It's a long haul until the next Bank Holiday, but I've just booked the day after the election off to give me some respite 
Happy invoicing!
- Anatomy of a Murder - Minnesota not-so-nice: ”Grand Marais is a quiet outpost on Lake Superior’s North Shore, set among boreal forest in the easternmost corner of Minnesota. The town of roughly 1,300 is home to a mix of artists and outdoor enthusiasts, working-class people and professionals, liberals and diehard Trump supporters… But nothing has captivated local conversation quite like what happened between Larry Scully and Levi Axtell in March 2023. A shocking act of violence attracted international attention and split the town over questions of truth and justice.”
- Mathematicians Attempt to Glimpse Past the Big Bang - ”By studying the geometry of model space-times, researchers offer alternative views of the universe’s first moments.” Robert Godfrey of The Enid describes Einstein as "A bad man" who "told us things we were not yet ready to receive". Just a thought
- Human cerebral organoids and consciousness: a double-edged sword - What do you do when your experiment starts to feel things? ”Human cerebral organoids (HCOs) are three-dimensional in vitro cell cultures that mimic the developmental process and organization of the developing human brain… In the future, HCOs may manifest an ability to experience basic sensations such as pain, therefore manifesting sentience, or even rudimentary forms of consciousness.”
- Making Waves - Meanwhile, across the universe: ”Astrophysicist Chiara Mingarelli on the noise of black holes merging, recorded in a single curve.”
- Acoustic Location and Sound Mirrors - Douglas Self's online museum of acoustic early warning apparatus: ”Acoustic location was used from mid-WW1 to the early years of WW2 for the passive detection of aircraft by picking up the noise of the engines. Horns give both acoustic gain and directionality; the increased inter-horn spacing compared with human ears increases the observer's ability to localise the direction of a sound. The technology was rendered obsolete before and during WW2 by the introduction of radar, which was far more effective.” This Dutch contrivance is from the 1930s.
- So Long, The Gallant - Sad news about a sailing ship which was reviving traditional trading routes to London: ”I am sorry to report that The Gallant sank after capsizing in a sudden violent storm early on Tuesday 21st May, twenty-two nautical miles north of the Bahamas island of Great Inagua with eight sailors on board. Six – four men and two women – were rescued from a life raft, but the two other crew members – Emma T (31) and Léa B (28) – were lost at sea.”
- Moviegraphic: The Ipcress File - HT to DoctorStrangelove for this interesting compendium of facts: ”Everything you need to know about the classic spy film directed by Sidney Furie and starring Michael Caine as Harry Palmer.”
- The Scary Ham - Ellen Klages on the saga of a once-fine ham which had been hanging in her father's basement for two decades: ”After we’d taken care of all the urgent and important tasks that come with losing a parent, my sister Mary and I looked at each other and said. ‘What are we going to do with the ham?’… After a minute, Mary said. ‘I think we should have a Viking funeral. We’ll go out to a lake and put it on a raft and set it on fire.’”
- Inside a vintage aerospace navigation computer of uncertain purpose - Ken Shirriff on the inner workings of… something: ”Aerospace computers are an interesting but mostly neglected area of computer hardware, so I'm always delighted to examine one up close… Although I was unable to determine who manufactured this system or even its exact function, this system illustrates how hundreds of integrated circuits and a core memory stack can be crammed into a compact package.”
- Wildlife Photographer of the Year - More great photos from the Natural History Museum’s annual competition: ”These images were awarded for their artistic composition, technical innovation and truthful interpretation of the natural world.” This fungus releasing spores was photographed by Agorastos Papatsanis
Happy invoicing!
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