparaged reporters as Communists  

honeytrap: Aphra Behn’s intersecting careers as a professional writer and spy  

sequoiadendron giganteum: imported by the Victorians as status symbols, Giant Redwoods (see also) are thriving in the UK at more than half-a-million and growing

eternal ascent (11. 434)

Via the Awesomer, we are directed to the latest 3D rendering challenge from computer-graphics designer Clinton Jones (see previously) soliciting from artists around the world to create a background and protagonist facing a seemingly endless climb. Working from the same template, it is amazing how each seconds-long clip in the montage, selected from the hundred best submissions, can do the heavy-lifting of world-building and stimulates the imagination to learn the character’s backstory and join this quest.

insatiable birdie (11. 433)

Via Miss Cellania, we not only learn the rather elegant physics and chemistry behind those sippy bird toys but also that researchers have given it an upgrade as a device to generate energy.

Sometimes mislabeled as a perpetual motion machine, the thirsty mechanism is a heat engine, two evacuated glass bulbs linked by a tube pivot on a crosspiece and turns the temperature gradient along the body into a pressure difference that translates to the mechanism. Water evaporates from the head (usually adorned with something absorbent like felt) and lowers the temperature and pressure and causes some of the vapour in the chamber to condense (usually ether, alcohol or chloroform) and the liquid is forced up the neck, causing it to tip forward. The ambient air temperature warms the bottom bulb and causes the cycle to repeat. The toy, originally called a Pulshammer was a German invention improved by Benjamin Franklin, after seeing one in action around 1768 and illustrates the principles of capillary action, wet-bulb temperature, heat of condensation as well as several laws of thermodynamics and idea gases and with the latest modifications also demonstrates the triboelectric effect (static electricity), harnessing it to power small appliances and seems overall like a pretty good educational apparatus, provoking thought while charging.  Who knew? More technical details and a video demonstration of the prototype at the link above.
 
synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links to revisit, Yugoslavian fashion plus climbing Everest (1923)

two years ago: more links to enjoy, two probes passing in the night, more shibboleths plus Arnold Schwarzenegger makes an appeal to the people of Russia

three years ago: RIP Yaphet Kotto, more links worth the revisit, Motown on tour (1965), mourning rings, fear of covering up plus the fashions of Birgitta Bjerke

four years ago: an iconic photograph from the battlefield (1942)

five years ago: Transit Driver Appreciation Day

Sunday 17 March 2024

wรผstungsperioden (11. 432)


Travelling a few villages over towards the former border, driving past some abandoned settlements, vacated owing to they’re being a liability too close to the boundary, we took another nice hike with the dog up to the ruins of Hutsburg on the summit of the Hutsberg, which also was a victim of its formerly strategic location and shifting allegiances.



On the way back, we stopped in Filke to revisit the so called Mauerschรคdel, another ruined remains, this time of early abandonment and then rendered inaccessible, like the above stronghold, during DDR times and its nave acting as the line of demarcation. 

 

you sad pocketbook of polluted purulence (11. 431)

Via Nag on the Lake’s always excellent Sunday Links, we are directed to a handy password generator created and coded by Ron Hardin that generates randomised phrases in the form of rather arch insults, which satisfies the hallmarks behind this top layer of security by being hard to guess, not readily susceptible to a brute-force attack and deliciously memorable, mostly alliterative, adhering to the techniques of champion memorisers. Especially if it’s work-related, it’s cathartic to hurl such aspersions into the void even if it is only for one’s benefit, aghast and empowerment—and are probably as secure as any alternative. See what scornful phrases you can come up with, you dear old harrowing can of cantankerous claptrap.

format cells (11. 430)

Though once deemed too dangerous to release to the public—though the verdict is still out—GPT-2 has been crammed into a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, as an AI heuristic tool offline and running locally to teach developers how large language models work and hopefully inspiring the next phase of improvement. Still working off the autocomplete, next token prediction principle that underpins all present chat applications, users input prompts in adjacent fields and the algorithm tries to triangulate a response, and interesting in a way that’s constrained and self-contained so that those experimenting might be able to debug themselves or understand how the sentence building went awry. The other uses that people have shoehorned into the accounting software are always pretty fascinating and the binary file is free to download. More technical details and a tutorial are at the file’s link and at Ars Technica at the link above.

riding the rails (11. 429)

Via Damn Interesting, the start-up Ironlev demonstrates that it is possible to achieve magnetic levitation on existing train routes, successfully testing a prototype vehicle on the Adria-Mestre line near Venice whose speed topped out at seventy kilometres per hour. No modifications were made to the track to accommodate the maglev test carriage, and given the network of underutilised and in some cases abandoned rail infrastructure linking all parts of the continent, the potential applications, despite technical challenges, are significant for efficient and quick transportation of people and goods. Aside from a levitating service run briefly in Germany (die M-Bahn) to supplement gaps left in public transit following the fall of the Berlin Wall until reunification and a few other proof-of-concept trials, there are only six operational lines in China, South Korea and Japan presently with the biggest expensive and barrier to expansion being the high cost laying new dedicated tracks.

 synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links to revisit, a Gloria Gaynor classic plus “All You Tories”

two years ago: Leipzig After-Hours

three years ago: Joseph of Arimathea, Lost Horizon (1973) plus vaccination campaigns as portrayed in movies and television

four years ago: a homecoming staged for the cameras (1973) plus the art of Edward Hopper speaks to pandemic isolation

five years ago: St Patrick in the Russian Orthodox Church plus The Fourth Dimension and the Bible (1922)