Busy day of bug hunting today. I ended up creating a Python test case that automagically generates its own test methods by introspecting the test subject, so that was fun 
Happy invoicing!
- Letting the Sea Have Its Way - If the sea is encroaching on land, why not just let it? ”Near the community of Selsey, England, saltwater marsh and other coastal ecosystems have been allowed to reclaim what was farmland and is now known as the Medmerry Nature Reserve.”
- It Took 35 years to Get a Malaria Vaccine. Why? - ”When the World Health Organization approved a malaria vaccine for the first time in October 2021, it was widely hailed as a milestone… What those plaudits often failed to note, though, was that the core ingredient of the path-breaking vaccine was actually almost 35 years old.”
- Meteorite bears the imprint of a supernova from before the solar system was born - ”A very strange meteorite found in western Egypt in 1996 may have tiny pieces of the debris from a supernova in it, and not just any supernova but one created by the explosion of a white dwarf, the remnant core of a once Sun-like star. If so, this would be the first evidence of a relatively nearby supernova of that kind that occurred before the Sun and planets were born.” Cool stardust
- How Did Cartographers Create World Maps before Airplanes and Satellites? An Introduction - ”Unlike innovations today, which we expect to solve problems near-immediately, the innovations in mapping technology took many centuries and required the work of thousands of travelers, geographers, cartographers, mathematicians, historians, and other scholars who built upon the work that came before.” There's a couple of interesting videos about the history of cartography in this one.
- Remembering Apple’s Newton, 30 years on - ”Thirty years ago, on May 29, 1992, Apple announced its most groundbreaking and revolutionary product yet, the Newton MessagePad. It was released to great fanfare a year later, but as a product, it could only be described as a flop… Yet while the Newton was a failure, it galvanized Apple engineers to create something better—and in some ways led to the creation of the iPad and the iPhone.” Among other interesting stuff, there's a reminder in here that Acorn played an important role
- Sorcerer’s Apprentice - Kent Russell talks to a practising ceremonial magician: ”On Facebook and obscure message boards, these men (and they’re almost all men) quibble over demonology, teach one another Latin and Hebrew, and share high-resolution scans of archaic spell books… King uses a spell book—or grimoire—known as the Lesser Key of Solomon, which is believed to have been translated into English in the mid-seventeenth century, although it likely contains texts that are much older. ”
- 10 Aircraft Made Great By a New Engine - ”A great aircraft is the civil (or military) partnership of a good engine and good airframe, and sometimes a separation is necessary to make way for a more appropriate partner. Many great airframe aircraft have been held back by combination with inappropriate or inferior engines. Here are 10 power-hungry flying machines that finally got the grunt they deserved.”
- Plants, Heavy Metals, and the Lingering Scars of World War I - How the most devastated regions of the French landscape are gradually recovering: ”Economically hobbled by war, and awed by the scale of the problem facing them, the French authorities developed a triage system: They surveyed the régions dévastées and drew up a series of maps that charted areas believed to be devastated beyond repair… near Verdun, where the land was choppier, steeper, more remote, and the damage total… much remains off-limits.”
- The "Mother of Yoda" breaks silence on Baby Yoda and more - ”You might not recognize the name Wendy Froud (née Midener), but in the practical effects world, she’s a legend. Renowned in film and television as a pioneer in puppetry, Froud was sought out by directors like Jim Henson early in her career and created countless iconic TV and movie creatures. Yet she remains an obscure name rarely credited accurately on film sites or IMDb.”
- Russia’s Amphibious Aircraft - What happens if you cross an aeroplane with an ekranoplan? The Soviets naturally decided to find out: ”The Bartini Beriev VVA-14, or to give it its full name, the Bartini Beriev VVA-14 Vertikal`no-Vzletayuschaya Amphibia (vertical take-off amphibious aircraft), was an unusual Russian aircraft developed during the 1970s.”
Happy invoicing!
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