Instigated by a relatively routine control stop that quickly escalated into an international incident following the construction of the Berlin Wall and increased tension among the occupying forces, culminating with the partition of the city and the Soviets seeking a separate peace with East Germany. Resulting with the standoff between Russian and American tanks eventually withdrawn in stalemate five days later, the crisis was sparked on this evening in 1961 when US Deputy Chief of Mission in West Berlin, Edward Allan Lightner, Jr and his wife were asked to present their identifications at Checkpoint Charlie en route to attend an opera in East Berlin. Refusing to comply (Khrushchev had relented on earlier demands of restricted movement of the Allies) and thought their USAREUR plated vehicle was sufficient proof for passage. In response to this dispute, US president JFK recalled Lucius Clay from retirement as a show of American resolve, dispatching several armoured vehicles to the crossing along with a retinue of troops and a military police escort for the Lightners. A plan by the Americans to bulldoze the inchoate wall was countermanded, but there was a face-off nonetheless, which in addition to the tanks included US soldiers armed with Davy Crockett guns, an over the shoulder personnel launcher for tactical nuclear warheads. Under terms negotiated by spy, diplomat and back-channel contact Georgi Bolshakov, both sides stood down. Bolshakov later helped dispel thoughts that Khrushchev and the USSR conspired in the assassination of Kennedy for the public, his brother RFK and widow.
Tuesday 22 October 2024
berlin-krise (11. 924)
10x10 (11. 923)
potalapitsi: a 3D resin replica of ancient Wauja cave carvings presented after the original was vandalised is helping keep their tradition and ancestral wisdom alive
stop the steal: the Trump campaign’s coup endgame—via Kottke
waymo: robocars circling the block
pumpkin spice: the untold story of the rebellious photographer that helped found the tradition of craft beer and the seasonal flavour
๐ป: guide to converting one’s haunted mansion to an AirBNB
grab-bag: vintage trick-or-treating paper sacks
ใ : revisiting a demonic number
charter cities: how wealth redraws geopolitical borders
because i was not a trade-unionist: the political implication of mass-deportations
hillfort: a preserved early Celtic wooden chamber tomb
synchronoptica
one year ago: assorted links to revisit (with synchronoptica)
seven years ago: Trump’s possibly fake Renoir, a two party system plus the first and only Space Cat
eight years ago: ICANN meets, turning leaves plus a massive internet outage that could impact the US election
nine years ago: more links to enjoy, time-travel plus even more links
eleven years ago: sacred architecture in France, Chartreuse plus lavender cultivation
Monday 21 October 2024
winner, winner chicken dinner (11. 922)
Calling the sweepstakes a means to “maximise awareness of our petition to support the Constitution,” the world’s richest man and ardent Trump supporter, Elon Musk, has founded a political action committee (PAC) that is awarding a prize of one-million dollars to a random signatory, pledging to upload the US founding document’s first two amendments, freedom of speech and the right to bear arms, each night until the election. Awardees must also live in crucial swing-districts, like Pennsylvania, which may decide an election essentially in a dead-heat between the two candidates, and be registered to vote—potentially in violation of federal voting laws as coercion with a financial incentive—but no one at the townhall seemed too concerned about statue or norms. Musk, whom holds several multibillion dollar contracts with US government agencies, has had an overture from the campaign to take a grace-and-favour within the administration as a sort of cost-cutting tsar under the executive branch.
iata identifier (11. 921)
Reposting exactly in the spirit of how it was shared—with the spark of enjoy and novelty that goes into a website one will probably only look at once for the scholarship and coincidence yet will remember and think about it for a long time afterwards (the hallmark of a good single-purpose website), we enjoyed via Maps Mania this project charting airport geolocation codes (see previously) that also happen to be filetype extensions. CSO, for instance, is Cochstedt Flughafen in Magdeburg and also a Compiled Shader Object used in graphics rendering assemblies, Cherbourg-Maupertus Aรฉroport is also a Windows Security Certificate and Ostend-Bruges International is also an Outlook email Offline Storage Table. Is your local airport also a filename?
