(12. 696)

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links to revisit (with synchronopticæ)

thirteen years ago: some castles of Mecklenberg-Vorpommern 

fourteen years ago: BUtterfield 8 

seventeen years ago: an Ersatz automobile 

nerikiri (12. 695)

Via Messy Nessy Chic’s latest turn around the internet, we are directed towards the traditional Japanese art of confectionary, wagashi (和菓子), through this seventeenth century sampler of sweet snacks. The designs of seasonal flowers, animals, cultural icons and landscapes emerged during the Edo period kneaded from bean paste and coloured and flavoured with sugar, yams and other ingredients.  Fuelled by a stable domestic supply in sugar (wasanbon, 和三盆), its cultivation encouraged by the shogunate, consumption of such finely crafted delicacies was no longer reserved for the wealthy. Over the centuries, signature styles and varieties were developed, and are classified primarily by moisture content as that factor affects shelf-life for the creations.

lexicon recentis latintatis (12. 694)

Regularly published by the Vatican, the title register refers to a list of neologisms invented for modern words and phrases so seminarians and priests can incorporate concepts into their not-quite-dead, working language. Examples include:

weekend: éxiens hebdómada
to slack off on the job: neglegenter operor
to flirt: lusorie amare
snack bar: thermopólium potórium et gustatórium
gangster: gregalis latro
pizza: placenta compressa
snob: homo affectatus

The Opus Fundatum in dictionary form was edited by classical philologist, Augustinian abbot primate and teacher Anacleto Pavanetto and published by the Libreria Editice Vaticana, the publishing house of the Holy See, established in the sixteenth century and becoming a self-governing entity in 1926, is responsible for printing educational material and official documents like papal bulls and encyclicals. The writings of the popes are copyrighted but the institution never laid claim to this intellectual property until the papacy of Benedict XVI (see below) to much controversy and consternation after a book debuted by an independent scholastic published that quoted lightly from the pontiff’s speeches. 

synchronoptica

one year ago: Howard Hughes’ private streaming service (with synchronopticæ) plus Putin in Mongolia

twelve years ago: staycations, reactions to the uncanny valley plus a prefiguring of internet etiquette

thirteen years ago: Bavarian castles plus Baden-Württemberg castles  

fourteen years ago: a papal audience plus a manufactured mountain for the Danish countryside

sixteen years ago: early versions of webpages 

noperthedron (12. 693)

Via MetaFilter, we get the chance to revisit our favourite seventeenth century admiral and polymath Prince Rupert of the Rhein through a geometrical conjecture of his, a wager unsettled mathematically at the time, which may have been disproven. Having whittled out two identical cubes, Rupert wondered if one could cut a square shaped hole in one of the objects and pass the other through it, without breaking the original structure—the unit cube. Extrapolated into triangle shaped holes in pyramids and other polyhedra (all the Platonic solids, hypercubes, etc) were later demonstrated to possess “Rupertness” and can be shoved through each other—regardless of material—the edges kept intact and will even accommodate a shape slightly larger. Not cutting corners exactly, this bit of transdimensional engineering, shadow-casting turns the two-dimensional square into a rectangle in relation to the three-dimensional cube. Demonstrating the property was a long-standing challenge but modelling has been made simple through 3-D printing—see also. Recent studies, however, have shown but nope that the title polyhedron, a truncated convex figure with ninety vertices, made specifically for disproving the supposed universal attribute, is said to be not Rupert

great* trust (12. 692)

Realising that that’s hardly the point of the proposed redevelopment scheme under the above acronym for Gaza Reconstitution, Economic Acceleration and Transformation, the suggestion of creating a US mandate charged with rebuilding the occupied enclave as a chain of high-tech megacities—in the spirit of the Line in Saudi Arabia, is the cover for large-scale ethnic cleansing and land appropriation, expelling the Palestinian population (given a digital token for their land, redeemable elsewhere) as Israeli forces gather for siege warfare on the population already dying from hunger and encroach further into the West Bank—though typical of Trump—the leaked prospectus being circulated looks so shoddy and grifty to be nothing more than a real-estate scam cooked up by the self-described business mogul himself for beach-front time-shares. It’s like getting irrationally angry seeing maps showing the Gulf of America, knowing that’s not the half of it, instead of how the USA would sell out Palestine and Ukraine and Taiwan if they stood to profit. The conceptual images are so poorly executed without even the hint of effort—the whole thing obviously slapped together by AI, like something generated by a ChatGPT knock off before the platforms were widely available—and worse betrays no familiarity with Palestinian geography or politics, only pandering to Israeli settlers’ ideas of manifest destiny and divine entitlement with the revealing subtitle from “From a Demolished Iranian Proxy to a Prosperous Abrahamic Alley” and includes an “Elon Musk” industrial estate.

