brandweer (13. 602)

Mindful of how Marcus Lininius Crassus financed the First Triumvirate, overseeing the transition of the Republic to an Empire with his enormous wealth earned in large part by controlling the original bucket-brigade in Rome, dispatching slaves ready to extinguish a conflagration but doing little until the distressed owners of the property agreed to a fire-sale and leasing back to the former as tenants, we had thought that the public good of a fire department had just evolved slowly with gradual technological improvements and had not appreciated how maturity came rapidly thanks to a painter and tinkerer in seventeenth century Amsterdam. As the richest city in the world at the time, the capital had recognised and developed a relatively sophisticated system for dealing with burning homes and businesses, a daily occurrence given over to select guilds to patrol with suppression facilitated by easy access to water from the city’s network of canals. After the Great Fire of London, which proved uncontrollable and resulted in the invention of fire insurance, echoing the scheme from Ancient Rome with underwriters installing plaques, fire marks, on covered buildings, and enduring their own losses, artist and inventor Jan van der Heyden suggested improvements to hoses and pumps greatly increasing efficacy. At the expense of his artistic career, van der Heyden engineered a more efficient fire-fighting team, supported by municipalities and illuminated Amsterdam with patrols of gas lamp lighters, which contributed to no blazes.

synchronoptica

one year ago: gendered characters in children’s literature (with synchronoptica), ending the prohibition on churches endorsing political candidates plus assorted links worth revisiting

two years ago: the 1948 London Games plus the Thirteen Colonies’ attempt to avoid open conflict with Britain (1775)

three years ago: everything under the Sun, Jupiter’s moons plus more fortifications along the US-Mexico border

four years ago: the Roswell incident (1947), AI ethics plus the animations of Sam Lyon 

five years ago: your daily demon, a lexical database of marine life, uncombable hair syndrome, the first certified Gold Record plus the death of Shelley (1822)

six years ago: the martyrdom of St Kilian plus the Upper Moselle 

day one-hundred twenty-seven (13. 601)

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has targeted US bases in Kuwait and Bahrain in retaliation to American strikes against Iran following attacks on ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz. Washington restores economic pressure on Tehran, curtailing exports. The NATO alliance annual leadership summit begins in Türkiye. Israeli settlers are emboldened to take more land in the West Bank ahead of Netanyahu’s reelection bid. Damascus is rocked by bomb blasts during a visit from Macron to Syria. Team USA out of the World Cup, bested by Belgium, after pressure scandal.

9x9 (13. 600)

we don’t need anybody’s help but before i asked they said they wouldn’t be there: Trump airs classic grievances upon his arrival for the NATO summit in Ankara 

artisanal work culture: beekeeping, baking and candlestick-making as rebellion and a shift to the approach of skilled trade  

you don’t have to blog like me: just write  

project 2029: the crusade against the annoyance economy   

cheddaring: a cheese heist and other organised food crimes  

confessions of a dachsund: these videos were a little less David Attenborough and a little more Baby Reindeer  

rollerena: NYC’s queer fairy godmother  

doomjobbing: an employment system trusted by no one 

bel:usa: America out of the World Cup play-offs after excoriating defeat by Belgium

tenty-wise (13. 599)

Originating in Teutonic lands and referred to as hund, hundreð or hundred for the quantity of 120. A hybrid of both Germanic and Romance influence, English eventually added the qualifier long to distinguish it from their short hundred and historic manuscripts and accounting records often include marginalia glosses to distinguish numbers meant to be understood as decimal rather than dozenal or base twelve—Et quolibet c. continet vi. xx., Each such ‘hundred’ contains six score.Due to extensive trade networks, England maintained these competing units (see previously), with a hundred kippers (though not herring) to be one hundred twenty fish, a hundred of linen cloth being hundred twenty ells of fabric. The convention is preserved today with the measure of dry goods as the hundredweight (also known as the quintal (for five twenties and abbreviated cwt), in Canada and the US as one hundred pounds (forty five kilograms) and in the imperial customary system as eight stone (one hundred twelve pounds—the long hundred was also called the twelfty, fifty kilograms), with both systems reckoning a ton as twenty hundredweight and necessitating the need to differentiate between a long and short ton—see above. In North America, this metric is used for blacksmiths’ anvils and for stock trade in paper, livestock and some cereal grains and seed oils. In the metric system, a quintal, hardly ever used as a unit of mass (q), is equivalent to one hundred kilograms, the obsolete measure defined in a decree issued 13 Brumaire, IX (4 November 1800) but never included as part of the IS weights and measures. The Zentner (derived from the Latin centrum) as a measure of mass in the German Sprachraum—exported abroad with beer brewing—was the back translation of one hundred Pfund, presently settled on fifty kilos, approximately one hundred ten pounds, with a Pfund informally used to ask for five hundred grams.

