dateline (13. 090)

On this day in 1609—with some evidence that the periodical was in circulation already for four years—the first newspaper in Germany and among the first worldwide was published, Avisa Relation oder Zeitung, by printer Julius Adolph von Söhne in Wolfenbüttel (also the home of the Jägermeister distillery) in Niedersachsen with the issue carrying developments and happenings from various countries up-to-date (see also), with the presumption it went out then. The French daily of record Le Figaro was first distributed on this day as well in 1826, named for the Beaumarchais character from Le Mariage de Figaro with a line from his closing monologue “Sans la liberté de blâmer, il’nest point d’éloge flatteur”—without freedom to criticise, there is no room for praise. The first issue of of the journal Genootskap van Regte Afrikaners later to become the Paarl gazette was published in as the first periodical in Afrikaans language in 1876. The leading news agency and wire-service of Italy, Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata (ANSA) was also founded today in 1945 by a consortium of the resistance to Mussolini’s fascist regime.

9x9 (13. 089)

crisis actors: Trump supports protests of any authoritarian regime except his own 

wikipedia@25: the Free Encyclopaedia project was started on this day in 2001—see previously, see more  

demumu: popular Chinese app, “Are You Dead?” is a safety tool aimed for a growing demographic of one-person households  

fafo: thousands of World Cup fans are cancelling their tickets, prompting an emergency meeting of the football association  

the revolution won’t be televised: acute disappointment from “liberated” Venezuela  

limited deployment: contingents of soldiers from European allies arrive in Nuuk to demonstrate NATO resolve  

legacy media: looming challenges for journalism outlets and studios  

mouseover title: xkcd (previously) on sailing rigs 

heimat: US Department of Homeland Security adopts another Nazi slogan

fourscore (13. 088)

Acquainted with vigesimal systems of counting, and with due apologies to French for thinking their way was over-complicated for ways of enumerating values above sixty-nine in most Francophone areas, shifting from decimal to base-twenty—for example: quatre-vingts for eighty or soixante-quinze (sixteen-fifteen) for seventy-five—we were however unaware of the rules and conventions for Danish numeral. Like German, for anything above twenty, with 21 pronounced as enogtyve one-and-twenty, and similar to French change to vigesimal for values above fifty with halvtreds(indstyve) literally a half-third or two and one-half (times twenty), 70 being halvfjerds, half-fourth or 3½ × 20, firs for 80, a shortened form of four-twenties, and the number 99 pronounced as nioghalvfems, nine and half-fifth or 4½ × 20.

synchronoptica

one year ago: knowing things is hard (with synchronopticæ), a looming trade war plus a ceasefire deal in Gaza

twelve years ago: woolly pigs 

thirteen years ago: Wikitravel plus the history of PEZ

fourteen years ago: national firewalls 

fifteen years ago: licensing likenesses 

sixteen years ago: Martian terrain 

seventeen years ago: yellow journalism 

let’s circle back (13. 087)

NPR’s Word of the Week feature gives us the history and etymology of the rather repugnant corpospeak buzzword synergy, which although seemingly a recent construction of workplace jargon championing teamwork and the sanctity of being in the office, its roots go back to Greek books of the New Testament signifying cooperation in συνεργία (see also) amongst fellow workers striving towards a common goal. Though not exactly common parlance, it came into use during religious debates regarding salvation during the Reformation and Counter-Reformation as a compromise and reconciliation of relationship to the Church and congregants—at least for some—and then again as a counterpoint to co-morbidity in the medical sense of treatments equalling more than the sum of their parts, as opposed to making one part of the body healthy at the expense of others. By the mid-twentieth century, popularised in part by the writings of Buckminster Fuller, though with a specific meaning of “binding energies” and didn’t denote the familiar, reviled vagaries of the conference room until corporate America entered the conversation.

112 ocean avenue (13. 086)

