synchronoptica
one year ago: AI learns to point and click (with synchronopticรฆ), London’s mortality weekly plus the life of Boethius
twelve years ago: more diabolical architecture plus Russia cracks down on homosexuality
thirteen years ago: Germany losses a neighbourhood retail anchor
fourteen years ago: artistic crucifixes, the tale of dread pirate Stรถrtebeker plus superlative t-shirts
vampira: the obscure made-for-television title by George Moorse with a atmospheric score by Tangerine Dream
concrete progress: a demonstration project for turning the rubble of war torn Ukraine into cement
overton window: a measured approach to AI—via Kottke—see also
spoiler-alert: William Castle’s Homicidal, a hammy, gimmicky film capitalising on the success of Psycho, gets reviewed by Poseidon’s Underworld
atira asteroids: a constellation of interior-Earth objects in our orbit and hidden by solar glare are uncomfortably close—via Damn Interesting
it’s awfully strange to make a decision where i’m paying myself—but i was damaged very great and any money i would get i would give to charity: Grifter-in-Chief demands two-hundred and thirty million dollars in restitution from the US department of justice for past convictions
billionaires’ row: a supertall residential tower on Manhattan’s Park Avenue is riddled with stress-fractures that may lead to its condemnation
the vampyre: Lord Byron’s unremembered manservant who invented the modern form of the genre—via Miss Cellania
synchronoptica
one year ago: assorted links to revisit (with synchronopticรฆ) plus the Berlin Crisis of 1961
fourteen years ago: exploring the past with the Retronaut
Though we’ve wrote quite a few times on the rather audious joint US Airforce-Massachusetts Institute of Technology mission (see previously here and here) to ensure the continuity of communications in the era before satellites in case of Soviet sabotage on underseas cables by seeding the upper atmosphere with a half a million copper dipoles to create an artificial ionosphere, the natural but unpredictable one being the primary sounding board for international correspondence via shortwave, we think the story bares repeating on the anniversary not of the deployment of the payload of “Westford needles” but rather on date that the first abortive experiment failed in 1961.
After the initial set-back, it’s amazing that there was another trial. Hundreds of thousands of tiny copper pins, thinner than a human hair (scaled to amplify target signals) in orbit would, as the theory went, would form a ring to collective provide passive support to a parabolic transmission dish located on the grounds of MIT’s multidisciplinary observatory. Carried aloft in tandem with the launch of a MiDAS 4 satellite the diodes failed to disperse. A second attempt in May the following year was successful. Though unknown at the time how quickly the needles would deorbit and that the debris field was temporary and diminishingly small, the secret experiment enraged the international community and although the fears of the a catastrophic grounding were unfounded, Project West Ford did prompt an inclusion of a consultation provision in the 1967 Outer Space Treaty.
synchronoptica
one year ago: airport geolocation codes and shared abbreviations (with synchronopticรฆ) plus Musk selling votes
thirteen years ago: a visit to Sigmaringen
fourteen years ago: Eurozone crisis talks plus more on digital rights management
sixteen years ago: diploma mills
seventeen years ago: nostalgia and intellectual property
tor’s cabinet of curiosities: a collection of weird hagiographies
photographie de rue: photography student Lionel Derimais’ impressions of New York City in the winter of 1980
non-generative ai: artist Pablo Delcan responds to human prompts
canary in the coal mine: the collapse of US private equity firms echoes the collapse of the sub-prime real estate market that caused the Great Recession of 2008
to catch a thief: reconstructing the Louvre heist
grattacieli: the medieval skyscrapers of Bologna—see previously
breaker one-niner: the computer industry’s first challenge from the US federal communications commission was over frequency interference for citizens’ band radio—see previously
elevator pitch: podcasters debate listening to episodes at 2x speed
Via the latest link round-up (all on the theme of needlework and knitting) by fellow internet peripatetic Messy Nessy Chic, we are referred to this cosy archive of embroidered kneeling cushionssourced from the pews of various congregations around Cornwall.
We wonder if there’s a scramble as services begin to claim one’s favourite—kneelers a sixteenth century invention as genuflecting was not part of the liturgy, spurred on by the Protestant Reformation and calls for regular and permanent furnishings, until then but until the mid-twentieth century it was common practise in Anglican churches to rent pews to seatholders, raising money for the diocese and as a show of social standing when on one’s knees.
synchronoptica
one year ago: pivotal tech year 2004 (with synchronopticรฆ), a method for guaranteeing equal chance and distribution, a West German crime drama plus a rare Mac Tonight clip emerges
seventeen years ago: returning from a trip to Ireland
Using footage from the previous year of the band promoting their latest album, Speaking in Tongues, the Jonathan Demme directed documentary is considered among the best concert films of all time and was released on this day in 1984. 
Including performances of “Psycho Killer” and “Burning Down the House,” frontman David Byrne enters alone on a bare stage introducing the first number on a portable cassette tape player and joined successively by additional members of the band, session players and backup vocalists with each new track. During “Girlfriend is Better” (whose lyric is the origin of the title) Byrne appears in an oversized suite, informed by Noh theatre, that became an icon of the film and of Byrne himself. With many tributes and homages, the piece is considered a cult classic with frequent screenings with the audience dressed for the occasion.
Unlike another individual who immigrated to avoid the draft with a mild, tangental case of the gold bug, leaving his native Hamburg some fourteen years prior, Bernhardt Otto Holtermann, who thrived in his adopted homeland of New South Wales and left a positive legacy, on this day in 1872, as an independent prospector under contract with the Star of Hope Mining company, discovered the eponymous gold specimen, a contiguous vein of the precious encased in quartz, the largest ever unearthed, the find weighed ninety-three kilograms, over three-thousand troy-ounces. 
Already wealthy from successful ventures in mining and sound investments (a shareholder in a residential hotel) and with a controlling interest in the corporation, Holtermann attempted to purchase his discovery for over the going value but was rebuffed by the company, only to have the nugget smelted for bullion—who disheartened prompted Holtermann to change careers and become a philanthropist and pursue his hobbies. Taking up residence in Sydney and building a mansion with a high turret for taking panoramic photos of the harbour, he followed his passion for photography and helped finance campaign directed at potential migrants (for needed labour and hoping to pass on the entrepreneurship that helped him) with his series of panorama images of the city and environs and became alderman for his ward, residing the second city for the remainder of his days.
For the onset of the spooky season—we’re over midway through without much planning thanks to the horror of the headlines but cosplay, costumed dictators are no match for the truly infernal and menacing—we are referred by { feuilleton } to a playlist of ten pioneering French classics of the genre from the British Film Institute. From the pcitured 1960 masterpiece, whose hurdy-gurdy leitmotif adds an element of absurd menace to the psychological thriller, to Georges Mรฉliรจs’—magician turned cinematographer after seeing what the Lumiรจre brothers could do—silent short work at the very dawn of the media, Le Manoir du diable, considered the first horror movie and innovative for its use of special effects, to the 1929 Luis Buรฑuel surreal work Un chien andalou and back to the 1960s and beyond, there’s sure to be something in the catalogue to frighten and unnerve any viewer.
synchronoptica
one year ago: the Cin script (with synchronopitcรฆ), the British India Ocean Territory and the loss of its top-level domain plus images of passengers going through a car-wash
fourteen years ago: art expositions of the Third Reich
