fiscal forecast (12. 818)

As the shutdown of the US federal government drags on and Donald Trump appears far more interested in razing the White House, betraying the ranching community that voted him back in office by touting Argentinian beef over domestically sourced (added to the bailout of the peso to ensure that the Trump crime family has a safe space for exile like Nazis in hiding) and uncharacteristically, charitably silent for a few hours perhaps embarking on another Weekend at Bernie’s, Washington and Ontario have suspended trade talks over an advertisement aired on social media at the behest of the province’s premier which excerpted a portion of a 1987 speech by Ronald Reagan denouncing tariffs—counter-programming a series ran by Trump lauding their supposed benefits. Insisting that Reagan’s quote that “trade barriers hurt every American worker” was taken out of context and politicised (messaging also used by China), Marco Rubio, the secretary of state—charged with diplomacy but focused on economic issues and destabilising the government of Venezuela and who pointedly during the 2016 Republican primary debates called tariffs a tax on the American people—announced that negotiations have been put on hold, later echoed by the US president, calling the ad fake and fraudulent and declaring talks “hereby terminated.” Moreover the a group called the Reagan Foundation cried foul over the misrepresentation and is exploring legal options against Canada—to which Ontario released an extended version of the address—in the public domain—to differentiate it from Trump’s AI slop and distortions. This derailment comes ahead of the mandated six year reassessment of the NAFTA redux negotiated by Trump and the announcement of the Canadian federal budget, expected to emphasise a pivot away from reliance on its neighbour to the south.

kvennafrídagurinn (12. 817)

On this day in 1975, Icelandic women—some ninety percent of the demographic that makes up half of the population, went on strike for twenty-four hours for a showing of the indispensable place of women for the economy and society, organisers touting the action to protest wage disparity (a pay-gap of around sixty-percent less compared to male coworkers in the same profession) and unfair employment practises as Women’s Day Off. Participants called out of their jobs outside the home and also refused to do the added tasks of housekeeping or activities associated with child-rearing, many husbands having to do these chores for the first time. Whilst the international attention for the demonstration prompted legislative reforms and equal rights, the struggle continues half a century on and there have been other mass walk-outs (see also) and on the Friday closest to the anniversary, women are dismissed early, incrementally later commensurate with the progress made towards their goals from 14:05, 14:08, 14:25 and most recently 14:38 to quit at a time when they could have earned their daily wage had they been paid the same as men—the World Economic Forum’s global gender-gap index rating Iceland the most egalitarian country for the past sixteen years. Much more from Reykjavík Grapevine at the link up top.

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth the revisit (with synchronopticæ)

thirteen years ago: all the gold in Fort Knox plus the Stammtisch

fourteen years ago: the Phonetic Major System for better memorisation

fifteen years ago: impressions of Ireland

7x7 (12. 816)

east wing: for a nation that’s precious about conserving its precious little history, there’s not much outcry over Trump’s extensive remodel of the People’s House—see more  

west bank: US vice president and secretary of state angry over a bill advanced in the Knesset to annex the larger of the two Palestinian territories against Trump’s twenty-point plan  

parallax view: a glasses-free three-dimensional mapping demonstration 

fairytale of new york: a tribute to the recently departed Alfa-Betty Olson and her Sin City Fables  

schleicher’s pie: revisiting the constructed Proto Indo-European apologue—see previously  

yerkökü və çubuq: Russo-American summit in Budapest is cancelled and a raft of new sanctions are imposed on Moscow 

arc de trump: plans drawn up for a triumphal arch over the Potomac

yo, el tarot (12. 815)

Much in the same vein as these previous collected aphorisms can be a good sounding-board for creative thinking, so to is this form of storyboarding with the major and minor arcana as presented by filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky (see previously here and here) is a heuristic for self-discovery in the present rather than prognostication and his own narrative style of magical-realism. There’s an element of magical-thinking of course but things can sometimes manifest through insight. More from Open Culture at the link above.

