Monday Links from the Lockdown vol. DLXVII

[NickFitz]

• Inside The Bizarre True Story Of Oregon’s Exploding Whale - A look at the classic exploding whale story: ”The event was recorded in a TV segment so bizarre that in recent years it’s been called a hoax. But the people who were there know that the dead whale exploding was all too real — and it sent gigantic chunks of whale flesh hailing down on them and their cars alike.”

Yesterday, being the fiftieth anniversary of the exploding whale, the Oregon Historical Society announced that they'd obtained the original 16mm film of the TV news report, and have scanned it in 4K to preserve this important moment for future generations: Beached Whale Blow-Up: Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Florence Exploding Whale

I suspect their servers are a bit overloaded as I've been having trouble streaming the footage, but it's there if you want it

They've got about ten minutes of film; if you just want the original 3 minutes 24 seconds as aired:

[quackhandle]

The lost hiker was a sad tale.

Even in 2020 people can die proper off grid.

qh

[NigelJK]

The programming one did remind me of how immediate things like the BBC B were. I have Beeb Em installed so that I can punch out a quick program to deal with an issue that would twice as long in excel.

[NickFitz]

I'd thank for the extra link, but that one was tough to read

I think we've all had quite enough good news for now

[DaveB]

Horror of horrors! Apparently the FT link about the Rwandan chap is behind their paywall

I think it was Saturday when I found this one and I checked it and it wasn't then. So the sneaky buggers must be moving things behind the paywall after a day or two, which isn't very nice of them

By way of apology for any inconvenience caused, have a bonus link: The Perfect Fire - "It started with a candle in an abandoned warehouse. It ended with temperatures above 3,000 degrees and the men of the Worcester Fire Department in a fight for their lives."

I'd thank for the extra link, but that one was tough to read

[NickFitz]

Horror of horrors! Apparently the FT link about the Rwandan chap is behind their paywall

I think it was Saturday when I found this one and I checked it and it wasn't then. So the sneaky buggers must be moving things behind the paywall after a day or two, which isn't very nice of them

By way of apology for any inconvenience caused, have a bonus link: The Perfect Fire - "It started with a candle in an abandoned warehouse. It ended with temperatures above 3,000 degrees and the men of the Worcester Fire Department in a fight for their lives."

[vetran]

Nice to see we are rewriting history again with Galton & Fisher.
If they produced the breakthrough then they are entitled to credit.

I expect Machiavelli and Galileo to be airbrushed next.

[NickFitz]

Most of this year it's been a struggle to find stuff to read that wasn't about coronavirus, so it's made a nice change this past week to struggle to find stuff to read that wasn't about the US election

• A Nameless Hiker and the Case the Internet Can’t Crack - ”In April 2017, a man started hiking in a state park just north of New York City. He wanted to get away, maybe from something and maybe from everything. He didn’t bring a phone; he didn’t bring a credit card. He didn’t even really bring a name. Or at least he didn’t tell anyone he met what it was.” By the summer of 2018 he was in Florida, where he died, and still nobody knows who he is.
  
  
• How Eugenics Shaped Statistics - Pioneers of statistics had less than savoury motivations: ”What we now understand as statistics comes largely from the work of Galton, Pearson, and Fisher… Statistical thinking and eugenicist thinking are, in fact, deeply intertwined, and many of the theoretical problems with methods like significance testing—first developed to identify racial differences—are remnants of their original purpose, to support eugenics.”
  
  
• Early big-game hunters of the americas were female, researchers suggest - ”For centuries, historians and scientists mostly agreed that when early human groups sought food, men hunted and women gathered. However, a 9,000-year-old female hunter burial in the Andes Mountains of South America reveals a different story, according to new research conducted at the University of California, Davis.” The full paper is Female hunters of the early Americas if you want more detail.
  
  
• Inside The Bizarre True Story Of Oregon’s Exploding Whale - A look at the classic exploding whale story: ”The event was recorded in a TV segment so bizarre that in recent years it’s been called a hoax. But the people who were there know that the dead whale exploding was all too real — and it sent gigantic chunks of whale flesh hailing down on them and their cars alike.”
  
  
• Michelin Built This Freakish 10-Wheeled Citroen to Test Truck Tires at 110 MPH - ”Ten tons, 700 horsepower, and 11 tires actually touching the ground. The Citroen PLR is one of the most unique vehicles the world's ever seen… Whether you know it as the Mille Pattes, the Citroen Centipede, or the Michelin test car, the absolute absurdity of this French masterpiece remains the same.” A 23-foot long Citroen DS? Well, why not
  
  
  
  
  
• The 26-year-long search for Africa’s most wanted man - The hunt for Félicien Kabuga: ”How could an ageing Rwandan businessman in poor health continue to evade a tribunal backed by the vast resources of the UN? Who was protecting him?… After an astonishing swoop on Kabuga in a quiet Paris suburb in May — the result of co-operation between law enforcement agencies from at least nine countries — answers to those questions are finally starting to arrive.” Turns out they've moved this behind their paywall since this morning. Bonus linky below to make up for it
  
  
• Beyond Psilocybin: Mushrooms Have Lots of Cool Compounds Scientists Should Study - There's more than just magic in the mushrooms: ”With only around 100,000 species described, out of an estimated 5.1 million, fungi make ideal candidates for bioprospecting, or extracting useful compounds for pharmaceuticals and other things from nature.”
  
  
• How Not to Deal With Murder in Space - ”Mario Escamilla was furious. A colleague of his, nicknamed Porky, had just stolen his jug of raisin wine. So the 33-year-old Escamilla grabbed a rifle and set out to reclaim it. He had no idea he was about to get tangled up in one of the knottiest homicides in history—a killing that also raises serious questions about how humankind should handle the first, inevitable murder in outer space.” A strange tale from an iceberg.
  
  
• The Lost Ways of Programming: Commodore 64 BASIC - This interactive site by Tomas Petricek takes you through the process of creating a simple C64 game, right in your browser: ”We should look at the history and recreate past programming experiences in order to learn from them… Reading about interactions is not enough. To get a sense of how the interaction worked, you need to experience it yourself.”
  
  
• Capturing 1980s Belfast at the height of the Troubles - ”In 1982, photographer Judah Passow spent two weeks in Belfast documenting Divis Flats, which at the time, was deemed the worst public housing in Europe. What he found was a group of residents whose humanity prevailed amid poverty and strife.”
  
  
  

Happy invoicing!