From the relatively contemporaneous neologism developing apace with electrification, the term which historians employ to describe the system that Adolf Hitler used to impose totalitarian coordination and control over all aspects of German society within the constitution bounds of the Weimar Republic—from the press, to the economy, to culture and education—and refers to the conversion of alternating to direct current, technically rectification or phasing—it is usually translated in the socio-political sense of Nazification as “synchronisation” or “bringing into line.” The Nazis adopted similar terminology, like Ausschaltung, the act of switching off, the deletion of anyone counter to this fusion of party and state. 
Enabled by a series of laws enacted following Hitler’s election as chancellor in the space of nineteen months that undergirded various orders and decrees: measures include the declaration martial law following the burning of the Reichstag that suspended civil liberties and the media outlet, a cover for voter intimidation and suppression of opposition parties ahead of the general election; the formally titled “Law to Remedy the Distress of the People and the Reich” suspending parliament and giving the executive the power to pass legislation without them—called the Enabling Act, Ermรคchtigungsgesetz; deploying chancellery-appointed governors in each constituent state to reconstitute local legislatures according to ballots cast in the above 5 Match 1933 elections; the Law for the Restoration of a Professional Civil Service which dismantled the bureaucracy. Later supplemented by the Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda to promote Nazi values and prejudices through clubs and associations (infiltrating existing ones and establishing compulsory membership in new ones) and oversee news and entertainment, and industry and trade unions were also aligned. Those whose loyalty was deemed unimpeachable, regardless of station or influence, were rewarded with the Kraft durch Freude (Strength through Joy) programme with vacation resorts, hobbyists groups, vocational opportunities and motor clubs, leading to the building of the Autobahn network and the Volkswagen—which also aided in the perception that they were bolstering the German economy through make-work initiatives.
Tuesday, 15 April 2025
gleichschaltung (12. 393)
glass menagerie (12. 392)
Seattle Windshield Pitting Panic is considered to be a text-book example of mass delusion—sometimes mislabelled as mass hysteria, classed with near contemporary occurrences like Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds broadcast—propagated by rumour, mis- and disinformation and mass media when residents of the Washington capital and surrounding communities were invited to closely examine their cars’ windshields and discovered them to be scored with previously unnoticed pits, dents and dings. I recall getting out of a movie once with a lot of car-bombings and in the parking lot of the theatre was inspired to check below the steering column and was petrified to feel a bundle of wires—though quickly calmed down once I realised that I had never before poked around down there. Originally suspected to be a rash of sabotage or vandalism, but the scale and scope quickly lead to other theories arising beyond a conspiracy of hoodlums, sourcing the normal weathering to a range of agents from sand flea eggs hatching, cosmic rays, a nearby large radio transmitter operated by the navy, UFOs, a shift in the Earth’s magnetic field to fallout from nuclear testing. As damage reports preoccupied police, a committee of scientists from the state university was called together to survey cars on campus and compare to reported incidents. Concluding the wear and tear was the result of average road-use, calls to the police abruptly dropped off two days later.
Monday, 14 April 2025
9x9 (12. 391)
field of vision: the evolution of eyes branching out as on a tree of life
land-grant college: the federal-funding based model for American post-secondary education is based on a deliberate post-World War II decision to outsource expertise and experimentation rather than compartmentalise it within government consortia
habeas corpus: relenting to the idea that some people have no rights is siding with authoritarianism and hoping you aren’t next
under construction: transform any modern website a late 90s GeoCities masterpiece—via Clive Thompson’s Linkfest
thank you easter bunny—bwak, bwak: more on the controversial, re-constructed, retcon of the holiday mascot
⌂: the tiny house in the middle of IBM’s eight-bit character set, adopted by PC clones with the 1981 Code Page 437—see previously—and its possible relation to Blissymbolics
rinki-tink in oz: deportation and administrative oversight in L Frank Baum’s paracosm
uniwersytet latajฤ cy: US institutions higher education can defy Trump’s crackdown by outreach and going underground, as Polish universities did under Communism—via Kottke
recaptcha: corvids demonstrate surprising mental acuity for identifying outlier shapes and geometric regularity—via MetaFilter
synchronoptica
one year ago: St Liduina (with synchronoptica) plus assorted links worth revisiting
seven years ago: US refusing Syrian refugees, American kakistocracy plus some local prehistory
eight years ago: bunking busting bombs, the White House Easter Egg Roll plus a grim future vision of US national parks
nine years ago: animated viruses, solar sails, more chatbot failures plus a walk from Wiesbaden to Mainz
eleven years ago: Ukrainian break-away republics
Sunday, 13 April 2025
kitchen sink realism (12. 390
The production team behind the difficult Netflix series Adolescence about incel culture has announced it will reboot the incredibly bleak Cold War mini-series Threads (see previously, see also), aired in 1984 that depicted Sheffield harrowed by a nearby nuclear strike. BBC documentary filmmaker Mick Jackson, behind the original screening will participate in crafting episodic drama which the network feels whose time has sadly returned four decades on.
