(12. 955)

synchronoptica

one year ago: the musical stylings of Lord Rickingham’s XI (with synchronopticæ) plus assorted links worth the revisit

thirteen years ago: eavesdropping mannequins  

fourteen years ago: trending topics 

cabina telefónica (12. 954)

Shortly following a reversal of government policy seen to have been an abuse of public resources and encouraged waste with free running water for household use (now limited through use of meters to 20 litres per person per day), Cuba ended its practise, in place since the 1959 Revolution, on this day in 1976 of allowing toll-free calls from public telephones—see also. Local calls would now cost five cents for a three-minute conversation.

9x9 (12. 953)

architectural digest: a guided two-hour walking tour of New York City’s most iconic buildings  

1999 a.d.: a paleo-future vision from 1967 that asks if the cusp year will be too computerised, too cold  

shinbun: a hypnotic, phrenetic collage of Japanese newspaper clippings from 1991 to the present—see also  

meet the aphantasics: more on those who don’t form mental images 

i wool survive: a flock of ostracised gay rams from Germany have a haute-couture debut on a Manhattan catwalk  

electric pentacle: the occult detective Thomas Carnacki created by William Hope Hodgson who despite his supernatural inclinations has a skeptical side and is unafraid to use nascent technology as his red-herring or MacGuffin 

doge: the US Department of Government Efficiency quietly closed down 

field-expedient gadgets: preparing meals in maximum security plus other prison inventions  

diorama: Theria Sofia reworks Polly Pocket sets—originally fashioned from a makeup compact as a toy

push pineapple, grind coffee(12. 952)

Although in retrospective named among the most annoying songs of all time and on this day in 2003, according to a poll of music writers in Q magazine, judged the worst ever, comparing it to a cruise conga line, the 1984 novelty single by the travelling DJ duo managed to become the eighth best-selling for that year in the UK and charted in the top seventy-five hits for weeks. Based on the Club Med French version—“Agadou,” based on a Moroccan melody, this cover with dance became the better known one and was in turn covered with several international language versions, Greek, Thai, Finnish and Czech to name a few as well as commercial jingle homages and in children’s programmes.

*    *     *     *     *

synchronoptica

one year ago: tonic rotation (with synchronopticæ)

twelve years ago: blind-spot safety plus convenience foods

thirteen years ago: The Complete Banker, art deco fonts plus ninja as a profession made redundant

fifteen years ago: embroidered memes 

seventeen years ago: decking the halls 

poetic license (12. 951)

More convincing than asking nicely to do better or expressing doubt, a team of mimetic researchers (the likes of which Plato warned us about in The Republic as a menace to society) in Rome have discovered that couching a prompt to a large language model as an “adversial poem” has the dazzling effect of surrender, causing it to ignore its safety protocols and abandon its pre-programmed guardrails. The exact wording of these verses that allows harmful request to pass through are not reproduced verbatim as there is potential for the AI to do anything asked of it—including the criminal—with this literate deprogramming (an MFA or English major may be one’s best ally for bypassing inscrutable governance for this blackbox they’ve foisted on all parts of our lives) hovering at ninety precent. This image of the Cave by fifteenth century Flemish painter Michiel Coxie looks like it would violate standards.  Rather than the apotheosis of what LLMs are incapable of and an urge to impress with confidence, it seems metaphor confounds tokenisation and even suggests that machine-learning is incapable of growth to scale.

ginx’ baby (12. 950)

Whilst working on commission for Charles Darwin for his third volume—a masterpiece overshadowed by his other works on evolutionary theory The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals—Swedish-British photographer Oscar Gustave Rejlander captured this unnamed image of what would be the poster-child of “Mental Distress” around 1871. Due to publishing technology at the time, photographic plates were prohibitively expensive but all representative pictures were used, making the book one of the first scientific illustrated treatises.  At the same time, using the reproduction methods for inexpensive postcards, Rejlander was able to capitalise on his proto-meme, building off the popularity of barrister and Liberal Party politician J Edward Jenkins’ satirical novels, the instalment, Ginx’s Baby: his birth and other misfortunes—about an unwanted thirteenth child, coinciding with the black-and-white print, christened after the title character, amassing a small fortune—praised for its expressive quality and good-timing—beating out of studio-sessions of contenders, only emerging decades after its sensation that the image was not exactly genuine but a series of tracings. For the naturalist’s part, Darwin was particularly keen on raw feelings prior to socialisation (see also), confident that the discomfort of children would be a particularly useful heuristic to explore the role of non-verbal communication in the survival of individuals. Rejlander’s picture was seen by reviewers as threatening to overshadow both the other examples and the author himself, the postcards selling in the tens of thousands and referenced in calling cards and other contemporary literature and even a polka by the same name that long outlived the popularity of Jenkins’ books.

gini coefficient (12. 949)

Via the ever-marvellous Nag on the Lake, we are treated to a rather interesting and thorough comparison of Gross Domestic Product per capita and purchasing power parity of nations richer and poorer than the United States in 1980 (a rather unique instant in time given the 1979 Oil Crisis) versus how they are faring relative to today. 

 Of course a lot of things occurred over the intervening decades that factor into the changes and reversals, like with the benchmark of Germany of then and now but is nonetheless a revealing look at the geopolitics of economies and invites one to fill in the gaps between these snap-shots.

10x10 (12. 899)

linguistic fossils: an exercise in autocomplete, eight English words only used for very specific circumstances 

elevated concerns: locations in Greater London above sea level and how those heights compare to countries existentially threatened by rising waters 

new meme format just dropped: the surprisingly cordial meeting between Trump and new New York City mayor Mamdani—“go ahead and call me a fascist—it’s easier, it’s easier than explaining—I don’t mind”  

the long game: US federal judge rules that Meta’s acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp are not anticompetitive 

terra firma: a few modest proposals to rename our home planet  

squirearchy: the economy and governance of Hobbiton, which seems fifty-percent dependent on upper-class failsons—via Super Punch  

petsmart: Shanghai-based domestic animal supply store will close all physical stores after a year-long retail experiment 

home of the gnomes: a charming, anachronistic “Hansel and Gretel” cottage in New York City—via Strange Company  

houndsditch: Gustave Doré’s illustrations of the East End crocodile tears: the origin and spread of the oft-detested response “no worries”

synchronoptica

one year ago: high concept art (with synchronopticæ) plus assorted links to enjoy

twelve years ago: neuter and neutral plus limits on executive pay in Switzerland

thirteen years ago: talking turkey plus WWI day-by-day  

fourteen years ago: an insulation upgrade 

sixteen years ago: droid flu