NewClientCo is based in a converted granary on a farm, out in the middle of nowhere (two miles to the nearest village) - very pleasant on a day like today 
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- Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail in '72 - To mark what would have been Hunter S. Thompson's 75th birthday last Wednesday, Rolling Stone have republished excerpts from his reports on the 1972 presidential race. "One afternoon about three days ago the Editorial Enforcement Detail from the Rolling Stone office showed up at my door, with no warning, and loaded about 40 pounds of supplies into the room: two cases of Mexican beer, four quarts of gin, a dozen grapefruits, and enough speed to alter the outcome of six Super Bowls. There was also a big Selectric typewriter, two reams of paper, a face-cord of oak firewood and three tape recorders – in case the situation got so desperate that I might finally have to resort to verbal composition... There is a comfortable kind of consistency in this kind of finish, because that's the way all the rest of my presidential campaign coverage was written."
- Does flash photography really damage art? The persistence of a myth. - Steve Meltzer examines the evidence, such as it is: "I walked over to a museum guard and asked him why flash photography was prohibited. His response was that 'the flash light is so bright that it freezes an object and the sudden cold shock is damaging to delicate paintings and other objects.'"
- A Brief History of Money - "In the 13th century, the Chinese emperor Kublai Khan embarked on a bold experiment. China at the time was divided into different regions, many of which issued their own coins, discouraging trade within the empire. So Kublai Khan decreed that henceforth money would take the form of paper." Not just a builder of stately pleasure domes, then.
- This is How You Paint a 150 Foot Tall Batman - "315 Park Avenue South is exactly halfway between my apartment and the Tor offices. For nearly two decades I’ve watched an anonymous group of painters create 150 foot movie poster murals on the side of the building." Irene Gallo finally got to take a closer look as the mural for the new Batman movie was created.
- Graffiti from Pompeii - and while we're on the subject of stuff on walls, here's what ancient Romans were writing on them: "Two friends were here. While they were, they had bad service in every way from a guy named Epaphroditus. They threw him out and spent 105 and half sestertii most agreeably on whores." Contractors?
- Philip Glass, Seen and Heard Through the Cinematic Mind of Peter Greenaway (1983) - Excellent documentary, though sadly cut into six parts for YouTube; here's an alternative link. “We get screamers,” [Glass] admits, quoting their shouts of “This isn’t music!” and “Why are you doing this to me?”
- Battleground America - From earlier this year, Jill Lepore looks at the history of gun control in the United States. "Even the West was hardly wild... The first thing the government of Dodge did when founding the city, in 1873, was pass a resolution that 'any person or persons found carrying concealed weapons in the city of Dodge or violating the laws of the State shall be dealt with according to law.'"
- Athletes spill details on dirty secrets in the Olympic Village - Turns out young fit people like shagging: "...at the 2000 Sydney Games, 70,000 condoms wasn't enough, prompting a second order of 20,000 and a new standing order of 100,000 condoms per Olympics." ESPN's Sam Alipour has the details.
- Best Basic Security Practices - Excellent ongoing series on website security, by Mozilla's James Socol.
- Propaganda - A documentary from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (that's the totalitarian dictatorship in the north) exposing our decadent western way of life. To be honest, quite a lot of the stuff about celebrity culture (around 1 hour 14 minutes in) sounds perfectly reasonable: "Many of the biggest celebrities have no talent at all. This very famous woman is called Miss Katie Price. Her brand name is 'Jordan', and despite my research, it seems clear that she doesn't actually do anything." Unlike the Dear Leader, who at least looked at things.
Happy invoicing!
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