Getting these up ASAP, because you want to open the first one in a new tab and keep it open with the sound on for the next few days 
EDIT: Or maybe wait a few weeks; see below.
Happy invoicing!
EDIT: Or maybe wait a few weeks; see below.- Apollo 11 in Real Time - This is a phenomenal piece of work, replaying the mission to the moon
exactly fifty years on(as WTFH points out, this is a month early, but it will be running during the actually anniversary in July too); you're a bit behind, as they launched yesterday (plus fifty years) (minus one month), though you can always select the option to start an hour before launch if you need to catch up. From the "Instructions/Credits" link: ”This website replays the Apollo 11 mission as it happened, 50 years ago. It consists entirely of historical material, all timed to Ground Elapsed Time--the master mission clock. Footage of Mission Control, film shot by the astronauts, and television broadcasts transmitted from space and the surface of the Moon, have been painstakingly placed to the very moments they were shot during the mission, as has every photograph taken, and every word spoken… Upon starting the application, select whether to begin one minute before launch, or click "Now" to drop in exactly 50 years ago, to-the-second during the anniversary… Navigate to any moment of the mission using the time navigator at the top of the screen… Main mission audio consists of space-to-ground (left ear), capcom loop (right ear), and on-board recorder (center, when available). Selecting a Mission Control audio channel mutes the main audio, opens the Mission Control audio panel, and plays the "live" audio of that Mission Control position… These 50 channels of Mission Control audio have only recently been digitized and restored, and are made publicly available here for the first time. They total over 11,000 hours in length.” As of now, the crew are having a kip after leaving Earth orbit, but get your headphones ready to listen to the chatter when they wake up in a couple of hours; or listen to Mission Control discussing what they'll have to get them to do next
- ‘None of this happened the way you think it did’ - ”For years, the clients of a Colorado funeral home kept their loved ones’ cremated remains. Then the FBI called.” Capitalism triumphs once again as demand for human bodies outstrips supply, leading a funeral home to steal and sell bodies, giving relatives urns filled with unmixed concrete instead of ashes
- A Close Look at Newborn Planets Reveals Hints of Infant Moons - The star PDS 70 seems to have a couple of planets, and it seems one of them may have a moon forming: ”One of these planets is surrounded by its own swirling disk of gas and dust, the kind of structure thought to hatch large moons. If confirmed, this would be a spectacular validation of long-held ideas about how planets and their moons form.”
- Driven - ”In an age when driving is the next frontier, a 22-year-old mother tries to become the first woman to drive cross-country. Riding into mysterious pre-highway terrain, she rewrites history and faces betrayal closer than she ever imagined.” The remarkable story of Alice Ramsey, who in 1909 became the first woman to drive a car coast-to-coast across the USA, at a time when large parts of the country didn’t even have paved roads. And she took along her two sisters-in-law (because her husband insisted she be chaperoned) and a sixteen-year-old farm girl (because, it would appear, she was a good laugh). Here they are about to set off from Broadway, NY
- A Kernel Of Failure - A good history of Taligent's Workplace OS, which IBM and Apple expected to be the future of operating systems after OS/2: ”John C. Dvorak laid out the company’s ultimate plan: ‘Taligent’s role in the world is to create an environment in which all the applications we buy individually are built directly into the operating system. Because the apps are programmable, you can put together your own custom-made suites. Taligent could mean the end of all applications as we know them.’” And speaking of OS/2, it’s still critical infrastructure on the New York subway system, as Andrew Egan explains in It’s Just A Swipe Away: ”The design is from a time before either Linux or Windows was around. OS/2 would have seemed like a secure choice for the future.”
- Why do bats have such bizarrely long lifespans? - ”A new paper about longevity includes a remarkable statistic: ‘Nineteen species of mammals live longer than humans, given their body size, of which 18 are bats.’ What is it about bats that's so exceptional?” Something to do with vampires, I expect.
- Use Pythagoras' Theorem to Draw Pictures - ”A few years ago, I ended up with a spare Raspberry Pi, and I set about looking for a project to put it to good use. I wanted something that needed a bit of simple coding – I’d not coded for years, and I wanted to make something that would have some vaguely artistic output. And that’s why plotters caught my eye. I’ve never been very good at drawing. I always wondered if I could build a machine to help me… It turns out I could.” Make your own plotter with this neat hardware and software project by John Proudlock; he has a project blog at InkyLinesPlots.
- The Day the Music Burned - In 2008, one of Universal Music Group’s main archives was destroyed by fire, and the company kept quiet about what was lost. But swathes of musical history were burned: ”Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Al Jolson, Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald, Judy Garland… Billie Holiday… Chuck Berry… Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Willie Dixon, Bo Diddley, Etta James, John Lee Hooker, Buddy Guy and Little Walter… Aretha Franklin… Buddy Holly… John Coltrane… Count Basie, Coleman Hawkins, Dizzy Gillespie, Max Roach, Art Blakey, Sonny Rollins, Charles Mingus, Ornette Coleman, Alice Coltrane, Sun Ra, Albert Ayler, Pharoah Sanders… Benny Goodman, Cab Calloway, the Andrews Sisters, the Ink Spots, the Mills Brothers, Lionel Hampton, Ray Charles, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Clara Ward, Sammy Davis Jr., Les Paul, Fats Domino, Big Mama Thornton, Burl Ives, the Weavers, Kitty Wells, Ernest Tubb, Lefty Frizzell, Loretta Lynn, George Jones, Merle Haggard, Bobby (Blue) Bland, B.B. King, Ike Turner, the Four Tops, Quincy Jones, Burt Bacharach, Joan Baez, Neil Diamond, Sonny and Cher, the Mamas and the Papas, Joni Mitchell, Captain Beefheart, Cat Stevens, the Carpenters, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Al Green, the Flying Burrito Brothers, Elton John, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Buffett, the Eagles, Don Henley, Aerosmith, Steely Dan, Iggy Pop, Rufus and Chaka Khan, Barry White, Patti LaBelle, Yoko Ono, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, the Police, Sting, George Strait, Steve Earle, R.E.M., Janet Jackson, Eric B. and Rakim, New Edition, Bobby Brown, Guns N’ Roses, Queen Latifah, Mary J. Blige, Sonic Youth, No Doubt, Nine Inch Nails, Snoop Dogg, Nirvana, Soundgarden, Hole, Beck, Sheryl Crow, Tupac Shakur, Eminem, 50 Cent and the Roots.”
- Two millennia pile-on at burial mound - A burial mound in France appears to have been in use from the Stone Age to the Iron Age: ”The Le Tumulus des Sables site is in the small town of Saint-Laurent-Médoc, 40 kilometres north-west of Bordeaux. It was discovered by accident in 2006 when curious toddlers rummaging around in their kindergarten playground pulled human remains from the soil.”
- 2019 National Geographic Travel Photo Contest - Always loads of good stuff in these NatGeo photo contests. This is “Tender Eyes” by Tamara Blazquez Haik: ”A gorgeous griffon vulture is seen soaring the skies in Monfragüe National Park in Spain. How can anyone say vultures bring bad omens when looking at such tenderness in this griffon vulture's eyes? Vultures are important members of the environment, as they take care of recycling dead matter. Vultures are noble and majestic animals—kings of the skies. When looking at them flying, we should feel humbled and admire them.”
Happy invoicing!
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