prosopagnosia (13. 194)

Scoring the average ourselves and not much better than chance, we found this research project from the British Journal of Psychology and the University of New South Wales, pitting control participants with verified super-recognisers, we found some upbuilding ironies—via MetaFilter—to the self-selecting experiment to identify authentic human faces among AI-generated ones. First there was some gatekeeping to take put with a series of CAPTCHA verifications to prove one is a human by identifying traffic features to covertly train autonomous vehicles, and then, I wanted to repeat the trial to test my own biases, wondering if I was giving women and non-white presenting personae (a rejection of the Mar-a-Lago look to embrace our faults and asymmetries) pass or whether I was actually detecting certain tells. Glancingly as profile pictures or avatars, we wouldn’t have questioned the authenticity of any of these and erring on the side of voting human versus depersonalising is much preferable to being deemed a composite image but were nonetheless disturbingly off-putting judgments to make and revealing the tells only will make the masquerade harder to detect.

untamed (13. 193)

As part three of an equine series for Spring Festival, we learn about Przewalski’s horse—

ᠲᠠᠬᠢ

, тахь (pronounced like “taxi”) also called the Dzungarian horse, and named after the celebrated Russian explorer Nikolay Przhevalsky who was the first Westerner to travel through Bod and Amdo (now the autonomous regions of Tibet and Northern Xinjiang Uygur) and contributed substantially to European knowledge of Central Asian flora and fauna and geography—the truly wild horses in the world, American mustangs and Australian brumbies are the feral descendants of domesticated animals. Once considered extinct outside of captivity this rare and endangered breed with a complex social hierarchy has been reintroduced successfully back to the steppes of Mongolia and China in a concerted campaign that has spanned four decades. More from Sixth Tone at the link above.

synchronopticon

one year ago: rooting out non-existent fraud (with synchronopticæ), assorted links to revisit plus King Trump

fifteen years ago: a visit to Berlin 

the power of the people is stronger than the people in power (13. 192)

As we are informed by MetaFilter, for Ash Wednesday, Irish band U2 released a surprise extended play collection of six tracks called Days of Ash—their first recording since 2017 originally planned for later this year but decided that they couldn’t wait as the songs were growing more and more impatient and urgent by the day. The below lead is dedicated to Renée Good and the resistance of Minneapolis and others deal with the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, also paying tribute to Iranian teenager Sarina Esmailzadeh killed during protests and Palestinian activist Awdah Hathaleen. Postcards from the present moment, the album reaffirms the group’s political boldness and combines biblical allegory with partisan messaging. “The Tears of Things” and “Yours Eternally” was especially powerful.

8x8 (13.191)

sandboxels: a fun construction simulation with hundreds elements and building materials from Neil Agarwal—see previously, see also  

tax-payer funded settlement: Trump is suing the US government for billions  

innermost ward: a 3D reconstruction of the thousand year history of the Tower of London—via MetaFilter   

pantone 222: test one’s memory for colour—via Miss Cellania  

shallow fakes: historic image manipulation—see also  

canary wharf: a visit to the impounding station of the West India docks 

forbidden paradise: as Trump renews threats on the Chagos deal, a look at the mysterious atoll—see previously, via Damn Interesting  

a sense of getting closer: a music video by Max Cooper and Conner Griffin about spectacle that isn’t inspired

htlm goodies (13. 190)

Honestly, we haven’t been motivated to overhaul our little spot on the internet for quite some time—and still have no intention of changing the format, except for maybe making it easier to swat away annoying ads or getting rid of the clutter altogether, since the passing of the era of hypertext mark-up language and still maintaining that obituary is very premature and the pivot towards hierarchical widgets and and features reliant on the longevity of whatever new hotness is dominating coding at the moment.

we blog about at PfRC.

Hover to Reveal

Though we had varying levels of success with these templates—assuredly due to this site’s own frankenstein formatting of keyframes and dividers, for the first time in a long time, courtesy of Quantum of Sollazzo, in this catalogue of very good components that are purely HTML and don’t depend on a non-native source. As said, not all features worked as expected—particularly liking the comparison slider and the masonry grid for images and some of the text effects, WSIWYG on the phone but not on the laptop, and while there’s somewhat of a vibe coding vibe to these plug-and-play applications, some assembly is required.

synchronoptica

one year ago: a landmark nuclear disarmament protest (with synchronopticæ) plus assorted links to revisit

thirteen years ago: a proposed Robin Hood tax on financial transactions 

fourteen years ago: Faschings customs 

sixteen years ago: a Greek bailout 

seventeen years ago: home improvement 

 

historjá (13. 189)

Via Everlasting Blört, we are introduced Sámi multimedia artist and designer Britta Margareta Marakatt-Labba through her monumental piece on the history and mythology of Sápmi, the homeland of the indigenous peoples that stretches from Norway to Russia, created between 2003 and 2007. Often drawing comparisons to the Bayeux Tapestry (see also), the twenty-four metre long embroidered textile normal is in residence on the campus of the Univerisity of Trømso but been displayed by several Scandinavian museums and galleries as well as documentca 14 in Kassel. Click through at the link up top for a guided tour with the artist including the time when the tradition of yoiking returned.

9x9 (13. 188)

all lawful uses: Pentagon labels Anthropic AI a supply-chain risk for refusing to activate Skynet  

digital humanities: platforms, ethnographically, can only deliver two out of the three trilemmas  

skimo: newest Olympic sport combines uphill and downhill action 

⻢: etymologies of the year of the Fire Horse—more here 

rainbow push coalition: tributes for Jesse Jackson (RIP)  

the great breath: Christian Waller’s theosophical fairy tales 

sơng: author Ocean Vuong is suspiciously talented as a photographer as well  

project cardinal: turnaround management, corporate restructuring codenames and other euphemisms 

most energy storage solutions: inspired by DNA, a liquid forming molecular bonds can hold potential heat for months until it’s needed

synchronoptica

one year ago: protests against DOGE (with synchronopticæ) plus European emergency summit convened immediately following the Munich Security Conference

thirteen years ago: regional franchises plus more former enclaves and exclaves

fourteen years ago: the neocolonialism of finance 

fifteen years ago: academic dishonesty in the German government 

sixteen years ago: upcoming trips 

la jetée (13. 187)

Courtesy of our faithful chronicler, we are informed the influential sci-fiction featurette by Left-Bank writer-director Chris Marker (previously) premiered on this day in 1962. Set in a post-apocalyptic Paris, with survivors of a nuclear war living in the catacombs and galleries beneath the Palais de Chaillot (the neoclassical showcase built for the Exposition Internationale of 1937 on the grounds of the partially demolished Palais du Trocadéro—the temporary headquarters of both the UN and NATO and backdrop of Hitler’s short tour of the city with Albert Speer in 1940 and Victory in Europe celebrations five years later) with the remaining scientific community conducting research into time travel, sending test subjects to various dates in the past and future and change the course of history and avert the conflict that has all but wiped out civilisation. Challenged to find suitable test subjects mentally stable enough to withstand the rigours of temporal displacement, they pin their hopes on a man with a vague but ingrained memory from before the war, a startling encounter he witnessed from the observation platform (“the jetty”) from the Orly airport. His intervention seems promising but is caught in a paradox and can affect no change. The narrative is told almost exclusively with a photomontage, cycling through still images with no dialogue other than an expository voice-over. The short was adapted and expanded by filmmaker Terry Gilliam with his 1995 12 Monkeys, a debt very much openly acknowledged in the movie’s opening credits..