7x7 (13. 950)

elder gods: the menacing Neo-Pagan illustrations of Marian Wawrzenski 

random walk: the digits of pi—see previously here and here and here  

the greater trumps: the supernatural thrillers of Charles Williams and their cover art by Jim Lamb 

l.a. law: court sketches from Parisian magistrates—see also 

third place: Chinese Starbucks franchises announce a purchase requirement for hanging out and enforces a no loitering policy 

never tell me the odds: a scifi short in which a stranded rebel tries to make his way back to friendly territory whilst contending with the nagging AI agent implanted in his brain  

die sammlung prinzhorn: a revisit of the Outsider Art of the Heidelberg mental institution—see previously

synchronoptica

one year ago: Uptown Girl (with synchronoptica), US supreme court strikes down Trump tariffs plus a campaign to reduce food waste

two years ago: America votes, Trump and Guy Fawkes plus medieval produce in art 

three years ago: assorted links worth revisiting, a word of the year: AI plus another MST3K classic

four years ago: the Gun Powder Plot, a Commodore accordion, more McMansion Hell plus a Wikipedia list of common fallacies

five years ago: the Saint Felix Flood (1530) 

six years ago: a tri-lingual dictionary (1499), a flashpoint labour strike (1916), a séance on a wet afternoon plus the Rebel Rabbit GIF

seven years ago: more on Guy Fawkes, Voyager 2 leaves the Solar System, ghoulish guacamole plus Facebook’s shift to the right

eight years ago: representative Shirley Chisholm, an ancient boardgame, photographer Denise Scott Brown, words for the Winter Blues plus mapping the US mid-terms

 

day two hundred forty (13. 949)

Stock markets surge and the price of oil plunges as Trump may now “be inclined” to end hostilities in Iran though the American president remains unwilling to accept defeat in his war of choice as Iran marks the anniversary of the 1979 seizure of the US embassy in Tehran.

The Supreme Leader dismisses the suggestion that the seismic shift in the US political landscape signals a significant change for hostilities but the new composition of congress could have net positives for geopolitics and marks a historical overturning not seen in generations if ever, with Georgia, Florida, Nevada and Wisconsin electing Black governors, New Mexico a Native American woman, and California and Texas with more firsts for female, LGBTQ and Muslim representation and many states and polities, particularly in the Midwest, like Kansas and Ohio, and the southern Sun Belt changing parties for the first time in decades and reversals unseen since the Reconstruction Era after the civil war. Democratic leaders reflect on what the dismantling of MAGA through elections means for their agenda and way forward once the new congress is sworn in.

copy shop (13. 948)

Through the lens of his 2001 short film—in correspondence with his next project, we are introduced to internationally acclaimed Austrian filmmaker Virgil Widrich considered a parable on the ease of duplication, with or without degradation and loss of fidelity, and identity at the cusp of the digital age. After a copy shop employee accidentally photocopies hand, the machine, either through magic or malfunction, begin to reproduce fragments of his life that eventually result in the clerk encountering clones of himself until the entire world is populated by his imperfect duplicates. Whilst not an animated feature, the technique behind its production does traffic with cartoons and is a recursive statement, footage shot initially on a digital camera, edited and then printed frame-by-frame and re-filmed as a succession of photographs. Though using modern office equipment, mimeographs, carbon-paper and ditto machines, means of reproduction that involved the destruction of the original copy were living memories and the reel captures the misprints and breakdown over the course of the film—early days but also speaking to the nature of democratised self-publishing awash in repetition and derivatives, cheapening the value of the information, experience or artefact with inexact replicas. More from { feuilleton } at the link up top.

synchronoptica

one year ago: a Bayesian analysis of Mambo Number Five (with synchronoptica), patent pending plus NYC elects a new mayor

two years ago: Saint Carlo Borromeo plus reimagining Slaughterhouse Five 

three years ago: worthless NFTs redeemable as grocery store coupons plus leap seconds

four years ago:  the discovery of King Tut’s tomb (1922) plus assorted links to revisit

five years ago: haikus on the Periodic Table plus a competition to replace Laocoön’s lost arm

six years ago: the folk etymologies of the hangover

seven years ago: a protest rally and ultimatum in East Berlin,  Pigovian subsidies plus the science of voting

eight years ago: back at the scent lab,  a love letter to the US Library of Congress plus more links to enjoy

 

 

day two hundred thirty nine (13. 947)

