9x9 (12. 139)

eixample: Barcelona’s nineteenth century urban revival and characteristic octagonal blocks  

🚦: adding fourth colour to traffic lights for safer sharing of roads with human drivers and autonomous vehicles  

willkommen zu hause: a somewhat older documentary on club culture and techno in former East Germany with a connection to H has made it to Youtube  

ha-ha woman, it’s a crying shame but you ain’t got nobody else to blame: equal rights and urban justice in medieval times  

2-step authenication: secure passwords should require a performance like Liza Minelli tries to turn off a lamp—will a Fosse neck do it? 

the monkey chew tobacco on the street car line: the Meters’ Hand Clapping Song 

lycurgus cup: the fuzzy and fluorescent vases of Maxwell Mustardo evoke Roman amphorae—see previously  

stairwell of the quarter: twelve months of superlative flights and storeys 

beaded curtain: a look at the fragmented nature of the border wall on the US southern frontier—via Super Punch

𝝎 = 360° sin 𝛗 / day (12. 139)

Devised by observing a lathe demonstrating an unexpected but explainable gyroscopic effect, physicist Léon Foucault first constructed his eponymous pendulum in the basement of his home on this day in 1851, bringing the experiment to the public a month later at the Meridian of the Paris Observatory. Allowing observers to conclude from the change in the plane of oscillation of a heavy weight over time the rotation of the Earth, and showing that at latitudes other than the equator the displacement of each cycle (best viewed on a very big set up) progresses relative to the turning of the Earth throughout the diurnal period. Though a long established fact that the Earth revolved, Foucault’s experiment was proof easily attainable and not necessitating watching for the minute movements of the stars and planets, rather elegantly showing that the Earth moves beneath the fixed and motionless pivot point.   Such demonstrations have become popular installations at universities and museums around the world—see one in action here from a dedicated live webcam.

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth revisiting (with synchronoptica) plus Jim Henson’s custom car

seven years ago: Memento Mori, deep dreaming, Communist era interiors plus Trump’s minders

eight years ago: saccadic masking, book-culling algorithms, more links to enjoy plus literary-inspired resolutions

nine years ago: even more links

ten years ago: the last man on the Moon plus food pyramids and fad-diets

evenweave (12. 138)

Via Kottke, we are introduced to the embroidery journals that Sophie O’Neill, California transplant in Glasgow, has been keeping daily (sometimes batched—we can relate) since New Year’s 2020 as a log of each day’s events and memories, represented by stitching a tiny icon. The practise, not dissimilar to other diary-keeping techniques and cultivating gratitude even for those mundane and tedious periods when it seems nothing noteworthy happens and was tempted to throw in the towel. Streaks are important and motivating to keep up but not for the faith of heart (see also here and here), when each entry requires patience, dexterity and imagination.

dk’tronics (12. 137)

Although the only promotional tie-in video game that I can recall playing was Kool-Aid Man for Intellivision—a strange concept indeed where two waifish children search a haunted house to make a batch of Kool-Aid to summon the exorcist and stop the thirsty ghosts, “Oh yeah!”—we really enjoyed this review of early 8-bit licensed games based on British television programmes. Most of these ventures were slapdash, modular affairs that bore little resemblance to the actual show and game play was probably confusing—though through emulators, one can give all these and more a try without waiting for them to load—like this screen-grab for one based on the sitcom about four very different college students rooming together. The game-makers were not able to secure right to the series’ theme (see also) but composed a nice chip-tune alternate. Much more from Curious British Telly at the link up top.

