niemandsland (12. 110)

Though no White Christmas down in the valley, we took the dog for a frolic through the snow up on the highlands near of the Schwarzes Moor along the Lange Rhön (previously), an extensive basalt plateau about eight hundred metres in elevation. 

We saw the former border crossing Grabenberg with preserved East German watchtower, a relic in this nature preserve not far from the Dreilandereck, the tri-point where Bavaria, Hessen and Thüringen meet. 

Due to the constrains of the landscape and connecting roads, the partition extended DDR territory five hundred metres into West Germany in a horseshoe-shaped strip nicknamed die Badehose (the bathing trunks), which provided border guards considerable challenges in keeping Bavarian tourist from wandering into this invisible no man’s land.

the genovese syndrome (12. 109)

On this day in 1974, ten years after the violent murder of resident Kitty Genovese outside the same apartment building in the Kew Gardens neighbourhood of Queens for which no one intervened or called the police in what was dubbed the bystander effect and was cited as a textbook case for decades—partially due to this second tragic death—until upon reevaluation it was revealed that the number of witnesses and their actions had been respectively over- and under-reported, fashion model (her profession was later retracted in articles but no correction was given) Sandra Zahler was beaten to death. Upon questioning by detectives a day and a half later once the bludgeoned body was discovered found that neighbours had heard screams and indications of a struggle but no witnesses—many of whom were present in 1964—came forward, either citing the holiday or expecting others to have heard the commotion and alerted authorities. Eventually the building’s elevator operator corroborated police suspicions for Zahler’s estranged boyfriend.

synchronoptica

one year ago: Godwin’s Law (with synchronoptica), a visit to a basalt factory plus The Sting (1973)

seven years ago: more holiday greetings

ten years ago: another Yule Log

eleven years ago: endangered specie 

twelve years ago: luck-bringers 

pause for station identification (12. 108)

We at PfRC wish you and yours a all good things and a very merry holiday season!  Thanks for visiting and take care of one another and come back real soon!

send in the clowns (12. 107)

Known as the Bohemian Sousa for his vast body of works including marches, polkas and waltzes, we are introduced to the military bandmaster, conductor and composer Julius Ernest Wilhelm Fučík outside of Czech ceremonial and patriotic music via his opus sixty-eight, written in October 1897 whilst stationed in Sarajevo for the Austro-Hungarian Army, originally titled “Grande Marche Chromatique,” in reference to the climbing and descending scales used throughout, but retitled based on his personal interest in the Roman Empire and impressed by a particular scene in Quo Vadis? to Vjezd gladiátorů (Entrance of the Gladiators). Adapted for piano and later for woodwind orchestra, the air renamed to “Thunder and Blazes,” became up tempo synonymous by the turn of the century with circuses and anticipated the procession of clowns. Despite this well-established and enduring association (see also, see above), the popular piece was used accompany the arrival and departure of SS commandants in Nazi concentration camps.

forschungslaboratorium für elektronenphysik (12. 106)

Autodidact in applied physics and prolific inventor, Baron Manfred von Ardenne, after presenting to the public his concept of Fernsehen a year and a half earlier, achieved his first wholly electronic transmission of television pictures, using a cathode ray tube (see more) for both transmission and reception, on this day in 1933. Following trial runs on broadcasters, Ardenne’s technological advance progressed quickly with the private station of Paul Nipkow culminating with the live airing of the 1936 Berlin Games. Having also conducted pioneering experiments in the fields of radar, radio, isotope separation and inventing the scanning electron microscope, Ardenne’s research facilities in Berlin-Lichtenfelde were put a protective order by Soviet occupying forces in April 1945 and Ardenne and his colleagues were reassigned to laboratories in Abkhazia to work on the atomic bomb project (see also)—like the Russian version of Operation Paperclip. Realising that participation in such a plan would jeopardise his eventual repatriation to East Germany, Ardenne convinced authorities to focus on uranium enrichment rather than weaponising the programme, slowly development until the Americans bombed Japan and an extensive espionage network determined that it was more than theoretical possible. Once Ardenne returned to the DDR and assumed an advisory role in the government, he applied his study and resources to medical diagnostics, inventing an early form MRI scanner and radiotherapies to treat cancer.

 synchronoptica

one year ago: Christmas Greetings (with synchronoptica), Aida (1871) plus more accidental Renaissance art

seven years ago: Sleighrunner, Trump’s challenge coin plus more Season’s Greetings

eight years ago: A Human Document, internet court plus a collection of Yule Logs

nine years ago: more Yule Logs 

ten years ago: a visit from Father Frost

eleven years ago: 2013 wrapped plus a holiday reckoning  

fruitcake (12. 105)

Language Log featured recently a duo of Christmas confections from Italy and Germany and while the latter in the Stollen might have a more robust etymology, derivative of the verb stellen—to put—and from the Ancient Greek στήλη, stēlē, to support, as in the beams constructed in a mine shaft to prevent a tunnel from collapsing (see also here and here), it is the former in the mildly sweet and far less dense (fluffy as compared to the Stollen’s consistency of a neutron star) the panettone that has a more intriguing composition as a augmentation of a diminutive, big little bread. Fettuccine is the reverse formation in little big slice, and there’s a single-serving variant called a panettoncini, a diminutive of the augmentative of the diminutive. More at the links above.

a555 (12. 104)

Via Things Magazine year-end round-up we are invited to take an epic road-trip (which we managed to somehow miss earlier) for the fiftieth anniversary of Kraftwerk’s Autobahn, a twenty-two minute musical tribute to the German road network (previously here and here) that transformed the entire electronic music landscape—achieving international chart success the following year once pared down to three-minutes and twenty-eight seconds for radio audiences. Legend has it that the group were inspired by a stretch of West German highway from Köln to Bonn, a main artery from the international airport, a Brutalist masterwork who band member Florian Schneider’s father designed, to the capital and just a few junctions from their Düsseldorf studios. Much more from Tim Jonze’ pilgrimage at the link above. You need to unmute for this one.

synchronoptica

one year ago: miscellany from the depths of Wikipedia (with synchronoptica), assorted links to revisit plus Hansel and Gretel (1893)

seven years ago: keep watching the skies plus misappropriating a Secessionist motto

eight years ago: combatting fake news

nine years ago: a cavalcade of holiday customs, Christmas ghost stories, lip balm recalled over high THC levels plus Seasons’ Greetings

ten years ago: Ship of Theseus

 

demi-conductor (12. 103)

Via Damn Interesting’s Curated Links, we are directed to a class of quasiparticles in condensed matter physics—the field of study that focuses on the difference of properties and behaviours on macroscopic versus microscopic scales—that has the unexpected quality of carrying mass and charge in one direction only and when turned 90° suddenly become massless. Though the scholarship has been established for about a decade regarding such topological behaviour, researchers believe that harnessing such novel semi-Dirac fermions (with a strangely definitive level of certainty for the quantum realm) could have revolutionary applications for quantum computing and transcend the restraints of traditional circuitry that’s too blunt to wire reliably for qubits on a nano-scale. The semi- and super-conductors of solid state electronics do not corral energy in orderly or predictable ways for such a delicate set-up but if the circuit could be a virtual one comprised not of wire but of a particle with switching properties, quantum computations (see previously) could quickly become very robust. More from Popular Mechanics at the link above.