Monday Links from the Bank Holiday Deckchair vol. CDLII

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Monday Links from the Bank Holiday Deckchair vol. CDLII

Give the family a list and send them off to B&Q, then you can settle down and read this lot while they queue for the car park

The Longform Guide to Bank Heists - "The most prolific duo in history, the Texas woman who robbed banks dressed a pudgy cowboy, and the story that inspired Dog Day Afternon — a collection of our favorite stories about bank robberies." Metalink to a collection of links. One of these appeared here the other week, so if you get a sense of time repeating itself, that'll be why. HT to northernladuk, who sent me the link to the Bombshell Bandit story before I discovered this excellent collection
The Nand Game - "The Nand Game takes you though building a working computer, starting from the most basic components. It does not require any prerequisites, in particular it does not require any previous knowledge about computer architecture or software, and does not require math skills beyond addition and subtraction."
The foal that came in from the cold after 40,000 years - More natural history from Siberia: "Sensational find of world’s only completely preserved ancient baby horse, aged just three months when it died in the Palaeolithic period."
Enemy at the Grates - How the Canadian province of Alberta remains rat-free thanks to a determined programme of extermination along its borders: "The patrol stomped on the burrows, then burned the silo for good measure. It was a bit of a disappointment, Merrill said. A few years earlier, they’d gunned down 157 rats at a single farm… There was the rat in an Air Canada cockpit (chased down the tarmac, killed) and the infestation at the dump (poisoned, monitored with night-vision cameras to be sure). Keeping the province rat-free requires constant vigilance, and every spring and fall, Merrill and his team patrol the zone."
Breazeale Nuclear Reactor Start up, 500kW, 1MW, and Shut Down - HT to DaveB for this video of a small nuclear reactor starting up and shutting down, with pretty blue Cherenkov radiation
The Strange Life and Mysterious Death of a Panther-Trapping, Gator-Wrestling Wild Man - "Trapper Nelson was a Florida legend from the day he hopped off a boxcar to the day he died. But did he really kill himself, or was he murdered?"
Italy’s famous dome is cracking, and cosmic rays could help save it - "The soaring dome atop the Cathedral of St. Mary of the Flower justly dominates the Florence skyline and has stood for centuries, ever since Filippo Brunelleschi designed it in the early 15th century. But scholars aren't quite sure how this goldsmith with no formal architectural training managed to construct it." Now they hope to work out how it's made using muons.
Welcome to the Center of the Universe - A look at the Deep Space Network and the people who keep it running at NASA's JPL: "The heart of the Deep Space Network started beating on Christmas Eve 1963, when JPL confirmed their long-term intentions of sending missions into deep space. It hasn’t been turned off since. Its dishes, operators, and radio astronomers around the world have worked 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for the past 54 years."
Meet the Nuclear Weapons Nerds - Meeting the nuclear weapons historians: "John Coster-Mullen was driving his truck to a warehouse in Oshkosh, Wisconsin when he told me that he owns uranium. He’d been talking on the phone for about hour, and I hadn’t been able to ask a single question about the project that has consumed a quarter century of his life—the reverse-engineering of America’s first nuclear bomb. I was too engrossed to interrupt. The news of uranium, though, made me stutter."
Bird Photographer of the Year - Lots of amazing photos in the gallery of entrants for the BPOTY award. The moment when this kingfisher plunges after its prey was captured by Mario Cea. Bonus linky: Bird Sounds - a project using machine learning to link calls to species.