one year ago: a banger from Supertramp (with synchronoptica)
ten years ago: forbidden colours, assorted links to revisit plus cheap printing and chapbooks
twelve years ago: a visit to Wiesbaden-Schierstein plus Snowden’s formative time in Switzerland
fourteen years ago: revitalising a neglected church in Freibourg
Several accelerationist Silicon Valley chief technology officers have been recruited into the US Army Reserve as part time senior commanders, field promoted as colonels, as part of the newly formed Detachment 201 (the hypertext transfer protocol response status code for “Created”—the title refers to that of “Already Reported”—see previously here and here) to help integrate artificial intelligence into military planning and operations. Drawing from the ranks of Meta, OpenAI and Palatir is hardly surprising as the companies have been working with the military on various programmes including the controversial Project Maven to fully integrate AI into intelligence services. Significantly enlistment puts the companies’ under the purview of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and not subject to the scrutiny, jurisdiction and discovery of America’s civil courts of law should something untoward come up. As Eisenhower said, “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sough or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplace power exists and will persist.”
Though very happy with our camping trailer and certainly not in the market for a new second-home, we were very much enamoured with this collaboration between the aerodynamic caravan company known for its distinctive aluminium coachwork and Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation to bring the design approach and aesthetic of the architect to mobility and travel, courtesy of Nag on the Lake. Not inspired by a single property, the unit was designed by teams from both organisations at Wright’s Taliesin West studio in Arizona, the eight-and-a-half metre model is certainly informed by the Usonian ideal—a unified vision for landscaping, civil-engineering, typified by the middle class ranch-style home, interiors exposed to the outside, free of previous architectural conventions. 
Although the term was popularised by Wright in a 1927 manifesto—around the same time as the introduction of the Airstream, its first use preceded the architect’s by a couple decades with a Scottish writer called James Duff Law proposed that, in deference to indigenous people, Canadians and Mexicans, inhabitants of the US had no exclusive right to the title Americans—suggesting adopting the alternate style, “Usonia”—for the United States of North Independent America, though sort of a retronym, losing nationalistic flavour in later use. The kitchenette and overall floor plan matches ours pretty closely. Much more at the links above.
As if Trump’s low turn-out, low-energy birthday parade was not already overshadowed by the poor juxtaposition of the crack down on protests in Los Angeles and the ongoing conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine, with no boots on the ground though America can hardly claim it’s not deeply entrenched, the politically motivated assassination of a Minnesota state legislator by a crazed MAGA evangelist still at large and with a kill-list of other politicians, the surprise from Israel on Iran gave some in the administration a chance to try to have it both ways. 
Like the false claims last month of brokering a cease fire between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, despite vehement disavowal of having anything to do with the strikes on Iranian cities and infrastructure, Trump is insisting that peace is contingent upon Iran settling the nuclear deal—talks scheduled to continue in Oman next week—as if Israeli incursions were leverage in the negotiations, if anything possibly a provocation to draw the US into the situation. The last time Washington DC hosted a military parade of comparable scale was in 1991 as a premature victory celebration for the hundred-day Persian Gulf War, what became a multipart quagmire squandering many lives and much treasure, the US resuming its push to remove Saddam Hussein after premised on the untrue narratives of Baghdad involvement with the 9/11 terror attacks and Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction. America should have lost global trust and confidence back then. Now, with Iran having been only five years away from producing a ballistic nuclear missile for the past thirty years (and surely have been capable of making an arsenal but chose not to despite decades of conflicts with neighbours including Iraq and Israel), the Trump administration and his negotiators are using the WMD playbook once again and this time, the world is far more skeptical of their motives to stoke forever wars.
synchronoptica
one year ago: the Dutch roll (with synchronoptica) plus assorted links worth revisiting
seven years ago: more links to enjoy, Trump’s migrant detention centres, fear of palindromes plus Stephen Hawking interred with honours
eight years ago: Ford’s soybean car plus the feast of Corpus Christi
nine years ago: the UK’s proposed withdrawal from the EU, even more links, machine dreams plus the long-s
ten years ago: a visit to Gemรผnden am Main, the internet of trolls plus a church that resembles the courthouse from Back to the Future
Although seemingly a bit cruel, the conscripted performers were unharmed by this musical interlude—we learn via Strange Company—that a group of students at Cornell university have demonstrated that cicadas connected to tiny electrodes can be stimulated to chirp on demand as a sort of insect-computer hybrid sound-system. The orchestra is coordinated and they keep time with the piece, Pachelbel’s Canon in D (plus ‘Danger Zone’ from Top Gun), but the individuals’ biological variation and agency, as with all musicians, comes through to show they’re not cyborgs. The researchers don’t plan to make some new bizarre symphonium out of their test subjects but rather hope to further research into such collaborations to harness nature to forego wiring and components and ultimately decrease the impact of deploying infrastructure, especially for ad hoc and emergency situations.
synchronoptica
one year ago: an MS Paint photo filter (with synchronoptica), commemorating mass-deportations from the Baltic states under Soviet rule plus comedians get a papal audience
seven years ago: a Bayeux tapestry of a government worker’s office calendar, mapping out Dante’s Inferno plus sobriety tests for passengers
eight years ago: deifying the Singularity, simulating the universe, early ink-blots plus an antique railway hotel
nine years ago: massacre motivations, motion-capture technology, the foot from Monty Python, more on the mass-shooting in Orlando, EU proposes using Tรผrkei as a buffer zone for migration plus a Photo-Shop battle for the Queen
ten years ago: Doomsday bunkers plus finding Dr Livingstone
Albeit a bit headache inducing, we enjoyed revisiting the impossible trident, an undecipherable, undecidable figure—which as a flat representation of a real world object seems to be intuitable but defies the laws of physical coherence—in this variation on the blivet by Nevit Dilmen with it conflicting lines of perspective, making an accurate accounting out of the question.
