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Monday Links from the Lockdown vol. DLXXXIII

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    Monday Links from the Lockdown vol. DLXXXIII

    I just realised that it was a year ago today (well, it was 29th February) that I last went to a pub
    • Rock of ages: how chalk made England - ”Swathes of England’s landscape were shaped by the immense block of chalk that has lain beneath it for 100 million years. For a long time, even geologists paid it little heed – but now its secrets and symbolism are being revealed.” HT to ladymuck for this enjoyable read
    • Vanishing Act - ”Her life in South Korea seemed perfect: new friends, a burgeoning career, reality-TV fame. But she was about to become notorious—disappearing without a trace, only to reappear pledging allegiance to North Korea. What happened to Lim Ji-hyun?” Another strange affair involving North Korea.
    • The History of Mr. Potato Head - If you're going to engage with the controversy, you need to be informed about the issues, so here's the definitive story of the spud-based character, for whom you originally had to supply the spud: ”The United States was changing rapidly in the 1950s and 1960s, and by the late sixties, the first child safety laws were passed… Mr. Potato Head's small pieces of plastic with sharp pins on them were considered unsafe for small children. At the same time, parents complained that they kept finding moldy potatoes under their kids' beds. In 1964, Hasbro began making hard plastic bodies.”
    • Ancient DNA Reveals the Oldest Domesticated Dog in the Americas - ”For more than a decade, archaeologists thought they were looking at a bear. Known to experts as PP-00128, the fragment of bone found in a southeastern Alaskan cave seemed to be from some large mammal that lived in the area thousands of years ago. But ancient DNA evidence has given this unassuming shard of bone a new identity. The sliver did not belong to a bear, but at 10,150 years old, the most ancient dog yet found in the Americas.” The full paper is at the Royal Society: An early dog from southeast Alaska supports a coastal route for the first dog migration into the Americas.
    • Astronomical Instruments in the Middle Ages: More than just a timepiece - ”While astronomical instruments could be as useful to the medieval person as Google Maps is to us today, you pretty much needed a whole degree in mathematics to figure out how to use them properly.” Sophie Andrade on the many and varied uses of astrolabes and other such instruments.
    • The Nothing Line - I recorded the sound of an empty Underground train and it made me feel a bit weird and spooky - If you're missing the Tube, Rob Manuel has you covered: ”For obvious reasons the London Underground isn’t at full capacity at the moment and the other evening I needed to use it to make a necessary trip… For reasons of art, and that I hadn’t really been on a tube for a while and it felt like an event I decided to bring along a handheld recording device and sit there recording the noise.”
    • How one of Google’s massive undersea cables detects earthquakes - A clever use for the otherwise nearly worthless Internet: ”The web of undersea cables that transmit data around the world could one day be used to track earthquakes and tsunamis, according to new research. During a test run last year, one of Google’s fiber-optic cables was able to successfully pick up on nearby earthquakes by detecting distortions in light pulses sent along the cable.”
    • Adventures in Stereograms - ”Does it enhance my nerd credibility if I tell you that I was into stereograms before they were cool? What if I tell you that I’m still into stereograms long after they were cool? And I’ve just discovered some amazing stereograms the likes of which I’ve never seen before.” I've never managed to see anything in those Magic Eye things, but this is an interesting exploration of various different forms of stereogram
    • The Made-Up Language That Accidentally Became Real: The Story of Klingon - One for the latex forehead brigade: ”The Klingon language remains relevant to today’s culture and continues to evolve in surprising ways.”
    • Tέχνη στην είσοδο της αθηναϊκής πολυκατοικίας: 10 αριστουργήματα που πρέπει να προστατευτούν If, like me, you don't read Greek, here it is in Google Translate: Art at the entrance of the Athenian apartment building: 10 masterpieces that must be protected - ”From the mid-1950s to the mid-1980s, during a prolific thirty years, a number of works were created solely to adorn the entrances of apartment buildings and office buildings.” This one is Iliad by Paris Preka, photographed by Paris Tavitian.





    Happy invoicing!

    #2
    I almost sent that to you too, I see you are also a recipient of the B3ta newsletter

    Comment


      #3
      Originally posted by ladymuck View Post
      I almost sent that to you too, I see you are also a recipient of the B3ta newsletter
      No, but I follow Rob on Twitter

      Comment


        #4
        Originally posted by ladymuck View Post
        I almost sent that to you too, I see you are also a recipient of the B3ta newsletter
        I am of the impression that most people here migrated from /talk

        Comment


          #5
          Originally posted by clearedforlanding View Post

          I am of the impression that most people here migrated from /talk
          I don't look at that forum. I pop into the image challenge and have an occasional look at the main board but I don't really participate very much. I like the newsletter though (and I support it on patreon).

          Comment

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