"Animations by Ray Manta with the Tatung Einstein font, which is making its way into the Retrospecs app."
The LK99 superconductor claim seems to be debunked, but experiments are ongoing an it surely seems to be an interesting, but maybe not revolutionary material. Sabine Hossenfelder has details in her latest video, and here’s an overview over all the replication trials.
Related: In Notes on it's so over/we're so back, the always fantastic Max Read writes about the memetic drive behind the back and forth of all those LK99-repilcation attempts and the ensuing language phenomenon: "Put in message-board argot, it keeps moving from “it’s so over” to “we’re so back” and back again, as far as I can tell, that’s precisely what people love about it."
He’s spot on with this. The superconductor story is not about primarily about physics, but the tension between the possible outlook of an utopian future as a narrative device as an attractor (“we’re so back”), and the bummer, the letdown, the failed replication attempt (“it’s so over”).
He rightfully describes these as a bullwhip effect, a resonance on social media which i used to call memetic waves, and WSO/ISO is maybe the most literal expression of these waves as of yet.
A more esoteric part in me believes these waves are not just real in a sociological sense, but have physical property. Another part of me thinks this is nonsense and i’m stupid for even coming up with this.Related: Yancey Strickler writes in a fascinating Twitter-thread about a Doppler effect for those memetic waves: "The Doppler effect is what makes a siren change tones as it whooshes by Because of the physics of sound waves, it’s only in the moments a sound is right next to us that it maintains the tone we expect What if this is true of not just sound, but everything?
I’ve come to think there’s a Cultural Doppler Effect. What sounds right in the moment feels different and dated to a time and place later on. This is true of fashion, design, music, beliefs, literally everything.
The Cultural Doppler Effect is what makes ‘retro’. As past cultural waves wash over us, their context is not as they first appeared. They return as pastiche, a throwback, an out-of-context comment on the now."Speaking of memetic waves: Philip Hoare writes about the ongoing Orca interactions: Orcas ‘attacked’ my boat too. What does this say about the sea?: "Many scientists think the interactions are a fad among a small group of orcas and should be allowed to run its course." — "A fad" is exactly the right word here. This is memetics among animals and it’s fascinating to watch this unfold.
"What Color Is a Tennis Ball?: An investigation into a surprisingly divisive question" — That color is called lime as in lemon, and it’s as if people never heard of that color (or the Twitter-poll in question simply didn’t offer that answer as an option, pretty much fostering that division). People on socmed are trying to spin this into a new dress phenomenon, but i digress and I'm baffled that this is taken as a cognitive difference, but simply is people not having the language to describe a distinct color. The dress may have been an cognitive interesting phenomenon, this is just a lack of vocabulary.
The Unesco calls for global ban on smartphones in schools. I’ve written a short post on why i support such a ban some weeks ago, snip: "I have nothing against laptops and smartphones in higher grades and universities; but in the formative years of elementary education and beyond, digital devices have a detrimental effect on the intellectual development of kids and therefore should be banned in the classroom, simply because the use of digital tools in education has been proven to hinder the fundamental educational mission of schools." Here’s a discussion on Hacker News on the topic.
A conference organized by the U.N. agency for science and culture recently called for a framework of human rights for the rapidly advancing neurotechnologies like Brain-Computer-Interfaces and Machine Telepathy, about which I’ve written here a few months ago. In that piece, i also dived into the emerging field of neuro-ethics and privacy.
Adam Savage visits the old print shop where Hollywood's printed props are made. They show off the Kentucky Hill Whiskey Labels from Casablanca, the original license plates for the ECTO-1 from Ghostbusters and the DeLorean Time Machine, the printing film for the Biff Tennon Dollar and the original blueprints for the Flux Compensator from BTTF, the labels for the Perri-Air Cans from Spaceballs, the printing block with manually typeset layout of a newspaper from 20000 Leagues under the Sea (the first movie i’ve seen in a cinema as a small child) and much more. As a graphic designer and trained typorapher, this video made me smile and I want to live in this warehouse for a week or so and look at and smell all of those movie-print ephemeralia all day long.
More movie-related print stuff: Cabel Sasser had his collection of vintage Disneyland Backstage-newsletters scanned and uploaded them to the Internet Archive.
Vintage animation obscura from Japan: "The Japanese Paper Film Project preserves 1930s Japanese paper films (called kami firumu) and promotes research into these rare movies."
The Vermont State Police is "investigating the theft of this 150-pound sculpture from the Beetlejuice 2 set in E. Corinth". Of all Beetlejuice-memorabilia, this one is the last thing i would steal. The first thing would be Winona Ryder, followed by the voodoo shrunken heads.
