Mad-lib style, we discover, via Web Curios, this search engine that combines random adjectives and nouns and delivers a side-by-side comparison of what Wikipedia and one of the front-page browsers (Bing, Google, Duck-Duck-Go with varying degrees of AI) turn up with potential rabbitholes for every query, the former invariably telling you that the articles does not exist—whilst inviting you to make one—but not making presumptions about what you meant, just offering articles containing those keywords, making for a rather delightful non-sequitur medley to explore, whereas the latter confidently serves up what it thinks you meant, no more googlewhacks or 404 errors, or invents an enticing, seemingly relevant, overlay—probably not worthy of further exploration as impromptu catch-penny clickbait—see previously here and here, but the parallel frames make an intriguing juxtaposition.
Friday, 5 September 2025
parts of speech (12. 699)
all the way alive (12. 698)
On this day in 1975, Manson Family cult member Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme (previously) attempted to assassinate US president Gerald Ford (see previously) in Sacramento on the grounds of the California state capitol to set an example for those refusing to stop environmental pollution and its effects on Air, Trees, Water and Animals (ATWA, also the acronym above—the ecological belief system expounded by Charles Manson and his followers) as the interrelated life-support network of the Earth with attendant acts of civil disobedience and eco-terrorism. The then new Democratic governor Jerry Brown had refused an invitation to address an annual gathering of wealthy business leaders of the state. Members of the politically powerful group called “Host Breakfast,” upset with the shun wanted to teach the recently elected Brown, considered to be an obstacle to industry with a host of regulations and taxes that were unpopular with the lobby, a lesson for his “dilatory response” and had instead invited Ford, a Republican and ally, to deliver the opening speech—which Ford accepted as a chance to appeal to more local voters in the upcoming election and retain office. Preceding his arrival, Ford had asked congress to relax certain provision of the Clean Air act of 1963 and pressure California to roll-back some of its automobile emissions standards, already garnering threats from environmental activists. Feeling personally responsible for the fate of California’s giant redwoods, in danger from smog and urban sprawl, Fromme resolved ambush Ford (studying the agenda of his visit) and demand that respect be paid to nature. Making her way through the crowd, Fromme raised her pistol but the weapon failed to discharge and was immediately apprehended by the Secret Service. A few months following Fromme’s trial and sentencing, director George Lucas was prompted to change the name of his protagonist mid-production from Luke Starkiller for unpleasant connotations and a perceived connection to the Manson Family. After thirty-four years in prison and two years after Ford’s death, Fromme was released on probation in 2009. The malfunctioning gun was donated to the presidential library in Grand Rapids, Michigan and is on display there.
synchronoptica
one year ago: America begins its bicentennial celebrations (with synchronopticรฆ), coordination problems plus Trump announces the Department of Government Efficiency
twelve years ago: German license plate naming conventions
thirteen years ago: some castles of Hessen plus open all hours
fourteen years ago: a visit to Rohr
seventeen years ago: TGIF
Thursday, 4 September 2025
11x11 (12. 697)
99% invisible: Roman Mars takes listener and staff questions for a fifteenth anniversary special
fire and ice: immigration raids in the US hinder fighting forest fires
expert build: modelling Kowloon Walled City in Minecraft—see previously
petri dish: rather than going viral, the latest Tik-Tok accelerated coffee trend is very much bacterial and potentially sickening
not with a bang but with bad branding: democracy loosing the attention wars to autocracy
vynรกlez zkรกzy: the fantastic posters of Karel Zeman’s films
when the snow leaves town: photographic dispatches from a thawing Greenland
health and human services: as distrust in US public health authorities grow—prompting some states to conduct their own research— RFK Jr testifies before the senate
excited state: the thermodynamics of Mine Sweeper—see also
ccc: after Trump failed to dismantle the nature conservancy volunteer agency fully, legislation is introduced to rebrand AmeriCorps into America First Corps, shifting focus away from disaster response and stewardship of public lands
retuna: a second-hand only Swedish shopping experience
six° (12. 696)
Via Kottke, we are introduced to a project called the Network of Time linking celebrities, politicians and historical figures by their appearance together in photographs, combing through the endless montage of pictures to connect seeming very disparate individuals to one another. Conceptually kindred to Six-Degrees of Separation and another idea sourced from the same blogger—that of the Great Span—the linkages are mapped out, like in this pairing of novelist Roald Dahl and polar explorer Roald Amundsen in six images. Provenance and short biographies given for each intermediary, Jane Fonda, Helen Keller and Frank Sinatra seem to be particular catalysts for a given era and although there is for now only a limited pool of famouses, it’s fascinating to make connections, especially across generations.
synchronoptica
one year ago: assorted links to revisit (with synchronopticรฆ)
thirteen years ago: some castles of Mecklenberg-Vorpommern
fourteen years ago: BUtterfield 8
seventeen years ago: an Ersatz automobile
Wednesday, 3 September 2025
nerikiri (12. 695)
Via Messy Nessy Chic’s latest turn around the internet, we are directed towards the traditional Japanese art of confectionary, wagashi (ๅ่ๅญ), 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, ๅไธ็), 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, as with sushi, 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: รฉxiens hebdรณmada
to slack off on the job: neglegenter operor
to flirt: lusorie amare
snack bar: thermopรณlium potรณrium et gustatรณrium
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 synchronopticรฆ) 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-Wรผrttemberg castles
fourteen years ago: a papal audience plus a manufactured mountain for the Danish countryside
sixteen years ago: early versions of webpages
Tuesday, 2 September 2025
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.