Knackered after a weekend of tech talks and general geekery at BarCamp London X, at Microsoft's Victoria office in London. Turns out the way to spend an enjoyable time involving Microsoft is to go to their place and eat free food 
Happy invoicing!
- Atlas Mugged: How a Libertarian Paradise in Chile Fell Apart - "It was a good idea, in theory anyway. The plan was to form a sustainable community made up of people who believed in capitalism, limited government, and self-reliance… Now, two years after its founding, the would-be paradise is ensnared in a set of personal conflicts… Instead of living in a picturesque valley selling Galt’s Gulch–branded juice, the libertarian founders are accusing one another of being drunks, liars, and sociopaths.” This is what happens when you regards Ayn Rand’s bulltulip as meaningful advice, rather than execrably bad storifying
- The London Review of Breakfasts - Wonderfully wide-ranging review of the best places to get a decent breakfast in the capital: “It was like being preached to by a pig who had lived a good life for the sole reason of providing culinary pleasure to some middle-class twonk in a park. He exhorted me to enjoy his additive free goodness, pleaded that I bear in mind his lineage, and all in all shrieked, ‘eat me, and feel no guilt!’”
- The Body Electric - "Every year, more than 500 Americans will be struck by lightning—and roughly 90 percent of them will survive. Though they remain among the living, their minds and bodies will be instantly, fundamentally altered in ways that still leave scientists scratching their heads." Shocking stuff
- A Brief History Of Silly Obama Scandals - "Since the president took office, conservative media have repeatedly seized on petty minutiae unrelated to policy issues to attack the president. These supposed scandals include Obama ordering a burger with mustard, purportedly "ogling" a young woman at a G8 summit, decorating the White House Christmas tree with inappropriate ornaments, and using a "chintzy" paper clip on a jobs proposal." Unsurprisingly, Fox News (slogan: “Fair and Balanced”) appears prominently.
Cool Stuff On Amazon UK For Under A FiverBah! It's moved to Cool Stuff On Amazon UK For Under A Fiver - exactly what it says. Handy if you’re joining in with Secret Santa for the CUK Christmas Meetup
- Mining Bitcoin with pencil and paper: 0.67 hashes per day - "I decided to see how practical it would be to mine Bitcoin with pencil and paper. It turns out that the SHA-256 algorithm used for mining is pretty simple and can in fact be done by hand. Not surprisingly, the process is extremely slow compared to hardware mining and is entirely impractical. But performing the algorithm manually is a good way to understand exactly how it works."
- Earth has water older than the Sun - "By reconstructing conditions in the disk of gas and dust in which the Solar System formed, scientists have concluded that the Earth and other planets must have inherited much of their water from the cloud of gas from which the Sun was born 4.6 billion years ago, instead of forming later."
- A Private Tour of the CIA's Incredible Museum - All kinds of cool spy things, from silent guns to a petrol-powered dragonfly: ”The museum is run by the CIA and housed at its headquarters in Langley, Virginia, eight miles outside Washington, D.C. The agency’s entire campus is off-limits to the public, and the museum is open only to CIA employees, their families and visitors on agency business. By special arrangement, Smithsonian magazine was allowed to tour the museum, take notes and photograph select exhibits."
- The Rules for Long S - Andrew West on those letters that look similar to fs but are actually ss in old books: ”I realised that long s was used initially and medially, whereas short s was used finally (mirroring Greek practice with regards to final lowercase sigma ς and non-final lowercase sigma σ), although there were, I thought, some exceptions. But what exactly were the rules ?” (If you look closely at a long s, you’ll notice that the crossbar doesn’t actually cross, but is only on the left of the vertical bar, distinguishing it from f.)
- Sochi, Abandoned - Alexander Valov photographs the now-deserted site of the Sochi Olympics - there are more photos at his own blog, in Russian.
Happy invoicing!
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