invisible hand (12. 691)

As an appeals court affirms the decision of a lower court addressing the legality of Trump’s reciprocal tariffs—staying the enforcement until mid-October in order to give the administration the opportunity to appeal—jeopardising some hundred billion dollars in duties collected from exporters, which in reality is a tax on the consumer, that may need to be refunded, the presidency has meanwhile been taking another tactic on revenue-generation which some economists are acknowledging a generational shift away from free-market capitalism and some critics regard as a dangerous pivot toward socialism by MAGA and the conservatives. Of course the US economic landscape is ripe with subsidies and tax-incentives for choice businesses, engaging what outsiders may classify as protectionism for vital industries—and what America would definitely call barriers to trade and given domestic businesses an unfair advantage—and the US has become stakeholders in businesses beforehand—primarily with its bailouts and interventions for banks and automakers during the 2008 Financial Crisis and for small businesses during the COVID pandemic, but government ownership through a controlling share of a public company is a bit unprecedented in non-emergencies. First the US Defence Department bought stock in a rare-earth metals operation, then Trump conceded to a large microchip maker’s argument that sales of less advanced components to China would increase competition and innovation and most recently ten percent of chip maker Intel—the latter tech firms settling up with mildly extortive deals. Whilst not uncommon practice elsewhere with government invested in private industry, the US has generally eschewed such involvement, heralding the above free-markets (albeit the source of dissatisfaction for billions, exploitative and destroying the world) as the driver of progress and the hallmark of capitalism, and if the trend continues—and perhaps it should—one must come to terms with redefining what open competition means. Governments would be partial to businesses and bidders that they own in one way or another, and while previous administrations saw a significant return on investment with bailouts, grants and other aid but the public, aggressively attacked on other fronts—in believing it’s getting back from these companies and contractors, an indirect tax on corporations which Republicans would never own up to—may end up more impoverished and indebted if investment decisions are carried out poorly or in the spirit of cronyism.

synchronotpica

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

twelve years ago: a visit to Offenbach plus prunk and posh

thirteen years ago: the castles of Thüringia plus a botched restoration job

fourteen years ago: large demoninations 

fifteen years ago: immigration debates in Germany 

cdc (12. 690)

As the US Department of of Defence is apparently moving ahead with renaming it the Department of War—which seems unalloyed with Trump’s aspirations for the Nobel peace prize, the Daily Heller revisits the branding (influenced by ISOTYPE) and logos created by Charles T Coiner for the Civilian Defence Corps of the FDR administration. While it is unclear whether America is in need of a comprehensive corporate identity and national design strategy, it is manifest that the work of graphic designers and communicators help to sanctify the vaunted ideals underpinning democracy and the dignity of the worker in their role as defenders of the values of freedom and equity. More from Print magazine, as well as disambiguating the alphabet soup of agencies, at the link up top.

sōsaku hanga (12. 689)

Via John Coulthart’s { feuilleton }, we appreciated the introduction (as well as the source) to renowned woodblock printer Sekino Jun’ichirō (関野 凖一郎) who is considered one of the leading figures behind the title Creative Print (創作版画) movement that was a post-war departure from the traditional ukiyo-e craft whose output was characterised by a rigid division of labour, the artist’s expression not dependent, downstream from the collaboration of artisan tasked with conceptualising, carving and colouring. The pictured “Summer Ending” seemed appropriate for the changing seasons (see previously), and the prolific artist produced and exhibited several series aside from individual portraiture and cityscapes such as a reinterpretation of the classic by Utagawa Hiroshige The Fifty-Three Stations of the Tōkaidō, the rest-stops and horse-refreshing posts along the royal road connecting the shōgun capital of Edo to the imperial one of Kyōto, hot springs of the country and folk toys. Much more at the links above.