perfect for roquefort cheese

Thursday, 2 January 2025

(12. 136)

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

Wednesday, 1 January 2025

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.

duo lingo (12. 132)

Having always found foreign language phrase books either a bit sinister and/or absurdist (see previously), we enjoyed this excerpt taken from a 1937 edition of Collins’ Pocket Interpreter series for visitors to Paris, which makes any excursion outside of one’s comfort zone sound particularly fraught, and as described by author James Thurber as singularly tragic in an overwhelming and original way.

I cannot open my case.
I have lost my keys.
I did not know that I had to pay.
I cannot find my porter.
Excuse me, sir, that seat is mine.
I cannot find my ticket!
I have left my gloves (my purse) in the dining car.
I feel sick.
The noise is terrible.
Did you not get my letter?
I cannot sleep at night, there is so much noise.
There are no towels here.
The sheets on this bed are damp.
I have seen a mouse in the room.
These shoes are not mine.
The radiator doesn’t work.
This is not clean, bring me another.
I can’t eat this. Take it away!
The water is too hot, you are scalding me!
It doesn’t work.
This doesn’t smell very nice.
There is a mistake in the bill.
I am lost.
Someone robbed me.
I shall call a policeman.
That man is following me everywhere.
There has been an accident!
She has been run over.
He is losing blood.
He has lost consciousness.

Hopefully you’ve never been in a situation to have such phrases at one’s ready disposal. Much more from Futility Closet at the link above. Ces chaussures ne sont pas à moi.

sgt pepper’s 2024 (12. 131)

Continuing a tradition started in 2016, Chris the Barker has made another collage (see previously), frequently updated and up to the last minute to eulogise Olivia Hussey and Jimmy Carter, in tribute to those passed away this year.

The field more crowded than ever it seems, there are two hundred and eleven personages featured including Maggie Smith, Bob Newhart, Phil Donahue, Dr Ruth, OJ Simpson, the Tory Party and American Democracy. Much more at the artist’s web presence (including complete liner-notes) at the link above.

⚳ (12. 130)

Discovered on this day in 1801 by Giuseppe Piazzi at the Palermo observatory that the priest and mathematician founded, Ceres—originally classified as the hidden or missing planet that astronomers, in the period between the general consensus and acceptance of heliocentrism and the discovery of Neptune beyond the worlds known since Antiquity, believed was necessary to balance out Solar System (see also here and here)—was the first known (see previously) and largest asteroid. Reclassified several times from a planet-proper, to dwarf planet, to asteroid and presently with a dual designation combining the last two—the only one of the latter catalogued not beyond the orbit of outer planets, it is about a quarter of the size of the Earth’s Moon and is cryovolcanically active with an extremely rarefied atmosphere of water vapour. Piazzi’s original proposal was to name his discovery after the Roman goddess of agriculture (hence the sickle and whose main temple and earthly home was in Sicily), Ceres Ferdinandea—the latter in honour of his patron and king Ferdinand III was roundly rejected (see Neptune above) by the international community. Ceres was visited in 2015 and studied closely by NASA’s Dawn mission in 2015 and return trips are planned by the European and Chinese Space Agencies.