avions renifleurs (13. 978)

Considered the scam of the century up until that point, only to be outdone by the likes of Enron, subprime mortgages, MAGA, Bitcoin, NFTs, Theranos, AI, etc, the Great Oil Sniffer Hoax of 1979 precipitated after quasi-national French petroleum company Elf Aquitaine wasted over one hundred fifty million dollars developing a gravity-wave based detection system at the suggestion of a telephone repair technician and erstwhile inventor called Aldo Bonassoli and his backers of more political heft, including conservative former prime minister Antoine Pinay, Belgian count Alain de Villegas, Alfredo Sánchez Bella the tourism minister for Spain under the Franco dictatorship and Opus Dei. Despite falling to deliver on his previous promises of locating new sources of ground water with his new technology, Bonassoli and his influential cadre of believers revitalised the project by pivoting to oil, with assurances, due to fluid dynamics, it would perform better with that substance. With the world still feeling the repercussions of the Oil Crisis that came about with the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War that quadrupled petrol prices and governments looking for an off-ramp for energy independence from the Middle East, the notion of finding new reserves appealed to Elf executives whom wanted to be convinced that the contraption worked, a modified television with a panel of bright indicator buttons that was supposedly a range-finder. Though red-flags were in abundance, no independent vetting was done and millions were squandered prospecting with survey flights and drilling wells in South Africa, producing nothing. Most all geopolitical figures of the era were implicated in the scandal. More from Neatorama contributor Miss Cellania at the link up top.

synchronoptica

one year ago: scouring the telephone directory for nursery rhymes (with synchronoptica), telegraphy in China plus the witches’ gospel

two years ago: the first human-non-human organ transplant plus polls open for the OED Word of the Year 

three years ago: the musical stylings of King Solomon 

four years ago:  assorted links worth revisiting  

five years ago: the Free City of Gdańsk

six years ago: more links to enjoy, the Cluttlers Murder (1959) plus Doc “Joe” Baker

seven years ago: animated book covers,  more façadism plus the ethnography of dialing-codes

eight years ago: Little Orphan Annie (1885) plus the musical stylings of Fugiya and Miyagi

 

day two hundred fifty (13. 977)

Travel chaos and delays continue at US airports as the Federal Aviation Administration and Department of Transportation blame routine maintenance for the full ground stop, and not overloading air traffic control systems with Super Intelligence, installed by a government contracting firm that the agency director is heavily invested in. Democrats take the governorship in Alaska and are poised to gain one more senate seat. In three party negotiations, the US floats the idea of Ukraine ceding the Donbas region to Russia in exchange for NATO membership. Ecuadorian fishermen who survived American strikes on boats in the Caribbean and Pacific sue the Trump administration. World leaders prepare to depart from the COP 31 climate conference in Türkiye for Shenzhen, main venue of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. Revolutionary Guard strikes a US base in Bahrain, Tehran refusing to held in a state of limbo, neither war nor peace. Iran still has an estimated arsenal of two thousand five hundred missiles.  Gadi Eisenkot rejects Netanyahu’s appeal to form a national unity government with the opposition, dismissing it as his latest bluff to hold on to power.

it’s a big enough umbrella, but it’s always me who ends up getting wet (13. 976)

Topping the UK charts on this day in 1981, the lead single from the fourth studio album, Ghost in the Machine (other tracks including “Spirits in the Material World,” “Secret Journey”and “Invisible Sun”), the song was composed by Sting originally in 1977, before the formation of the band and ostensibly about the tryst with his West London neighbour on current spouse Trudie Styler over his then new wife, actor Frances Tomelty, but his move to the capital writing of the lyrics coincided with the Silver Jubilee of Elizabeth II. and may have been informed by a unrequited affection for the Queen—inspired for bigger aspirations after the Queen Mother waved at him as a dockworker in Tyne and Wear and eventually elevated to a Knight Commander during the monarch’s birthday honours in 2003 for his service to the music industry. Putting finishing touches on the chorus, Sting was searching for another word that rhymed with magic—besides tragic—and could only come up with pelagic, which did not make it to the finished demo, recording between Quebec and Monserrat.

9x9 (13. 975)

drampa: the etymological comparison of Pokémon characters’ names in the nine languages that the games are published in—see previously, see also—via Language Hat  

la chivichana: the homemade skateboards of Havana  

housefishing: estate agents cross a line with AI enhancement of properties on the market—via Damn Interesting  

everyday chemistry: an individual purports to have been given a cassette tape of a Beatles’ album by an inter-dimensional traveller from a reality in which the band never disbanded—see also, via Web Curios  

dimension 9: an exercise in finite but expansive AI world-building informed by the creepypasta Backrooms motif—via ibīdem  

tarantella: the Italian dancing cure for spider bites—see previously 

amoc amok: the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation that powers the Gulf Stream is breaking down—see previously   

the surma boys of afghanistan: a unique fashion subculture that developed organically without outside influence 

