9x9 (13. 563)

pennsylvania dutch: an ethnographic profile of the Deitsch speaking Amish—see also  

it’s 1100 pm—do you know where your ai agent is: Janelle Shane (previously) on agentic artificial intelligence, vibe-coding and the need for guardrails  

hunshandake sandy land: battling creeping desertification with an army of chickens 

ethnic cleansing: US supreme court rules that the country can refuse asylum-seekers at the border and can begin the deportation of Syrian and Haitian refugees under temporary protected status        

⚙️⚙️⚙️🦑⚙️⚙️⚙️: manoeuvre your marine mollusc through an environment resembling dungeon levels from Zelda with Bubble Bobble type puzzles—via MetaFilter  

rainbow plaques: an alternative to Blue historical markers appear across London, honouring LGTBQ+  personages

final descent: the iconic airliner, the Boeing 747, is being phased out 

jerry’s world: a map of an imaginary land limned over decades using a deck of cards for procedural generation—see also  

despicable me: the influence of Minionese on the slang of Gen Alpha—see previously

isolated, initial, medial, final (13. 562)

Via Kottke, we are directed to a fascinating interactive introduction to the typesetting and rendering of Arabic script and the technical debt of font engineering and word-processors, built for the Latin alphabet (see also), which after years of struggles and comprise with alignment, default-settings that generated a WYSIWYG that looked ragged, broken and unaesthetic by Arabic standards is finally coming around to more faithfully reproducing the typography in the tradition of the scribes and calligraphers. Each glyph “holds hands” with the one preceding it and following it—everything is cursive, necessitating a minimum of four variants to create the right ligatures connecting the letters, dynamically renegotiating its shape for what comes next. The block formatting, which no manuscript would deviate from, is not achieved with spacing, but rather stretching or shortening the strokes within the word to make it flush with the margins. Much more including exercises and examples from La Vita Nouva at the link above.

synchronoptica

one year ago: Port Louis (with synchronotpica)

two years ago: Ponti dei Salti

three years ago: paronomasia plus design critique for Latin letters 

four years ago: attorney advertising, Captain Video, another MST3K classic, hummingbird hawk moths plus the Bored Ape Yacht Club

five years ago: your daily demon, Moby Dick (1955), Our Lady of Perpetual Help, the Seven Sleepers, Queen’s first gig plus assorted links to enjoy

six years ago: the first Pride march, more AI pareidolia plus Russian bounties for US soldiers

day one-hundred seventeen (13. 561)

US strikes Iranian military facilities after an apparent drone attack on a ship in the Strait of Hormuz caused the UN to abandon evacuation efforts—Tehran and Washington establish a direct line of communication, a red phone to prevent incidents that could potentially escalate into military conflict. Trump characterised the victories of democratic socialists supported by New York mayor Zohran Mamdani as a win for “ruthless communism” after sabotaging a rare bipartisan bill aimed at addressing the housing crisis at the last second by refusing to attend a signing ceremony after the stage had been set—calling the proposal very “Elizabeth ‘Pocahontas’ Warren-centric” and affordability was a low priority compared with his voter-suppression legislation he is insisting congress pass, potentially further alienating himself and the GOP from the issues faced by the American public. Lebanon, Israel and the US agree on a trilateral framework to stop the violence at the border as talks continue. Saudi Arabia restarts refinery operations after a four-month pause.

nobody’s laughing at us anymore—said the man filling in for milli vanilli (13. 560)

Though I’ve grown increasingly reluctant to delve into US domestic affairs and scandals as increasingly irrelevant and pathetic, I was beside myself for the captivation I am feeling for the American State Fair, a slapdash event hastily put together despite an alleged quarter of a millennium’s advanced warning, seemingly but the same people who brought us the Willy Wonka Chocolate Factory Experience, Trump’s semiquincentenary task force—see previously. Following threats to cancel it altogether after most musical acts withdrew over the partisan political overtones of the patriotic festival—with several states also canceling plans to participate and not contributing their pavilions, first hand reports of opening-day describe a rather bleak and poorly attended public entertainment, with disappointing booths, a touch of grift and evangelicalism and a mock up of Trump’s triumphal arch. All I owe Ioway—It’s a grand night for singing.