Votes are still being counted in the US midterm elections, but it seems clear already, even observing the cautionary prognosis of some poll-watchers that due to Democrats’ penchant for early voting, a Blue Wave might prove to be a mirage, with the opposition flipping senate seats in South Carolina and Texas, for the first time in thirty-three years (I remember that at a campaign even in Texarkana, then governor Ann Richards wished me a happy birthday, so we know it was long, long ago). Trump admonished people to vote as if he were on the ballot and they are responding in the strongest possible way with an uncensored repudiation of MAGA and his last decade in politics. Democrats are poised to take both houses of congress with majority control—remaining to be seen if that will be a veto proof one. Troy Jackson defeats long serving senator Susan Collins in Maine and Abdul El-Sayed wins in Michigan, despite enormous donations, mostly from Elon Musk, and gerrymandered redistricting. First claiming polling numbers were wrong and fake news and then proceeding to tell Israel that it will no longer receive military aid from America (four billion dollars annually) on election day and launching ballistics at Qeshm island in the Strait of Hormuz as four tankers strike naval mines and are set ablaze, Trump then shifts blame to the Iran war, which he started, for GOP losses.

i, mudd (13. 946)

As our faithful chronicler reminds, on this day in 1967, the Enterprise had their second run-in with conman Harry Mudd (see previously, see also) after an android posing as a crew member hijacks the Enterprise, routing them to an unknown planet populated by androids, lorded over by Mudd I as apparent monarch, including a simulacrum of departed, nagging wife whom he can mute on command. Mudd reveals that he arrived on this world by chance and is treated well but he is refused leave to depart until or unless he can provide the automatons more masters to study and serve, for which the crew is offered. Although tempting by various standards and accounts, Kirk implores senior staff not to be fooled by obsequiousness and remember their duty to their mission of exploration and one another. Spock directs Kirk and Mudd to confuse the androids with contradictory and illogical statements, finally presenting a form of the liar’s paradox to the original hijacker, whom the science officer determined was not just a scout or emissary but the central locus of their collective mind. This feedback loop causes the main android to short-circuit, disabling the others. The androids are reprogrammed aligned with their original task of making the planet productive, Mudd paroled to the remain among the synthetic population, who no longer cater to his every wish. The episode was cowritten and directed by David Gerrold and Stephan Kandel, the collaborators who earlier produced “The Trouble with Tribbles” and is consistently ranked among the best storylines from Star Trek: TOS.

algorithmic bias (13. 945)

We are reminded of this rather infamous exemplar of stereotypical reinforcement per machine translation by Quantum of Sollazzo. Although, of late, the platform claims to have solved the inherent chauvinism by a disclaimer that addresses the limitations of translating a gendered language, the fact that relatively neutral English output informed by the inclusive Hungarian personal pronoun, ő meaning she or he or they that is often considered redundant except in cases for contrast or emphasis as the actor, without respect to sex, is carried by verb conjugation, and demonstrates that traditional roles still haunt machine translation and the datasets that they draw from.

living daylights (13. 944)

Courtesy of Weird Universe, we are directed to the exploits of a start-up called Reflect Orbital, which demonstrates its potential to offer “sunlight as a service” claiming to be able to redirect sunbeams, intensity adjustable from “noon to moon” via an array of fifty thousand satellites equipped with mirrors, illuminating a five kilometre radius. The chain of reflective material could sustain the beam as individual satellites drift away and continue targetting with the next one in the chain. Whilst the company is pretty chuffed about this advance in geo-engineering, usually such proposals are subject to serious debate prior to execution, if they get off the ground at all, pointing out how the technology could be used to extend the operating day of photovoltaic generators indefinitely, light up industrial sites, aid in nighttime search and rescue missions or even for agriculture. Their enthusiasm is not shared by the scientific community who see this network as another blow for ground based astronomy (see previously) and further begs the question of vesting such power in a for-profit company and whether one enterprise or community’s access to daylight savings might be throttled for the sake of a higher bidder.

upstaged (13. 943)

Beating out other contenders like p(doom), the probability that AI will destroy civilisation, ghost jobs, vacancies with no intention to fill them, friendslop and carspreading,
the jury at Collins Dictionary has selected mogging as its Word of the Year to describe the performative act of manifesting dominance through self-evident prowess or good looks and the feelings of inferiority and comparison it can engender in others. Though originally circulated among incel culture, it has shed those more toxic associations as it has come into common parlance, reclaimed by polite society and is believed to be a derivation of AMOG—or “alpha male of the group”—combined with mugging as in mug shot and has come to generally mean the relatable experience of wavering confidence contrasted with our perceived social betters.

synchronoptica 

one year ago: Ford’s political purge of 1975 (with synchronoptica), the Fenton Label Company, The Pleasure Garden (1925) plus all of Star Trek: TNG in three-second bites

two years ago: Kamala Harris and her avatar appear on SNL plus the Japanese instrument of surrender (1946) 

three years ago: Snarkmarket Day, assorted links worth the revisit plus the Waxweb

four years ago: another classic from Enya, Saint Hubertus plus assorted links to revisit

five years ago: a classification of creatives, another MST3K classic plus more links to enjoy

six years ago: the November Revolution that led to the formation of the Weimar Republic plus Carrie (1976)

seven years ago: a pervasive number from Rusted Root, more awful library books plus an embarrassment of social media platforms

eight years ago: Nixon’s Silent Majority plus a trip through the Rhön