la a note to follow doge (12. 346)

Releasing yet another executive order aimed at whitewashing the country’s past, Trump’s “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” is aimed at museums and other cultural institutions to remedy what MAGA regards a concerted effort by the radical left of revisionism geared to deepen societal divides and promote national shame. The Smithsonian has been politicised and weaponised, ordered to halt exhibits and articles featuring “race-centred ideology,” calling examination of marginalisation effectively anti-American, with vice president Vance deputised with the power to review all publications, projects and presentations to ensure compliance. One wonders when Americans might have their fill of liberty—it seems like a line has already been crossed yet new horrors come. The order also implies that like with earlier dictates that there are only two genders, that race is a biological reality, rather than a social construct playing into the pseudoscience that justifies eugenics and segregation and directs the administration’s secretary of the interior to begin reinstalling and rededicating Confederate and racist statues and monuments toppled or taken down in the course of the Black Lives Matter movement. Attempts to erase the past follow the wholesale assault on present postures diversity, inclusion, equity and access is a regression of decades of struggle against hate and oppression but unlikely to determine the future shape of society.

synchronoptica

one year ago: a biblical epic (with synchronoptica) 

seven years ago: an earlier Trump portrait plus GDPR compliance

eight years ago: the basement level kiosks of Bulgaria, more long German words plus mapping facial measurements

nine years ago: more state flags that could use an update,  the Sir Vival auto plus garlic dreams

ten years ago: telepathic technology plus redefining the kilogramme

put down artist (12. 345)

There’s a Chinese expression in romanji that’s curiously enunciated, masticated as its acronym, spelt out P-U-A for pick up artist which entered common-parlance a few years ago but still very much circulating and having acquired more nuance synonymic with the concept of gaslighting, manipulative but perhaps not on the same level of flattery, though with same ends, and maybe more akin to the retired, superannuated phrase being owned or pwn’d (pronounced poned). The prescribed antidote is to not have ambitions party to seduction. More on leetspeak and linguistic disabusement with a sample in context from Language Log at the link above.

quale and qualia (12. 344)

Having come to a similar epiphany at a point in life I considered fairly late and doubting maturity—but perhaps this sort of realisation needs time to incubate and couched in inexperience—that everyone was their own hero and main character, I found this curated list of introspective descriptors (with an invitation to readers to submit their own) from Marco Giancotti to be quite resonant. Although I don’t normal think to believe that my own subjective experience to be radically different from the next individual nor informed by some prodigious synthesis of sensations and neither compensated by recently coined conscious lacunas like aphantasia, imagination without mental images or internal monologue, the notion that we’re all naked aligned with the Emperor’s New Clothes is a really fascinating and engaging notion to ponder, nomothetic, broad generalisations versus the idiographic and the idiocentric. I like to think of myself capable of imagining in all these avenues and could accept that others do not but there is a measure of scepticism for divergence from the norm. Among the shared experiences that spoke to me, was a short interview with physicist Richard Feynman, as self-diagnosed with a benevolent form of arithromania, about how people count and calculate mentally in various ways. Much more—with growing contributions at Æther Mug at the link above.

sashiko, boro and bunka (12. 343)

Via Spoon & Tamgo, we are referred to the latest, as yet incomplete project by embroidery artist Tomoko Kubo to adorn and ornament all forty six characters of the hiragana lettering system (see previously), each glyph carefully laid out to feature foods, creatures and concepts that begin with that particular character, like the pictured U kana (う in hiragana and ウ in katakana—deriving from the kanji logograph 宇 meaning abode or territory—the former being a phonetic syllabary and the later being a simplified version of more complex Chinese characters). Not only a work of art, they also aid in approaching the language for beginners with this colourful and creative abecedarium: う is for rabbit (うさぎ, usagi) and for horse (うま, uma), etc. Much more at the links above.

where is everybody? (12. 342)

