Monday Links from the Gap Between Teams Meetings vol. DCCXXVI

[vetran]

That explanation was in one of Mr Archer's novels recently. You know the chap who likes to find hard pressed working girls and give them a few grand in brown envelopes!

[DoctorStrangelove]

How unfortunate that the Canada Jay fails to share the uniquely tuneful song of the UK jay:

https://www.british-birdsongs.uk/jay/

[NickFitz]

Rainy day here, but who needs the real world anyway when there's all this stuff to read?

• The Long, Forgotten Walk of David Ingram - ”If three shipwrecked English sailors really did travel by foot from Florida to Nova Scotia in 1569 then it would certainly count as one of the most remarkable walks undertaken in recorded history. Although the account's more fantastical elements, such as the sighting of elephants, have spurred many to consign it to the fiction department, John Toohey argues for a second look.” Cool if true
• An Ancient Art Form Topples Assumptions about Mathematics - Alban Da Silva uncovers the hidden algorithms behind the traditional sand drawing techniques of the South Pacific: ”The fluidity of the line, mixed with the effects of kava, plunged me into a state of wonder. The technique reminded me of the classic challenge to draw a complex figure with a single stroke, without lifting one’s pen or going over the same line twice… An intern approached me and whispered, ‘Where is the mathematics in this drawing, teacher?’ Though he could not have known it, that remark would go on to shape the next six years of my life, including my doctoral work on sand drawing.”
• The Naturalist and the Wonderful, Lovable, So Good, Very Bold Jay - 81-year-old ornithologist Dan Strickland has devoted his life to understanding Canada jays: ”As a naturalist at Ontario’s Algonquin Provincial Park, he studied the birds in his spare time until he retired in 2000. Since then, they’ve become his obsession. On his list of unsolved mysteries is determining what distinguishes these Pacific Canada jays from other Canada jays, whether they are in fact a distinct species, and if they, like their cousins in Algonquin Provincial Park, are in danger of becoming casualties of the climate crisis.”
• Speedy downloads: Why NASA is turning to lasers for next-gen space comms - The Psyche spacecraft is going after asteroids, but also has an important experiment in communications on board: ”Since the dawn of the Space Age, they have depended on radio waves, just a sliver of the electromagnetic spectrum. But scientists hope to soon expand into another part of the spectrum. Their aim is to add lasers to our cosmic communications toolkit.”
• Peeping Tom: in search of the locations for Michael Powell’s controversial classic - ”Michael Powell’s controversial serial killer film captures a seedy 1960s London that has since been heavily regenerated. Here’s how the locations look today.” This tobacconist’s is now a fancy chocolatier.
  
  
• A brilliant photograph, Moss Side 1972 - Dave Haslam was intrigued by a photograph of two scruffy youths from Manchester. Fifty years on, he managed to track one of them down: ”Ped has never been interviewed before; except, as it turns out, by the police. He’s the taller of the two lads in this photograph taken in 1972 by Daniel Meadows and entitled ‘Hell’s Angels’. Both lads are staring at us like they don’t care what we think, both dressed in denim jackets and jeans, and zip up boots just over ankle height.”
• Thanksgiving - Sean Carroll celebrates by posting about scientific and mathematical concepts (previous years have covered such disparate topics as error bars and the moons of Jupiter) and this year, he set out to clear up a common misunderstanding: ”The basic issue is that people hear the phrase ‘quantum mechanics,’ or even take a course in it, and come away with the impression that reality is somehow pixelized — made up of smallest possible units — rather than being ultimately smooth and continuous. That’s not right! Quantum theory, as far as it is currently understood, is all about smoothness. The lumpiness of ‘quanta’ is just apparent, although it’s a very important appearance.”
• Susie Dent’s Top 10s: Ten Characters in the Dictionary - ”From the mysterious Uncle Bob to the real McCoy and an intelligent Alec, the English language has plenty of examples of dictionary characters.” Susie reveals what, if anything, is known about the origins of these characters - though, sadly, she doesn’t include the (possibly apocryphal) story of Gordon Bennett standing on a chair and pissing into a grand piano during an elite social gathering
• Behind the Glass at the Cabinet War Rooms - Katie Wignall reveals some aspects of the War Rooms that are inaccessible on the normal tours: ”It’s not the most comfortable of places. Essentially it’s a series of basement rooms that are cramped, artificially-lit and often have a slight smell… Last month I was invited by the museum for a tour with curator Kate Clement, so I can now show you some of the amazing details from the Cabinet War Rooms.”
• A Photographer Goes Inside the Ruins of the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant - Arkadiusz Podniesiński got a rare opportunity to visit the plant devastated by the tsunami: ”For more than a dozen years, I have been documenting the aftermath of the disasters at the Chornobyl and Fukushima nuclear power plants… Interestingly, I was told no photographer before me had ever had such an extensive itinerary for a visit. Despite this, I hope that my two-day visit will not be the last. The decommissioning of the power plant is a process that will take several decades, so I hope there will be more than one opportunity to return.” This is the control panel in the training centre.
  
  

Happy invoicing!