Had one of those days when you think everything's about wrapped up for the sprint, then it turns out something is unexpectedly broken and you have to try and fix it between all the meetings
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- After the Zodiac Killer's '340' Cipher Stumped the FBI, Three Amateurs Made a Breakthrough - ”For more than fifty years, the cipher remained an unsolvable enigma, one that grew to almost mythic proportions… But then, in December 2020, the FBI announced a breakthrough: The 340 cipher had been solved. Not by its crack Cryptanalysis and Racketeering Records Unit, but instead by three computer wonks who’d found one another on an obscure online true-crime discussion board and started collaborating during the COVID-19 pandemic.” Yet another benefit of lockdown. We should do that more often
- Meteorites that reach the Earth fall from asteroid butts - ”Scientists break down how meteors break up. Meteorites, it seems, come from their rear end.” Tautology corner: if they don't reach the Earth, they aren't meteorites
- Hypergraphs Reveal Solution to 50-Year-Old Problem - ”In 1973, Paul Erdős asked if it was possible to assemble sets of ‘triples’ — three points on a graph — so that they abide by two seemingly incompatible rules. A new proof shows it can always be done.” Some obscure maths for you
- Who is the author “JC Shakespeare”? - ”Knowledge graphs are tricky beasts to create. Trying to extract semantic metadata from documents is a gargantuan task. Mix them together and you have a recipe for disaster.” Terence Eden finds an amusing anomaly in the way Google tries to interpret names in text.
- Kings Park Psychiatric Center | one last masterpiece - The sad tale of comic strip creator Percy Crosby: ”It was, perhaps, his vocal nature that led to his undoing, as at the height of his success the IRS hammered him (some claim in response to political pressure from those his strip angered) and corporations who wished to use the immensely popular Skippy character began a crusade to strip the rights for his character away from him… He was committed to this state hospital which is where he spent the rest of his life.”
- The game’s Bond: the making of Nintendo classic GoldenEye 007 - ”The beloved shooter proved movie tie-ins didn’t have to be mediocre. Twenty-five years on from its release, its creators tell how they put Pierce Brosnan into 8 million bedrooms.”
- Matthew Paris Annotated Map - Yet another cool map: ”In the 1250s a monk at St. Alban’s abbey named Matthew Paris drew several maps of Britain, which he appended to various copies of his history of England… This project presents an annotated copy of Matthew Paris’s c. 1250 map of Britain (BL Cotton MS Claudius D VI).”
- In search of Britain’s oldest pub - ”There are many claims to be the oldest pub in Britain, but the majority do not stand up to scrutiny. James Wright investigates the necessary criteria – from the age of the building to its history as a pub to its current use – to determine whether it is possible to declare a winner…”
- John Wayne and the Six Security Men - In the wake of the Academy’s apology to Sacheen Littlefeather for having been booed at the Oscars in 1973, Farran Nehme debunks the urban legend that John Wayne had to be held back by security guards as she spoke: ”John Wayne, then 65 years old, had undergone lung-cancer surgery in 1964. The surgeons made a 28-inch incision, removing two ribs and the entire upper lobe of his left lung… Wayne looks pretty calm for a man who caused backstage mayhem moments ago. Dapper, too. I do appreciate that the Oscar security men were careful not to rumple his tux.”
- 2022 BMC Ecology and Evolution image competition: the winning images - ”In 2022, researchers from around the world entered the BMC Ecology and Evolution photography competition. The contest produced a spectacular collection of photographs that capture the wonder of the natural world and the growing need to protect it as the human impact on the planet intensifies. This editorial celebrates the winning images selected by the Editor of BMC Ecology and Evolution and senior members of the journal’s editorial board.” This is a fringe-lipped bat making a meal of a tungara frog
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