synchronoptica
one year ago: a storied gay bar in Seattle (with synchronopticรฆ), the Great White Way, an unavailable lecture by Grace Hopper plus assorted links to revisit
fourteen years ago: East Bloc architecture plus reading the comments below the fold
i’ll get no residuals ‘cause i’m a stateless individual: Trump considers revoking the citizenship of long time show-business foil Rosie O’Donnell
know thy selfie: from visibility and transformation to the routine, an examination of the custom that’s unlikely to loose currency
room 237: Stanley Kubric’s last minute change to the ending of The Shining
from the i sing the scooter electric department: China’s Omo X is a self-driving EV
turtle spiders of the sea: Ze Frank on the horseshoe crab
ebb and flow: an underwater turbine off the coast of Scotland demonstrates the viability of tidal energy
hyborean age: a Red Sonja remake in discussion thirty years in after numerous other reboots
a common-thread among world-eating types: a literally history of the billionaire—via Nag on the Lake
off-ramp: unmoved by other atrocities, MAGAist may view Trump’s connection with the sex-pest as a somewhat dignified way to sever connections with the movement
Inspired by the success of the Band Aid supergroup’s charity album from a half-a-year earlier, though with the same attendant criticism, Bob Geldof and Midge Ure staged their dual-venue benefit concert to raise funds for relief of the devastating famine in Ethiopia on this day in 1985 with bands playing at both Wembley Stadium and JFK Stadium in Philadelphia. Whilst prompting decades of debate regarding the organisers’ methods and impacts—from prioritising humanitarian aid in foreign policy and focusing the world’s attention on the plight of the poor in favour with dissenters arguing that monies raised were diverted from real and sustaining support and further delayed the West coming to terms with its parochial and patriarchal tendencies and disabuse itself from the real factors behind inequity and the injustice of colonialism under a different guise. 
Proclaiming music to be the lingua franca—not English, nonetheless, Geldof, at the suggestion of Boy George, whom had also taken part in the recording of “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”orchestrated a rather amazing spectacle with an enduring legacy. Mick Jagger and David Bowie had originally planned a transatlantic duet (see previously) though synchronisation problems ultimately lead to a compromise. Phil Collins did in fact play at Wembley, ferried by helicopter to Heathrow and took a Concorde flight to Pennsylvania and performed also at JFK, encountering Cher on the plane—who was unaware of the concert but was convinced to tag along and sing in the finale, an encore of the anti-hunger anthem “We Are the World.” Queen’s twenty-one-minute performance of a medley of hits was voted the greatest live gig in music history, Freddie Mercury many times leading the audience in unison refrains and his sustained cry of “Aaaaay-O” described as the “Note Heard Around the World.” The US event was hosted by Jack Nicholson and included acts by Madonna, Tom Petty, Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones and Tina Turner with reunions of the bands Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Black Sabbath, The Beach Boys and Led Zeppelin.
Recent intelligence suggests that China might be attempting to revive a Cold War leviathan known as the 
Soviet sea monster of the Caspian, the semi-legendary ekranoplan (ัะบัะฐะฝะพะฟะปะฐ́ะฝ, a screen-glider or ground-effect vehicle) an airfoil designed to fly just over the crests of the waves, invisible to radar, impervious to mines riding on a cushion of high air pressure and achieving speeds ten times faster than traditional maritime vessels, leaving fleets and coast defences no time to react. Photographs have emerged of apparent trials in the Sea of Bohai, near the Korean peninsula. DARPA was working on its own for the US navy—called a Liberty Lifter, the concept vehicle also known for its increased cargo delivery capacity with advantages other both ships and planes—but the programme was abruptly cancelled last month.
synchronoptica
one year ago: claim-jumping in the Arctic (with synchronopticรฆ), reproductive care in international waters, a local air show plus a failed assassination attempt on Donald Trump
thirteen years ago: the Period Table typeface
fourteen years ago: debt and pensions
Having previously learned about the invention of the optical or semaphore communications system of Claude Chappe, we appreciated this retrospective and chance to revisit the contentious innovation that informed public perception and art movements into the nineteenth century. 
Hailed as a great advancement, the tachygraphic network that was being introduced just as the French Revolution was beginning in 1792 as a series of relay towers throughout the countryside and in metropolitan areas was by turns regarded as an achievement, condemned as an eyesore and viewed with suspicion. 
The cellular masts (or windmills) of their day, their addition to the tops of buildings, profane and sacred, was considered despoiling aesthetically—numerous examples of paintings from that period feature them prominently, sort of like the scaffolding that encased the Statue of Liberty during the eighties that become as iconic and emblematic as the unobscured monument—and the coded messages (the arrangement of the blades or wings corresponded to ninety-eight numbers) to be deciphered and passed on the next operator) were taken as something sinister, prompting the destruction of some towers either as signs of witchcraft (compare to the attacks on the 5G masts during COVID either as its cause or a government conspiracy to implant microchips in the population to control it) or to hinder accelerated responses to quell uprisings, the government privileged with this speeded up reaction not available to the protesters. A group of investors in Bordeaux were jailed, though ultimately acquitted, for bribing operators to transmit stock market figures from Paris hours ahead of when the gains and losses would be available to the competition—an abuse for the sight-lines that was never envisioned. Much more from Hyperallergic at the link above.
Via Strange Company, we are serendipitously directed to an academic update in partnership with the University of Gothenburg with its share of megaliths (I still need to repair those posts from our Sweden trip made on a third party app...) on the Carnac Stones, excavating alignments in a previously unstudied area, Le Plasker adjacent to the ten kilometre stretch inland from Erdeven to the Bay of Morbihan, dating after several trials the original placements to 4700 BC (the landscape and the inventory has been significantly altered in pre-historic times and going forward) and thus not only confirming their age but also pre-dating other standing stone arrangements in Europe, like in England and Malta.
Having purchased the bright orange cheese—owing to the natural seasoning and colourant annatto, derived from the seeds of the achiote tree native to the tropics, similar to nutmeg but from more accessible climes in the American tropics and adopted by cheesemakers to imbue their product with the 
more intense colours of summer time cheeses year around (the higher carotene content in fresh grass that cows grazed on would pass through to the milk)—in slices at a supermarket during vacation—as opposed to a fromagerie, thinking it was the equivalent of cheddar, we were not aware that traditionally that Mimolette, originating in Nord and Lille, was created as a native substitute for the very popular variety of Edam cheese from the Netherlands. To distinguish it from the import, it was coloured, first with carrot juice and then later with the rise of the French East India Company (see previously) the more exotic spice—as are many other cheeses—and is aged as a ball, appearing like a a cantaloupe when sliced—the rind, grey-coloured, is infested with mites (see also) during the ripening process which enhances the flavour. The name comes from the French mi-mou for “semi-soft” referring to the slightly oily texture to the otherwise hard cheese.
synchronoptica
one year ago: plural forms of compound expressions (with synchronopticรฆ), assorted links to revisit plus Disco Demolition Night (1979)
eleven years ago: our VW bus plus the cost of camouflage