kilroy was here (13. 559)

Via Web Curios, we quite enjoyed this well-researched history of one of the first proto-memes (see also here and here) of modern times in the graffito tag propagated by US and British service members during WWII, to mark the arrival of forward units in far-flung bases and for the soldiers to come, a phatic communion—anonymous and a gesture of camaraderie, in Kilroy was Here. The long-nosed figured peering over a fence, drawn on walls, equipment and any other bare surface also went by the other monickers—with strong resonance for contemporary meme culture—in Chad and the Goon, with the more nuanced UK-format captioned, according to context, with the snowclone, “Wot, no X?” as a way to complain about supply shortages at the front and rationing back home. Hitler and Stalin were supposedly convinced that Kilroy was some sort of codeword used by Allied intelligence. The lament over wartime austerity is considered one possible origin of the figure this side of the Atlantic, another being a shipyard inspector in Quincy Massachusetts, one James J Kilroy, who marked his seal of approval with the phrase in crayon on riveters’ work—yet another suggestion, the character might have started with a case of pareidolia in electricians over circuit schema—in any case, the versions merged, incorporating the different elements of the lore and was an early modern example of memetic forces, underpinned by repetition, variation and driven by the collective logistics of the war effort.

vague de chaleur (13. 558)

Reminiscent of the restrictions placed on the tradition of shooting off fireworks in Germany for New Year’s during the height of the COVID pandemic in order to not put more pressure on already overburdened hospitals, Paris has imposed a temporary ban on the sale of off-license (take-away) alcohol and public consumption as the country swelters under an unprecedented heat wave as emergency services is being overwhelmed by heat-related incidents. The weekend’s prohibition does not apply to restaurants and cafés but may be extended as the forecast for France and the rest of the continent bodes of more stifling temperatures.

synchronoptica

one year ago: Uncleftish Beholding (with synchronoptica) plus oyster-culture

two years ago: visiting Carmine and Cannobio

three years ago: assorted links to enjoy plus the Pied-Piper

four years ago: the end of the Soviet calendar plus mermaiding

five years ago: a Frank Gehry twisted tower plus a morphine substitute (1896)

six years ago: more links to revisit, the first UPC code plus a protest anthem

day one-hundred sixteen (13. 557)

Lebanese-Israeli ceasefire negotiations in Washington are extended. FIFA allows Pride flags for Iran-Egypt match in Seattle despite objections from national football federations. Trump claims that unfrozen Iranian funds will be used to buy US crop staples, saying the country is experiencing a famine and the deal will be mutually beneficial. Tehran denies any arrangement to purchase US agricultural products.  The UN Maritime agency pauses evacuation efforts after a vessel came under attack in the Gulf of Oman. Oil prices—though the affect does not immediately translate to the petrol pump—have fallen to pre-war levels.

zachistka (13. 556)

Taking place on this day in 2001, Russian forces in Alkhan-Kala undertook a special military operation known by the above euphemism as зачистка, the equivalent of “mopping up” as part of the Second Chechen War to eliminate insurgent separatists and organised crime. Chechnya (the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, named after tje river that was the line of demarcation) had secured de facto independence from Russia in 1996 but Moscow found the arrangement increasingly less acceptable, accusing Georgia of foment unrest, when the gauged the country as ungovernable, overrun by armed gangs and ultimately proclaiming itself as a Islamic republic and accused of invading neighbouring Dagestan. The siege of the small town, the door-to-door slaughter of civilians in search of the warlord is characteristic of suppression of rebel elements and ethic cleansing and has been repeated in Georgia, Azerbaijan and Ukraine and in other breakaway republics, all territories along the Caspian corridor annexed from the Persian Empire under Peter the Great.