This is the start of my first five-day working week since the end of November. Thank goodness for all kinds of odd things on the Internet to distract me from the horror! 
Happy invoicing!
- Damages - Dark doings in the world of privatised medicine: ”An ob-gyn in Virginia performed unnecessary surgeries on patients for decades. When his victims learned the truth, they fought back.”
- New Kind of Magnetism Spotted in an Engineered Material - A 1966 hypothesis about an alternative form of magnetism seems to be working out: ”All the magnets you have ever interacted with, such as the tchotchkes stuck to your refrigerator door, are magnetic for the same reason. But what if there were another, stranger way to make a material magnetic?”
- Colorful Mystery Solved: Scientists Discover Enzyme That Makes Urine Yellow - ”Researchers at the University of Maryland and National Institutes of Health have identified the enzyme responsible for giving urine a yellow hue, and it’s more than a matter of idle curiosity or grade-school giggles.” No word yet on whether this means yellow snow is good for you after all.
- Your Age on Other Worlds - Years and days are a function of the Earth and its place in the solar system, so how “old” are you on other planets? ”You'll immediately notice that you are different ages on the different planets. This brings up the question of how we define the time intervals we measure. What is a day? What is a year?”
- A Knife Forged in Fire - ”The author wanted a Japanese-style kitchen blade made for him by hand. What he witnessed was a combination of artistry and atomic magic.” Knives: a lot more complicated than they look
- Inside the tunnels of Gaza - Good explainer from Reuters about the vast complex of tunnels beneath the Gaza strip: ”Beneath the warscape of Gaza City lies a vast network of tunnels built by the Palestinian militant group Hamas. Some entrance shafts are hidden among what remains of the city’s multi-storey buildings, ravaged by Israeli air strikes. Others are concealed in sandy dunes outside the city. Or tucked away in private homes. They lead to a warren of interconnecting passages that stretches below Gaza’s streets, extending for hundreds of miles into almost every area of the enclave.”
- Quantum Computing’s Hard, Cold Reality Check - Your passwords may be safe for a while longer: ”The quantum computer revolution may be further off and more limited than many have been led to believe. That’s the message coming from a small but vocal set of prominent skeptics in and around the emerging quantum computing industry.”
- Project Diana: Radar Reaches the Moon - ” On January 10, 1946, a small group of scientists at Camp Evans in Wall, NJ, using a modified SCR-271 bedspring radar antenna and amping up the power, broadcast a series of radar signals towards the moon and each time picked up an echo 2.6 seconds later--the time required for light to travel to the moon and back.” The story of the first extraterrestrial radar experiment.
- Raw Eels May Kill Your Hangover. And the Rest of You, Too. - ”Have you ever woken up with a hangover after a hard night of partying, and thought to yourself, ‘What I really want right now is a good medieval remedy?’ If so, then you probably turned to Google, or reached for a book on the topic, and learned that a serving of raw eels with bitter almonds was a traditional medieval English remedy.” Turns out it might be a bad idea…
- Every Chip Stand - Illustrators Chantal Bennett and Joel Kimmel are on a mission to illustrate every chip stand in Ontario and Canada: ”Chip stands are a ubiquitous part of Ontario’s landscape. Most chip stands began as a vehicle of some sort that morphed into a semi-permanent,retrofitted, DIYed shack. They are not pretty, nor do they pretend to be. They are not pristine eateries… The best ones seem as though they’re glued together with grease.” This cross-stitch by Chantal depicts Stan’s Fries: “Stan's Fries is located next to the bus terminal on Darling Street (as well as two other locations), in Brantford, ON. Stan's Fries has a long history in Brantford, having been estalished over 70 years ago. It is currently owned by the 3rd generation of the same family!”
Happy invoicing!
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