*     *     *     *     *

synchronoptica

one year ago: AI learns to point and click (with synchronopticæ), London’s mortality weekly plus the life of Boethius 

twelve years ago: more diabolical architecture plus Russia cracks down on homosexuality

thirteen years ago: Germany losses a neighbourhood retail anchor 

fourteen years ago: artistic crucifixes, the tale of dread pirate Störtebeker plus superlative t-shirts

estrella de la esperanza (12. 815)

Altas Oscura’s Place of the Day directs to a cosmodrome located outside the village of Cachi in the northwestern Salta Province, an ovnipuerto, a landing strip for extraterrestrial visitors built by Swiss artist and traveller Werner Jaisli (*1949 - †2021) between 2008 and 2012 after an alleged alien encounter, claiming to have received telepathic instructions to come to Argentina and build the runway from local stones, bleaching them for greater visibility. In a Field of Dreams moment, Jaisli laboured on his Star of Hope (designated an architectural and heritage landmark by the provincial council of deputies in 2020) with the promise, “if you build it, they will come.” Residents refer to the construction the Swiss guy’s stars—“las estrellas del suizo.”

8x8 (12. 813)

vampira: the obscure made-for-television title by George Moorse with a atmospheric score by Tangerine Dream 

concrete progress: a demonstration project for turning the rubble of war torn Ukraine into cement 

overton window: a measured approach to AI—via Kottke—see also  

spoiler-alert: William Castle’s Homicidal, a hammy, gimmicky film capitalising on the success of Psycho, gets reviewed by Poseidon’s Underworld

 
atira asteroids: a constellation of interior-Earth objects in our orbit and hidden by solar glare are uncomfortably close—via Damn Interesting 

it’s awfully strange to make a decision where i’m paying myself—but i was damaged very great and any money i would get i would give to charity: Grifter-in-Chief demands two-hundred and thirty million dollars in restitution from the US department of justice for past convictions  

billionaires’ row: a supertall residential tower on Manhattan’s Park Avenue is riddled with stress-fractures that may lead to its condemnation

the vampyre: Lord Byron’s unremembered manservant who invented the modern form of the genre—via Miss Cellania

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links to revisit (with synchronopticæ) plus the Berlin Crisis of 1961

fourteen years ago: exploring the past with the Retronaut

project west ford (12. 812)

Though we’ve wrote quite a few times on the rather audious joint US Airforce-Massachusetts Institute of Technology mission (see previously here and here) to ensure the continuity of communications in the era before satellites in case of Soviet sabotage on underseas cables by seeding the upper atmosphere with a half a million copper dipoles to create an artificial ionosphere, the natural but unpredictable one being the primary sounding board for international correspondence via shortwave, we think the story bares repeating on the anniversary not of the deployment of the payload of “Westford needles” but rather on date that the first abortive experiment failed in 1961. After the initial set-back, it’s amazing that there was another trial.  Hundreds of thousands of tiny copper pins, thinner than a human hair (scaled to amplify target signals) in orbit would, as the theory went, would form a ring to collective provide passive support to a parabolic transmission dish located on the grounds of MIT’s multidisciplinary observatory. Carried aloft in tandem with the launch of a MiDAS 4 satellite the diodes failed to disperse. A second attempt in May the following year was successful. Though unknown at the time how quickly the needles would deorbit and that the debris field was temporary and diminishingly small, the secret experiment enraged the international community and although the fears of the a catastrophic grounding were unfounded, Project West Ford did prompt an inclusion of a consultation provision in the 1967 Outer Space Treaty.

synchronoptica

one year ago: airport geolocation codes and shared abbreviations (with synchronopticæ) plus Musk selling votes

thirteen years ago: a visit to Sigmaringen

fourteen years ago: Eurozone crisis talks plus more on digital rights management

sixteen years ago: diploma mills 

seventeen years ago: nostalgia and intellectual property 

 

8x8

tor’s cabinet of curiosities: a collection of weird hagiographies 

photographie de rue: photography student Lionel Derimais’ impressions of New York City in the winter of 1980 

non-generative ai: artist Pablo Delcan responds to human prompts  

canary in the coal mine: the collapse of US private equity firms echoes the collapse of the sub-prime real estate market that caused the Great Recession of 2008  

to catch a thief: reconstructing the Louvre heist  

grattacieli: the medieval skyscrapers of Bologna—see previously 

breaker one-niner: the computer industry’s first challenge from the US federal communications commission was over frequency interference for citizens’ band radio—see previously  

elevator pitch: podcasters debate listening to episodes at 2x speed