Let's see if it works this time… 
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- D for Deception - ”Over the next 48 hours he wrote 15,000 words, taking only two short breaks. To keep himself going, he smoked over 200 cigarettes and drank three magnums of champagne… Whether Navy, Army, or Air Force, they had all been taught at their Staff colleges to regard war as a matter having definite rules, like cricket. Wheatley’s work pointed up a fact that would soon become obvious: Adolf Hitler was no cricketer.” The story of writer Dennis Wheatley's extensive contributions to the remarkably effective deception operations of the Second World War
g: - Listen to the seismic sounds as Iceland braces for likely volcanic eruption - ”Intensifying seismic activity these past few weeks along Iceland's southwestern Reykjanes Peninsula—marked by tens of thousands of earthquakes, as many as 1,400 within one 24-hour period—has experts warning of a likely volcanic eruption at any time… seismologists at Northwestern University are also listening to the data collected by the region's Global Seismographic Network station using an app they developed a few years ago called Earthtunes.” The app seems to be iOS only, but there are a bunch of links to related resources in the article
- New beetle species has bottle-opener shaped genitalia: Now that calls for a Carlsberg! - Apparently, penises are an important way of distinguishing insect species: ”This species is characterised, among other things, by the fact that the male’s sexual organ is shaped remarkably like a bottle opener. Therefore, we thought it is obvious to dedicate this species to the Carlsberg Foundation, which has generously supported independent research for many years. Their support for various projects, expeditions, or purchase of the scientific instruments at the Natural History Museum of Denmark contributes to the discovery of new species on our planet.”
- In the Nineteenth Century, Scientists Set Out to Solve the “Problem of American Storms” - The study of meteorology in the USA was revolutionised by the invention of the telegraph: ”With the small amount of commercial business then on the lines, the employees had less to do than they have now, and it was quite common for the operators in different parts of the country to enquire of each other about the weather… I would frequently write upon the bulletin board in my office, what and when weather changes were coming. Frequently this was with such accuracy as to create considerable comment and wonder.”
- Add a touch of Dutch to your street - This AI tool can be pointed at your street in Street View and will generate multiple versions of it better adapted for cyclists: ”With playful research AI regenerates street view and aims to show what streets could also look like.”
- Internet Sleuths Want to Track Down This Mystery Pop Song. They Only Have 17 Seconds of It - ”For two years, an online community has sifted through potential leads on the origins of a catchy, 1980s-style tune, but answers remain out of reach.” If you recognise the tune, you'll make a lot of people very happy
- The Secret Language of Ships - There are many more markings than a Plimsoll line on a modern ship, and this is a handy guide to them: ”Tugboat crews routinely encounter what few of us will ever see. They easily read a vessel’s size, shape, function, and features, while deciphering at a glance the mysterious numbers, letters, and symbols on a ship’s hull. To non-mariners, the markings look like hieroglyphs. For those in the know, they speak volumes about a particular ship and also about the shipping industry.”
- The Alternative Anthology - Tim Worthington has put together a playlist of the best contemporary Beatles covers: ”Just about everything the Beatles ever wrote and recorded, from With A Little Help From My Friends all the way to Love Of The Loved, was covered by somebody somewhere several times over… The sixties was an exciting time for exotic musical sounds even outside of George Martin’s studio trickery, and many of these covers are worth a second listen.”
- Reverse engineering the Intel 386 processor's register cell - I think Ken Shirriff probably needs no introduction by now: ”[The 80386] has numerous internal registers: general-purpose registers, index registers, segment selectors, and more specialized registers. In this blog post, I look at the silicon die of the 386 and explain how some of these registers are implemented at the transistor level. The registers that I examined are implemented as static RAM, with each bit stored in a common 8-transistor circuit, known as "8T". Studying this circuit shows the interesting layout techniques that Intel used to squeeze two storage cells together to minimize the space they require.”
- Tirzah Garwood – A Very British Vision of Marriage, Lovers And Work - Tirzah Garwood is very much overshadowed in the history of 20th century art by her husband Eric Ravilious, but she was a talented artist in her own right: ”Having married Eric Ravilious in 1930 she followed the conventions of the time, giving up her wood engraving to be a wife, later a mother, and to support the career of her husband… This essay seeks to showcase her undoubted talent as a wood engraver, painter and designer to a wider audience.” This needlework and wool embroidery, Vegetable Garden, is from circa 1933.
Happy invoicing!