ⲡⲁⲡⲁ ⲁⲃⲃⲁ ϣⲉⲛⲟⲩϯ ⲅ̅ (12. 136)

Having rescinded the presidential decree recognising him as the patriarch of the See of Saint Mark by Anwar Sadat after a contentious decade for the secular and spiritual leadership of Egypt, the president seen as stoking violence between Islamic and Christian communities to solidify his own power, and banished to the remote desert monastery of St Pishoy, on this day in 1985 the successor administration of Hosni Mubarak fully restored Pope Shenouda III to his original office. Committed to ecumenism and healing religious schisms through interdenominational dialogue, Shenouda met the Bishop of Rome in 1973, the first such summit in fifteen-hundred years, and together with Pope Paul VI forged a path towards reconciliation and was also respected by the Muslim population for his support for Palestinian autonomy and criticism of the Camp David Accords—going on the serve in the papacy for over forty years, until his death in March 2012.

synchronoptica 

one year ago: a survey of overused phrases (with synchronoptica), China in miniature plus the Japanese verses of Auld Lang Syne

seven years ago: a robotic DJ, Public Domain Day plus Monumental Trees

eight years ago: the assertion that progress hinges on the unreasonable

nine years ago: more accidental Renaissance art,  a year in full moons plus the Twelve Days of Christmas

ten years ago: plastic coins, songs reimagined as video games, a synaesthetic clock, Martin Luther’s messaging plus motivations for the American Revolution

10x10 (12. 135)

year of the snek: designer Japanese greeting cards for 2025—see previously from Spoon & Tamago

world record for tiny window inchoateness: Kate Wagner’s McMansion Hell takes on Neuschwanstein  

cloisonné garnet: an elaborate seventh century brooch discovered near Rostock 

dropped: the 2025 edition of Lake Superior State University’s banished words list, including cringe and skibidi 

back to basics: scientific research confirms that exercise is the most potent medical intervention—for one’s New Year’s resolutions  

dumpster fire: an ominous start for 2025  

classical conditioning: the unscientific and unethical Little Albert Experiment that led to stricter standards in psychological testing 

choicest swears: excellence in strong language and two other New Year’s traditions  

monuments men: Italy’s cultural heritage protection squad saves artefacts from a clandestine dig in Naples

new year, new neighbourhood: the transformation of New York City’s Times Square

strong to the finnich (12. 134)

For Public Domain Day 2025 (previously), we learn that the original iteration of the character Popeye have entered into fair-use territory, joining Winnie the Pooh, Tintin, Mickey Mouse, Dracula, Sherlock Holmes and many others. Whilst the Sailor-Man 1.0 might have not yet derived his superpowers from eating spinach until 1931—it seems that the copyright for that canonical comic strip was not renewed, so it’s fair-use to incorporate that attribute retroactively and the Duke Center for the Study of the Public Domain was an explainer on how to navigate trademark law for liberated versions of personalities who still appearing in recent works still under protection, rights only extending to newly added traits and material and not the underlying figure. Incidentally had Popeye been in the creative commons earlier, like his girlfriend (and a whole person in her own right) Olive Oly based on ZaSu Pitts who predates him by several years and whose original love-interest was a lounge-lizard type called Harold Hamgravy, the Super Mario Brothers might have never been.

wireless to rule our lives, british professor predicts (12. 133)

The title headline is taken from a 1925 book review of one Archibald Montgomery Low, a scientist and pioneer of radio-controlled guidance systems and drones—accomplished enough during wartime to garner two assassination attempts by Nazi operatives—who also liked to speculate on the future, limning the state of the world a century later. Some of Low’s forecasts seem spot-on and have come to pass, like televised news replacing legacy publishing, automated alarm clocks (in an era that still employed knocker-uppers to wake people and perhaps over optimistically that the idea hour for getting up was half-past nine), streaming services and entertainment on demand (see also), electronic payments, pervasive telephonic communications, harnessing of solar and wind power, etc. Some of Low’s predictions were less visionary, like the exertion free commute to the office, which is no less of a needless chore but understandably so as we were convinced that teleworking was technologically untenable and unimaginable from a paternalistic corporate perspective and facing regression to more primitive times, and projections about gender parity. Much more from Weird Universe at the link up top.