Having moved in less than a month earlier, on this day in 1976, newly-weds with three children from a previous marriage, George and Kathy Lutz, claiming to have been terrorised by paranormal phenomena fled their home in the Amityville neighbourhood on the south shore of Long Island New York. The the five-bedroom Dutch Colonial property on a canal was vacant for a little over a year after a brutal mass-homicide of the former residents, the DeFeo family killed by their second-eldest son, and the realtor whom sold the house disclosed this gruesome murder to the couple before closing the deal—with the discount asking price too good to pass up. The place came fully furnished with much of the DeFeo family possessions included, and an acquaintance of Lutz’, having learned of the notorious history, convinced them (Kathy was a lapsed Catholic and George a non-practising Methodist) to have the home blessed by a priest as they were moving in. Father Pecoraro, a psychotherapist and lawyer for the ecclesiastic court residing in the local rectory, giving the benediction in a room on the first storey heard a gruff, disembodied masculine voice demanding he get out but refrained from letting the couple know until a week later on Christmas Eve to avoid that space, which was planned to be a sewing room after developing a sort of stigmata on his hands and wrists. Nothing unusual was experienced by the family at first but by mid-January the horrors became intolerable, declining to relate all the details so as not to relive the fright and left, abandoning all their possessions, once a brackish slime began covering the staircase. An editor of publishing house, Prentice Hall, a year afterwards introduced the Lutz family to writer Jay Anson, whom acquired the rights to the story, novelising the account, which was turned into a cinematic franchise in 1979 with several sequels and reboots. Subsequent owners of the property when it returned to the market reported no usual occurrences, other than the nuisance caused by the book and movies. The Shinnecock Nation, a tribe of the Algonquian Native Americans and indigenous residents of area, further objected to the suggestion that the address (now slightly altered to 108 to discourage visitors) was the site of what has since become a trope in the genre being an ancient Indian burial ground. An open-house was held after its most recent sale in 2010 but no one was allowed upstairs or in the basement.

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links to revisit (with synchronopticæ), earthstreak plus an auroral almanac

twelve years ago: a professional footballer comes out 

fourteen years ago: sovereign debt crises plus US forces in Germany 

fifteen years ago: realigning the zodiac 

why, he’ll have you back here before you can say schicklgruber (13. 085)

As our faithful chronicler reminds, not long before the collapse of the Third Reich the Merrie Melodies animated short film, the penultimate in their anti-Nazi propaganda series, premiered in theatres with news reels before the main feature on this day in 1945. After a prologue describing the downfall of Nazi Germany, a furrow ending in a rabbit hole emerges in the woods with Bugs Bunny, realising he is in the Black Forest laments that he knew he should have “taken that left turn at Albuquerque”—the first occurrence of the catchphrase. A chase ensues with Hermann Göring pursing his quarry, hoping for a bit of relaxation and distraction but Bugs manages to evade capture whilst eliciting some anti-Hitler sentiment. Musical, operatic interludes from Wagner’s Tannhäuser (see also here and here) and Strauss waltzes punctuate the encounter. Though not banned per se from the studio’s catalogue, the cartoon only saw limited releases in 2001 and 2007, likely due the amount of footnoting when the bounty presented to the Führer emerges as Bugs disguised as Joseph Stalin with the question “Does your tobacco taste different lately,” a reference to popular advertising campaign for pipe-smokers.

9x9 (13. 084)

foreverware: Eerie, Indiana was the Stranger Things of the late 1990s 

correlation is not causation: the mullet index of South American regime change—via Quantum of Sollazzo  

thirty-six views of the eifel tower: Henri Rivière’s woodblock prints inspired by the ukiyo-e scenes of Hokusai—via Messy Nessy Chic  

yakity-yak: prolific toy inventor Eddy Goldfarb at 104—via Damn Interesting  

the high price of exceptionalism: America’s problems are solved problems  

classifieds: an appreciation of the enduring earnestness of Craigslist, one of the few remaining refugees of the early internet before everything was commodified  

waggle dance: an optical compass inspired by bee navigators  

business in front, party in back: an annual hairstyle competition at the Pennsylvania Farm Show in Harrisburg  

mr burns: a post-electric play: post apocalyptic Simpsons stage show to have cinematic adaptation

heesch’s problem (13. 083)

Ranging from zero (in the case of the circle) and infinity for squares—with seemingly few values in between—in the study of tessellations (see previously here, here and here) a Heesch number pertaining to a geometric shape is the maximum number of layers of identical copies of the same figure will bear with no gaps or overlaps. Named for the geometer and mathematician Heinrich Heesch, who also made significant contributions to the field of tiling patterns and then unproven for colour theorem (the first mathematical proof by a computer) for mapping boundaries, he noticed that a one sort of planar shape, a square fused with a triangle would only accommodate one extra layer, as illustrated with these spandrels (from an architectural space between the top of arch and the ceiling) term referring to the teardrop arranged by contemporary Walther Lietzmann, and posed it as a general puzzle. Beyond the core, one can only form a signal corona of identical shapes—and whilst blocky polyominoes and tetrominoes seem to hold limitless promise at first glance, there still seems to be a limiting factor with no more than six deep.