More time-wasting shenanigans from distant corners of the web:
Happy invoicing!
- Pedal to the Mettle: The unbelievable, true story of Automoblox - "The story I’m about to share with you chronicles my journey with Automoblox®, a product that started out as a school project and ultimately turned into a full-time obsession. My road to nirvana was a dark and bumpy one, fraught with emotions that ranged from exhaustion and panic to frustration and rage. But the day I delivered the first order for Automblox to a small toy store in Darien, Connecticut was a day that rivals only the day that my daughter was born." Patrick Calello describes the drawn-out process of bringing his business into being.
- Dark Patterns - "Naming and shaming sites that use black hat, anti-usability design patterns." Excellent catalogue of dirty tricks web sites use to get you to do things you probably didn't want to do. (Yes, RyanAir is in there.)
- How Vinyl Records Are Made - And How to Pirate (Copy) A Vinyl Record - "Now, if you haven’t seen the exact process in how records are created, you might be surprised at how much manual cooperation is involved. From inspecting the metal pressing discs and the lacquered masters, to centering the disc for hole punching, you’ve got sweet old ladies who are meticulously making sure your music will sound great." And, yes, the article does include instructions for cloning a vinyl disc
- Invasion - "You think it'd be impossible to share your house with your wife, your daughter, and fifty million or so Argentine ants. And you would be correct." Ugh
- Vintage Tokyo subway manner posters - a great collection of posters promoting good manners on the Tokyo subway, dating from 1976 to 1982.
- The History of Firearm and Toolmark Identification - "The history of how the science of firearm and toolmark identification has evolved over the past 165 years is extremely interesting to many forensic scientists performing duties as firearm and toolmark examiners." Why should they have all the fun? Here's more than you ever wanted to know about a subject you'd probably never thought of.
- 20 Worst Drinks in America 2010 - "Over the past 50 years or so, we Americans have developed a severe drinking problem... America’s supermarket aisles and drive-thru menus are awash in empty liquid calories." A bottle of "water" that has 150 calories? Really?
- A Counterintelligence Awareness Primer - "Nestled away in the back of a bookshop in upstate New York was a slim paperback bound in a plain blue cardboard cover. It bears no ISBN, has nothing on it's spine, and it's authorship is unattributed... This ninety-two page booklet, published in 1987 by a major U.S. aerospace defense contractor, is... a textbook on industrial espionage in the waning days of the cold war."
- On the Losses of Dissolved CO2 during Champagne Serving - From the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, the definitive advice on how to keep your champagne fizzy: "Pouring champagne into a glass is far from being consequenceless with regard to its dissolved CO2 concentration. Measurements of losses of dissolved CO2 during champagne serving were done from a bottled Champagne wine initially holding 11.4 ± 0.1 g L−1 of dissolved CO2. Measurements were done at three champagne temperatures (i.e., 4, 12, and 18 °C) and for two different ways of serving (i.e., a champagne-like and a beer-like way of serving)."
- Hungover Owls - Weird, yet wonderful
Happy invoicing!
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