The holiday season may be over, but that doesn't mean you have to do anything useful - you could just ditz around reading this lot instead 
Happy invoicing!
- Get Your Kicks: Owens Salvage in the Panhandle Pays Homage to the Heyday of the Hot Rod - ”Bob Owens putters through his salvage yard in a beat-up truck on a bright October day. He is surveying the hundreds of weathered vehicles on his 65 acres of scrub brush in the rolling plains of the Panhandle. Before him is arguably the best collection of classic cars and car parts remaining in Texas. Maybe the world.”
- Are quantum computers about to break online privacy? - ”A new algorithm is probably not efficient enough to crack current encryption keys — but that’s no reason for complacency, researchers say.” The new approach was discovered by Chinese researchers. Nothing to worry about there then
- Why moose need to shed their antlers - ”A viral video of a moose shaking free its antlers raises the question of why the animals need such heavy headgear.” Unlike horns, antlers are actually living tissue.
- Don Eyles: Extra! Weird-Looking Freak Saves Apollo 14! - HT to Doctor Strangelove for this bit of Apollo history from Rolling Stone in 1971, concerning Don Eyles who wrote various important bits of software for the lunar landings. Being Rolling Stone in 1971, it has a somewhat alternative perspective on what's important: ”The Lab contains some two dozen freaks, and Eyles estimates that 25 percent of the Lab’s employees have blown grass. And he and a friend have scored a small aesthetic victory: despite loud protests from the Lab’s maintenance crew, they painted their offices violet, green and red instead of the institutional white and brown.”
- Angry People in Local Newspapers – Greatest Hits of 2022 (and some from 2023) - ”Among the 2022 years since the world was created (please check – Ed), it was certainly one of them. And through the medium of ‘forgetting to write down the best local news stories of the year’, we have spent actual days searching out the best local news stories of the year.” And there’s a bonus page: Best of APILN 2022: The disgruntled consumer selection including this lady from Lancashire who believes Newcastle Brown Ale is “a gentleman’s drink”
- The Internet Movie DEADabase - HT to ladymuck for this one: ”Welcome movie lovers! Ever wondered who's still alive from your favourite movie? Find a movie below and we'll tell you which actors from it have kicked the bucket (so far).”
- What Became of the Monks and Nuns at the Dissolution? - ”Between 1536 and 1540, on the orders of Henry VIII, every single abbey and priory in England – some 800 in total – was dissolved, or forcibly closed… As a result, as many as 14,000 monks, nuns and friars, as well as countless monastic servants and tenants, had their lives changed forever.” An interesting look at that turbulent period and what happened to the people affected.
- The 19th-Century Iron Balls Still Cleaning the Paris Sewers - ”When the sewers of Paris get clogged with putrid waste, they’re sometimes cleaned the same way they were over a century ago: with a giant, rolling ball.” One way of getting rid of fatbergs
- The Strangest Computer Manual Ever Written - ”In the early 1980s, when the Apple II came out, a company called Franklin made a knock-off version of the same computer… But while Franklin’s computers may have been clones, the Franklin manuals were definitely original. They were more than just user-friendly. They were written with a lot of creativity and humor.” David Friedman explores the manuals, which among other things actively recommended software piracy.
- Photographs of London’s Kings Cross Before the Change – c.1990 - ”Before the money moved in, Kings Cross was a place for born-and-bred locals, clubs and crime.” Great photos of the lost district of gasometers and seedy-looking cafés.
Happy invoicing!
Comment