social proprioception (13. 598)

Courtesy of Clive Thompson’s latest Linkfest, not only are we rather remarkable obituary for playwright Tom Stoppard whose poetic explanation of chaos theory in Arcadia inspired an audience member, a visiting oncologist to invent the technique of adjuvant systemic chemotherapy as a more effective treatment for breast cancer, through the magic of triangulation, saving untold lives unbeknownst to the author, we have occasion to examine the phenomenon further of happenstance and serendipity of disparate topics coalescing in unexpected ways that we need to be more receptive to. Thompson’s own hedgehog idea and guiding principle (an antidote to the previous post) grew out of a “slow hunch” that took years to germinate to describe the sense-of-self informed by social media, itself engendering amazing feats of coordination and kinship even through the briefest of briefs.

value-captured (13. 597)

Via Kottke, we are directed towards an anti-Bildungsroman about reflections on the growth and development of a digital native and a life squandered in the pursuit of increasingly tantalising internet points and the Overton window, the normative discourse of one’s peers as less than perspective and insight but rather something tethered, untethered and estranging, of others. Vicarious and evangelical, our protagonist aspires to live the life of others—achievable but deferred—and nonetheless consumed with consumption, and in the end, looking back at these parasocial relationships, realises too late it came at the expense of her own dreams and aspirations. While it may strike as a touch sententious and judgemental, that’s the exact impetus for reflection and to evaluate those metrics that malnourish us (sometimes described as gamification but I think that’s a misnomer as the most oppressive ones are the most ungamely) from those that help us reach our potentials.

synchronoptica

one year ago: everything becomes crab (with synchronoptica) 

two years ago: assorted links worth revisiting, a forgotten pioneer of cinematography, swimming with Benjamin Franklin plus France at the polls

three years ago: the first study-abroad programme 

four years ago: assorted links to enjoy plus volcanologist William Hamilton 

five years ago: sliced bread, the Quasi-War of 1798 plus a visit to Fladungen

six years ago: titleist Maurice Binder plus more adventures along the Moselle

day one-hundred twenty-six (13. 596)

After granting Iran a week off out of respect for the funeral of the late Supreme Leader, Trump renews his threats to “finish the job” militarily if Tehran does not agree to a deal under US terms. A fleet of Japanese flagged tankers leave the Persian gulf after being stranded for months, whilst ships come under fire cleaving close to the Omani coast. Netanyahu claims Christian villages in southern Lebanon have asked to be annexed by Israel to protect them from Hezbollah. Zelenskyy reportedly will not be allowed to speak during the NATO summit. During a play-off, the American president intervenes to pressure FIFA officials to reconsider a penalty imposed against one of the star players of team USA and reverse the referee’s red card—forever earning the game an asterisk (see also) in the history books.

exceptional growers (13. 595)

Recalling that decades ago, whilst in Prague and having frequented the legendary Thirsty Dog (the tavern opposite the capital’s Municipal House, Žíznivý pes made famous by the Nick Cave song) and having ordered a Harvey Wall-Banger was presented a small potted cactus before being served, the bartender later explaining that this was part of her brother’s collection who had seemed to have lost interest in their upkeep, we found history of succulent capers, hardly a one-off occurrence of enthusiasts in the Czech Republic, to be quite resonant. The craze and eventual poaching began with “Alberto” Vojtěch Frič in the 1900s and a botanical expedition to South America after his original garden fell victim to a hard frost, which informed Czech collectors in an enduring legacy, at first isolated from global market to cultivate a space, a pastime separate from Communism and Soviet domination.   More from The Conversation at the link above.

synchronoptica

one year ago: Bauhaus theatre (with synchronoptica) plus Operation Ploughshare 

two years ago: assorted links to revisit, bracket orthography plus Forrest Gump (1994)

three years ago: when in the country 

four years ago: an East German rock opera plus a message beamed into deep space

five years ago: more on artist Sophie Taeuber Arp, a banger from David Bowie, a visit to Mellrichstadt, wolfsbane plus assorted links to revisit

six years ago: time immemorial plus a trip to the Moselle