Being obsessed with the philosophical and cosmological question of Fermi’s Paradox and having considered the Great Filter beforehand, we enjoyed revisiting the proposal that no one makes it—that is succeeds as a spacefaring civilisation with a constellation of lesser filters setting up intractable hurdles to the accomplishment, progress sabotaged by biological limitations, superstition, self-destructive tendencies of a society, pollution or a misguided Singularity. In that unlikely loneliness, however, there also lies an equally improbable (though less so than intelligent life evolving no where else in the Universe) of a grand conspiracy of those that have made it exercising and enforcing a sort of Prime Directive to cloak their evidence and activities. While that might seem patriarchal (but who knows what challenges and dangers could await) and demotivating in terms of reaching for the stars, humans—on any others on the cusp—might have never had the ambition to invent and explore with gods in the sky.

synchronoptica

one year ago: a Euro Pop playlist (with synchronoptica) 

seven years ago: a yōkai primer, assorted links to revisit, transhumance plus an AI suggests April Fools’ pranks

eight years ago: more links to enjoy plus Mr Roger’s Conflict Series

nine years ago: Easter origins, a venerable guesthouse plus a sinister lullaby

ten years ago: night-vision eye-drops plus even more links

klein-venedig (12. 341)

Established on this day in 1528 as an outcome of the Treaty of Barcelona in which Holy Roman Emperor Karl V—also king of Spain—seeking relief from debts incurred and privately financed, granted to the Welser family of Augsburg and Nuremberg, a banking firm who claimed ancestry with the famed Byzantine general Belisarius, who reclaimed much of the land of the vestiges of the Western Roman Empire from the Vandals under Justinian I, a charter to rule, explore and colonise the territory known as Little Venice, later Weslerland (the exonym originally from Amerigo Vespucci after the Spanish equivalent), and seek out the legendary El Dorado and seven cities of gold. Governed from abroad, the colony was the German’s most significant stronghold in the Americas and though not lasting two decades before given to Spanish rule over mismanagement and the death of many German settlers and enslaved people dispatched to develop the land, the Welsers’ privilege was propagandised in later years to promote German imperial expansion in the 1880s and 1890s.

9x9 (12. 340)

us agency for global media: Voice of America director files lawsuit over ordered closure—a federal judge issues a temporary stay   

pecksniffian paragraph: Trump as a Dickens’ stock character over his sermonising on transgender military service members   

entomological adultery: the 1912 Cameraman’s Revenge painstakingly animated by Władysław Starevicz 

deterministic bit generator: a financial institution’s experiment with quantum computing generates certifiably random numbers with applications in auditing and encryption—see also   

the memes have entered the chat: the internet responds to Signalgate (aka whiskeyleaks)

arts décoratifs: rediscovering Betty Joel, Britain’s forgotten maven of Art Deco design—part of a centenary celebration of the movement—see previously

the population of an old pear tree: an 1870 work by Belgian author Ernest van Bruyssel celebrating biodiversity and insect life 

import/export: ahead of the planned tariff action for 2 April “Day of Liberty” Trump announces twenty-five percent duties on foreign cars and components, triggering retaliation 

are you sure ms kerger—because he is red: NPR and PBS testify before congress with its federal funding at stake—see previously

synchronoptica

one year ago: anatomised police lineups (with synchronoptica), assorted links to revisit, a classic from U2 plus a Nordic Easter witch

seven years ago: the dynamic Cosmos, more links to enjoy plus Everything’s Coming Up Simpsons

eight years ago: backmasking and the Satanic panic, the show with the mouse plus the Bombay Sapphire distillery

nine years ago: Easter greetings, revisiting the Leipzig Panometer plus a canting dialect

ten years ago: Holy Blood, Holy Grail, even more links, poet Paul Verlaine plus affecting a holiday accent

9x9 (12. 339)

debonair: an amazing and comprehensive collection of flight attendant uniforms—via Things Magazine  

contrapoints: a documentary contextualising misinformation to point out it is misinformation 

shortened itinerary: second lady’s tour of Greenland (now joined by her husband) is limited to inspecting the troops at Pituffik Space Base  

seagram’s vo: pallets of American alcohol being returned to the manufacturer  

jug band: a fun cover of Beat It!—with a powerful solo bridge by the Bottle Boys 

boilerfaker: a new trend in microdosing alcohol—via tmn  

duty to report: the 1890 attempt to coerce Canada into joining the US backfired spectacularly  

signalgate: The Atlantic editor inadvertently added to a national security counsel group chat publishes transcript in full after Trump administration downplayed the seriousness of the breach 

hmnd: an incomplete bestiary of humanoid robots