not magic—it’s all done with mirrors (12. 389)
Via MetaFilter, we thoroughly enjoyed this latest music video from OK Go (previously), for a song with the generic title Love, that features rather than CGI an amazingly choreographed array of industrial robots that the singers interact with precise timing to create one four minute continuous, kaleidoscopic shot (one can see more on the making of the spectacle here though the execution is transparent and no less upstagingly mind-breaking for it). It was filmed in the Keleti (Eastern) train station of Budapest.
freelandia (12. 388)
Not to be confused with the micronation formed by the terra nullis of along the borderlands of Serbia and Croatia but apparently both inspired by the Fredonia of the Marx Brothers’ Duck Soup, courtesy of Weird Universe, we are directed toward the ascend and crash of the alternate airline conceived by young venture capitalist Kenneth Moss and in operation from from 1973, folding the next year after only fifty flights due an unsustainable business model. Those few passengers, however, the experience was one of a kind and never again to be emulated by even the most exclusive luxury air-carriers. Cashing out of the stock market at the right moment, Moss found himself incredibly wealthy and sought to do something fulfilling with his life. After a brief and abortive stint as a holy man in Spain failed, Moss returned to California and brainstormed with his future business partner Darcy Flynn about a sojourn to Bali, musing it would be nice to have a whole retinue of friends and like-minded people coming along, just as one might plan a caravanning road-trip. 
After a year, Moss and Flynn secured landing rights at major airports from the US Federal Aviation Administration, bought a used Douglas DC-8-20, secured a well trained pilot and cabin crew, avoiding high airport surcharges by declaring it to be a travel club instead of a commercial airline and positioned itself as a no-profit with all after-cost proceeds going to worthy causes, like food banks and free clinics. Fare prices, offset by annual membership fees of fifty dollars, were about one third the price of tickets offered by major carriers. Voting on destinations by ticketed passengers, even with rather epic stories of en-route changes of course with a scheduled flight from Newark, New Jersey to Brussels adding a stop-over in Rome and a second one in Bangor, Maine for a lobster dinner, future itineraries were planned including round the world-trips ($400 per passenger) but financial difficulties had already begun as it was a problem to fill flights. This proved to be a problem despite the well-appointed interior of the jet, no class distinction, most of the banks of seats removed and replaced with oversized pillows fitted with safety harnesses, waterbeds and an arcade with home-cooked organic fare on the menu—and surely over favours to create a cross-continental party. Stewards were outfitted in black and creme berets and donned uniforms reminiscent of Flash Gordon. Unable to fill sets and with the oil crisis making cheap flights untenable, Freelandia went out of business and was sued for false advertising.
kvinnan med handvรคskan (12. 387)
Photographed on this day on 1985 in Vรคxjรถ by journalist Hans Runesson features the subject of Danuta Danielsson protesting against a Neo-Nazi rally with her handbag, captured at a decisive moment of resistance when Communists were prepared to deliver their rebuttal to Nordic Realm Party supporters and drove out the latter, the residents driving them to hide in the train station toilet until authorities transported them away. Danielsson was of Polish Jewish heritage and her mother survived internment in a concentration camp during the Holocaust, but kept her identity anonymous until 2014 when a number of statues were proposed and commissioned illustrating her act of defiance.
one year ago: a self-righting ship cabin (with synchronoptica), a return visit to a local castle plus the cats of the Mexican presidential palace
Saturday, 12 April 2025
tabella defixionis (12. 386)
Popular and widely employed during Greco-Roman times well into the Christian era, curse tablets (ฮบฮฑฯฮฌฮดฮตฯฮผฮฟฯ—a binding spell) were often discretely or surreptitiously buried with the dead to settle a grudge with surviving competitors over business and romantic affairs and even among rival sports teams as a way to petition the chthonic gods or place spirits to compel malediction for the after life. 
Like the cache of twenty-two curses recently discovered in an ancient cemetery near Orleans, the most common media was thin lead scrolls as due to their malleability could be easily inscribed and were also an element associated with the underworld deities. What makes this particular discover unique is that one grave contained a curse written in Gaulish, the vulgar language of the region in common parlance (though really preserved in written form) for centuries after the Roman conquest. Because of the paucity of documentation for Gallo-Roman translating is a challenge but there is a another class of curse tablets called Voces mysticae (vox magica) which do not seem to be rendered in any known language and are a secret invocation that only demons can decipher—with scholars teasing out palindromes (previously here and here) and boustrophedon. Much more at The History Blog at the link above.
