Monday Links from the Bench vol. CDXCVIII

Originally posted by NickFitz View Post

[*]A Fast Exciting All-Action Game - Tim Worthington looks back at the plethora of TV tie-in games produced by Denys Fisher (inventor of the Spirograph) in the 1970s: ”From sportsmen to disc jockeys, from disruptive puppets to inevitable gift books from well-meaning relatives, if a single child so much as recognised it in passing then Denys Fisher would rush out a board game based on it, and the less chance that the concept had of inspiring international licensing deals the better. Some of these, it has to be said, were of remarkably high quality and equally high concept. Others were very much not.” Wonder how much this one goes for on eBay nowadays:

***** all!

Price History | GeekMarket

I wonder how long before Michael Jackson's estate has that problem

I thought I'd get started on assembling this lot early today, but the only result was that I've spent much longer than usual sorting out what to put in

The Battle of Grace Church - The oldest nursery school in Brooklyn Heights had long been a favourite of old money New York professionals - bankers, doctors, lawyers - but a new head seemed to prefer arriviste film stars, models, and sports players. This could only mean war: ”Morgano decided to do away with certain Grace Church traditions, like the Thanksgiving and Medieval Feasts. While it may have been true the Pilgrim garb was problematic and the Middle Ages were perhaps not developmentally appropriate material for 3-year-olds, some of the other choices she’d made felt ill-considered to longtime teachers… Her fawning over celebrities (like Keri Russell) whose children attended the school had become a subject of discussion in discreet Brooklyn Heights.” A portrait of a bizarre world where wealthy parents are stressed over whether their child will get into to the "right" kindergarten at age four
The Simple Idea Behind Einstein’s Greatest Discoveries - ”Lurking behind Einstein’s theory of gravity and our modern understanding of particle physics is the deceptively simple idea of symmetry. But physicists are beginning to question whether focusing on symmetry is still as productive as it once was.” It seems reality might not be as tidy as physicists hoped.
Have You Seen Britain’s Tiny Potential Tree-Killer, the Adorable Spittlebug? - Spittlebugs are capable of carrying the harmful bacterium Xylella fastidiosa and although it hasn't yet been found in Britain, botanists want you to keep an eye out: ”For the past month, researchers across the United Kingdom have asked people to report any sightings of these bugs… This citizen science project, which has already logged more than 11,000 sightings, is one stream of work under the wider BRIGIT project, which is tasked with helping the United Kingdom bolster its defenses against vector-borne plant pathogens.”
The Atlas of Moons - Cool interactive moon thing from NatGeo: ”Our solar system collectively hosts nearly 200 known moons, some of which are vibrant worlds in their own right. Take a tour of the major moons in our celestial menagerie, including those that are among the most mystifying—or scientifically intriguing—places in our local neighborhood.”
A Fast Exciting All-Action Game - Tim Worthington looks back at the plethora of TV tie-in games produced by Denys Fisher (inventor of the Spirograph) in the 1970s: ”From sportsmen to disc jockeys, from disruptive puppets to inevitable gift books from well-meaning relatives, if a single child so much as recognised it in passing then Denys Fisher would rush out a board game based on it, and the less chance that the concept had of inspiring international licensing deals the better. Some of these, it has to be said, were of remarkably high quality and equally high concept. Others were very much not.” Wonder how much this one goes for on eBay nowadays:
Revealing the Secret Lives of Cells With Advanced Microscopy - ”More than 350 years after they were first discovered, cells remain in many ways a mystery. Advances in microscopy are starting to change that.”
Color Changing Ice Cream - Using various food dyes to make ice cream that changes colour: ”The "magic" behind the color change are water-soluble pigments called Anthocyanins. The name stems from Greek: ἄνθος (anthos) "flower" and κυάνεος/κυανοῦς kyaneos/kyanous "dark blue". They are found mostly in flowers and fruits, but also in leaves, stems, and roots.” So, basically, litmus paper ice cream
Everything you ever wanted to know about tumbleweeds - ”Like cowboys, wagon trains and buffalo, tumbleweeds are icons of the Old West. These twisted balls of dead foliage rolling across deserts and the open range are staples of Western movies and the American imagination.” But it turns out they're also an invasive species, and their days may be numbered if the U.S. Agricultural Research Service has its way
Krazy Kat Comics - Finally, a worthwhile use for artificial intelligence: ”This page goes into detail on how I used Machine Learning to find hundreds of Krazy Kat comics that are now in the public domain. As a result of this project, several hundred high resolution scans of Krazy Kat comics are now easily available online, including a comic that I couldn't find in any published book!” Includes Python code for crawling archives and sending the results to an image classifier, among other things
Illustrated Sheet Music - ”This is a private collection of more than 10.000 illustrated sheet music mostly from between 1890 and 1940, with a particular interest for Art Nouveau and Art Deco. Although the collection centers around French illustrators (68%) it also contains hundreds of beautiful illustrations from Belgium (13%), the United States (6%), Great Britain (4%), Italy, Germany, Austria, The Netherlands, Argentina, etc.” The navigation under "Browse" is a bit weird: you have to use the links on the left to drill down into the categories, but the main area will appear blank until you're down in a specific category. Makes things look broken, IMHO, but keep digging down one or two levels and you'll find the good stuff