I'm back at ClientGov now, but will I let that prevent the flow of links to stuff you can waste your time on? Certainly not! 
Happy invoicing!
- 99 Problems: The Ice Cream Truck’s Surprising History - Despite the Americanism “ice cream truck” in the title, this piece is mainly focused on the great British ice cream van: ”The ice cream men serving us on our blustery English seafront, like John Harkins and his parents, are part of a dynasty that has lasted over two centuries. It’s an industry that remains strong, with an uncanny ability to adapt to changing times… Along with the long hours, the world of the ice cream van has been beset with accusations of adulteration, ulterior motives, and damage to children. And even of murder.”
- Astrophysicists Find No ‘Hair’ on Black Holes - ”According to Einstein’s theory of gravity, black holes have only a small handful of distinguishing characteristics. Quantum theory implies they may have more. Now an experimental search finds that any of this extra ‘hair’ has to be pretty short.” Sounds like those quantum people inventing problems again
- Genetically, Central American mammoths were weird - ”We tend to lump all mammoths together as big, hairy elephant-like beasts with enormous tusks. But there were a number of mammoth species, including less furry ones that inhabited temperate regions… The Columbian mammoth was a bit of an enigma; some genetic data suggested it was also a steppe offshoot, while other samples indicated it might be a woolly/steppe hybrid.” All mammoths are cool, but I assume weird mammoths are even cooler
- A very hungry planet - An amazing photograph of a distant solar system in the process of becoming: ”What appears to be a ripple in space, is today’s Picture of the Week depicting a newborn planet eating its way through its dusty cradle as it orbits its host star. This image, taken with ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile, is the first clear detection of a baby planet in a disc with multiple rings.”
- The True Size - This tool lets you move the outlines of countries around the globe to get an idea of the distortions introduced by the Mercator projection: ”Every map projection introduces distortion, and each has its own set of problems. One of the most common criticisms of the Mercator map is that it exaggerates the size of countries nearer the poles (US, Russia, Europe), while downplaying the size of those near the equator (the African Continent).”
- The year the government tried to hide the River Thames from enemy planes - One of those cunning plans from WWII: ”If you walked along the Thames in Spring 1941, you would have seen something remarkable – the government was trying to hide the Thames… Although the city’s lights are blacked out to make it harder for enemy bombers to find targets, the River Thames insists on glowing brightly under the light of the full moon. It was a shining arrow pointing directly at central London, and the government wants something done about it.”
- Around the General MIDI world in 12 pianos - hikari_no_yume explores different implementations of what a “piano” sounds like, with samples: ”General MIDI is a legacy technology, a thing that was born, grew, peaked, fell, and died… all more or less within a single decade, the 1990's. It is a failed dream… the only other technical detail you need to know about General MIDI beyond this point is that instrument number 1 (or 0, depending on how you count) is the ‘Acoustic Grand Piano’, that there is a ‘set the instrument on this channel to instrument number 1’ message, and that the standard says nothing more about what it ought to sound like. ”
- 1921 Marxolin One-String Slide Guitar - From a site devoted to cigar box guitars, a commercially manufactured instrument with just one string: ”If you can hum, whistle or carry a tune in your head, you can play the Marxolin with only a few hours practice!”
- How to draw a Space Invader - Stanko creates a tool to generate invader sprites: ”I did a few renders of the classic space invader and started thinking that it would be fun to generate random ones and create a series of plots… I literally had no idea how to generate space invaders, so I started with some research. I doodled on paper, but pixel art felt like it deserved digital tools.”
- Beautiful Autumn By David Zinn! - ”David Zinn has been bringing smiles to faces worldwide with his delightful street art. Hailing from Ann Arbor, Michigan, Zinn is a self-taught artist whose unique brand of creativity has given rise to a diverse collection of creatures that peek out from sidewalks and walls in the most unexpected places.” This one is called In Which Nadine Amuses a Dragon and Makes Autumn Happen
Happy invoicing!
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