invidia: Jensen Huang named his company after the cardinal sin of envy 

synchronoptica

one year ago: a five course curriculum on how to use the internet (with synchronoptica), the musical stylings of Ecca Vandal plus Epstein’s business records

two years ago: movie title drops, the Onion to purchase Infowars plus the Polish-German border 

three years ago: assorted links worth the revisit 

four years ago: The New Musical Express (1952), more Scopitone fun, more on English adjectival order plus more links to enjoy

five years ago: the Oort cloud, the Landshut Wedding (1475), more McMansion Hell plus a tale of guided chess

six years ago: the centenary of the BBC, the 2008 G20, paleomixology plus another MST3K classic

seven years ago: even more links 

eight years ago: Yale admits women (1968), Nellie Bly’s trip around the world, more on land-use plus social media platforms reimagined on outdated technology

 

day two hundred forty nine (13. 974)

Nearly two million passengers are stranded after a temporary shutdown of US airspace blamed on outdated air traffic control systems. Happening simultaneously with the national weather service reporting a loss of radar connectivity, the failures follow Microsoft’s dismissal of sixty thousand technicians and IT experts, replacing them AI, which coincides with a huge network outage over its enterprise. Officials, late to respond as chaos and confusion fill airport with the public and pilots not knowing what is going on and fearing a terror attack, decline to link the disruptions and hurl blame at congress for not rehauling aging infrastructure, despite holding the power for the past two years. More super tankers, transmitting through the Strait of Hormuz under the cover of darkness with American naval escort and their transponders switched off to avoid detection, strike sea mines and are set ablaze. Petroleum flows through the Persian Gulf are returning to pre-war levels but at a high and unsustainable cost, particularly with the American military acting as chaperons for each passing ship, and is not translating to lower prices for petrol, diesel or heating oil. Diplomatic efforts again stalled, Trump declares that he does not need to make a deal with Iran. German intelligence services are granted sweeping new powers by the Bundestag to respond to hacking with counter-cyberattacks.

fly-over country (13. 973)

Via Web Curios, and we too were a bit reluctant to give credence to some site ginned-up by AI and vibe-coded and laden with opportunity to spy on one more and wonder how the dynamic of the vanity of being seen is informing hate-posting of the slapdash and outright dismissal of an earnest project fine-tuned and machined that has quite some utility and not wanting to be judgmental of the presumably human architects behind this venture, watched.earth (it really has the nouveau-riche trappings of upbuilding, optimisation and bespokeness that points to suspicion) with the Betteridge’s byline that something watched you this week. For any address on Earth, one can review the publicised satellite imagery (see previously) for that location, albeit mostly harmonised weather telemetry but prioritising the closest looks and clearest looks, for the past seven days with the highest resolution that is deemed for sharing and information on the passing satellite that captured the glimpse. We are indeed in a Dark Sky patch but it placed us in the wrong state, just over the border.  One can also summon up a more general picture of the preceding decade for a look at how an area has changed.

four legs good, two legs bad (13. 972)

Though in my mind I at first conflated the memory with Charlotte’s Web—Templeton is not a character in the adaptation of the Orwell novella, I can recall the animated version striking as not the usual middle school cartoon fare with violent uprisings, political betrayals and a murderous regime become exactly the oppressive elements that they wanted to overthrow. Departing from the original script and with a more hopeful ending, however, we had no idea however that the 1954 production, a collaboration of husband and wife team John Halas and Joy Batchelor picked for their previous work directing documentaries for the Marshall Plan and British Ministry of Information, was secretly funded in large part by the US Central Intelligence Agency’s Office of Policy Coordination, a branch of the CIA that used cultural programming to counter Communism. Distrusting American studios at the time of the Red Scare and the Hollywood blacklist, stakeholders approached British talent. The March of Time newsreel producer Louis de Rochemont was selected as a front organisation for distribution resulting in the first UK feature length animated film to receive a cinematic release—rated “U” for universal audiences, again despite its themes. In theatres, the film was a box office failure, taking fifteen years to recoup its losses, though achieving its objective of becoming a classroom staple that displaced the original work, whose narrative took a more nuanced critique of Soviet leadership and palace intrigue. The role that the CIA played in securing film rights, re-scripting the story to have the porcine politburo overthrown by other animals, and Halas’ and Batchelor’s unwitting involvement (the sensibilities of the social democrat couple would not have liked to have been duped into making propaganda), was not discovered by historians until four decades afterwards. Much more from Richard Metzger for Dangerous Minds at the link above.

the workers have nothing to lose but their chains—they have a world to win (13. 971)

With the same energy as the social justice kittens calendars (new for 2027), we enjoyed these pairings of quotations of Karl Marx with the illustrations from children’s books by Richard Scarry (see previously here and here) from writer and comedian Zach Mander—everyone’s a comedian, after dinner, in Communist society. All the juxtapositions are spot on. Which one is your favourite? Do you have a favourite saying of Marx’? The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it. A whole gallery and more to discover at the links above.