synchronoptica
one year ago: a camping trip to the Land of a Thousand Lakes (with synchronoptica)
seven years ago: the life of Tiresias, Photographic Treatment, bonsai marijuana, protesting the draft plus declassifying the Warren Commission
eight years ago: indented writing, composite air planes in take off, dynamic projection mapping (caution flashing images) plus the CIA’s art collection
nine years ago: white hat hacking plus searching for unicorns
ten years ago: Byzantine Rome plus an extraordinary papal synod
Sunday 20 October 2024
time to head for, golden lights (11. 920)
Discovered amidst footage for a media event for the grand opening of a McDonald’s in Boca Raton, Florida attended by the fast food franchise’s new crooning mascot (previously) arriving in the JFK limousine—whatever that means, at timestamp 06:08 (the rest of the coverage is interesting and encapsulates the time), you can hear a full-minute rendition of Mac Tonight from actor Doug Jones. A lawsuit brought about by the estate of Bobby Darrin and the alt-right’s unfortunate and revolting adoption of the Moon Man meme contemporarily sort of ruins the chances we’ll see another debut like this one, regardless of the success of the campaign in terms of increased dinner-traffic but a good excuse too to listen to the original.
fernsehkrimiserie (11. 919)
Hugely popular and enjoying cult-status outside of West Germany, the crime drama featuring Horst Tappert as Kriminaloberinspekktor Stephan Derrick focussed on solving murder cases in the Mรผnchen area. Airing until 1998 when the principal actor attained the age-limit he’d set for himself announced his retirement, all episodes of the twenty-five season run had the same cast (with prominent guest stars) and were all written and produced by the team of Herbert Reinecker and Helmut Ringelmann. There were fan clubs internationally and as one of the first television programmes from the West broadcast in China, Derrick was reportedly used as part of police training curriculum. Like “Beam me up Scotty,” the tag line associated with show the show, “Harry, hol schon mal den Wagen,” (to his assistant, “Harry, bring the car around,”—to imply we’re done here”) the phrase is never actually said on screen though there are close occasions of it. The title melody for the establishing sequence (see also) is from English-German pop singer Les Humphries.
amidakuji (11. 918)
A way of establishing 1:1 correspondence with any number of random pairings of equal size—for instance assigning roles to actors or chores to a group of helpers—the lottery game of chance, guaranteeing equal chance and distribution is called the above in Japan (้ฟๅผฅ้็ฑค, after the aspect of the Buddha associated with discernment and perception), in Korean as Sadaritagi (์ฌ๋ค๋ฆฌํ๊ธฐ, ladder climbing) and in Chinese as Guijiaotu (้ฌผ่
ณๅ, a ghost leg diagram). Participants’ names are listed in the row above with vertical lines dropping down to an assignment directly below. Concealing the names and jobs, the lines are hashed with random horizontal detours that must be taken on to the next column until reaching the bottom. Revealing the lines to the players but still keeping the other names and jobs concealed, they choose their path downward, the permutations in the snaking path ensuring all tasks are taken—unlike with drawing lots, flipping a coin. Aside from practical applications, such lottery elements can be found in the bonus rounds in video games to randomise one’s chances of getting the best prize.
welcome to the future (11. 917)
The Verge presents a series of interesting articles about the pivotal tech year two decades ago that informs our present with a thoroughgoing survey of Napster and KaaZa and successor music sharing sites and the question of copyright and ownership of one’s media, the launch of the social web, Gmail and one’s permanent digital demesne, podcasts, migration to the cloud and more. The piece on the gap in photos from circa those years was particular resonant and relatable, like this grainy snapshot of the one time I visited Schloร Neuschwanstein in 2004 from among about forty or so bad pictures I could scrounge up. Whilst there have been innovations and choices in the interim, a lot of this architecture and underpinning infrastructure is locked in and legacy that we are living with today.
synchronoptica
one year ago: Big Foot on film (with synchronoptica)
seven years ago: tonal passkeys, the dangers of know thyself, French naming trends, a utopian city plus GIF mashups
eight years ago: the immunology of Tasmania Devils
nine years ago: story-telling and maths serving the same human need
thirteen years ago: coin collecting plus the occupy-movement