The Guardian interviews Ahmed "Jar Jar Binks" Best. His stories about the bullying and abuse he received after playing this, lets say, interesting character are especially horrifying. I’d dunk on Jar Jar anytime you’d ask me about The Phantom Menace, but projecting this onto the actor is just plain dumb and mean.
The LA-based Gallery1988 opened their Crazy 4 Cult 17-show and uploaded the artworks to their website. I used to blog about this artshow of popculture related remix-art, and i still think there is some clever stuff in there that AI can’t do just yet, but i also wonder how much sense popculture related art makes with image synthesis getting better and better and spitting out this kind of images nonstop on prompt.
Anyways, here’s a taste from the movies Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Labyrinth, Mad Max, The Shining, Violent Shit and Fight Club.
As a former graphic designer, i have a knack for vintage pens and stationary, the tools of my trade, so this short TikTok featuring an antique pencil sharpener collection came as a delight.
"A database of paper airplanes with easy to follow folding instructions, video tutorials and printable folding plans."
I totally want a wallet that looks like a desktop folder. Also, "Untitled Folder Wallet Final.Final.2" is the best possible product name for this as every designer with a billion workfile-v2211-final-final.psds on her harddrive can tell you.
The Arcade Blogger found a rare Environmental Discs of Tron cabinet by the roadside.
"1966 different people have been doing math by hand for 3 days, completing the first mathematical painting (shader) ever made with human brain power alone, rather than by a machine!"
CRT-TV drums by Ei Wada. Their whole YT-channel is full of this stuff.
I made a Typewriter out of Drums!
Researchers found a two-faced Janus-star: "In a first for white dwarfs, the burnt-out cores of dead stars, astronomers have discovered that at least one member of this cosmic family is two faced. One side of the white dwarf is composed of hydrogen, while the other is made up of helium."
Sci-Hub's Alexandra Elbakyan Receives EFF Award for Providing Access to Scientific Knowledge — As a proud pirate and user of Sci-Hub, I yarrrr my congrats at Alexandra.
Tickling rats for science is nothing new, and now they did it again: Researchers tickle rats to identify part of the brain critical for laughter and playfulness. I hesitate to write that these are happy rats as these are still animal experiments, but at least they are sort-of-laughing while being subjected to them.
The future is wearables live editing your genes based on body chemistry: Scientists Control Human DNA with Electricity.
That psychopathy is a common trait among business leaders is old news. A new paper is explaining this phenomenon by introducing a new dimension to psychopathy called boldness which roughly translates to fearlessness, and is usable for entrepeneurs: Psychopathic Tendencies Help Some People Succeed in Business. George Carlin still is right about them: "All businessmen are full of shit", even when they’re bold.
I love this piece on the community driven Lincoln Beach in New Orleans. In Berlin, we have the community driven Prinzessinnengärten, which are gardens to grow vegetables and food, which is not a beach but also not nothing.
Typography and signage in a research station at the South Pole at -100°F.
The Guardians has details about the record breaking low in sea ice extend in the Antarctica, while one of 2023's most extreme heat waves is happening in the middle of winter: South America is baking mid winter right now. In germany, this is one of the coldest summers i've ever experienced with temperatures around 20°C. And this well only get worse from here on.
RIP William Friedkin, whose Exorcist was maybe the first movie to make me actually afraid, while his remake of Wages of Fear reminds me to this day that some remakes can be as good or better as the original. Goodnite William, and thanks for all the beans.
RIP Francisco Ibáñez, whose Clever & Smart-comics — named Mort & Phil or Mortadelo and Filemón in english speaking countries — i completely sucked up as a kid. Goodnite Francisco, and thanks for all the laughs.
While I don’t want to kick off any tennis ball hop-ha, I don’t think the statement “that colour is lime” is helping anyone!
Lime (the colour) is also known as “lime green” like, well, a lime. It’s not (in my country!) consistently used to mean “yellowy green”.... google an actual lime and you’ll see what I mean!
And that’s all rather beside the point. the article makes clear that PLENTY of people think these balls are yellow. Like a lemon. Or green. Not yellowy green. That’s why people are getting agitated! If you are a person who thinks tennis balls are yellowy green I can see why you might think these people are just short of some vocabulary (“yellowy green”) and everyone ACTUALLY thinks tennis balls are the same colour that everyone else does. But honestly, that’s not what’s going on here.
Can’t believe I typed all that.
The orca thing makes me think of the Paulus Potter painting ‘Punishment of the Hunter’