Monday Links from the Bench vol. CCXLVII

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Monday Links from the Bench vol. CCXLVII

Time I got off the bench, I suppose. Anybody know of a client looking for somebody to deliver ten links to assorted irrelevancies each week?

The Cinematography of “Blade Runner” - A look at the look of Ridley Scott’s classic: ”David Dryer, one of the special photographic effects supervisors, worked with black-and-white prints of most scenes in the film for one reason or another, and almost wishes the film could be released in black-and-white. He thinks it seems to have even more depth and style in black-and-white. Needless to say, this would not do justice to Cronenweth's work, but it is an indication of the way in which the photographic style of the picture harks back to classic movies.” Bonus linky: Composition & Color Analysis of Blade Runner.
NVIDIA's new GPU proves moon landing truthers wrong - Not sure why idiots who deny the moon landings should be called “truthers” - “imbeciles” would be nearer the mark - but here’s more of their “evidence” shot down in flames, as the creation of a graphics card demo leads to new insights into the way light works up there: ”Conspiracy theorists say that Aldrin simply couldn't have been lit up the way he is in the picture. NVIDIA took it as a challenge.”
Introducing Tweet-a-Program - Stephen Wolfram: ”In the Wolfram Language a little code can go a long way… Compose a tweet-length Wolfram Language program, and tweet it to @WolframTaP. Our Twitter bot will run your program in the Wolfram Cloud and tweet back the result.” For example, the tweet
Code:
```
GeoListPlot[GeoEntities[=[Atlantic Ocean],”Shipwreck”]]
```
generates the image
Visualizing Ocean Shipping - Speaking of shipping, Ben Schmidt drew on a dataset taken from 18th and 19th Century logbooks to create these visualisations of global navigation by different nations: ”This shows mostly Spanish, Dutch, and English routes--they are surprisingly constant over the period (although some empires drop in and out of the record), but the individual voyages are fun. And there are some macro patterns--the move of British trade towards India, the effect of the American Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, and so on.”
New Clues Emerge in Centuries-Old Swedish Shipwreck - ”In 1628, the Swedish warship Vasa sank on its maiden voyage. Over the centuries, many have tried to explain what caused that embarrassing and deadly mishap.” Seems to be Ship Week
The little-known Soviet mission to rescue a dead space station - "The following story happened in 1985 but subsequently vanished into obscurity. Over the years, many details have been twisted, others created. Even the original storytellers got some things just plain wrong. After extensive research, writer Nickolai Belakovski is able to present, for the first time to an English-speaking audience, the complete story of Soyuz T-13’s mission to save Salyut 7, a fascinating piece of in-space repair history." More ships!
Genetic testing brings families together - "And sometimes tears them apart.” Julia Belluz on the way genetic testing service 23andMe is allowing people to discover blood relations they never knew they had. Related: With genetic testing, I gave my parents the gift of divorce by George Doe
My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me - Karl Taro Greenfeld attempted to keep up with his daughter’s homework for a week, but struggled to cope: ”I’ve been wary of Esmee’s workload, and I’ve often suspected that teachers don’t have any idea about the cumulative amount of homework the kids are assigned when they are taking five academic classes. There is little to no coordination among teachers in most schools when it comes to assignments and test dates.” (At my school, this problem was avoided by the simple method of having a homework timetable: if it’s Monday, you’ve got Latin and Chemistry stuff to do, etc. Simple, but American schools apparently haven’t thought of it.)
I, Pencil - Classic essay by Leonard E. Read: ”I am a lead pencil—the ordinary wooden pencil familiar to all boys and girls and adults who can read and write… I, Pencil, simple though I appear to be, merit your wonder and awe, a claim I shall attempt to prove.”
High Street Shops in Sci Fi Films - You may not have spotted these on first viewing: for example, and bringing this week full circle, have you seen the Greggs in Blade Runner?