synchronoptica
one year ago: assorted links worth revisiting (with synchronoptica)
seven years ago: Enceladus, an exoplanet from 1917, US weapons sales plus Berlin’s beer brush tower
nine years ago: experiencing the forest as animals do, Frtiz Haber’s dreadful excellence plus how blood influences the brain
ten years ago: the fall of the Berlin Wall plus more linguistic studies
twelve years ago: Obama reelected plus more arithromania
Amid reckoning, quarterbacking and finger-pointing, supporters of Kamala Harris mourning her campaign’s loss following her sobering concession speech. Urging her voters never to give up, the 
harrowing hours between the closing of the polls, watching the precincts’ returns and ultimately the race going to Trump, resistance seemed to yield to reflection—as a collective amnesia waxed and waned about the consequences of elections, simultaneously forgetting and embracing the regression, chaos of the first Trump administration and the way it has hollowed out democracy and transformed the Republican party (the Democrats to held hostage to an extent to candidates not necessarily of their choosing) and returning to old grievances, distrust, deflection and xenophobia that never went away. It is a bleak time for the US and the world—the people of Palestine and Lebanon and Ukraine besieged and posed to be fully abandoned, America abrogating its responsibilities for environmental stewardship and of course emboldening other aspiring authoritarian regimes—and the best we can do right now is to be mindful of those in the most precarious situation right now subject to Trump’s policy agenda: the opposition, minorities, migrants and any of othered by allowing others to define us and write our narrative.
synchronoptica
one year ago: a collection of consumer electronics catalogues (with synchronoptica)
seven years ago: clockwise and counter-clockwise, mail-order meals plus therapeutic quilting
eight years ago: a shire to defeated campaigns
nine years ago: six degrees of separation plus assorted links to revisit
ten years ago: Kowloon Walled-City
Via Pasa Bon!, we are directed to the Italian scientist Isabella Dalla Ragione who scours medieval archives, cloistered orchards and Renaissance paintings for produce that has disappeared from daily cuisine to bring some diversity back to the table in the form of gnarled but hardy and delicious apples, pears, peaches, quinces, grapes and other forgotten heirloom fruit. Dalle Ragione’s family home 
with its ancient grounds has become a showcase and incubator for this effort as the interviewer acts as a docent through a quite remarkable gallery of art works that display this culling of an overwhelming abundance of cultivars down to monoculture, hoping to reverse the trend. With a little detective work, an amazing catalogue of outmoded varietals emerge from generally overlooked details, instilled themselves with symbolism and hence the importance of accurate representation to convey the message. Much more at the links above.
Guardian columnist Marina Hyde welcomes the arrival of the fifth of November, admonishing us to remember another guy—Guy that tried to blow up the whole system of government, quite literally even if Fawkes and compatriots might argue that the thirty-six barrels of gunpowder were a metaphor. Ultimately thwarted by an internal leak, a warning to a relative in the House of Lords on a piece of parchment—“that could have also been a social media post on X (which back in the seventeenth century was known as Twitter)” and publicly condemned by ye olde fake news media, the failed insurrection is a day of celebration for Britain.
McSweeney’s contributors have a selection of postings for US election day, finally arrived after a seemingly endless and surprising campaign which may still be far from over. There’s the usual advice columns and election day bingo plus this list of “I voted” stickers for voters outside of the narrow band of battleground precincts that have been receiving all the coverage and overtures by dint of America’s electoral college system and minoritarian rule. We’re sure they’ll be updates through the day.
synchronoptica
one year ago: assorted links worth revisiting (with synchronoptica), WoTY: AI plus The Sinister Urge
seven years ago: imaginative play
eight years ago: more links to enjoy plus election influence peddling
nine years ago: Hilbert Hotels, Rasputin’s daughter plus esoteric influences in aerospace
ten years ago: theorising language families, circadian rhythms plus urban algae
Illustrator Igor Karash reimagines the disassociation and chiaroscuro of Kurt Vonnegut’s classic 
Slaughterhouse-Five, following protagonist Billy Pilgrim’s time-jumps across a far-flung utopian planet, a mundane existence as a suburban eye-doctor and World War II Dresden during the fire-bombing. The commission coming as Russia began its invasion of Ukraine, Karash drew from his experiences of reluctant, ridiculous conscription and connections to a besieged land, finding Vonnegut’s message and mantra PEOPLE DO NOT LEARN FROM THEIR PAST particularly resonant—also drawing from his many readings of the author’s work, being available in translation in the Soviet Union by dent of his criticism of the West and anti-war message.
Fรชted on this day, following the sainted Milanese archbishop’s death in 1538, Carlo Borromeo, is celebrated for his reforms and the introduction of seminaries for the education of priests as a force, along with Ignatius Loyola, of the Counter-Reformation. Though we didn’t make it to his home town of Arona to see the colossal bronze created in his likeness during the seventeenth century on a recent visit to Lake Maggiore (at twenty metres tall, the world’s largest statue of the kind second only to the Statue of Liberty and hollow on the inside for visits up to the head), we did see some of his family’s other properties. Carlo’s patronage ranges from the obvious catechists and spiritual directors to the more obscure apple orchards and starch-makers and is invoked against a range of stomach diseases and digestive ailments.
synchronoptica
one year ago: a German supermarket chain allows customers trade worthless NFTs for coupons (with synchronoptica) plus leap minutes and seconds
seven years ago: electric VM mini-buses
eight years ago: statues celebrating women’s suffrawicker ge in the US Capitol, Tรผrkiye requests rendition of disloyals in Germany, a magazine for discerning sweater-wearers plus self-repairing materials
nine years ago: assorted links worth revisiting plus the wicker peacock chair
ten years ago: DNA is not life’s only blueprint, charivari plus the Fall of Rome
Coming into force six months later as an amendment to the Meiji Constitution of 1890, the current supreme law of Japan was promulgated on this day in 1946, drafted primarily by American civilian officials of the occupation after the country’s unconditional surrender. 
The document provides for certain fundamental human rights and the supremacy of the parliament (the national Diet, favouring the British model though eliminating peerage with the upper house, like the House of Lords, formerly restricted to the nobility), reducing the role of the emperor to a symbolic head of state with only a ceremonial role. Also referred to as the Peace Constitution (Heiwa-Kenpล, ๅนณๅๆฒๆณ), its composition was supervised by Douglas MacArthur with input from Japanese scholars and subject matter experts, Article 9 renounces the country’s right towage war or raise armies despite its military capabilities and sending forces in presence of a substantial American military presence. Sovereignty restored in 1952, attempts for further revision were frustrated over a number of legal hurdles and the requirements for change built into the system.
