Friday, August 8, 2025
Hey, how are you? Okay enough small talk, let's go.
Item 1: a link
I should probably pretend that I learned about Jaeger-LeCoultre's Compass camera from Hodinkee or something less embarrassing, but I admit that I came across it while mindlessly scrolling Instagram reels. At any rate, Hodinkee summarizes it well:
[I]t's a compact camera that JLC made in the late 1930s, and at the time it was one of the most technically advanced cameras anyone had ever made. Machined out of aluminum, it's a 35mm film camera, with rangefinder, ground glass viewfinder, exposure meter, and a ton of other bells and whistles, all in a package just 2 3/4 inches x 2 1/4 inches x 1 1/4 inches.
Its design is so intricate that Noel Pemberton Billing had to contract the work out to a watchmaker rather than a camera manufacturer. Here's what it looks like when ready for action:
When closed, it's small enough to fit in a cigarette packet (ask your parents, kids!) and it takes pretty decent photos:
Just don't inquire as to whether the inventor was a fascist conspiracy theorist. You don't want to know.
Item 2: a list
oneworld Alliance Airlines, ranked:
- Alaska Airlines
- British Airways
- Cathay Pacific
- Fiji Airways
- Japan Airlines
- Royal Air Maroc
- Quantas
- Iberia
- Finnair
- Malaysia Airlines
- Qatar Airways
- SriLankan Airlines
- Oman Air
- Royal Jordanian
- American Airlines
(Advisory: oneworld and S7 Airlines have agreed to a suspension of S7 Airlines' membership in the alliance effective 19 April 2022, until further notice.)
Item 3: a media recommendation
Mixing The Doobie Brothers - "Long Train Running" on an Analog SSL Console
Item 4: word of the week
Homologate
One might argue that the President exceeded his constitutional authority by instructing the FDA to seize all Diet Pepsi and pour it into the Atlantic Ocean, but Congress subsequently homologated the operation after he threatened to have the Navy Seals summarily execute anyone who didn't do so, so I guess it's fine?
Item 5: a photograph
See ya!
Thank you for reading this little newsletter. Hope to see you again next week.
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