Monday Links from the Bank Holiday Deckchair vol. DCC

[vetran]

V one of the absolute greats not shocked to find it was a series of weird occurrences.

Just fixed some guttering, fed a friend's cat and now drinking Japanese style rice beer which is a very light & delicate drop.

[NickFitz]

Loved the idea of digging down for a foot under the lawn to bring up the subsoil & reduce the fertility.

Whoever suggested that has never tried to do it.

Ah, the college gardeners are presumably getting paid for it

[DoctorStrangelove]

Loved the idea of digging down for a foot under the lawn to bring up the subsoil & reduce the fertility.

Whoever suggested that has never tried to do it.

[NickFitz]

Nice to have another Monday off, though the lack of invoicing is suboptimal

• Life on Sark - Jonathan Parry on the strange, small world of the Channel island: ”Sark has its own parliament, its own taxes and its own traffic laws (permitting only tractors, bikes and horse-drawn vehicles)… There are no natural harbours. In 1862, the lords of the Admiralty of the world’s greatest naval power came to inspect its defences but sailed away, finding nowhere suitable to disembark.”
• Is It Real or Imagined? How Your Brain Tells the Difference. - ”New experiments show that the brain distinguishes between perceived and imagined mental images by checking whether they cross a ‘reality threshold.’” Of course, that’s assuming there is a reality
• A break from the lawn - An experiment in abandoning the traditional lawn: ”In 2020, for the first time since being laid in 1772, a section of a King’s College lawn the size of just half a football pitch was not mown. Instead, it was transformed into a colourful wildflower meadow filled with poppies, cornflowers and oxeye daisies.” Useful advice in here if you’re tempted by the notion of making your own lawnmower redundant
• Sierpiński Triangle Interpreted as Musical Notes - ”I've interpreted the Sierpinski triangle as audio data before, but not as musical notes. This was cool. It's not a 1:1 chromatic scale; when I did that sounded bad, so I shifted the notes' pitch minimally until the scale sounded good.”
  
  
• Cosmos 954: The Nuke That Fell From Space - ”Cosmos 954 (also spelled “Kosmos 954”) was launched on 18 September 1977 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. It orbited the earth between 259 and 277 kilometers every 89.5 minutes. On board was a liquid sodium–potassium thermionic converter driven by a nuclear reactor containing around 50 kilograms of uranium-235… As Soviet operators struggled to control their failing spacecraft, they realized that Cosmos 954 would fall back to earth very soon.” And so it did, in Canada. More details on the operation to find and clean up the radioactive debris: Radiation Geophysics - Operation Morning Light - A personal account. HT to DoctorStrangelove for these
• Johnny Todd, the Beatles and Bob Dylan, Liverpool and Everton - ”I bought an Everton t-shirt, which might surprise some people. It's not your everyday Everton shirt though - it is a coming together of various strands of popular culture, all of them iconic, sea shanties, Everton FC, Z Cars and Bob Dylan… The Beatles don't get a look in, but they are connected. So let's unpick it.” A remarkable post tracing the connections between disparate aspects of Liverpool-related culture in the 1960s
• Culture-Dating-Clash - Till Lukat is baffled by the British
  
  
• The V Files: The Shocking Legacy of an ’80s Sci-Fi Cult Classic - ”Hollywood backstabbing, conspiracy theories, and the devastating murder of a star behind the TV alien-invasion sensation.” A detailed history of the 1980s show
• A Quick List of Stonehenge Movies!!! - ”Here is a list, which we do not claim to be complete, of movies and some television shows that have Stonehenge—or some Stonehenge-like substance—in them. We aren’t saying all of them (or, perhaps, any of them) are good movies, or that you’ll enjoy them, although you may enjoy each in its own way (except Sharks of the Corn—no one does. Trust us.)”
• Maria Reiche and the Mystery of the Nazca Lines - ”Maria Reiche (15 May 1903 – 8 June 1998) was the ‘Lady of the Lines’. The German-born Peruvian mathematician, archaeologist and technical translator is remembered for her research into the Nazca Lines, which she first saw in 1941.” An illustrated look at her life and work.
  
  

Happy invoicing!