Sadly, it's a view of the market garden next door apparently in the throes of becoming a building site 
Anyway, enough of that; let's have a look at this lot instead:
Happy invoicing!
Anyway, enough of that; let's have a look at this lot instead:- The Soviet Superplane Program That Rattled Area 51 - Remember that ekranoplan from Monday Links LVII? Here's an article about it from Wired. "The surviving Lun ekranoplan was built as part of a closely guarded Soviet military program and is one of only two ever completed. As big as it is, its design was preceded by an even larger plane called the KM..."
- On Students Who Are Full of It - Jon Volkmer ponders those who, though unbearable when young, go on to achieve greatness: "Winerip also went to the archives of the school paper to read [J. D.] Salinger's column, presciently called 'The Skipped Diploma.' And, well: 'The writing is so snide and hip and insiderly, it is almost impossible to tell what, if anything, he was trying to say...'"
- How I Learned to Live Google-free - Joshua J. Romero cuts the cord. "I decided to put my own dependence on Google to the test. The plan was simple—to the best of my ability, I would sever my relationship with Google. I vowed to stop doing business with Google by no longer providing it information. Could I go Google-free without losing my digital quality of life?"
- The Linux desktop experience is killing Linux on the desktop - "This post is a bona fide rant. It tells how a hardcore Linux user (me) decided to abandon Linux as a desktop platform and the reasons behind this decision. It might provoke some controversy, but I frankly don’t care." Bozhidar Batsov has had enough.
- Gentoo is Rice - Classic examples of the kind of stuff said by extreme Linux users that Bozhidar is probably pretty sick of. "Like the annoying teenager next door with a 90hp import sporting a 6 foot tall bolt-on wing, Gentoo users are proof that society is best served by roving gangs of armed vigilantes, dishing out swift, cold justice with baseball bats to those ******* ricer bastards."
- A Brief History of the Corporation: 1600 to 2100 - "In less than three weeks, another 30 banks collapsed across Europe, bringing trade to a standstill. On July 15, the directors of the Company applied to the Bank of England for a £400,000 loan. Two weeks later, they wanted another £300,000. By August, the directors wanted a £1 million bailout. The news began leaking out and seemingly contrite executives, running from angry shareholders, faced furious Parliament members... If this sounds eerily familiar, it shouldn’t. The year was 1772, exactly 239 years ago today, the apogee of power for the corporation as a business construct. The company was the British East India company (EIC)."
- Ben Greenman’s Museum of Silly Charts - "My interest in charts springs primarily from my disinterest in charts. Reality is so messy. Nothing that passes for a fact ever really is one. When I was a kid, infographics were intoxicating because they promised a world of order, and it’s specifically this promise that has come, over time, to seem like a cruel deception. You’ll never really get an elegant presentation of so-called facts that accurately and meaningfully represents reality. So, as much as I’m drawn to those charts, I’m also drawn to charts that obfuscate, or thwart, or somehow sharpen our sense of the absurdity of trying to accurately present and analyze information."
- The Paranoid Style in American Politics - Richard Hofstadter's classic article from 1964. "American politics has often been an arena for angry minds. In recent years we have seen angry minds at work mainly among extreme right-wingers, who have now demonstrated in the Goldwater movement how much political leverage can be got out of the animosities and passions of a small minority... I call it the paranoid style simply because no other word adequately evokes the sense of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy that I have in mind."
- Malcolm McDowell and Leon Vitali Talk A CLOCKWORK ORANGE on the 40th Anniversary - Excellent interview by Hunter Daniels.
- @Peanutweeter - "@Peanutweeter matches kinda random Twitter posts with somewhat less than random Peanuts® comic strips by Charles Schulz." E.g.
Happy invoicing!
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