Yes, I know, late again. In my defence, I had to go to the dentist at teatime 
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- Two minutes of The Simpsons - Comedy writer Joel Morris presents an exhaustive analysis of how and why the first two minutes of Simpsons episode Homer Badman are funny: ”I’m going to shred any joy out of the episode by forensically scalpelling the guts out of just the first two minutes, joke by joke… We’re not going to get much past the production credits appearing on screen, but those first two minutes contain a dozen or more great jokes which I’m going to pick apart like some kind of relentless fun-removal machine, in the hope of demonstrating the depth of thought, and density of writing, that makes something really, really good.”
- A Black Hole’s Orbiting Ring of Light Could Encrypt Its Inner Secrets - Turns out the hole might not be the bit you should be looking at: ”Physicists have discovered that the ring of photons orbiting a black hole exhibits a special kind of symmetry, hinting at a deeper meaning.”
- Mike Conner v. The Pain - ”In 2013, a fire-sprinkler engineer fell five stories from the rafters of a church, shattered 108 bones, and almost died. Then began his battle to walk and live again.” Remarkable profile of a man living with constant, extreme pain
- ‘The cultural memory of the UK’: unearthing the hidden treasures of the BBC archive - Excellent work being done to digitally preserve those bits of the BBC's heritage that didn't get overwritten to save on tape: ”For years the corporation has been digitising its vast reserve of content, turning up lost footage of everyone from General Eisenhower to Victoria Wood. Meet the team bringing a century of footage back to life.”
- ‘Flaming June’ Once Vanished for Decades—and Three Other Unexpected Facts About the Fiery Pre-Raphaelite Masterpiece - The past life of a famous painting: ”Painted by Frederic Leighton, Flaming June (1895) is today regarded as the artist’s unequivocal masterpiece… But the now-treasured work lived, for many decades, in total obscurity.”
- Dividing the Body - On cadaver tombs and the mediæval practice of burying people in multiple locations: ”This is based on the readily observed fact that bones hang about for longer than the soft squidgy bits. So, you take those squidgy bits out, bury them quickly, then boil up the bones in water or wine, and they can have a much more leisurely journey to your burial ground of choice. ”
- Haul of Fossil Fish Pushes Back the Origin of Teeth and Jaws - ”Our teeth and jaws are incredibly ancient. They’re older than dinosaurs, older than arms and legs, older than trees… But a trove of delicately-preserved vertebrates found in China has set a new date for the earliest record of jaws and teeth.”
- Mr. Robot - Scroll down past the plug for the book to get to the links to articles explaining how to perform the hacks depicted in the TV series: ”As most of you know, Mr. Robot is my favorite TV show. I love it for many reasons, well-written, great acting and most of all, realistic hacking… I will continue to demonstrate the techniques of Elliot and his comrades at f/society.”
- plant machete - David Bowen equipped a plant with a machete: ”plant machete has a control system that reads and utilizes the electrical noises found in a live philodendron. The system uses an open source micro-controller connected to the plant to read varying resistance signals across the plant’s leaves. Using custom software, these signals are mapped in real-time to the movements of the joints of the industrial robot holding a machete. In this way, the movements of the machete are determined based on input from the plant.”
- 3D Rendered topographic maps - Cool maps: ”Using publicly available digital elevation data combined with historical maps a new topographic perspective can be achieved. These maps are digitally rendered 3D representations of (historic) topographic maps of places around the globe.”
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